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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33420-0.txt b/33420-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f16b229 --- /dev/null +++ b/33420-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14389 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus, by +G. A. Chadwick + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus + +Author: G. A. Chadwick + +Editor: W. Robertson Nicoll + +Release Date: August 13, 2010 [EBook #33420] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: EXODUS *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + [Transcriber’s Note: + + This e-text includes Greek characters and punctuation that will only + display in UTF-8 (Unicode) text readers, e.g. ὁ λόγος. If any of these + characters do not display properly, make sure your text reader’s + “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may + also need to change the default font. As a last resort, use the + ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) version of this text instead, in which the Greek + words have been transliterated. + + _Italic_ words in the original have been enclosed in underscores in + this version. + + A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected. + + The Table of Contents refers to original page numbers. + + All advertising material has been placed at the end of the text.] + + + + + THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE. + + + EDITED BY THE REV. + W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + + _Editor of “The Expositor.”_ + + + THE BOOK OF EXODUS. + + BY THE VERY REV. + G. A. CHADWICK, D.D. + _Dean of Armagh_ + + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON, + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + MDCCCXC. + + + + + THE + BOOK OF EXODUS. + + BY THE VERY REV. + G. A. CHADWICK, D.D. + _Dean of Armagh,_ + + AUTHOR OF “CHRIST BEARING WITNESS TO HIMSELF,” + “AS HE THAT SERVETH,” “THE GOSPEL OF ST. MARK,” ETC. + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON, + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + MDCCCXC. + + + + + Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Much is now denied or doubted, within the Church itself, concerning the +Book of Exodus, which was formerly accepted with confidence by all +Christians. + +But one thing can neither be doubted nor denied. Jesus Christ did +certainly treat this book, taking it as He found it, as possessed of +spiritual authority, a sacred scripture. He taught His disciples to +regard it thus, and they did so. + +Therefore, however widely His followers may differ about its date and +origin, they must admit the right of a Christian teacher to treat this +book, taking it as he finds it, as a sacred scripture and invested with +spiritual authority. It is the legitimate subject of exposition in the +Church. + +Such work this volume strives, however imperfectly, to perform. Its +object is to edify in the first place, and also, but in the second +place, to inform. Nor has the author consciously shrunk from saying what +seemed to him proper to be said because the utterance would be +unwelcome, either to the latest critical theory, or to the last +sensational gospel of an hour. + +But since controversy has not been sought, although exposition has not +been suppressed when it carried weapons, by far the greater part of the +volume appeals to all who accept their Bible as, in any true sense, a +gift from God. + +No task is more difficult than to exhibit the Old Testament in the light +of the New, discovering the permanent in the evanescent, and the +spiritual in the form and type which it inhabited and illuminated. This +book is at least the result of a firm belief that such a connection +between the two Testaments does exist, and of a patient endeavour to +receive the edification offered by each Scripture, rather than to force +into it, and then extort from it, what the expositor desires to find. +Nor has it been supposed that by allowing the imagination to assume, in +sacred things, that rank as a guide which reason holds in all other +practical affairs, any honour would be done to Him Who is called the +Spirit of knowledge and wisdom, but not of fancy and quaint conceits. + +If such an attempt does, in any degree, prove successful and bear fruit, +this fact will be of the nature of a scientific demonstration. + +If this ancient Book of Exodus yields solid results to a sober +devotional exposition in the nineteenth Christian century, if it is not +an idle fancy that its teaching harmonises with the principles and +theology of the New Testament, and even demands the New Testament as the +true commentary upon the Old, what follows? How comes it that the oak is +potentially in the acorn, and the living creature in the egg? No germ is +a manufactured article: it is a part of the system of the universe. + + + + +ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE PROLOGUE, i. 1–6. + +Books linked by conjunction “And:” Scripture history a connected whole, +1.—So is secular history organic: “Philosophy of history.” The +Pentateuch being a still closer unity, Exodus rehearses the descent into +Egypt, 2.—Heredity: the family of Jacob, 3.—Death of Joseph. Influence +of Egypt on the shepherd race, 4.—A healthy stock: good breeding. +Goethe’s aphorism, 5.—Ourselves and our descendants, 6. + +GOD IN HISTORY, i. 7. + +In Exodus, national history replaces biography, 6.—Contrasted +narratives of Jacob and Moses. Spiritual progress from Genesis to +Exodus, 7.—St. Paul’s view: Law prepares for Gospel, especially by our +failures, 8.—This explains other phenomena: failures in various +circumstances, of innocence in Eden; of an elect family; now of a race, +a nation, 9.—Israel, failing with all advantages, needs a Messiah. +Faith justifies, in Old Testament as in New, 10.—Scripture history +reveals God in this life, in all things, 11.—True spirituality owns God +in the secular: this is a gospel for our days, 12–13. + +THE OPPRESSION, i. 7–22. + +Early prosperity: its dangers: political supports vain, 13.—Joseph +forgotten. National responsibilities: despotism, 14.—Nations and their +chiefs. Our subject races, 15.—The Church and her King: imputation. +Pharaoh precipitates what he fears, 16.—Egypt and her aliens: modern +parallels, 17.—Tyranny is tyrannous even when cultured, 18.—Our undue +estrangement from the fallen: Jesus a brother. Toil crushes the spirit, +19.—Israel idolatrous. Religious dependence, 20. —Direct interposition +required. Bitter oppression, 21.—Pharaoh drops the mask. Defeated by +the human heart. The midwives, 22.—Their falsehood. Morality is +progressive, 23.—Culture and humanity, 24.—Religion and the child, 25. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE RESCUE OF MOSES, ii. 1–10. + +Importance of the individual, 26.—A man _versus_ “the Time-spirit,” +27.—The parents of Moses, 28.—Their family: their goodly child, +29.—Emotion helps faith, 30.—The ark in the bulrushes, 31.—Pharaoh’s +daughter and Miriam, 32.—Guidance for good emotions: the Church for +humanity, 33. + +THE CHOICE OF MOSES, ii. 11–15. + +God employs means, 34.—Value of endowment. Moses and his family. “The +reproach of Christ,” 35.—An impulsive act, 36.—Impulses not accidents. +The hopes of Moses, 37.—Moses and his brethren. His flight, 38. + +MOSES IN MIDIAN, ii. 16–22. + +Energy in disaster, 39.—Disinterested bravery. Parallels with a +variation, 40.—The Unseen a refuge. Duty of resisting small wrongs. His +wife, 41.—A lonely heart, 42. + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BURNING BUSH, ii. 23–iii. + +Death of Raamses. Misery continues, 43.—The cry of the oppressed, +44.—Discipline of Moses, 45.—How a crisis comes, 46.—God hitherto +unmentioned. The Angel of the Lord, 47.—An unconsuming fire, +48.—Inquiry: reverence. God finds, not man, 49.—“Take off thy shoe.” +“The God of thy father,” 50.—Immortality. “My people,” not saints only, +51.—The good land. The commission, 52.—God with him. A strange token, +53. + +A NEW NAME, iii. 14; vi. 2, 3. + +Why Moses asked the name of God: idolatry: pantheism, 54.—A progressive +revelation, 55.—Jehovah. The sound corrupted. Similar superstitions +yet, 56.—What it told the Jews. Reality of being, 57.—Jews not saved +by ideas. Streams of tendency. The Self-contained. We live in our past, +58.—And in our future, 59.—Yet Jehovah not the impassive God of +Lucretius, 60.—The Immutable is Love. This is our help, 61.—Human +will is not paralysed, 62.—The teaching of St. Paul. All this is +practical, 63.—This gives stability to all other revelations. Our own +needs, 64. + +THE COMMISSION, iii. 10, 16–22. + +God comes where He sends, 65.—The Providential man. Prudence, +66.—Sincerity of demand for a brief respite, 67.—God has already +visited them. By trouble He transplants, 68.—The “borrowing” of jewels, +69. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MOSES HESITATES, iv. 1–17. + +Scripture is impartial: Josephus, 70.—Hindrance from his own people. +The rod, 71.—The serpent: the leprosy, 72.—“I am not eloquent,” +73.—God with us. Aaron the Levite, 74.—Responsibility of _not_ +working. The errors of Moses, 75.—Power of fellowship. Vague fears, +76.—With his brother, Moses will go. The Church, 77.—This craving met +by Christ, 78.—Family affection. Examples, 79. + +MOSES OBEYS, iv. 18–31. + +Fidelity to his employer. Reticence, 80.—Resemblance to story of Jesus. +He is the Antitype of all experiences, 81.—Counterpoint in history. +“Israel is My son,” 82.—A neglected duty Zipporah. Was she a helpmeet? +83.—Domestic unhappiness. History _v._ myth, 84.—The failures of the +good, 85.—Men of destiny are not irresponsible, 86.—His first +followers: a joyful reception, 87.—Spiritual joy and reaction, 88. + + +CHAPTER V. + +PHARAOH REFUSES, v. 1–23. + +Moses at court again. Formidable, 89.—Power of convictions but also of +tyranny and pride. Menephtah: his story, 90.—Was the Pharaoh drowned? +The demand of Jehovah, 91.—The refusal, 92.—Is religion idleness? +Hebrews were taskmasters, 93.—Demoralised by slavery. They are beaten, +94.—Murmurs against Moses. He returns to God. His remonstrance, +95.—His disappointment. Not really irreverent, 96.—Use of this +abortive attempt, 97–8. + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MOSES, vi. 1–30. + +The word Jehovah known before: its consolations now, 99.—The new truth +is often implicit in the old, 100.—Discernment more needed than +revelation. “Judgments,” 101.—My people: your God, 102.—The tie is of +God’s binding, 103,—Fatherhood and sonship, 104.—Faith becomes +knowledge. The body hinders the soul, 105.—We are responsible for +bodies. Israel weighs Moses down, 106.—We may hold back the saints, +107.—The pedigree, 107–8.—Indications of genuine history, 108–9.—“As +a god to Pharaoh,” 110.—We also, 111. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH’S HEART, vii. 3–13. + +The assertion offends many, 112.—Was he a free agent? When hardened. +A.V. incorrect, 113.—He resists five plagues spontaneously. The last +five are penal, 114.—Not “hardened” in wickedness, but in nerve. A.V. +confuses three words: His heart is (_a_) “hardened,” 115.—(_b_) it is +made “strong” (_c_) “heavy,” 116.—Other examples of these words, +117.—The warning implied, 117–19.—Moses returns with the signs, +119.—The functions of miracle, 120. + +THE PLAGUES, vii. 14. + +Their vast range, 121.—Their relation to Pantheism, Idolatry, +Philosophy, 122.—And to the gods of Egypt. Their retributive fitness, +123.—Their arrangement, 124.—Like our Lord’s, not creative, 125.—God +in common things, 126.—Some we inflict upon ourselves. Yet +rationalistic analogies fail, 127.—Duration of the conflict, 128. + +THE FIRST PLAGUE, vii, 14–25. + +The probable scene, 129.—Extent of the plague. The magicians. Its +duration, 131.—Was Israel exempt? Contrast with first miracle of Jesus, +132. + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE SECOND PLAGUE, viii. 1–15. + +Submission demanded. Severity of plague, 133.—Pharaoh humbles himself, +134.—“Glory over me.” Pharaoh breaks faith, 135. + +THE THIRD PLAGUE, viii. 16–19. + +Various theories. A surprise. Magicians baffled, 136.—What they +confess, 137. + +THE FOURTH PLAGUE, viii. 20–32. + +“Rising up early,” 137.—Bodily pain. Beetles or flies? “A mixture,” +138—Goshen exempt. Pharaoh suffers. He surrenders, 139.—Respite and +treachery. Would Moses have returned? 140. + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE FIFTH PLAGUE, ix. 1–7. + +First attack on life. Animals share our fortunes, 141. The new summons. +Murrain, 142.—Pharaoh’s curiosity, 143. + +THE SIXTH PLAGUE, ix. 8–12. + +No warning, yet Author manifest. Ashes of the furnace, 144.—-Suffering +in the flesh. The magicians again. Pharaoh’s heart “made strong,” +145.—Dares not retaliate, 146. + +THE SEVENTH PLAGUE, ix. 13–35. + +Expostulation not mockery, 146–7.—God is wronged by slavery, +147.—Civil liberty is indebted to religion. “Plagues upon thine heart,” +148.—A mis-rendering: why he was not crushed, 149.—An opportunity of +escape. The storm, 150.—Ruskin upon terrors of thunderstorm, +151.—Pharaoh confesses sin, 152.—Moses intercedes. The weather in +history. Job’s assertion, 153. + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE EIGHTH PLAGUE, x. 1–20. + +Moses encouraged, 154.—Deliverances should be remembered. A sterner +rebuke. Locusts in Egypt, 155.—Their effect. The court interferes. Yet +“their hearts hardened” also, 156—Infatuation of Pharaoh. Parallel of +Napoleon, 157.—Women and little ones did share in festivals, 158.—A +gentle wind. Locusts. Another surrender, 159.—Relief. Our broken vows, +160. + +THE NINTH PLAGUE, x. 21–29. + +Menephtah’s sun-worship, 161.—Suddenness of the plague. Concentrated +narrative, 162.—Darkness represents death, 163.—The Book of Wisdom +upon this plague, 164–5.—Isaiah’s allusions. The Pharaoh’s character, +165.—Altercation with Moses, 166. + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE LAST PLAGUE ANNOUNCED, xi. 1–10. + +This chapter supplements the last. The blow is known to be impending. +Uses of its delay, 167.—Israel shall claim wages. The menace, +168.—Parallel with St. John, 169–70. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE PASSOVER, xii. 1–28. + +Birthday of a nation. The calendar, 171.—“The congregation.” The feast +is social, 172.—The nation is based upon the family. No Egyptian house +escapes, 173.—National interdependence. The Passover a sacrifice, +174.—What does the blood mean? Rationalistic theories. Harvest +festivals, 175.—The unbelieving point of view: what theories of +sacrifice were then current? “A sacrifice was a meal,” 176.—Human +sacrifices. The Passover “unhistorical.” Kuenen rejects this view, +177.—Phenomena irreconcilable with it, 178–9. What is really expressed? +Danger even to Jews, 179.—Salvation by grace. Not unbought, 180.—The +lamb a ransom. All firstborn are forfeited. Tribe of Levi, 181.—Cash +payment. Effect on Hebrew literature, 182.—Its prophetic import, +183.—The Jew must co-operate with God: must also become His guest, +184.—Sacred festivals. Lamb or kid. Four days reserved, 185.—Men are +sheep. Heads of houses originally sacrifice. Transition to Levites in +progress under Hezekiah, complete under Josiah, 186.—Unleavened bread. +The lamb. Roast, not sodden, 187.—Complete consumption. Judgment upon +gods of Egypt, 188.—The blood a token unto themselves. On their +lintels, 189.—The word “pass-over,” 190.—Domestic teaching, 191.—Many +who ate the feast perished. Aliens might share, 192. + +THE TENTH PLAGUE, xii. 29–36. + +The blow falls. Pharaoh was not “firstborn”: his son “sat upon his +throne,” 193.—The scene, 194.—The demands of Israel. St. Augustine’s +inference, 195. + +THE EXODUS, xii. 37–42. + +The route, 195.—Their cattle, a suggested explanation, 196.—“Four +hundred and thirty years,” 197–8. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN, xiii, 1. + +The consecration of the firstborn, 199.—The Levite. “They are Mine,” +200.—Joy is hopeful. Tradition? 201.—Phylacteries. The ass, 202.—The +Philistines. No spiritual miracle, 203.—Education, 204. + +THE BONES OF JOSEPH, xiii. 19. + +Joseph influenced Moses, 204.—His faith, 205.—Circumstances overcome +by soul. God in the cloud, 206.—Hebrew poetry and modern, 207. + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE RED SEA, xiv. 1–31. + +Stopped on the march, 208.—Pharaoh presumes, 209.—The panic, +210.—Moses. Prayer and action. “Self-assertion”? 211.—The midnight +march, 212.—The lost army, 213. + +ON THE SHORE, xiv. 30, 31. + +Impressions deepened. “They believed in Jehovah.” So the faith of the +apostles grew, 214. + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE SONG OF MOSES, xv. 1–22. + +A song remembered in heaven. Its structure, 216–17.—The women join. +Instruments. Dances, 218. God the Deliverer, not Moses. “My salvation,” +219.—Gratitude. Anthropomorphism. “Ye are gods.” “Jehovah is a Man—of +war,” 220–2.—The overthrow, 222.—First mention of Divine holiness, +223.—An inverted holiness, 224.—“Thou shalt bring them in,” 225. + +SHUR, xv. 22–27. + +Disillusion. Marah, 226.—A universal danger, 227.—Prayer, and the use +of means, 228.—“A statute and an ordinance.” Such compacts often +repeated. The offered privilege, 229.—It is still enjoyed, 230.—“The +Lord for the body.” Elim, 231. + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +MURMURING FOR FOOD, xvi. 1–14. + +_We_ too fear, although Divinely guarded, 232.—They would fain die +satiated, 233.—Relief tries them as want does, 234.—The Sabbath. A +rebuke, 235.—Moses is zealous. His “meekness,” 236.—The glory appears, +237.—Quails and manna, 238. + +MANNA, xvi. 15–36. + +Their course of life is changed, 238.—A drug resembles manna, 239.—The +supernatural follows nature, 240.—They must gather, prepare, be +moderate, 241.—Nothing over and no lack. Socialistic perversion, +242.—Socialism. Christ in politics, 243–4. + +SPIRITUAL MEAT, xvi. 15–36. + +Manna is a type. When given, 244.—An unearthly sustenance, 245. What is +spirituality? Christ the true Manna, 246.—Universal, daily, abundant, +247.—The Sabbath. The pot of manna, 248. + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +MERIBAH, xvii. 1–7. + +A greater strain. What if Israel had stood it? 249.—They murmured +against Moses. The position of Aaron. An exaggerated outcry, +250.—Witnesses to the miracle. The rock in Horeb, 251.—The rod. +Privilege is not acceptance, 252. + +AMALEK, xvii. 8–16. + +A water-raid, 252.—God’s sheep must become His warriors. War, +253–4.—Joshua. The rod of God, 255.—A silent prayer. Aaron and Hur +must join in it, 256.—So now. But the army must fight, 257.—“The Lord +my banner.” Unlike a myth, 258. + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +JETHRO, xviii. 1–27. + +Gentiles in new aspect. Church may learn from secular wisdom, +259.—Little is said of Zipporah: Jethro’s pleasure, 260.—A Gentile +priest recognised. Religious festivity, 261.—Jethro’s advice: its +importance, 262.—Divine help does not supersede human gift, 263. + +THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY. + +Narrative is also allegory. Danger of arbitrary fancies. Example from +Bunyan. Scriptural teaching, 264.—Some resemblances are planned: others +are reappearances of same principle, 265.—So that these are evidential +analogies, like Butler’s, 266.—Others appear forced. “I called My Son +out of Egypt” refers to Israel, 267.—But the condescending phrase +promised more, and the subsequent coincidence is significant, 268. +Truths cannot all be proved like Euclid’s, 269. + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +AT SINAI, xix. 1–25. + +Sinai and Pentecost. The place. Ras Sufsâfeh. God speaks in nature, +270.—Moses is stopped; the people must pledge themselves. Dedication +services, 271.—An appeal to gratitude, and a promise, 272.—“A peculiar +treasure.” “A kingdom and priests,” 273.—The individual, and Church +order. “On eagles’ wings,” 274.—Israel consents. The Lord in the cloud. +Manifestations are transient, 275.—Precautions. The trumpet, 276. “The +priests.” A plébiscite. Contrast between Law and Gospel: Methodius, +277.—Theophanies, 278.—None like this, 279. + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE LAW, xx. 1–17. + +What the law did. It could not justify. It reveals obligation, 280.—It +convicts, not enables. It is an organic whole. And a challenge, +281.—The Spirit enables: love is fulfilment of law. Luther’s paradox, +283.—Law and Gospel contrasted. Its spiritual beauty: two noble +failures, 283.—The Jewish arrangement of the Commandments. St. +Augustine’s. The Anglican. An equal division, 284–6. + +THE PROLOGUE, xx. 2. + +Their experience of God, 286.—God and the first table. The true object +of adoration: men must adore. Agnosticism, 287.—God and the second +table, 288.—Law appeals to noble motives, 289. + +THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, xx. 3. + +Monotheism and a real God, 289.—False creeds attractive. Spiritualism. +Science indebted to Monotheism, 290.—Unity of nature a religious truth. +Strength of our experimental argument. 291.—Informal apostacy. Luther’s +position. Scripture. The Chaldeans, 292.—Animal pleasure, 293.—The +remedy: “Thou shalt have ... Me,” 294. + +THE SECOND COMMANDMENT, xx. 4–6. + +Imagery not all idolatry. The subtler paganisms, 295. Spiritual worship, +like a Gothic building, aspires: images lack expansiveness, 296.—God is +jealous, 297.—The shadow of love, 298. Visiting sins on children, 299, +300.—Part of vast beneficent law, 300–2.—Gospel in law, 302. + +THE THIRD COMMANDMENT, xx. 7. + +Meaning of “in vain,” 302.—Jewish superstition. Where swearing is +wholly forbidden, 303.—Fruitful and free use of God’s name, 304–5. + +THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 8–11. + +Law of Sabbath unique. Confession of Augsburg. Of Westminster, +305.—Anglican position. St. Paul, 306.—The first positive precept. +Love not the abolition of the law, 307.—Property of our friends. The +word “remember.” The story of creation, 305.—The manna. Isaiah, +Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 309.—Christ’s freedom was that of a Jew. “Sabbath +for man,” 310.—Our help, not our fetter. “My Father worketh,” 311. + +THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 12. + +Bridge between duty to God and to neighbour, 312.—Father and child, +313.—“Whosoever hateth not.” Christ and His mother. Its sanction, 314. + +THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 13. + +Who is neighbour? Ethics and religion, 315–16.—Science and morals, +317.—A Divine creature. Capital punishment, 318. + +THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 14. + +Justice forbids act: Christ forbids desire. Sacredness of body, +319.—Human body connects material and spiritual worlds. Modifies, while +serves, 320.—Marriage a type, 321. + +THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 15. + +Assailed by communism, by Rome. Various specious pleas, 322.—Laws of +community binding, 323.—None may judge his own case, St. Paul enlarges +the precept, 324. + +THE NINTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 16. + +Importance of words. Various transgressions, 325.—Slander against +nations, against the race. Love, 326–7. + +THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 17. + +The list of properties, 328.—The heart. The law searches, 329. + + +THE LESSER LAW, xx. 18–xxiii. 33. + +A remarkable code. The circumstances, 331.—Moses fears: yet bids them +fear not, 332–3.—Presumption v. awe. He receives an expanded decalogue, +an abridged code, 334.—Laws should educate a people; should not outrun +their capabilities, 335–6.—Five subdivisions, 337. + +I. THE LAW OF WORSHIP, xx. 22–26. + +Images again forbidden, 337.—Splendour and simplicity. An objection, +338.—Modesty, 339. + + +CHAPTER XXI. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +II. RIGHTS OF THE PERSON, xxi. 1–32. + +The Hebrew slave. The seventh year. Year of jubilee. His family, +340.—The ear pierced. St. Paul’s “marks of the Lord.” Assaults, +341.—The Gentile slave, 342. The female slave, 342–3.—Murder and +blood-fiends, 343.—Parents. Kidnappers, 344.—Eye for eye. Mitigations +of _lex talionis_, 344–5.—Vicious cattle, 346. + +III. RIGHTS OF PROPERTY, xxi. 33–xxii. 15. + +Negligence: indirect responsibility: various examples, 346–8.—Theft, +348. + + +CHAPTER XXII. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +IV. VARIOUS ENACTMENTS, xxii. 16–xxiii. 19. + +Disconnected precepts. No trace of systematic revision. Certain capital +crimes, 348–9. + +SORCERY, xxii. 18. + +Abuses have recoiled against religion, 349.—Sorcerers are impostors, +but they existed, and do still, 350.—Moses could not leave them to +enlightened opinion. Propagated apostacy, 351.—Traitors in a theocracy, +352.—When shall witchcraft die? 353. + +THE STRANGER, xxii. 21; xxiii. 9. + +“Ye were strangers,” 354.—A fruitful principle. Morality not +expediency, 355.—Cruelty often ignorance: Moses educates, 356.—The +widow. The borrower, 357.—Other precepts, 358. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +An enemy’s cattle. A false report, 359.—Influence of multitude: the +world and the Church, 360–1.—Favour not the poor, 361–2.—Other +precepts. “A kid in his mother’s milk,” 362. + +LESSER LAW, V. ITS SANCTIONS xxiii. 20–33. + +A bold transition: the Angel in Whom is “My Name,” 363.—Not a mere +messenger, 364.—Nor the substitute of chap. xxxiii. 2, 3, +365–6.—Parallel verses, 366–7. + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD, xxiv. + +The code is accepted, written, ratified with blood, 368.—Exclusion and +admittance. The elders see God: Moses goes farther. Theophanies of other +creeds, 369.—How could they see God? 370.—Moses feels not +satisfaction, but desire, 371.—His progress is from vision to shadow +and a Voice, 372.—We see not each other, 373.—St. Augustine, +373–4.—The vision suits the period: not post-Exilian, 374–5.—Contrast +with revelation in Christ, 375. + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE SHRINE AND ITS FURNITURE, xxv. 1–40. + +The God of Sinai will inhabit a tent. His other tabernacles, 376–7.—The +furniture is typical. Altar of incense postponed, 377.—The ark +enshrines His law and its sanctions, 377–8.—The mercy-seat covers it, +378–81.—Man’s homage. The table of shewbread, 382–3.—The golden +candlestick (lamp-stand), 383–6. + +THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT, xxv. 9, 40. + +Use in Hebrews. Plato, 386.—Not a model, but an idea. Art, +387.—Provisional institutions, 387–8.—-The ideal in creation, 388.—In +life, 389. + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE TABERNACLE. + +“Temple” an ambiguous word, 390.—“Curtains of the Tabernacle,” +391.—Other coverings, 392.—The boards and sockets, 392–3.—The bars. +The tent, 393.—Position of veil, 394, and of the front, 395. + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE OUTER COURT. + +The altar, 396.—The quadrangle, 397.—General effect, 398–400. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE HOLY GARMENTS. + +Their import, 401.—The drawers. “Coat.” Head-tires. Robe of the ephod. +Ephod. Jewels, 402.—Breastplate. Urim and Thummim. Mitre. Symbolism, +403. + +THE PRIESTHOOD. + +Universal desire and dread of God, 404.—Delegates, 405. Scripture. +First Moses, 406.—His family passed over. The double consciousness +expressed, 407–9.—Messianic priesthood, 409. + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +CONSECRATION SERVICES. + +Why consecrate at all? 410.—Moses officiates. The offerings, +411.—Ablution, robing, anointing, 412–13.—The sin-offering, 413–14. +“Without the camp,” 414. The burnt-offering, 415.—The peace-offering +(“ram of consecration”), 415.—The wave-offerings, 415–16.—The result, +416–17. + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +INCENSE, xxx. 1–10. + +The impalpable in nature, 418.—“The golden altar,” 419.—Represents +prayer. Needs cleansing, 420. + +A CENSUS, xxx. ii–16. + +A census not sinful. David’s transgression. The half-shekel. Equality of +man, 421.—Christ paid it, 422.—Its employment, 423. + +THE LAVER, xxx. 17–21. + +Behind the altar. Purity of priests, 423.—Made of the mirrors, 424. + +ANOINTING OIL AND INCENSE, xxx. 22–38. + +Their ingredients. All the vessels anointed, 424.—Forbidden to secular +uses, 425.—Modern analogies, 426–7. + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB, xxxi. 1–18. + +Secular gifts are sacred, 428–30.—The Sabbath. The tables and “the +finger of God,” 431. + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +THE GOLDEN CALF. + +Sin of the people; of Aaron. God rejects them, 432.—Intercession. The +Christian antitype, 433–4. + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +PREVAILING INTERCESSION. + +The first concession. The angel, 435.—“The Tent of the Meeting,” 436. + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +THE VISION OF GOD. + +To know is to desire to know. A fit season. The greater Name, 438.—The +covenant renewed. The tables. The skin of his face shone, 439.—Lessons, +440. + + +CHAPTERS XXXV.–XL. CONCLUSION. + +The people obey, 441.—The forming of the nation: review, 441–3. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +_THE PROLOGUE._ + +EXODUS i. 1–6. + + “And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into + Egypt.” + +Many books of the Old Testament begin with the conjunction And. This +fact, it has been often pointed out, is a silent indication of truth, +that each author was not recording certain isolated incidents, but parts +of one great drama, events which joined hands with the past and future, +looking before and after. + +Thus the Book of the Kings took up the tale from Samuel, Samuel from +Judges, and Judges from Joshua, and all carried the sacred movement +forward towards a goal as yet unreached. Indeed, it was impossible, +remembering the first promise that the seed of the woman should bruise +the head of the serpent, and the later assurance that in the seed of +Abraham should be the universal blessing, for a faithful Jew to forget +that all the history of his race was the evolution of some grand hope, a +pilgrimage towards some goal unseen. Bearing in mind that there is now +revealed to us a world-wide tendency toward the supreme consummation, +the bringing all things under the headship of Christ, it is not to be +denied that this hope of the ancient Jew is given to all mankind. Each +new stage in universal history may be said to open with this same +conjunction. It links the history of England with that of Julius Cæsar +and of the Red Indian; nor is the chain composed of accidents: it is +forged by the hand of the God of providence. Thus, in the conjunction +which binds these Old Testament narratives together, is found the germ +of that instinctive and elevating phrase, the Philosophy of History. But +there is nowhere in Scripture the notion which too often degrades and +stiffens that Philosophy—the notion that history is urged forward by +blind forces, amid which the individual man is too puny to assert +himself. Without a Moses the Exodus is inconceivable, and God always +achieves His purpose through the providential man. + + * * * * * + +The Books of the Pentateuch are held together in a yet stronger unity +than the rest, being sections of one and the same narrative, and having +been accredited with a common authorship from the earliest mention of +them. Accordingly, the Book of Exodus not only begins with this +conjunction (which assumes the previous narrative), but also rehearses +the descent into Egypt. “And these are the names of the sons of Israel +which came into Egypt,”—names blotted with many a crime, rarely +suggesting any lovable or great association, yet the names of men with a +marvellous heritage, as being “the sons of Israel,” the Prince who +prevailed with God. Moreover they are consecrated: their father’s dying +words had conveyed to every one of them some expectation, some +mysterious import which the future should disclose. In the issue would +be revealed the awful influence of the past upon the future, of the +fathers upon the children even beyond the third and fourth +generation—an influence which is nearer to destiny, in its stern, +subtle and far-reaching strength, than any other recognised by religion. +Destiny, however, it is not, or how should the name of Dan have faded +out from the final list of “every tribe of the children of Israel” in +the Apocalypse (Rev. vii. 5–8), where Manasseh is reckoned separately +from Joseph to complete the twelve? + +We read that with the twelve came their posterity, seventy souls in +direct descent from Jacob; but in this number he is himself included, +according to that well-known Orientalism which Milton strove to force +upon our language in the phrase— + + “The fairest of her daughters Eve.” + +Joseph is also reckoned, although he “was in Egypt already.” Now, it +must be observed that of these seventy, sixty-eight were males, and +therefore the people of the Exodus must not be reckoned to have sprung +in the interval from seventy, but (remembering polygamy) from more than +twice that number, even if we refuse to make any account of the +household which is mentioned as coming with every man. These households +were probably smaller in each case than that of Abraham, and the famine +in its early stages may have reduced the number of retainers; yet they +account for much of what is pronounced incredible in the rapid expansion +of the clan into a nation.[1] But when all allowance has been made, the +increase continues to be, such as the narrator clearly regards it, +abnormal, well-nigh preternatural, a fitting type of the expansion, amid +fiercer persecutions, of the later Church of God, the true circumcision, +who also sprang from the spiritual parentage of another Seventy and +another Twelve. + +“And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.” Thus +the connection with Canaan became a mere tradition, and the powerful +courtier who had nursed their interests disappeared. When they +remembered him, in the bitter time which lay before them, it was only to +reflect that all mortal help must perish. It is thus in the spiritual +world also. Paul reminds the Philippians that they can obey in his +absence and not in his presence only, working out their own salvation, +as no apostle can work it out on their behalf. And the reason is that +the one real support is ever present. Work out your own salvation, for +it is God (not any teacher) Who worketh in you. The Hebrew race was to +learn its need of Him, and in Him to recover its freedom. Moreover, the +influences which mould all men’s characters, their surroundings and +mental atmosphere, were completely changed. These wanderers for pasture +were now in the presence of a compact and impressive social system, vast +cities, gorgeous temples, an imposing ritual. They were infected as well +as educated there, and we find the men of the Exodus not only murmuring +for Egyptian comforts, but demanding visible gods to go before them. + +Yet, with all its drawbacks, the change was a necessary part of their +development. They should return from Egypt relying upon no courtly +patron, no mortal might or wisdom, aware of a name of God more profound +than was spoken in the covenant of their fathers, with their narrow +family interests and rivalries and their family traditions expanded into +national hopes, national aspirations, a national religion. + +Perhaps there is another reason why Scripture has reminded us of the +vigorous and healthy stock whence came the race that multiplied +exceedingly. For no book attaches more weight to the truth, so miserably +perverted that it is discredited by multitudes, but amply vindicated by +modern science, that good breeding, in the strictest sense of the word, +is a powerful factor in the lives of men and nations. To be well born +does not of necessity require aristocratic parentage, nor does such +parentage involve it: but it implies a virtuous, temperate and pious +stock. In extreme cases the doctrine of race is palpable; for who can +doubt that the sins of dissolute parents are visited upon their puny and +short-lived children, and that the posterity of the just inherit not +only honour and a welcome in the world, “an open door,” but also +immunity from many a physical blemish and many a perilous craving? If +the Hebrew race, after eighteen centuries of calamity, retains an +unrivalled vigour and tenacity, be it remembered how its iron sinew has +been twisted, from what a sire it sprang, through what ages of more than +“natural selection” the dross was throughly purged out, and (as Isaiah +loves to reiterate) a chosen remnant left. Already, in Egypt, in the +vigorous multiplication of the race, was visible the germ of that +amazing vitality which makes it, even in its overthrow, so powerful an +element in the best modern thought and action. + +It is a well-known saying of Goethe that the quality for which God chose +Israel was probably toughness. Perhaps the saying would better be +inverted: it was among the most remarkable endowments, unto which Israel +was called, and called by virtue of qualities in which Goethe himself +was remarkably deficient. + +Now, this principle is in full operation still, and ought to be solemnly +pondered by the young. Self-indulgence, the sowing of wild oats, the +seeing of life while one is young, the taking one’s fling before one +settles down, the having one’s day (like “every dog,” for it is to be +observed that no person says, “every Christian”), these things seem +natural enough. And their unsuspected issues in the next generation, +dire and subtle and far-reaching, these also are more natural still, +being the operation of the laws of God. + +On the other hand, there is no youth living in obedience alike to the +higher and humbler laws of our complex nature, in purity and gentleness +and healthful occupation, who may not contribute to the stock of +happiness in other lives beyond his own, to the future well-being of his +native land, and to the day when the sadly polluted stream of human +existence shall again flow clear and glad, a pure river of water of +life. + + +_GOD IN HISTORY._ + +i. 7. + +With the seventh verse, the new narrative, the course of events treated +in the main body of this book, begins. + +And we are at once conscious of this vital difference between Exodus and +Genesis,—that we have passed from the story of men and families to the +history of a nation. In the first book the Canaanites and Egyptians +concern us only as they affect Abraham or Joseph. In the second book, +even Moses himself concerns us only for the sake of Israel. He is in +some respects a more imposing and august character than any who preceded +him; but what we are told is no longer the story of a soul, nor are we +pointed so much to the development of his spiritual life as to the work +he did, the tyrant overthrown, the nation moulded, the law and the +ritual imposed on it. + +For Jacob it was a discovery that God was in Bethel as well as in his +father’s house. But now the Hebrew nation was to learn that He could +plague the gods of Egypt in their stronghold, that His way was in the +sea, that Horeb in Arabia was the Mount of God, that He could lead them +like a horse through the wilderness. + +When Jacob in Peniel wrestles with God and prevails, he wins for himself +a new name, expressive of the higher moral elevation which he has +attained. But when Moses meets God in the bush, it is to receive a +commission for the public benefit; and there is no new name for Moses, +but a fresh revelation of God for the nation to learn. And in all their +later history we feel that the national life which it unfolds was +nourished and sustained by these glorious early experiences, the most +unique as well as the most inspiriting on record. + +Here, then, a question of great moment is suggested. Beyond the fact +that Abraham was the father of the Jewish race, can we discover any +closer connection between the lives of the patriarchs and the history of +Israel? Is there a truly spiritual coherence between them, or merely a +genealogical sequence? For if the Bible can make good its claim to be +vitalised throughout by the eternal Spirit of God, and leading forward +steadily to His final revelation in Christ, then its parts will be +symmetrical, proportionate and well designed. If it be a universal +book, there must be a better reason for the space devoted to preliminary +and half secular stories, which is a greater bulk than the whole of the +New Testament, than that these histories chance to belong to the nation +whence Christ came. If no such reason can be found, the failure may not +perhaps outweigh the great evidences of the faith, but it will score for +something on the side of infidelity. But if upon examination it becomes +plain that all has its part in one great movement, and that none can be +omitted without marring the design, and if moreover this design has +become visible only since the fulness of the time is come, the discovery +will go far to establish the claim of Scripture to reveal throughout a +purpose truly divine, dealing with man for ages, and consummated in the +gift of Christ. + +Now, it is to St. Paul that we turn for light upon the connection +between the Old Testament and the New. And he distinctly lays down two +great principles. The first is that the Old Testament is meant to +educate men for the New; and especially that the sense of failure, +impressed upon men’s consciences by the stern demands of the Law, was +necessary to make them accept the Gospel. + +The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ: it entered that sin +might abound. And it is worth notice that this effect was actually +wrought, not only upon the gross transgressor by the menace of its +broken precepts, but even more perhaps upon the high-minded and pure, by +the creation in their breasts of an ideal, inaccessible in its +loftiness. He who says, All these things have I kept from my youth up, +is the same who feels the torturing misgiving, What good thing must I do +to attain life?... What lack I yet? He who was blameless as touching +the righteousness of the law, feels that such superficial innocence is +worthless, that the law is spiritual and he is carnal, sold under sin. + +Now, this principle need by no means be restricted to the Mosaic +institutions. If this were the object of the law, it would probably +explain much more. And when we return to the Old Testament with this +clue, we find every condition in life examined, every social and +political experiment exhausted, a series of demonstrations made with +scientific precision, to refute the arch-heresy which underlies all +others—that in favourable circumstances man might save himself, that +for the evil of our lives our evil surroundings are more to be blamed +than we. + +Innocence in prosperous circumstances, unwarped by evil habit, untainted +by corruption in the blood, uncompelled by harsh surroundings, simple +innocence had its day in Paradise, a brief day with a shameful close. +God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions, until the flood +swept away the descendants of him who was made after the image of God. + +Next we have a chosen family, called out from all the perilous +associations of its home beyond the river, to begin a new career in a +new land, in special covenant with the Most High, and with every +endowment for the present and every hope for the future which could help +to retain its loyalty. Yet the third generation reveals the thirst of +Esau for his brother’s blood, the treachery of Jacob, and the +distraction and guilt of his fierce and sensual family. It is when +individual and family life have thus proved ineffectual amid the +happiest circumstances, that the tribe and the nation essay the task. +Led up from the furnace of affliction, hardened and tempered in the +stern free life of the desert, impressed by every variety of fortune, by +slavery and escape, by the pursuit of an irresistible foe and by a +rescue visibly divine, awed finally by the sublime revelations of Sinai, +the nation is ready for the covenant (which is also a challenge)—The +man that doeth these things shall live by them: if thou diligently +hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God ... He shall set thee on high +above all nations. + +Such is the connection between this narrative and what went before. And +the continuation of the same experiment, and the same failure, can be +traced through all the subsequent history. Whether in so loose an +organisation that every man does what is right in his own eyes, or under +the sceptre of a hero or a sage,—whether so hard pressed that +self-preservation ought to have driven them to their God, or so +marvellously delivered that gratitude should have brought them to their +knees,—whether engulfed a second time in a more hopeless captivity, or +restored and ruled by a hierarchy whose authority is entirely +spiritual,—in every variety of circumstances the same melancholy +process repeats itself; and lawlessness, luxury, idolatry and +self-righteousness combine to stop every mouth, to make every man guilty +before God, to prove that a greater salvation is still needed, and thus +to pave the way for the Messiah. + +The second great principle of St. Paul is that faith in a divine help, +in pardon, blessing and support, was the true spirit of the Old +Testament as well as of the New. The challenge of the law was meant to +produce self-despair, only that men might trust in God. Appeal was made +especially to the cases of Abraham and David, the founder of the race +and of the dynasty, clearly because the justification without works of +the patriarch and of the king were precedents to decide the general +question (Rom. iv. 1–8). Now, this is pre-eminently the distinction +between Jewish history and all others, that in it God is everything and +man is nothing. Every sceptical treatment of the story makes Moses to be +the deliverer from Egypt, and shows us the Jewish nation gradually +finding out God. But the nation itself believed nothing of the kind. It +confessed itself to have been from the beginning vagrant and rebellious +and unthankful: God had always found out Israel, never Israel God. The +history is an expansion of the parable of the good shepherd. And this +perfect harmony of a long record with itself and with abstract +principles is both instructive and reassuring. + +As the history of Israel opens before us, a third principle claims +attention—one which the apostle quietly assumes, but which is forced on +our consideration by the unhappy state of religious thought in these +degenerate days. + +“They are not to be heard,” says the Seventh Article rightly, “which +feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises.” But +certainly they also would be unworthy of a hearing who would feign that +the early Scriptures do not give a vast, a preponderating weight, to the +concerns of our life on earth. Only very slowly, and as the result of +long training, does the future begin to reveal its supremacy over the +present. It would startle many a devout reader out of his propriety to +discover the small proportion of Old Testament scriptures in which +eternity and its prospects are discussed, to reckon the passages, +habitually applied to spiritual thraldom and emancipation, which were +spoken at first of earthly tyranny and earthly deliverance, and to +observe, even in the pious aspirations of the Psalms, how much of the +gratitude and joy of the righteous comes from the sense that he is made +wiser than the ancient, and need not fear though a host rose up against +him, and can break a bow of steel, and has a table prepared for him, and +an overflowing cup. Especially is this true of the historical books. God +is here seen ruling states, judging in the earth, remembering Israel in +bondage, and setting him free, providing supernatural food and water, +guiding him by the fiery cloud. There is not a word about regeneration, +conversion, hell, or heaven. And yet there is a profound sense of God. +He is real, active, the most potent factor in the daily lives of men. +Now, this may teach us a lesson, highly important to us all, and +especially to those who must teach others. The difference between +spirituality and secularity is not the difference between the future +life and the present, but between a life that is aware of God and a +godless one. Perhaps, when we find our gospel a matter of indifference +and weariness to men who are absorbed in the bitter monotonous and +dreary struggle for existence, we ourselves are most to blame. Perhaps, +if Moses had approached the Hebrew drudges as we approach men equally +weary and oppressed, they would not have bowed their heads and +worshipped. And perhaps we should have better success, if we took care +to speak of God in this world, making life a noble struggle, charging +with new significance the dull and seemingly degraded lot of all who +remember Him, such a God as Jesus revealed when He cleansed the leper, +and gave sight to the blind, using one and the same word for the +“healing” of diseases and the “saving” of souls, and connecting faith +equally with both. Exodus will have little to teach us, unless we +believe in that God who knoweth that we have need of food and clothing. +And the higher spiritual truths which it expresses will only be found +there in dubious and questionable allegory, unless we firmly grasp the +great truth, that God is not the Saviour of souls, or of bodies, but of +living men in their entirety, and treats their higher and lower wants +upon much the same principle, because He is the same God, dealing with +the same men, through both. + +Moreover, He treats us as the men of other ages. Instead of dealing with +Moses upon exceptional and strange lines, He made known His ways unto +Moses, His characteristic and habitual ways. And it is on this account +that whatsoever things were written aforetime are true admonition for us +also, being not violent interruptions but impressive revelations of the +steady silent methods of the judgment and the grace of God. + + +_THE OPPRESSION._ + +i. 7–22. + +At the beginning of the history of Israel we find a prosperous race. It +was indeed their growing importance, and chiefly their vast numerical +increase, which excited the jealousy of their rulers, at the very time +when a change of dynasty removed the sense of obligation. It is a sound +lesson in political as well as personal godliness that prosperity itself +is dangerous, and needs special protection from on high. + +Is it merely by chance again that we find in this first of histories +examples of the folly of relying upon political connections? As the +chief butler remembered not Joseph, nor did he succeed in escaping from +prison by securing influence at court, so is the influence of Joseph +himself now become vain, although he was the father of Pharaoh and lord +of all his house. His romantic history, his fidelity in temptation, and +the services by which he had at once cemented the royal power and saved +the people, could not keep his memory alive. The hollow wraith of dying +fame died wholly. There arose a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph. + +Such is the value of the highest and purest earthly fame, and such the +gratitude of the world to its benefactors. The nation which Joseph +rescued from starvation is passive in Pharaoh’s hands, and persecutes +Israel at his bidding. + +And when the actual deliverer arose, his rank and influence were only +entanglements through which he had to break. + +Meanwhile, except among a few women, obedient to the woman’s heart, we +find no trace of independent action, no revolt of conscience against the +absolute behest of the sovereign, until selfishness replaces virtue, and +despair wrings the cry from his servants, Knowest thou not yet that +Egypt is destroyed? + +Now, in Genesis we saw the fate of families, blessed in their father +Abraham, or cursed for the offence of Ham. For a family is a real +entity, and its members, like those of one body, rejoice and suffer +together. But the same is true of nations, and here we have reached the +national stage in the education of the world. Here is exhibited to us, +therefore, a nation suffering with its monarch to the uttermost, until +the cry of the maidservant behind the mill is as wild and bitter as the +cry of Pharaoh upon his throne. It is indeed the eternal curse of +despotism that unlimited calamity may be drawn down upon millions by the +caprice of one most unhappy man, himself blinded and half maddened by +adulation, by the absence of restraint, by unlimited sensual indulgence +if his tendencies be low and animal, and by the pride of power if he be +high-spirited and aspiring. + +If we assume, what seems pretty well established, that the Pharaoh from +whom Moses fled was Rameses the Great, his spirit was of the nobler +kind, and he exhibits a terrible example of the unfitness even of +conquering genius for unbridled and irresponsible power. That lesson has +had to be repeated, even down to the days of the Great Napoleon. + +Now, if the justice of plaguing a nation for the offence of its head be +questioned, let us ask first whether the nation accepts his despotism, +honours him, and is content to regard him as its chief and captain. +According to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, whoever thinks a +tyrant enviable, has already himself tyrannised with him in his heart. +Do we ourselves, then, never sympathise with political audacity, bold +and unscrupulous “resource,” success that is bought at the price of +strange compliances, and compromises, and wrongs to other men? + +The great national lesson is now to be taught to Israel that the most +splendid imperial force will be brought to an account for its treatment +of the humblest—that there is a God Who judges in the earth. And they +were bidden to apply in their own land this experience of their own, +dealing kindly with the stranger in the midst of them, “for thou wast a +stranger in the land of Egypt.” That lesson we have partly learned, who +have broken the chain of our slaves. But how much have we left undone! +The subject races were never given into our hands to supplant them, as +we have supplanted the Red Indian and the New Zealander, nor to +debauch, as men say we are corrupting the African and the Hindoo, but to +raise, instruct and Christianise. And if the subjects of a despotism are +accountable for the actions of rulers whom they tolerate, how much more +are we? What ought we to infer, from this old-world history, of the +profound responsibilities of all free citizens? + +We attain a principle which reaches far into the spiritual world, when +we reflect that if evil deeds of a ruler can justly draw down vengeance +upon his people, the converse also must hold good. Reverse the case +before us. Let the kingdom be that of the noblest and purest virtue. Let +no subject ever be coerced to enter it, nor to remain one hour longer +than while his adoring loyalty consents. And shall not these subjects be +the better for the virtues of the Monarch whom they love? Is it mere +caprice to say that in choosing such a King they do, in a very real +sense, appropriate the goodness they crown? If it be natural that Egypt +be scourged for the sins of Pharaoh, is it palpably incredible that +Christ is made of God unto His people wisdom and righteousness and +sanctification and redemption? The doctrine of imputation can easily be +so stated as to become absurd. But the imputation of which St. Paul +speaks much can only be denied when we are prepared to assail the +principle on which all bodies of men are treated, families and nations +as well as the Church of God. + +It was the jealous cruelty of Pharaoh which drew down upon his country +the very perils he laboured to turn away. There was no ground for his +fear of any league with foreigners against him. Prosperous and +unambitious, the people would have remained well content beside the +flesh-pots of Egypt, for which they sighed even when emancipated from +heavy bondage and eating the bread of heaven. Or else, if they had gone +forth in peace, from a land whose hospitality had not failed, to their +inheritance in Canaan, they would have become an allied nation upon the +side where the heaviest blows were afterwards struck by the Asiatic +powers. Cruelty and cunning could not retain them, but it could decimate +a population and lose an army in the attempt. And this law prevails in +the modern world, England paid twenty millions to set her bondmen free. +Because America would not follow her example, she ultimately paid the +more terrible ransom of civil war. For the same God was in Jamaica and +in Florida as in the field of Zoan. Nor was there ever yet a crooked +policy which did not recoil either upon its author, or upon his +successors when he had passed away. In this case it fulfilled the plans +and the prophecies of God, and the wrath of man was made to praise Him. + +There is independent reason for believing that at this period one-third +at least of the population of Egypt was of alien blood (Brugsch, +_History_, ii. 100). A politician might fairly be alarmed, especially if +this were the time when the Hittites were threatening the eastern +frontier, and had reduced Egypt to stand on the defensive, and erect +barrier fortresses. And the circumstances of the country made it very +easy to enslave the Hebrews. If any stain of Oriental indifference to +the rights of the masses had mingled with the God-given insight of +Joseph, when he made his benefactor the owner of all the soil, the +Egyptian people were fully avenged upon him now. For this arrangement +laid his pastoral race helpless at their oppressor’s feet. Forced +labour quickly degenerates into slavery, and men who find the story of +their misery hard to credit should consider the state of France before +the Revolution, and of the Russian serfs before their emancipation. +Their wretchedness was probably as bitter as that of the Hebrews at any +period but the last climax of their oppression. And they owed it to the +same cause—the absolute ownership of the land by others, too remote +from them to be sympathetic, to take due account of their feelings, to +remember that they were their fellow-men. This was enough to slay +compassion, even without the aggravation of dealing with an alien and +suspected race. + +Now, it is instructive to observe these reappearances of wholesale +crime. They warn us that the utmost achievements of human wickedness are +human still; not wild and grotesque importations by a fiend, originated +in the abyss, foreign to the world we live in. Satan finds the material +for his master-strokes in the estrangement of class from class, in the +drying up of the fountains of reciprocal human feeling, in the failure +of real, fresh, natural affection in our bosom for those who differ +widely from us in rank or circumstances. All cruelties are possible when +a man does not seem to us really a man, nor his woes really woeful. For +when the man has sunk into an animal it is only a step to his +vivisection. + +Nor does anything tend to deepen such perilous estrangement, more than +the very education, culture and refinement, in which men seek a +substitute for religion and the sense of brotherhood in Christ. It is +quite conceivable that the tyrant who drowned the Hebrew infants was an +affectionate father, and pitied his nobles when their children died. But +his sympathies could not reach beyond the barriers of a caste. Do _our_ +sympathies really overleap such barriers? Would God that even His Church +believed aright in the reality of a human nature like our own, soiled, +sorrowful, shamed, despairing, drugged into that apathetical +insensibility which lies even below despair, yet aching still, in ten +thousand bosoms, in every great city of Christendom, every day and every +night! Would to God that she understood what Jesus meant, when He called +one lost creature by the tender name which she had not yet forfeited, +saying, “Woman, where are thine accusers?” and when He asked Simon, who +scorned such another, “Seest thou this woman!” Would God that when she +prays for the Holy Spirit of Jesus she would really seek a mind like +His, not only in piety and prayerfulness, but also in tender and +heartfelt brotherhood with all, even the vilest of the weary and +heavy-laden! + +Many great works of ancient architecture, the pyramids among the rest, +were due to the desire of crushing, by abject toil, the spirit of a +subject people. We cannot ascribe to Hebrew labour any of the more +splendid piles of Egyptian masonry, but the store cities or arsenals +which they built can be identified. They are composed of such crude +brick as the narrative describes; and the absence of straw in the later +portion of them can still be verified. Rameses was evidently named after +their oppressor, and this strengthens the conviction that we are reading +of events in the nineteenth dynasty, when the shepherd kings had +recently been driven out, leaving the eastern frontier so weak as to +demand additional fortresses, and so far depopulated as to give colour +to the exaggerated assertion of Pharaoh, “the people are more and +mightier than we.” It is by such exaggerations and alarms that all the +worst crimes of statesmen have been justified to consenting peoples. And +we, when we carry what seems to us a rightful object, by inflaming the +prejudice and misleading the judgment of other men, are moving on the +same treacherous and slippery inclines. Probably no evil is committed +without some amount of justification, which the passions exaggerate, +while they ignore the prohibitions of the law. + +How came it to pass that the fierce Hebrew blood, which was yet to boil +in the veins of the Maccabees, and to give battle, not unworthily, to +the Roman conquerors of the world, failed to resent the cruelties of +Pharaoh? + +Partly, of course, because the Jewish people was only now becoming aware +of its national existence; but also because it had forsaken God. Its +religion, if not supplanted, was at least adulterated by the influence +of the mystic pantheism and the stately ritual which surrounded them. + +Joshua bade his victorious followers to “put away the gods whom your +fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord” +(Josh. xxiv. 14). And in Ezekiel the Lord Himself complains, “They +rebelled against Me and would not hearken unto Me; they did not cast +away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols +of Egypt” (Ezek. xx. 8). + +Now, there is nothing which enfeebles the spirit and breaks the courage +like religious dependence. A strong priesthood always means a feeble +people, most of all when they are of different blood. And Israel was now +dependent on Egypt alike for the highest and lowest needs—grass for the +cattle and religion for the soul. And when they had sunk so low, it is +evident that their emancipation had to be wrought for them entirely +without their help. From first to last they were passive, not only for +want of spirit to help themselves, but because the glory of any exploit +of theirs might have illuminated some false deity whom they adored. + +Standing still, they saw the salvation of God, and it was not possible +to give His glory to another. + +For this cause also, judgment had, first of all, to be wrought upon the +gods of Egypt. + +In the meantime, without spirit enough to resist, they saw complete +destruction drawing nearer to them by successive strides. At first +Pharaoh “dealt wisely with them,” and they found themselves entrapped +into a hard bondage almost unawares. But a strange power upheld them, +and the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied and spread +abroad. In this they ought to have discerned a divine support, and +remembered the promise to Abraham that God would multiply his seed as +the stars of heaven. It may have helped them presently to “cry unto the +Lord.” And the Egyptians were not merely “grieved” because of them: they +felt as the Israelites afterwards felt towards that monotonous diet of +which they used the same word, and said, “our soul loatheth this light +bread.” Here it expresses that fierce and contemptuous attitude which +the Californian and Australian are now assuming toward the swarms of +Chinamen whose labour is so indispensable, yet the infusion of whose +blood into the population is so hateful. Then the Egyptians make their +service rigorous, and their lives bitter. + +And at last that happens which is a part of every downward course: the +veil is dropped; what men have done by stealth, and as if they would +deceive themselves, they soon do consciously, avowing to their +conscience what at first they could not face. Thus Pharaoh began by +striving to check a dangerous population; and ended by committing +wholesale murder. Thus men become drunkards through conviviality, +thieves through borrowing what they mean to restore, and hypocrites +through slightly overstating what they really feel. And, since there are +nice gradations in evil, down to the very last, Pharaoh will not yet +avow publicly the atrocity which he commands a few humble women to +perpetrate; decency is with him, as it is often, the last substitute for +a conscience. + +Among the agents of God for the shipwreck of all full-grown wrongs, the +chief is the revolt of human nature, since, fallen though we know +ourselves to be, the image of God is not yet effaced in us. The better +instincts of humanity are irrepressible—most so perhaps among the poor. +It is by refusing to trust its intuitions that men grow vile; and to the +very last that refusal is never absolute, so that no villainy can reckon +upon its agents, and its agents cannot always reckon upon themselves. +Above all, the heart of every woman is in a plot against the wrong; and +as Pharaoh was afterwards defeated by the ingenuity of a mother and the +sympathy of his own daughter, so his first scheme was spoiled by the +disobedience of the midwives, themselves Hebrews, upon whom he reckoned. + +Let us not fear to avow that these women, whom God rewarded, lied to the +king when he reproached them, since their answer, even if it were not +unfounded, was palpably a misrepresentation of the facts. The reward was +not for their falsehood, but for their humanity. They lived when the +notion of martyrdom for an avowal so easy to evade was utterly unknown. +Abraham lied to Abimelech. Both Samuel and David equivocated with Saul. +We have learned better things from the King of truth, Who was born and +came into the world to bear witness to the truth. We know that the +martyr’s bold protest against unrighteousness is the highest vocation of +the Church, and is rewarded in the better country. But they knew nothing +of this, and their service was acceptable according as they had, not +according as they had not. As well might we blame the patriarchs for +having been slave-owners, and David for having invoked mischief upon his +enemies, as these women for having fallen short of the Christian ideal +of veracity. Let us beware lest we come short of it ourselves. And let +us remember that the way of the Church through time is the path of the +just, beset with mist and vapour at the dawn, but shining more and more +unto the perfect day. + +In the meantime, God acknowledges, and Holy Scripture celebrates, the +service of these obscure and lowly heroines. Nothing done for Him goes +unrewarded. To slaves it was written that “From the Lord ye shall +receive the reward of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ” (Col. +iii. 24). And what these women saved for others was what was recompensed +to themselves, domestic happiness, family life and its joys. God made +them houses. + +The king is now driven to avow himself in a public command to drown all +the male infants of the Hebrews; and the people become his accomplices +by obeying him. For this they were yet to experience a terrible +retribution, when there was not a house in Egypt that had not one dead. + +The features of the king to whom these atrocities are pretty certainly +brought home are still to be seen in the museum at Boulak. Seti I. is +the most beautiful of all the Egyptian monarchs whose faces lie bare to +the eyes of modern sightseers; and his refined features, intelligent, +high-bred and cheerful, resemble wonderfully, yet surpass, those of +Rameses II., his successor, from whom Moses fled. This is the builder of +the vast and exquisite temple of Amon at Thebes, the grandeur of which +is amazing even in its ruins; and his culture and artistic gifts are +visible, after all these centuries, upon his face. It is a strange +comment upon the modern doctrine that culture is to become a sufficient +substitute for religion. And his own record of his exploits is enough to +show that the sense of beauty is not that of pity: he is the jackal +leaping through the land of his enemies, the grim lion, the powerful +bull with sharpened horns, who has annihilated the peoples. + +There is no greater mistake than to suppose that artistic refinement can +either inspire morality or replace it. Have we quite forgotten Nero, and +Lucretia Borgia, and Catherine de Medici? + +Many civilisations have thought little of infant life. Ancient Rome +would have regarded this atrocity as lightly as modern China, as we may +see by the absolute silence of its literature concerning the murder of +the innocents—an event strangely parallel with this in its nature and +political motives, and in the escape of one mighty Infant. + +Is it conceivable that the same indifference should return, if the +sanctions of religion lose their power? Every one remembers the +callousness of Rousseau. Strange things are being written by pessimistic +unbelief about the bringing of more sufferers into the world. And a +living writer in France has advocated the legalising of infanticide, and +denounced St. Vincent de Paul because, “thanks to his odious +precautions, this man deferred for years the death of creatures without +intelligence,” etc.[2] + +It is to the faith of Jesus, not only revealing by the light of eternity +the value of every soul, but also replenishing the fountains of human +tenderness that had well-nigh become exhausted, that we owe our modern +love of children. In the very helplessness which the ancient masters of +the world exposed to destruction without a pang, we see the type of what +we must ourselves become, if we would enter heaven. But we cannot afford +to forget either the source or the sanctions of the lesson. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Professor Curtiss quotes a volume of family memoirs which shows that +5,564 persons are known to be descended from Lieutenant John Hollister, +who emigrated to America in the year 1642 (_Expositor_, Nov. 1887, p. +329). This is probably equal in ratio to the increase of Israel in +Egypt. + +[2] J. K. Huysmans—quoted in _Nineteenth Century_, May 1888, p. +673. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +_THE RESCUE OF MOSES._ + +ii. 1–10. + +We have said that the Old Testament history teems with political wisdom, +lessons of permanent instruction for mankind, on the level of this life, +yet godly, as all true lessons must be, in a world of which Christ is +King. These our religion must learn to recognise and proclaim, if it is +ever to win the respect of men of affairs, and “leaven the whole lump” +of human life with sacred influence. + +Such a lesson is the importance of the individual in the history of +nations. History, as read in Scripture, is indeed a long relation of +heroic resistance or of base compliance in the presence of influences +which are at work to debase modern peoples as well as those of old. The +holiness of Samuel, the gallant faith of David, the splendour and wisdom +of Solomon, the fervid zeal of Elijah, the self-respecting righteousness +of Nehemiah,—ignore these, and the whole course of affairs becomes +vague and unintelligible. Most of all this is true of Moses, whose +appearance is now related. + +In profane history it is the same. Alexander, Mahomet, Luther, William +the Silent, Napoleon,—will any one pretend that Europe uninfluenced by +these personalities would have become the Europe that we know? + +And this truth is not at all a speculative, unpractical theory: it is +vital. For now there is a fashion of speaking about the tendency of the +age, the time-spirit, as an irresistible force which moulds men like +potters’ clay, crowning those who discern and help it, but grinding to +powder all who resist its course. In reality there are always a hundred +time-spirits and tendencies competing for the mastery—some of them +violent, selfish, atheistic, or luxurious (as we see with our own eyes +to-day)—and the shrewdest judges are continually at fault as to which +of them is to be victorious, and recognised hereafter as the spirit of +the age. + +This modern pretence that men are nothing, and streams of tendency are +all, is plainly a gospel of capitulations, of falsehood to one’s private +convictions, and of servile obedience to the majority and the popular +cry. For, if individual men are nothing, what am I? If we are all +bubbles floating down a stream, it is folly to strive to breast the +current. Much practical baseness and servility is due to this base and +servile creed. And the cure for it is belief in another spirit than that +of the present age, trust in an inspiring God, who rescued a herd of +slaves and their fading convictions from the greatest nation upon earth +by matching one man, shrinking and reluctant yet obedient to his +mission, against Pharaoh and all the tendencies of the age. + +And it is always so. God turns the scale of events by the vast weight of +a man, faithful and true, and sufficiently aware of Him to refuse, to +universal clamour, the surrender of his liberty or his religion. In +small matters, as in great, there is no man, faithful to a lonely duty +or conviction, understanding that to have discerned it is a gift and a +vocation, but makes the world better and stronger, and works out part +of the answer to that great prayer “Thy will be done.” + +We have seen already that the religion of the Hebrews in Egypt was +corrupted and in danger of being lost. To this process, however, there +must have been bright exceptions; and the mother of Moses bore witness, +by her very name, to her fathers’ God. The first syllable of Jochebed is +proof that the name of God, which became the keynote of the new +revelation, was not entirely new. + +As yet the parents of Moses are not named; nor is there any allusion to +the close relationship which would have forbidden their union at a later +period (chap. vi. 20). And throughout all the story of his youth and +early manhood there is no mention whatever of God or of religion. +Elsewhere it is not so. The Epistle to the Hebrews declares that through +faith the babe was hidden, and through faith the man refused Egyptian +rank. Stephen tells us that he expected his brethren to know that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance. But the narrative in Exodus is +wholly untheological. If Moses were the author, we can see why he +avoided reflections which directly tended to glorify himself. But if the +story were a subsequent invention, why is the tone so cold, the light so +colourless? + +Now, it is well that we are invited to look at all these things from +their human side, observing the play of human affection, innocent +subtlety, and pity. God commonly works through the heart and brain which +He has given us, and we do not glorify Him at all by ignoring these. If +in this case there were visible a desire to suppress the human agents, +in favour of the Divine Preserver, we might suppose that a different +historian would have given a less wonderful account of the plagues, the +crossing of the Sea, and the revelation from Sinai. But since full +weight is allowed to second causes in the early life of Moses, the story +is entitled to the greater credit when it tells of the burning bush and +the flaming mountain. + +Let us, however, put together the various narratives and their lessons. +At the outset we read of a marriage celebrated between kinsfolk, when +the storm of persecution was rising. And hence we infer that courage or +strong affection made the parents worthy of him through whom God should +show mercy unto thousands. The first child was a girl, and therefore +safe; but we may suppose, although silence in Scripture proves little, +that Aaron, three years before the birth of Moses, had not come into +equal peril with him. Moses was therefore born just when the last +atrocity was devised, when trouble was at its height. + +“At this time Moses was born,” said Stephen. Edifying inferences have +been drawn from the statement in Exodus that “the woman ... hid him.” +Perhaps the stronger man quailed, but the maternal instinct was not at +fault, and it was rewarded abundantly. From which we only learn, in +reality, not to overstrain the words of Scripture; since the Epistle to +the Hebrews distinctly says that he “was hid three months by his +parents”—both of them, while naturally the mother is the active agent. + +All the accounts agree that he was thus hidden, “because they saw that +he was a goodly child” (Heb. xi. 23). It is a pathetic phrase. We see +them, before the crisis, vaguely submitting in theory to an unrealised +atrocity, ignorant how imperiously their nature would forbid the crime, +not planning disobedience in advance, nor led to it by any reasoning +process. All is changed when the little one gazes at them with that +marvellous appeal in its unconscious eyes, which is known to every +parent, and helps him to be a better man. There is a great difference +between one’s thought about an infant, and one’s feeling towards the +actual baby. He was their child, their beautiful child; and this it was +that turned the scale. For him they would now dare anything, “because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king’s +commandment.” Now, impulse is often a great power for evil, as when +appetite or fear, suddenly taking visible shape, overwhelms the judgment +and plunges men into guilt. But good impulses may be the very voice of +God, stirring whatever is noble and generous within us. Nor are they +accidental: loving and brave emotions belong to warm and courageous +hearts; they come of themselves, like song birds, but they come surely +where sunshine and still groves invite them, not into clamour and foul +air. Thus arose in their bosoms the sublime thought of God as an active +power to be reckoned upon. For as certainly as every bad passion that we +harbour preaches atheism, so does all goodness tend to sustain itself by +the consciousness of a supreme Goodness in reserve. God had sent them +their beautiful child, and who was Pharaoh to forbid the gift? And so +religion and natural pity joined hands, their supreme convictions and +their yearning for their infant. “By faith Moses was hid ... because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king’s +commandment.” + +Such, if we desire a real and actual salvation, is always the faith +which saves. Postpone salvation to an indefinite future; make it no more +than the escape from vaguely realised penalties for sins which do not +seem very hateful; and you may suppose that faith in theories can obtain +this indulgence; an opinion may weigh against a misgiving. But feel that +sin is not only likely to entail damnation, but is really and in itself +damnable meanwhile, and then there will be no deliverance possible, but +from the hand of a divine Friend, strong to sustain and willing to guide +the life. We read that Amram lived a hundred and thirty and seven years, +and of all that period we only know that he helped to save the deliverer +of his race, by practical faith which made him not afraid, and did not +paralyse but stimulate his energies. + +When the mother could no longer hide the child, she devised the plan +which has made her for ever famous. She placed him in a covered ark, or +casket,[3] plaited (after what we know to have been the Egyptian +fashion) of the papyrus reed, and rendered watertight with bitumen, and +this she laid among the rushes—a lower vegetation, which would not, +like the tall papyrus, hide her treasure—in the well-known and secluded +place where the daughter of Pharaoh used to bathe. Something in the +known character of the princess may have inspired this ingenious device +to move her pity; but it is more likely that the woman’s heart, in her +extremity, prompted a simple appeal to the woman who could help her if +she would. For an Egyptian princess was an important personage, with an +establishment of her own, and often possessed of much political +influence. The most sanguinary agent of a tyrant would be likely to +respect the client of such a patron. + +The heart of every woman was in a plot against the cruelty of Pharaoh. +Once already the midwives had defeated him; and now, when his own +daughter[4] unexpectedly found, in the water at her very feet, a +beautiful child sobbing silently (for she knew not what was there until +the ark was opened), her indignation is audible enough in the words, +“This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” She means to say “This is only +one specimen of the outrages that are going on.” + +This was the chance for his sister, who had been set in ambush, not +prepared with the exquisite device which follows, but simply “to know +what would be done to him.” Clearly the mother had reckoned upon his +being found, and neglected nothing, although unable herself to endure +the agony of watching, or less easily hidden in that guarded spot. And +her prudence had a rich reward. Hitherto Miriam’s duty had been to +remain passive—that hard task so often imposed upon the affection, +especially of women, by sick-beds, and also in many a more stirring +hazard, and many a spiritual crisis, where none can fight his brother’s +battle. It is a trying time, when love can only hold its breath, and +pray. But let not love suppose that to watch is to do nothing. Often +there comes a moment when its word, made wise by the teaching of the +heart, is the all-important consideration in deciding mighty issues. + +This girl sees the princess at once pitiful and embarrassed, for how can +she dispose of her strange charge? Let the moment pass, and the movement +of her heart subside, and all may be lost; but Miriam is prompt and +bold, and asks “Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, +that she may nurse the child for thee?” It is a daring stroke, for the +princess must have understood the position thoroughly, the moment the +eager Hebrew girl stepped forward. The disguise was very thin. And at +least the heart which pitied the infant must have known the mother when +she saw her face, pale with longing. It is therefore only as a form, +exacted by circumstances, but well enough though tacitly understood upon +both sides, that she bids her nurse the child for her, and promises +wages. What reward could equal that of clasping her child to her own +agitated bosom in safety, while the destroyers were around? + +This incident teaches us that good is never to be despaired of, since +this kindly woman grew up in the family of the persecutor. + +And the promptitude and success of Miriam suggest a reflection. Men do +pity, when it is brought home to them, the privation, suffering, and +wrong, which lie around. Magnificent sums are contributed yearly for +their relief by the generous instincts of the world. The misfortune is +that sentiment is evoked only by visible and pathetic griefs, and that +it will not labour as readily as it will subscribe. It is a harder task +to investigate, to devise appeals, to invent and work the machinery by +which misery may be relieved. Mere compassion will accomplish little, +unless painstaking affection supplement it. Who supplies that? Who +enables common humanity to relieve itself by simply paying “wages,” and +confiding the wretched to a painstaking, laborious, loving guardian? The +streets would never have known Hospital Saturday, but for Hospital +Sunday in the churches. The orphanage is wholly a Christian institution. +And so is the lady nurse. The old-fashioned phrase has almost sunk into +a party cry, but in a large and noble sense it will continue to be true +to nature as long as bereavement, pain or penitence requires a tender +bosom and soothing touch, which speaks of Mother Church. + +Thus did God fulfil His mysterious plans. And according to a sad but +noble law, which operates widely, what was best in Egypt worked with Him +for the punishment of its own evil race. The daughter of Pharaoh adopted +the perilous foundling, and educated him in the wisdom of Egypt. + + +_THE CHOICE OF MOSES._ + +ii. 11–15. + +God works even His miracles by means. As He fed the multitude with +barley-loaves, so He would emancipate Israel by human agency. It was +therefore necessary to educate one of the trampled race “in all the +learning of Egypt,” and Moses was planted in the court of Pharaoh, like +the German Arminius in Rome. Wonderful legends may be read in Josephus +of his heroism, his wisdom, and his victories; and these have some +foundation in reality, for Stephen tells us that he was mighty in his +words and works. Might in words need not mean the fluent utterance which +he so earnestly disclaimed (iv. 10), even if forty years’ disuse of the +language were not enough to explain his later diffidence. It may have +meant such power of composition as appears in the hymn by the Red Sea, +and in the magnificent valediction to his people. + +The point is that among a nation originally pastoral, and now sinking +fast into the degraded animalism of slaves, which afterwards betrayed +itself in their complaining greed, their sighs for the generous Egyptian +dietary, and their impure carouse under the mountain, one man should +possess the culture and mental grasp needed by a leader and lawgiver. +“Could not the grace of God have supplied the place of endowment and +attainment?” Yes, truly; and it was quite as likely to do this for one +who came down from His immediate presence with his face intolerably +bright, as for the last impudent enthusiast who declaims against the +need of education in sentences which at least prove that for him the +want has by no substitute been completely met. But the grace of God +chose to give the qualification, rather than replace it, alike to Moses +and St. Paul. Nor is there any conspicuous example among the saints of a +man being thrust into a rank for which he was not previously made fit. + +The painful contrast between his own refined tastes and habits, and the +coarser manners of his nation, was no doubt one difficulty of the choice +of Moses, and a lifelong trial to him afterwards. He is an example not +only to those whom wealth and power would entangle, but to any who are +too fastidious and sensitive for the humble company of the people of +God. + +While the intellect of Moses was developing, it is plain that his +connection with his family was not entirely broken. Such a tie as often +binds a foster-child to its nurse may have been permitted to associate +him with his real parents. Some means were evidently found to instruct +him in the history and messianic hopes of Israel, for he knew that their +reproach was that of “the Christ,” greater riches than all the treasure +of Egypt, and fraught with a reward for which he looked in faith (Heb. +xi. 26). But what is meant by naming as part of his burden their +“reproach,” as distinguished from their sufferings? + +We shall understand, if we reflect, that his open rupture with Egypt was +unlikely to be the work of a moment. Like all the best workers, he was +led forward gradually, at first unconscious of his vocation. Many a +protest he must have made against the cruel and unjust policy that +steeped the land in innocent blood. Many a jealous councillor must have +known how to weaken his dangerous influence by some cautious taunt, some +insinuated “reproach” of his own Hebrew origin. The warnings put by +Josephus into the lips of the priests in his childhood, were likely +enough to have been spoken by some one before he was forty years old. At +last, when driven to make his choice, he “refused to be called the son +of Pharaoh’s daughter,” a phrase, especially in its reference to the +rejected title as distinguished from “the pleasures of sin,” which seems +to imply a more formal rupture than Exodus records. + +We saw that the piety of his parents was not unhelped by their emotions: +they hid him by faith when they saw that he was a goodly child. Such was +also the faith by which Moses broke with rank and fortune. He went out +unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian +smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. Twice the word of kinship is +repeated; and Stephen tells us that Moses himself used it in rebuking +the dissensions of his fellow-countrymen. Filled with yearning and pity +for his trampled brethren, and with the shame of generous natures who +are at ease while others suffer, he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew. +With that blended caution and vehemence which belong to his nation +still, he looked and saw that there was no man, and slew the Egyptian. +Like most acts of passion, this was at once an impulse of the moment, +and an outcome of long gathering forces—just as the lightning flash, +sudden though it seem, has been prepared by the accumulated electricity +of weeks. + +And this is the reason why God allows the issues of a lifetime, perhaps +of an eternity, to be decided by a sudden word, a hasty blow. Men plead +that if time had been given, they would have stifled the impulse which +ruined them. But what gave the impulse such violent and dreadful force +that it overwhelmed them before they could reflect? The explosion in the +coal-mine is not caused by the sudden spark, without the accumulation of +dangerous gases, and the absence of such wholesome ventilation as would +carry them away. It is so in the breast where evil desires or tempers +are harboured, unsubdued by grace, until any accident puts them beyond +control. Thank God that such sudden movements do not belong to evil +only! A high soul is surprised into heroism, as often perhaps as a mean +one into theft or falsehood. In the case of Moses there was nothing +unworthy, but much that was unwarranted and presumptuous. The decision +it involved was on the right side, but the act was self-willed and +unwarranted, and it carried heavy penalties. “The trespass originated +not in inveterate cruelty,” says St. Augustine, “but in a hasty zeal +which admitted of correction ... resentment against injury was +accompanied by love for a brother.... Here was evil to be rooted out, +but the heart with such capabilities, like good soil, needed only +cultivation to make it fruitful in virtue.” + +Stephen tells us, what is very natural, that Moses expected the people +to accept him as their heaven-born deliverer. From which it appears that +he cherished high expectations for himself, from Israel if not from +Egypt. When he interfered next day between two Hebrews, his question as +given in Exodus is somewhat magisterial: “Wherefore smitest thou thy +fellow?” In Stephen’s version it dictates less, but it lectures a good +deal: “Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?” And it +was natural enough that they should dispute his pretensions, for God had +not yet given him the rank he claimed. He still needed a discipline +almost as sharp as that of Joseph, who, by talking too boastfully of his +dreams, postponed their fulfilment until he was chastened by slavery and +a dungeon. Even Saul of Tarsus, when converted, needed three years of +close seclusion for the transformation of his fiery ardour into divine +zeal, as iron to be tempered must be chilled as well as heated. The +precipitate and violent zeal of Moses entailed upon him forty years of +exile. + +And yet his was a noble patriotism. There is a false love of country, +born of pride, which blinds one to her faults; and there is a loftier +passion which will brave estrangement and denunciation to correct them. +Such was the patriotism of Moses, and of all whom God has ever truly +called to lead their fellows. Nevertheless he had to suffer for his +error. + +His first act had been a kind of manifesto, a claim to lead, which he +supposed that they would have understood; and yet, when he found his +deed was known, he feared and fled. His false step told against him. One +cannot but infer also that he was conscious of having already forfeited +court favour—that he had before this not only made his choice, but +announced it, and knew that the blow was ready to fall on him at any +provocation. We read that he dwelt in the land of Midian, a name which +was applied to various tracts according to the nomadic wanderings of the +tribe, but which plainly included, at this time, some part of the +peninsula formed by the tongues of the Red Sea. For, as he fed his +flocks, he came to the Mount of God. + + +_MOSES IN MIDIAN._ + +ii. 16–22 + +The interference of Moses on behalf of the daughters of the priest of +Midian is a pleasant trait, courteous, and expressive of a refined +nature. With this remark, and reflecting that, like many courtesies, it +brought its reward, we are often content to pass it by. And yet it +deserves a closer examination. + +1. For it expresses great energy of character. He might well have been +in a state of collapse. He had smitten the Egyptian for Israel’s sake: +he had appealed to his own people to make common cause, like brethren, +against the common foe; and he had offered himself to them as their +destined leader in the struggle. But they had refused him the command, +and he was rudely awakened to the consciousness that his life was in +danger through the garrulous ingratitude of the man he rescued. Now he +was a ruined man and an exile, marked for destruction by the greatest of +earthly monarchs, with the habits and tastes of a great noble, but +homeless among wild races. + +It was no common nature which was alert and energetic at such a time. +The greatest men have known a period of prostration in calamity: it was +enough for honour that they should rally and re-collect their forces. +Thinking of Frederick, after Kunersdorf, resigning the command (“I have +no resources more, and will not survive the destruction of my country”), +and of his subsequent despatch, “I am now recovered from my illness”; +and of Napoleon, trembling and weeping on the road to Elba, one turns +with fresh admiration to the fallen prince, the baffled liberator, +sitting exhausted by the well, but as keen on behalf of liberty as when +Pharaoh trampled Israel, though now the oppressors are a group of rude +herdsmen, and the oppressed are Midianite women, driven from the troughs +which they have toiled to fill. One remembers Another, sitting also +exhausted by the well, defying social usage on behalf of a despised +woman, and thereby inspired and invigorated as with meat to eat which +His followers knew not of. + +2. Moreover there is disinterested bravery in the act, since he hazards +the opposition of the men of the land, among whom he seeks refuge, on +behalf of a group from which he can have expected nothing. And here it +is worth while to notice the characteristic variations in three stories +which have certain points of contact. The servant of Abraham, +servant-like, was well content that Rebekah should draw for all his +camels, while he stood still. The prudent Jacob, anxious to introduce +himself to his cousin, rolled away the stone and watered her camels. +Moses sat by the well, but did not interfere while the troughs were +being filled: it was only the overt wrong which kindled him. But as in +great things, so it is in small: our actions never stand alone; having +once befriended them, he will do it thoroughly, “and moreover he drew +water for us, and watered the flock.” Such details could hardly have +been thought out by a fabricator; a legend would not have allowed Moses +to be slower in courtesy than Jacob;[5] but the story fits the case +exactly: his eyes were with his heart, and that was far away, until the +injustice of the shepherds roused him. + +And why was Moses thus energetic, fearless, and chivalrous? Because he +was sustained by the presence of the Unseen: he endured as seeing Him +who is invisible; and having, despite of panic, by faith forsaken Egypt, +he was free from the absorbing anxieties which prevent men from caring +for their fellows, free also from the cynical misgivings which suspect +that violence is more than justice, that to be righteous over-much is to +destroy oneself, and that perhaps, after all, one may see a good deal of +wrong without being called upon to interfere. It would be a different +world to-day, if all who claim to be “the salt of the earth” were as +eager to repress injustice in its smaller and meaner forms as to make +money or influential friends. If all petty and cowardly oppression were +sternly trodden down, we should soon have a state of public opinion in +which gross and large tyranny would be almost impossible. And it is very +doubtful whether the flagrant wrongs, which must be comparatively rare, +cause as much real mental suffering as the frequent small ones. Does +mankind suffer more from wild beasts than from insects? But how few that +aspire to emancipate oppressed nations would be content, in the hour of +their overthrow, to assert the rights of a handful of women against a +trifling fraud, to which indeed they were so well accustomed that its +omission surprised their father! + +Is it only because we are reading a history, and not a biography, that +we find no touch of tenderness, like the love of Jacob for Rachel, in +the domestic relations of Moses? + +Joseph also married in a strange land, yet he called the name of his +first son Manasseh, because God had made him to forget his sorrows: but +Moses remembered his. Neither wife nor child could charm away his home +sickness; he called his firstborn Gershom, because he was a sojourner in +a strange land. In truth, his whole life seems to have been a lonely +one. Miriam is called “the sister of Aaron” even when joining in the +song of Moses (xv. 20), and with Aaron she made common cause against +their greater brother (Num. xii. 1–2). Zipporah endangered his life +rather than obey the covenant of circumcision; she complied at last with +a taunt (iv. 24–6), and did not again join him until his victory over +Amalek raised his position to the utmost height (xviii. 2). + +His children are of no account, and his grandson is the founder of a +dangerous and enduring schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +There is much reason to see here the earliest example of the sad rule +that a prophet is not without honour save in his own house; that the law +of compensations reaches farther into life than men suppose; and high +position and great powers are too often counterbalanced by the isolation +of the heart. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] The same word is used for Noah’s ark, but not elsewhere; not, +for example, of the ark in the Temple, the name of which occurs +elsewhere in Scripture only of the “coffin” of Joseph, and +the “chest” for the Temple revenues (Gen. 1. 26; 2 Chron. +xxiv. 8, 10, 11.) + +[4] Or his sister, the daughter of a former Pharaoh. + +[5] Nor would it have made the women call their deliverer “an +Egyptian,” for the Hebrew cast of features is very dissimilar. But +Moses wore Egyptian dress, and the Egyptians worked mines in the +peninsula, so that he was naturally taken for one of them. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +_THE BURNING BUSH._ + +ii. 23–iii. + +“In process of time the king of Egypt died,” probably the great Raamses, +no other of whose dynasty had a reign which extended over the indicated +period of time. If so, he had while living every reason to expect an +immortal fame, as the greatest among Egyptian kings, a hero, a conqueror +on three continents, a builder of magnificent works. But he has only won +an immortal notoriety. “Every stone in his buildings was cemented in +human blood.” The cause he persecuted has made deathless the banished +refugee, and has gibbeted the great monarch as a tyrant, whose +misplanned severities wrought the ruin of his successor and his army. +Such are the reversals of popular judgment: and such the vanity of fame. +For all the contemporary fame was his. + +“The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they +cried.” Another monarch had come at last, a change after sixty-seven +years, and yet no change for them! It filled up the measure of their +patience, and also of the iniquity of Egypt. We are not told that their +cry was addressed to the Lord; what we read is that it reached Him, Who +still overhears and pities many a sob, many a lament, which ought to +have been addressed to Him, and is not. Indeed, if His compassion were +not to reach men until they had remembered and prayed to Him, who among +us would ever have learned to pray to Him at all? Moreover He remembered +His covenant with their forefathers, for the fulfilment of which the +time had now arrived. “And God saw the children of Israel, and God took +knowledge of them.” + +These were not the cries of religious individuals, but of oppressed +masses. It is therefore a solemn question to ask How many such appeals +ascend from Christian England? Behold, the hire of labourers ... held +back by fraud crieth out. The half-paid slaves of our haste to be rich, +and the victims of our drinking institutions, and of hideous vices which +entangle and destroy the innocent and unconscious, what cries to heaven +are theirs! As surely as those which St. James records, these have +entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Of these sufferers every +one is His own by purchase, most of them by a covenant and sacrament +more solemn than bound Him to His ancient Israel. Surely He hears their +groaning. And all whose hearts are touched with compassion, yet who +hesitate whether to bestir themselves or to remain inert while evil is +masterful and cruel, should remember the anger of God when Moses said, +“Send, I pray Thee, by whom Thou wilt send.” The Lord is not +indifferent. Much less than other sufferers should those who know God be +terrified by their afflictions. Cyprian encouraged the Church of his +time to endure even unto martyrdom, by the words recorded of ancient +Israel, that the more they afflicted them, so much the more they became +greater and waxed stronger. And he was right. For all these things +happened to them for ensamples, and were written for our admonition. + +It is further to be observed that the people were quite unconscious, +until Moses announced it afterwards, that they were heard by God. Yet +their deliverer had now been prepared by a long process for his work. We +are not to despair because relief does not immediately appear: though He +tarry, we are to wait for Him. + +While this anguish was being endured in Egypt, Moses was maturing for +his destiny. Self-reliance, pride of place, hot and impulsive +aggressiveness, were dying in his bosom. To the education of the +courtier and scholar was now added that of the shepherd in the wilds, +amid the most solemn and awful scenes of nature, in solitude, +humiliation, disappointment, and, as we learn from the Epistle to the +Hebrews, in enduring faith. Wordsworth has a remarkable description of +the effect of a similar discipline upon the good Lord Clifford. He +tells— + + “How he, long forced in humble paths to go, + Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed. + + “Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, + His daily teachers had been woods and rills, + The silence that is in the starry sky, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + + “In him the savage virtues of the race, + Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead; + Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place + The wisdom which adversity had bred.” + +There was also the education of advancing age, which teaches many +lessons, and among them two which are essential to leadership,—the +folly of a hasty blow, and of impulsive reliance upon the support of +mobs. Moses the man-slayer became exceeding meek; and he ceased to rely +upon the perception of his people that God by him would deliver them. +His distrust, indeed, became as excessive as his temerity had been, but +it was an error upon the safer side. “Behold, they will not believe me,” +he says, “nor hearken unto my voice.” + +It is an important truth that in very few lives the decisive moment +comes just when it is expected. Men allow themselves to be +self-indulgent, extravagant and even wicked, often upon the calculation +that their present attitude matters little, and they will do very +differently when the crisis arrives, the turning-point in their career +to nerve them. And they waken up with a start to find their career +already decided, their character moulded. As a snare shall the day of +the Lord come upon all flesh; and as a snare come all His great +visitations meanwhile. When Herod was drinking among bad companions, +admiring a shameless dancer, and boasting loudly of his generosity, he +was sobered and saddened to discover that he had laughed away the life +of his only honest adviser. Moses, like David, was “following the ewes +great with young,” when summoned by God to rule His people Israel. +Neither did the call arrive when he was plunged in moody reverie and +abstraction, sighing over his lost fortunes and his defeated +aspirations, rebelling against his lowly duties. The humblest labour is +a preparation for the brightest revelations, whereas discontent, however +lofty, is a preparation for nothing. Thus, too, the birth of Jesus was +first announced to shepherds keeping watch over their flock. Yet +hundreds of third-rate young persons in every city in this land to-day +neglect their work, and unfit themselves for any insight, or any +leadership whatever, by chafing against the obscurity of their +vocation. + +Who does not perceive that the career of Moses hitherto was divinely +directed? The fact that we feel this, although, until now, God has not +once been mentioned in his personal story, is surely a fine lesson for +those who have only one notion of what edifies—the dragging of the most +sacred names and phrases into even the most unsuitable connections. In +truth, such a phraseology is much less attractive than a certain tone, a +recognition of the unseen, which may at times be more consistent with +reverential silence than with obtrusive utterance. It is enough to be +ready and fearless when the fitting time comes, which is sure to arrive, +for the religious heart as for this narrative—the time for the natural +utterance of the great word, God. + +We read that the angel of the Lord appeared to him—a remarkable phrase, +which was already used in connection with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. +xxii. 11). How much it implies will better be discussed in the +twenty-third chapter, where a fuller statement is made. For the present +it is enough to note, that this is one pre-eminent angel, indicated by +the definite article; that he is clearly the medium of a true divine +appearance, because neither the voice nor form of any lesser being is +supposed to be employed, the appearance being that of fire, and the +words being said to be the direct utterance of the Lord, not of any one +who says, Thus saith the Lord. We shall see hereafter that the story of +the Exodus is unique in this respect, that in training a people tainted +with Egyptian superstitions, no ‘similitude’ is seen, as when there +wrestled a man with Jacob, or when Ezekiel saw a human form upon the +sapphire pavement. + +Man is the true image of God, and His perfect revelation was in flesh. +But now that expression of Himself was perilous, and perhaps unsuitable +besides; for He was to be known as the Avenger, and presently as the +Giver of Law, with its inflexible conditions and its menaces. Therefore +He appeared as fire, which is intense and terrible, even when “the flame +of the grace of God does not consume, but illuminates.” + +There is a notion that religion is languid, repressive, and unmanly. But +such is not the scriptural idea. In His presence is the fulness of joy. +Christ has come that we might have life, and might have it more +abundantly. They who are shut out from His blessedness are said to be +asleep and dead. And so Origen quotes this passage among others, with +the comment that “As God is a fire, and His angels a flame of fire, and +all the saints fervent in spirit, so they who have fallen away from God +are said to have cooled, or to have become cold” (_De Princip._, ii. 8). +A revelation by fire involves intensity. + +There is indeed another explanation of the burning bush, which makes the +flame express only the afflictions that did not consume the people. But +this would be a strange adjunct to a divine appearance for their +deliverance, speaking rather of the continuance of suffering than of its +termination, for which the extinction of such fire would be a more +appropriate symbol. + +Yet there is an element of truth even in this view, since fire is +connected with affliction. In His holiness God is light (with which, in +the Hebrew, the very word for holiness seems to be connected); in His +judgments He is fire. “The Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his +Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his +briers in one day” (Isa. x. 17). But God reveals Himself in this thorn +bush as a fire which does not consume; and such a revelation tells at +once Who has brought the people into affliction, and also that they are +not abandoned to it. + +To Moses at first there was visible only an extraordinary phenomenon; He +turned to see a great sight. It is therefore out of the question to find +here the truth, so easy to discover elsewhere, that God rewards the +religious inquirer—that they who seek after Him shall find Him. Rather +we learn the folly of deeming that the intellect and its inquiries are +at war with religion and its mysteries, that revelation is at strife +with mental insight, that he who most stupidly refuses to “see the great +sights” of nature is best entitled to interpret the voice of God. When +the man of science gives ear to voices not of earth, and the man of God +has eyes and interest for the divine wonders which surround us, many a +discord will be harmonised. With the revival of classical learning came +the Reformation. + +But it often happens that the curiosity of the intellect is in danger of +becoming irreverent, and obtrusive into mysteries not of the brain, and +thus the voice of God must speak in solemn warning: “Moses, Moses, ... +Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place +whereon thou standest is holy ground.” + +After as prolonged a silence as from the time of Malachi to the Baptist, +it is God Who reveals Himself once more—not Moses who by searching +finds Him out. And this is the established rule. Tidings of the +Incarnation came from heaven, or man would not have discovered the +Divine Babe. Jesus asked His two first disciples “What seek ye?” and +told Simon “Thou shalt be called Cephas,” and pronounced the listening +Nathaniel “an Israelite indeed,” and bade Zaccheus “make haste and come +down,” in each case before He was addressed by them. + +The first words of Jehovah teach something more than ceremonial +reverence. If the dust of common earth on the shoe of Moses may not +mingle with that sacred soil, how dare we carry into the presence of our +God mean passions and selfish cravings? Observe, too, that while Jacob, +when he awoke from his vision, said, “How dreadful is this place!” (Gen. +xxviii. 17), God Himself taught Moses to think rather of the holiness +than the dread of His abode. Nevertheless Moses also was afraid to look +upon God, and hid the face which was thereafter to be veiled, for a +nobler reason, when it was itself illumined with the divine glory. +Humility before God is thus the path to the highest honour, and +reverence, to the closest intercourse. + +Meantime the Divine Person has announced Himself: “I am the God of thy +father” (father is apparently singular with a collective force), “the +God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” It is a +blessing which every Christian parent should bequeath to his child, to +be strengthened and invigorated by thinking of God as his father’s God. + +It was with this memorable announcement that Jesus refuted the Sadducees +and established His doctrine of the resurrection. So, then, the bygone +ages are not forgotten: Moses may be sure that a kindly relation exists +between God and himself, because the kindly relation still exists in all +its vital force which once bound Him to those who long since appeared to +die. It was impossible, therefore, our Lord inferred, that they had +really died at all. The argument is a forerunner of that by which St. +Paul concludes, from the resurrection of Christ, that none who are “in +Christ” have perished. Nay, since our Lord was not disputing about +immortality only, but the resurrection of the body, His argument implied +that a vital relationship with God involved the imperishability of the +whole man, since all was His, and in truth the very seal of the covenant +was imprinted upon the flesh. How much stronger is the assurance for us, +who know that our very bodies are His temple! Now, if any suspicion +should arise that the argument, which is really subtle, is over-refined +and untrustworthy, let it be observed that no sooner was this +announcement made, than God added the proclamation of His own +immutability, so that it cannot be said He was, but from age to age His +title is I AM. The inference from the divine permanence to the living +and permanent vitality of all His relationships is not a verbal quibble, +it is drawn from the very central truth of this great scripture. + +And now for the first time God calls Israel My people, adopting a phrase +already twice employed by earthly rulers (Gen. xxiii. 11, xli. 40), and +thus making Himself their king and the champion of their cause. Often +afterwards it was used in pathetic appeal:—“Thou hast showed Thy people +hard things,”—“Thou sellest Thy people for nought,”—“Behold, look, we +beseech Thee; we are all Thy people” (Ps. lx. 3, xliv. 12; Isa. lxiv. +9). And often it expressed the returning favour of their king: “Hear, O +My people, and I will speak”; “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people” (Ps. l. +7; Isa. xl. 1). + +It is used of the nation at large, all of whom were brought into the +covenant, although with many of them God was not well pleased. And since +it does not belong only to saints, but speaks of a grace which might be +received in vain, it is a strong appeal to all Christian people, all who +are within the New Covenant. Them also the Lord claims and pities, and +would gladly emancipate: their sorrows also He knows. “I have surely +seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard +their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and +I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to +bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land +flowing with milk and honey.” Thus the ways of God exceed the desires of +men. Their subsequent complaints are evidence that Egypt had become +their country: gladly would they have shaken off the iron yoke, but a +successful rebellion is a revolution, not an Exodus. Their destined home +was very different: with the widest variety of climate, scenery, and +soil, a land which demanded much more regular husbandry, but rewarded +labour with exuberant fertility. Secluded from heathenism by deserts on +the south and east, by a sublime range of mountains on the north, and by +a sea with few havens on the west, yet planted in the very bosom of all +the ancient civilisation which at the last it was to leaven, it was a +land where a faithful people could have dwelt alone and not been +reckoned among the nations, yet where the scourge for disobedience was +never far away. + +Next after the promise of this good land, the commission of Moses is +announced. He is to act, because God is already active: “_I_ am come +down to deliver them ... come now, therefore, and I will send _thee_ +unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people.” And let this +truth encourage all who are truly sent of God, to the end of time, that +He does not send us to deliver man, until He is Himself prepared to do +so, that when our fears ask, like Moses, Who am I, that I should go? He +does not answer, Thou art capable, but Certainly I will go with thee. +So, wherever the ministry of the word is sent, there is a true purpose +of grace. There is also the presence of One who claims the right to +bestow upon us the same encouragement which was given to Moses by +Jehovah, saying, “Lo, I am with you alway.” In so saying, Jesus made +Himself equal with God. + +And as this ancient revelation of God was to give rest to a weary and +heavy-laden people, so Christ bound together the assertion of a more +perfect revelation, made in Him, with the promise of a grander +emancipation. No man knoweth the Father save by revelation of the Son is +the doctrine which introduces the great offer “Come unto Me, all ye that +labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. xi. 27, +28). The claims of Christ in the New Testament will never be fully +recognised until a careful study is made of His treatment of the +functions which in the Old Testament are regarded as Divine. A curious +expression follows: “This shall be a token unto thee that I have sent +thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall +serve God upon this mountain.” It seems but vague encouragement, to +offer Moses, hesitating at the moment, a token which could take effect +only when his task was wrought. And yet we know how much easier it is to +believe what is thrown into distinct shape and particularised. Our trust +in good intentions is helped when their expression is detailed and +circumstantial, as a candidate for office will reckon all general +assurances of support much cheaper than a pledge to canvass certain +electors within a certain time. Such is the constitution of human +nature; and its Maker has often deigned to sustain its weakness by going +thus into particulars. He does the same for us, condescending to embody +the most profound of all mysteries in sacramental emblems, clothing his +promises of our future blessedness in much detail, and in concrete +figures which at least symbolise, if they do not literally describe, the +glories of the Jerusalem which is above. + + +_A NEW NAME._ + +iii. 14. vi. 2, 3. + + “God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou + say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” + +We cannot certainly tell why Moses asked for a new name by which to +announce to his brethren the appearance of God. He may have felt that +the memory of their fathers, and of the dealings of God with them, had +faded so far out of mind that merely to indicate their ancestral God +would not sufficiently distinguish Him from the idols of Egypt, whose +worship had infected them. + +If so, he was fully answered by a name which made this God the one +reality, in a world where all is a phantasm except what derives +stability from Him. + +He may have desired to know, for himself, whether there was any truth in +the dreamy and fascinating pantheism which inspired so much of the +Egyptian superstition. + +In that case, the answer met his question by declaring that God existed, +not as the sum of things or soul of the universe, but in Himself, the +only independent Being. + +Or he may simply have desired some name to express more of the mystery +of deity, remembering how a change of name had accompanied new +discoveries of human character and achievement, as of Abraham and +Israel; and expecting a new name likewise when God would make to His +people new revelations of Himself. + +So natural an expectation was fulfilled not only then, but afterwards. +When Moses prayed “Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory,” the answer was “I +will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name +of the Lord.” The proclamation was again Jehovah, but not this alone. It +was “The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to +anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth” (xxxiii. 18, 19, xxxiv. 6, +R.V.) Thus the life of Moses, like the agelong progress of the Church, +advanced towards an ever-deepening knowledge that God is not only the +Independent but the Good. All sets toward the final knowledge that His +highest name is Love. + +Meanwhile, in the development of events, the exact period was come for +epithets, which were shared with gods many and lords many, to be +supplemented by the formal announcement and authoritative adoption of +His proper name Jehovah. The infant nation was to learn to think of Him, +not only as endowed with attributes of terror and power, by which +enemies would be crushed, but as possessing a certain well-defined +personality, upon which the trust of man could repose. Soon their +experience would enable them to receive the formal announcement that He +was merciful and gracious. But first they were required to trust His +promise amid all discouragements; and to this end, stability was the +attribute first to be insisted upon. + +It is true that the derivation of the word Jehovah is still a problem +for critical acumen. It has been sought in more than one language, and +various shades of meaning have been assigned to it, some untenable in +the abstract, others hardly, or not at all, to be reconciled with the +Scriptural narrative. + +Nay, the corruption of the very sound is so notorious, that it is only +worth mention as illustrating a phase of superstition. + +We smile at the Jews, removing the correct vowels lest so holy a word +should be irreverently spoken, placing the sanctity in the cadence, +hoping that light and flippant allusions may offend God less, so long as +they spare at least the vowels of His name, and thus preserve some +vestige undesecrated, while profaning at once the conception of His +majesty and the consonants of the mystic word. + +A more abject superstition could scarcely have made void the spirit, +while grovelling before the letter of the commandment. + +But this very superstition is alive in other forms to-day. Whenever one +recoils from the sin of coarse blasphemy, yet allows himself the +enjoyment of a polished literature which profanes holy +conceptions,—whenever men feel bound to behave with external propriety +in the house of God, yet bring thither wandering thoughts, vile +appetites, sensuous imaginations, and all the chamber of imagery which +is within the unregenerate heart,—there is the same despicable +superstition which strove to escape at least the extreme of blasphemy by +prudently veiling the Holy Name before profaning it. + +But our present concern is with the practical message conveyed to Israel +when Moses declared that Jehovah, I AM, the God of their fathers, had +appeared unto him. And if we find in it a message suited for the time, +and which is the basis, not the superstructure, both of later messages +and also of the national character, then we shall not fail to observe +the bearing of such facts upon an urgent controversy of this time. + +Some significance must have been in that Name, not too abstract for a +servile and degenerate race to apprehend. Nor was it soon to pass away +and be replaced; it was His memorial throughout all generations; and +therefore it has a message for us to-day, to admonish and humble, to +invigorate and uphold. + +That God would be the same to them as to their fathers was much. But +that it was of the essence of His character to be evermore the same, +immutable in heart and mind and reality of being, however their conduct +might modify His bearing towards them, this indeed would be a steadying +and reclaiming consciousness. + +Accordingly Moses receives the answer for himself, “I AM THAT I AM”; and +he is bidden to tell his people “_I am_ hath sent me unto you,” and yet +again “JEHOVAH the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you.” The +spirit and tenor of these three names may be said to be virtually +comprehended in the first; and they all speak of the essential and +self-existent Being, unchanging and unchangeable. + +I AM expresses an intense reality of being. No image in the dark +recesses of Egyptian or Syrian temples, grotesque and motionless, can +win the adoration of him who has had communion with such a veritable +existence, or has heard His authentic message. No dreamful pantheism, on +its knees to the beneficent principle expressed in one deity, to the +destructive in another, or to the reproductive in a third, but all of +them dependent upon nature, as the rainbow upon the cataract which it +spans, can ever again satisfy the soul which is athirst for the living +God, the Lord, Who is not personified, but IS. + +This profound sense of a living Person within reach, to be offended, to +pardon, and to bless, was the one force which kept the Hebrew nation +itself alive, with a vitality unprecedented since the world began. They +could crave His pardon, whatever natural retributions they had brought +down upon themselves, whatever tendencies of nature they had provoked, +because He was not a dead law without ears or a heart, but their +merciful and gracious God. + +Not the most exquisite subtleties of innuendo and irony could make good +for a day the monstrous paradox that the Hebrew religion, the worship of +I AM, was really nothing but the adoration of that stream of tendencies +which makes for righteousness. + +Israel did not challenge Pharaoh through having suddenly discovered that +goodness ultimately prevails over evil, nor is it any cold calculation +of the sort which ever inspires a nation or a man with heroic fortitude. +But they were nerved by the announcement that they had been remembered +by a God Who is neither an ideal nor a fancy, but the Reality of +realities, beside Whom Pharaoh and his host were but as phantoms. + +I AM THAT I AM is the style not only of permanence, but of permanence +self-contained, and being a distinctive title, it denies such +self-contained permanence to others. + +Man is as the past has moulded him, a compound of attainments and +failures, discoveries and disillusions, his eyes dim with forgotten +tears, his hair grey with surmounted anxieties, his brow furrowed with +bygone studies, his conscience troubled with old sin. Modern unbelief +is ignobly frank respecting him. He is the sum of his parents and his +wet-nurse. He is what he eats. If he drinks beer, he thinks beer. And it +is the element of truth in these hideous paradoxes which makes them +rankle, like an unkind construction put upon a questionable action. As +the foam is what wind and tide have made of it, so are we the product of +our circumstances, the resultant of a thousand forces, far indeed from +being self-poised or self-contained, too often false to our best self, +insomuch that probably no man is actually what in the depth of +self-consciousness he feels himself to be, what moreover he should prove +to be, if only the leaden weight of constraining circumstance were +lifted off the spring which it flattens down to earth. Moses himself was +at heart a very different person from the keeper of the sheep of Jethro. +Therefore man says, Pity and make allowance for me: this is not my true +self, but only what by compression, by starvation and stripes and +bribery and error, I have become. Only God says, I AM THAT I AM. + +Yet in another sense, and quite as deep a one, man is not the coarse +tissue which past circumstances have woven: he is the seed of the +future, as truly as the fruit of the past. Strange compound that he is +of memory and hope, while half of the present depends on what is over, +the other half is projected into the future; and like a bridge, +sustained on these two banks, life throws its quivering shadow on each +moment that fleets by. It is not attainment, but degradation to live +upon the level of one’s mere attainment, no longer uplifted by any +aspiration, fired by any emulation, goaded by any but carnal fears. If +we have been shaped by circumstances, yet we are saved by hope. Do not +judge me, we are all entitled to plead, by anything that I am doing or +have done: He only can appraise a soul a right Who knows what it yearns +to become, what within itself it hates and prays to be delivered from, +what is the earnestness of its self-loathing, what the passion of its +appeal to heaven. As the bloom of next April is the true comment upon +the dry bulb of September, as you do not value the fountain by the pint +of water in its basin, but by its inexhaustible capabilities of +replenishment, so the present and its joyless facts are not the true +man; his possibilities, the fears and hopes that control his destiny and +shall unfold it, these are his real self. + +I am not merely what I am: I am very truly that which I long to be. And +thus, man may plead, I am what I move towards and strive after, my +aspiration is myself. But God says, I AM WHAT I AM. The stream hurries +forward: the rock abides. And this is the Rock of Ages. + +Now, such a conception is at first sight not far removed from that +apathetic and impassive kind of deity which the practical atheism of +ancient materialists could well afford to grant;—“ever in itself +enjoying immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and +withdrawn from our concerns, since it, exempt from every pain, exempt +from all danger, strong in its own resources and wanting nought from us, +is neither gained by favour nor moved by wrath.” + +Thus Lucretius conceived of the absolute Being as by the necessity of +its nature entirely outside our system. + +But Moses was taught to trust in Jehovah as intervening, pitying sorrow +and wrong, coming down to assist His creatures in distress. + +How could this be possible? Clearly the movement towards them must be +wholly disinterested, and wholly from within; unbought, since no +external influence can modify His condition, no puny sacrifice can +propitiate Him Who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the +inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: a movement prompted by no +irregular emotional impulse, but an abiding law of His nature, incapable +of change, the movement of a nature, personal indeed, yet as steady, as +surely to be reckoned upon in like circumstances, as the operations of +gravitation are. + +There is no such motive, working in such magnificent regularity for +good, save one. The ultimate doctrine of the New Testament, that God is +Love, is already involved in this early assertion, that being wholly +independent of us and our concerns, He is yet not indifferent to them, +so that Moses could say unto the children of Israel “I AM hath sent me +unto you.” + +It is this unchangeable consistency of Divine action which gives the +narrative its intense interest to us. To Moses, and therefore to all who +receive any commission from the skies, this title said, Frail creature, +sport of circumstances and of tyrants, He who commissions thee sits +above the waterfloods, and their rage can as little modify or change His +purpose, now committed to thy charge, as the spray can quench the stars. +Perplexed creature, whose best self lives only in aspiration and desire, +now thou art an instrument in the hand of Him with Whom desire and +attainment, will and fruition, are eternally the same. None truly fails +in fighting for Jehovah, for who hath resisted His will? + +To Israel, and to all the oppressed whose minds are open to receive the +tidings and their faith strong to embrace it, He said, Your life is +blighted, and your future is in the hand of taskmasters, yet be of good +cheer, for now your deliverance is undertaken by Him Whose being and +purpose are one, Who _is_ in perfection of enjoyment all that He _is_ in +contemplation and in will. The rescue of Israel by an immutable and +perfect God is the earnest of the breaking of every yoke. + +And to the proud and godless world which knows Him not, He says, +Resistance to My will can only show forth all its power, which is not at +the mercy of opinion or interest or change: I sit upon the throne, not +only supreme but independent, not only victorious but unassailable; +self-contained, self-poised and self-sufficing, I AM THAT I AM. + +Have we now escaped the inert and self-absorbed deity of Lucretius, only +to fall into the palsying grasp of the tyrannous deity of Calvin? Does +our own human will shrivel up and become powerless under the compulsion +of that immutability with which we are strangely brought into contact? + +Evidently this is not the teaching of the Book of Exodus. For it is +here, in this revelation of the Supreme, that we first hear of a nation +as being His: “I have seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt +... and I have come down to bring them into a good land.” They were all +baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Yet their carcases fell +in the wilderness. And these things were written for our learning. The +immutability, which suffers no shock when we enter _into_ the covenant, +remains unshaken also if we depart from the living God. The sun shines +alike when we raise the curtain and when we drop it, when our chamber is +illumined and when it is dark. The immutability of God is not in His +operations, for sometimes He gave His people into the hand of their +enemies, and again He turned and helped them. It is in His nature, His +mind, in the principles which guide His actions. If He had not chastened +David for his sin, then, by acting as before, He would have been other +at heart than when He rejected Saul for disobedience and chose the son +of Jesse to fulfil all His word. The wind has veered, if it continues to +propel the vessel in the same direction, although helm and sails are +shifted. + +Such is the Pauline doctrine of His immutability. “If we endure we shall +also reign with Him: if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us,”—and +such is the necessity of His being, for we cannot sway Him with our +changes: “if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny +Himself.” And therefore it is presently added that “the firm foundation +of the Lord standeth sure, having” not only “this seal, that the Lord +knoweth those that are His,”—but also this, “Let every one that nameth +the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness” (2 Tim. ii. 12, 13, +19, R.V.). + +The Lord knew that Israel was His, yet for their unrighteousness He +sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest. + +It follows from all this that the new name of God was no academic +subtlety, no metaphysical refinement of the schools, unfitly revealed to +slaves, but a most practical and inspiring truth, a conviction to warm +their blood, to rouse their courage, to convert their despair into +confidence and their alarms into defiance. + +They had the support of a God worthy of trust. And thenceforth every +answer in righteousness, every new disclosure of fidelity, tenderness, +love, was not an abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of a +capricious despot; no, its import was permanent as an observation of the +stars by an astronomer, ever more to be remembered in calculating the +movements of the universe. + +In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient +days, as being He who “cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon.” “I am the +Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” + +And as the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God +was built up slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation +which insured the the stability of all, until the Head Stone of the +Corner gave completeness to the vast design, until men saw and could +believe in the very Incarnation of all Love, unshaken amid anguish and +distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious, while they heard +from human lips the awful words, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they +learned to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new +and more pathetic revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake +grew strong as he remembered that the Man of Sorrows was the same +yesterday and to-day and for ever; and the great apostle, prostrate +before the glory of his Master, was restored by the touch of a human +hand, and by the voice of Him upon Whose bosom he had leaned, saying, +Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One. + +And if men are once more fain to rend from humanity that great +assurance, which for ages, amid all shocks, has made the frail creature +of the dust to grow strong and firm and fearless, partaker of the Divine +Nature, what will they give us in its stead? Or do they think us too +strong of will, too firm of purpose? Looking around us, we see nations +heaving with internal agitations, armed to the teeth against each +other, and all things like a ship at sea reeling to and fro, and +staggering like a drunken man. There is no stability for us in +constitutions or old formulæ—none anywhere, if it be not in the soul of +man. Well for us, then, that the anchor of the soul is sure and +steadfast! well that unnumbered millions take courage from their +Saviour’s word, that the world’s worst anguish is the beginning, not of +dissolution, but of the birth-pangs of a new heaven and earth,—that +when the clouds are blackest because the light of sun and moon is +quenched, then, then we shall behold the Immutable unveiled, the Son of +Man, who is brought nigh unto the Ancient of Days, now sitting in the +clouds of heaven, and coming in the glory of His Father! + + +_THE COMMISSION._ + +iii. 10, 16–22. + +We have already learned from the seventh verse that God commissioned +Moses, only when He had Himself descended to deliver Israel. He sends +none, except with the implied or explicit promise that certainly He will +be with them. But the converse is also true. If God sends no man but +when He comes Himself, He never comes without demanding the agency of +man. The overruled reluctance of Moses, and the inflexible urgency of +his commission, may teach us the honour set by God upon humanity. He has +knit men together in the mutual dependence of nations and of families, +that each may be His minister to all; and in every great crisis of +history He has respected His own principle, and has visited the race by +means of the providential man. The gospel was not preached by angels. +Its first agents found themselves like sheep among wolves: they were an +exhibition to the world and to angels and men, yet necessity was laid +upon them, and a woe if they preached it not. + +All the best gifts of heaven come to us by the agency of inventor and +sage, hero and explorer, organiser and philanthropist, patriot, reformer +and saint. And the hope which inspires their grandest effort is never +that of selfish gain, nor even of fame, though fame is a keen spur, +which perhaps God set before Moses in the noble hope that “thou shalt +bring forth the people” (ver. 12). But the truly impelling force is +always the great deed itself, the haunting thought, the importunate +inspiration, the inward fire; and so God promises Moses neither a +sceptre, nor share in the good land: He simply proposes to him the work, +the rescue of the people; and Moses, for his part, simply objects that +he is unable, not that he is solicitous about his reward. Whatever is +done for payment can be valued by its cost: all the priceless services +done for us by our greatest were, in very deed, unpriced. + +Moses, with the new name of God to reveal, and with the assurance that +He is about to rescue Israel, is bidden to go to work advisedly and +wisely. He is not to appeal to the mob, nor yet to confront Pharaoh +without authority from his people to speak for them, nor is he to make +the great demand for emancipation abruptly and at once. The mistake of +forty years ago must not be repeated now. He is to appeal to the elders +of Israel; and with them, and therefore clearly representing the nation, +he is respectfully to crave permission for a three days’ journey, to +sacrifice to Jehovah in the wilderness. The blustering assurance with +which certain fanatics of our own time first assume that they possess a +direct commission from the skies, and thereupon that they are freed +from all order, from all recognition of any human authority, and then +that no considerations of prudence or of decency should restrain the +violence and bad taste which they mistake for zeal, is curiously unlike +anything in the Old Testament or the New. Was ever a commission more +direct than those of Moses and of St. Paul? Yet Moses was to obtain the +recognition of the elders of his people; and St. Paul received formal +ordination by the explicit command of God (Acts xiii. 3). + +Strangely enough, it is often assumed that this demand for a furlough of +three days was insincere. But it would only have been so, if consent +were expected, and if the intention were thereupon to abuse the respite +and refuse to return. There is not the slightest hint of any duplicity +of the kind. The real motives for the demand are very plain. The +excursion which they proposed would have taught the people to move and +act together, reviving their national spirit, and filling them with a +desire for the liberty which they tasted. In the very words which they +should speak, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us,” +there is a distinct proclamation of nationality, and of its surest and +strongest bulwark, a national religion. From such an excursion, +therefore, the people would have returned, already well-nigh +emancipated, and with recognised leaders. Certainly Pharaoh could not +listen to any such proposal, unless he were prepared to reverse the +whole policy of his dynasty toward Israel. + +But the refusal answered two good ends. In the first place it joined +issue on the best conceivable ground, for Israel was exhibited making +the least possible demand with the greatest possible courtesy—“Let us +go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness.” Not even so +much would be granted. The tyrant was palpably in the wrong, and +thenceforth it was perfectly reasonable to increase the severity of the +terms after each of his defeats, which proceeding in its turn made +concession more and more galling to his pride. In the second place, the +quarrel was from the first avowedly and undeniably religious: the gods +of Egypt were matched against Jehovah; and in the successive plagues +which desolated his land Pharaoh gradually learnt Who Jehovah was. + +In the message which Moses should convey to the elders there are two +significant phrases. He was to announce in the name of God, “I have +surely visited you, and seen that which is done unto you in Egypt.” The +silent observation of God before He interposes is very solemn and +instructive. So in the Revelation, He walks among the golden +candlesticks, and knows the work, the patience, or the unfaithfulness of +each. So He is not far from any one of us. When a heavy blow falls we +speak of it as “a Visitation of Providence,” but in reality the +visitation has been long before. Neither Israel nor Egypt was conscious +of the solemn presence. Who knows what soul of man, or what nation, is +thus visited to-day, for future deliverance or rebuke? + +Again it is said, “I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt +into ... a land flowing with milk and honey.” Their affliction was the +divine method of uprooting them. And so is our affliction the method by +which our hearts are released from love of earth and life, that in due +time He may “surely bring us in” to a better and an enduring country. +Now, we wonder that the Israelites clung so fondly to the place of their +captivity. But what of our own hearts? Have they a desire to depart? or +do they groan in bondage, and yet recoil from their emancipation? + +The hesitating nation is not plainly told that their affliction will be +intensified and their lives made burdensome with labour. That is perhaps +implied in the certainty that Pharaoh “will not let you go, no, not by a +mighty hand.” But it is with Israel as with us: a general knowledge that +in the world we shall have tribulation is enough; the catalogue of our +trials is not spread out before us in advance. They were assured for +their encouragement that all their long captivity should at last receive +its wages, for they should not borrow[6] but ask of the Egyptians jewels +of silver, and gold, and raiment, and they should spoil the Egyptians. +So are we taught to have “respect unto the recompense of the reward.” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] So much ignorant capital has been made by sceptics out of this +unfortunate mistranslation, that it is worth while to inquire whether +the word “borrow” would suit the context in other passages. +“He _borrowed_ water and she gave him milk” (Judges v. 25). +“The Lord said unto Solomon, Because thou hast _borrowed_ this +thing, and hast not _borrowed_ long life for thyself, neither hast +_borrowed_ riches for thyself, nor hast _borrowed_ the life of thine +enemies” (1 Kings iii. 11). “And Elijah said unto Elisha, +Thou hast _borrowed_ a hard thing” (2 Kings ii. 10). The absurdity +of the cavil is self-evident. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +_MOSES HESITATES._ + +iv. 1–17. + +Holy Scripture is impartial, even towards its heroes. The sin of David +is recorded, and the failure of Peter. And so is the reluctance of Moses +to accept his commission, even after a miracle had been vouchsafed to +him for encouragement. The absolute sinlessness of Jesus is the more +significant because it is found in the records of a creed which knows of +no idealised humanity. + +In Josephus, the refusal of Moses is softened down. Even the modest +words, “Lord, I am still in doubt how I, a private man and of no +abilities, should persuade my countrymen or Pharaoh,” are not spoken +after the sign is given. Nor is there any mention of the transfer to +Aaron of a part of his commission, nor of their joint offence at +Meribah, nor of its penalty, which in Scripture is bewailed so often. +And Josephus is equally tender about the misdeeds of the nation. We hear +nothing of their murmurs against Moses and Aaron when their burdens are +increased, or of their making the golden calf. Whereas it is remarkable +and natural that the fear of Moses is less anxious about his reception +by the tyrant than by his own people: “Behold, they will not believe me, +nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared +unto thee.” This is very unlike the invention of a later period, +glorifying the beginnings of the nation; but it is absolutely true to +life. Great men do not fear the wrath of enemies if they can be secured +against the indifference and contempt of friends; and Moses in +particular was at last persuaded to undertake his mission by the promise +of the support of Aaron. His hesitation is therefore the earliest +example of what has been so often since observed—the discouragement of +heroes, reformers and messengers from God, less by fear of the attacks +of the world than of the contemptuous scepticism of the people of God. +We often sigh for the appearing, in our degenerate days, of + + “A man with heart, head, hand, + Like some of the simple great ones gone.” + +Yet who shall say that the want of them is not our own fault? The +critical apathy and incredulity, not of the world but of the Church, is +what freezes the fountains of Christian daring and the warmth of +Christian zeal. + +For the help of the faith of his people, Moses is commissioned to work +two miracles; and he is caused to rehearse them, for his own. + +Strange tales were told among the later Jews about his wonder-working +rod. It was cut by Adam before leaving Paradise, was brought by Noah +into the ark, passed into Egypt with Joseph, and was recovered by Moses +while he enjoyed the favour of the court. These legends arose from +downright moral inability to receive the true lesson of the incident, +which is the confronting of the sceptre of Egypt with the simple staff +of the shepherd, the choosing of the weak things of earth to confound +the strong, the power of God to work His miracles by the most puny and +inadequate means. Anything was more credible than that He who led His +people like sheep did indeed guide them with a common shepherd’s crook. +And yet this was precisely the lesson meant for us to learn—the +glorification of poor resources in the grasp of faith. + +Both miracles were of a menacing kind. First the rod became a serpent, +to declare that at God’s bidding enemies would rise up against the +oppressor, even where all seemed innocuous, as in truth the waters of +the river and the dust of the furnace and the winds of heaven conspired +against him. Then, in the grasp of Moses, the serpent from which he fled +became a rod again, to intimate that these avenging forces were subject +to the servant of Jehovah. + +Again, his hand became leprous in his bosom, and was presently restored +to health again—a declaration that he carried with him the power of +death, in its most dreadful form; and perhaps a still more solemn +admonition to those who remember what leprosy betokens, and how every +approach of God to man brings first the knowledge of sin, to be followed +by the assurance that He has cleansed it.[7] + +If the people would not hearken to the voice of the first sign, they +should believe the second; but at the worst, and if they were still +unconvinced, they would believe when they saw the water of the Nile, the +pride and glory of their oppressors, turned into blood before their +eyes. That was an omen which needs no interpretation. What follows is +curious. Moses objects that he has not hitherto been eloquent, nor does +he experience any improvement “since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant” +(a graphic touch!), and he seems to suppose that the popular choice +between liberty and slavery would depend less upon the evidence of a +Divine power than upon sleight of tongue, as if he were in modern +England. + +But let it be observed that the self-consciousness which wears the mask +of humility while refusing to submit its judgment to that of God, is a +form of selfishness—self-absorption blinding one to other +considerations beyond himself—as real, though not as hateful, as greed +and avarice and lust. + +How can Moses call himself slow of speech and of a slow tongue, when +Stephen distinctly declares that he was mighty in word as well as deed? +(Acts vii. 22). Perhaps it is enough to answer that many years of +solitude in a strange land had robbed him of his fluency. Perhaps +Stephen had in mind the words of the Book of Wisdom, that “Wisdom +entered into the soul of the servant of the Lord, and withstood dreadful +kings in wonders and signs.... For Wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, +and made the tongues of them that cannot speak eloquent” (Wisdom x. 16, +21). + +To his scruple the answer was returned, “Who hath made man’s mouth?... +Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and +teach thee what thou shalt say.” The same encouragement belongs to every +one who truly executes a mandate from above: “Lo, I am with you alway.” +For surely this encouragement _is_ the same. Surely Jesus did not mean +to offer His own presence as a substitute for that of God, but as being +in very truth Divine, when He bade His disciples, in reliance upon Him, +to go forth and convert the world. + +And this is the true test which divides faith from presumption, and +unbelief from prudence: do we go because God is with us in Christ, or +because we ourselves are strong and wise? Do we hold back because we are +not sure of _His_ commission, or only because we distrust ourselves? +“Humility without faith is too timorous; faith without humility is too +hasty.” The phrase explains the conduct of Moses both now and forty +years before. + +Moses, however, still entreats that any one may be chosen rather than +himself: “Send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send.” + +And thereupon the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, although at +the moment his only visible punishment was the partial granting of his +prayer—the association with him in his commission of Aaron, who could +speak well, the forfeiting of a certain part of his vocation, and with +it of a certain part of its reward. The words, “Is not Aaron thy brother +the Levite?” have been used to insinuate that the tribal arrangement was +not perfected when they were written, and so to discredit the narrative. +But when so interpreted they yield no adequate sense, they do not +reinforce the argument; while they are perfectly intelligible as +implying that Aaron is already the leader of his tribe, and therefore +sure to obtain the hearing of which Moses despaired. But the arrangement +involved grave consequences sure to be developed in due time: among +others, the reliance of Israel upon a feebler will, which could be +forced by their clamour to make them a calf of gold. Moses was yet to +learn that lesson which our century knows nothing of,—that a speaker +and a leader of nations are not the same. When he cried to Aaron, in the +bitterness of his soul, “What did this people to thee, that thou hast +brought so great a sin upon them?” did he remember by whose +unfaithfulness Aaron had been thrust into the office, the +responsibilities of which he had betrayed? + +Now, it is the duty of every man, to whom a special vocation presents +itself, to set opposite each other two considerations. Dare I undertake +this task? is a solemn question, but so is this: Dare I let this task go +past me? Am I prepared for the responsibility of allowing it to drift +into weaker hands? These are days when the Church of Christ is calling +for the help of every one capable of aiding her, and we ought to hear it +said more often that one is afraid _not_ to teach in Sunday School, and +another dares not refuse a proffered district, and a third fears to +leave charitable tasks undone. To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth +it not, to him it is sin; and we hear too much about the terrible +responsibility of working for God, but too little about the still graver +responsibility of refusing to work for Him when called. + +Moses indeed attained so much that we are scarcely conscious that he +might have been greater still. He had once presumed to go unsent, and +brought upon himself the exile of half a lifetime. Again he presumed +almost to say, I go not, and well-nigh to incur the guilt of Jonah when +sent to Nineveh, and in so doing he forfeited the fulness of his +vocation. But who reaches the level of his possibilities? Who is not +haunted by faces, “each one a murdered self,” a nobler self, that might +have been, and is now impossible for ever? Only Jesus could say “I have +finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” And it is notable that +while Jesus deals, in the parable of the labourers, with the problem of +equal faithfulness during longer and shorter periods of employment; and +in the parable of the pounds with that of equal endowment variously +improved; and yet again, in the parable of the talents, with the problem +of various endowments all doubled alike, He always draws a veil over the +treatment of five talents which earn but two or three besides. + +A more cheerful reflection suggested by this narrative is the strange +power of human fellowship. Moses knew and was persuaded that God, Whose +presence was even then miraculously apparent in the bush, and Who had +invested him with superhuman powers, would go with him. There is no +trace of incredulity in his behaviour, but only of failure to rely, to +cast his shrinking and reluctant will upon the truth he recognised and +the God Whose presence he confessed. He held back, as many a one does, +who is honest when he repeats the Creed in church, yet fails to submit +his life to the easy yoke of Jesus. Nor is it from physical peril that +he recoils: at the bidding of God he has just grasped the serpent from +which he fled; and in confronting a tyrant with armies at his back, he +could hope for small assistance from his brother. But highly strung +spirits, in every great crisis, are aware of vague indefinite +apprehensions that are not cowardly but imaginative. Thus Cæsar, when +defying the hosts of Pompey, is said to have been disturbed by an +apparition. It is vain to put these apprehensions into logical form, and +argue them down: the slowness of speech of Moses was surely refuted by +the presence of God, Who makes the mouth and inspires the utterance; but +such fears lie deeper than the reasons they assign, and when argument +fails, will yet stubbornly repeat their cry: “Send, I pray Thee, by the +hand of him whom Thou wilt send.” Now this shrinking, which is not +craven, is dispelled by nothing so effectually as by the touch of a +human hand. It is like the voice of a friend to one beset by ghostly +terrors: he does not expect his comrade to exorcise a spirit, and yet +his apprehensions are dispelled. Thus Moses cannot summon up courage +from the protection of God, but when assured of the companionship of his +brother he will not only venture to return to Egypt, but will bring with +him his wife and children. Thus, also, He Who knew what was in men’s +hearts sent forth His missionaries, both the Twelve and the Seventy (as +we have yet to learn the true economy of sending ours), “by two and two” +(Mark vi. 7; Luke x. 1). + +This is the principle which underlies the institution of the Church of +Christ, and the conception that Christians are brothers, among whom the +strong must help the weak. Such help from their fellow-mortals would +perhaps decide the choice of many hesitating souls, upon the verge of +the divine life, recoiling from its unknown and dread experiences, but +longing for a sympathising comrade. Alas for the unkindly and +unsympathetic religion of men whose faith has never warmed a human +heart, and of congregations in which emotion is a misdemeanour! + +There is no stronger force, among all that make for the abuses of +priestcraft, than this same yearning for human help becomes when robbed +of its proper nourishment, which is the communion of saints, and the +pastoral care of souls. Has it no further nourishment than these? This +instinctive craving for a Brother to help as well as a Father to direct +and govern,—this social instinct, which banished the fears of Moses and +made him set out for Egypt long before Aaron came in sight, content when +assured of Aaron’s co-operation,—is there nothing in God Himself to +respond to it? He Who is not ashamed to call us brethren has profoundly +modified the Church’s conception of Jehovah, the Eternal, Absolute and +Unconditioned. It is because He can be touched with the feeling of our +infirmities, that we are bidden to draw near with boldness unto the +Throne of Grace. There is no heart so lonely that it cannot commune with +the lofty and kind humanity of Jesus. + +There is a homelier lesson to be learned. Moses was not only solaced by +human fellowship, but nerved and animated by the thought of his brother, +and the mention of his tribe. “Is not Aaron thy brother the Levite?” +They had not met for forty years. Vague rumours of deadly persecution +were doubtless all that had reached the fugitive, whose heart had +burned, in solitary communion with Nature in her sternest forms, as he +brooded over the wrongs of his family, of Aaron, and perhaps of Miriam. + +And now his brother lived. The call which Moses would have put from him +was for the emancipation of his own flesh and blood, and for their +greatness. In that great hour, domestic affection did much to turn the +scale wherein the destinies of humanity were trembling. And his was +affection well returned. It might easily have been otherwise, for Aaron +had seen his younger brother called to a dazzling elevation, living in +enviable magnificence, and earning fame by “word and deed”; and then, +after a momentary fusion of sympathy and of condition, forty years had +poured between them a torrent of cares and joys estranging because +unshared. But it was promised that Aaron, when he saw him, should be +glad at heart; and the words throw a beam of exquisite light into the +depths of the mighty soul which God inspired to emancipate Israel and to +found His Church, by thoughts of his brother’s joy on meeting him. + +Let no man dream of attaining real greatness by stifling his affections. +The heart is more important than the intellect; and the brief story of +the Exodus has room for the yearning of Jochebed over her infant “when +she saw him that he was a goodly child,” for the bold inspiration of the +young poetess, who “stood afar off to know what should be done to him,” +and now for the love of Aaron. So the Virgin, in the dread hour of her +reproach, went in haste to her cousin Elizabeth. So Andrew “findeth +first his own brother Simon.” And so the Divine Sufferer, forsaken of +God, did not forsake His mother. + +The Bible is full of domestic life. It is the theme of the greater part +of Genesis, which makes the family the seed-plot of the Church. It is +wisely recognised again at the moment when the larger pulse of the +nation begins to beat. For the life-blood in the heart of a nation must +be the blood in the hearts of men. + + +_MOSES OBEYS._ + +iv. 18–31. + +Moses is now commissioned: he is to go to Egypt, and Aaron is coming +thence to meet him. Yet he first returns to Midian, to Jethro, who is +both his employer and the head of the family, and prays him to sanction +his visit to his own people. + +There are duties which no family resistance can possibly cancel, and the +direct command of God made it plain that this was one of them. But there +are two ways of performing even the most imperative obligation, and +religious people have done irreparable mischief before now, by rudeness, +disregard to natural feeling and the rights of their fellow-men, under +the impression that they showed their allegiance to God by outraging +other ties. It is a theory for which no sanction can be found either in +Holy Scripture or in common sense. + +When he asks permission to visit “his brethren” we cannot say whether he +ever had brothers besides Aaron, or uses the word in the same larger +national sense as when we read that, forty years before, he went out +unto his brethren and saw their burdens. What is to be observed is that +he is reticent with respect to his vast expectations and designs. + +He does not argue that, because a Divine promise must needs be +fulfilled, he need not be discreet, wary and taciturn, any more than St. +Paul supposed, because the lives of his shipmates were promised to him, +that it mattered nothing whether the sailors remained on board. + +The decrees of God have sometimes been used to justify the recklessness +of man, but never by His chosen followers. They have worked out their +own salvation the more earnestly because God worked in them. And every +good cause calls aloud for human energy and wisdom, all the more because +its consummation is the will of God, and sooner or later is assured. +Moses has unlearned his rashness. + +When the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, “Go, return unto Egypt, for all +the men are dead which sought thy life,” there is an almost verbal +resemblance to the words in which the infant Jesus is recalled from +exile. We shall have to consider the typical aspect of the whole +narrative, when a convenient stage is reached for pausing to survey it +in its completeness. But resemblances like this have been treated with +so much scorn, they have been so freely perverted into evidence of the +mythical nature of the later story, that some passing allusion appears +desirable. We must beware equally of both extremes. The Old Testament is +tortured, and genuine prophecies are made no better than coincidences, +when coincidences are exalted to all the dignity of express predictions. +One can scarcely venture to speak of the death of Herod when Jesus was +to return from Egypt, as being deliberately typified in the death of +those who sought the life of Moses. But it is quite clear that the words +in St. Matthew do intentionally point the reader back to this narrative. +For, indeed, under both, there are to be recognised the same principles: +that God does not thrust His servants into needless or excessive peril; +and that when the life of a tyrant has really become not only a trial +but a barrier, it will be removed by the King of kings. God is prudent +for His heroes. + +Moreover, we must recognise the lofty fitness of what is very visible in +the Gospels—the coming to a head in Christ of the various experiences +of the people of God; and at the recurrence, in His story, of events +already known elsewhere, we need not be disquieted, as if the suspicion +of a myth were now become difficult to refute; rather should we +recognise the fulness of the supreme life, and its points of contact +with all lives, which are but portions of its vast completeness. Who +does not feel that in the world’s greatest events a certain harmony and +correspondence are as charming as they are in music? There is a sort of +counterpoint in history. And to this answering of deep unto deep, this +responsiveness of the story of Jesus to all history, our attention is +silently beckoned by St. Matthew, when, without asserting any closer +link between the incidents, he borrows this phrase so aptly. + +A much deeper meaning underlies the profound expression which God now +commands Moses to employ; and although it must await consideration at a +future time, the progressive education of Moses himself is meantime to +be observed. At first he is taught that the Lord is the God of their +fathers, in whose descendants He is therefore interested. Then the +present Israel is His people, and valued for its own sake. Now he hears, +and is bidden to repeat to Pharaoh, the amazing phrase, “Israel is My +son, even My firstborn: let My son go that he may serve Me; and if thou +refuse to let him go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.” +Thus it is that infant faith is led from height to height. And assuredly +there never was an utterance better fitted than this to prepare human +minds, in the fulness of time, for a still clearer revelation of the +nearness of God to man, and for the possibility of an absolute union +between the Creator and His creature. + +It was on his way into Egypt, with his wife and children, that a +mysterious interposition forced Zipporah reluctantly and tardily to +circumcise her son. + +The meaning of this strange episode lies perhaps below the surface, but +very near it. Danger in some form, probably that of sickness, pressed +Moses hard, and he recognised in it the displeasure of his God. The +form of the narrative leads us to suppose that he had no previous +consciousness of guilt, and had now to infer the nature of his offence +without any explicit announcement, just as we infer it from what +follows. + +If so, he discerned his transgression when trouble awoke his conscience; +and so did his wife Zipporah. Yet her resistance to the circumcision of +their younger son was so tenacious, with such difficulty was it overcome +by her husband’s peril or by his command, that her tardy performance of +the rite was accompanied by an insulting action and a bitter taunt. As +she submitted, the Lord “let him go”; but we may perhaps conclude that +the grievance continued to rankle, from the repetition of her gibe, “So +she said, A bridegroom of blood art thou because of the circumcision.” +The words mean, “We are betrothed again in blood,” and might of +themselves admit a gentler, and even a tender significance; as if, in +the sacrifice of a strong prejudice for her husband’s sake, she felt a +revival of “the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals.” For +nothing removes the film from the surface of a true affection, and makes +the heart aware how bright it is, so well as a great sacrifice, frankly +offered for the sake of love. + +But such a rendering is excluded by the action which went with her +words, and they must be explained as meaning, This is the kind of +husband I have wedded: these are our espousals. With such an utterance +she fades almost entirely out of the story: it does not even tell how +she drew back to her father; and thenceforth all we know of her is that +she rejoined Moses only when the fame of his victory over Amalek had +gone abroad. + +Their union seems to have been an ill-assorted or at least an +unprosperous one. In the tender hour when their firstborn was to be +named, the bitter sense of loneliness had continued to be nearer to the +heart of Moses than the glad new consciousness of paternity, and he +said, “I am a stranger in a strange land.” Different indeed had been the +experience of Joseph, who called his “firstborn Manasseh, for God, said +he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house” (Gen. +xli. 51). The home-life of Moses had not made him forget that he was an +exile. Even the removal of imminent death from her husband could not +hush these selfish complaints of Zipporah, not because he was a father +of blood to her little one, but because he was a bridegroom of blood to +her own shrinking sensibilities. It is Miriam the sister, not Zipporah +the wife, who gives lyrical and passionate voice to his triumph, and is +mourned by the nation when she dies. Both what we read of her and what +we do not read goes far to explain the insignificance of their children +in history, and the more startling fact that the grandson of Moses +became the venal instrument of the Danites in their schismatic worship +(Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +Domestic unhappiness is a palliation, but not a justification, for an +unserviceable life. It is a great advantage to come into action with the +dew and freshness of affection upon the soul. Yet it is not once nor +twice that men have carried the message of God back from the barren +desert and the lonely ways of their unhappiness to the not too happy +race of man. + +Now, who can fail to discern real history in all this? Is it in such a +way that myth or legend would have dealt with the wife of the great +deliverer? Still less conceivable is it that these should have treated +Moses himself as the narrative hitherto has consistently done. At every +step he is made to stumble. His first attempt was homicidal, and brought +upon him forty years of exile. When the Divine commission came he drew +back wilfully, as he had formerly pressed forward unsent. There is not +even any suggestion offered us of Stephen’s apology for his violent +deed—namely, that he supposed his brethren understood how that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance (Acts vii. 25). There is nothing +that resembles the eulogium of the Epistle to the Hebrews upon the faith +which glorified his precipitancy, like the rainbow in a torrent, because +that rash blow committed him to share the affliction of the people of +God, and renounced the rank of a grand son of the Pharaoh (Heb. xi. +24–5). All this is very natural, if Moses himself be in any degree +responsible for the narrative. It is incredible, if the narrative were +put together after the Captivity, to claim the sanction of so great a +name for a newly forged hierarchical system. Such a theory could +scarcely be refuted more completely, if the narrative before us were +invented with the deliberate aim to overthrow it. + +But in truth the failures of the good and great are written for our +admonition, teaching us how inconsistent are even the best of mortals, +and how weak the most resolute. Rather than forfeit his own place among +the chosen people, Moses had forsaken a palace and become a proscribed +fugitive; yet he had neglected to claim for his child its rightful share +in the covenant, its recognition among the sons of Abraham. Perhaps +procrastination, perhaps domestic opposition, more potent than a king’s +wrath to shake his purpose, perhaps the insidious notion that one who +had sacrificed so much might be at ease about slight negligences,—some +such influence had left the commandment unobserved. And now, when the +dream of his life was being realised at last, and he found himself the +chosen instrument of God for the rebuke of one nation and the making of +another, how pardonable it must have seemed to leave an unpleasant small +domestic duty over until a more convenient season! How natural it still +seems to merge the petty task in the high vocation, to excuse small +lapses in pursuit of lofty aims! But this was the very time when God, +hitherto forbearing, took him sternly to task for his neglect, because +men who are especially honoured should be more obedient and reverential +than their fellows. Let young men who dream of a vast career, and +meanwhile indulge themselves in small obliquities, let all who cast out +demons in the name of Christ, and yet work iniquity, reflect upon this +chosen and long-trained, self-sacrificing and ardent servant of the +Lord, whom Jehovah seeks to kill because he wilfully disobeys even a +purely ceremonial precept. + +Moses was not only religious, but “a man of destiny,” one upon whom vast +interests depended. Now, such men have often reckoned themselves exempt +from the ordinary laws of conduct.[8] + +It is not a light thing, therefore, to find God’s indignant protest +against the faintest shadow of a doctrine so insidious and so deadly, +set in the forefront of sacred history, at the very point where national +concerns and those of religion begin to touch. If our politics are to be +kept pure and clean, we must learn to exact a higher fidelity, and not a +relaxed morality, from those who propose to sway the destinies of +nations. + +And now the brothers meet, embrace, and exchange confidences. As Andrew, +the first disciple who brought another to Jesus, found first his own +brother Simon, so was Aaron the earliest convert to the mission of +Moses. And that happened which so often puts our faithlessness to shame. +It had seemed very hard to break his strange tidings to the people: it +was in fact very easy to address one whose love had not grown cold +during their severance, who probably retained faith in the Divine +purpose for which the beautiful child of the family had been so +strangely preserved, and who had passed through trial and discipline +unknown to us in the stern intervening years. + +And when they told their marvellous story to the elders of the people, +and displayed the signs, they believed; and when they heard that God had +visited them in their affliction, then they bowed their heads and +worshipped. + +This was their preparation for the wonders that should follow: it +resembled Christ’s appeal, “Believest thou that I am able to do this?” +or Peter’s word to the impotent man, “Look on us.” + +For the moment the announcement had the desired effect, although too +soon the early promise was succeeded by faithlessness and discontent. In +this, again, the teaching of the earliest political movement on record +is as fresh as if it were a tale of yesterday. The offer of emancipation +stirs all hearts; the romance of liberty is beautiful beside the Nile as +in the streets of Paris; but the cost has to be gradually learned; the +losses displace the gains in the popular attention; the labour, the +self-denial and the self-control grow wearisome, and Israel murmurs for +the flesh-pots of Egypt, much as the modern revolution reverts to a +despotism. It is one thing to admire abstract freedom, but a very +different thing to accept the austere conditions of the life of genuine +freemen. And surely the same is true of the soul. The gospel gladdens +the young convert: he bows his head and worships; but he little dreams +of his long discipline, as in the forty desert years, of the solitary +places through which his soul must wander, the drought, the Amalekite, +the absent leader, and the temptations of the flesh. In mercy, the long +future is concealed; it is enough that, like the apostles, we should +consent to follow; gradually we shall obtain the courage to which the +task may be revealed. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Tertullian appealed to the second of these miracles to illustrate +the possibility of the resurrection. “The hand of Moses is changed +and becomes like that of the dead, bloodless, colourless, and stiff with +cold. But on the recovery of heat and restoration of its natural colour, +it is the same flesh and blood.... So will changes, conversions and +reformation be needed to bring about the resurrection, yet the substance +will be preserved safe.” (_De Res._, lv.) It is far wiser to be +content with the declaration of St. Paul that the identity of the body +does not depend on that of its corporeal atoms. “Thou sowest not +that body that shall be, but a naked grain.... But God giveth ... to +every seed his own body” (1 Cor. xv. 37–8). + +[8] “I am not an ordinary man,” Napoleon used to say, +“and the laws of morals and of custom were never made for +me.”—_Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat_, i. 91. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +_PHARAOH REFUSES._ + +v. 1–23. + +After forty years of obscurity and silence, Moses re-enters the +magnificent halls where he had formerly turned his back upon so great a +place. The rod of a shepherd is in his hand, and a lowly Hebrew by his +side. Men who recognise him shake their heads, and pity or despise the +fanatic who had thrown away the most dazzling prospects for a dream. But +he has long since made his choice, and whatever misgivings now beset him +have regard to his success with Pharaoh or with his brethren, not to the +wisdom of his decision. + +Nor had he reason to repent of it. The pomp of an obsequious court was a +poor thing in the eyes of an ambassador of God, who entered the palace +to speak such lofty words as never passed the lips of any son of +Pharaoh’s daughter. He was presently to become a god unto Pharaoh, with +Aaron for his prophet. + +In itself, his presence there was formidable. The Hebrews had been +feared when he was an infant. Now their cause was espoused by a man of +culture, who had allied himself with their natural leaders, and was +returned, with the deep and steady fire of a zeal which forty years of +silence could not quench, to assert the rights of Israel as an +independent people. + +There is a terrible power in strong convictions, especially when +supported by the sanctions of religion. Luther on one side, Loyola on +the other, were mightier than kings when armed with this tremendous +weapon. Yet there are forces upon which patriotism and fanaticism +together break in vain. Tyranny and pride of race have also strong +impelling ardours, and carry men far. Pharaoh is in earnest as well as +Moses, and can act with perilous energy. And this great narrative begins +the story of a nation’s emancipation with a human demand, boldly made, +but defeated by the pride and vigour of a startled tyrant and the +tameness of a downtrodden people. The limitations of human energy are +clearly exhibited before the direct interference of God begins. All that +a brave man can do, when nerved by lifelong aspiration and by a sudden +conviction that the hour of destiny has struck, all therefore upon which +rationalism can draw, to explain the uprising of Israel, is exhibited in +this preliminary attempt, this first demand of Moses. + +Menephtah was no doubt the new Pharaoh whom the brothers accosted so +boldly. What we glean of him elsewhere is highly suggestive of some +grave event left unrecorded, exhibiting to us a man of uncontrollable +temper yet of broken courage, a ruthless, godless, daunted man. There is +a legend that he once hurled his spear at the Nile when its floods rose +too high, and was punished with ten years of blindness. In the Libyan +war, after fixing a time when he should join his vanguard, with the main +army, a celestial vision forbade him to keep his word in person, and the +victory was gained by his lieutenants. In another war, he boasts of +having slaughtered the people and set fire to them, and netted the +entire country as men net birds. Forty years then elapse without war +and without any great buildings; there are seditions and internal +troubles, and the dynasty closes with his son.[9] All this is exactly +what we should expect, if a series of tremendous blows had depopulated a +country, abolished an army, and removed two millions of the working +classes in one mass. + +But it will be understood that this identification, concerning which +there is now a very general consent of competent authorities, implies +that the Pharaoh was not himself engulfed with his army. Nothing is on +the other side except a poetic assertion in Psalm cxxxvi. 15, which is +not that God destroyed, but that He “shook off” Pharaoh and his host in +the Red Sea, because His mercy endureth for ever. + +To this king, then, whose audacious family had usurped the symbols of +deity for its head-dress, and whose father boasted that in battle “he +became like the god Mentu” and “was as Baal,” the brothers came as yet +without miracle, with no credentials except from slaves, and said, “Thus +saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a +feast unto Me in the wilderness.” The issue was distinctly raised: did +Israel belong to Jehovah or to the king? And Pharaoh answered, with +equal decision, “Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice? I +know not Jehovah, and what is more, I will not let Israel go.” + +Now, the ignorance of the king concerning Jehovah was almost or quite +blameless: the fault was in his practical refusal to inquire. Jehovah +was no concern of his: without waiting for information, he at once +decided that his grasp on his captives should not relax. And his second +fault, which led to this, was the same grinding oppression of the +helpless which for eighty years already had brought upon his nation the +guilt of blood. Crowned and national cupidity, the resolution to wring +from their slaves the last effort consistent with existence, such greed +as took offence at even the momentary pause of hope while Moses pleaded, +because “the people of the land are many, and ye make them rest from +their burdens,”—these shut their hearts against reason and religion, +and therefore God presently hardened those same hearts against natural +misgiving and dread and awe-stricken submission to His judgments. + +For it was against religion also that he was unyielding. In his ample +Pantheon there was room at least for the possibility of the entrance of +the Hebrew God, and in refusing to the subject people, without +investigation, leisure for any worship, the king outraged not only +humanity, but Heaven. + +The brothers proceed to declare that they have themselves met with the +deity, and there must have been many in the court who could attest at +least the sincerity of Moses; they ask for liberty to spend a day in +journeying outward and another in returning, with a day between for +their worship, and warn the king of the much greater loss to himself +which may be involved in vengeance upon refusal, either by war or +pestilence. But the contemptuous answer utterly ignores religion: +“Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? Get +ye unto your burdens.” + +And his counter-measures are taken without loss of time: “that same day” +the order goes out to exact the regular quantity of brick, but supply no +straw for binding it together. It is a pitiless mandate, and +illustrates the fact, very natural though often forgotten, that men as a +rule cannot lose sight of the religious value of their fellow-men, and +continue to respect or pity them as before. We do not deny that men who +professed religion have perpetrated nameless cruelties, nor that +unbelievers have been humane, sometimes with a pathetic energy, a +tenacious grasp on the virtue still possible to those who have no Heaven +to serve. But it is plain that the average man will despise his brother, +and his brother’s rights, just in proportion as the Divine sanctions of +those rights fade away, and nothing remains to be respected but the +culture, power and affluence which the victim lacks. “I know not +Israel’s God” is a sure prelude to the refusal to let Israel go, and +even to the cruelty which beats the slave who fails to render impossible +obedience. + +“They be idle, therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to +our God.” And still there are men who hold the same opinion, that time +spent in devotion is wasted, as regards the duties of real life. In +truth, religion means freshness, elasticity and hope: a man will be not +slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, if he serves the Lord. But +perhaps immortal hope, and the knowledge that there is One Who shall +break all prison bars and let the oppressed go free, are not the best +narcotics to drug down the soul of a man into the monotonous tameness of +a slave. + +In the tenth verse we read that the Egyptian taskmasters and the +officers combined to urge the people to their aggravated labours. And by +the fourteenth verse we find that the latter officials were Hebrew +officers whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them. + +So that we have here one of the surest and worst effects of +slavery—namely, the demoralisation of the oppressed, the readiness of +average men, who can obtain for themselves a little relief, to do so at +their brethren’s cost. These officials were scribes, “writers”: their +business was to register the amount of labour due, and actually +rendered. These were doubtless the more comfortable class, of whom we +read afterwards that they possessed property, for their cattle escaped +the murrain and their trees the hail. And they had the means of +acquiring quite sufficient skill to justify whatever is recorded of the +works done in the construction of the tabernacle. The time is long past +when scepticism found support for its incredulity in these details. + +One advantage of the last sharp agony of persecution was that it finally +detached this official class from the Egyptian interest, and welded +Israel into a homogeneous people, with officers already provided. For, +when the supply of bricks came short, these officials were beaten, and, +as if no cause of the failure were palpable, they were asked, with a +malicious chuckle, “Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task both +yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?” And when they explain to Pharaoh, +in words already expressive of their alienation, that the fault is with +“thine own people,” they are repulsed with insult, and made to feel +themselves in evil case. For indeed they needed to be chastised for +their forgetfulness of God. How soon would their hearts have turned +back, how much more bitter yet would have been their complaints in the +desert, if it were not for this last experience! But if judgment began +with them, what should presently be the fate of their oppressors? + +Their broken spirit shows itself by murmuring, not against Pharaoh, but +against Moses and Aaron, who at least had striven to help them. Here, as +in the whole story, there is not a trace of either the lofty spirit +which could have evolved the Mosaic law, or the hero-worship of a later +age. + +It is written that Moses, hearing their reproaches, “returned unto the +Lord,” although no visible shrine, no consecrated place of worship, can +be thought of. + +What is involved is the consecration which the heart bestows upon any +place of privacy and prayer, where, in shutting out the world, the soul +is aware of the special nearness of its King. In one sense we never +leave Him, never return to Him. In another sense, by direct address of +the attention and the will, we enter into His presence; we find Him in +the midst of us, Who is everywhere. And all ceremonial consecrations do +their office by helping us to realise and act upon the presence of Him +in Whom, even when He is forgotten, we live and move and have our being. +Therefore in the deepest sense each man consecrates or desecrates for +himself his own place of prayer. There is a city where the Divine +presence saturates every consciousness with rapture. And the seer beheld +no temple therein, for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the +temple of it. + +Startling to our notions of reverence are the words in which Moses +addresses God. “Lord, why hast Thou evil entreated this people? Why is +it that Thou hast sent me? for since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy +name, he hath evil entreated this people; neither hast Thou delivered +Thy people at all.” It is almost as if his faith had utterly given way, +like that of the Psalmist when he saw the wicked in great prosperity, +while waters of a full cup were wrung out by the people of God (Ps. +lxxiii. 3, 10). And there is always a dangerous moment when the first +glow of enthusiasm burns down, and we realise how long the process, how +bitter the disappointments, by which even a scanty measure of success +must be obtained. Yet God had expressly warned Moses that Pharaoh would +not release them until Egypt had been smitten with all His plagues. But +the warning passed unapprehended, as we let many a truth pass +intellectually accepted it is true, but only as a theorem, a vague and +abstract formula. As we know that we must die, that worldly pleasures +are brief and unreal, and that sin draws evil in its train, yet wonder +when these phrases become solid and practical in our experience, so, in +the first flush and wonder of the promised emancipation, Moses had +forgotten the predicted interval of trial. + +His words would have been profane and irreverent indeed but for one +redeeming quality. They were addressed to God Himself. Whenever the +people murmured, Moses turned for help to Him Who reckons the most +unconventional and daring appeal to Him far better than the most +ceremonious phrases in which men cover their unbelief: “Lord, wherefore +hast Thou evil entreated this people?” is in reality a much more pious +utterance than “I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.” +Wherefore Moses receives large encouragement, although no formal answer +is vouchsafed to his daring question. + +Even so, in our dangers, our torturing illnesses, and many a crisis +which breaks through all the crust of forms and conventionalities, God +may perhaps recognise a true appeal to Him, in words which only +scandalise the orthodoxy of the formal and precise. In the bold +rejoinder of the Syro-Phœnician woman He recognised great faith. His +disciples would simply have sent her away as clamorous. + +Moses had again failed, even though Divinely commissioned, in the work +of emancipating Israel, and thereupon he had cried to the Lord Himself +to undertake the work. This abortive attempt, however, was far from +useless: it taught humility and patience to the leader, and it pressed +the nation together, as in a vice, by the weight of a common burden, now +become intolerable. At the same moment, the iniquity of the tyrant was +filled up. + +But the Lord did not explain this, in answer to the remonstrance of +Moses. Many things happen, for which no distinct verbal explanation is +possible, many things of which the deep spiritual fitness cannot be +expressed in words. Experience is the true commentator upon Providence, +if only because the slow building of character is more to God than +either the hasting forward of deliverance or the clearing away of +intellectual mists. And it is only as we take His yoke upon us that we +truly learn of Him. Yet much is implied, if not spoken out, in the +words, “Now (because the time is ripe) shalt thou see what I will do to +Pharaoh (I, because others have failed); for by a strong hand shall he +let them go, and by a strong hand shall he drive them out of the land.” +It is under the weight of the “strong hand” of God Himself that the +tyrant must either bend or break. + +Similar to this is the explanation of many delays in answering our +prayer, of the strange raising up of tyrants and demagogues, and of much +else that perplexes Christians in history and in their own experience. +These events develop human character, for good or evil. And they give +scope for the revealing of the fulness of the power which rescues. We +have no means of measuring the supernatural force which overcomes but by +the amount of the resistance offered. And if all good things came to us +easily and at once, we should not become aware of the horrible pit, our +rescue from which demands gratitude. The Israelites would not have sung +a hymn of such fervent gratitude when the sea was crossed, if they had +not known the weight of slavery and the anguish of suspense. And in +heaven the redeemed who have come out of great tribulation sing the song +of Moses and of the Lamb. + +Fresh air, a balmy wind, a bright blue sky—which of us feels a thrill +of conscious exultation for these cheap delights? The released prisoner, +the restored invalid, feels it: + + “The common earth, the air, the skies, + To him are opening paradise.” + +Even so should Israel be taught to value deliverance. And now the +process could begin. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] Robinson, “The Pharaohs of the Bondage.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +_THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MOSES._ + +vi. 1–30. + +We have seen that the name Jehovah expresses not a philosophic +meditation, but the most bracing and reassuring truth—viz., that an +immutable and independent Being sustains His people; and this great +title is therefore reaffirmed with emphasis in the hour of mortal +discouragement. It is added that their fathers knew God by the name of +God Almighty, but by His name Jehovah was He not known, or made known, +unto them. Now, it is quite clear that they were not utterly ignorant of +this title, for no such theory as that it was hitherto mentioned by +anticipation only, can explain the first syllable in the name of the +mother of Moses himself, nor the assertion that in the time of Seth men +began to call upon the name of Jehovah (Gen. iv. 26), nor the name of +the hill of Abraham’s sacrifice, Jehovah-jireh (Gen. xxii. 14). Yet the +statement cannot be made available for the purposes of any reasonable +and moderate scepticism, since the sceptical theory demands a belief in +successive redactions of the work in which an error so gross could not +have escaped detection. + +And the true explanation is that this Name was now, for the first time, +to be realised as a sustaining power. The patriarchs had known the name; +how its fitness should be realised: God should be known by it. They had +drawn support and comfort from that simpler view of the Divine +protection which said, “I am the Almighty God: walk before Me and be +thou perfect” (Gen. xvii. 1). But thenceforth all the experience of the +past was to reinforce the energies of the present, and men were to +remember that their promises came from One who cannot change. Others, +like Abraham, had been stronger in faith than Moses. But faith is not +the same as insight, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets (Deut. +xxxiv. 10). To him, therefore, it was given to confirm the courage of +his nation by this exalting thought of God. And the Lord proceeds to +state what His promises to the patriarchs were, and joins together (as +we should do) the assurance of His compassionate heart and of His +inviolable pledges: “I have heard the groaning of the children of +Israel, ... and I have remembered My covenant.” + +It has been the same, in turn, with every new revelation of the Divine. +The new was implicit in the old, but when enforced, unfolded, reapplied, +men found it charged with unsuspected meaning and power, and as full of +vitality and development as a handful of dry seeds when thrown into +congenial soil. So it was pre-eminently with the doctrine of the +Messiah. It will be the same hereafter with the doctrine of the kingdom +of peace and the reign of the saints on earth. Some day men will smile +at our crude theories and ignorant controversies about the Millennium. +We, meantime, possess the saving knowledge of Christ amid many +perplexities and obscurities. And so the patriarchs, who knew God +Almighty, but not by His name Jehovah, were not lost for want of the +knowledge of His name, but saved by faith in Him, in the living Being +to Whom all these names belong, and Who shall yet write upon the brows +of His people some new name, hitherto undreamed by the ripest of the +saints and the purest of the Churches. Meantime, let us learn the +lessons of tolerance for other men’s ignorance, remembering the +ignorance of the father of the faithful, tolerance for difference of +views, remembering how the unusual and rare name of God was really the +precursor of a brighter revelation, and yet again, when our hearts are +faint with longing for new light, and weary to death of the babbling of +old words, let us learn a sober and cautious reconsideration, lest +perhaps the very truth needed for altered circumstance and changing +problem may lie, unheeded and dormant, among the dusty old phrases from +which we turn away despairingly. Moreover, since the fathers knew the +name Jehovah, yet gained from it no special knowledge of God, such as +they had from His Almightiness, we are taught that discernment is often +more at fault than revelation. To the quick perception and plastic +imagination of the artist, our world reveals what the boor will never +see. And the saint finds, in the homely and familiar words of Scripture, +revelations for His soul that are unknown to common men. Receptivity is +what we need far more than revelation. + +Again is Moses bidden to appeal to the faith of his countrymen, by a +solemn repetition of the Divine promise. If the tyranny is great, they +shall be redeemed with a stretched out arm, that is to say, with a +palpable interposition of the power of God, “and with great judgments.” +It is the first appearance in Scripture of this phrase, afterwards so +common. Not mere vengeance upon enemies or vindication of subjects is in +question: the thought is that of a deliberate weighing of merits, and +rendering out of measured penalties. Now, the Egyptian mythology had a +very clear and solemn view of judgment after death. If king and people +had grown cruel, it was because they failed to realise remote +punishments, and did not believe in present judgments, here, in this +life. But there is a God that judgeth in the earth. Not always, for +mercy rejoiceth over judgment. We may still pray, “Enter not into +judgment with Thy servants, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no man living +be justified.” But when men resist warnings, then retribution begins +even here. Sometimes it comes in plague and overthrow, sometimes in the +worse form of a heart made fat, the decay of sensibilities abused, the +dying out of spiritual faculty. Pharaoh was to experience both, the +hardening of his heart and the ruin of his fortunes. + +It is added, “I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you +for a God.” This is the language, not of a mere purpose, a will that has +resolved to vindicate the right, but of affection. God is about to adopt +Israel to Himself, and the same favour which belonged to rare +individuals in the old time is now offered to a whole nation. Just as +the heart of each man is gradually educated, learning first to love a +parent and a family, and so led on to national patriotism, and at last +to a world-wide philanthropy, so was the religious conscience of mankind +awakened to believe that Abraham might be the friend of God, and then +that His oath might be confirmed unto the children, and then that He +could take Israel to Himself for a people, and at last that God loved +the world. + +It is not religion to think that God condescends merely to save us. He +cares for us. He takes us to Himself, He gives Himself away to us, in +return, to be our God. + +Such a revelation ought to have been more to Israel than any pledge of +certain specified advantages. It was meant to be a silken tie, a golden +clasp, to draw together the almighty Heart and the hearts of these +downtrodden slaves. Something within Him desires their little human +love; they shall be to Him for a people. So He said again, “My son, give +Me thine heart.” And so, when He carried to the uttermost these +unsought, unhoped for, and, alas! unwelcomed overtures of condescension, +and came among us, He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens +under her wings, those who would not. It is not man who conceives, from +definite services received, the wild hope of some spark of real +affection in the bosom of the Eternal and Mysterious One. It is not man, +amid the lavish joys and splendours of creation, who conceives the +notion of a supreme Heart, as the explanation of the universe. It is God +Himself Who says, “I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to +you a God.” + +Nor is it human conversion that begins the process, but a Divine +covenant and pledge, by which God would fain convert us to Himself; even +as the first disciples did not accost Jesus, but He turned and spoke to +them the first question and the first invitation; “What seek ye?... +Come, and ye shall see.” + +To-day, the choice of the civilised world has to be made between a +mechanical universe and a revealed love, for no third possibility +survives. + +This promise establishes a relationship, which God never afterwards +cancelled. Human unbelief rejected its benefits, and chilled the mutual +sympathies which it involved; but the fact always remained, and in their +darkest hour they could appeal to God to remember His covenant and the +oath which He sware. + +And this same assurance belongs to us. We are not to become good, or +desirous of goodness, in order that God may requite with affection our +virtues or our wistfulness. Rather we are to arise and come to our +Father, and to call Him Father, although we are not worthy to be called +His sons. We are to remember how Jesus said, “If ye being evil know how +to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly +Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!” and to learn that He +is the Father of those who are evil, and even of those who are still +unpardoned, as He said again, “If ye forgive not ... neither will your +heavenly Father forgive you.” + +Much controversy about the universal Fatherhood of God would be assuaged +if men reflected upon the significant distinction which our Saviour drew +between His Fatherhood and our sonship, the one always a reality of the +Divine affection, the other only a possibility, for human enjoyment or +rejection: “Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, +that ye may be sons of your Father Which is in heaven” (Matt. v. 45). +There is no encouragement to presumption in the assertion of the Divine +Fatherhood upon such terms. For it speaks of a love which is real and +deep without being feeble and indiscriminate. It appeals to faith +because there is an absolute fact to lean upon, and to energy because +privilege is conditional. It reminds us that our relationship is like +that of the ancient Israel,—that we are in a covenant, as they were, +but that the carcases of many of them fell in the wilderness; although +God had taken them for a people, and was to them a God, and said, +“Israel is My son, even My firstborn.” + +It is added that faith shall develop into knowledge. Moses is to assure +them now that they “shall know” hereafter that the Lord is Jehovah +their God. And this, too, is a universal law, that we shall know if we +follow on to know: that the trial of our faith worketh patience, and +patience experience, and we have so dim and vague an apprehension of +Divine realities, chiefly because we have made but little trial, and +have not tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious. + +In this respect, as in so many more, religion is analogous with nature. +The squalor of the savage could be civilised, and the distorted and +absurd conceptions of mediæval science could be corrected, only by +experiment, persistently and wisely carried out. + +And it is so in religion: its true evidence is unknown to these who +never bore its yoke; it is open to just such raillery and rejection as +they who will not love can pour upon domestic affection and the sacred +ties of family life; but, like these, it vindicates itself, in the rest +of their souls, to those who will take the yoke and learn. And its best +wisdom is not of the cunning brain but of the open heart, that wisdom +from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be +entreated. + +And thus, while God leads Israel, they shall know that He is Jehovah, +and true to His highest revelations of Himself. + +All this they heard, and also, to define their hope and brighten it, the +promise of Palestine was repeated; but they hearkened not unto Moses for +anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. Thus the body often holds the +spirit down, and kindly allowance is made by Him Who knoweth our frame +and remembereth that we are dust, and Who, in the hour of His own agony, +found the excuse for His unsympathising followers that the spirit was +willing although the flesh was weak. So when Elijah made request for +himself that he might die, in the utter reaction which followed his +triumph on Carmel and his wild race to Jezreel, the good Physician did +not dazzle him with new splendours of revelation until after he had +slept, and eaten miraculous food, and a second time slept and eaten. + +But if the anguish of the body excuses much weakness of the spirit, it +follows, on the other hand, that men are responsible to God for that +heavy weight which is laid upon the spirit by pampered and luxurious +bodies, incapable of self-sacrifice, rebellious against the lightest of +His demands. It is suggestive, that Moses, when sent again to Pharaoh, +objected, as at first: “Behold, the children of Israel have not +hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of +uncircumcised lips?” + +Every new hope, every great inspiration which calls the heroes of God to +a fresh attack upon the powers of Satan, is checked and hindered more by +the coldness of the Church than by the hostility of the world. That +hostility is expected, and can be defied. But the infidelity of the +faithful is appalling indeed. + +We read with wonder the great things which Christ has promised to +believing prayer, and, at the same time, although we know painfully that +we have never claimed and dare not claim these promises, we wonder +equally at the foreboding question, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall +He find the faith (faith in its fulness) on the earth?” (Luke xviii. 8). +But we ought to remember that our own low standard helps to form the +standard of attainment for the Church at large—that when one member +suffers, all the members suffer with it—that many a large sacrifice +would be readily made for Christ, at this hour, if only ease and +pleasure were at stake, which is refused because it is too hard to be +called well-meaning enthusiasts by those who ought to glorify God in +such attainment, as the first brethren did in the zeal and the gifts of +Paul. + +The vast mountains raise their heads above mountain ranges which +encompass them; and it is not when the level of the whole Church is low, +that giants of faith and of attainment may be hoped for. Nay, Christ +stipulates for the agreement of two or three, to kindle and make +effectual the prayers which shall avail. + +For the purification of our cities, for the shaming of our legislation +until it fears God as much as a vested interest, for the reunion of +those who worship the same Lord, for the conversion of the world, and +first of all for the conversion of the Church, heroic forces are +demanded. But all the tendency of our half-hearted, abject, +semi-Christianity is to repress everything that is unconventional, +abnormal, likely to embroil us with our natural enemy, the world; and +who can doubt that, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, we +shall know of many an aspiring soul, in which the sacred fire had begun +to burn, which sank back into lethargy and the commonplace, murmuring in +its despair, “Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; +how then shall Pharaoh hear me?” + +It was the last fear which ever shook the great heart of the emancipator +Moses. + +At the beginning of the grand historical work, of which all this has +been the prelude, there is set the pedigree of Moses and Aaron, +according to “the heads of their fathers’ houses,”—- an epithet which +indicates a subdivision of the “family,” as the family is a subdivision +of the tribe. Of the sons of Jacob, Reuben and Simeon are mentioned, to +put Levi in his natural third place. And from Levi to Moses only four +generations are mentioned, favouring somewhat the briefer scheme of +chronology which makes four centuries cover all the time from Abraham, +and not the captivity alone. But it is certain that this is a mere +recapitulation of the more important links in the genealogy. In Num. +xxvi. 58, 59, six generations are reckoned instead of four; in 1 Chron. +ii. 3 there are seven generations; and elsewhere in the same book (vi. +22) there are ten. It is well known that similar omissions of obscure or +unworthy links occur in St. Matthew’s pedigree of our Lord, although +some stress is there laid upon the recurrent division into fourteens. +And it is absurd to found any argument against the trustworthiness of +the narrative upon a phenomenon so frequent, and so sure to be avoided +by a forger, or to be corrected by an unscrupulous editor. In point of +fact, nothing is less likely to have occurred, if the narrative were a +late invention. + +Neither, in that case, would the birth of the great emancipator be +ascribed to the union of Amram with his father’s sister, for such +marriages were distinctly forbidden by the law (Lev. xviii. 14). + +Nor would the names of the children of the founder of the nation be +omitted, while those of Aaron are recorded, unless we were dealing with +genuine history, which knows that the sons of Aaron inherited the lawful +priesthood, while the descendants of Moses were the jealous founders of +a mischievous schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +Nor again, if this were a religious romance, designed to animate the +nation in its later struggles, should we read of the hesitation and the +fears of a leader “of uncircumcised lips,” instead of the trumpet-like +calls to action of a noble champion. + +Nor does the broken-spirited meanness of Israel at all resemble the +conception, popular in every nation, of a virtuous and heroic antiquity, +a golden age. It is indeed impossible to reconcile the motives and the +date to which this narrative is ascribed by some, with the plain +phenomena, with the narrative itself. + +Nor is it easy to understand why the Lord, Who speaks of bringing out +“My hosts, My people, the children of Israel” (vii. 4, etc.), should +never in the Pentateuch be called the Lord of Hosts, if that title were +in common use when it was written; for no epithet would better suit the +song of Miriam or the poetry of the Fifth Book. + +When Moses complained that he was of uncircumcised lips, the Lord +announced that He had already made His servant as a god unto Pharaoh, +having armed him, even then, with the terrors which are soon to shake +the tyrant’s soul. + +It is suggestive and natural that his very education in a court should +render him fastidious, less willing than a rougher man might have been +to appear before the king after forty years of retirement, and feeling +almost physically incapable of speaking what he felt so deeply, in words +that would satisfy his own judgment. Yet God had endowed him, even then, +with a supernatural power far greater than any facility of expression. +In his weakness he would thus be made strong; and the less fit he was to +assert for himself any ascendency over Pharaoh, the more signal would be +the victory of his Lord, when he became “very great in the land of +Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight of the +people” (xi. 3). + +As a proof of this mastery he was from the first to speak to the haughty +king through his brother, as a god through some prophet, being too great +to reveal himself directly. It is a memorable phrase; and so lofty an +assertion could never, in the myth of a later period, have been ascribed +to an origin so lowly as the reluctance of Moses to expose his +deficiency in elocution. + +Therefore he should henceforth be emboldened by the assurance of +qualification bestowed already: not only by the hope of help and +achievement yet to come, but by the certainty of present endowment. And +so should each of us, in his degree, be bold, who have gifts differing +according to the grace given unto us. + +It is certain that every living soul has at least one talent, and is +bound to improve it. But how many of us remember that this loan implies +a commission from God, as real as that of prophet and deliverer, and +that nothing but our own default can prevent it from being, at the last, +received again with usury? + +The same bravery, the same confidence when standing where his Captain +has planted him, should inspire the prophet, and him that giveth alms, +and him that showeth mercy; for all are members in one body, and +therefore animated by one invincible Spirit from above (Rom. xii. 4–9). + +The endowment thus given to Moses made him “as a god” to Pharaoh. + +We must not take this to mean only that he had a prophet or spokesman, +or that he was made formidable, but that the peculiar nature of his +prowess would be felt. It was not his own strength. The supernatural +would become visible in him. He who boasted “I know not Jehovah” would +come to crouch before Him in His agent, and humble himself to the man +whom once he contemptuously ordered back to his burdens, with the abject +prayer, “Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat +Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only.” + +Now, every consecrated power may bear witness to the Lord: it is +possible to do all to the glory of God. Not that every separate action +will be ascribed to a preternatural source, but the sum total of the +effect produced by a holy life will be sacred. He who said, “I have made +thee a god unto Pharaoh,” says of all believers, “I in them, and Thou, +Father, in Me, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +_THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH’S HEART._ + +vii. 3–13. + +When Moses received his commission, at the bush, words were spoken which +are now repeated with more emphasis, and which have to be considered +carefully. For probably no statement of Scripture has excited fiercer +criticism, more exultation of enemies and perplexity of friends, than +that the Lord said, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he shall not let +the people go,” and that in consequence of this Divine act Pharaoh +sinned and suffered. Just because the words are startling, it is unjust +to quote them without careful examination of the context, both in the +prediction and the fulfilment. When all is weighed, compared, and +harmonised, it will at last be possible to draw a just conclusion. And +although it may happen long before then, that the objector will charge +us with special pleading, yet he will be the special pleader himself, if +he seeks to hurry us, by prejudice or passion, to give a verdict which +is based upon less than all the evidence, patiently weighed. + +Let us in the first place find out how soon this dreadful process began; +when was it that God fulfilled His threat, and hardened, in any sense +whatever, the heart of Pharaoh? Did He step in at the beginning, and +render the unhappy king incapable of weighing the remonstrances which He +then performed the cruel mockery of addressing to him? Were these as +insincere and futile as if one bade the avalanche to pause which his own +act had started down the icy slopes? Was Pharaoh as little responsible +for his pursuit of Israel as his horses were—being, like them, the +blind agents of a superior force? We do not find it so. In the fifth +chapter, when a demand is made, without any sustaining miracle, simply +appealing to the conscience of the ruler, there is no mention of any +such process, despite the insults with which Pharaoh then assails both +the messengers and Jehovah Himself, Whom he knows not. In the seventh +chapter there is clear evidence that the process is yet unaccomplished; +for, speaking of an act still future, it declares, “I will harden +Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of +Egypt” (vii. 3). And this terrible act is not connected with the +remonstrances and warnings of God, but entirely with the increasing +pressure of the miracles. + +The exact period is marked when the hand of doom closed upon the tyrant. +It is not where the Authorised Version places it. When the magicians +imitated the earlier signs of Moses, “his heart was strong,” but the +original does not bear out the assertion that at this time the Lord made +it so by any judicial act of His (vii. 13). That only comes with the +sixth plague; and the course of events may be traced, fairly well, by +the help of the margin of the Revised Version. + +After the plague of blood “Pharaoh’s heart was strong” (“hardened”), and +this is distinctly ascribed to his own action, because “he set his heart +even to this” (vii. 22, 23). + +After the second plague, it was still he himself who “made his heart +heavy” (viii. 15). + +After the third plague the magicians warned him that the very finger of +some god was upon him indeed: their rivalry, which hitherto might have +been somewhat of a palliation for his obstinacy, was now ended; but yet +“his heart was strong” (viii. 19). + +Again, after the fourth plague he “made his heart heavy”; and it “was +heavy” after the fifth plague, (viii. 32, ix. 7). + +Only thenceforward comes the judicial infatuation upon him who has +resolutely infatuated himself hitherto. + +But when five warnings and penalties have spent their force in vain, +when personal agony is inflicted in the plague of boils, and the +magicians in particular cannot stand before him through their pain, +would it have been proof of virtuous contrition if he had yielded then? +If he had needed evidence, it was given to him long before. Submission +now would have meant prudence, not penitence; and it was against +prudence, not penitence, that he was hardened. Because he had resisted +evidence, experience, and even the testimony of his own magicians, he +was therefore stiffened against the grudging and unworthy concessions +which must otherwise have been wrested from him, as a wild beast will +turn and fly from fire. He was henceforth himself to become an evidence +and a portent; and so “The Lord made strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he +hearkened not unto them” (ix. 12). It was an awful doom, but it is not +open to the attacks so often made upon it. It only means that for him +the last five plagues were not disciplinary, but wholly penal. + +Nay, it stops short of asserting even this: they might still have +appealed to his reason; they were only not allowed to crush him by the +agency of terror. Not once is it asserted that God hardened his heart +against any nobler impulse than alarm, and desire to evade danger and +death. We see clearly this meaning in the phrase, when it is applied to +his army entering the Red Sea: “I will make strong the hearts of the +Egyptians, and they shall go in” (xiv. 17). It needed no greater moral +turpitude to pursue the Hebrews over the sands than on the shore, but it +certainly required more hardihood. But the unpursued departure which the +good-will of Egypt refused, their common sense was not allowed to grant. +Callousness was followed by infatuation, as even the pagans felt that +whom God wills to ruin He first drives mad. + +This explanation implies that to harden Pharaoh’s heart was to inspire +him, not with wickedness, but with nerve. + +And as far as the original language helps us at all, it decidedly +supports this view. Three different expressions have been unhappily +rendered by the same English word, to harden; but they may be +discriminated throughout the narrative in Exodus, by the margin of the +Revised Version. + +One word, which commonly appears without any marginal explanation, is +the same which is employed elsewhere about “the cause which is too +_hard_ for” minor judges (Deut. i. 17, cf. xv. 18, etc.). Now, this word +is found (vii. 13) in the second threat that “I will harden Pharaoh’s +heart,” and in the account which was to be given to posterity of how +“Pharaoh hardened himself to let us go” (xiii. 15). And it is said +likewise of Sihon, king of Heshbon, that he “would not let us pass by +him, for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart strong” +(Deut. ii. 30). But since it does not occur anywhere in all the +narrative of what God actually did with Pharaoh, it is only just to +interpret this phrase in the prediction by what we read elsewhere of the +manner of its fulfilment. + +The second word is explained in the margin as meaning _to make strong_. +Already God had employed it when He said “I will _make strong_ his +heart” (iv. 21), and this is the term used of the first fulfilment of +the menace, after the sixth plague (ix. 12). God is not said to +interfere again after the seventh, which had few special terrors for +Pharaoh himself; but from henceforth the expression “to make _strong_” +alternates with the phrase “to make _heavy_.” “Go in unto Pharaoh, for I +have made heavy his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might +show these My signs in the midst of them” (x. 1). + +It may be safely assumed that these two expressions cover between them +all that is asserted of the judicial action of God in preventing a +recoil of Pharaoh from his calamities. Now, the strengthening of a +heart, however punitive and disastrous when a man’s will is evil (just +as the strengthening of his arm is disastrous then), has in itself no +immorality inherent. It is a thing as often good as bad,—as when Israel +and Joshua are exhorted to “Be _strong_ and of a good courage” (Deut. +xxxi. 6, 7, 23), and when the angel laid his hand upon Daniel and said, +“Be strong, yea, be strong” (Dan. x. 19). In these passages the phrase +is identical with that which describes the process by which Pharaoh was +prevented from cowering under the tremendous blows he had provoked. + +The other expression is to make heavy or dull. Thus “the eyes of Israel +were _heavy_ with age” (Gen. xlviii. 10), and as we speak of a _weight_ +of honour, equally with the heaviness of a dull man, so we are twice +commanded, “Make heavy (honour) thy father and thy mother”; and the Lord +declares, “I will make Myself heavy (get Me honour) upon Pharaoh” (Deut. +v. 16, Exod. xx. 12, xiv. 4, 17, 18). In these latter references it will +be observed that the making “strong” the heart of Pharaoh, and the +making “Myself heavy” are so connected as almost to show a design of +indicating how far is either expression from conveying the notion of +immorality, infused into a human heart by God. For one of the two +phrases which have been thus interpreted is still applied to Pharaoh; +but the other (and the more sinister, as we should think, when thus +applied) is appropriated by God to Himself: He makes Himself heavy. + +It is also a curious and significant coincidence that the same word was +used of the burdens that were made _heavy_ when first they claimed their +freedom, which is now used of the treatment of the heart of their +oppressor (v. 9). + +It appears, then, that the Lord is never said to debauch Pharaoh’s +heart, but only to strengthen it against prudence and to make it dull; +that the words used do not express the infusion of evil passion, but the +animation of a resolute courage, and the overclouding of a natural +discernment; and, above all, that every one of the three words, to make +hard, to make strong, and to make heavy, is employed to express +Pharaoh’s own treatment of himself, before it is applied to any work of +God, as actually taking place already. + +Nevertheless, there is a solemn warning for all time, in the assertion +that what he at first chose, the vengeance of God afterward chose for +him. For indeed the same process, working more slowly but on identical +lines, is constantly seen in the hardening effect of vicious habit. The +gambler did not mean to stake all his fortune upon one chance, when +first he timidly laid down a paltry stake; nor has he changed his mind +since then as to the imprudence of such a hazard. The drunkard, the +murderer himself, is a man who at first did evil as far as he dared, and +afterwards dared to do evil which he would once have shuddered at. + +Let no man assume that prudence will always save him from ruinous +excess, if respect for righteousness cannot withhold him from those +first compliances which sap the will, destroy the restraint of +self-respect, wear away the horror of great wickedness by familiarity +with the same guilt in its lesser phases, and, above all, forfeit the +enlightenment and calmness of judgment which come from the Holy Spirit +of God, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and of counsel, and makes men to be +of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. + +Let no man think that the fear of damnation will bring him to the +mercy-seat at last, if the burden and gloom of being “condemned already” +cannot now bend his will. “Even as they refused to have God in their +knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind” (Rom. i. 28). “I gave +them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he +shall even live in them.... I gave them statutes that were not good, and +judgments wherein they should not live” (Ezek. xx. 11, 25). + +This is the inevitable law, the law of a confused and darkened judgment, +a heart made heavy and ears shut, a conscience seared, an infatuated +will kicking against the pricks, and heaping to itself wrath against the +day of wrath. Wilful sin is always a challenge to God, and it is avenged +by the obscuring of the lamp of God in the soul. Now, a part of His +guiding light is prudence; and it is possible that men who will not be +warned by the fear of injury to their conscience, such as they suppose +that Pharaoh suffered, may be sobered by the danger of such derangement +of their intellectual efficiency as really befel him. + +In this sense men are, at last, impelled blindly to their fate (and this +is a judicial act of God, although it comes in the course of nature), +but first they launch themselves upon the slope which grows steeper at +every downward step, until arrest is impossible. + +On the other hand, every act of obedience helps to release the will from +its entanglement, and to clear the judgment which has grown dull, +anointing the eyes with eye-salve that they may see. Not in vain is the +assertion of the bondage of the sinner and the glorious liberty of the +children of God. + +A second time, then, Moses presented himself before Pharaoh with his +demands; and, as he had been forewarned, he was now challenged to give a +sign in proof of his commission from a god. + +And the demand was treated as reasonable; a sign was given, and a +menacing one. The peaceable rod of the shepherd, a fit symbol of the +meek man who bore it, became a serpent[10] before the king, as Moses was +to become destructive to his realm. But when the wise men of Egypt and +the enchanters were called, they did likewise; and although a marvel was +added which incontestably declared the superior power of the Deity Whom +Aaron represented, yet their rivalry sufficed to make strong the heart +of Pharaoh, and he would not let the people go. The issue was now knit: +the result would be more signal than if the quarrel were decided at one +blow, and upon all the gods of Egypt the Lord would exercise vengeance. + +What are we to think of the authentification of a religion by a sign? +Beyond doubt, Jesus recognised this aspect of His own miracles, when He +said, “If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, +they had not had sin” (John xv. 24). And yet there is reason in the +objection that no amount of marvel ought to deflect by one hair’s +breadth our judgment of right and wrong, and the true appeal of a +religion must be to our moral sense. + +No miracle can prove that immoral teaching is sacred. But it can prove +that it is supernatural. And this is precisely what Scripture always +proclaims. In the New Testament, we are bidden to take heed, because a +day will come, when false prophets shall work great signs and wonders, +to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Mark xiii. 22). In the Old +Testament, a prophet may seduce the people to worship other gods, by +giving them a sign or a wonder which shall come to pass, but they must +surely stone him: they must believe that his sign is only a temptation; +and above whatever power enabled him to work it, they must recognise +Jehovah proving them, and know that the supernatural has come to them in +judgment, not in revelation (Deut. xiii. 1–5). + +Now, this is the true function of the miraculous. At the most, it cannot +coerce the conscience, but only challenge it to consider and to judge. + +A teacher of the purest morality may be only a human teacher still; nor +is the Christian bound to follow into the desert every clamorous +innovator, or to seek in the secret chamber every one who whispers a +private doctrine to a few. We are entitled to expect that one who is +commissioned directly from above will bear special credentials with him; +but when these are exhibited, we must still judge whether the document +they attest is forged. And this may explain to us why the magicians were +allowed for awhile to perplex the judgment of Pharaoh whether by fraud, +as we may well suppose, or by infernal help. It was enough that Moses +should set his claims upon a level with those which Pharaoh reverenced: +the king was then bound to weigh their relative merits in other and +wholly different scales. + + +_THE PLAGUES._ + +vii. 14. + +There are many aspects in which the plagues of Egypt may be +contemplated. + +We may think of them as ranging through all nature, and asserting the +mastery of the Lord alike over the river on which depended the +prosperity of the realm, over the minute pests which can make life more +wretched than larger and more conspicuous ills (the frogs of the water, +the reptiles that disgrace humanity, and the insects that infest the +air), over the bodies of animals stricken with murrain, and those of man +tortured with boils, over hail in the cloud and blight in the crop, over +the breeze that bears the locust and the sun that grows dark at noon, +and at last over the secret springs of human life itself. + +No pantheistic creed (and the Egyptian religion struck its roots deep +into pantheistic speculation) could thus completely exalt God above +nature, as a superior and controlling Power, not one with the mighty +wheels of the universe, of which the height is terrible, but, as Ezekiel +saw Him, enthroned above them in the likeness of fire, and yet in the +likeness of humanity. + +No idolatrous creed, however powerful be its conception of one god of +the hills and another of the valleys, could thus represent a single +deity as wielding all the arrows of adverse fortune, able to assail us +from earth and sky and water, formidable alike in the least things and +in the greatest. And presently the demonstration is completed, when at +His bidding the tempest heaps up the sea, and at His frown the waters +return to their strength again. + +And no philosophic theory condescends to bring the Ideal, the Absolute, +and the Unconditioned, into such close and intimate connection with the +frog-spawn of the ditch and the blain upon the tortured skin. + +We may, with ample warrant from Scripture, make the controversial +application still more simple and direct, and think of the plagues as +wreaking vengeance, for the worship they had usurped and the cruelties +they had sanctioned, upon all the gods of Egypt, which are conceived of +for the moment as realities, and as humbled, if not in fact, yet in the +sympathies of priest and worshipper (xii. 12). + +Then we shall see the domain of each impostor invaded, and every vaunted +power to inflict evil or to remove it triumphantly wielded by Him Who +proves His equal mastery over all, and thus we shall find here the +justification of that still bolder personification which says, “Worship +Him, all ye gods” (Psalm xcvii. 7). + +The Nile had a sacred name, and was adored as “Hapee, or Hapee Mu, the +Abyss, or the Abyss of Waters, or the Hidden,” and the king was +frequently portrayed standing between two images of this god, his throne +wreathed with water-lilies. The second plague struck at the goddess +HEKT, whose head was that of a frog. The uncleanness of the third plague +deranged the whole system of Egyptian worship, with its punctilious and +elaborate purifications. In every one there is either a presiding +divinity attacked, or a blow dealt upon the priesthood or the sacrifice, +or a sphere invaded which some deity should have protected, until the +sun himself is darkened, the great god RA, to whom their sacred city was +dedicated, and whose name is incorporated in the title of his earthly +representative, the Pharaoh or PH-RA. Then at last, after all these +premonitions, the deadly blow struck home. + +Or we may think of the plagues as retributive, and then we shall +discover a wonderful suitability in them all. It was a direful omen that +the first should afflict the nation through the river, into which, +eighty years before, the Hebrew babes had been cast to die, which now +rolled bloody, and seemed to disclose its dead. It was fit that the +luxurious homes of the oppressors should become squalid as the huts of +the slaves they trampled; that their flesh should suffer torture worse +than that of the whips they used so unmercifully; that the loss of crops +and cattle should bring home to them the hardships of the poor who +toiled for their magnificence; that physical darkness should appal them +with vague terrors and undefined apprehensions, such as ever haunt the +bosom of the oppressed, whose life is the sport of a caprice; and at +last that the aged should learn by the deathbed of the prop and pride of +their declining feebleness, and the younger feel beside the cradle of +the first blossom and fruit of love, all the agony of such bereavement +as they had wantonly inflicted on the innocent. + +And since the fear of disadvantage in war had prompted the murder of the +Hebrew children, it was right that the retributive blow should destroy +first their children and then their men of war. + +When we come to examine the plagues in detail, we discover that it is no +arbitrary fancy which divides them into three triplets, leading up to +the appalling tenth. Thus the first, fourth, and seventh, each of which +begins a triplet, are introduced by a command to Moses to warn Pharaoh +“in the morning” (vii. 15), or “early in the morning” (viii. 20, ix. +13). The third, sixth and ninth, on the contrary, are inflicted without +any warning whatever. The story of the third plague closes with the +defeat of the magicians, the sixth with their inability to stand before +the king, and the ninth with the final rupture, when Moses declares, +“Thou shalt see my face no more” (viii. 19, ix. 11, x. 29). + +The first three are plagues of loathsomeness—blood-stained waters, +frogs and lice; the next three bring actual pain and loss with +them—stinging flies, murrain which afflicts the beasts, and boils upon +all the Egyptians; and the third triplet are “nature-plagues”—hail, +locusts and darkness. It is only after the first three plagues that the +immunity of Israel is mentioned; and after the next three, when the hail +is threatened, instructions are first given by which those Egyptians who +fear Jehovah may also obtain protection. Thus, in orderly and solemn +procession, marched the avengers of God upon the guilty land. + +It has been observed, concerning the miracles of Jesus, that not one of +them was creative, and that, whenever it was possible, He wrought by the +use of material naturally provided. The waterpots should be filled; the +five barley-loaves should be sought out; the nets should be let down for +a draught; and the blind man should have his eyes anointed, and go wash +in the Pool of Siloam. + +And it is easily seen that such miracles were a more natural expression +of His errand, which was to repair and purify the existing system of +things, and to remove our moral disease and dearth, than any exercise of +creative power would have been, however it might have dazzled the +spectators. + +Now, the same remark applies to the miracles of Moses, to the coming of +God in judgment, as to His revelation of Himself in grace; and therefore +we need not be surprised to hear that natural phenomena are not unknown +which offer a sort of dim hint or foreshadowing of the terrible ten +plagues. Either cryptogamic vegetation or the earth borne down from +upper Africa is still seen to redden the river, usually dark, but not so +as to destroy the fish. Frogs and vermin and stinging insects are the +pest of modern travellers. Cattle plagues make ravage there, and hideous +diseases of the skin are still as common as when the Lord promised to +reward the obedience of Israel to sanitary law by putting upon them none +of “the evil diseases of Egypt” which they knew (Deut. vii. 15).[11] The +locust is still dreaded. But some of the other visitations were more +direful because not only their intensity but even their existence was +almost unprecedented: hail in Egypt was only not quite unknown; and such +veiling of the sun as occurs for a few minutes during the storms of sand +in the desert ought scarcely to be quoted as even a suggestion of the +prolonged horror of the ninth plague. + +Now, this accords exactly with the moral effect which was to be +produced. The rescued people were not to think of God as one who strikes +down into nature from outside, with strange and unwonted powers, +superseding utterly its familiar forces. They were to think of Him as +the Author of all; and of the common troubles of mortality as being +indeed the effects of sin, yet ever controlled and governed by Him, let +loose at His will, and capable of mounting to unimagined heights if His +restraints be removed from them. By the east wind He brought the +locusts, and removed them by the south-west wind. By a storm He divided +the sea. The common things of life are in His hands, often for +tremendous results. And this is one of the chief lessons of the +narrative for us. Let the mind range over the list of the nine which +stop short of absolute destruction, and reflect upon the vital +importance of immunities for which we are scarcely grateful. + +The purity of water is now felt to be among the foremost necessities of +life. It is one which asks nothing from us except to refrain from +polluting what comes from heaven so limpid. And yet we are half +satisfied to go on habitually inflicting on ourselves a plague more foul +and noxious than any occasional turning of our rivers into blood. The +two plagues which dealt with minute forms of life may well remind us of +the vast part which we are now aware that the smallest organisms play in +the economy of life, as the agents of the Creator. Who gives thanks +aright for the cheap blessing of the unstained light of heaven? + +But we are insensible to the every-day teaching of this narrative: we +turn our rivers into fluid poison; we spread all around us deleterious +influences, which breed by minute forms of parasitical life the germs of +cruel disease; we load the atmosphere with fumes which slay our cattle +with periodical distempers, and are deadlier to vegetation than the +hail-storm or the locust; we charge it with carbon so dense that +multitudes have forgotten that the sky is blue, and on our Metropolis +comes down at frequent intervals the darkness of the ninth plague, and +all the time we fail to see that God, Who enacts and enforces every law +of nature, does really plague us whenever these outraged laws avenge +themselves. The miraculous use of nature in special emergencies is such +as to show the Hand which regularly wields its powers. + +At the same time there is no more excuse for the rationalism which would +reduce the calamities of Egypt to a coincidence, than for explaining +away the manna which fed a nation during its wanderings by the drug +which is gathered, in scanty morsels, upon the acacia tree. The awful +severity of the judgments, the series which they formed, their advent +and removal at the menace and the prayer of Moses, are considerations +which make such a theory absurd. The older scepticism, which supposed +Moses to have taken advantage of some epidemic, to have learned in the +wilderness the fords of the Red Sea,[12] to have discovered water, when +the caravan was perishing of thirst, by his knowledge of the habits of +wild beasts, and finally to have dazzled the nation at Horeb with some +kind of fireworks, is itself almost a miracle in its violation of the +laws of mind. The concurrence of countless favourable accidents and +strange resources of leadership is like the chance arrangement of a +printer’s type to make a poem. + +There is a common notion that the ten plagues followed each other with +breathless speed, and were completed within a few weeks. But nothing in +the narrative asserts or even hints this, and what we do know is in the +opposite direction. The seventh plague was wrought in February, for the +barley was in the ear and the flax in blossom (ix. 31); and the feast of +passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, so that the +destruction of the firstborn was in the middle of April, and there was +an interval of about two months between the last four plagues. Now, the +same interval throughout would bring back the first plague to September +or October. But the natural discoloration of the river, mentioned above, +is in the middle of the year, when the river begins to rise; and this, +it may possibly be inferred, is the natural period at which to fix the +first plague. They would then range over a period of about nine months. +During the interval between them, the promises and treacheries of the +king excited alternate hope and rage in Israel; the scribes of their own +race (once the vassals of their tyrants, but already estranged by their +own oppression) began to take rank as officers among the Jews, and to +exhibit the rudimentary promise of national order and government; and +the growing fears of their enemies fostered that triumphant sense of +mastery, out of which national hope and pride are born. When the time +came for their departure, it was possible to transmit orders throughout +all their tribes, and they came out of Egypt by their armies, which +would have been utterly impossible a few months before. It was with +them, as it is with every man that breathes: the delay of God’s grace +was itself a grace; and the slowly ripening fruit grew mellower than if +it had been forced into a speedier maturity. + + +_THE FIRST PLAGUE._ + +vii. 14–25. + +It was perhaps when the Nile was rising, and Pharaoh was coming to the +bank, in pomp of state, to make official observation of its progress, on +which the welfare of the kingdom depended, and to do homage before its +divinity, that the messenger of another Deity confronted him, with a +formal declaration of war. It was a strange contrast. The wicked was in +great prosperity, neither was he plagued like another man. Upon his +head, if this were Menephtah, was the golden symbol of his own divinity. +Around him was an obsequious court. And yet there was moving in his +heart some unconfessed sense of awe, when confronted once more by the +aged shepherd and his brother, who had claimed a commission from above, +and had certainly met his challenge, and made a short end of the rival +snakes of his own seers. Once he had asked “Who is Jehovah?” and had +sent His ambassadors to their tasks again with insult. But now he needs +to harden his heart, in order not to yield to their strange and +persistent demands. He remembers how they had spoken to him already, +“Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn, and I have said +unto thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to +let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn” (iv. 22, R.V.). +Did this awful warning come back to him, when the worn, solemn and +inflexible face of Moses again met him? Did he divine the connection +between this ultimate penalty and what is now announced—the turning of +the pride and refreshment of Egypt into blood? Or was it partly because +each plague, however dire, seemed to fall short of the tremendous +threat, that he hoped to find the power of Moses more limited than his +warnings? “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed +speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to +do evil.” + +And might he, at the last, be hardened to pursue the people because, by +their own showing, the keenest arrow in their quiver was now sped? +Whatever his feelings were, it is certain that the brothers come and go, +and inflict their plagues unrestrained; that no insult or violence is +attempted, and we can see the truth of the words “I have made thee as a +god unto Pharaoh.” + +It is in clear allusion to his vaunt, “I know not Jehovah,” that Moses +and Aaron now repeat the demand for release, and say, “Hitherto thou +hast not hearkened: behold, in this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah.” +What follows, when attentively read, makes it plain that the blow falls +upon “the waters that are in the river,” and those that have been drawn +from it into canals for artificial irrigation, into reservoirs like the +lakes Mœris and Mareotis, and even into vessels for immediate use. + +But we are expressly told that it was possible to obtain water by +digging wells. Therefore there is no point whatever in the cavil that +if Moses turned all the water into blood, none was left for the +operations of the magicians. But no comparison whatever existed between +their petty performances and the immense and direful work of vengeance +which rolled down a putrid mass of corrupt waters through the land, +spoiling the great stores of water by which later drought should be +relieved, destroying the fish, that important part of the food of the +nation, for which Israel afterwards lusted, and sowing the seeds of +other plagues, by the pollution of that balmy air in which so many of +our own suffering countrymen still find relief, but which was now +infected and loathsome. Even Pharaoh must have felt that his gods might +do better for him than this, and that it would be much more to the point +just then to undo his plague than to increase it—to turn back the blood +to water than contribute a few drops more. If this was their best +effort, he was already helpless in the hand of his assailant, who, by +the uplifting of his rod, and the bold avowal in advance of +responsibility for so great a calamity, had formally defied him. But +Pharaoh dared not accept the challenge: it was effort enough for him to +“set his heart” against surrender to the portent, and he sullenly turned +back into the palace from the spot where Moses met him. + +Two details remain to be observed. The seven days which were fulfilled +do not measure the interval between this plague and the next, but the +period of its infliction. And this information is not given us +concerning any other, until we come to the three days of darkness.[13] +It is important here, because the natural discoloration lasts for three +weeks, and mythical tendencies would rather exaggerate than shorten the +term. + +Again, it is contended that only with the fourth plague did Israel begin +to enjoy exemption, because then only is their immunity recorded.[14] +But it is strange indeed to suppose that they were involved in +punishments the design of which was their relief; and in fact their +exemption is implied in the statement that the Egyptians (only) had to +dig wells. It is to be understood that large stores of water would +everywhere be laid up, because the Nile water, however delicious, +carries much sediment which must be allowed to settle down. They would +not be forced, therefore, to fall back upon the polluted common sources +for a supply. + +And now let us contrast this miracle with the first of the New +Testament. One spoiled the happiness of the guilty; the other rescued +the overclouded joy of the friends of Jesus, not turning water into +blood but into wine; declaring at one stroke all the difference between +the law which worketh wrath, and the gospel of the grace of God. The +first was impressive and public, as the revelation upon Sinai; the other +appealed far more to the heart than to the imagination, and befitted +well the kingdom that was not with observation, the King who grew up +like a tender plant, and did not strive nor cry, the redeeming influence +which was at first unobtrusive as the least of all seeds, but became a +tree, and the shelter of the fowls of heaven. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[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 +Phœnicians 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). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] Though of course the Person Whose Body was thus offered is Divine +(Acts xx. 28), and this gives inestimable value to the offering. + +[21] Here the sceptical theorists are widely divided among themselves. +Kuenen has discussed this whole theory, and rejected it as +“irreconcilable with what the Old Testament itself asserts in +justification of this sacrifice.” And he is driven to connect it +with the notion of atonement. “Jahveh appears as a severe being +who must be propitiated with sacrifices.” He has therefore to +introduce the notion of human sacrifice, in order to get rid of the +connection with the penal death of the Egyptians, and of the miraculous, +which this example would establish. (_Religion of Israel_, Eng. Trans., +i., 239, 240.) + +[22] The astonishing significance of this declaration would only be +deepened if we accepted the theories now so fashionable, and believed +that the later passage in Isaiah was the fruit of a period when the +full-blown Priestly Code was in process of development out of “the +small body of legislation contained in Lev. xvii.—xxvi.” +What a strange time for such a spiritual application of sacrificial +language! + +[23] So that it is used equally of the slow action of the lame, and of +the lingering movements of the false prophets when there was none to +answer (2 Sam. iv. 4; 1 Kings xviii. 26). “The Lord of Hosts shall +come down to fight upon Mount Zion.... As birds flying, so will the Lord +of Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will PASS OVER and preserve it” +(Isa. xxxi. 4, 5). + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +_THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN._ + +xiii. 1. + +Much that was said in the twelfth chapter is repeated in the thirteenth. +And this repetition is clearly due to a formal rehearsal, made when all +“their hosts” had mustered in Succoth after their first march; for Moses +says, “Remember this day, in which ye came out” (ver. 3). Already it had +been spoken of as a day much to be remembered, and for its perpetuation +the ordinance of the Passover had been founded. + +But now this charge is given as a fit prologue for the remarkable +institution which follows—the consecration to God of all unblemished +males who are the firstborn of their mothers—for such is the full +statement of what is claimed. + +In speaking to Moses the Lord says, “Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn +... it is Mine.” But Moses addressing the people advances gradually, and +almost diplomatically. First he reminds them of their deliverance, and +in so doing he employs a phrase which could only have been used at the +exact stage when they were emancipated and yet upon Egyptian soil: “By +strength of hand the Lord brought you out _from this place_” (ver. 3). +Then he charges them not to forget their rescue, in the dangerous time +of their prosperity, when the Lord shall have brought them into the +land which He swore to give them; and he repeats the ordinance of +unleavened bread. And it is only then that he proceeds to announce the +permanent consecration of all their firstborn—the abiding doctrine that +these, who naturally represent the nation, are for its unworthiness +forfeited, and yet by the grace of God redeemed. + +God, Who gave all and pardons all, demands a return, not as a tax which +is levied for its own sake, but as a confession of dependence, and like +the silk flag presented to the sovereign, on the anniversaries of the +two greatest of English victories, by the descendants of the conquerors, +who hold their estates upon that tenure. The firstborn, thus dedicated, +should have formed a sacred class, a powerful element in Hebrew life +enlisted on the side of God. + +For these, as we have already seen, the Levites were afterwards +substituted (Num. iii. 44), and there is perhaps some allusion to this +change in the direction that “all the firstborn of man thou shalt +redeem” (ver. 13). But yet the demand is stated too broadly and +imperatively to belong to that later modification: it suits exactly the +time to which it is attributed, before the tribe of Levi was substituted +for the firstborn of all. + +“They are Mine,” said Jehovah, Who needed not, that night, to remind +them what He had wrought the night before. It is for precisely the same +reason, that St. Paul claims all souls for God: “Ye are not your own, ye +are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies and with +your spirits, which are God’s.” + +And besides the general claim upon us all, each of us should feel, like +the firstborn, that every special mercy is a call to special gratitude, +to more earnest dedication. “I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that +ye present your bodies a living sacrifice” (Rom. xii. 1). + +There is a tone of exultant confidence in the words of Moses, very +interesting and curious. He and his nation are breathing the free air at +last. The deliverance that has been given makes all the promise that +remains secure. As one who feels his pardon will surely not despair of +heaven, so Moses twice over instructs the people what to do when God +shall have kept the oath which He swore, and brought them into Canaan, +into the land flowing with milk and honey. Then they must observe His +passover. Then they must consecrate their firstborn. + +And twice over this emancipator and lawgiver, in the first flush of his +success, impresses upon them the homely duty of teaching their +households what God had done for them (vers. 8, 14; cf. xii. 26). + +This, accordingly, the Psalmist learned, and in his turn transmitted. He +heard with his ears and his fathers told him what God did in their days, +in the days of old. And he told the generation to come the praises of +Jehovah, and His strength, and His wondrous works (Ps. xliv. 1, lxxviii. +4). + +But it is absurd to treat these verses, as Kuenen does, as evidence that +the story is mere legend: “transmitted from mouth to mouth, it gradually +lost its accuracy and precision, and adopted all sorts of foreign +elements.” To prove which, we are gravely referred to passages like +this. (_Religion of Israel_, i. 22, Eng. Vers.) The duty of oral +instruction is still acknowledged, but this does not prove that the +narrative is still unwritten. + +From the emphatic language in which Moses urged this double duty, too +much forgotten still, of remembering and showing forth the goodness of +God, sprang the curious custom of the wearing of phylacteries. But the +Jews were not bidden to wear signs and frontlets: they were bidden to +let hallowed memories be unto them in the place of such charms as they +had seen the Egyptians wear, “for a sign unto thee, upon thine hand, and +for a frontlet between thine eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in +thy mouth” (ver. 9). Such language is frequent in the Old Testament, +where mercy and truth should be bound around their necks; their fathers’ +commandments should be tied around their necks, bound on their fingers, +written on their hearts; and Sion should clothe herself with her +converts as an ornament, and gird them upon her as a bride doth (Prov. +iii. 3, vi. 21, vii. 3; Isa. xlix. 18). + +But human nature still finds the letter of many a commandment easier +than the spirit, a ceremony than an obedient heart, penance than +penitence, ashes on the forehead than a contrite spirit, and a +phylactery than the gratitude and acknowledgment which ought to be unto +us for a sign on the hand and a frontlet between the eyes. + +We have already observed the connection between the thirteenth verse and +the events of the previous night. But there is an interesting touch of +nature in the words “the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a +lamb.” It was afterwards rightly perceived that all unclean animals +should follow the same rule; but why was only the ass mentioned? Plainly +because those humble journeyers had no other beast of burden. Horses +pursued them presently, but even the Egyptians of that period used them +only in war. The trampled Hebrews would not possess camels. And thus +again, in the tenth commandment, when the stateliest of their cattle is +specified, no beast of burden is named with it but the ass: “Thou shalt +not covet ... his ox nor his ass.” It is an undesigned coincidence of +real value; a phrase which would never have been devised by legislators +of a later date; a frank and unconscious evidence of the genuineness of +the story. + +Some time before this, a new and fierce race, whose name declared them +to be “emigrants,” had thrust itself in among the tribes of Canaan—a +race which was long to wage equal war with Israel, and not seldom to see +his back turned in battle. They now held all the south of Palestine, +from the brook of Egypt to Ekron (Josh. xv. 4, 47). And if Moses in the +flush of his success had pushed on by the straight and easy route into +the promised land, the first shock of combat with them would have been +felt in a few weeks. But “God led them not by the way of the +Philistines, though that was near, for God said, Lest peradventure the +people repent them when they see war, and they return to Egypt” (ver. +17). + +From this we learn two lessons. Why did not He, Who presently made +strong the hearts of the Egyptians to plunge into the bed of the sea, +make the hearts of His own people strong to defy the Philistines? The +answer is a striking and solemn one. Neither God in the Old Testament, +nor God manifested in the flesh, is ever recorded to have wrought any +miracle of spiritual advancement or overthrow. Thus the Egyptians were +but confirmed in their own choice: their decision was carried further. +And even Saul of Tarsus was illuminated, not coerced: he might have +disobeyed the heavenly vision. He was not an insincere man suddenly +coerced into earnestness, nor a coward suddenly made brave. In the moral +world, adequate means are always employed for the securing of desired +effects. Love, gratitude, the sense of danger and of grace, are the +powers which elevate characters. And persons who live in sensuality, +fraud, or falsehood, hoping to be saved some day by a sort of miracle of +grace, ought to ponder this truth, which may not be the gospel now +fashionable, but is unquestionably the statement of a Scriptural fact: +_in the moral sphere, God works by means and not by miracle_. + +A free life, the desert air, the rejection of the unfit by many +visitations, and the growth of a new generation amid thrilling events, +in a soul-stirring region, and under the pure influences of the +law,—these were necessary before Israel could cross steel with the +warlike children of the Philistines; and even then, it was not with them +that he should begin. + +The other lesson we learn is the tender fidelity of God, Who will not +suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. He led them +aside into the desert, whither He still in mercy leads very many who +think it a heavy judgment to be there. + + +_THE BONES OF JOSEPH._ + +xiii. 19. + +It is certain that Moses, in the days of his greatness, must often have +mused by the sepulchre of the one Israelite before himself who held high +rank in Egypt. The knowledge that Joseph’s elevation was providential +must have helped him at that time, now many years ago, to think rightly +of his own. And now we read that Moses took the bones of Joseph with +him. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 22) it is recorded as the most +characteristic example of the faith of the patriarch, that instead of +desiring to be carried, like his father, at once to Canaan, he made +mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment +concerning his bones. To him Egypt was no longer an alien land. There +only he had known honour without envy, and happiness without betrayal. +There his bones could rest in quiet; but not for ever. Personal +elevation, which had not rent the cord between him and his unworthy +family, could still less sever the bands between him and the sacred +race. Let him sleep in Egypt while his grave there was honoured: let the +remembrance of him be kept fresh, to protect awhile his kindred; and +when the predicted days of evil came, let his ashes share the neglect +and dishonour of his people, if only they would remember his remains +when the Lord would lead them forth. This confidence in their +emancipation was his faith—which meant, here as always, not a clear +view of truth, but an assuring grasp of it. He had straitly sworn the +children of Israel saying, “God will surely visit you; and ye shall +carry up my bones away hence with you.” + +Many a Christian might well envy a confidence so practical, so +thoroughly realised, entering so naturally into the tissue of his +thoughts and calculations. And their actual remembrance of him goes to +show that the tradition of his faith had never completely died out, but +was among the influences which kept alive the nation’s hope. + +And as the people bore his honoured ashes through the desert, these +being dead spoke of bygone times, they linked the present and the past +together, they deepened the national consciousness that Israel was a +favoured people, called to no common destiny, sustained by no common +promises, pressing toward no common goal. + +If Israel had been wise, they would have thought of him, the Israelite +in heart, though glittering in the splendours of Egypt; and would have +considered well that as little as men detected his secret life from his +appearance, so little could theirs be judged. To the eye, they were free +from the foreign trammels in which he was seemingly entangled, yet many +of them in heart turned back to all which strove in vain to bind his +affections down. The lesson holds good to-day. Many a modern religionist +looks askance at the “worldliness” of high office and rank and state; +little dreaming that the “world” he censures is strong in his own +ambitious and self-asserting spirit, and is overcome by the gentle and +tranquil spirit of hundreds of those whom he condemns. + +Bearing this hallowed burden, which might easily have become an object +of superstitious regard, the nation moved from Succoth to Etham on the +edge of the wilderness. And with them a Presence moved which rebuked all +others, however venerable. The Lord went before them. It has already +been pointed out that throughout the early history of this nation, just +come out of an idolatrous land, and too ready to lapse back into +superstition, God never reveals Himself except in fire. To Abraham and +to Jacob He appeared in human form, and again to Joshua; but in the +interval, never. So now they see Him by day in a pillar of cloud to +guide them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them +light. The glory of the nation was that manifested Presence, lacking +which, Moses besought Him to carry them up no farther. Nothing in the +Exodus is more impressive, and it sank deep into the national heart. +Many centuries afterwards, the ideal of a golden age was that the Lord +should “create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her +assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire +by night” (Isa. iv. 5). + +But it has been well observed that, amid the various allusions to it in +Hebrew poetry, not one treats it as modern literature has done, with an +eye to its marvellous sublimity and picturesque effects: + + “By day, along the astonished lands + The cloudy pillar glided slow: + By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sands + Returned the fiery column’s glow.” + +The Hebrew poetry is vivid and passionate, but all its concerns are +human or divine—God, and the life of man. It is not artistic, but +inspired. “The modern poet is delighting in the scenic effect; the +ancient chronicler was wholly occupied with the overshadowing power of +God.”[24] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] Hutton’s _Essays_, Vol. ii., _Literary: The Poetry of the Old +Test._ + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +_THE RED SEA._ + +xiv. 1–31. + +It would seem that the Israelites recoiled before a frontier fortress of +Egypt at Khetam (Etham). This is probable, whatever theory of the route +of the Exodus one may adopt; and it is still open to every reader to +adopt almost any theory he pleases, provided that two facts are borne in +mind: viz., first, that the narrative certainly means to describe a +miraculous interference, not superseding the forces of nature, but +wielding them in a fashion impossible to man; and second, that the +phrase translated “Red Sea”[25] (xiii. 18, xv. 4) is the same which is +confessed by all persons to have that meaning in chap. xxiii. 31, and in +Numbers xxi. 4 and xxxiii. 10. + +Checked, without loss or with it, they were bidden to “turn back,” and +encamp at Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. And since Migdol is +simply a watch-tower (there were several in the Holy Land, including +that which gave her name to Mary Magdal-ene), we are to infer that from +thence their inexplicable movements were signalled back to Pharaoh. It +was the natural signal for all the wild passions of a baffled and +half-ruined tyrant to leap into flame. We are scarcely able to imagine +the mental condition of men who conceived that a God Who had dealt out +death and destruction might be far from invincible from another side. +But ages after this, a campaign was planned upon the ingenious theory +that “Jehovah is a god of the hills but He is not a god of the valleys” +(1 Kings xx. 28); and plenty of people who would scorn this simple +notion are still of opinion that He is a God of eternity and can save +them from hell, but a little falsehood and knavery are much better able +to save them from want in the meanwhile. Nay, there are many excellent +persons who are not at all of opinion that the prince of this world has +been dethroned. + +Therefore, when his enemies recoiled from his fortresses and wandered +away into the wilderness of Egypt, entangling themselves hopelessly +between the sea, the mountains, and his own strongholds, it might well +appear to Pharaoh that Jehovah was not a warlike deity, that he himself +had now found out the weak point of his enemies, and could pursue and +overtake and satisfy his lust upon them. There is a significant emphasis +in the song of Miriam’s triumph—“Jehovah is a man of war.” At all +events, it was through an imperfect sense of the universal and practical +importance of Jehovah as a factor not to be neglected in his +calculations, through exactly the same error which misleads every man +who postpones religion, or limits the range of its influence in his +daily life,—it was thus, and not through any rarer infatuation, that +Pharaoh made ready six hundred chosen chariots and all the chariots of +Egypt, and captains over all of them. And his court was of the same +mind, saying, “What is this that we have done, that we have let Israel +go from serving us?” + +These words are hard to reconcile with the strange notion that until now +a return after three days was expected, despite the torrent of blood +which rolled between them, and the demands by which the Israelitish +women had spoiled the Egyptians. Upon this theory it is not their own +error, but the bad faith of their servants, which they should have cried +out against. + +At the sight of the army, a panic seized the servile hearts of the +fugitives. First they cried out unto the Lord. But how possible it is, +without any real faith, to address to Heaven the mere clamours of our +alarm, and to mistake natural agitation for earnestness in prayer, we +learn by the reproaches with which, after thus crying to the Lord, they +assailed His servant. Were there no graves in that land of superb +sepulchres—that land, now, of universal mourning? Would God that they +had perished with the firstborn! Why had they been treated thus? Had +they not urged Moses to let them alone, that they might serve the +Egyptians? + +And yet these men had lately, for the very promise of so much +emancipation as they now enjoyed, bowed their heads in adoring +thankfulness. As it was their fear which now took the form of +supplication, so then it was their hope which took the form of praise. +And we, how shall we know whether that in us which seems to be religious +gladness and religious grief, is mere emotion, or is truly sacred? By +watching whether worship and love continue, when emotion has spent its +force, or has gone round, like the wind, to another quarter. + +How did Moses feel when this outcry told him of the unworthiness and +cowardice of the nation of his heart? Much as we feel, perhaps, when we +see the frailties and failures of converts in the mission-field, and the +lapse of the intemperate who have seemed to be reclaimed for ever. We +thought that perfection was to be reached at a bound. Now we think that +the whole work was unreal. Both extremes are wrong: we have much to +learn from the failures of that ancient church, in which was the germ of +hero, psalmist, and prophet, which was indeed the church in the +wilderness, and whose many relapses were so tenderly borne with by God +and His messenger. + +The settled faith of Moses, and the assurances which he could give the +agitated people,[26] contrast nobly with their alarm. But his confidence +also had its secret springs in prayer, for the Lord said to him, +“Wherefore criest thou unto Me? speak unto the children of Israel that +they go forward.” + +The words are remarkable on two accounts. Can prayer ever be out of +place? Not if we mean a prayerful dependent mental attitude toward God. +But certainly, yes, if God has already revealed that for which we still +importune Him, and we are secretly disquieted lest His promise should +fail. It is misplaced if our own duty has to be done, and we pass the +golden moments in inactivity, however pious. Christ spoke of men who +should leave their gift before the altar, unpresented, because of a +neglected duty which should be discharged. And perhaps there are men who +pray for the conversion of the heathen, or of friends at home, to whom +God says, Wherefore criest thou unto Me? because their money and their +faithful efforts must be given, as Moses must arouse himself to lead the +people forward, and to stretch his wand over the sea. + +And again the forces of nature are on the side of God: the strong wind +makes the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over. History +has no scene more picturesque than this wild night march, in the roar of +tempest, amid the flying foam which “baptized” them unto Moses,[27] +while the glimmering waters stood up like a rampart to protect their +flanks; the full moon of passover above them, shown and hidden as the +swift clouds raced before the storm, while high and steadfast overhead, +unshaken by the fiercest blast, illumined by a mysterious splendour, +“stood” the vast cloud which veiled like a curtain their whole host from +the pursuer. This it was, and the experience of such protection that the +Egyptians, overawed, came not near them, which gave them courage to +enter the bed of the sea; and as they trod the strange road they found +that not only were the waters driven off the surface, but the sands were +left firm to traverse. + +But when the blind fury of Pharaoh, “hardened” against everything but +the sense that his prey was escaping, sent his army along the same +track, and this after long delay, at a crisis when every moment was +priceless, then a new element of terrible sublimity was added. Through +the pillar of cloud and fire Jehovah looked forth on the Egyptian host, +as they pressed on behind, unable to penetrate the supernatural gloom, +cold fear creeping into every heart, while the chariot wheels laboured +heavily in the wet sand. In that direful vision at last the question was +answered, “Who is Jehovah, that I should let His people go?” Now it was +the turn of those who said “Israel is entangled in the land, the +wilderness hath shut them in,” themselves to be taken in a worse net. +For at that awful gaze the iron curb of military discipline gave way; +their labouring chariots, the pride and defence of the nation, were +forsaken; and a wild cry broke out, “Let us fly from the face of Israel, +for Jehovah”—He who plagued us—“fighteth for them against the +Egyptians.” But their humiliation came too late,—for in the morning +watch, at a natural time for atmospheric changes, but in obedience to +the rod of Moses, the furious wind veered or fell, and the sea returned +to its accustomed limits; and first, as the sands beneath became +saturated, the chariots were overturned and the mail-clad charioteers +went down “like lead,” and then the hissing line of foam raced forward +and closed around and over the shrieking mob which was the pride and +strength of Egypt only an hour before. + +But, as the story repeats twice over, with a very natural and glad +reiteration, “the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of +the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and +on their left” (ver. 29, cf. 22). + + +_ON THE SHORE._ + +xiv. 30, 31. + +After the haste and agitation of their marvellous deliverance the +children of Israel seem to have halted for awhile at the only spot in +the neighbourhood where there is water, known as the Ayoun Musa or +springs of Moses to this day. There they doubtless brought into some +permanent shape their rudimentary organisation. There, too, their +impressions were given time to deepen. They “saw the Egyptians dead on +the sea-shore,” and realised that their oppression was indeed at an end, +their chains broken, themselves introduced into a new life,—“baptized +unto Moses.” They reflected upon the difference between all other +deities and the God of their fathers, Who, in that deadly crisis, had +looked upon them and their tyrants out of the fiery pillar. “They feared +Jehovah, and they believed in Jehovah and in His servant Moses.” + +“They believed in Jehovah.” This expression is noteworthy, because they +had all believed in Him already. “By faith ‘they’ forsook Egypt. By +faith ‘they’ kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood. By faith +‘they’ passed through the Red Sea.” But their former trust was poor and +wavering compared with that which filled their bosoms now. So the +disciples followed Jesus because they believed on Him; yet when His +first miracle manifested forth His glory, “His disciples believed on Him +there.” And again they said, “By this we believe that Thou camest forth +from God.” And after the resurrection He said, “Because thou hast seen +Me thou hast believed” (John ii. 11, xvi. 30, xx. 29). Faith needs to be +edified by successive experiences, as the enthusiasm of a recruit is +converted into the disciplined valour of the veteran. From each new +crisis of the spiritual life the soul should obtain new powers. And that +is a shallow and unstable religion which is content with the level of +its initial act of faith (however genuine and however important), and +seeks not to go from strength to strength. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] The Sea of Zuph, or reeds, the word being used of the reeds in +which Moses was laid by his mother and found by Pharaoh’s daughter +(ii. 3, 5), rendered “flags” in the Revised Version. + +[26] But his assurance is, “The Lord shall fight for you, and ye +shall hold your peace.” When Wellhausen would summarise the work +of Moses, he tells us that “he taught them to regard +self-assertion against the Egyptians as an article of religion” +(_History_, p. 430). It would be impossible, within the compass of so +many words, more completely to miss the remarkable characteristic which +differentiates this whole narrative from all other revolutionary +movements. Expectancy and dependence here take the place of +“self-assertion.” + +[27] Not the adults only; nor yet by immersion, whether in the +rain-cloud or the surf. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +_THE SONG OF MOSES._ + +xv. 1–22. + +During this halt they prepared that great song of triumph which St. John +heard sung by them who had been victorious over the beast, standing by +the sea of glass, having the harps of God. For by that calmer sea, +triumphant over a deadlier persecution, they still found their adoration +and joy expressed in this earliest chant of sacred victory. Because all +holy hearts give like thanks to Him Who sitteth upon the throne, +therefore “deep answers unto deep,” and every great crisis in the +history of the Church has legacies for all time and for eternity; and +therefore the triumphant song of Moses the servant of God enriches the +worship of heaven, as the penitence and hope and joy of David enrich the +worship of the Church on earth (Rev. xv. 3). + +Like all great poetry, this song is best enjoyed when it is neither +commented upon nor paraphrased, but carefully read and warmly felt. +There are circumstances and lines of thought which it is desirable to +point out, but only as a preparation, not a substitute, for the +submission of a docile mind to the influence of the inspired poem +itself. It is unquestionably archaic. The parallelism of Hebrew verse is +already here, but the structure is more free and unartificial than that +of later poetry; and many ancient words, and words of Egyptian +derivation, authenticate its origin. So does the description of Miriam, +in the fifteenth verse, as “the prophetess, the sister of Aaron.” In +what later time would she not rather have been called the sister of +Moses? But from the lonely youth who found Aaron and Miriam together as +often as he stole from the palace to his real home—the lonely man who +regained both together when he returned from forty years of exile, and +who sometimes found them united in opposition to his authority (Num. +xii. 1, 2)—from Moses alone the epithet is entirely natural. + +It is also noteworthy that Philistia is mentioned first among the foes +who shall be terrified (ver. 14, R.V.), because Moses still expected the +invasion to break first on them. But the unbelieving fears of Israel +changed the route, so that no later poet would have set them in the +forefront of his song. Thus also the terror of the Edomites is +anticipated, although in fact they sturdily refused a passage to Israel +through their land (Num. xx. 20). All this authenticates the song, which +thereupon establishes the miraculous deliverance that inspired it. + +The song is divided into two parts. Up to the end of the twelfth verse +it is historical: the remainder expresses the high hopes inspired by +this great experience. Nothing now seems impossible: the fiercest tribes +of Palestine and the desert may be despised, for their own terror will +suffice to “melt” them; and Israel may already reckon itself to be +guided into the holy habitation (ver. 13). + +The former part is again subdivided, by a noble and instinctive art, +into two very unequal sections. With amplitude of triumphant adoration, +the first ten verses tell the same story which the eleventh and twelfth +compress into epigrammatical vigour and terseness. To appreciate the +power of the composition, one should read the fourth, fifth, and sixth +verses, and turn immediately to the twelfth. + +Each of these three divisions closes in praise, and as in the “Israel in +Egypt,” it was probably at these points that the voices of Miriam and +the women broke in, repeating the first verse of the ode as a refrain +(vers. 1 and 21). It is the earliest recognition of the place of women +in public worship. And it leads us to remark that the whole service was +responsive. Moses and the men are answered by Miriam and the women, +bearing timbrels in their hands; for although instrumental music had +been sorely misused in Egypt, that was no reason why it should be +excluded now. Those who condemn the use of instruments in Christian +worship virtually contend that Jesus has, in this respect, narrowed the +liberty of the Church, and that a potent method of expression, known to +man, must not be consecrated to the honour of God. And they make the +present time unlike the past, and also unlike what is revealed of the +future state. + +Moreover there was movement, as in very many ancient religious services, +within and without the pale of revelation.[28] Such dances were +generally slow and graceful; yet the motion and the clang of metal, and +the vast multitudes congregated, must be taken into account, if we would +realise the strange enthusiasm of the emancipated host, looking over the +blue sea to Egypt, defeated and twice bereaved, and forward to the +desert wilds of freedom. + +The poem is steeped in a sense of gratitude. In the great deliverance +man has borne no part. It is Jehovah Who has triumphed gloriously, and +cast the horse and charioteer—there was no “rider”—into the sea. And +this is repeated again and again by the women as their response, in the +deepening passion of the ode. “With the breath of His nostrils the +waters were piled up.... He blew with His wind and the sea covered +them.” And such is indeed the only possible explanation of the Exodus, +so that whoever rejects the miracle is beset with countless +difficulties. One of these is the fact that Moses, their immortal +leader, has no martial renown whatever. Hebrew poetry is well able to +combine gratitude to God with honour to the men of Zebulun who +jeopardised their lives unto the death, to Jael who put her hand to the +nail, to Saul and Jonathan who were swifter than eagles and stronger +than lions. Joshua and David can win fame without dishonour to God. Why +is it that here alone no mention is made of human agency, except that, +in fact, at the outset of their national existence, they were shown, +once for all, the direct interposition of their God? + +From gratitude springs trust: the great lesson is learned that man has +an interest in the Divine power. “My strength and song is Jah,” says the +second verse, using that abbreviated form of the covenant name Jehovah, +which David also frequently associated with his victories. “And He is +become my salvation.” It is the same word as when, a little while ago, +the trembling people were bidden to stand still and see the salvation of +God. They have seen it now. Now they give the word Salvation for the +first time to the Lord as an appellation, and as such it is destined to +endure. The Psalmist learns to call Him so, not only when he reproduces +this verse word for word (Ps. cxviii. 14), but also when he says, “He +only is my rock and my salvation” (lxii. 2), and prays, “Before Ephraim, +Benjamin, and Manasseh, come for salvation to us” (lxxx. 2). + +And the same title is known also to Isaiah, who says, “Behold God is my +salvation,” and “Be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in +the time of trouble” (Isa. xii. 2, xxxiii. 2). + +The progress is natural from experience of goodness to appropriation: He +has helped me: He gives Himself to me; and from that again to love and +trust, for He has always been the same: “my father,” not my ancestors in +general, but he whom I knew best and remember most tenderly, found Him +the same Helper. And then love prompts to some return. My goodness +extendeth not to Him, yet my voice can honour Him; I will praise Him, I +will exalt His name. Now, this is the very spirit of evangelical +obedience, the life-blood of the new dispensation racing in the veins of +the old. + +Where praise and exaltation are a spontaneous instinct, there is loyal +service and every good work, not rendered by a hireling but a child. Had +He not said, “Israel is My son”? + +From exultant gratitude and trust, what is next to spring? That which is +reproachfully called anthropomorphism, something which indeed easily +degenerates into unworthy notions of a God limited by such restraints or +warped by such passions as our own, yet which is after all a great +advance towards true and holy thoughts of Him Who made man after His +image and in His likeness. + +Human affection cannot go forth to God without believing that like +affection meets and responds to it. If He is indeed the best and purest, +we must think of Him as sharing all that is best and purest in our +souls, all that we owe to His inspiring Spirit. + + “So through the thunder comes a human voice, + Saying ‘O heart I made, a heart beats here.’” + +If ever any religion was sternly jealous of the Divine prerogatives, +profoundly conscious of the incommunicable dignity of the Lord our God +Who is one Lord, it was the Jewish religion. Yet when Jesus was charged +with making Himself God, He could appeal to the doctrine of their own +Scripture—that the judges of the people exercised so divine a function, +and could claim such divine support, that God Himself spoke through +them, and found representatives in them. “Is it not written in your law, +I said Ye are gods?” (John x. 34). Not in vain did He appeal to such +scriptures—and there are many such—to vindicate His doctrine. For man +is never lifted above himself, but God in the same degree stoops towards +us, and identifies Himself with us and our concerns. Who then shall +limit His condescension? What ground in reason or revelation can be +taken up for denying that it may be perfect, that it may develop into a +permanent union of God with the creature whom He inspired with His own +breath? It is by such steps that the Old Testament prepared Israel for +the Incarnation. Since the Incarnation we have actually needed help from +the other side, to prevent us from humanising our conceptions over-much. +And this has been provided in the ever-expanding views of His creation +given to us by science, which tell us that if He draws nigh to us it is +from heights formerly undreamed of. Now, such a step as we have been +considering is taken unawares in the bold phrase “Jehovah is a man of +war.” For in the original, as in the English, this includes the +assertion “Jehovah is a man.” Of course it is only a bold figure. But +such a figure prepares the mind for new light, suggesting more than it +logically asserts. + +The phrase is more striking when we remember that remarkable peculiarity +of the Exodus and its revelations which has been already pointed out. +Elsewhere God appears in human likeness. To Abraham it was so, just +before, and to Manoah soon afterwards. Ezekiel saw upon the likeness of +the throne the likeness of the appearance of a man (Ezek. i. 26). But +Israel saw no similitude, only he heard a voice. This was obviously a +safeguard against idolatry. And it makes the words more noteworthy, +“Jehovah is a man of war,” marching with us, our champion, into the +battle. And we know Him as our fathers knew Him not,—“Jehovah is His +name.” + + * * * * * + +The poem next describes the overthrow of the enemy: the heavy plunge of +men in armour into the deeps, the arm of the Lord dashing them in +pieces, His “fire” consuming them, while the blast of His nostrils is +the storm which “piles up” the waters, solid as a wall of ice, +“congealed in the heart of the sea.” Then the singers exultantly +rehearse the short panting eager phrases, full of greedy expectation, of +the enemy breathless in pursuit—a passage well remembered by Deborah, +when her triumphant song closed by an insulting repetition of the vain +calculations of the mother of Sisera and “her wise ladies.” + +The eleventh verse is remarkable as being the first announcement of the +holiness of God. “Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness?” And +what does holiness mean? The Hebrew word is apparently suggestive of +“brightness,” and the two ideas are coupled by Isaiah (x. 17): “The +Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame.” +There is indeed something in the purity of light, in its absolute +immunity from stain—no passive cleanness, as of the sand upon the +shore, but intense and vital—and in its remoteness from the conditions +of common material substances, that well expresses and typifies the +lofty and awful quality which separates holiness from mere virtue. “God +is called the Holy One because He is altogether pure, the clear and +spotless Light; so that in the idea of the holiness of God there are +embodied the absolute moral purity and perfection of the Divine nature, +and His unclouded glory” (Keil, _Pent._, ii. 99). In this thought there +is already involved separation, a lofty remoteness. + +And when holiness is attributed to man, it never means innocence, nor +even virtue, merely as such. It is always a derived attribute: it is +reflected upon us, like light upon our planet; and like consecration, it +speaks not of man in himself, but in his relation to God. It expresses a +kind of separation to God, and thus it can reach to lifeless things +which bear a true relation to the Divine. The seventh day is thus +“hallowed.” It is the very name of the “Holy Place,” the “Sanctuary.” +And the ground where Moses was to stand unshod beside the burning bush +was pronounced “holy,” not by any concession to human weakness, but by +the direct teaching of God. Very inseparable from all true holiness is +separation from what is common and unclean. Holy men may be involved in +the duties of active life; but only on condition that in their bosom +shall be some inner shrine, whither the din of worldliness never +penetrates, and where the lamp of God does not go out. + +It is a solemn truth that a kind of inverted holiness is known to +Scripture. Men “sanctify themselves” (it is this very word), “and purify +themselves to go into the gardens, ... eating swine’s flesh and the +abomination and the mouse” (Isa. lxvi. 17). The same word is also used +to declare that the whole fruit of a vineyard sown with two kinds of +fruit shall be _forfeited_ (Deut. xxii. 9), although the notion there is +of something unnatural and therefore interdicted, which notion is +carried to the utmost extreme in another derivative from the same root, +expressing the most depraved of human beings. + +Just so, the Greek word “anathema” means both “consecrated” and “marked +out for wrath” (Luke xxi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 22: the difference in form is +insignificant.) And so again our own tongue calls the saints “devoted,” +and speaks of the “devoted” head of the doomed sinner, being aware that +there is a “separation” in sin as really as in purity. The gods of the +heathen, like Jehovah, claimed an appropriate “holiness,” sometimes +unspeakably degraded. They too were separated, and it was through long +lines of sphinxes, and many successive chambers, that the Egyptian +worshipper attained the shrine of some contemptible or hateful deity. +The religion which does not elevate depresses. But the holiness of +Jehovah is noble as that of light, incapable of defilement. “Who among +the gods is like Thee ... glorious in holiness?” And Israel soon learned +that the worshipper must become assimilated to his Ideal: “Ye shall be +holy men unto Me” (xxii. 31). It is so with us. Jesus is separated from +sinners. And we are to go forth unto Him out of the camp, bearing His +reproach (Heb. vii. 26, xiii. 13). + +The remainder of the song is remarkable chiefly for the confidence with +which the future is inferred from the past. And the same argument runs +through all Scripture. As Moses sang, “Thou shalt bring them in and +plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,” because “Thou +stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth[29] swallowed” their enemies, +so David was sure that goodness and mercy should follow him all the days +of his life, because God was already leading him in green pastures and +beside still waters. And so St. Paul, knowing in Whom he had believed, +was persuaded that He was able to keep his deposit until that day (2 +Tim. i. 12). + +So should pardon and Scripture and the means of grace reassure every +doubting heart; for “if the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not +have ... showed us all these things” (Judg. xiii. 23). And in theory, +and in good hours, we confess that this is so. But after our song of +triumph, if we come upon bitter waters we murmur; and if our bread fail, +we expect only to die in the wilderness. + + +_SHUR._ + +xv. 22–7. + +From the Red Sea the Israelites marched into the wilderness of Shur—a +general name, of Egyptian origin, for the district between Egypt and +Palestine, of which Etham, given as their route in Numbers (xxxiii. 8), +is a subdivision. The rugged way led over stone and sand, with little +vegetation and no water. And the “three days’ journey” to Marah, a +distance of thirty-three miles, was their first experience of absolute +hardship, for not even the curtain of miraculous cloud could prevent +them from suffering keenly by heat and thirst. + +It was a period of disillusion. Fond dreams of ease and triumphant +progress, with every trouble miraculously smoothed away, had naturally +been excited by their late adventure. Their song had exulted in the +prospect that their enemies should melt away, and be as still as a +stone. But their difficulties did not melt away. The road was weary. +They found no water. They were still too much impressed by the miracle +at the Red Sea, and by the mysterious Presence overhead, for open +complaining to be heard along the route; but we may be sure that +reaction had set in, and there was many a sinking heart, as the dreary +route stretched on and on, and they realised that, however romantic the +main plan of their journey, the details might still be prosaic and +exacting. They sang praises unto Him. They soon forgat His works. Aching +with such disappointments, at last they reached the waters of Marah, and +they could not drink, for they were bitter. + +And if Marah be indeed Huwara, as seems to be agreed, the waters are +still the worst in all the district. It was when the relief, so +confidently expected, failed, and the term of their sufferings appeared +to be indefinitely prolonged, that their self-control gave way, and they +“murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?” And we may be +sure that wherever discontent and unbelief are working secret mischief +to the soul, some event, some disappointment or temptation, will find +the weak point, and the favourable moment of attack, just as the seeds +of disease find out the morbid constitution, and assail it. + +Now, all this is profoundly instructive, because it is true to the +universal facts of human nature. When a man is promoted to unexpected +rank, or suddenly becomes rich, or reaches any other unlooked-for +elevation, he is apt to forget that life cannot, in any position, be a +romance throughout, a long thrill, a whole song at the top note of the +voice. Affection itself has a dangerous moment, when two united lives +begin to realise that even their union cannot banish aches and +anxieties, weariness and business cares. Well for them if they are +content with the power of love to sweeten what it cannot remove, as +loyal soldiers gladly sacrifice all things for the cause, and as Israel +should have been proud to endure forced marches under the cloudy banner +of its emancipating God. + +As neither rank nor affection exempts men from the dust and tedium of +life, or from its disappointments, so neither does religion. When one is +“made happy” he expects life to be only a triumphal procession towards +Paradise, and he is startled when “now for a season, if need be, he is +in heaviness through manifold temptations.” Yet Christ prayed not that +we should be taken out of the world. We are bidden to endure hardness as +good soldiers, and to run with patience the race which is set before us; +and these phrases indicate our need of the very qualities wherein Israel +failed. As yet the people murmured not ostensibly against God, but only +against Moses. But the estrangement of their hearts is plain, since they +made no appeal to God for relief, but assailed His agent and +representative. Yet they had not because they asked not, and relief was +found when Moses cried unto the Lord. Their leader was “faithful in all +his house”; and instead of upbraiding his followers with their +ingratitude, or bewailing the hard lot of all leaders of the multitude, +whose popularity neither merit nor service can long preserve unclouded, +he was content to look for sympathy and help where we too may find it. + +We read that the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the +waters, the waters were made sweet. In this we discern the same union of +Divine grace with human energy and use of means, as in all medicine, and +indeed all uses of the divinely enlightened intellect of man. It would +have been easy to argue that the waters could only be healed by miracle, +and if God wrought a miracle what need was there of human labour? There +was need of obedience, and of the co-operation of the human will with +the divine. We shall see, in the case of the artificers of the +tabernacle, that God inspires even handicraftsmen as well as +theologians—being indeed the universal Light, the Giver of all good, +not only of Bibles, but of rain and fruitful seasons. But the artisan +must labour, and the farmer improve the soil. + +Shall we say with the fathers that the tree cast into the waters +represents the cross of Christ? At least it is a type of the sweetening +and assuaging influences of religion—a new element, entering life, and +as well fitted to combine with it as medicinal bark with water, making +all wholesome and refreshing to the disappointed wayfarer, who found it +so bitter hitherto. + +The Lord was not content with removing the grievance of the hour; He +drew closer the bonds between His people and Himself, to guard them +against another transgression of the kind: “there He made for them a +statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them.” It is pure +assumption to pretend that this refers to another account of the giving +of the Jewish law, inconsistent with that in the twentieth chapter, and +placed at Marah instead of Sinai.[30] It is a transaction which +resembles much rather the promises given (and at various times, although +confusion and repetition cannot be inferred) to Abraham and Jacob (Gen. +xii. 1–3, xv. 1, 18–21, xvii. 1–14, xxii. 15–18, xxviii. 13–15, xxxv. +10–12). He said, “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the +Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His eyes, and wilt give +ear to His commandments, and wilt keep all His statutes, I will put none +of the diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am +the Lord which healeth thee.” It is a compact of obedient trust on one +side, and protection on the other. If they felt their own sinfulness, it +asserted that He who had just healed the waters could also heal their +hearts. From the connection between these is perhaps derived the +comparison between human hearts and a fountain of sweet water or bitter +(Jas. iii. 11). + +But certainly the promised protection takes an unexpected shape. What in +their circumstances leads to this specific offer of exemption from +certain foul diseases—“the boil of Egypt, and the emerods, and the +scurvy, and the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed” (Deut. xxviii. +27)? How does this meet the case? Doubtless by reminding them that there +are better exemptions than from hardship, and worse evils than +privations. If they do not realise this at the spiritual level, at least +they can appreciate the threat that “He will bring upon thee again all +the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of” (Deut. xxviii. 60). To +be even a luxurious and imperial race, but infected by repulsive and +hopeless ailments, is not a desirable alternative. Now, such evils, +though certainly not in each individual, yet in a race, are the +punishments of non-natural conditions of life, such as make the blood +run slowly and unhealthily, and charge it with impure deposits. It was +God who put them upon the Egyptians. + +If Israel would follow His guidance, and accept a somewhat austere +destiny, then the desert air and exercise, and even its privations, +would become the efficacious means for their exemption from the scourges +of indulgence. A time arrived when they looked back with remorse upon +crimes which forfeited their immunity, when the Lord said, “I have sent +among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt; your young men have +I slain with the sword” (Amos iv. 10). + +But it is a significant fact that at this day, after eighteen hundred +years of oppression, hardship, and persecution, of the ghetto and the +old-clothes trade, the Hebrew race is proverbially exempt from repulsive +and contagious disease. They also “certainly do enjoy immunity from the +ravages of cholera, fever and smallpox in a remarkable degree. Their +blood seems to be in a different condition from that of other people.... +They seem less receptive of disease caused by blood poisoning than +others” (_Journal of Victoria Institute_, xxi. 307). Imperfect as was +their obedience, this covenant at least has been literally fulfilled to +them. + +It is by such means that God is wont to reward His children. Most +commonly the seal of blessing from the skies is not rich fare, but bread +and fish by the lake side with the blessing of Christ upon them; not +removal from the desert, but a closer sense of the protection and +acceptance of Heaven, the nearness of a loving God, and with this, an +elevation and purification of the life, and of the body as well as of +the soul. Not in vain has St. Paul written “The Lord for the body.” Nor +was there ever yet a race of men who accepted the covenant of God, and +lived in soberness, temperance and chastity, without a signal +improvement of the national physique, no longer unduly stimulated by +passion, jaded by indulgence, or relaxed by the satiety which resembles +but is not repose. + +From Marah and its agitations there was a journey of but a few hours to +Elim, with its twelve fountains and seventy palm trees—a fair oasis, by +which they encamped and rested, while their flocks spread far and wide +over a grassy and luxuriant valley. + +The picture is still true to the Christian life, with the Palace +Beautiful just beyond the lions, and the Delectable Mountains next after +Doubting Castle. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] There is no warrant in the use of Scripture for Stanley’s +assertion that the word translated “dances” should be +rendered “guitars.” (Smith’s _Dict. of Bible_, Article +_Miriam_.) + +[29] This is to be taken literally; it does not mean the waves, but the +quicksands in which they “drave heavily,” and which, when +steeped in the returning waters, engulfed them. + +[30] Wellhausen, _Israel_, p. 439. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +_MURMURING FOR FOOD._ + +xvi. 1–14. + +The Israelites were now led farther away from all the associations of +their accustomed life. From the waters and the palms of Elim they +marched deeper into the savage recesses of the desert, haunted by fierce +and hostile tribes, such as presently hung upon their rear-guard and cut +off their stragglers (Deut. xxv. 18). Nor had they quite emerged from +the shadow of their old oppressions, since Egyptian garrisons were +scattered, though sparsely, through this district, in which gems and +copper were obtained. Here, cut off from all natural modes of +sustenance, the hearts of the people failed them. Such is the frequent +experience of renewed souls, when privilege and joy are followed by +trouble from without or from within, and the peace of God is broken by +the strife of tongues, by mental perplexities, by temptations, by +physical pain. It is quite as wonderful that paltry disturbances should +mar for us the life divine, when once that life has become a realised +experience, as that men who moved under the shadow of the marvellous +cloud could be agitated by fear for their supplies. And of this our +experience, what befel Israel is not a mere type or symbol, it is a case +in point, a parallel example. For it also meant the breaking-in of the +flesh upon the spirit, the refusal of fallen nature to rise above +earthly wants and cravings even in the light of trust and acceptance, +the self-assertion of the baser instincts, and the sacrifice to them of +the higher life. We recognise the herd of slaves, from whence it must +perplex the unbeliever to remember that the seed of immortal heroism and +prophetic insight and apostolic service was yet to ripen, in their poor +desire, if they must perish, to perish well fed rather than emancipated +(ver. 3). Most people, we may fear, would choose to live enslaved rather +than to die free men. But there is a special meanness in their regret, +since die they must, that they had not died satiated, like the firstborn +whom God had slain: “Would that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in +the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots and when we ate bread +to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill +this whole assembly with hunger.” And to-day, among those who scorn +them, how many are far less ambitious of dying holy and pure than rich, +famous or powerful, having glutted their vanity if not their appetite. +In the sight of angels this is not a much loftier aim; and the apostle +reckoned among the works of the flesh, emulation as well as drunkenness +(Gal. v. 19–21). + +Tertullian draws a striking contrast between Israel, just now baptized +into Moses, but caring more for appetite than for God, and Christ, after +His baptism, also in the desert, fasting forty days. “The Lord +figuratively retorted upon Israel His reproach” (_Baptism_, xx.) + +We are not to suppose that but for their complaining God would have +suffered them to hunger, although Moses declared that the reason why +flesh should be given to them in the evening, and in the morning bread +to the full, is “for that the Lord heareth your murmurings.” But there +would have been some difference in the time of the grant, to ripen their +faith, some more direct manifestation of His grace, to reward their +patience, if unbelief had not precipitated His design. Thus the +disciples, when they awakened Jesus in the storm, received the rescue +for which they clamoured, but forfeited some higher experience which +would have crowned a serener confidence: “Wherefore did ye doubt?” +Israel receives what is best in the circumstances, rather than the ideal +best, now made unsuitable by their impatience and infidelity. But while +the Lord discontinued the test of need and penury, which had proved to +be too severe a discipline, He substituted the test of fulness. For we +read that the removal of their suspense and anxiety by the gift of manna +from heaven was “to prove them whether they will walk in My laws or no” +(ver. 4). And in so doing it was seen that worldly and unthankful +natures are not to be satisfied; that the disloyal at heart will +complain, however favoured. For “the children of Israel wept again and +said, Who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did +eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and +the onions and the garlick: but now our soul is dried away; there is +nothing at all: we have nought save this manna to look to” (Num. xi. +4–6). Onions and garlick were more satisfactory to gross appetites than +angels’ food. + +At this point we learn that what is called prosperity may indeed be a +result of spiritual failure; that God may sometimes abstain from strong +measures with a soul because what ought to mould would only crush; and +may grant them their hearts’ lust, yet send leanness withal into their +souls. Perhaps we are allowed to be comfortable because we are unfit to +be heroic. + +And we also learn, when prosperous, to remember that plenty, equally +with want, has its moral aspect. The Lord tries fortunate men, whether +they will be grateful and obedient, trusting in Him and not in uncertain +riches, or whether they will forget Him who has done so great things for +them, and so perish in calm weather— + + “Like ships that have gone down at sea + When heaven was all tranquillity.” + +There is an experiment being tried upon the soul, curious, slow, +little-suspected, but incessant, in the giving of daily bread. + +In promising relief, God required of them obedience and self-control. +They were to respect the Sabbath, and make provision in advance for its +requirements. And this direction, given before the Mount of the Lord was +reached, has an important bearing upon the question whether the Fourth +Commandment was the first institution of a holy day—whether, except as +a Church ordinance, the duty of sabbath-keeping has no support beyond +the ceremonial law. “For that the Lord hath (already) given you the +Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days” +(ver. 29). + +While conveying the promise of relief, Moses and Aaron rebuked the +people, whose murmurs against them were in reality murmurs against God, +since they were but His agents, and He had been visibly their Leader. +And the same rebuke applies, for exactly the same reason, to many a +modern complaint against the weather, against what people call their +“luck,” against a thousand provoking things in which the only possible +provocation must come directly from heaven. It is because our religion +is so shallow, and our consciousness of God in His world so dim and +rudimentary, that we utter such complaints idly, to relieve our +feelings, and hear them spoken without a shock. + +Such dulness is not to be removed by sounder views of doctrine, but by a +more vivid realisation of God. The Israelites knew by what hand they +should have fallen if they had died in Egypt; yet in fact they forgot +their true Captain, and upbraided their mortal leaders. So do we confess +that afflictions arise not out of the ground, yet lose the impress of +divinity upon our daily lives, while we ought, like Moses, to “endure as +seeing Him who is invisible.” + +As our Lord was in the habit of asking for some confession, or demanding +some small co-operation from those He was about to bless, so the smoking +flax of Hebrew faith is tended: it is a promise, and not the actual +relief, which calms them. There is a curious difference in the manner of +the communications now made to the people. First of all the two brothers +unite their energies to hush their outcries: “At evening ye shall know +that Jehovah is your leader from Egypt, and in the morning ye shall +behold His glory; and what are we, that ye murmur against us?” Then +Moses affirms, with all the energy of his chieftainship, that in the +evening they shall eat flesh, and in the morning bread to the full. +Again he asks them “What are we?” and more sternly and directly charges +them with murmuring against Jehovah. And this is a good example of the +true meaning of his “meekness.” He is fiery enough, but not for his own +greatness; rather because he feels his littleness, and that the offence +is entirely against God, does he resent their conduct; absence of +self-assertion is his “meekness,” and thus we read of it when Miriam and +Aaron spake against him, declaring that they were commissioned as well +as he (Num. xii. 3). Finally, when order was restored, and some +mysterious manifestation was at hand, he resumed the solemn and formal +usage of conveying his orders through his brother, and in cold, compact, +impressive words, said unto Aaron, “Say unto all the congregation of the +children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He hath heard your +murmurings.” All this is very dignified and natural. And so is—what +after ages could scarcely have invented—the impressive reticence of +what follows. “They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory +of the Lord appeared in the cloud.” + +Were they not then intended to “come near”? and was it as they turned +their faces to draw nigh that the Vision revealed itself and stopped +them? And what was the untold sight which they beheld? The narrative +belongs to a primitive age; it is quite unlike the elaborate symbolisms +of Ezekiel and Daniel, or even of Isaiah, but yet this undescribed, +mystic and solitary glory is not less sublime than the train which +covered the Temple-floor, while, hovering above it, reverent seraphim +veiled their faces and their feet, or the terrible crystal and the +wheels of dreadful height, or the throne of flame whence issued a fiery +stream, and before which thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads +stood (Isa. vi. 2; Ezek. i. 22, 18; Dan. vii. 9, 10). But the point to +observe is that it is different, more primitive, an undefined and lonely +vision of awe well fitted for the desert wilds and for the gaze of men +whose hearts must not be misled by the likeness of anything in heaven or +earth; the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud (most probably, but +not of necessity, the cloud which guided them), and in the direction +whence they were so fain to turn away. + +No later inventor would have known how to say so little, much less to +make that little harmonise so exactly with the lessons meant to be +suggested by the wild and solemn solitudes into which they were now +plunged. + +And now the Lord Himself repeats the promise of relief, but first +solemnly announces that He is not heedless of their ill-behaviour while +He tolerates it. The question is suggested, although not asked, How long +will His forbearance last? + +Well for them if they learn the lesson, and “know that I am Jehovah your +God,” mindful of their needs, entitled to their fealty. In the evening, +therefore, came a flight of quails; and in the morning they found a +small round thing, small as the hoar-frost, upon the ground. + + +_MANNA._ + +xvi. 15–36. + +The manna which miraculously supplied the wants of Israel was to them an +utterly strange food, the use of which they had to learn. Thus it was +another means of severing their habitual course of life and association +of ideas from their degraded past. And while we may not press too far +the assertion that it was the “corn of heaven” and “angels’ food” +(_i.e._ “the bread of the mighty”—Psalm lxxviii. 24–5, R.V.), yet the +narrative shows, even without help from later scriptures, that it was +calculated to sustain their energies and yet to leave their appetites +unstimulated and unpampered. For they were now called to purer joys +than those of the senses—to liberty, a divine vocation, the presence of +God, the revelation of His law and the unfolding of His purposes. +Failing to rise to these heights, they fell far, murmured again, and +perished by the destroyer, not merely to avenge the petulance of an +hour, but for all that it betrayed, for treason to their vocation and +radical inability to even comprehend its meaning. In the language of +modern science, it answered to Nature’s rejection of the unfit. + +Their calling was thus, though under very different forms, that which +the apostles found so hard, yet did not quite refuse: it was to mind the +things of God and not the things of men. + +It is well known that the manna of the Israelites bore some resemblance +to a natural product of the wilderness, still exuded by certain plants +during the coolness of the night, and formerly more plentiful than now, +when all vegetation has been ruthlessly swept away by the Bedouin. But +the differences are much greater than the resemblance. The natural +product is a drug, and not a food; it is gathered only during some weeks +of summer; it is not liable to speedy corruption, nor could there be any +reason for preserving a specimen of this common product in the ark; it +could not have sufficed, however aided by their herds and flocks, to +feed one in a hundred of the Hebrew multitudes, even during the season +of its production; nor could it have ceased on the same day when they +ate the first ripe corn of Canaan. + +And yet the resemblance is suggestive. Unbelievers find, in the links +which connect most of our Scripture miracles with nature, in the +undefined and gradual transition from one to the other, as from a +temperate day to night, an excuse for denying that they are miraculous +at all. But the instructed believer finds a confirmation of his faith. +He reflects that when Fancy begins to toy with the supernatural, she +spurns nature from her: the trammels under which she has long chafed are +hateful to her, and she flies from them to the utmost extreme. + +It could not be thus with Him by whom the system of the world was +framed. He will not wantonly interfere with His own plan. He will regard +nature as an elastic band to stretch, rather than as a chain to break. +If He will multiply food, in the New Testament, that is no reason why +His disciples should fare more delicately than Providence intended for +them: they shall still eat barley loaves and fish. And so the winds help +to overthrow Pharaoh and to bring the quails; and when a new thing has +to be created, it approaches in its general idea to one of the few +natural products of that inhospitable region. + +Now let it be supposed for a moment that the supply of manna had never +ceased, so that until this day men could every morning gather a day’s +ration off the ground. Such continuance of the provision would not make +it any the less a gift; but only a more lavish boon. And yet it would +clearly cease to be regarded as miraculous, an exception to the course +of nature, miscalled her “laws,” since men do strive to subvert the +miracle by representing that such manna, however scantily, may still be +found. And this may expose the folly of a wish, probably sometimes felt +by all men, that some miracle had actually been perpetuated, so that we +could strengthen our faith at pleasure by looking upon an exhibition of +divine power. In truth, no marvel could excel that which annually +multiplies the corn beneath the clod, and by the process of decay in +springtime feeds the world in autumn. Only its steady recurrence throws +a veil over our eyes; and it is a vain conceit that the same web would +not be woven by use between man and the Worker of any other marvel that +was perpetuated. Already the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord, +for all who have eyes to see. + +It is also to be observed that the manna was not given to teach the +people sloth. They were obliged to gather it early, before the sun was +hot. They had still to endure weary marches, and the care of their +flocks and herds. + +And, in curious harmony with the manner of all the gifts of nature, the +manna sent from heaven had yet to be prepared by man: “bake that which +ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will seethe.” Thus God, by +natural means and by the sweat of our brow, gives us our daily bread; +and all knowledge, art and culture are His gifts, although elaborated by +the brain and heart of generations whom He taught. + +Moreover, there was a protest against the grasping, unbelieving temper +which cannot trust God with to-morrow, but longs to have much goods laid +up. That is the temper which forfeits the smile of God, and grinds the +faces of the poor, to make an ignoble “provision” for the future. How +often, since the time of Moses, has the unblessed accumulation become +hateful! How often, since the time of St. James, the rust of such +possession has eaten the flesh like fire! Men would be far more +generous, the difference between wealth and poverty would be less +portentous, and the resources of religion and charity less crippled, if +we lived in the spirit of the Lord’s prayer, desirous of the advance of +the kingdom, but not asking to be given to-morrow’s bread until +to-morrow. That lesson was taught by the manner of the dispensation of +the manna, but the covetousness of Israel would not learn it. The people +actually strove to be dishonest in their enjoyment of a miracle. It is +no wonder that Moses was wroth with them. + +Among the strange properties of their supernatural food not the least +curious was this: that when they came to measure what they had +collected, and compare it with what Moses had bidden,[31] the most eager +and able-bodied had nothing over, and the feeblest had no lack. Every +real worker was supplied, and none was glutted. This result is +apparently miraculous. St. Paul’s use of it does not, as some have +supposed, represent it as a result of Hebrew benevolence, sharing with +the weak the more abundant supplies of the strong: the miracle is not +cited as an example of charity, but of that practical equality, divinely +approved, which Christian charity should reproduce; the Christian Church +is bidden to do voluntarily what was done by miracle in the wilderness: +“your abundance being a supply at this present time for their want, that +their abundance also may become a supply for your want, that there may +be equality; as it is written, He that gathered much had nothing over, +and he that gathered little had no lack” (2 Cor. viii. 15). + +It is quite in vain to appeal to this passage in favour of socialistic +theories. In the first place it applies only to the necessities of +existence; and even granting that the state should enforce the +principle to which it points, the duty would not extend beyond a liberal +poor rate. When contributions were afterwards demanded for the +sanctuary, there is no trace of a dead level in their resources: the +rulers gave the gems and spices and oil, some brought gold, with some +were found blue and linen and skins, and others had acacia-wood to offer +(xxxv. 22–4). + +In the second place, this arrangement was only temporary; and while the +soil of Canaan was distinctly claimed for the Lord, the enjoyment of it +by individuals was secured, and perpetuated in their families, by +stringent legislation. Now, land is the kind of property which +socialists most vehemently assail; but persons who appeal to Exodus must +submit to the authority of Judges. + +Socialism, therefore, and its coercive measures, find no more real +sanction here than in the Church of Jerusalem, where the property of +Ananias was his own, and the price of it in his own power. But yet it is +highly significant that in both Testaments, as the Church of God starts +upon its career, an example should be given of the effacing of +inequalities, in the one case by miracle, in the other by such a +voluntary movement as best becomes the gospel. Is not such a movement, +large and free, the true remedy for our modern social distractions and +calamities? Would it not be wise and Christ-like for the rich to give, +as St. Paul taught the Corinthians to give, what the law could never +wisely exact from them? Would not self-denial, on a scale to imply real +sacrifice, and fulfilling in spirit rather than letter the apostle’s +aspiration for “equality,” secure in return the enthusiastic adhesion to +the rights of property of all that is best and noblest among the poor? + +When will the world, or even the Church, awaken to the great truth that +our politics also need to be steeped in Christian feeling—that humanity +requires not a revolution but a pentecost—that a millennium cannot be +enacted, but will dawn whenever human bosoms are emptied of selfishness +and lust, and filled with brotherly kindness and compassion? Such, and +no more, was the socialism which St. Paul deduced from the equality in +the supply of manna. + + +_SPIRITUAL MEAT._ + +xvi. 15–36. + +Since the journey of Israel is throughout full of sacred meaning, no one +can fail to discern a mystery in the silent ceaseless daily miracle of +bread-giving. But we are not left to our conjectures. St. Paul calls +manna “spiritual meat,” not because it nourished the higher life (for +the eaters of it murmured for flesh, and were not estranged from their +lust), but because it answered to realities of the spiritual world (1 +Cor. x. 3). And Christ Himself said, “It was not Moses that gave you the +bread out of heaven, but My Father giveth you the true Bread from +heaven,” making manna the type of sustenance which the soul needs in the +wilderness, and which only God can give (John vi. 32). + +We note the time of its bestowal. The soul has come forth out of its +bondage. Perhaps it imagines that emancipation is enough: all is won +when its chains are broken: there is to be no interval between the Egypt +of sin and the Promised Land of milk and honey and repose. Instead of +this serene attainment, it finds that the soul requires to be fed, and +no food is to be seen, but only a wilderness of scorching heat, dry +sand, vacancy, and hunger. Old things have passed away, but it is not +yet realised that all things have become new. Religion threatens to +become a vast system for the removal of accustomed indulgences and +enjoyments, but where is the recompense for all that it forbids? The +soul cries out for food: well for it if the cry be not faithless, nor +spoken to earthly chiefs alone! + +There is a noteworthy distinction between the gift of manna and every +other recorded miracle of sustenance. In Eden the fruit of immortality +was ripening upon an earthly tree. The widow of Zarephath was fed from +her own stores. The ravens bore to Elijah ordinary bread and flesh; and +if an angel fed him, it was with a cake baken upon coals. Christ Himself +was content to multiply common bread and fish, and even after His +resurrection gave His apostles the fare to which they were accustomed. +Thus they learned that the divine life must be led amid the ordinary +conditions of mortality. Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in +the likeness of sinful flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing +of a new life, a strange and unknown energy, to man. + +And here, almost at the beginning of revelation, is typified, not the +homely conditions of the inner life, but its unearthly nature and +essence. Here is no multiplication of their own stores, no gift, like +the quails, of such meat as they were wont to gather. They asked “What +is it?” And this teaches the Christian that his sustenance is not of +this world. They were fed “with manna which they knew not ... to make +them know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that +proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live” (Deut. viii. 3). The +root of worldliness is not in this indulgence or that, in gay clothing +or an active career; but in the soul’s endeavour to draw its nourishment +from things below. And spirituality belongs not to an uncouth +vocabulary, nor to the robes of any confraternity, to rigid rules or +austere deportment; it is the blessedness of a life nourished upon the +bread of heaven, and doomed to starve if that bread be not bestowed. Let +not the wealthy find an insuperable bar to spirituality in his +condition, nor the poor suppose that indigence cannot have its treasure +upon earth; but let each man ask whence come his most real and practical +impulses and energies upon life’s journey. If these flow from even the +purest earthly source—love of wife or child, anything else than +communion with the Father of spirits, this is not the bread of life, and +can no more nourish a pilgrim towards eternity than the husks which +swine eat. + +There is no mistaking the doctrine of the New Testament as to what this +bread may be. By prayer and faith, by ordinances and sacraments rightly +used, the manna may be gathered; but Jesus Himself is the Bread of life, +His Flesh is meat indeed and His Blood is drink indeed, and He gives His +Flesh for the life of the world. Christ is the Vine, and we are the +branches, fruitful only by the sap which flows from Him. As there are +diseases which cannot be overcome by powerful drugs, but by a generous +and wholesome dietary, so is it with the diseases of the soul—pride, +anger, selfishness, falsehood, lust. As the curse of sin is removed by +the faith which appropriates pardon, so its power is broken by the +steady personal acceptance of Christ; and our Bread and Wine are His new +humanity, given to us, until He becomes the second Father of the race, +which is begotten again in Him. An easy temper is not Christian +meekness; dislike to witness pain is not Christian love. All our +goodness must strike root deeper than in the sensibilities, must be +nourished by the communication to us of the mind which was in Christ +Jesus. + +And this food is universally given, and universally suitable. The strong +and the weak, the aged chieftain and little children, ate and were +nourished. No stern decree excluded any member of the visible Church in +the wilderness from sharing the bread from heaven: they did eat the same +spiritual meat, provided only that they gathered it. Their part was to +be in earnest in accepting, and so is ours; but if we fail, whom shall +we blame except ourselves? In the mystery of its origin, in the silent +and secret mode of its descent from above, in the constancy of its +bestowal, and in its suitability for all the camp, for Moses and the +youngest child, the manna prefigured Christ. + +Every day a fresh supply had to be laid up, and nothing could be held +over from the largest hoard. So it is with us: we must give ourselves to +Christ for ever, but we must ask Him daily to give Himself to us. The +richest experience, the purest aspiration, the humblest self-abandonment +that was ever felt, could not reach forward to supply the morrow. Past +graces will become loathsome if used instead of present supplies from +heaven. And the secret of many a scandalous fall is that the unhappy +soul grew self-confident: unlike St. Paul, he reckoned that he had +already attained; and thereupon the graces in which he trusted became +corrupt and vile. + +The constant supply was not more needful than it was abundant. The manna +lay all around the camp: the Bread of Life is He who stands at our door +and knocks. Alas for those who murmur for grosser indulgences! Israel +demanded and obtained them; but while the flesh was in their nostrils +the angel of the Lord went forth and smote them. Is there no plague any +longer for the perverse? What are the discords that convulse families, +the uncurbed passions to which nothing is sacred, the jaded appetite and +weary discontent which hates the world even as it hates itself? what but +the judgment of God upon those who despise His provision, and must needs +gratify themselves? Be it our happiness, as it is our duty, to trust Him +to prepare our table before us, while He leads us to His Holy Land. + +The Lord of the Sabbath already taught His people to respect His day. +Upon it no manna fell; and we shall hereafter see the bearing of this +incident upon the question whether the Sabbath is only an ordinance of +Judaism. Meanwhile they who went out to gather had a sharp lesson in the +difference between faith, which expects what God has promised, and +presumption, which hopes not to lose much by disobeying Him. + +Lastly, an omer of manna was to be kept throughout all generations, +before the Testimony. Grateful remembrance of past mercies, temporal as +well as spiritual, was to connect itself with the deepest and most awful +mysteries of religion. So let it be with us. The bitter proverb that +eaten bread is soon forgotten must never be true of the Christian. He is +to remember all the way that the Lord his God hath led him. He is bidden +to “forget not all His benefits, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who +healeth all thy diseases ... Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things.” +So foolish is the slander that religion is too transcendental for the +common life of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] The “omer” of this passage is not mentioned elsewhere +in Scripture: it is known to have been the one-hundredth part of the +homer with which careless readers sometimes confuse it, and its capacity +is variously estimated, from somewhat under half a gallon to somewhat +above three-quarters. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +_MERIBAH._ + +xvii. 1–7. + +The people, miraculously fed, are therefore called to exhibit more +confidence in God than hitherto, because much is required of him to whom +much is given. They have now to plunge deeper into the wilderness; and +after two stages which Exodus omits (Num. xxxiii. 12, 13), and just as +they approach the mount of God, they find themselves without water. Even +the Son of Man Himself was led into the wilderness next after the +descent of the Spirit, and the avowal by the voice of God; nor is any +true Christian to marvel if his seasons of special privilege are +succeeded by special demands upon his firmness. + +One finds himself conjecturing, very often, what nobler history, what +grander analogies between type and antitype, what more gracious and +lavish interpositions might have instructed us, if only the type had +been less woefully imperfect—if Israel had been trustful as Moses was, +and the crude material had not marred the design. + +It would be more practical and edifying to reflect how often we +ourselves, like Israel, might have learned and exemplified deep things +of the grace of God, when all we really exhibited was the well-worn +lesson of human frailty and divine forbearance. + +In the story of our Lord, it has been observed that before the Pharisees +directly assailed Himself, they found fault with His disciples who +fasted not, or accosted them concerning Him Who ate with sinners. And so +here the people really tempted God, but openly “strove with Moses,” and +with Aaron too, for the verb is a plural one: “Give _ye_ water” (ver. +2). + +But as Aaron is merely an agent and spokesman, the chief value of this +tacit allusion to him, besides proving his fidelity, is to refute the +notion that he sinks into comparative obscurity only after the sin of +the golden calf. Already his position is one to be indicated rather than +expressed; and Moses said, “Why do ye quarrel with me? wherefore do ye +try the Lord?” + +But the frenzy rose higher: it was he, and not a higher One, who had +brought them out of Egypt; the upshot of it would only be “to kill us, +and our children, and our cattle, with thirst.” + +Look closely at this expression, and a curious significance discloses +itself. Was it mere covetousness, the spirit of the Jew Shylock +lamenting in one breath his daughter and his ducats, which introduced +the cattle along with the children into this complaint of dying men? +Shylock himself, when death actually looked him in the face, readily +sacrificed his fortune. Nor is it credible that a large number of +people, really believing that a horrible death was imminent, would have +spent any complaints upon their property. The language is exactly that +of angry exaggeration. They have come through straits quite as +desperate, and they know it well. It is not the fear of death, but the +painful delay of rescue, the discomfort and misery of their condition in +the meanwhile, the contrast between their sufferings and their own +conception of the rights of the favourites of heaven, which is audible +in this complaint. And thus their “Trial” and “Quarrel” are admirably +epitomised in the phrase “Is Jehovah among us or not?” a phrase which +has often since been in the heart, if not upon the lips, of men who had +supposed the life divine to be one long holiday, the pilgrimage an +excursion, when without are fightings and within fears, when they have +great sorrow and heaviness in their hearts. + +Because God is not a Judge, but a Father, the murmurs of Israel do not +prevent Him from showing mercy. Accordingly, when Moses prays, he is +bidden to go on before the people, bringing certain of their elders +along with him for witnesses of the marvel that was to follow. Such is +the Divine method. As soon as unbelief and discontent estranged the Jews +of the New Testament from Christ, He would not vulgarise His miracles, +nor do many mighty works among the unbelieving. After His resurrection +He appeared not unto all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before. +And as the Jews were chosen to bear witness to Him among the nations, so +were these elders now to bear witness among the Jews, who might without +their testimony have fallen into some such rationalising theory as that +of Tacitus, who says that Moses discovered a fountain by examining a +spot where wild asses lay. + +With these witnesses, he is bidden to go to a rock in Horeb (so nearly +had these murmurers approached the scene of the most awful of all +manifestations of Him whose presence they debated), and there God was to +stand before them upon the rock, making His universal presence a +localised consciousness in their experience. + +A true religion is progressive: every stage of it leans on the past and +sustains the future; and so Moses must bring with him “the rod, +wherewith thou smotest the river.” The dullest can see the fitness of +this allusion. Among all the wonders which the shepherd’s wand had +wrought, the mastery over the Nile, the plague which inflicted an +unwonted thirst upon the inhabitants of that well-watered field of Zoan, +was most to the purpose now. To kill and to make alive are the functions +of the same Being, and He Who spoiled the Egyptian river will now +refresh His heritage that is weary. At the touch of the prophetic wand +the waters poured forth which thenceforth supplied them through all +their desert wanderings. + +Reserving the symbolic meaning of this event for a future study, we have +to remember meanwhile the warning which the apostle here discovered. All +the people drank of the rock, yet with many of them God was not pleased. +Privilege is one thing—acceptance is quite another; and it shall be +more tolerable at last for Sodom and Gomorrah than for nations, churches +and men, who were content to resemble soil that drinketh in the rain +that cometh upon it oft, and yet to remain unfruitful. Already the +conduct of Israel was such that the place was named from human +worthlessness rather than Divine beneficence. Too often, it is the more +conspicuous part of the story of the relations of God and man. + + +_AMALEK._ + +xvii. 8–16. + +Nothing can be more natural, to those who remember the value of a +fountain in the East, than that Amalek should swoop down from his own +territories upon Israel, as soon as this abundant river tempted his +cupidity. This unprovoked attack of a kindred nation leads to another +advance in the education of the people. + +They had hitherto been the sheep of God: now they must become His +warriors. At the Red Sea it was said to them, “Stand still, and see the +salvation of the Lord ... the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall +hold your peace” (xiv. 13). But it is not so now. Just as the function +of every true miracle is to lead to a state of faith in which miracles +are not required; just as a mother reaches her hand to a tottering +infant, that presently the boy may go alone, so the Lord fought for +Israel, that Israel might learn to fight for the Lord. The herd of +slaves who came out of Egypt could not be trusted to stand fast in +battle; and what a defeat would have done with them we may judge by +their outcries at the very sight of Pharaoh. But now they had experience +of Divine succour, and had drawn the inspiring breath of freedom. And so +it was reasonable to expect that some chosen men of them at least will +be able to endure the shock of battle. And if so, it was a matter of the +last importance to develop and render conscious the national spirit, a +spirit so noble in its unselfish readiness to die, and in its scorn of +such material ills as anguish and mutilation compared with baseness and +dishonour, that the re-kindling of it in seasons of peril and conflict +is more than half a compensation for the horrors of a battle-field. + +We do not now inquire what causes avail to justify the infliction and +endurance of those horrors. Probably they will vary from age to age; and +as the ties grow strong which bind mankind together, the rupture of them +will be regarded with an ever-deepening shudder,—just as England +to-day would certainly refuse to make war upon our American kinsmen for +a provocation which (rightly or wrongly) she would not endure from +Russians. But the point to be observed is that war cannot be inherently +immoral, since God instructed in war the first nation that He ever +trained, not using its experience of His immediate interpositions to +supersede all need of human strife, but to make valiant soldiers, and +adding some of the most precious lessons of all their later experience +on the battle-field and by the sword. Now, it assuredly cannot be shown +that anything in itself immoral is fostered and encouraged by the Old +Testament. Slavery and divorce, which it was not yet possible to +extirpate, were hampered, restricted, and reduced to a minimum, being +“suffered” “because of the hardness of ‘their’ hearts” (Matt. xix. 8). +The wildest assailant of the Pentateuch will scarcely pretend that it +fosters and incites either divorce or slavery, as, beyond all question, +it encourages the martial ardour of the Jews. + +And yet war, though permissible, and in certain circumstances necessary, +is only necessary as the lesser of two evils; it is not in itself good. +Solomon, not David, could build the temple of the Lord; and Isaiah +sharply contrasts the Messiah with even that providentially appointed +conqueror, the only pagan who is called by God “My anointed,” in that +the one comes upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth +clay, but the Other breaks not a bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking +flax (Isa. xli. 25, xlii. 3, xlv. 1). The ideal of humanity is peace, +and also it is happiness, but war may not yet have ceased to be a +necessity of life, sometimes as ruinous to evade as any other form of +suffering. + +Another necessity of national development is the advancement of capable +men. The empire of Napoleon would assuredly have withered, if only +because its chief was as jealous of commanding genius as he was ready to +advance and patronise capacity of the second order. It is a maxim that +true greatness finds worthy colleagues and successors, and rejoices in +them. And while the guidance of Jehovah is to be assumed throughout, it +is significant that the first mention of the splendid commander and +godly judge, during all whose days and the days of his contemporaries +Israel served Jehovah, comes not in any express revelation or +commandment of God; but the narrative relates that Moses said unto +Joshua, “Choose out men for us and go out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow +I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” +They are the words of one who had noted him already as “a man in whom is +the Spirit” (Num. xxvii. 18), of one also who had unlearned, in the +experience now of eighty years, the desire of glittering achievement and +martial fame, who knew that the deepest fountains of real power are +hidden, and was content that another should lead the headlong and +victorious charge, if only it were his to hold, upon the top of the +hill, the rod of God. + +Once it was his own rod: with it the exiled shepherd controlled the +sheep of his master; that it should be the medium of the miraculous had +appeared to be an additional miracle, but now it was the very rod of +God, nor was any cry to heaven more eloquent and better grounded than +simply the reaching toward the skies, in long, steady, mute appeal, of +that symbol of all His dealings with them—the plaguing of Egypt, the +recession of the tide and its wild return, the bringing of water from +the rock. Was all to be in vain? Should the wild boar waste the vine +just brought out of Egypt before ever it reached the appointed vineyard? +And we also should be able to plead with God the noble works that He +hath done in our time. For us also there ought to be such experience as +worketh hope. As long as the exertion was possible even to the heroic +force which age had not abated, Moses thus prayed for his people; for +the gesture was a prayer, and a grand one, and must not be criticised +otherwise than as the act of a poetic and primitive genius, whose +institutions throughout are full of spiritual import. While he did this, +Israel prevailed; but the slow progress of the victory reminds us of +these dreary centuries during which we are just able to discern some +gradual advance of the kingdom of Christ on earth, but no rout, no +collapse of evil. And why was this? Because the sustaining and permanent +energy was not to flow from the prayers of one, however holy and however +eminent; three men were together in the mountain, and the co-operation +of them all was demanded; so that only when Aaron and Hur supported the +sinking hand of their chief was the decisive victory given. + +Now, the lesson from all this does not concern the High-priestly +intercession of our Lord, for the office of Moses is consistently +distinguished from the priesthood. Nor can the notion be tolerated that +if our Lord requires mortal co-operation before asking and being given +the heathen for His heritage, which is obviously the case, the reason +can be at all expressed by that weakness which needed support. + +No, the Lord our Priest is also Himself the dispenser of victory. To Him +all power is given on earth, and to Him it is our duty to appeal for +the triumph of His own cause. And here and there, doubtless, a +Christian heart is fervent and faithful in its intercessions. To these, +unknown, unsuspected by the combatants in the heat of battle,—to humble +saints, some of them bed-ridden, ignorant, poverty-stricken, despised, +holy souls who have no controversial skill, no missionary calling, but +who possess the grace habitually to convert their wishes into +prayers,—to such, perhaps, it is due that the idols of India and China +are now bowing down. And when they cease to be a minority in so doing, +when those who now criticise learn to sustain their flagging energies, +we shall see a day of the Lord. + +Observe, however, that as the active exertion of the host does not +displace the silence of intercession, neither is it displaced itself: +Joshua really bore his part in the discomfiture of Amalek and his host. +And so it is always. The development of human energy to the uttermost is +a part of the design of Him Who gave a task even to unfallen man. Let +none suppose that to labour is (sufficiently and by itself) to pray; but +also let none idly persuade himself that while energies and +responsibilities are his, to pray is sufficiently to labour. + +Thus it came to pass that Israel won its first victory in battle. +Another step was taken toward the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham +to make of him a great nation; and also toward the gradual transference +of the national faith from a passive reliance in Divine interposition to +an abiding confidence in Divine help. Let it be clearly understood that +this latter is the nobler and the more mature faith. + +With martial ardour, God took care to inculcate the sense of national +responsibility, without which warriors become no more than brigands. So +it was with Amalek: he had not been attacked or even menaced; he had +marched out from his own territories to assail an innocent and kindred +race (“then _came_ Amalek” ver. 8), and his attack had been cruel and +cowardly, he smote the hindmost, all that were feeble and in the rear, +when they were faint and weary, and he feared not God (Deut. xxv. 18). +Against all such tactics the wrath of God was denounced when, because of +them, Amalek was doomed to total extirpation. + +Moses now built an altar, to imprint on the mind of the people this new +lesson. And he called it, “The Lord is my Banner,” a title which called +the nation at once to valour and to obedience, which asserted that they +were an army, but a consecrated one. + + * * * * * + +Now let us ask whether this simple story is at all the kind of thing +which legend or myth would have created, for the first martial exploit +of Israel. The obscure part played by Moses is not what we would expect; +nor, even as a mediator, is the position of one whose arms must be held +up a very romantic conception. If the object is to inspire the Jews for +later struggles with more formidable foes, the story is ill-contrived, +for we read of no surprising force of Amalek, and no inspiriting exploit +of Joshua. Everything is as prosaic as the real course of events in this +poor world is wont to be. And on that account it is all the more useful +to us who live prosaic lives, and need the help of God among prosaic +circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +_JETHRO._ + +xviii. 1–27. + +The defeat of Amalek is followed by the visit of Jethro; the opposite +pole of the relation between Israel and the nations, the coming of the +Gentiles to his brightness. And already that is true which repeats +itself all through the history of the Church, that much secular wisdom, +the art of organisation, the structure and discipline of societies, may +be drawn from the experience and wisdom of the world. + +Moses was under the special guidance of God, as really as any modern +enthusiast can claim to be. When he turned for aid or direction to +heaven, he was always answered. And yet he did not think scorn of the +counsel of his kinsman. And although eighty years had not dimmed the +fire of his eyes, nor wasted his strength, he neglected not the warning +which taught him to economise his force; not to waste on every paltry +dispute the attention and wisdom which could govern the new-born state. + +Jethro is the kinsman, and probably the brother-in-law of Moses; for if +he were the father-in-law, and the same as Reuel in the second chapter, +why should a new name be introduced without any mark of identification? +When he hears of the emancipation of Israel from Egypt, he brings back +to Moses his two sons and Zipporah, who had been sent away, after the +angry scene at the circumcision of the younger, and before he entered +Egypt with his life in his hand. Now he was a great personage, the +leader of a new nation, and the conqueror of the proudest monarch in the +world. With what feelings would the wife and husband meet? We are told +nothing of their interview, nor have we any reason to qualify the +unfavourable impression produced by the circumstances of their parting, +by the schismatic worship founded by their grandchildren, and by the +loneliness implied in the very names of Gershom and +Eliezer—“A-stranger-there,” and “God-a-Help.” + +But the relations between Moses and Jethro are charming, whether we look +at the obeisance rendered to the official minister of God by him whom +God had honoured so specially, by the prosperous man to the friend of +his adversity, or at the interest felt by the priest of Midian in all +the details of the great deliverance of which he had heard already, or +his joy in a Divine manifestation, probably not in all respects +according to the prejudices of his race, or his praise of Jehovah as +“greater than all gods, yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly +against them” (ver. 11, R.V.). The meaning of this phrase is either that +the gods were plagued in their own domains, or that Jehovah had finally +vanquished the Egyptians by the very element in which they were most +oppressive, as when Moses himself had been exposed to drown. + +There is another expression, in the first verse, which deserves to be +remarked. How do the friends of a successful man think of the scenes in +which he has borne a memorable part? They chiefly think of them in +connection with their own hero. And amid all the story of the Exodus, in +which so little honour is given to the human actor, the one trace of +personal exultation is where it is most natural and becoming; it is in +the heart of his relative: “When Jethro ... heard of all that the Lord +had done _for Moses_ and for Israel.” + +We are told, with marked emphasis, that this Midianite, a priest, and +accustomed to act as such with Moses in his family, “took a +burnt-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came, and all the +elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.” +Nor can we doubt that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who laid +such stress upon the subordination of Abraham to Melchizedek, would have +discerned in the relative position of Jethro and Aaron another evidence +that the ascendency of the Aaronic priesthood was only temporary. We +shall hereafter see that priesthood is a function of redeemed humanity, +and that all limitations upon it were for a season, and due to human +shortcoming. But for this very reason (if there were no other) the chief +priest could only be He Who represents and embodies all humanity, in +Whom is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, +because He is all and in all. + +In the meantime, here is recognised, in the history of Israel, a Gentile +priesthood. + +And, as at the passover, so now, the sacrifice to God is partaken of by +His people, who are conscious of acceptance by Him. Happy was the union +of innocent festivity with a sacramental recognition of God. It is the +same sentiment which was aimed at by the primitive Christian Church in +her feasts of love, genuine meals in the house of God, until licence and +appetite spoiled them, and the apostle asked “Have ye not houses to eat +and drink in?” (1 Cor. xi. 22). Shall there never come a time when the +victorious and pure Church of the latter days shall regain what we have +forfeited, when the doctrine of the consecration of what is called +“secular life” shall be embodied again in forms like these? It speaks to +us meanwhile in a form which is easily ridiculed (as in Lamb’s +well-known essay), and yet singularly touching and edifying if rightly +considered, in the asking for a blessing upon our meals. + +On the morrow, Jethro saw Moses, all day long, deciding the small +matters and great which needed already to be adjudicated for the nation. +He who had striven, without a commission, himself to smite the Egyptian +and lead out Israel, is the same self-reliant, heroic, not too discreet +person still. + +But the true statesman and administrator is he who employs to the utmost +all the capabilities and energies of his subordinates. And Jethro made a +deep mark in history when he taught Moses the distinction between the +lawgiver and the judge, between him who sought from God and proclaimed +to the people the principles of justice and their form, and him who +applied the law to each problem as it arose. + +“It is supposed, and with probability,” writes Kalisch (_in loco_), +“that Alfred the Great, who was well versed in the Bible, based his own +Saxon constitution of sheriffs in counties, etc., on the example of the +Mosaic division (comp. _Bacon on English Government_, i. 70).” And thus +it may be that our own nation owes its free institutions almost directly +to the generous interest in the well-being of his relative, felt by an +Arabian priest, who cherished, amid the growth of idolatries all around +him, the primitive belief in God, and who rightly held that the first +qualifications of a capable judge were ability, and the fear of God, +truthfulness and hatred of unjust gain. + +We learn from Deuteronomy (i. 9–15), that Moses allowed the people +themselves to elect these officials, who became not only their judges +but their captains. + +From the whole of this narrative we see clearly that the intervention of +God for Israel is no more to be regarded as superseding the exercise of +human prudence and common-sense, than as dispensing with valour in the +repulse of Amalek, and with patience in journeying through the +wilderness. + + +THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY. + + +We are now about to pass from history to legislation. And this is a +convenient stage at which to pause, and ask how it comes to pass that +all this narrative is also, in some sense, an allegory. It is a +discussion full of pitfalls. Countless volumes of arbitrary and fanciful +interpretation have done their worst to discredit every attempt, however +cautious and sober, at finding more than the primary signification in +any narrative.[32] And whoever considers the reckless, violent and +inconsistent methods of the mystical commentators may be forgiven if he +recoils from occupying the ground which they have wasted, and contents +himself with simply drawing the lessons which the story directly +suggests. + +But the New Testament does not warrant such a surrender. It tells us +that leaven answers to malice, and unleavened bread to sincerity; that +at the Red Sea the people were baptized; that the tabernacle and the +altar, the sacrifice and the priest, the mercy-seat and the manna, were +all types and shadows of abiding Christian realities. + +It is more surprising to find the return of the infant Jesus connected +with the words “When Israel was a child then I loved him, and I called +My son out of Egypt,”—for it is impossible to doubt that the prophet +was here speaking of the Exodus, and had in mind the phrase “Israel is +My son, My firstborn: let My son go, that he may serve Me” (Matt. i. 15; +Hos. xi. 1; Exod. iv. 22). + +How are such passages to be explained? Surely not by finding a +superficial resemblance between two things, and thereupon transferring +to one of them whatever is true of the other. No thought can attain +accuracy except by taking care not to confuse in this way things which +superficially resemble each other. + +But no thought can be fertilising and suggestive which neglects real and +deep resemblances, resemblances of principle as well as incident, +resemblances which are due to the mind of God or the character of man. + +In the structure and furniture of the tabernacle, and the order of its +services, there are analogies deliberately planned, and such as every +one would expect, between religious truth shadowed forth in Judaism, and +the same truth spoken in these latter days unto us in the Son. + +But in the emancipation, the progress, and alas! the sins and +chastisements of Israel, there are analogies of another kind, since here +it is history which resembles theology, and chiefly secular things which +are compared with spiritual. But the analogies are not capricious; they +are based upon the obvious fact that the same God Who pitied Israel in +bondage sees, with the same tender heart, a worse tyranny. For it is not +a figure of speech to say that sin is slavery. Sin does outrage the +will, and degrade and spoil the life. The sinner does obey a hard and +merciless master. If his true home is in the kingdom of God, he is, +like Israel, not only a slave but an exile. Is God the God of the Jew +only? for otherwise He must, being immutable, deal with us and our +tyrant as He dealt with Israel and Pharaoh. If He did not, by an +exertion of omnipotence, transplant them from Egypt to their inheritance +at one stroke, but required of them obedience, co-operation, patient +discipline, and a gradual advance, why should we expect the whole work +and process of grace to be summed up in the one experience which we call +conversion? Yet if He did, promptly and completely, break their chains +and consummate their emancipation, then the fact that grace is a +progressive and gradual experience does not forbid us to reckon +ourselves dead unto sin. If the region through which they were led, +during their time of discipline, was very unlike the land of milk and +honey which awaited the close of their pilgrimage, it is not unlikely +that the same God will educate his later Church by the same means, +leading us also by a way that we know not, to humble and prove us, that +He may do us good at the latter end. + +And if He marks, by a solemn institution, the period when we enter into +covenant relations with Himself, and renounce the kingdom and tyranny of +His foe, is it marvellous that the apostle found an analogy for this in +the great event by which God punctuated the emancipation of Israel, +leading them out of Egypt through the sea depths and beneath the +protecting cloud? + +If privilege, and adoption, and the Divine good-will, did not shelter +them from the consequences of ingratitude and rebellion, if He spared +not the natural branches, we should take heed lest He spare not us. + +Such analogies are really arguments, as solid as those of Bishop +Butler. + +But the same cannot be maintained so easily of some others. When that is +quoted of our Lord upon the cross which was written of the paschal lamb, +“a bone shall not be broken” (Exod. xii. 46, John xix. 36), we feel that +the citation needs to be justified upon different grounds. But such +grounds are available. He was the true Lamb of God. For His sake the +avenger passes over all His followers. His flesh is meat indeed. And +therefore, although no analogy can be absolutely perfect, and the type +has nothing to declare that His blood is drink indeed, yet there is an +admirable fitness, worthy of inspired record, in the consummating and +fulfilment in Him, and in Him alone of three sufferers, of the precept +“A bone of Him shall not be broken.” It may not be an express prophecy +which is brought to pass, but it is a beautiful and appropriate +correspondence, wrought out by Providence, not available for the +coercion of sceptics, but good for the edifying of believers. + +And so it is with the calling of the Son out of Egypt. Unquestionably +Hosea spoke of Israel. But unquestionably too the phrase “My Son, My +Firstborn” is a startling one. Here is already a suggestive difference +between the monotheism of the Old Testament and the austere jealous +logical orthodoxy of the Koran, which protests “It is not meet for God +to have any Son, God forbid” (Sura xix. 36). Jesus argued that such a +rigid and lifeless orthodoxy as that of later Judaism, ought to have +been scandalised, long before it came to consider His claims, by the +ancient and recognised inspiration which gave the name of gods to men +who sat in judgment as the representatives of Heaven. He claimed the +right to carry still further the same principle—namely, that deity is +not selfish and incommunicable, but practically gives itself away, in +transferring the exercise of its functions. From such condescension +everything may be expected, for God does not halt in the middle of a +path He has begun to tread. + +But if this argument of Jesus were a valid one (and the more it is +examined the more profound it will be seen to be), how significant will +then appear the term “My Son,” as applied to Israel! + +In condescending so far, God almost pledged Himself to the Incarnation, +being no dealer in half measures, nor likely to assume rhetorically a +relation to mankind to which in fact He would not stoop. + +Every Christian feels, moreover, that it is by virtue of the grand and +final condescension that all the preliminary steps are possible. Because +Abraham’s seed was one, that is Christ, therefore ye (all) if ye are +Christ’s, are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise (Gal. iii. 16, +29). + +But when this great harmony comes to be devoutly recognised, a hundred +minor and incidental points of contact are invested with a sacred +interest. + +No doctrinal injury would have resulted, if the Child Jesus had never +left the Holy Land. No infidel could have served his cause by quoting +the words of Hosea. Nor can we now cite them against infidels as a +prophecy fulfilled. But when He does return from Egypt our devotions, +not our polemics, hail and rejoice in the coincidence. It reminds us, +although it does not demonstrate, that He who is thus called out of +Egypt is indeed the Son. + +The sober historian cannot prove anything, logically and to +demonstration, by the reiterated interventions in history of atmospheric +phenomena. And yet no devout thinker can fail to recognise that God has +reserved the hail against the time of trouble and war. + +In short, it is absurd and hopeless to bid us limit our contemplation, +in a divine narrative, to what can be demonstrated like the propositions +of Euclid. We laugh at the French for trying to make colonies and +constitutions according to abstract principles, and proposing, as they +once did, to reform Europe “after the Chinese manner.” Well, religion +also is not a theory: it is the true history of the past of humanity, +and it is the formative principle in the history of the present and the +future. + +And hence it follows that we may dwell with interest and edification +upon analogies, as every great thinker confesses the existence of +truths, “which never can be proved.” + +In the meantime it is easy to recognise the much simpler fact, that +these things happened unto them by way of example, and they were written +for our admonition. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[32] Take as an example the assertion of Bunyan that the sea in the +Revelation is a sea of glass, because the laver in the tabernacle was +made of the brazen looking-glasses of the women. (_Solomon’s +Temple_, xxxvi. 1.) + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +_AT SINAI._ + +xix. 1–25. + +In the third month from the Exodus, and on the selfsame day (which +addition fixes the date precisely), the people reached the wilderness of +Sinai. This answers fairly to the date of Pentecost, which was +afterwards connected by tradition with the giving of the law. And +therefore Pentecost was the right time for the gift of the Holy Ghost, +bringing with Him the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and +that freedom from servile Jewish obedience which is not attained by +violating law, but by being imbued in its spirit, by the love which is +the fulfilling of the law. + + * * * * * + +There is among the solemn solitudes of Sinai a wide amphitheatre, +reached by two converging valleys, and confronted by an enormous +perpendicular cliff, the Ras Sufsâfeh—a “natural altar,” before which +the nation had room to congregate, awed by the stern magnificence of the +approach, and by the intense loneliness and desolation of the +surrounding scene, and thus prepared for the unparalleled revelation +which awaited them. + +It is the manner of God to speak through nature and the senses to the +soul. We cannot imagine the youth of the Baptist spent in Nazareth, nor +of Jesus in the desert. Elijah, too, was led into the wilderness to +receive the vision of God, and the agony of Jesus was endured at night, +and secluded by the olives from the paschal moon. It is by another +application of the same principle that the settled Jewish worship was +bright with music and splendid with gold and purple; and the notion that +the sublime and beautiful in nature and art cannot awaken the feelings +to which religion appeals, is as shallow as the notion that when these +feelings are awakened all is won. + +What happens next is a protest against this latter extreme. Awe is one +thing: the submission of the will is another. And therefore Moses was +stopped when about to ascend the mountain, there to keep the solemn +appointment that was made when God said, “This shall be the token unto +thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out +of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain” (iii. 12). His own +sense of the greatness of the crisis perhaps needed to be deepened. +Certainly the nation had to be pledged, induced to make a deliberate +choice, now first, as often again, under Joshua and Samuel, and when +Elijah invoked Jehovah upon Carmel. (Josh. xxiv. 24; 1 Sam. xii. 14; 1 +Kings xviii. 21, 39.) + +It is easy to speak of pledges and formal declarations lightly, but they +have their warrant in many such Scriptural analogies, nor should we +easily find a church, careful to deal with souls, which has not employed +them in some form, whether after the Anglican and Lutheran fashion, by +confirmation, or in the less formal methods of other Protestant +communions, or even by delaying baptism itself until it becomes, for the +adult in Christian lands, what it is to the convert from false creeds. + +Therefore the Lord called to Moses as he climbed the steep, and offered +through him a formal covenant to the people. + +“Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob,[33] and tell the children of +Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you +on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself.” + +The appeal is to their personal experience and their gratitude: will +this be enough? will they accept His yoke, as every convert must, not +knowing what it may involve, not yet having His demands specified and +His commandments before their eyes, content to believe that whatever is +required of them will be good, because the requirement is from God? Thus +did Abraham, who went forth, not knowing whither, but knowing that he +was divinely guided. “Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed +and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from +among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine, and ye shall be unto Me a +kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” + +Thus God conveys to them, more explicitly than hitherto, the fact that +He is the universal Lord, not ruling one land or nation only, nor, as +the Pentateuch is charged with teaching, their tutelary deity among many +others. Thus also the seeds are sown in them of a wholesome and rational +self-respect, such as the Psalmist felt, who asked “What is man, that +Thou art mindful of him?” yet realised that such mindfulness gave to +man a real dignity, made him but little lower than the angels, and +crowned him with glory and honour. + +Abolish religion, and mankind will divide into two classes,—one in +which vanity, unchecked by any spiritual superior, will obey no +restraints of law, and another of which the conscious pettiness will +aspire to no dignity of holiness, and shrink from no dishonour of sin. +It is only the presence of a loving God which can unite in us the sense +of humility and greatness, as having nothing and yet possessing all +things, and valued by God as His “peculiar treasure.”[34] + +And with a reasonable self-respect should come a noble and yet sober +dignity—“Ye shall be a kingdom of priests,” a dynasty (for such is the +meaning) of persons invested with royal and also with priestly rank. +This was spoken just before the law gave the priesthood into the hands +of one tribe; and thus we learn that Levi and Aaron were not to supplant +the nation, but to represent it. + +Now, this double rank is the property of redeemed humanity: we are “a +kingdom and priests unto God.” Yet the laity of the Corinthian Church +were rebuked for a self-asserting and mutinous enjoyment of their rank: +“Ye have reigned as kings without us”; and others there were in this +Christian dispensation who “perished in the gainsaying of Korah” (1 Cor. +iv. 8; Jude 11). + +If the words “He hath made us a kingdom and priests” furnish any +argument against the existence of an ordained ministry now, then there +should have been no Jewish priesthood, for the same words are here. And +is it supposed that this assertion only began to be true when the +apostles died? Certainly there is a kind of self-assertion in the +ministry which they condemn. But if they are opposed to its existence, +alas for the Pastoral Epistles! It was because the function belonged to +all, that no man might arrogate it who was not commissioned to act on +behalf of all. + +But while the individual may not assert himself to the unsettling of +church order, the privilege is still common property. All believers have +boldness to enter into the holiest place of all. All are called upon to +rule for God “over a few things,” to establish a kingdom of God within, +and thus to receive a crown of life, and to sit with Jesus upon His +throne. The very honours by which Israel was drawn to God are offered to +us all, as it is written, “We are the circumcision,” “We are Abraham’s +seed and heirs according to the promise” (Phil. iii. 3; Gal. iii. 29). + +To this appeal the nation responded gladly. They could feel that indeed +they had been sustained by God as the eagle bears her young—not +grasping them in her claws, like other birds, but as if enthroned +between her wings, and sheltered by her body, which interposed between +the young and any arrow of the hunter. Thus, say the Rabbinical +interpreters, did the pillar of cloud intervene between Israel and the +Egyptians. If the image were to be pressed so far, we could now find a +much closer analogy for the eagle “preferring itself to be pierced +rather than to witness the death of its young” (Kalisch). But far more +tender, and very touching in its domestic homeliness, is the metaphor +of Him Whose discourses teem with allusions to the Old Testament, yet +Who preferred to compare Himself to a hen gathering her chickens under +her wing. + +With the adhesion of Israel to the covenant, Moses returned to God. And +the Lord said, “Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people +may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee for ever.” + +The design was to deepen their reverence for the Lawgiver Whose law they +should now receive; to express by lessons, not more dreadful than the +plagues of Egypt, but more vivid and sublime, the tremendous grandeur of +Him Who was making a covenant with them, Who had borne them on His wings +and called them His firstborn Son, Whom therefore they might be tempted +to approach with undue familiarity, were it not for the mountain that +burned up to heaven, the voice of the trumpet waxing louder and louder, +and the Appearance so fearful that Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and +quake” (τὸ φανταζόμενον—Heb. xii. 21). + +When thus the Deity became terrible, the envoy would be honoured also. + +But it is important to observe that these terrible manifestations were +to cease. Like the impressions produced by sickness, by sudden deaths, +by our own imminent danger, the emotion would subside, but the +conviction should remain: they should believe Moses for ever. Emotions +are like the swellings of the Nile: they subside again; but they ought +to leave a fertilising deposit behind. + +That the impression might not be altogether passive, and therefore +ephemeral, the people were bidden to “sanctify themselves”; all that is +common and secular must be suspended for awhile; and it is worth notice +that, as when the family of Jacob put away their strange gods, so now +the Israelites must wash their clothes (cf. Gen. xxxv. 2). For one’s +vestment is a kind of outer self, and has been with the man in the old +occupations from which he desires to purify himself. It was therefore +that when Jehu was made king, and when Jesus entered Jerusalem in +triumph, men put their garments under their chief to express their own +subjection (2 Kings ix. 13; Matt. xxi. 7). Much of the philosophy of +Carlyle is latent in these ancient laws and usages. + +Moreover, the mountain was to be fenced from the risk of profanation by +any sudden impulsive movement of the crowd, and even a beast that +touched it should be slain by such weapons as men could hurl without +themselves pursuing it. Only when the trumpet blew a long summons might +the appointed ones come up to the mount (ver. 13). + +On the third day, after a soul-searching interval, there were thunders +and lightnings, and a cloud, and the trumpet blast; and while all the +people trembled, Moses led them forth to meet with God. Again the +narrative reverts to the terrible phenomena—the fire like the smoke of +a furnace (called by an Egyptian name which only occurs in the +Pentateuch), and the whole mountain quaking. Then, since his commission +was now to be established, Moses spake, and the Lord answered him with a +voice. And when he again climbed the mountain, it became necessary to +send him back with yet another warning, whether his example was in +danger of emboldening others to exercise their newly given priesthood, +or the very excess of terror exercised its well-known fascinating power, +as men in a burning ship have been seen to leap into the flames. + +And the priests also, who come near to God, should sanctify themselves. +It has been asked who these were, since the Levitical institutions were +still non-existent (ver. 22, cf. 24). But it is certain that the heads +of houses exercised priestly functions; and it is not impossible that +the elders of Israel who came to eat before God with Jethro (xviii. 12) +had begun to perform religious functions for the people. Is it supposed +that the nation had gone without religious services for three months? + +It has been remarked by many that the law of Moses appealed for +acceptance to popular and even democratic sanctions. The covenant was +ratified by a plébiscite. The tremendous evidence was offered equally to +all. For, said St. Augustine, “as it was fit that the law which was +given, not to one man or a few enlightened people, but to the whole of a +populous nation, should be accompanied by awe-inspiring signs, great +marvels were wrought ... before the people” (_De Civ. Dei_, x. 13). + +We have also to observe the contrast between the appearance of God on +Sinai and His manifestation in Jesus. And this also was strongly wrought +out by an ancient father, who represented the Virgin Mary, in the act of +giving Jesus into the hands of Simeon, as saying, “The blast of the +trumpet does not now terrify those who approach, nor a second time does +the mountain, all on fire, cause terror to those who come nigh, nor does +the law punish relentlessly those who would boldly touch. What is +present here speaks of love to man; what is apparent, of the Divine +compassion.” (Methodius _De Sym. et Anna_, vii.) + +But we must remember that the Epistle to the Hebrews regards the second +manifestation as the more solemn of the two, for this very reason: that +we have not come to a burning mountain, or to mortal penalties for +carnal irreverence, but to the spiritual mountain Zion, to countless +angels, to God the Judge, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and +to Jesus Christ. If they escaped not, when they refused Him Who warned +on earth, much more we, who turn away from Him Who warneth from heaven +(Heb. xii. 18–25). + +There is a question, lying far behind all these, which demands +attention. + +It is said that legends of wonderful appearances of the gods are common +to all religions; that there is no reason for giving credit to this one +and rejecting all the rest; and, more than this, that God absolutely +could not reveal Himself by sensuous appearances, being Himself a +Spirit. In what sense and to what extent God can be said to have really +revealed Himself, we shall examine hereafter. At present it is enough to +ask whether human love and hatred, joy and sorrow, homage and scorn can +manifest themselves by looks and tones, by the open palm and the +clenched fist, by laughter and tears, by a bent neck and by a curled +lip. For if what is most immaterial in our own soul can find sensuous +expression, it is somewhat bold to deny that a majesty and power beyond +anything human may at least be conceived as finding utterance, through a +mountain burning to the summit and reeling to the base, and the blast of +a trumpet which the people could not hear and live. + +But when it is argued that wondrous theophanies are common to all +faiths, two replies present themselves. If all the races of mankind +agree in believing that there is a God, and that He manifests Himself +wonderfully, does that really prove that there is no God, or even that +He never manifested Himself wondrously? We should certainly be derided +if we insisted that such a universal belief proved the truth of the +story of Mount Sinai, and perhaps we should deserve our fate. But it is +more absurd by far to pretend that this instinct, this intuition, this +universal expectation that God would some day, somewhere, rend the veil +which hides Him, does actually refute the narrative. + +We have also to ask for the production of those other narratives, +sublime in their conception and in the vast audience which they +challenged, sublimely pure alike from taint of idolatrous superstition +and of moral evil, profound and far-reaching in their practical effect +upon humanity, which deserve to be so closely associated with the giving +of the Mosaic law that in their collapse it also must be destroyed, as +the fall of one tree sometimes breaks the next. But this narrative +stands out so far in the open, and lifts its head so high, that no other +even touches a bough of it when overturned. + +Is it seriously meant to compare the alleged disappearance of Romulus, +or the secret interviews of Numa with his Egeria, to a history like +this? Surely one similar story should be produced, before it is asserted +that such stories are everywhere. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[33] This phrase is not found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Is it fancy +which detects in it a desire to remind them of their connection with the +least worthy rather than the noblest of the Patriarchs? One would not +expect, for instance, to read, Fear not, thou worm Abraham, or even +Israel; but the name of Jacob at once calls up humble associations. + +[34] This word is the same which occurs in the verse so beautifully but +erroneously rendered “They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, +in the day when I make up My jewels” (Mal. iii. 17, A.V.). +“They shall be Mine ... in the day that I do make, even a peculiar +treasure” (R.V.). + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +_THE LAW._ + +xx. 1–17. + +We have now reached that great event, one of the most momentous in all +history, the giving of the Ten Commandments. And it is necessary to +consider what was the meaning of this event, what part were they +designed to play in the religious development of mankind. + +1. St. Paul tells us plainly what they did _not_ effect. By the works of +the law could no flesh be justified: to the father of the Hebrew race +faith was reckoned instead of righteousness; the first of their royal +line coveted the blessedness not of the obedient but of the pardoned; +and Habakkuk declared that the just should live by his faith, while the +law is not of faith, and offers life only to the man that doeth these +things (Rom. iv. 3, 6; Gal. iii. 12). In the doctrinal scheme of St. +Paul there was no room for a compromise between salvation by faith and +reliance upon our own performance of any works, even those simple and +obvious duties which are of world-wide obligation. + +2. But he never meant to teach that a Christian is free from the +obligation of the moral law. If it is not true that we can keep it and +so earn heaven, it is equally false that we may break it without penalty +or remorse. What he insisted upon was this: that obligation is one +thing, and energy is another; the law is good, but it has not the gift +of pardon or of inspiration; by itself it will only reveal the +feebleness of him who endeavours to perform it, only force into direst +contrast the spiritual beauty of the pure ideal and the wretchedness of +the sinner, carnal, sold under sin. In this respect, indeed, the law was +its own witness. For if, among all the millions of its children, one had +lived by obedience, how could he have shared in its elaborate +sacrificial apparatus, in the hallowing of the altar from pollution by +the national uncleanness, in the sprinkling of the blood of the offering +for sin? Take the case of the highest official. A sinless high priest +under the law would have been paralysed by his virtue, for his duty on +the greatest day of all the year was to make atonement first for his own +sins. + +3. The law being an authorised statement of what innocence means, and +therefore of the only terms upon which a man might hope to live by +works, is an organic whole, and we either keep it as a whole or break +it. Such is the meaning of the words, he that offendeth in one point is +guilty of all; because He who gave the seventh commandment gave also the +sixth—so that if one commit no adultery, yet kill, he has become a +transgressor of the law in its integrity (James ii. 11). The challenge +of God to human self-righteousness is not one which can be half met. If +we have not thoroughly kept it, we have thoroughly failed. + +4. But this failure of man does not involve any failure, in the law, to +accomplish its intended work. It is, as has been said, a challenge. The +sense of our inability to meet it is the best introduction to Him Who +came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and thus the +law became a tutor to bring men to Christ. It awoke the conscience, +brought home the sense of guilt, and entered, that sin might abound in +us, whose ignorance had not known sin without it. It was strictly that +which Moses most frequently calls it—the Testimony. + +5. Finally, however, the teaching of Scripture is not that Christians +are condemned to live always in a condition of baffled striving, +hopeless longing, conscious transgression of a code which testifies +against them. The old and carnal nature gravitates downward, to +selfishness and sin, as surely as by a law of the physical universe. But +the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus emancipates us from that +law of sin and death—the higher nature doing, by the very quality of +its life, what the lower nature cannot be driven to do, by dread of hell +or by desire of heaven. The creature of earth becomes a creature of air, +and is at home in a new sphere, poised on its wings upon the breeze. +Love is the fulfilling of the law. And the Christian is free from its +dictation, as affectionate men are free from any control of the laws +which command the maintenance of wife and child, not because they may +defy the statutes, but because their volition and the statutes coincide. +Liberty is not lawlessness—it is the reciprocal harmony of law and the +will. + +And thus the grand paradox of Luther is entirely true: “Unless faith be +without any, even the smallest works, it does not justify, nay, it is +not faith. And yet it is impossible for faith to be without +works—earnest, many and great.” We are justified by faith without the +works of the law, and yet we do not make void the law by faith—nay, we +establish the law. + +All this agrees exactly with the contrast, so often urged, between the +giving of the Law and the utterance of the Sermon on the Mount. The +former echoes across wild heights, and through savage ravines; the +latter is heard on the grassy slopes of the hillside which overlooks the +smiling Lake of Galilee. The one is spoken in thunder and graven upon +stone: the other comes from the lips, into which grace is poured, of Him +Who was fairer than the children of men. The former repeats again and +again the stern warning, “Thou shalt not!” The latter crowns a sevenfold +description of a blessedness, which is deeper than joy, though pensive +and even weeping, by adding to these abstract descriptions an eighth, +which applies them, and assumes them to be realised in His +hearers—“Blessed are _ye_.” If so much as a beast touched the mountain +it should be stoned. But Simeon took the Divine Infant in his arms. + +And this is not because God has become gentler, or man worthier: it is +because God the Lawgiver upon His throne has come down to be God the +Helper. But the beatitudes could never have been spoken, if the law had +not been imposed: the blessedness of a hunger and thirst for +righteousness was created by the majestic and spiritual beauty of the +unattained commandment. + +Yes, it had a spiritual beauty. For, however formal, external, and even +shallow, the commandments may appear to flippant modern babblers, St. +Paul bewailed the contrast between the law, which was spiritual, and his +own carnal heart. And he, who had kept all the letter from his youth, +was only the more vexed and haunted by the fleeting consciousness of a +higher “good thing” unattained. Did not one table say “Thou shalt not +covet,” and the other promise mercy to thousands of those that love? + +This leads us to consider the structure and arrangement of the +Decalogue. Scripture itself tells us that there were “ten words” or +precepts, written upon both sides of two tables. But various answers +have been given at different times, to the question, How shall we divide +the ten? + +The Jews of a later period made a first commandment of the words, “I am +the Lord thy God,” which is not a commandment at all. And they restored +the proper number, thus exceeded, by uniting in one the prohibition of +other gods and of idolatry; although the worship of the golden calf, +almost immediately after the law was given, suffices to establish the +distinction. For then, as well as under Gideon, Micah and Jeroboam, the +sin of idolatry fell short of apostasy to a wholly different god (Judg. +viii. 23, 27, xvii. 3, 5; 1 Kings xii. 28). The worship of images +dishonours God, even if it be His semblance that they claim. In this +arrangement, the tables were allotted five commandments each. + +Another curious arrangement was devised, apparently by St. Augustine; +and the weight of his authority imposed it upon Western Christianity +until the Reformation, and upon the Latin and Lutheran churches unto +this day. Like the former, it adds the second commandment to the first, +but it divides the tenth. And it gives to the first table three +commandments, “since the number of commandments which concern God seem +to hint at the Trinity to careful students,” while the seven +commandments of the second table suggest the Sabbath. Such mystical +references are no longer weighty arguments. And the proposed division +of the tenth commandment seems quite precluded by the fact that in +Exodus we read, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house nor his +wife,” while in Deuteronomy the order is reversed; so that its advocates +are divided among themselves as to whether the coveting of a house or a +wife is to attain the dignity of separate mention. + +The ordinary English arrangement assigns to the tables four commandments +and six respectively. And the noble catechism of the Church of England +appears to sanction this arrangement by including among “my duties to my +neighbour” that of loving, honouring and succouring my father and +mother. There are several objections to this arrangement. It is +unsymmetrical. There seems to be something more sacred and divine about +my relationship with my father and mother than those which connect me +with my neighbour. The first table begins with the gravest offence, and +steadily declines to the lowest; sin against the unique personality of +God being followed by sin against His spirituality of nature, His name, +and His holy day. If now the sin against His earthly representative, the +very fountain and sanction of all law to childhood, be added to the +first table, the same order will pervade those of the second—namely, +sin against my neighbour’s life, his family, his property, his +reputation, and lastly, his interest in my inner self, in the wishes +that are unspoken, the thoughts and feelings which + + “I wad nae tell to nae man.” + +We thus obtain both the simplest division and the clearest arrangement. +In Romans xiii. 9 the fifth commandment is not enumerated when +rehearsing the actions which transgress the second table. In the Hebrew +text of Deuteronomy all the later commandments are joined with the sixth +by the copulative (represented along with the negative fairly enough in +our English by “Neither”), which seems to indicate that these five were +united together in the author’s mind. But the fifth stands alone, like +all those of the first table. Now, it is clear that such an arrangement +gives great sanction and weight to the sacred institution of the family. + +Finally, the comprehensiveness and spirituality of the law may be +observed in this; that the first table forbids sin against God in +thought, word and deed; and the second table forbids sin against man in +deed, word and thought. + + +_THE PROLOGUE._ + +xx. 2. + +The Decalogue is introduced by the words “I am the Lord thy God, which +brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” + +Here, and in the previous chapter, is already a great advance upon the +time when it was said to them “The God of thy fathers, the God of +Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, hath appeared.” Now they are expected +to remember what He has done for themselves. For, although religion must +begin with testimony, it ought always to grow up into an experience. +Thus it was that many of the Samaritans believed on Jesus because of the +word of the woman; but presently they said, “Now we believe, not because +of thy speaking, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know.” And thus +the disciples who heard John the Baptist speak, and so followed Jesus, +having come and seen where He abode, could say, “We have found the +Messiah.” + +This prologue is vitally connected with both tables of the law. In +relation to the first, it recognises the instinct of worship in the +human heart. In vain shall we say Do not worship idols, until the true +object of adoration is supplied, for the heart must and will prostrate +itself at some shrine. A leader of modern science confesses “the +immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of man,” adding +that “to yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of +problems at the present hour.”[35] It is indeed a problem for the +unbelief which, because it professes to be scientific, cannot shut its +eyes to the fact that men whose faith in Christ has suffered shipwreck +are everywhere seen to be clinging to strange planks—spiritualism, +esoteric Buddhism, and other superstitions,—which prove that man must +and will reverence something more than streams of tendencies, or +beneficial results to the greatest numbers. The Law of Moses abolishes +superstition by no mere negation, but by the proclamation of a true God. + +Moreover, it declares that this God is knowable, which flatly +contradicts the brave assertion of modern agnostics that the notion of a +God is not even “thinkable.” That assertion is a bald and barren +platitude in the only sense in which it is not contrary to the +experience of all mankind. As we cannot form a complete and perfect, nor +even an adequate notion of God, so no man ever yet conceived a complete +and adequate notion of his neighbour, nor indeed of himself. But as we +can form a notion of one another, dim and fragmentary indeed, yet more +or less accurate and fit to guide our actions, so has every nation and +every man formed some notion of deity. Nor could even the agnostic +declare that God is unthinkable, unless the word God, of which he makes +this assertion, conveyed to him _some_ idea, some thought, more or less +worthy of the thinking. The ancient Jew never dreamed that he could +search out the Almighty to perfection, yet God was known to him by His +actions (the only means by which we know our fellow-men); and the +combined terror and loving-kindness of these at once warned him against +revolt, and appealed to his loyalty for obedience. + +In relation to the second table, the prologue was both an argument and +an appeal. Why should a man hope to prosper by estranging his best +Friend, his Emancipator and Guide? And even if disobedience could obtain +some paltry advantage, how base would he be who snatched at it, when +forbidden by the God Who broke his chains, and brought him out of the +house of bondage—a Benefactor not ungenial and remote, but One Who +enters into closest relations with him, calling Himself “Thy God”! + +Now, a greater emancipation and a closer personal relationship belong to +the Church of Christ. When a Christian hears that God is unthinkable, he +ought to be able to answer, ‘God is my God, and He has brought my soul +out of its house of bondage.’ + +Moreover, his emancipation by Christ from many sins and inner slaveries +ought to be a fact plain enough to constitute the sorest of problems to +the observing world. + +It must be observed, besides, that the Law, which was the centre of +Judaism, does not appeal chiefly to the meaner side of human nature. +Hell is not yet known, for the depths of eternity could not be uncovered +before the clouds had rolled away from its heights of love and +condescension; or else the sanity and balance of human nature would have +been overthrown. But even temporal judgments are not set in the foremost +place. As St. Paul, who knew the terrors of the Lord, more commonly and +urgently besought men by the mercies of God, so were the ancient Jews, +under the burning mountain, reminded rather of what God had bestowed +upon them, than of what He might inflict if they provoked Him. And our +gratitude, like theirs, should be excited by His temporal as well as His +spiritual gifts to us. + + +_THE FIRST COMMANDMENT._ + +“Thou shalt have none other gods before Me.”—xx. 3. + +When these words fell upon the ears of Israel, they conveyed, as their +primary thought, a prohibition of the formal worship of rival deities, +Egyptian or Sidonian gods. Following immediately upon the proclamation +of Jehovah, their own God, they declared His intolerance of rivalry, and +enjoined a strict and jealous monotheism. For God was a reality. Races +who worshipped idealisations or personifications might easily make room +for other poetic embodiments of human thought and feeling; but Jehovah +would vindicate His rights. He had proved himself very real in Egypt. +Other gods would not displace Him: He would observe them: they would be +“before Me.”[36] God does not quit the scene when man forgets Him. + +Now, it is hard for us to realise the charm which the worship of false +gods possessed for ancient Israel. To comprehend it we must reflect upon +the universal ignorance which made every phenomenon of nature a +portentous manifestation of mysterious and varied power, which they +could by no means trace back to a common origin, while the crash and +discord of the results appeared to indicate opposing wills behind. We +must reflect how closely akin is awe to worship, and how blind and +unintelligent was the awe which storm and earthquake and pestilence then +excited. We must remember the pressure upon them of surrounding +superstitions armed with all the civilisation and art of their world. +Above all, we must consider that the gods which seduced them were not of +necessity supreme: homage to them was very fairly consistent with a +reservation of the highest place for another; so that false worship in +its early stages need not have been much more startling than belief in +witchcraft, or in the paltry and unimaginative “spirits” which, in our +own day, are reputed to play the banjo in a dark room, and to untie +knots in a cabinet. Is it for us to deride them? + +To oppose all such tendencies, the Lord appealed not to philosophy and +sound reason. These are not the parents of monotheism: they are the +fruit of it. And so is our modern science. Its fundamental principle is +faith in the unity of nature, and in the extent to which the same laws +which govern our little world reach through the vast universe. And that +faith is directly traceable to the conviction that all the universe is +the work of the same Hand. + +“One God, one law, one element;”—the preaching of the first was sure to +suggest the other two. Nor could any race which believed in a multitude +of gods labour earnestly to reduce various phenomena to one cause. +Monotheism is therefore the parent of correct thinking, and could not +draw its sanctions thence. No: the law appeals to the historical +experience of Israel; it is content to stand and fall by that; if they +acknowledged the claim of God upon their loyalty, all the rest followed. +Their own story made good this claim. And so does the whole story of the +Church, and the whole inner life of every man who knows anything of +himself, bear witness to the religion of Jesus. + +Never let us weary of repeating that while we have ample controversial +resource, while no missile can pierce the chain-armour of the Christian +evidences, connected and interwoven into a great whole, and while the +infidelity which is called scientific is really infidel only so far as +it begs its case (which is an unscientific thing to do), nevertheless +the strength of our position is experimental. If the experience which +testifies to Jesus were historical alone, I might refuse to give it +credit: if it were only personal, I might ascribe it to enthusiasm. But +as long as a great cloud of living witnesses, and all the history of the +Church, declare the reality of His salvation, while I myself feel the +sufficiency of what He offers (or else the bitter need of it), so long +the question is not between conflicting theories, but between theories +and facts. To have another god is to place him beside One Whom we +already have, and Who has wrought for us the great emancipation. It is +not an error in theological science: it is ingratitude and treason. + +But it very soon became evident that men could apostatise from God +otherwise than in formal worship, chant and sacrifice and prostration: +“This people honoureth me with their mouths, but their hearts are far +from Me.” God asks for love and trust, and our litanies should express +and cultivate these. Whatever steals away these from the Lord is really +His rival, and another god. “What is it to have a God? or what is God?” +Luther asks. And he answers, “He is God, and is so called, from Whose +goodness and power thou dost confidently promise all good things to +thyself, and to Whom thou dost fly from all adverse affairs and pressing +perils. So that to have a God is nothing else than to trust Him and +believe in Him with all the heart, even as I have often alleged that the +reliance of the heart constitutes alike one’s God and one’s idol.... In +what thing soever thou hast thy mind’s reliance and thine heart fixed, +that is beyond doubt thy God” (_Larger Catechism_). + +And again: “What sort of religion is this, to bow not the knees to +riches and honour, but to offer them the noblest part of you, the heart +and mind? It is to worship the true God outwardly and in the flesh, but +the creature inwardly and in spirit” (_X. Præcepta Witt. Prædicata_). + +It was on this ground that he included charms and spells among the sins +against this commandment, because, though “they seem foolish rather than +wicked, yet do they lead to this too grave result, that men learn to +rely upon the creature in trifles, and so fail in great things to rely +upon God” (_Ibid._) + +This view of false worship is frequent in Scripture itself. The +Chaldeans were idolaters of an elaborate and imposing ritual, but their +true deities were not to be found in temples. They adored what they +really trusted upon, and that was their military prowess—the god of the +modern commander, who said that Providence sided with the big +battalions. The Chaldean is “he whose might is his god,” whereas the +sacred warrior has the Lord for his strength and shield and very present +help in battle. Nay, regarding men “as the fishes of the sea,” and his +own vast armaments as the fisher’s apparatus to sweep them away, the +Chaldean, it is said, “sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense +unto his drag; because by them his portion is fat and his meat +plenteous” (Hab. i. 11, 14–16). Multitudes of humbler people practise a +similar idolatry. They say to God “Give us this day our daily bread”; +but they really ascribe their maintenance to their profession or their +trade; and so this is the true object of their homage. They, too, burn +incense to their drag. + +Others had no thought of a higher blessedness than animal enjoyment. +Their god was their belly. They set the excitement of wine in the place +of the fulness of the Spirit, or preferred some depraved union upon +earth to the honour of being one spirit with the Lord (Phil. iii. 19; +Eph. v. 18; 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17). And some tried to combine the world and +righteousness; not to lose heaven while grasping wealth, and receiving +here not only good things, but the only good things they +acknowledged—_their_ good things (Luke xvi. 25). As the Samaritans +feared the Lord and served graven images, so these were fain to serve +God and mammon (2 Kings xvii. 41; Matt. vi. 24). + +Now, these departures from the true Centre of all love and Source of all +light were really a homage to His great rival, “the god of this world.” +Whenever men seek to obtain any prize by departing from God, they do +reverence to him who falsely said of all the kingdoms of the earth, and +their glory, “These things are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I +will I give them.” They deny Him to Whom indeed all power is committed +in heaven and earth. + +What is the remedy, then, for all such formal or virtual apostasies? It +is to “have” the true God—which means, not only to know and confess, +but to be in real relationship with Him. + +Despite His so-called self-sufficiency, man is not very self-sufficing, +after all. The vast endowments of Julius Cæsar did not prevent him from +chafing because, at the age when he was still obscure, Alexander had +conquered the world. To be Julius Cæsar was not enough for him. Nor is +any man able to stand alone. In the Old Testament Joshua said, “If it +seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will +serve,”—implying that they must obey some one and will do better to +choose a service than to drift into one (Josh. xxiv. 15). And in the New +Testament Jesus declared that no man can serve two masters; but added +that he would not break with both and go free, he was sure to love and +cleave to one of them. Now, he only is proof against apostasy, who has +realised the wants of the soul within him, and the powerlessness of all +creatures to satisfy or save, and then, turning to the cross of Christ, +has found his sufficiency in Him. “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast +the words of everlasting life.” Marvellous it is to think that +underneath the stern words “Thou shalt have none other,” lies all the +condescension of the privilege “Thou shalt have ... Me.” + + +_THE SECOND COMMANDMENT._ + + “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, ... thou shalt not + bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them.”—xx. 4–6. + +How far does the second of these clauses modify the first? Men there are +who maintain the severe independence of the former, so that it forbids +the presence of any image or likeness in the house of God, even for +innocent purposes of adornment. But the Decalogue is not a liturgical +directory: what it forbids in church it forbids anywhere; and on this +theory the statues in Parliament Square would be idolatrous, as well as +those in Westminster Abbey. And such Christians are more Judaical than +the Jews, who were taught to place in the very Holy of Holies golden +cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat, and to represent them again upon +its curtains. + +It is therefore plain that the precept never forbade imagery, but +idolatry, which is the making of images to satisfy the craving of men’s +hearts for a sensuous worship—the making of them “unto thee.” The +second clause qualifies and elucidates the first. And what the +commandment prohibits is any attempt to help our worship by representing +the object of adoration to the senses. + +The higher and more subtle idolatries do not conceive that wood or gold +is actually transformed into their deities; but only that the deities +are locally present in the images, which express their attributes—power +in a hundred hands, beneficence in a hundred breasts. But in thus +expressing, they degrade and cramp the conception. + +They may perhaps evade the reproach of Isaiah that they warm themselves +with a portion of timber, and roast meat with another portion, and make +the remainder a god (Isa. xliv. 15–17), by urging that the timber is not +the god, but an abode which he chooses because it expresses his specific +qualities. But they cannot evade the reproach of St. Paul, that being +ourselves the offspring of God, we ought not to compare Him to the +workmanship of our hands, graven with art and man’s device (Acts xvii. +29). + +A truly spiritual worship is intellectually as well as morally the most +elevating exercise of the soul, which it leads onward and upward, making +of all that it knows and thinks a vestibule, beyond which lie higher +knowledge and deeper feeling as yet unattained. + +Why is Gothic architecture better adapted for religious buildings than +any Grecian or Oriental style? Because its long aisles, vaulted roofs +and pointed arches, leading the vision up to the unseen, tell of +mystery, and draw the mind away beyond the visible and concrete to +something greater which it hints; while rounded arches and definite +proportions shut in at once the vision and the mind. The difference is +the same as between poetry and logic. + +And so it is with worship. We fetter and cramp our thoughts of deity +when we bind them to even the loftiest conceptions which have ever been +shut up in marble or upon canvas. The best image that ever took shape is +inferior to the poorest spiritual conception of God, in this respect if +in no other—that it has no expansiveness, it cannot grow. And in +connecting our prayers with it, we virtually say, ‘This satisfies my +conception of God.’ + +It is not to be condemned merely as inadequate, for so are all our +highest thoughts of deity; nor only because average humanity (which is +supposed to stand most in need of the help and suggestion of art) will +never learn the fine distinctions by which subtle intellects withhold +from the image itself the worship which it evokes, and which goes out in +its direction. It is still more mischievous because, even for the +trained theologian, it is the petrifaction of what is meant to develop +and expand, the solidification of the inadequate, the accepting of what +is human as our idea of the divine. + +Nor will it long continue to be merely inadequate. Experience proves +that ideas, like air and water, cannot be confined without stagnating. +Idolatries not only fail to develop, they degenerate; and systems, +however orthodox they may appear at starting, which connect worship with +palpable imagery, are doomed to sink into superstition. + +To this precept there is added a startling and painful caution—“For I +the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” That a man should be jealous is no +passport to our friendship: we think of unreasonable estrangements, +exaggerated demands, implacable and cruel resentments. It would not +enter the average mind to doubt that one is highly praised when another +says of him, ‘I never traced in his words or actions the slightest stain +of jealousy.’ And yet we are to think of God Himself as the jealous God. + +Upon reflection, however, we must admit that a man is not condemned as +jealous-minded because he is capable of jealousy, but because he has an +unjust and unreasonable tendency towards it. It is a narrowing and +suspicious quality when it operates without due cause, a vindictive and +cruel one when it operates in excessive measure. But what should we +think of a parent who felt no jealousy if the heart of his child were +stolen from him by intriguing servants or by frivolous comrades? Now, +God has called Israel His son, even His firstborn. The truth is that +with us jealousy is dangerous and frequently perverted, because we are +bad judges of the measure of our own rights, especially when our +affections are involved. But some measure of jealousy is the necessary +pain of love neglected, love wronged or slighted by those upon whom it +has a claim. Jealousy is the shadow thrown where the sunshine of love is +intercepted, and it is strong in proportion to the strength of the +light. It operates in the heart exactly like the sense of justice in the +reason. Justice expects a recompense where it has given service, and +jealousy asks for love where it has given affection. + +And therefore, when God tells us that He is jealous, He implies that He +condescends to love us, to look for a return, to desire more from us +than outward service. We cannot be jealous concerning things which are +indifferent to us. Even the jealousy of rival competitors for business +or for place may be measured by the desire of each for that which the +other would engross. The politician is not jealous of the millionaire, +nor the capitalist of the prime minister. + +Now, if God is jealous when the enemies of our soul would steal away our +loyalty, it surely follows that we shall not be left to contend with +those enemies alone: He values us; He is upon our side; He will help us +to overcome them. + +And now we begin to see why this attribute is connected with the second +commandment and not the first. The apostate who betakes himself to +another god is almost beyond the reach of this tender and intimate +emotion: he is still loved, for God loves all men; but yet perhaps the +chord is unstrung which trembles responsive to this plaintive note. + +When a man who confesses God begins to weary of spiritual intercourse +with the Lord of spirits, when he can no longer worship One whose actual +presence is realised because His voice is heard within, when the +likeness of man or brute, or brightness of morning, or marvel of life or +its reproductiveness, contents him as a representation of God the +invisible, then his heart is beginning to go after the creature, to +content itself with artistic loveliness or majesty, to let go the grasp +as upon a living hand, by which alone the soul may be sustained when it +stumbles, or guided when it would err. + +To those who are within His covenant—to us, therefore, as to His +ancient Israel—He says, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” Because +I am “thy God.” + +The assertion of a Divine jealousy is but one difficulty of this +remarkable verse. The Lord goes on to describe Himself as “visiting the +iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth +generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of +them that love Me and keep My commandments.” And is this reasonable? To +punish the child, to be avenged upon the children’s children, for sins +which are not their own? We know how often the sceptic has made gain out +of this representation—which is but his own unauthorised gloss, since +in reality God has said nothing about punishing the righteous with the +wicked. It is not true that all sad and disastrous consequences are +penal; many are disciplinary, and even to the people of God some are +surgical, cutting away what would lead to disease and death. Are no +evil consequences probable, if men brought up amid scenes dishonouring +to God were treated exactly like those who have since childhood felt as +it were the hand of a Father upon their head? For themselves it is best +and kindest that so deep a loss could come home to their consciousness +in pain. + +At all events, the assertion so early made in Scripture is confirmed in +all the experience of the race. Insanity, idiocy, scrofula, consumption, +are too often, though not always, the hereditary results of guilt. Sins +of the flesh are visited upon the bodily system. Sins of the temper, +such as pride, cynicism and frivolity, are felt in the mental structure +of the race. And the sins which offend directly against God, do they +bring no results with them? Ask of the investigators of the new science +of heredity and transmitted peculiarities, whether it stops short of the +highest and holiest parts of human nature. Or consider the ravages which +victory and consequent wealth have made, again and again, in the +character of whole nations. + +There is no doctrine impugned in Scripture, which men have less prospect +of shaking off, even if they close their Bibles for ever, than this. If +it were not there, we should be perplexed at a want of conformity +between the ways of God in nature and what is asserted of Him in His +Book. + +But it is either slander or blindness to represent this law, viewed in +its entirety, as other than benevolent. The transmission of the result +of evil is only a part of the vast law which has bound men together in +nations and families, as partners and members with each other. It is +clear that distinctive advantages cannot be bestowed upon the children +of the good, as such, unless the same advantages be withheld from the +evil race beside them. If the prizes of a university are won by +knowledge, the result is that ignorance is “visited,” in the withholding +of them. And if, in the vaster university of life, health, affluence, +good repute and a clear intellect are the transmitted results of virtue, +then disease, poverty, neglect and incompetence become the dire bequest +of the unrighteous. + +There is no choice, therefore, except either to carry out this law, or +else to bid every man in the world begin life, not as “the heir of all +the ages,” but absolutely destitute of all that has been acquired by his +fellow-men. + +Sometimes a hint is given us of what this would be. There is brought +occasionally into civilised communities, from the depths of forests, a +creature without language or decency or intellect, with low forehead and +brutal appetites, who in his early childhood had wandered away and been +lost,—brought up, men say, by the strange compassion of some lower +creature, and now sunken well-nigh to its level. To this degradation we +should all come, if it were not for the transmitted inheritance of our +fathers. And so vast is the upward force of this grand law, that it is +steadily though slowly upheaving the whole mass; and the lowest of +to-day, visited for ancestral failings by sinking to the bottom, is +higher than if he had been left absolutely alone. + +This over-weight of good is clearly seen by comparing the clauses, for +the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and +fourth generation, but mercy is shown in them that love God upon a +wholly different scale. Even “unto thousands” would enormously +counterbalance three generations. But the Revised Version rightly +suggests “a thousand generations” in the margin, and supports it by one +of its very rare references. It is plainly stated in Deuteronomy vii. 9, +that He “keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His +commandments unto a thousand generations.” + +Lastly, it is to be observed that in all this passage the gospel is +shining through the law. It is not a question of just dealing, but of +emotion. God is not a master exacting taskwork, but a Father, jealous if +we refuse our hearts. He visits sin upon the posterity “of them that +hate,” not only of them that disobey Him. And when our hearts sink, we +who are responsible for generations yet to be, as we reflect upon our +frailty, our ignorance and our sins, upon the awful consequences which +may result from one heedless act—nay, from a gesture or a look—He +reminds us that He does not requite those who serve Him only with a +measured wage, but shows “mercy” upon those who love Him unto a thousand +generations. + + +_THE THIRD COMMANDMENT._ + + “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”—xx. 7. + +What is the precise force of this prohibition? The word used is +ambiguous: sometimes it must be rendered as here, as in the verses +“_Vain_ is the help of man,” and “Except the Lord build the house, their +labour is but _vain_ that build it” (Psalm cviii. 12, cxxvii. 1). But +sometimes it clearly means false, as in the texts “Thou shalt not raise +a _false_ report,” and “swearing _falsely_ in making a covenant” (Exod. +xxiii. 1; Hos. x. 4). Yet again, it hangs midway between the two ideas, +as when we read of “_lying_ vanities,” and again, “trusting in vanity +and speaking _lies_” (Psalm xxxi. 6; Isa. lix. 4). + +In favour of the rendering “falsely” it is urged that our Lord quotes it +as “said to them of old time ‘Thou shalt not forswear thyself’” (Matt. +v. 33). But it is by no means clear that He quotes this text: the +citation is closer to the phraseology of Lev. xix. 12, and it is found +in a section of the Sermon which does not confine its citations to the +Decalogue (cf. ver. 38). + +The Authorised rendering seems the more natural when we remember that +civic duty had not yet come upon the stage. When we have learned to +honour only one God, and not to degrade nor materialise our conception +of Him, the next step is to inculcate, not yet veracity toward men when +God has been invoked, but reverence, in treating the sacred name. + +We have already seen the miserable superstitions by which the Jews +endeavoured to satisfy the letter while outraging the spirit of this +precept. In modern times some have conceived that all invocation of the +Divine Name is unlawful, although St. Paul called God for a witness upon +his soul, and the strong angel shall yet swear “by Him Who liveth for +ever and ever” (2 Cor. i. 23; Rev. x. 6). + +As it is not a temple but a desert which no foot ever treads, so the +sacred name is not honoured by being unspoken, but by being spoken +aright. + +Swearing is indeed forbidden, where it has actually disappeared, namely, +in the mutual intercourse of Christian people, whose affirmation should +suffice their brethren, while the need of stronger sanctions “cometh of +evil,” even of the consciousness of a tendency to untruthfulness, which +requires the stronger barrier of an oath. But our Lord Himself, when +adjured by the living God, responded to the solemn authority of that +adjuration, although His death was the result. + +The name of God is not taken in vain when men who are conscious of His +nearness, and act with habitual reference to His will, mention Him more +frequently and familiarly than formalists approve. It is abused when the +insincere and hollow professor joins in the most solemn act of worship, +honours Him with the lips while the heart is far from Him—nay, when one +strives to curb Satan, and reclaim his fellow-sinner, by the use of good +and holy phrases, in which his own belief is merely theoretical; and +fares like the sons of Sceva, who repeated an orthodox adjuration, but +fled away overpowered and wounded. Or if the truth unworthily spoken +assert its inherent power, that will not justify the hollowness of his +profession, and in vain will he plead at last, “Lord, Lord, have we not +in Thy name cast out devils, and in Thy name done many marvellous acts?” + +The only safe rule is to be sure that our conception of God is high and +real and intimate; to be habitually humble and trustful in our attitude +toward Him; and then to speak sincerely and frankly, as then we shall +not fail to do. The words which rise naturally to the lips of men who +think thus cannot fail to do Him honour, for out of the fulness of the +heart the mouth speaketh. + +And the prevalent notion that God should be mentioned seldom and with +bated breath is rather an evidence of men’s failure habitually to think +of Him aright, than of filial and loving reverence. There is a large and +powerful school of religion in our own day, whose disciples talk much +more of their own emotions and their own souls than St. Paul did, and +much less about God and Christ. Some day the proportions will be +restored. In the great Church of the future men will not morbidly shrink +from confessing their inner life, but neither will it be the centre of +their contemplation and their discourse: they will be filled with the +fulness of God; out of the abundance of their hearts their mouths will +speak; His name shall be continually in their mouth, and yet they shall +not take the name of the Lord their God in vain. + + +_THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT._ + +xx. 8–11. + +It cannot be denied that the commandment to honour the Sabbath day +occupies a unique place among the ten. It is, at least apparently, a +formal precept embedded in the heart of a moral code, and good men have +thought very differently indeed about its obligation upon the Christian +Church. + +The great Continental reformers, Lutheran and Calvinistic alike, who +subscribed the Confession of Augsburg, there affirmed that “Scripture +hath abolished the Sabbath by teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may be +omitted since the gospel has been revealed” (II. vii. 28). The Scotch +reformers, on the other hand, declared that God “in His Word, by a +positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, +hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept +holy unto Him” (_Westminster Confess._, XXI. vii.). They are even so +bold as to declare that this day “from the beginning of the world to the +resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the +resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week”; but +this proposition would be as hard to prove as the contrary assertion, +still maintained by some obscure religionists, that the change of day, +for however sufficient and sublime a reason, was beyond the capacity of +the Church of Christ to enact. + +Amid these conflicting opinions the doctrinal formularies of the Church +of England are characteristically guarded and prudent; but her +worshippers are bidden to seek mercy from the Lord for past violations +of this law, and an inclination of heart to keep it in the future; and +when the Ten have been recited, they pray that “all these Thy laws” may +be written upon their hearts. There is no doubt, therefore, about the +opinion of our own Reformers concerning the divine obligation of the +commandment. + +In examining the problem thus presented to us, our chief light must be +that of Scripture itself. Is the Sabbath what the Lutheran confession +called it, a mere “Mosaic ceremony,” or does it rest upon sanctions +which began earlier and lasted longer than the precept to abstain from +shell-fish, or to sanctify the firstborn of cattle? + +Does its presence in the Decalogue disfigure that great code, as the +intrusion of these other precepts would do? When we find a Gentile +church reminded that the next precept to this “is the first commandment +with promise” (Eph. vi. 2), can we suppose that the tables to which St. +Paul appealed, and the promise which he cited at full length, were both +cancelled; that in so far as a moral element existed in them, that +portion of course survived their repeal, but the code itself was gone? +If so, the temporal promise went with it, and its quotation by St. Paul +is strange. Strange also, upon this supposition, was the stress which +he habitually laid upon the law as a convicting power, and as being only +repealed in the letter so far as it was fulfilled by the spontaneous +instinct of love, which was the fulfilling of the law. + +The position of the commandment among a number of moral and universal +duties cannot but weigh heavily in its favour. It prompts us to ask +whether our duty to God is purely negative, to be fulfilled by a policy +of non-intervention, not worshipping idols, nor blaspheming. Something +more was already intimated in the promise of mercy to them “that love +Me.” For love is chiefly the source of active obedience: while fear is +satisfied by the absence of provocation, love wants not only to abstain +from evil but to do good. And how may it satisfy this instinct when its +object is the eternal God, Who, if He were hungry, would not tell us? It +finds the necessary outlet in worship, in adoring communion, in the +exclusion for awhile of worldly cares, in the devotion of time and +thought to Him. Now, the foundation upon which all the institutions of +religion may be securely built, is the day of rest. Call it external, +formal, unspiritual if you will; say that it is a carnal ordinance, and +that he who keeps it in spirit is free from the obligation of the +letter. But then, what about the eighth commandment? Are we absolved +also from the precept “Thou shalt not steal,” because it too is +concerned with external actions, because “this ... thou shalt not steal +... and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in +this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”? Do we say, +the spirit has abolished the letter: love is the rescinding of the law? +St. Paul said the very opposite: love is the fulfilling of the law, not +its destruction; and thus he re-echoed the words of Jesus, “I am not +come to destroy the law, but to fulfil.” + +All men know that the formal regulations which defend property are +relaxed as the ties of love and mutual understanding are made strong; +that to enter unannounced is not a trespass, that the same action which +will be prosecuted as a theft by a stranger, and resented as a liberty +by an acquaintance, is welcomed as a graceful freedom, almost as an +endearment, by a friend. And yet the commandment and the rights of +property hold good: they are not compromised, but glorified, by being +spiritualised. As it is between man and his brother, so should it be +between us and our Divine Father. We have learned to know Him very +differently from those who shuddered under Sinai: the whole law is not +now written upon tables of stone, but upon fleshly tables of the heart. +But among the precepts which are thus etherialised and yet established, +why should not the fourth commandment retain its place? Why should it be +supposed that it must vanish from the Decalogue, unless the gathering of +sticks deserves stoning? The institution, and the ceremonial application +of it to Jewish life, are entirely different things; just as respect for +property is a fixed obligation, while the laws of succession vary. + +Bearing this distinction in mind, we come to the question, Was the +Sabbath an ordinance born of Mosaism, or not? Grant that the word +“Remember,” if it stood alone, might conceivably express the emphasis of +a new precept, and not the recapitulation of an existing one. Grant also +that the mention in Genesis of the Divine rest might be made by +anticipation, to be read with an eye to the institution which would be +mentioned later. But what is to be made of the fact that on the seventh +day manna was withheld from the camp, before they had arrived at Horeb, +and therefore before the commandment had been written by the finger of +God upon the stone? Was this also done by anticipation? Upon any +supposition, it aimed at teaching the nation that the obligation of the +day was not based upon the positive precept, but the precept embodied an +older and more fundamental obligation. + +How is the Sabbath spoken of in those prophecies which set least value +upon the merely ceremonial law? + +Isaiah speaks of mere ritual as slightly as St. Paul. To fast and +afflict one’s soul is nothing, if in the day of fasting one smites with +the fist and oppresses his labourers. To loose the bonds of wickedness, +to free the oppressed, to share one’s bread with the hungry, this is the +fast which God has chosen, and for him who fasts after this fashion the +light shall break forth like sunrise, and his bones shall be strong, and +he himself like an unfailing water-spring. Now, it is the same chapter +which thus waives aside mere ceremonial in contempt, which lavishes the +most ample promises on him who turns away his foot from the Sabbath, and +calls the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the Lord, honourable, and +honours it (Isa. lviii. 5–11, 13–14). + +There is no such promise in Jeremiah, for the observance of any merely +ceremonial law, as that which bids the people to honour the Sabbath day, +that there may enter into their gates kings and princes riding in +chariots and upon horses, and that the city may remain for ever (Jer. +xvii. 24, 25). + +And Ezekiel declares that in the day when God made Himself known to His +people in the land of Egypt, He gave them statutes and judgments and His +sabbaths (Ezek. xx. 11, 12). Now, this phrase is a clear allusion to +the word of God in Jeremiah, that “I spake not unto their fathers in the +day when I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or +sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto My +voice,” etc. (Jer. vii. 23). And it sharply contrasts the sacredness of +God’s abiding ordinances with the temporary institutions of the +sanctuary. But it reckons the Sabbath among the former. + +It is objected that our Lord Himself treated the Sabbath lightly, as a +worn-out ordinance. But He was “a minister of the circumcision,” and +always discussed the lawfulness of His Sabbath miracles as a Jew with +Jews. Thus He argued that men, admittedly under the law, baked the +shewbread, circumcised children, and even rescued cattle from jeopardy +upon the seventh day. He appealed to the example of David, who met a +sufficiently urgent necessity by eating the consecrated bread, “which +was not lawful for him to eat” (Matt. xii. 4). + +He did not hint that the law of the sabbath had disappeared, but +insisted that it was meant to serve man and not to oppress him: that +“the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark ii. +27). + +Now, there is not in the life of Christ an assertion, so broad and +strong as that the Sabbath was made for the human race, which can be +narrowed down to a discussion of any merely local and temporary +institution. He Who stood highest, and saw the widest horizons, declared +that the Sabbath was intended for humanity, and not for a section or a +sect of it. Not because He was the King of the Jews, but because He was +the Son of Man, the ripe fruit and the leader of the world-wide race +which it was given to bless, therefore He was also its Lord. + +And in Him, so are we. Like all things present and things to come, it is +our help, we are not its slaves. + +There is something abject in the notion of a Christian freeman, who has +been for a long week imprisoned in some gloomy and ill-ventilated +workshop, whose lungs would be purified, and therefore his spirits +uplifted, and therefore his reason and his affections invigorated, and +therefore his worship rendered more fresh, warm and reasonable, by the +breathing of a purer air, yet whose conception of a day of rest is so +slavish that he dares not “rest” from the pollution of an infected +atmosphere, and from the closeness of a London court, because he +conceives it imperative to “rest” only from that bodily exercise, to +enjoy which would be to him the most real and the most delightful repose +of all. + +But there are other things more abject still; and one of them is the +miserable insincerity of the affluent and luxurious, using the +exceptional case of him whose week-days are thus oppressed, to excuse +their own wanton neglect of religious ordinances, accepting at the hands +of Christianity the sacred holiday, but ignoring utterly the fact that +the Lord sanctified and hallowed it, that it is to be called the holy of +the Lord, and to be honoured, and that we are free from the letter of +the precept only in so far as we rise to the spirit of it, in loving and +true communion with the Father of spirits. + +Another utterance of Jesus throws a strong light upon the nature and the +limits of our obligation. “My Father worketh even until now, and I work” +(John v. 17) is an appeal to the fact that in the long sabbath of God +His world is not deserted; creation may be suspended, but the bounties +of Providence go on; and therefore Christ also felt that His day of +rest was not one of torpor, that in healing the impotent man upon the +Sabbath He was but following the example of Him by whose rest the day +was sanctified. All works of beneficent love, all that ministers to +human recovery from anguish, and carries out the Divine purposes of +grace for body or soul, rescue from danger, healing of disease, +reformation of guilt, are sanctioned by this defence of Christ. + +They need not plead that the commandment is abrogated, but that Jesus of +Nazareth, of the seed of David, found nothing in such liberties +inconsistent with the duties of a devout Hebrew. + + +_THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT._ + + “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon + the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”—xx. 12. + +This commandment forms a kind of bridge between the first table and the +second. Obedience to parents is not merely a neighbourly virtue; we do +not honour them simply as our fellow-men: they are the vicegerents of +God to our childhood; through them He supplies our necessities, defends +our feebleness, and pours in light and wisdom upon our ignorance; by +them our earliest knowledge of right and wrong is imparted, and upon the +sanction of their voice it long depends. + +It is clear that parental authority cannot be undermined, nor filial +disobedience and irreverence gain ground, without shaking the +foundations of our religious life, even more perhaps than of our social +conduct. + +Accordingly this commandment stands before the sixth, not because +murder is a less offence against society, but because it is more +emphatically against our neighbour, and less directly against God. + +The human infant is dependent and helpless for a longer period, and more +utterly, than the young of any other animal. Its growth, which is to +reach so much higher, is slower, and it is feebler during the process. +And the reason of this is plain to every thoughtful observer. God has +willed that the race of man should be bound together in the closest +relationships, both spiritual and secular; and family affection prepares +the heart for membership alike of the nation and the Church. With this +inner circle the wider ones are concentric. The pathetic dependence of +the child nourishes equally the strong love which protects, and the +grateful love which clings. And from our early knowledge of human +generosity, human care and goodness, there is born the capacity for +belief in the heart of the great Father, from Whom every family in +heaven and earth derived its Greek name of Fatherhood (Eph. iii. 15). + +Woe to the father whose cruelty, selfishness, or evil passions make it +hard for his child to understand the Archetype, because the type is +spoiled! or whose tyranny and self-will suggest rather the stern God of +reprobation, or of servile, slavish subjection, than the tender Father +of freeborn sons, who are no more under tutors and governors, but are +called unto freedom. + +But how much sorer woe to the son who dishonours his earthly parent, and +in so doing slays within himself the very principle of obedience to the +Father of spirits! + +No earthly tie is perfect, and therefore no earthly obedience can be +absolute. Some crisis comes in every life when the most innocent and +praiseworthy affection becomes a snare—when the counsel we most relied +upon would fain mislead our conscience—when a man, to be Christ’s +disciple, must “hate father and mother,” as Christ Himself heard the +temptation of the evil one speaking through chosen and beloved lips, and +said “Get thee behind Me, Satan.” Even then we shall respect them, and +pray as Christ prayed for His failing apostle, and when the storm has +spent itself they shall resume their due place in the loving heart of +their Christian offspring. + +So Jesus, when Mary would interrupt His teaching, said “Who is My +mother?” But imminent death could not prevent Him from pitying her +sorrow, and committing her to His beloved disciple as to a son. + +From the letter of this commandment streams out a loving influence to +sanctify all the rest of our relationships. As the love of God implies +that of our brother also, so does the honour of parents involve the +recognition of all our domestic ties. + +And even unassisted nature will tend to make long the days of the loving +and obedient child; for life and health depend far less upon affluence +and luxury than upon a well-regulated disposition, a loving heart, a +temper which can obey without chafing, and a conscience which respects +law. All these are being learned in disciplined and dutiful households, +which are therefore the nurseries of happy and righteous children, and +so of long-lived families in the next generation also. Exceptions there +must be. But the rule is clear, that violent and curbless lives will +spend themselves faster than the lives of the gentle, the loving, the +law-abiding and the innocent. + + +_THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT._ + + “Thou shalt do no murder.”—xx. 13. + +We have now clearly passed to the consideration of man’s duty to his +fellow-man, as a part of his duty to his Maker. It is no longer as +holding a divinely appointed relation to us, but simply as he is a man, +that we are bidden to respect his person, his family, his property, and +his fair fame. + +And the influence of the teaching of our Lord is felt in the very name +which we all give to the second table of the law. We call it “our duty +to our neighbour.” But we do not mean to imply that there lives on the +surface of the globe one whom we are free to assault or to pillage. The +obligation is universal, and the name we give it echoes the teaching of +Him who said that no man can enter the sphere of our possible influence, +even as a wounded creature in a swoon whom we may help, but he should +thereupon become our neighbour. Or rather, we should become his; for +while the question asked of Him was “Who is my neighbour?” (whom should +I love?) Jesus reversed the problem when He asked in turn not To whom +was the wounded man a neighbour? but Who was a neighbour unto him? (who +loved him?) + +Social ethics, then, have a religious sanction. It is the constant duty +and effort of the Church of God to saturate the whole life of man, all +his conduct and his thought, with a sense of sacredness; and as the +world is for ever desecrating what is holy, so is religion for ever +consecrating what is secular. + +In these latter days men have thought it a proof of grace to separate +religion from daily life. The Antinomian, who maintains that his +orthodox beliefs or feelings absolve him from the obligations of +morality, joins hands with the Italian brigand who hopes to be forgiven +for cutting throats because he subsidises a priest. The enthusiast who +insists that all sins, past and future, were forgiven him when he +believed, approaches far nearer than he supposes to the fanatic of +another creed, who thinks a formal confession and an external absolution +sufficient to wash away sin. All of them hold the grand heresy that one +may escape the penalties without being freed from the power of evil; +that a life may be saved by grace without being penetrated by religion, +and that it is not exactly accurate to say that Jesus saves His people +from their sins. + +It is scarcely wonderful, when some men thus refuse to morality the +sanctions of religion, that others propose to teach morality how she may +go without them. In spite of the experience of ages, which proves that +human passions are only too ready to defy at once the penalties of both +worlds, it is imagined that the microscope and the scalpel may supersede +the Gospel as teachers of virtue; that the self-interest of a creature +doomed to perish in a few years may prove more effectual to restrain +than eternal hopes and fears; and that a scientific prudence may supply +the place of holiness. It has never been so in the past. Not only Judæa, +but Egypt, Greece, and Rome, were strong as long as they were righteous, +and righteous as long as their morality was bound up in their religion. +When they ceased to worship they ceased to be self-controlled, nor could +the most urgent and manifest self-interest, nor all the resources of +lofty philosophy, withhold them from the ruin which always accompanies +or follows vice. + +Is it certain that modern science will fare any better? So far from +deepening our respect for human nature and for law, she is discovering +vile origins for our most sacred institutions and our deepest instincts, +and whispering strange means by which crime may work without detection +and vice without penalty. Never was there a time when educated thought +was more suggestive of contempt for one’s self and for one’s fellow-man, +and of a prudent, sturdy, remorseless pursuit of self-interest, which +may be very far indeed from virtuous. The next generation will eat the +fruit of this teaching, as we reap what our fathers sowed. The theorist +may be as pure as Epicurus. But the disciples will be as the Epicureans. + +Is there anything in the modern conception of a man which bids me spare +him, if his existence dooms me to poverty and I can quietly push him +over a precipice? It is quite conceivable that I can prove, and very +likely indeed that I can persuade myself, that the shortening of the +life of one hard and grasping man may brighten the lives of hundreds. +And my passions will simply laugh at the attempt to restrain me by +arguing that great advantages result from the respect for human life +upon the whole. Appetites, greeds, resentments do not regard their +objects in this broad and colourless way; they grant the general +proposition, but add that every rule has its exceptions. Something more +is needed: something which can never be obtained except from a universal +law, from the sanctity of all human lives as bearing eternal issues in +their bosom, and from the certainty that He who gave the mandate will +enforce it. + +It is when we see in our fellow-man a divine creature of the Divine, +made by God in His own image, marred and defaced by sin, but not beyond +recovery, when his actions are regarded as wrought in the sight of a +Judge Whose presence supersedes utterly the slightness, heat and +inadequacy of our judgment and our vengeance, when his pure affections +tell us of the love of God which passeth knowledge, when his errors +affright us as dire and melancholy apostacies from a mighty calling, and +when his death is solemn as the unveiling of unknown and unending +destinies, then it is that we discern the sacredness of life, and the +awful presumption of the deed which quenches it. It is when we realise +that he is our brother, holding his place in the universe by the same +tenure by which we hold our own, and dear to the same Father, that we +understand how stern is the duty of repressing the first resentful +movements within our breast which would even wish to crush him, because +they are a rebellion against the Divine ordinance and against the Divine +benevolence. + +Is it asked, how can all this be reconciled with the lawfulness of +capital punishment? The death penalty is frequent in the Mosaic code. +But Scripture regards the judge as the minister and agent of God. The +stern monotheism of the Old Testament “said, Ye are Gods,” to those who +thus pronounced the behest of Heaven; and private vengeance becomes only +more culpable when we reflect upon the high sanction and authority by +which alone public justice presumes to act. + +Now, all these considerations vanish together, when religion ceases to +consecrate morality. The judgment of law differs from my own merely as I +like it better, and as I am a party (perhaps unwillingly) to the general +consent which creates it; he whom I would assail is doomed in any case +to speedy and complete extinction; his longer life is possibly +burdensome to himself and to society; and there exists no higher Being +to resent my interference, or to measure out the existence which I think +too protracted. It is clear that such a view of human life must prove +fatal to its sacredness; and that its results would make themselves +increasingly felt, as the awe wore away which old associations now +inspire. + + +_THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT._ + + “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”—xx. 14. + +This commandment follows very obviously from even the rudest principle +of justice to our neighbour. It is among those that St. Paul enumerates +as “briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour +as thyself.” + +And therefore nothing need here be said about the open sin by which one +man wrongs another. Wild and evil theories may be abroad, new schemes of +social order may be recklessly invented and discussed; yet, when the +institution of the permanent family is assailed, every thoughtful man +knows full well that all our interests are at stake in its defence, and +the nation could no more survive its overthrow than the Church. + +But when our Lord declared that to excite desire through the eyes is +actually this sin, already ripe, He appealed to some deeper and more +spiritual consideration than that of social order. What He pointed to is +the sacredness of the human body—so holy a thing that impurity, and +even the silent excitement of passion, is a wrong done to our nature, +and a dishonour to the temple of the Holy Ghost. + +Now, this is a subject upon which it is all the more necessary to write, +because it is hard to speak about. + +What is the human body, in the view of the Christian? It is the one +bond, as far as we know in all the universe, between the material and +the spiritual worlds, one of which slopes thence down to inert +molecules, and the other upward to the throne of God. + +Our brain is the engine-room and laboratory whereby thought, aspiration, +worship express themselves and become potent, and even communicate +themselves to others. + +But it is a solemn truth that the body not only interprets passively, +but also influences and modifies the higher nature. The mind is helped +by proper diet and exercise, and hindered by impure air and by excess or +lack of food. The influence of music upon the soul has been observed at +least since the time of Saul. And hereafter the Christian body, redeemed +from the contagion of the fall, and promoted to a spiritual +impressibility and receptiveness which it has never yet known, is meant +to share in the heavenly joys of the immortal spirit before God. This is +the meaning of the assertion that it is sown a natural (= _soulish_) +body, but shall be raised a spiritual body. In the meantime it must +learn its true function. Whatever stimulates and excites the animal at +the cost of the immortal within, will in the same degree cloud and +obscure the perception that a man’s life consisteth not in his +pleasures, and will keep up the illusion that the senses are the true +ministers of bliss. The soul is attacked through the appetites at a +point far short of their physical indulgence. And when lawless wishes +are deliberately toyed with, it is clear that lawless acts are not +hated, but only avoided through fear of consequences. The reins which +govern the life are no longer in the hands of the spirit, nor is it the +will which now refuses to sin. How, then, can the soul be alert and +pure? It is drugged and stupified: the offices of religion are a dull +form, and its truths are hollow unrealities, assented to but unfelt, +because unholy impulses have set on fire the course of nature, in what +should have been the temple of the Holy Ghost. + +Moreover, the Christian life is not one of mere submission to authority; +its true law is that of ceaseless upward aspiration. And since the union +of husband and wife is consecrated to be the truest and deepest and most +far-reaching of all types of the mystical union between Christ and His +Church, it demands an ever closer approach to that perfect ideal of +mutual love and service. + +And whatever impairs the sacred, mysterious, all-pervading unity of a +perfect wedlock is either the greatest of misfortunes or of crimes. + +If it be frailty of temper, failure of common sympathies, an +irretrievable error recognised too late, it is a calamity which may yet +strengthen the character by evoking such pity and helpfulness as Christ +the Bridegroom showed for the Church when lost. But if estrangement, +even of heart, come through the secret indulgence of lawless reverie and +desire, it is treason, and criminal although the traitor has not struck +a blow, but only whispered sedition under his breath in a darkened room. + + +_THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT._ + + “Thou shalt not steal.”—xx. 15. + +There is no commandment against which human ingenuity has brought more +evasions to bear than this. Property itself is theft, says the +communist. “It is no grave sin,” says the Roman text-book, “to steal in +moderation”; and this is defined to be, “from a pauper less than a +franc, from a daily labourer less than two or three, from a person in +comfortable circumstances anything under four or five francs, or from a +very rich man ten or twelve francs. And a servant whom force or +necessity compels to accept an unjust payment, may secretly compensate +himself, because the workman is worthy of his hire.”[37] A moment’s +reflection discovers this to be the most naked rationalism, choosing +some of the commandments of God for honour, and some for contempt as +“not very grave” and wholly ignoring the principle that whoever attacks +the code at any one point “is guilty of all,” because he has despised it +as a code, as an organic system. + +Nothing is easier than to confuse one’s conscience about the ethics of +property. For the arrangements of various nations differ: it is a +geographical line which defines the right of the elder son against his +brothers, of sons against daughters, and of children against a wife; and +the demand is still more capricious which the state asserts against them +all, under the name of succession duty, and which it makes upon other +property in the form of a multitude of imposts and taxes. Can all these +different arrangements be alike binding? Add to this variability the +immense national revenues, which are apparently so little affected by +individual contributions, and it is no wonder if men fail to see that +honesty to the public is a duty as immutable and stern as any other duty +to their neighbour. Unfortunately the evil spreads. The same +considerations which make it seem pardonable to rob the nation apply +also to the millionaire; and they tempt many a poor man to ask whether +he need respect the wealth of a usurer, or may not adjust the scales of +Mine and Thine, which law causes to hang unfairly. + +It is forgotten that a nation has at least the same authority as a club +to regulate its own affairs, to fix the relative position and the +subscription of its members. Common honesty teaches me that I must +conform to these rules or leave the club; and this duty is not at all +affected by the fact that other associations have different rules. In +three such societies God Himself has placed us all—the family, the +Church, and the nation; and therefore I am directly responsible to God +for due respect to their laws. It is not true that the statute-book is +inspired, any more than that the regulations of a household are divinely +given. Yet a Divine sanction, such as rests upon the parental rule of +fallible human creatures, hallows also national law. I may advocate a +change in laws of which I disapprove, but I am bound in the meantime to +obey the conditions upon which I receive protection from foreign foes +and domestic fraud, and which cannot be subjected to the judgment of +every individual, except at the cost of a dissolution of society, and a +state of anarchy compared with which the worst of laws would be +desirable. + +This revolt of the individual is especially tempting when selfishness +deems itself wronged, as by the laws of property. And the eighth +commandment is necessary to protect society not merely against the +violence of the burglar and the craft of the impostor, but also against +the deceitfulness of our own hearts, asking What harm is in the evasion +of an impost? What right has a successful speculator to his millions? +Why should I not do justice to myself when law refuses it? + +There is always the simple answer, Who made me a judge in my own case? + +But when we regard the matter thus, it becomes clear that honesty is not +mere abstinence from pillage. The community has larger claims than this +upon us, and is wronged if we fail to discharge them. + +The rich man robs the poor if he does not play his part in the great +organisation by which he is served so well: every one robs the community +who takes its benefits and returns none; and in this sense the bold +saying is true, that every man lives by one of two methods—by labour or +by theft. + +St. Paul does not exhort men to refrain from theft merely in order to be +harmless, but to do good. That is the alternative contemplated when he +says, “Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him labour, working +with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give +to him that hath need” (Eph. iv. 28). + + +_THE NINTH COMMANDMENT._ + + “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”—xx. 16. + +St. James called the tongue a world of iniquity. And against its +lawlessness, which inflames the whole course of nature, each table of +the law contains a warning. For it is equally ready to profane the name +of God, and to rob our neighbour of his fair fame. + +Jesus Christ regarded verbal professions as a very poor thing, and +asked, “Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I command +you?” He aimed a parable at the hollowness of merely saying, “I go, +sir.” But, worthless though such phrases be, the act which substitutes +professions for actual service is no trifle; and our Lord felt the +importance of words, empty or sincere, so profoundly as to stake upon +this one test the eternal destinies of His people: “By thy words thou +shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Now, the +tongue is thus important because it is so prompt and willing a servant +of the mind within. We scarcely think of it as a servant at all: our +words do not seem to be more than “expressions,” manifestations of what +is within us. + +But a thought, once expressed, is transformed and energetic as a bullet +when the charge is fired; it modifies other minds, and the word which we +took to be far less potent than a deed becomes the mover of the fateful +deeds of many men. And thus, being at once powerful and unsuspected, it +is the most treacherous and subtle of all the forces which we wield. + +And the ninth commandment does not undertake to bridle it by merely +forbidding us in a court of justice to wrong our fellow-man by perjury. + +We transgress it whenever we conceive a strong suspicion and repeat it +as a thing we know; when we allow the temptation of a biting epigram to +betray us into an unkind expression not quite warranted by the facts; +when we vindicate ourselves against a charge by throwing blame where it +probably but not certainly ought to lie; or when we are not content to +vindicate ourselves without bringing a countercharge which it would +perplex us to be asked to prove; when we give way to that most shallow +and meanest of all attempts at cleverness which claims credit for +penetration because it can discover base motives for innocent actions, +so that high-mindedness becomes pride, and charity withers up into love +of patronising, and forbearance shrivels into lack of spirit. The +pattern and ideal of such cleverness is the east wind, which makes all +that is fair and sensitive to shut itself up, forbids the bud to expand +into a blossom, and puts back the coming of the springtime and of the +singing bird. + +There are very gifted persons who have never found out that a kindly and +winning phrase may have as much literary merit as a stinging one, and it +is quite as fine a thing to be like the dew on Hermon on as to shoot out +arrows, even bitter words. + +It is a pity that our harsh judgments always speak more loudly and +confidently than our kindly ones, but the reason is plain: angry passion +prompts the former, and its voice is loud; while the calm reflection +which tones down and sweetens the judgment softens also the expression +of it. + +It has to be remembered, also, that false witness can reach to nations, +organisations, political movements as well as individuals. The habit of +putting the worst construction upon the intentions of foreign powers is +what feeds the mutual jealousies that ultimately blaze out in war. The +habit of thinking of rival politicians as deliberately false and +treasonable is what lowers the standard of the noblest of secular +pursuits, until each party, not to be undone, protests too much, raises +its voice to a falsetto to scream its rival down, and relaxes its +standard of righteousness lest it should be outdone by the +unscrupulousness of its rival. + +And there is yet another neighbour, against whom false witness is +woefully rife, both in the Church and in society. That neighbour is +mankind at large. There is a prevalent theory of human sinfulness which +unconsciously scoffs at the appeals of the gospel, striving indeed to +influence me by love, gratitude, admiration for the Perfect One, and +desire to be like Him, by the hope of holiness and the shame of +vileness, but telling me at the same time that I have no sympathies +whatever except with evil. The observation of every day shows that man’s +nature is corrupt, but it also shows that he is not a fiend—that he has +fallen indeed, but remembers yet in what image he was made. But the +world cannot upbraid the Church for these exaggerations, since they are +but the echo of its own. + + “I do believe, + Though I have found them not, that there may be + Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, + And virtues which are merciful, nor weave + Snares for the failing; I would also deem + O’er others’ griefs that some sincerely grieve; + That two, or one, are almost what they seem, + That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.” + + _Childe Harold_, III., cxiv. + +Cynicism is false witness; and if it does not greatly wrong any one of +our fellow-men, it injures both society and the cynic. If he is of a +coarse fibre, it excuses him to himself in becoming the hard and +unloving creature which he fancies that all men are. If he is too proud +or too self-respecting to yield to this temptation, it isolates him, it +chills and withers his sympathies for people quite as good as himself, +whom he thinks of as the herd. + +As for the more flagrant sins, so for this, the remedy is love. Love +sympathises, makes allowance for frailty, discovers the germs of good, +hopeth all things, taketh not account of evil. + + +_THE TENTH COMMANDMENT._ + + “Thou shalt not covet ... anything that is his.”—xx. 17. + +It will be remembered that the order of the catalogue of objects of +desire is different in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. In the latter “thy +neighbour’s wife” is first, as of supreme importance; and therefore it +has been thought possible to convert it into a separate commandment. + +But this the order in Exodus forbids, by placing the house first, and +then the various living possessions which the householder gathers around +him. What is thought of is the gradual process of acquisition, and the +right of him who wins first a house, then a wife, servants, and cattle, +to be secure in the possession of them all. Now, between foes, we saw +that the evil temper is what leads to the evil deed, and the man who +nurses hatred is a murderer at heart. Just so the householder is not +rendered safe, and certainly not happy in the enjoyment of his rights, +by the seventh commandment and the eighth, unless care be taken to +prevent the accumulation of those forces which will some day break +through them both. To secure cities against explosion, we forbid the +storage of gunpowder and dynamite, and not only the firing of magazines. + +But the moral law is not given to any man for his neighbour’s sake +chiefly. It is for me: statutes whereby I myself may live. And as the +Psalmist pondered on them, they expanded strangely for his perception. +“I have kept Thy testimonies,” he says; but presently asks to be +quickened,—“So shall I _observe_ the testimony of Thy mouth,”—and +prays, “Give me understanding, that I may _know_ Thy testimonies.” And +at the last, he confesses that he has “gone astray like a lost sheep” +(Ps. cxix. 22, 88, 125, 176). Starting with a literal innocence, he +comes to feel a deep inward need, need of vitality to obey, and even of +power to understand aright. If the sacrifices of God are a broken +spirit, it follows that they are a spirit, and inward loyalty is the +necessary condition upon which external obedience can be accepted. The +cheers of a traitor, the flattery of one who scorns, the ritual of a +hypocrite, these are quite as valuable, as indications of what is +within, as a reluctant relinquishment to my neighbour of what is his. I +must not covet. Plainly this is the sharpest and most searching precept +of all; and accordingly St. Paul asserts that without this he would not +have suffered the deep internal discontent, the consciousness of +something wrong, which tortured him, even although no mortal could +reproach him, even though, touching the righteousness of the law, he was +blameless. He had not known coveting, except the law had said “Thou +shalt not covet.” + +Here, then, we perceive with the utmost clearness what St. Paul so +clearly discerned—the true meaning of the Law, its convicting power, +its design to work not righteousness, but self-despair as the prelude of +self-surrender. For who can, by resolving, govern his desires? Who can +abstain not only from the usurping deed, but from the aggressive +emotion? Who will not despair when he learns that God desireth truth in +the inward parts? But this despair is the way to that better hope which +adds, “In the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me +with hyssop, and I shall be clean.” + +And as a strong interest or affection has power to destroy in the soul +many weaker ones, so the love of God and our neighbour is the appointed +way to overcome the desire of taking from our neighbour what God has +given to him, refusing it to us. + + +THE LESSER LAW. + +xx. 18–xxiii. 33. + +With the close of the Decalogue and its universal obligations, we +approach a brief code of laws, purely Hebrew, but of the deepest moral +interest, confessed by hostile criticism to bear every mark of a remote +antiquity, and distinctly severed from what precedes and follows by a +marked difference in the circumstances. + +This is evidently the book of the Covenant to which the nation gave its +formal assent (xxiv. 7), and is therefore the germ and the centre of the +system afterwards so much expanded. + +And since the adhesion of the people was required, and the final +covenant was ratified as soon as it was given, before any of the more +formal details were elaborated, and before the tabernacle and the +priesthood were established, it may fairly claim the highest and most +unique position among the component parts of the Pentateuch, excepting +only the Ten Commandments. + +Before examining it in detail, the impressive circumstances of its +utterance have to be observed. + +It is written that when the law was given, the voice of the trumpet +waxed louder and louder still. And as the multitude became aware that in +this tempestuous and growing crash there was a living centre, and a +voice of intelligible words, their awe became insufferable: and instead +of needing the barriers which excluded them from the mountain, they +recoiled from their appointed place, trembling and standing afar off. +“And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let +not God speak with us lest we die.” It is the same instinct that we have +already so often recognised, the dread of holiness in the hearts of the +impure, the sense of unworthiness, which makes a prophet cry, “Woe is +me, for I am undone!” and an apostle, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful +man.” + +Now, the New Testament quotes a confession of Moses himself, well-nigh +overwhelmed, “I do exceedingly fear and quake” (Heb. xii. 21). And yet +we read that he “said unto the people, Fear not, for God is come to +prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not” +(xx. 20). Thus we have the double paradox,—that he exceedingly feared, +yet bade them fear not, and yet again declared that the very object of +God was that they might fear Him. + +Like every paradox, which is not a mere contradiction, this is +instructive. + +There is an abject fear, the dread of cowards and of the guilty, which +masters and destroys the will—the fear which shrank away from the mount +and cried out to Moses for relief. Such fear has torment, and none ought +to admit it who understands that God wishes him well and is merciful. + +There is also a natural agitation, at times inevitable though not +unconquerable, and often strongest in the highest natures because they +are the most finely strung. We are sometimes taught that there is sin in +that instinctive recoil from death, and from whatever brings it close, +which indeed is implanted by God to prevent foolhardiness, and to +preserve the race. Our duty, however, does not require the absence of +sensitive nerves, but only their subjugation and control. Marshal Saxe +was truly brave when he looked at his own trembling frame, as the cannon +opened fire, and said, “Aha! tremblest thou? thou wouldest tremble much +more if thou knewest whither I mean to carry thee to-day.” Despite his +fever-shaken nerves, he was perfectly entitled to say to any waverer, +“Fear not.” + +And so Moses, while he himself quaked, was entitled to encourage his +people, because he could encourage them, because he saw and announced +the kindly meaning of that tremendous scene, because he dared presently +to draw near unto the thick darkness where God was. + +And therefore the day would come when, with his noble heart aflame for a +yet more splendid vision, he would cry, “O Lord, I beseech Thee show me +Thy glory”—some purer and clearer irradiation, which would neither +baffle the moral sense, nor conceal itself in cloud. + +Meanwhile, there was a fear which should endure, and which God desires: +not panic, but awe; not the terror which stood afar off, but the +reverence which dares not to transgress. “Fear not, for God is come to +prove you” (to see whether the nobler emotion or the baser will +survive), “and that His fear may be before your faces” (so as to guide +you, instead of pressing upon you to crush), “that ye sin not.” + +How needful was the lesson, may be seen by what followed when they were +taken at their word, and the pressure of physical dread was lifted off +them. “They soon forgat God their Saviour ... they made a calf in +Horeb, and worshipped the work of their own hands.” Perhaps other +pressures which we feel and lament to-day, the uncertainties and fears +of modern life, are equally required to prevent us from forgetting God. + +Of the nobler fear, which is a safeguard of the soul and not a danger, +it is a serious question whether enough is alive among us. + +Much sensational teaching, many popular books and hymns, suggest rather +an irreverent use of the Holy Name, which is profanation, than a filial +approach to a Father equally revered and loved. It is true that we are +bidden to come with boldness to the throne of Grace. Yet the same +Epistle teaches us again that our approach is even more solemn and awful +than to the Mount which might be touched, and the profaning of which was +death; and it exhorts us to have grace whereby we may offer service +well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe, “for our God is a consuming +fire” (Heb. iv. 16, xii. 28). That is the very last grace which some +Christians ever seem to seek. + +When the people recoiled, and Moses, trusting in God, was brave and +entered the cloud, they ceased to have direct communion, and he was +brought nearer to Jehovah than before. + +What is now conveyed to Israel through him is an expansion and +application of the Decalogue, and in turn it becomes the nucleus of the +developed law. Its great antiquity is admitted by the severest critics; +and it is a wonderful example of spirituality and searching depth, and +also of such germinal and fruitful principles as cannot rest in +themselves, literally applied, but must lead the obedient student on to +still better things. + +It is not the function of law to inspire men to obey it; this is +precisely what the law could not do, being weak through the flesh. But +it could arrest the attention and educate the conscience. Simple though +it was in the letter, David could meditate upon it day and night. In the +New Testament we know of two persons who had scrupulously respected its +precepts, but they both, far from being satisfied, were filled with a +divine discontent. One had kept all these things from his youth, yet +felt the need of doing some good thing, and anxiously demanded what it +was that he lacked yet. The other, as touching the righteousness of the +law, was blameless, yet when the law entered, sin revived and slew him. +For the law was spiritual, and reached beyond itself, while he was +carnal, and thwarted by the flesh, sold under sin, even while externally +beyond reproach. + +This subtle characteristic of all noble law will be very apparent in +studying the kernel of the law, the code within the code, which now lies +before us. + +Men sometimes judge the Hebrew legislation harshly, thinking that they +are testing it, as a Divine institution, by the light of this century. +They are really doing nothing of the sort. If there are two principles +of legislation dearer than all others to modern Englishmen, they are the +two which these flippant judgments most ignore, and by which they are +most perfectly refuted. + +One is that institutions educate communities. It is not too much to say +that we have staked the future of our nation, and therefore the hopes of +humanity, upon our conviction that men can be elevated by ennobling +institutions,—that the franchise, for example, is an education as well +as a trust. + +The other, which seems to contradict the first, and does actually modify +it, is that legislation must not move too far in advance of public +opinion. Laws may be highly desirable in the abstract, for which +communities are not yet ripe. A constitution like our own would be +simply ruinous in Hindostan. Many good friends of temperance are the +reluctant opponents of legislation which they desire in theory but which +would only be trampled upon in practice, because public opinion would +rebel against the law. Legislation is indeed educational, but the danger +is that the practical outcome of such legislation would be disobedience +and anarchy. + +Now, these principles are the ample justification of all that startles +us in the Pentateuch. + +Slavery and polygamy, for instance, are not abolished. To forbid them +utterly would have substituted far worse evils, as the Jews then were. +But laws were introduced which vastly ameliorated the condition of the +slave, and elevated the status of woman—laws which were far in advance +of the best Gentile culture, and which so educated and softened the +Jewish character, that men soon came to feel the letter of these very +laws too harsh. + +That is a nobler vindication of the Mosaic legislation than if this +century agreed with every letter of it. To be vital and progressive is a +better thing than to be correct. The law waged a far more effectual war +upon certain evils than by formal prohibition, sound in theory but +premature by centuries. Other good things besides liberty are not for +the nursery or the school. And “we also, when we were children, were +held in bondage” (Gal. iv. 3). + +It is pretty well agreed that this code may be divided into five parts. +To the end of the twentieth chapter it deals directly with the worship +of God. Then follow thirty-two verses treating of the personal rights +of man as distinguished from his rights of property. From the +thirty-third verse of the twenty-first chapter to the fifteenth verse of +the twenty-second, the rights of property are protected. Thence to the +nineteenth verse of the twenty-third chapter is a miscellaneous group of +laws, chiefly moral, but deeply connected with the civil organisation of +the state. And thence to the end of the chapter is an earnest +exhortation from God, introduced by a clearer statement than before of +the manner in which He means to lead them, even by that mysterious Angel +in Whom “is My Name.” + + +PART I.—THE LAW OF WORSHIP. + +xx. 22–26. + +It is no vain repetition that this code begins by reasserting the +supremacy of the one God. That principle underlies all the law, and must +be carried into every part of it. And it is now enforced by a new +sanction,—“Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from +heaven: ye shall not make _other gods_ with Me; gods of silver or gods +of gold ye shall not make unto you” (vers. 22, 23). The costliest +material of this low world should be utterly contemned in rivalry with +that spiritual Presence revealing Himself out of a wholly different +sphere; and in so far as they remembered Him, and the Voice which had +thrilled their nature to its core, in so far would they be free from the +desire for any carnal and materialised divinity to go before them. + +Impressed with such views of God, their service of Him would be moulded +accordingly (24, 25). It is true that nothing could be too splendid for +His sanctuary, and Bezaleel was presently to be inspired, that the work +of the tabernacle might be worthy of its destination. Spirituality is +not meanness, nor is art without a consecration of its own. But it must +not intrude too closely upon the solemn act wherein the soul seeks the +pardon of the Creator. The altar should not be a proud structure, richly +sculptured and adorned, and offering in itself, if not an object of +adoration, yet a satisfying centre of attention for the worshipper. It +should be simply a heap of sods. And if they must needs go further, and +erect a more durable pile, it must still be of materials crude, +inartistic, such as the earth itself affords, of unhewn stone. A golden +casket is fit to convey the freedom of some historic city to a prince, +but the noblest offering of man to God is too humble to deserve an +ostentatious altar. + +“If thou lift up a tool upon it thou hast polluted it:” it has lost its +virginal simplicity; it no longer suits a spontaneous offering of the +heart, it has become artificial, sophisticated, self-conscious, +polluted. + +It is vehemently urged that these verses sanction a plurality of altars +(so that one might be of earth and another of stone), and recognise the +lawfulness of worship in other places than at a central appointed +shrine. And it is concluded that early Judaism knew nothing of the +exclusive sanctity of the tabernacle and the temple. + +This argument forgets the circumstances. The Jews had been led to Horeb, +the mount of God. They were soon to wander away thence through the +wilderness. Altars had to be set up in many places, and might be of +different materials. It was an important announcement that in every +place where God would record His name He would come unto them and bless +them. But certainly the inference leans rather toward than against the +belief that it was for Him to select every place which should be sacred. + +The last direction given with regard to worship is a homely one. It +commands that the altar must not be approached with steps, lest the +clothes of the priest should be disturbed and his limbs uncovered. +Already we feel that we have to reckon with the temper as well as the +letter of the precept. It is divinely unlike the frantic indecencies of +many pagan rituals. It protests against all infractions of propriety, +even the slightest, such as even now discredit many a zealous movement, +and bear fruit in many a scandal. It rebukes all misdemeanour, all +forgetfulness in look and gesture of the Sacred Presence, in every +worshipper, at every shrine. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] Prof. Tyndall, _Belfast Address_, p. 60. What progress has +scientific unbelief made since 1874 in solving this “question of +questions for the present hour”? It has perfected the phonograph, +but it has not devised a creed. + +[36] “Or _beside Me_” (R.V.) The preposition is so vague +that either of our English words may suggest quite too definite a +meaning, as when “before Me” is made to mean “in My +angry eyes,” or “beside Me” is taken to hint at +resentment for intrusion upon the same throne. + +[37] Gury, Compend., i., secs. 607, 623. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +PART II.—RIGHTS OF THE PERSON. + +xxi. 1–32. + +The first words of God from Sinai had declared that He was Jehovah Who +brought them out of slavery. And in this remarkable code, the first +person whose rights are dealt with is the slave. We saw that a +denunciation of all slavery would have been premature, and therefore +unwise; but assuredly the germs of emancipation were already planted by +this giving of the foremost place to the rights of the least of all and +the servant of all. + +As regards the Hebrew slave, the effect was to reduce his utmost bondage +to a comparatively mild apprenticeship. At the worst he should go free +in the seventh year; and if the year of jubilee intervened, it brought a +still speedier emancipation. If his debt or misconduct had involved a +family in his disgrace, they should also share his emancipation, but if +while in bondage his master had provided for his marriage with a slave, +then his family must await their own appointed period of release. It +followed that if he had contracted a degrading alliance with a foreign +slave, his freedom would inflict upon him the pang of final severance +from his dear ones. He might, indeed, escape this pain, but only by a +deliberate and humiliating act, by formally renouncing before the judges +his liberty, the birthright of his nation (“they are My servants, whom I +brought forth out of Egypt, they shall not be sold as +bondservants”—Lev. xxv. 42), and submitting to have his ear pierced, at +the doorpost of his master’s house, as if, like that, his body were +become his master’s property. It is uncertain, after this decisive step, +whether even the year of jubilee brought him release; and the contrary +seems to be implied in his always bearing about in his body an indelible +and degrading mark. It will be remembered that St. Paul rejoiced to +think that his choice of Christ was practically beyond recall, for the +scars on his body marked the tenacity of his decision (Gal. vi. 17). He +wrote this to Gentiles, and used the Gentile phrase for the branding of +a slave. But beyond question this Hebrew of Hebrews remembered, as he +wrote, that one of his race could incur lifelong subjection only by a +voluntary wound, endured because he loved his master, such as he had +received for love of Jesus. + +When the law came to deal with assaults it was impossible to place the +slave upon quite the same level as the freeman. But Moses excelled the +legislators of Greece and Rome, by making an assault or chastisement +which killed him upon the spot as worthy of death as if a freeman had +been slain. It was only the victim who lingered that died comparatively +unavenged (20, 21). After all, chastisement was a natural right of the +master, because he owned him (“he is his money”); and it would be hard +to treat an excess of what was permissible, inflicted perhaps under +provocation which made some punishment necessary, on the same lines with +an assault that was entirely lawless. But there was this grave restraint +upon bad temper,—that the loss of any member, and even of the tooth of +a slave, involved his instant manumission. And this carried with it the +principle of moral responsibility for every hurt (26, 27). + +It was not quite plain that these enactments extended to the Gentile +slave. But in accordance with the assertion that the whole spirit of the +statutes was elevating, the conclusion arrived at by the later +authorities was the generous one. + +When it is added that man-stealing (upon which all our modern systems of +slavery were founded) was a capital offence, without power of +commutation for a fine (xxi. 16), it becomes clear that the advocates of +slavery appeal to Moses against the outraged conscience of humanity +without any shadow of warrant either from the letter or the spirit of +the code. + +There remains to be considered a remarkable and melancholy sub-section +of the law of slavery. + +In every age degraded beings have made gain of the attractions of their +daughters. With them, the law attempted nothing of moral influence. But +it protected their children, and brought pressure to bear upon the +tempter, by a series of firm provisions, as bold as the age could bear, +and much in advance of the conscience of too many among ourselves +to-day. + +The seduction of any unbetrothed maiden involved marriage, or the +payment of a dowry. And thus one door to evil was firmly closed (xxii. +16). + +But when a man purchased a female slave, with the intention of making +her an inferior wife, whether for himself or for his son (such only are +the purchases here dealt with, and an ordinary female slave was treated +upon the same principles as a man), she was far from being the sport of +his caprice. If indeed he repented at once, he might send her back, or +transfer her to another of her countrymen upon the same terms, but when +once they were united she was protected against his fickleness. He might +not treat her as a servant or domestic, but must, even if he married +another and probably a chief wife, continue to her all the rights and +privileges of a wife. Nor was her position a temporary one, to her +damage, as that of an ordinary slave was, to his benefit. + +And if there was any failure to observe these honourable terms, she +could return with unblemished reputation to her father’s home, without +forfeiture of the money which had been paid for her (xxi. 7–11). + +Does any one seriously believe that a system like the African slave +trade could have existed in such a humane and genial atmosphere as these +enactments breathed? Does any one who knows the plague spot and disgrace +of our modern civilisation suppose for a moment that more could have +been attempted, in that age, for the great cause of purity? Would to God +that the spirit of these enactments were even now respected! They would +make of us, as they have made of the Hebrew nation unto this day, models +of domestic tenderness, and of the blessings in health and physical +vigour which an untainted life bestows upon communities. + +By such checks upon the degradation of slavery, the Jew began to learn +the great lesson of the sanctity of manhood. The next step was to teach +him the value of life, not only in the avenging of murder, but also in +the mitigation of such revenge. The blood-feud was too old, too natural +a practice to be suppressed at once; but it was so controlled and +regulated as to become little more than a part of the machinery of +justice. + +A premeditated murder was inexpiable, not to be ransomed; the murderer +must surely die. Even if he fled to the altar of God, intending to +escape thence to a city of refuge when the avenger ceased to watch, he +should be torn from that holy place: to shelter him would not be an +honour, but a desecration to the shrine (xxi. 12, 14). According to this +provision Joab and Adonijah suffered. For the slayer by accident or in +hasty quarrel, “a place whither he shall flee” would be provided, and +the vague phrase indicates the antiquity of the edict (ver. 13). This +arrangement at once respected his life, which did not merit forfeiture, +and provided a penalty for his rashness or his passion. + +It is because the question in hand is the sanctity of man, that the +capital punishment of a son who strikes or curses a parent, the +vicegerent of God, and of a kidnapper, is interposed between these +provisions and minor offences against the person (15–17). + +Of these latter, the first is when lingering illness results from a blow +received in a quarrel. This was not a case for the stern rule, eye for +eye and tooth for tooth,—for how could that rule be applied to it?—but +the violent man should pay for his victim’s loss of time, and for +medical treatment until he was thoroughly recovered (18, 19). + +But what is to be said to the general law of retribution in kind? Our +Lord has forbidden a Christian, in his own case, to exact it. But it +does not follow that it was unjust, since Christ plainly means to +instruct private persons not to exact their rights, whereas the +magistrate continues to be “a revenger to execute justice.” And, as St. +Augustine argued shrewdly, “this command was not given for exciting the +fires of hatred, but to restrain them. For who would easily be satisfied +with repaying as much injury as he received? Do we not see men slightly +hurt athirst for slaughter and blood?... Upon this immoderate and unjust +vengeance, the law imposed a just limit, not that what was quenched +might be kindled, but that what was burning might not spread.” (Cont. +Faust, xix. 25.) + +It is also to be observed that by no other precept were the Jews more +clearly led to a morality still higher than it prescribed. Their +attention was first drawn to the fact that a compensation in money was +nowhere forbidden, as in the case of murder (Num. xxxv. 31). Then they +went on to argue that such compensation must have been intended, because +its literal observance teemed with difficulties. If an eye were injured +but not destroyed, who would undertake to inflict an equivalent hurt? +What if a blind man destroyed an eye? Would it be reasonable to quench +utterly the sight of a one-eyed man who had only destroyed one-half of +the vision of his neighbour? Should the right hand of a painter, by +which he maintains his family, be forfeited for that of a singer who +lives by his voice? Would not the cold and premeditated operation +inflict far greater mental and even physical suffering than a sudden +wound received in a moment of excitement? By all these considerations, +drawn from the very principle which underlay the precept, they learned +to relax its pressure in actual life. The law was already their +schoolmaster, to lead them beyond itself (_vide_ Kalisch _in loco_). + +Lastly, there is the question of injury to the person, wrought by +cattle. + +It is clearly to deepen the sense of reverence for human life, that not +only must the ox which kills a man be slain, but his flesh may not be +eaten; thus carrying further the early aphorism “at the hand of every +beast will I require ... your blood” (Gen. ix. 5). This motive, however, +does not betray the lawgiver into injustice: “the owner of the ox shall +be quit”; the loss of his beast is his sufficient penalty. + +But if its evil temper has been previously observed, and he has been +warned, then his recklessness amounts to blood-guiltiness, and he must +die, or else pay whatever ransom is laid upon him. This last clause +recognises the distinction between his guilt and that of a deliberate +man-slayer, for whose crime the law distinctly prohibited a composition +(Num. xxxv. 31). + +And it is expressly provided, according to the honourable position of +woman in the Hebrew state, that the penalty for a daughter’s life shall +be the same as for that of a son. + +As a slave was exposed to especial risk, and his position was an ignoble +one, a fixed composition was appointed, and the amount was memorable. +The ransom of a common slave, killed by the horns of the wild oxen, was +thirty pieces of silver, the goodly price that Messiah was prized at of +them (Zech. xi. 13). + + +PART III.—RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. + +xxi. 33–xxii. 15. + +The vital and quickening principle in this section is the stress it lays +upon man’s responsibility for negligence, and the indirect consequences +of his deed. All sin is selfish, and all selfishness ignores the right +of others. Am I my brother’s keeper? Let him guard his own property or +pay the forfeit. But this sentiment would quickly prove a disintegrating +force in the community, able to overthrow a state. It is the ignoble +negative of public spirit; patriotism, all by which nations prosper. And +this early legislation is well devised to check it in detail. If an ox +fall into a pit or cistern, from which I have removed the cover, I must +pay the value of the beast, and take the carcase for what it may be +worth. I ought to have considered the public interest (xxi. 33). If I +let my cattle stray into my neighbour’s field or vineyard, there must be +no wrangling about the quality of what he has consumed: I must forfeit +an equal quantity of the best of my own field or vineyard (xxii. 5). If +a fire of my kindling burn his grain, standing or piled, I must make +restitution: I had no right to kindle it where he was brought into +hazard (xxii. 6). This is the same principle which had already +pronounced it murder to let a vicious ox go loose. And it has to do with +graver things than oxen and fires,—with the teachers of principles +rightly called incendiary, the ingenious theorists who let loose +abstract speculations pernicious when put into practice, the +well-behaved questioners of morality, and the law-abiding assailants of +the foundations which uphold law. + +It is quite in the same spirit that I am accountable for what I borrow +or hire, and even for its accidental death (since for the time being it +was mine, and so should the loss be); but if I hired the owner with his +beast, it clearly continued to be in his charge (14, 15). But again, my +responsibility may not be pressed too far. If I have not borrowed +property, but consented to keep it for the owner, the risk is fairly +his, and if it be stolen, the presumption is not against my integrity, +although I may be required to clear myself on oath before the judges (7, +8). But I am accountable in such a case for cattle, because it was +certainly understood that I should watch them; and if a wild beast have +torn any, I must prove my courage and vigilance by rescuing the carcase +and producing it (10–13). + +But I must not be plunged into litigation without a compensating hazard +on the other side: he whom God shall condemn shall pay double unto his +neighbour (9). + +It only remains to be observed, with regard to theft, that when cattle +was recovered yet alive, the thief restored double, but when his act was +consummated by slaughtering what he had taken, then he restored a sheep +fourfold, and for an ox five oxen, because his villainy was more +high-handed. And we still retain the law which allows the blood of a +robber at night to be shed, but forbids it in the day, when help can +more easily be had. + +All this is reasonable and enlightened law; founded, like all good +legislation, upon clear and satisfactory principles, and well calculated +to elevate the tone of the public feeling, to be not only so many +specific enactments, but also the germinant seeds of good. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +PART IV. + +xxii. 16–xxiii. 19. + +The Fourth section of this law within the law consists of enactments, +curiously disconnected, many of them without a penalty, varying greatly +in importance, but all of a moral nature, and connected with the +well-being of the state. It is hard to conceive how the systematic +revision of which we hear so much could have left them in the condition +in which they stand. + +It is enacted that a seducer must marry the woman he has betrayed, and +if her father refuse to give her to him, then he must pay the same dower +as a bridegroom would have done (xxii. 16, 17). And presently the +sentence of death is launched against a blacker sensual crime (19). But +between the two is interposed the celebrated mandate which doomed the +sorceress to death, remarkable as the first mention of witchcraft in +Scripture, and the only passage in all the Bible where the word is in +the feminine form—a witch, or sorceress; remarkable also for a far +graver reason, which makes it necessary to linger over the subject at +some length. + + +SORCERY. + + “Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.”—xxii. 18. + +The world knows only too well what sad and shameful inferences have been +drawn from these words. Unspeakable terrors, estrangement of natural +sympathy, tortures and cruel deaths, have been inflicted on many +thousands of the most forlorn creatures upon earth (creatures who were +sustained in their sufferings by no high ardour of conviction or +fanaticism, not being martyrs but simply victims), because it was held +that Moses, in declaring that witches should not live, affirmed the +reality of witchcraft. No sooner did the argument cease to be dangerous +to old women than it became formidable to religion; for now it was urged +that, since Moses was in error about the reality of witchcraft, his +legislation could not have been inspired. + +What are we to say to this? + +In the first place it must be observed that the existence of a sorcerer +is one thing, and the reality of his powers is quite another. What was +most sad and shameful in the mediæval frenzy was the burning to ashes of +multitudes who made no pretensions to traffic with the invisible world, +who frequently held fast their innocence while enduring the agonies of +torture, who were only aged and ugly and alone. Upon any theory, the +prohibition of sorcery by the Pentateuch was no more answerable for +these iniquities than its other prohibitions for the lynch law of the +backwoods. + +On the other hand, there were real professors of the black art: men did +pretend to hold intercourse with spirits, and extorted great sums from +their dupes in return for bringing them also into communion with +superhuman beings. These it is reasonable to call sorcerers, whether we +accept their professions or not, just as we speak of thought-readers and +of mediums without being understood to commit ourselves to the +pretensions of either one or other. In point of fact, the existence, in +this nineteenth century after Christ, of sorcerers calling themselves +mediums, is much more surprising than the existence of other sorcerers +in the time of Moses or of Saul; and it bears startling witness to the +depth in human nature of that craving for traffic with invisible powers +which the law prohibited so sternly, but the roots of which neither +religion nor education nor scepticism has been able wholly to pluck up. + +Again, from the point of view which Moses occupied, it is plain that +such professors should be punished. They are virtually punished still, +whenever they obtain money under pretence of granting interviews with +the departed. If we now rely chiefly upon educated public opinion to +stamp out such impositions, that is because we have decided that a +struggle between truth and falsehood upon equal terms will be +advantageous to the former. It is a subdivision of the debate between +intolerance and free thought. Our theory works well, but not universally +well, even under modern conditions and in Christian lands. And assuredly +Moses could not proclaim freedom of opinion, among uneducated slaves, +amid the pressure of splendid and of seductive idolatries, and before +the Holy Ghost was given. To complain of Moses for proscribing false +religions would be to denounce the use of glass for seedlings because +the full-grown plant flourishes in the open air. + +Now, it would have been preposterous to proscribe false religions and +yet to tolerate the sorcerer and the sorceress. For these were the +active practitioners of another worship than that of God. They might not +profess idolatry; but they offered help and guidance from sources which +Jehovah frowned upon, rival sources of defence or knowledge. + +The holy people was meant to grow up under the most elevating of all +influences, reliance upon a protecting God, Who had bidden His children +to subdue the world as well as to replenish it, and of Whom one of their +own poets sang that He had put all things under the feet of man. Their +true heritage was not bounded by the strip of land which Joshua and his +followers slowly conquered; to them belonged all the resources of nature +which science, ever since, has wrested from the Philistine hands of +barbarism and ignorance. And this nobler conquest depended upon the +depth and sincerity of man’s feeling that the world is well-ordered and +stable and the heritage of man, not a chaos of various and capricious +powers, where Pallas inspires Diomed to hunt Venus bleeding off the +field, or where the incantations of Canidia may disturb the orderly +movements of the skies. Who could hope to discover by inductive science +the secrets of such a world as this? + +The devices of magic cut the links between cause and effect, between +studious labour and the fruits which sorcery bade men to steal rather +than to cultivate. What gambling was to commerce, that was witchcraft to +philosophy, and the mischief no more depended on the validity of its +methods than upon the soundness of the last device for breaking the bank +at Monte Carlo. + +If one could actually extort their secrets from the dead, or win for +luxury and sloth a longer life than is bestowed upon temperance and +labour, he would succeed in his revolt against the God of nature. But +the revolt was the endeavour; and the sorcerer, however falsely, +professed to have succeeded; and preached the same revolt to others. In +religion he was therefore an apostate, and in the theocracy a traitor +against the King, one whose life was forfeited if it was prudent to +exact the penalty. + +And when we consider the fascination wielded by such pretensions, even +in ages when the stability of nature is an axiom, the dread which false +religions all around and their terrible rituals must have inspired, the +superstitious tendencies of the people and their readiness to be misled, +we shall see ample reasons for treading out the first sparks of so +dangerous a fire. + +Beyond this it is vain to pretend that the law of Moses goes. It was +right in declaring the sorcerer and the sorceress to be real and +dangerous phenomena. It never declared their pretensions to be valid +though illegitimate. And in one noteworthy passage it proclaims that a +real sign or a wonder could only proceed from God, and when it +accompanied false teaching was still a sign, though an ominous one, +implying that the Lord would prove them (Deut. xiii. 1–3). This does not +look very like an admission of the existence of rival powers, inferior +though they might be, who could interfere with the order of His world. + +Sorcery in all its forms will die when men realise indeed that the world +is His, that there is no short or crooked way to the prizes which He +offers to wisdom and to labour, that these rewards are infinitely richer +and more splendid than the wildest dreams of magic, and that it is +literally true that all power, in earth as well as heaven, is committed +into the Hands which were pierced for us. In such a conception of the +universe, incantations give place to prayers, and prayer does not seek +to disturb, but to carry forward and to consummate, the orderly rule of +Love. + +The denunciation of witchcraft is quite naturally followed, as we now +perceive, by the reiteration of the command that no sacrifice may be +offered to any god except Jehovah (20). Strange and hateful offerings +were an integral part of witchcraft, long before the hags of Macbeth +brewed their charm, or the child in Horace famished to yield a spell. + + +THE STRANGER. + +xxii. 21, xxiii. 9. + +Immediately after this, a ray of sunlight falls upon the sombre page. + +We read an exhortation rather than a statute, which is repeated almost +literally in the next chapter, and in both is supported by a beautiful +and touching reason. “A stranger shalt thou not wrong, neither shall ye +oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” “A stranger +shall ye not oppress, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye +were strangers in the land of Egypt” (xxii. 21, xxiii. 9). + +The “stranger” of these verses is probably the settler among them, as +distinguished from the traveller passing through the land. His want of +friends and ignorance of their social order would place him at a +disadvantage, of which they are forbidden to avail themselves, either by +legal process (for the first passage is connected with jurisprudence), +or in the affairs of common life. But the spirit of the commandment +could not fail to influence their treatment of all foreigners; and +simple and commonplace though it appear to us, it would have startled +many of the wisest and greatest peoples of antiquity, and would have +fallen as strangely upon the ears of the Greeks of Pericles, as of the +modern Bedouin, with whom Israel had kinship. A foreigner, as such, was +a foe: to wrong him was a paradox, because he had no rights: kinship, or +else alliance or treaty was required to entitle the weaker to any better +treatment than it suited the stronger to allow. + +Yet we find a precept reiterated in this Jewish code which involves, in +its inevitable though slow development, the abolition of negro slavery, +the respect by powerful and civilised nations of the rights of +indigenous tribes, the most boundless advance of philanthropy, through +the most generous recognition of the fraternity of man. + +However sternly the sword of Joshua might fall, it struck not at the +foreigner, as such, but at those tribes, guilty and therefore accursed +of God, the cup of whose iniquity was full. And yet there was enough of +carnage to prove that so gracious a commandment as this could not have +risen spontaneously in the heart of early Judaism. Does it seem to be +made more natural, by any proposed shifting of the date? + +The reason of the precept is beautifully human. It rests upon no +abstract basis of common rights, nor prudential consideration of mutual +advantage. + +In our time it is sometimes proposed to build all morality upon such +foundations; and strange consequences have already been deduced in cases +where the proposed sanction has not seemed to apply. But, in fact, no +advance in virtue has ever been traced to self-interest, although, +after the advance took place, self-interest has always found its account +in it. A progressive community is made of good men, and the motive to +which Moses appeals is compassion fed by memory: “For ye were strangers +in the land of Egypt” (xxii. 21); “For ye know the heart of a stranger, +seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (xxiii. 9). + +The point is not that they may again be carried into captivity: it is +that they have felt its bitterness, and ought to recoil from inflicting +what they writhed under. + +Now, this appeal is a master-stroke of wisdom. Much cruelty, and almost +all the cruelty of the young, springs from ignorance, and that slowness +of the imagination which cannot realise that the pains of others are +like our own. Feeling them to be so, the charities of the poor toward +one another frequently rise almost to sublimity. And thus, when +suffering does not ulcerate the heart and make it savage, it is the most +softening of all influences. In one of the most threadbare lines in the +classics, the queen of Carthage boasts that + + “I, not ignorant of woe, + To pity the distressful know.” + +And the boldest assertion in Scripture of the natural development of our +Saviour’s human powers, is that which declares that “In that He Himself +hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are +tempted” (Heb. ii. 18). + +To this principle, then, Moses appeals, and by the appeal he educates +the heart. He bids the people reflect on their own cruel hardships, on +the hateful character of their tyrants, on their own greater hatefulness +if they follow the vile example, after such bitter experience of its +character. He does not yet rise to the grand level of the New Testament +morality, Do all to thy neighbour which it is not servile and dependent +to will that he should do for thee. But he attains to the level of that +precept of Confucius and Zoroaster which has been so unworthily compared +with it: Do not unto thy neighbour what thou wouldest not that he should +do to thee—a precept which mere indifference obeys. Nay, he excels it; +for the mental and spiritual attitude of one who respects his helpless +neighbour because he so much resembles himself, will surely not be +content without relieving the griefs that have so closely touched him. +Thus again the legislation of Moses looks beyond itself. + +Now, if the Jew should be merciful because he had himself known +calamity, what implicit confidence may we repose upon the Man of sorrows +and acquainted with grief? + +In the same spirit they are warned against afflicting the widow or the +orphan. And the threat which is added joins hand with the exhortation +which preceded. They should not oppress the stranger, because they had +been strangers and oppressed. Now the argument advances. The same God +Who then heard their cry will hear the cry of the forlorn, and avenge +them, according to the judicial fate which He had just announced, in +kind, by bringing their own wives to widowhood and their children to +orphanage (xxii. 22–4). + +To their brethren they should not lend money upon usury; but loans are +no more recommended than afterwards by Solomon: the words are “if thou +lend” (ver. 25). And if the raiment of the borrower were taken for a +pledge, it must be returned for him to use at night, or else God will +hear his cry, because, it is added very significantly and briefly, “I +am gracious” (ver. 27). It is the most exalting of all motives: Be +merciful, for I am merciful: ye shall be the children of your Father. + +Again is to be observed the influence reaching beyond the +prescription—the motive which cannot be felt without many other and +larger consequences than the restoration of pledges at sunset. + +How comes this precept to be followed by the words, “Thou shalt not +curse God nor blaspheme a ruler” (ver. 28)? and is not this again +somewhat strangely followed by the order not to delay to offer the +firstfruits of the soil, to consecrate the firstborn son, and to devote +the firstborn of cattle at the same age when a son ought to be +circumcised? (vers. 29, 30). + +If any link can be discovered, it is in the sense of communion with God, +suggested by the recent appeal to His character as a motive that should +weigh with man. Therefore they must not blaspheme Him, either directly +or through His agents, nor tardily yield Him what He claims. Therefore +it is added, “Ye shall be holy men unto Me,” and from the sense of +dignity which religion thus inspires, a homely corollary is deduced—“Ye +shall not eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field” (ver. 31). +The bondmen of Egypt must learn a high-minded self-respect. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +xxiii. 1–19. + +The twenty-third chapter begins with a series of commands bearing upon +the course of justice; but among these there is interjected very +curiously a command to bring back the stray ox or ass of an enemy, and +to help under a burden the over-weighted ass of him that hateth thee, +even “if thou wouldest forbear to help him.” It is just possible that +the lawgiver, urging justice in the bearing of testimony, interrupts +himself to speak of a very different manner in which the action may be +warped by prejudice, but in which (unlike the other) it is lawful to +show not only impartiality but kindness. The help of the cattle of one’s +enemy shows that in the bearing of testimony we should not merely +abstain from downright wrong. And it is a fine example of the spirit of +the New Testament, in the Old. + +“Thou shalt not take up a false report” (ver. 1) is a precept which +reaches far. How many heedless whispers, conjectures lightly spoken +because they were amusing, yet influencing the course of lives, and +inferences uncharitably drawn, would have been still-born if this had +been remembered! + +But when the scandal is already abroad, the temptation to aid its +progress is still greater. Therefore it is added, “Put not thine hand +with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.” Whatever be the menace or +the bribe, however the course of opinion seem to be decided, and the +assent of an individual to be harmless because the result is sure, or +blameless because the responsibility lies elsewhere, still each man is a +unit, not an “item,” and must act for himself, as hereafter he must give +account. Hence it results inevitably that “Thou shalt not follow a +multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside +after a multitude to wrest judgment” (ver. 2). The blind impulses of a +multitude are often as misleading as the solicitations of the bad, and +to aspiring temperaments much more seductive. There is indeed a strange +magnetism in the voice of the public. Every orator knows that a great +assembly acts upon the speaker as really as he acts upon it: its +emotions are like a rush of waters to sweep him away, beyond his +intentions or his ordinary powers. Yet he is the strongest individual +there; no other has at all the same opportunity for self-assertion, and +therefore its power over others must be more complete than over him. + +This is one reason for the institution of public worship. Men neglect +the house of God because they can pray as well at home, and encourage +wanton subdivisions of the Church because they think there is no very +palpable difference between competing denominations, or even because +competition may be as useful in religion as in trade, as if our +competition with the world and the devil for souls would not +sufficiently animate us, without competing with one another. But in +acting thus they weaken the effect for good of one of the mightiest +influences which work evil among us, the influence of association. Men +are always persuading themselves that they need not be better than their +neighbours, nor ashamed of doing what every one does. And yet no voice +joins in a cry without deepening it: every one who rushes with a crowd +makes its impulse more difficult to stem; his individuality is not lost +by its partnership with a thousand more; and he is accountable for what +he contributes to the result. He has parted with his self-control, but +not with the inner forces which he ought to have controlled. + +Against this dangerous influence of the world, Christ has set the +contagion of godliness within His Church, and every avoidable +subdivision enfeebles this salutary counter-influence. + +Moses warns us, therefore, of the danger of being drawn away by a +multitude to do evil; but he is thinking especially of the peril of +being tempted to “speak” amiss. Who does not know it? From the statesman +who outruns his convictions rather than break with his party, and who +cannot, amid deafening cheers, any longer hear his conscience speak, +down to the humblest who fails to confess Christ before hostile men, and +therefore by-and-by denies Him, there is not one whose speech and +silence have never been in danger of being set to the sympathies of his +own little public like a song to music. + +That Moses was really thinking of this tendency to court popularity, is +plain from the next clause—“Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his +cause” (ver. 3). + +It is an admirable caution. Men there are who would scorn the opposite +injustice, and from whom no rich man could buy a wrongful decision with +gold or favour, but who are habitually unjust, because they load the +other scale. The beam ought to hang straight. When justice is concerned, +the poor man’s friend is almost as contemptible as his foe, and he has +taken a bribe, if not in the mean enjoyment of democratic popularity, +yet in his own pride—the fancy that he has done a magnanimous act, the +attitude in which he poses. + +As in law so in literature. There once was a tendency to describe +magnanimous persons of quality, and repulsive clodhoppers and villagers. +Times have changed, and now we think it much more ingenious and +high-toned to be quite as partial and disingenuous, reversing the cases. +Neither is true, and therefore neither is artistic. No class in society +is deficient in noble qualities, or in base ones. Nor is the man of +letters at all more independent, who flatters the democracy in a +democratic age, than he who flattered the aristocracy when they had all +the prizes to bestow. + +Other precepts forbid bribery, command that the soil shall rest in the +seventh year, when its spontaneous produce shall be for the poor, and +further recognise and consecrate relaxation, by instituting (or more +probably adopting into the code) the three feasts of Passover, +Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The section closes with the words “Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk” (ver. 19). Upon this clause +much ingenuity has been expended. It makes occult reference to some +superstitious rite. It is the name for some unduly stimulating compound. +But when we remember that, just before, the sabbatical fruit which the +poor left ungleaned was expressly reserved for the beasts of the field, +that men were bidden to help the overladen ass of their enemies, and +that care is taken elsewhere that the ox should not be muzzled when +treading out grain, that the birdnester should not take the dam with the +young, and that neither cow nor ewe should be slain on the same day with +its young (Deut. xxv. 4, xxii. 6; Lev. xxii. 28), the simplest meaning +seems also the most probable. Men, who have been taught respect for +their fellow-men, are also to learn a fine sensibility even in respect +to the inferior animals. Throughout all this code there is an exquisite +tendency to form a considerate, humane, delicate and high-minded nation. + +It remained, to stamp upon the human conscience a deep sense of +responsibility. + + +PART V.—ITS SANCTIONS. + +xxiii. 20–33. + +This summary of Judaism being now complete, the people have to learn +what mighty issues are at stake upon their obedience. And the transition +is very striking from the simplest duty to the loftiest privilege: “Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. Behold, I send an Angel +before thee.... Beware of him: for My Name is in him” (19–21). + +We have now to ask how much this mysterious phrase involves; who was the +Angel of whom it speaks? + +The question is not, How much did Israel at that moment comprehend? For +we are distinctly told that prophets were conscious of speaking more +than they understood, and searched diligently but in vain what the +spirit that was in them did signify (1 Peter i. 11). + +It would, in fact, be absurd to seek the New Testament doctrine of the +Logos full-blown in the Pentateuch. But it is mere prejudice, +unphilosophical and presumptuous, to shut one’s eyes against any +evidence which may be forthcoming that the earliest books of Scripture +were tending towards the last conclusions of theology; that the slender +overture to the Divine oratorio indicates already the same theme which +thunders from all the chorus at the close. + +It is scarcely necessary to refute the position that a mere “messenger” +is intended, because angels have not yet “appeared as personal agents +separate from God.” Kalisch himself has amply refuted his own theory. +For, he says, “we are compelled ... to refer it to Moses and his +successor Joshua” (_in loco_). So then He Who will not forgive their +transgressions is he who prayed that if God would not pardon them, his +own name might be blotted from the book of life. He, to whom afterwards +God said “I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee” (xxxiii. +19), is the same of Whom God said “My name is in Him.” This position +needs no examination; but the perplexities of those who reject the +deeper interpretation is a strong confirmation of its soundness. We have +still to choose between the promise of a created angel, and some +manifestation and interposition of God, distinguished from Jehovah and +yet one with Him. This latter view is an evident preparation for clearer +knowledge yet to come. It is enough to stamp the dispensation which puts +it forth as but provisional, and therefore bears witness to that other +dispensation which has the key to it. And it is exactly what a Christian +would expect to find somewhere in this summary of the law. + +What, then, do we read elsewhere about the Angel of Jehovah? What do we +find, especially, in these early books? + +A difficulty has to be met at the very outset. The issue would be +decided offhand, if it could be shown that the Angel of this verse is +the same who is offered, as a poor substitute for their Divine +protector, in the thirty-third chapter. But no contrast can be clearer +than between the encouraging promise before us, and the sharp menace +which then plunged Israel into mourning. Here is an Angel who must not +be provoked, who will not pardon you, because “My Name is in Him.” There +is an angel who will be sent because God will not go up, ... lest He +consume them (vers. 2, 3). He is not the Angel of God’s presence, but of +His absence. When the intercession of Moses won from God a reversal of +the sentence, He then said “My Presence (My Face) shall go with thee, +and I will give thee rest,”[38] but Moses answers, not yet reassured, +“If Thy Presence (Thy Face) go not up with us, carry us not up hence. +For wherein shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight?... +Is it not that Thou goest with us? And the Lord said, I will do this +thing also that thou hast spoken” (14–17). + +Moreover, Isaiah, speaking of this time, says that “In all their +affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence (His Face) +saved them” (Isa. lxiii. 9). + +Thus we find that some angel is to be sent because God will not go up: +that thereupon the nation mourns, although in this twenty-third chapter +they had received as a gladdening promise, the assurance of an Angel +escort in Whom is the name of God; that in response to prayer God +promises that His Face shall accompany them, so that it may be known +that He Himself goes with them; and finally that His Face in Exodus is +the Angel of His Face in Isaiah. The prophet at least had no doubt +whether the gracious promise in the twenty-third chapter answered, in +the thirty-third chapter, to the third verse or the fourteenth—to the +menace, or to the restored favour. + +This difficulty being now converted into an evidence, we turn back to +examine other passages. + +When the Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar, “she called the name of +Jehovah that spake unto her El Roi” (Gen. xvi. 11, 13). When God tempted +Abraham, “the Angel of Jehovah called unto him out of heaven, and said, +... I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son +... from Me” (Gen. xxii. 11, 12). When a man wrestled with Jacob, he +thereupon claimed to have seen God face to face, and called the place +Peniel, the Face (Presence) of God (Gen. xxxii. 4, 30). But Hosea tells +us that “He had power with God: yea, he had power over the Angel, ... +and there He spake with us, even Jehovah, the God of hosts” (Hos. xii. +3, 5). Even earlier, in his exile, the Angel of the Lord had appeared +unto him and said, “I am the God of Bethel ... where thou vowedst a vow +unto Me.” But the vow was distinctly made to God Himself: “I will surely +give the tenth to Thee” (xxxi. 11, 13; xxviii. 20, 22). Is it any wonder +that when this patriarch blessed Joseph, he said, “The God before whom +my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my +life long unto this day, the Angel which hath redeemed me from all +evil, (may He) bless the lads” (xlviii. 15, 16)? + +In Exodus iii. 2 the Angel of the Lord appeared out of the bush. But +presently He changes into Jehovah Himself, and announces Himself to be +Jehovah the God of their fathers (iii. 2, 4, 15). In Exodus xiii. 21 +Jehovah went before Israel, but the next chapter tells how “the Angel of +the Lord which went before Israel removed and went behind” (xiv. 19); +while Numbers (xx. 16) says expressly that “He sent an Angel and brought +us out of Egypt.” + +By the comparison of these and many later passages (which is nothing but +the scientific process of induction, leaning not on the weight of any +single verse, but on the drift and tendency of all the phenomena) we +learn that God was already revealing Himself through a Medium, a +distinct personality whom He could send, yet not so distinct but that +His name was in Him, and He Himself was the Author of what He did. + +If Israel obeyed Him, He would bring them into the promised land (ver. +23); and if there they continued unseduced by false worships, He would +bless their provisions, their bodily frame, their children; He would +bring terror and a hornet against their foes; He would clear the land +before them as fast as their population could enjoy it; He would extend +their boundaries yet farther, from the Red Sea, where Solomon held Ezion +Geber (1 Kings ix. 26), to the Mediterranean, and from the desert where +they stood to the Euphrates, where Solomon actually possessed Palmyra +and Thiphsah (2 Chron. viii. 4; 1 Kings iv. 24). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[38] Even if the rendering were accepted, “Must My Presence (My +Face) go with thee?” (Can I not be trusted without a direct +Presence?) the argument would not be affected, because Moses presses for +the favour and obtains it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +_THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD._ + +xxiv. + +The opening words of this chapter (“Come up unto the Lord”) imply, +without explicitly asserting, that Moses was first sent down to convey +to Israel the laws which had just been enacted. + +This code they unanimously accepted, and he wrote it down. It is a +memorable statement, recording the origin of the first portion of Holy +Scripture that ever existed as such, whatever earlier writings may now +or afterwards have been incorporated in the Pentateuch. He then built an +altar for God, and twelve pillars for the tribes, and sacrificed +burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the Lord. Sin-offerings, it +will be observed, were not yet instituted; and neither was the +priesthood, so that young men slew the offerings. Half of the blood was +poured upon the altar, because God had perfected His share in the +covenant. The remainder was not used until the law had been read aloud, +and the people had answered with one voice, “All that the Lord hath +commanded will we do, and will be obedient.” Thereupon they too were +sprinkled with the blood, and the solemn words were spoken, “Behold the +blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all +these words.” The people were now finally bound: no later covenant of +the same kind will be found in the Old Testament. + +And now the principle began to work which was afterwards embodied in the +priesthood. That principle, stated broadly, was exclusion from the +presence of God, relieved and made hopeful by the admission of +representatives. The people were still forbidden to approach, under pain +of death. But Moses and Aaron were no longer the only ones to cross the +appointed boundaries. With them came the two sons of Aaron, (afterwards, +despite their privilege, to meet a dreadful doom,) and also seventy +representatives of all the newly covenanted people. Joshua, too, as the +servant of Moses, was free to come, although unspecified in the summons +(vers. 1, 13). + +“They saw the God of Israel,” and under His feet the blueness of the sky +like intense sapphire. And they were secure: they beheld God, and ate +and drank. + +But in privilege itself there are degrees: Moses was called up still +higher, and left Aaron and Hur to govern the people while he communed +with his God. For six days the nation saw the flanks of the mountain +swathed in cloud, and its summit crowned with the glory of Jehovah like +devouring fire. Then Moses entered the cloud, and during forty days they +knew not what had become of him. Was it time lost? Say rather that all +time is wasted except what is spent in communion, direct or indirect, +with the Eternal. + +The narrative is at once simple and sublime. We are sometimes told that +other religions besides our own rely for sanction upon their +supernatural origin. “Zarathustra, Sâkya-Mooni and Mahomed pass among +their followers for envoys of the Godhead; and in the estimation of the +Brahmin the Vedas and the laws of Manou are holy, divine books” (Kuenen, +_Religion of Israel_, i. 6). This is true. But there is a wide +difference between nations which assert that God privately appeared to +their teachers, and a nation which asserts that God appeared to the +public. It is not upon the word of Moses that Israel is said to have +believed; and even those who reject the narrative are not entitled to +confound it with narratives utterly dissimilar. There is not to be found +anywhere a parallel for this majestic story. + +But what are we to think of the assertion that God was seen to stand +upon a burning mountain? + +He it is Whom no man hath seen or can see, and in His presence the +seraphim veil their faces. + +It will not suffice to answer that Moses “endured as seeing Him that is +invisible” (Heb. xi. 27), for the paraphrase is many centuries later, +and hostile critics will rule it out of court as an after-thought. At +least, however, it proves that the problem was faced long ago, and tells +us what solution satisfied the early Church. + +With this clue before us, we ask what notion did the narrative really +convey to its ancient readers? If our defence is to be thoroughly +satisfactory, it must show an escape from heretical and carnal notions +of deity, not only for ourselves, but also for careful readers from the +very first. + +Now it is certain that no such reader could for one moment think of a +manifestation thorough, exhaustive, such as the eye receives of colour +and of form. Because the effect produced is not satisfaction, but +desire. Each new vision deepens the sense of the unseen. Thus we read +first that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders, saw +God, from which revelation the people felt and knew themselves to be +excluded. And yet the multitude also had a vision according to its power +to see; and indeed it was more satisfying to them than was the most +profound insight enjoyed by Moses. To see God is to sail to the horizon: +when you arrive, the horizon is as far in front as ever; but you have +gained a new consciousness of infinitude. “The appearance of the glory +of the Lord was seen like devouring fire in the eyes of the children of +Israel” (ver. 17). But Moses was aware of a glory far greater and more +spiritual than any material splendour. When theophanies had done their +utmost, his longing was still unslaked, and he cried out, “Show me, I +pray Thee, Thy glory” (xxxiii. 18). To his consciousness that glory was +still veiled, which the multitude sufficiently beheld in the flaming +mountain. And the answer which he received ought to put the question at +rest for ever, since, along with the promise “All My goodness shall pass +before thee,” came the assertion “Thou shalt not see My face, for no man +shall see Me and live.” + +So, then, it is not our modern theology, but this noble book of Exodus +itself, which tells us that Moses did not and could not adequately see +God, however great and sacred the vision which he beheld. From this book +we learn that, side by side with the most intimate communion and the +clearest possible unveiling of God, grew up the profound consciousness +that only some attributes and not the essence of deity had been +displayed. + +It is very instructive also to observe the steps by which Moses is led +upward. From the burning bush to the fiery cloud, and thence to the +blazing mountain, there was an ever-deepening lesson of majesty and awe. +But in answer to the prayer that he might really see the very glory of +his Lord, his mind is led away upon entirely another pathway: it is “All +My goodness” which is now to “pass before” him, and the proclamation is +of “a God full of compassion and gracious,” yet retaining His moral +firmness, so that He “will by no means clear the guilty.” + +What can cloud and fire avail, toward the manifesting of a God Whose +essence is His love? It is from the Old Testament narrative that the New +Testament inferred that Moses endured as seeing indeed, yet as seeing +Him Who is inevitably and for ever invisible to eyes of flesh: he +learned most, not when he beheld some form of awe, standing on a paved +work of sapphire stone and as it were the very heaven for clearness, but +when hidden in a cleft of the rock and covered by the hand of God while +He passed by. + +On one hand the people saw the glory of God: on the other hand it was +the best lesson taught by a far closer access, still to pray and yearn +to see that glory. The seventy beheld the God of Israel: for their +leader was reserved the more exalting knowledge, that beyond all vision +is the mystic overshadowing of the Divine, and a voice which says “No +man shall see Me and live.” The difference in heart is well typified in +this difference in their conduct, that they saw God and ate and drank, +but he, for forty days, ate not. Satisfaction and assurance are a poor +ideal compared with rapt aspiration and desire. + +Thus we see that no conflict exists between this declaration and our +belief in the spirituality of God. + +We have still to ask what is the real force of the assertion that God +was in some lesser sense seen of Israel, and again, more especially, of +its leaders. + +What do we mean even by saying that we see each other?—that, observing +keenly, we see upon one face cunning, upon another sorrow, upon a third +the peace of God? Are not these emotions immaterial and invisible as the +essence of God Himself? Nay, so invisible is the reality within each +bosom, that some day all that eye hath seen shall fall away from us, and +yet the true man shall remain intact. + +Man has never seen more than a hint, an outcome, a partial +self-revelation or self-betrayal of his fellow-man. + + “Yes, in the sea of life in-isled, + With echoing straits between us thrown, + Dotting the shoreless watery wild, + We mortal millions live _alone_. + + * * * * * + + God bade betwixt ‘our’ shores to be + The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.” + +And yet, incredible as the paradox would seem, if it were not too common +to be strange, the play of muscles and rush of blood, visible through +the skin, do reveal the most spiritual and immaterial changes. Even so +the heavens declare that very glory of God which baffled the undimmed +eyes of Moses. So it was, also, that when rended rocks and burning skies +revealed a more immanent action of Him Who moves through all nature +always, when convulsions hitherto undreamed of by those dwellers in +Egyptian plains overwhelmed them with a new sense of their own smallness +and a supreme Presence, God was manifested there. + +Not unlike this is the explanation of St. Augustine, “We need not be +surprised that God, invisible as He is, appeared visibly to the +patriarchs. For, as the sound which communicates the thought conceived +in the silence of the mind is not the thought itself, so the form by +which God, invisible in His own nature, became visible, was not God +Himself. Nevertheless it was He Himself Who was seen under that form, as +the thought itself is heard in the sound of the voice; and the +patriarchs recognised that, although the bodily form was not God, they +saw the invisible God. For, though Moses was conversing with God, yet he +said, ‘If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thyself’” (_De Civ. +Dei_, x. 13). And again: “He knew that he saw corporeally, but he sought +the true vision of God spiritually” (_De Trin._, ii. 27). + +It has still to be added that His manifestation is exactly suited to the +stage now reached in the education of Israel. Their fathers had already +“seen God” in the likeness of man: Abraham had entertained Him; Jacob +had wrestled with Him. And so Joshua before Ai, and Manoah by the rock +at Zorah, and Ezekiel by the river Chebar, should see the likeness of a +man. We who believe the doctrine of a real Incarnation can well perceive +that in these passing and mysterious glimpses God was not only revealing +Himself in the way which would best prepare humanity for His future +coming in actual manhood, but also in the way by which, meanwhile, the +truest and deepest light could be thrown upon His nature, a nature which +could hereafter perfectly manifest itself in flesh. Why, then, do not +the records of the Exodus hint at a human likeness? Why did they “behold +no similitude”? Clearly because the masses of Israel were utterly +unprepared to receive rightly such a vision. To them the likeness of +man would have meant no more than the likeness of a flying eagle or a +calf. Idolatry would have followed, but no sense of sympathy, no +consciousness of the grandeur and responsibility of being made in the +likeness of God. Anthropomorphism is a heresy, although the Incarnation +is the crowning doctrine of the faith. + +But it is hard to see why the human likeness of God should exist in +Genesis and Joshua, but not in the history of the Exodus, if that story +be a post-Exilian forgery. + +This is not all. The revelations of God in the desert were connected +with threats and prohibitions: the law was given by Moses; grace and +truth came by Jesus Christ. And with the different tone of the message a +different aspect of the speaker was to be expected. From the blazing +crags of Sinai, fenced around, the voice of a trumpet waxing louder and +louder, said “Thou shalt not!” On the green hill by the Galilæan lake +Jesus sat down, and His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth +and said “Blessed.” + +Now, the conscience of every sinner knows that the God of the +commandments is dreadful. It is of Him, not of hell, that Isaiah said +“The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath surprised the godless +ones. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us +shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” (Isa. xxxiii. 14). + +For him who rejects the light yoke of the Lord of Love, the fires of +Sinai are still the truest revelation of deity; and we must not deny +Sinai because we know Bethlehem. We must choose between the two. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +_THE SHRINE AND ITS FURNITURE._ + +xxv. 1–40. + +The first direction given to Moses on the mountain is to prepare for the +making of a tabernacle wherein God may dwell with man. For this he must +invite offerings of various kinds, metals and gems, skins and fabrics, +oil and spices; and the humblest man whose heart is willing may +contribute toward an abode for Him Whom the heaven of heavens cannot +contain. + +Strange indeed is the contrast between the mountain burning up to +heaven, and the lowly structure of the wood of the desert, which was now +to be erected by subscription. + +And yet the change marks not a lower conception of deity, but an +advance, just as the quiet and serene communion of a saint with God is +loftier than the most agitating experience of the convert. + +This is the first announcement of a fixed abiding presence of God in the +midst of men, and it is therefore the precursor of much. St. John +certainly alluded to this earliest dwelling of God on earth when he +wrote, “The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us” (John i. 14). +A little later it was said, “Ye also are builded together for an +habitation of God” (Eph. ii. 22); and again the very words used at first +of the tabernacle are applied to faithful souls: “We are a temple of +the living God, as God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them” (2 +Cor. vi. 16; Lev. xxvi. 11). For God dwelt on earth in the Messiah +hidden by the veil, that is to say His flesh (Heb. x. 20), and also in +the hearts of all the faithful. And a yet fuller communion is to come, +of which the tabernacle in the wilderness was a type, even the descent +of the Holy City, when the true tabernacle of God shall be with men, and +He shall tabernacle with them (Rev. xxi. 3). + +It may seem strange that after the commandment “Let them make Me a +sanctuary” the whole chapter is devoted to instructions, not for the +tabernacle but for its furniture. But indeed the four articles +enumerated in this chapter present a wonderfully graphic picture of the +nature and terms of the intercourse of God with man. On one side is His +revelation of righteousness, but righteousness propitiated and become +gracious, and this is symbolised by the ark of the testimony and the +mercy-seat. On the other side the consecration both of secular and +sacred life is typified by the table with bread and wine, and by the +golden candlestick. Except thus, no tabernacle could have been the +dwelling of the Lord, nor ever shall be. + +And this is the true reason why the altar of incense is not even +mentioned until a later chapter (xxx.). We do homage to God because He +is present: it is rather the consequence than the condition of His abode +with us. + +The first step towards the preparation of a shrine for God on earth is +the enshrining of His will: Moses should therefore make first of all an +ark, wherein to treasure up “the testimony which I shall give thee,” the +two tables of the law (xxv. 16). In it were also the pot of manna and +Aaron’s rod which budded (Heb. ix. 4), and beside it was laid the whole +book of the law, for a testimony, alas! against them (Deut. xxxi. 26). + +Thus the ark was to treasure up the expression of the will of God, and +the relics which told by what mercies and deliverances He claimed +obedience. It was a precious thing, but not the most precious, as we +shall presently learn; and therefore it was not made of pure gold, but +overlaid with it. That it might be reverently carried, four rings were +cast and fastened to it at the lower corners, and in these four staves, +also overlaid with gold, were permanently inserted. + +The next article mentioned is the most important of all. + +It would be a great mistake to suppose that the mercy-seat was a mere +lid, an ordinary portion of the ark itself. It was made of a different +and more costly material, of pure gold, with which the ark was only +overlaid. There is separate mention that Bezaleel “made the ark, ... and +he made the mercy-seat” (xxxvii. 1, 6), and the special presence of God +in the Most Holy Place is connected much more intimately with the +mercy-seat than with the remainder of the structure. Thus He promises to +“appear in the cloud above the mercy-seat” (Lev. xvi. 2). And when it is +written that “Moses heard the Voice speaking unto him from above the +mercy-seat which is upon the ark of the testimony” (Num. vii. 89), it +would have been more natural to say directly “from above the ark” unless +some stress were to be laid upon the interposing slab of gold. In +reality no distinction could be sharper than between the ark and its +cover, from whence to hear the voice of God. And so thoroughly did all +the symbolism of the Most Holy Place gather around this supreme object, +that in one place it is actually called “the house of the mercy-seat” (1 +Chron. xxviii. 11). + +Let us, then, put ourselves into the place of an ancient worshipper. +Excluded though he is from the Holy Place, and conscious that even the +priests are shut out from the inner shrine, yet the high priest who +enters is his brother: he goes on his behalf: the barrier is a curtain, +not a wall. + +But while the Israelite mused upon what was beyond, the ark, as we have +seen, suggests the depth of his obligation; for there is the rod of his +deliverance and the bread from heaven which fed him; and there also are +the commandments which he ought to have kept. And his conscience tells +him of ingratitude, and a broken covenant; by the law is the knowledge +of sin. + +It is therefore a sinister and menacing thought that immediately above +this ark of the violated covenant burns the visible manifestation of +God, his injured Benefactor. + +And hence arises the golden value of that which interposes, beneath +which the accusing law is buried, by means of which God “hides His face +from our sins.” + +The worshipper knows this cover to be provided by a separate ordinance +of God, after the ark and its contents had been arranged for, and finds +in it a vivid concrete representation of the idea “Thou hast cast all my +sins behind Thy back” (Isa. xxxviii. 17). That this was its true +intention becomes more evident when we ascertain exactly the meaning of +the term which we have, not too precisely, rendered “mercy-seat.” + +The word “seat” has no part in the original; and we are not to think of +God as reposing on it, but as revealing Himself above. The erroneous +notion has probably transferred itself to the type from the heavenly +antitype, which is “the throne of grace,” but it has no countenance +either in the Greek or the Hebrew name of the Mosaic institution. Nor is +the notion expressed that of gratuitous and unbought “mercy.” When +Jehovah showeth mercy unto thousands, the word is different. It is true +that the root means “to cover,” and is once employed in Scripture in +that sense (Gen. vi. 14); but its ethical use is generally connected +with sacrifice; and when we read of a “sin-offering for _atonement_,” of +the half-shekel being an “_atonement_-money,” and of “the day of +_atonement_,” the word is a simple and very similar development from the +same root with this which we render _mercy-seat_ (Exod. xxx. 10, 16; +Lev. xxiii. 27, etc.). + +The Greek word is found twice in the New Testament: once when the +cherubim of glory overshadow the _mercy-seat_, and again when God hath +set forth Christ to be a _propitiation_ (Heb. ix. 5; Rom. iii. 25). The +mercy-seat is therefore to be thought of in connection with sin, but sin +expiated and thus covered and put away. + +We know mysteries which the Israelite could not guess of the means by +which this was brought to pass. But as he watched the high priest +disappearing into that awful solitude, with God, as he listened to the +chime of bells, swung by his movements, and announcing that still he +lived, two conditions stood out broadly before his mind. One was the +bringing in of incense: “Thou shalt bring a censer full of burning coals +of fire from before the altar, that the cloud of the incense may cover +the mercy-seat” (Lev. xvi. 13). Now, the connection between prayer and +incense was quite familiar to the Jew; and he could not but understand +that the blessing of atonement was to be sought and won by intense and +burning supplication. And the other was that invariable demand, the +offering of a victim’s blood. All the sacrifices of Judaism culminated +in the great act when the high priest, standing in the most holy and the +most occult spot in all the world, sprinkled “blood upon the mercy-seat +eastwards, and before the mercy-seat sprinkled of the blood with his +finger seven times” (Lev. xvi. 14). + +Thus the crowning height of the Jewish ritual was attained when the +blood of the great national sacrifice was offered not only before God, +but, with special reference to the covering up of the broken and +accusing law, before the mercy-seat. + +No wonder that on either side of it, and moulded of the same mass of +metal, were the cherubim in an attitude of adoration, their outspread +wings covering it, their faces bent, not only as bowing in reverence +before the Divine presence, but, as we expressly read, “toward the +mercy-seat shall the faces of the cherubim be.” For the meaning of this +great symbol was among the things which “the angels desire to look +into.” + +We now understand how much was gained when God said “There will I meet +thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat” (ver. 22). +It was an assurance, not only of the love which desires obedience, but +of the mercy which passes over failure.[39] + +Thus far, there has been symbolised the mind of God, His righteousness +and His grace. + +The next articles have to do with man, his homage to God and his witness +for Him. + +There is first the table of the shewbread (vers. 23–30), overlaid with +pure gold, surrounded, like the ark, with “a crown” or moulding of gold, +for ornament and the greater security of the loaves, and strengthened by +a border of pure gold carried around the base, which was also ornamented +with a crown, or moulding. Close to this border were rings for staves, +like those by which the ark was borne. The table was furnished with +dishes upon which, every Sabbath day, new shewbread might be conveyed +into the tabernacle, and the old might be removed for the priests to +eat. There were spoons also, by which to place frankincense upon each +pile of bread; and “flagons and bowls to pour out withal.” What was thus +to be poured we do not read, but there is no doubt that it was wine, +second only to bread as a requisite of Jewish life, and forming, like +the frankincense, a link between this weekly presentation and the +meal-offerings. But all these were subordinate to the twelve loaves, one +for each tribe, which were laid in two piles upon the table. It is clear +that their presentation was the essence of the rite, and not their +consumption by the priests, which was possibly little more than a +safeguard against irreverent treatment. For the word shewbread is +literally bread of the face or presence, which word is used of the +presence of God, in the famous prayer “If Thy presence go not with me, +carry us not up hence” (xxxiii. 15). And of whom, other than God, can it +here be reasonably understood? Now Jacob, long before, had vowed “Of all +that Thou givest me, I will surely give the tenth to Thee” (Gen. +xxviii. 22). And it was an edifying ordinance that a regular offering +should be made to God of the staple necessaries of existence, as a +confession that all came from Him, and an appeal, clearly expressed by +covering it with frankincense, which typified prayer (Lev. xxiv. 7) that +He would continue to supply their need. + +Nor is it overstrained to add, that when this bread was given to their +priestly representatives to eat, with all reverence and in a holy place, +God responded, and gave back to His people that which represented the +necessary maintenance of the tribes. Thus it was, “on the behalf of the +children of Israel, an everlasting covenant” (Lev. xxiv. 8). + +The form has perished. But as long as we confess in the Lord’s Prayer +that the wealthiest does not possess one day’s bread ungiven—as long, +also, as Christian families connect every meal with a due acknowledgment +of dependence and of gratitude—so long will the Church of Christ +continue to make the same confession and appeal which were offered in +the shewbread upon the table. + +The next article of furniture was the golden candlestick (vers. 31–40). +And this presents the curious phenomenon that it is extremely clear in +its typical import, and in its material outline; but the details of the +description are most obscure, and impossible to be gathered from the +Authorised Version. Strictly speaking, it was not a lamp, but only a +gorgeous lamp-stand, with one perpendicular shaft, and six branches, +three springing, one above another, from each side of the shaft, and all +curving up to the same height. Upon these were laid the seven lamps, +which were altogether separate in their construction (ver. 37). It was +of pure gold, the base and the main shaft being of one piece of beaten +metal. Each of the six branches was ornamented with three cups, made +like almond blossoms; above these a “knop,” variously compared by Jewish +writers to an apple and a pomegranate, and still higher, a flower or +bud. It is believed that there was a fruit and flower above each of the +cups, making nine ornaments on each branch. The “candlestick” in ver. 34 +can only mean the central shaft, and upon this there were “four cups +with their knops and flowers” instead of three. With the lamp were +tongs, and snuff-dishes in which to remove the charred wick from the +temple. + +As we are told that when the Lord called the child Samuel, “the lamp of +God was not yet gone out” (1 Sam. iii. 3), it follows that the lights +were kept burning only during the night. + +We have now to ascertain the spiritual meaning of this stately symbol. +There are two other passages in Scripture which take up the figure and +carry it forward. In Zechariah (iv. 2–12) we are taught that the +separation of the lamps is a mere incident; they are to be conceived of +as organically one, and moreover as fed by secret ducts with oil from no +limited supply, but from living olive trees, vital, rooted in the system +of the universe. Whatever obscurity may veil those “two sons of oil” +(and this is not the place to discuss the subject), we are distinctly +told that the main lesson is that of lustre derived from supernatural, +invisible sources. Zerubbabel is confronted by a great mountain of +hindrance, but it shall become a plain before him, because the lesson of +the vision of the candlestick is this—“Not by might, nor by power, but +by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” A lamp gives light not because the gold +shines, but because the oil burns; and yet the oil is the one thing +which the eye sees not. And so the Church is a witness for her Lord, a +light shining in a dark place, not because of its learning or culture, +its noble ritual, its stately buildings or its ample revenues. All these +things her children, having the power, ought to dedicate. The ancient +symbol put art and preciousness in an honourable place, worthily +upholding the lamp itself; and in the New Testament the seven lamps of +the Apocalypse were still of gold. But the true function of a lamp is to +be luminous, and for this the Church depends wholly upon its supply of +grace from God the Holy Ghost. It is “not by might, nor by power, but by +My Spirit, saith the Lord.” + +Again, in the Revelation, we find the New Testament Churches described +as lamps, among which their Lord habitually walks. And no sooner have +the seven churches on earth been warned and cheered, than we are shown +before the throne of God seven torches (burning by their own +incandescence—_vide_ Trench, _N. T. Synonyms_, p. 162), which are the +seven spirits of God, answering to His seven light-bearers upon the +earth (Rev. iv. 5). + +Lastly, the perfect and mystic number, seven, declares that the light of +the Church, shining in a dark place, ought to be full and clear, no +imperfect presentation of the truth: “they shall light the lamps, to +give light over against it.” + +Because this lamp shines with the light of the Church, exhibiting the +graces of her Lord, therefore a special command is addressed to the +people, besides the call for contributions to the work in general, that +they shall bring pure olive oil, not obtained by heat and pressure, but +simply beaten, and therefore of the best quality, to feed its flame. + +It is to burn, as the Church ought to shine in all darkness of the +conscience or the heart of man, from evening to morning for ever. And +the care of the ministers of God is to be the continual tending of this +blessed and sacred flame. + + +_THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT._ + +xxv. 9, 40. + +Twice over (vers. 9, 40, and cf. xxvi. 30, xxvii. 8, etc.) Moses was +reminded to be careful to make all things after the pattern shown him in +the mount. And these words have sometimes been so strained as to convey +the meaning that there really exists in heaven a tabernacle and its +furniture, the grand original from which the Mosaic copy was derived. + +That is plainly not what the Epistle to the Hebrews understands (Heb. +viii. 5). For it urges this admonition as a proof that the old +dispensation was a shadow of ours, in which Christ enters into heaven +itself, and our consciences are cleansed from dead works to serve the +living God. The citation is bound indissolubly with all the +demonstration which follows it. + +We are not, then, to think of a heavenly tabernacle, exhibited to the +material senses of Moses, with which all the details of his own work +must be identical. + +Rather we are to conceive of an inspiration, an ideal, a vision of +spiritual truths, to which all this work in gold and acacia-wood should +correspond. It was thus that Socrates told Glaucon, incredulous of his +republic, that in heaven there is laid up a pattern, for him that wishes +to behold it. Nothing short of this would satisfy the inspired +application of the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the +readers, who were Jewish converts, are asked to recognise in this verse +evidence that the light of the new dispensation illuminated the +institutions of the old. + +Without this pervading sentiment, the most elaborate specifications of +weight and measurement, of cup and pomegranate and flower, could never +have produced the required effect. An ideal there was, a divinely +designed suggestiveness, which must be always present to his +superintending vigilance, as once it shone upon his soul in sacred +vision or trance; a suggestiveness which might possibly be lost amid +correct elaborations, like the soul of a poem or a song, evaporating +through a rendering which is correct enough, yet in which the spirit, +even if that alone, has been forgotten. + +It is surely a striking thing to find this need of a pervading sentiment +impressed upon the author of the first piece of religious art that ever +was recognised by heaven. + +For it is the mysterious all-pervading charm of such a dominant +sentiment which marks the impassable difference between the lowliest +work of art, and the highest piece of art-manufacture which is only a +manufactured article. + +And assuredly the recognition of this principle among a people whose +ancient history shows but little interest in art, calls for some +attention from those who regard the tabernacle itself as a fiction, and +its details as elaborated in Babylonia, in the priestly interest. +(Kuenen, _Relig. of Israel_, ii. 148). + +The problem of problems for all who deny the divinity of the Old +Testament is to explain the curious position which its institutions are +consistent in accepting. They rest on the authority of heaven, and yet +they are not definitive, but provisional. They are always looking +forward to another prophet like their founder, a new covenant better +than the present one, a high priest after the order of a Canaanite +enthroned at the right hand of Jehovah, a consecration for every pot in +the city like that of the vessels in the temple (Deut. xviii. 15; Jer. +xxxi. 31; Ps. cx. 1, 4; Zech. xiv. 20). And here, “in the priestly +interest,” is an avowal that the Divine habitation which they boast of +is but the likeness and shadow of some Divine reality concealed. And +these strange expectations have proved to be the most fruitful and +energetic principles in their religion. + +This very presence of the ideal is what will for ever make the highest +natures quite certain that the visible universe is no mere resultant of +clashing forces without a soul, but the genuine work of a Creator. The +universe is charged throughout with the most powerful appeals to all +that is artistic and vital within us; so that a cataract is more than +water falling noisily, and the silence of midnight more than the absence +of disturbance, and a snow mountain more than a storehouse to feed the +torrents in summer, being also poems, appeals, revelations, whispers +from a spirit, heard in the depth of ours. + +Does any one, listening to Beethoven’s funeral march, doubt the +utterance of a soul, as distinct from clanging metal and vibrating +chords? And the world has in it this mysterious witness to something +more than heat and cold, moisture and drought: something which makes the +difference between a well-filled granary and a field of grain rippling +golden in the breeze. This is not a coercive argument for the hostile +logic-monger: it is an appeal for the open heart. “He that hath ears to +hear, let him hear.” + +To fill the tabernacle of Moses with spiritual meaning, the ideal +tabernacle was revealed to him in the Mount of God. + +Let us apply the same principle to human life. There also harmony and +unity, a pervading sense of beauty and of soul, are not to be won by +mere obedience to a mandate here and a prohibition there. Like Moses, it +is not by labour according to specification that we may erect a shrine +for deity. Those parables which tell of obedient toil would be sadly +defective, therefore, without those which speak of love and joy, a +supper, a Shepherd bearing home His sheep, a prodigal whose dull +expectation of hired service is changed for investiture with the best +robe and the gold ring, and welcome of dance and music. + +How shall our lives be made thus harmonious, a spiritual poem and not a +task, a chord vibrating under the musician’s hand? How shall thought and +word, desire and deed, become like the blended voices of river and wind +and wood, a witness for the divine? Not by mere elaboration of detail +(though correctness is a condition of all true art), but by a vision +before us of the divine life, the Ideal, the pattern shown to all, and +equally to be imitated (strange though it may seem) by peasant and +prince, by woman and sage and child. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[39] This investigation offers a fine example of the folly of that kind +of interpretation which looks about for some sort of external and +arbitrary resemblance, and fastens upon that as the true meaning. +Nothing is more common among these expounders than to declare that the +wood and gold of the ark are types of the human and Divine natures of +our Lord. If either ark or mercy-seat should be compared to Him, it is +obviously the latter, which speaks of mercy. But this was of pure gold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +_THE TABERNACLE._ + +xxvi. + +We now come to examine the structure of the tabernacle for which the +most essential furniture has been prepared. + +Some confusion of thought exists, even among educated laymen, with +regard to the arrangements of the temple; and this has led to similar +confusion (to a less extent) concerning the corresponding parts of the +tabernacle. “The temple” in which the Child Jesus was found, and into +which Peter and John went up to pray, ought not to be confounded with +that inner shrine, “the temple,” in which it was the lot of the priest +Zacharias to burn incense, and into which Judas, forgetful of all its +sacredness in his anguish, hurled his money to the priests (Luke ii. 46; +Acts iii. 3; Luke i. 9; Matt. xxvii. 5). Now, the former of these +corresponded to “the court of the tabernacle,” an enclosure open to the +skies, and containing two important articles, the altar of burnt +sacrifices and the laver. This was accessible to the nation, so that the +sinner could lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and the priests +could purify themselves before entering their own sacred place, the +tabernacle proper, the shrine. But when we come to the structure itself, +some attention is still necessary, in order to derive any clear notion +from the description; nor can this easily be done by an English reader +without substituting the Revised Version for the Authorised. He will +then discover that we have a description, first of the “curtains of the +tabernacle” (vers. 1–6), and then of other curtains which are not +considered to belong to the tabernacle proper, but to “the tent over the +tabernacle” (7–13), being no part of the rich ornamental interior, but +only a protection spread above it; and over this again were two further +screens from the weather (14), and finally, inside all, are “the boards +of the tabernacle”—of which boards the two actual apartments were +constructed (15–30)—and the veil which divided the Holy from the Most +Holy Place (31–3). + +“The curtains of the tabernacle” were ten, made of linen, of which every +thread consisted of fine strands twisted together, “and blue and purple +and scarlet,” with cherubim not embroidered but woven into the fabric +(1). + +These curtains were sewn together, five and five, so as to make two +great curtains, each slightly larger than forty-two feet by thirty, +being twenty-eight cubits long by five times four cubits broad (2, 3). +Finally these two were linked together, each having fifty loops for that +purpose at corresponding places at the edge, which loops were bound +together by fifty golden clasps (4–6). Thus, when the nation was about +to march, they could easily be divided in the middle and then folded in +the seams. + +This costly fabric was regarded as part of the true tabernacle: why, +then, do we find the outer curtains mentioned before the rest of the +tabernacle proper is described? + +Certainly because these rich curtains lie immediately underneath the +coarser ones, and are to be considered along with “the tent” which +covered all (7). This consisted of curtains of goats’ hair, of the same +size, and arranged in all respects like the others, except that their +clasps were only bronze, and that the curtains were eleven in number, +instead of ten, so that half a curtain was available to hang down over +the back, and half was to be doubled back upon itself at the front of +“the tabernacle,” that is to say, the richer curtains underneath. The +object of this is obvious: it was to bring the centre of the goatskin +curtains over the edge of the linen ones, as tiles overlap each other, +to shut out the rain at the joints. But this implies, what has been said +already, that the curtains of the tabernacle should lie close to the +curtains of the tent. + +Over these again was an outer covering of rams’ skins dyed red, and a +covering of sealskins above all (14). This last, it is generally agreed, +ran only along the top, like a ridge tile, to protect the vulnerable +part of the roof. And now it has to be remembered that we are speaking +of a real tent with sloping sides, not a flat cover laid upon the flat +inner structure of boards, and certain to admit the rain. By calling +attention to this fact, Mr. Fergusson succeeded in solving all the +problems connected with the measurements of the tabernacle, and bringing +order into what was little more than chaos before (_Smith’s Bible +Dict._, “Temple”). + +The inner tabernacle was of acacia wood, which was the only timber of +the sanctuary. Each board stood ten cubits high, and was fitted by +tenons into two silver sockets, which probably formed a continuous base. +Each of these contained a talent of silver, and was therefore more than +eighty pounds weight; and they were probably to some extent sunk into +the ground for a foundation (xxxviii. 27). There were twenty boards on +each side; and as they were a cubit and a half broad, the length of the +tabernacle was about forty-five feet (16–18). At the west end there were +six boards (22), which, with the breadth of the two posts or boards for +the corners (23–4) just gives ten cubits, or fifteen feet, for the width +of it. Thus the length of the tabernacle was three times its breadth; +and we know that in the Temple (where all the proportions were the same, +the figures being doubled throughout) the subdividing veil was so hung +as to make the inner shrine a perfect square, leaving the holy place +twice as long as it was broad. + +The posts were held in their places by wooden bars, which were overlaid +with gold (as the boards also were, ver. 29) and fitted into golden +rings. Four such bars, or bolts, ran along a portion of each side, and +there was a fifth great bar which stretched along the whole forty-five +feet from end to end. Thus the edifice was firmly held together; and the +wealth of the material makes it likely that they were fixed on the +inside, and formed a part of the ornament of the edifice (26–9). + +When the two curtains were fastened together with clasps, they gave a +length of sixty feet. But we have seen that the length of the boards +when jointed together was only forty-five feet. This gives a projection +of seven feet and a half (five cubits) for the front and rear of the +tent beyond the tabernacle of boards; and when the great curtains were +drawn tight, sloping from the ridge-pole fourteen cubits on each side, +it has been shown (assuming a right-angle at the top) that they reached +within five cubits of the ground, and extended five cubits beyond the +sides, the same distance as at the front and rear. The next +instructions concern the veil which divided the two chambers of the +sanctuary. This was in all respects like “the curtain of the +tabernacle,” and similarly woven with cherubim. It was hung upon four +pillars; and the even number seems to prove that there was no higher one +in the centre, reaching to the roof—which seems to imply that there was +a triangular opening above the veil, between the Holy and the Most Holy +Place (31, 32). + +But here a difficult question arises. There is no specific measurement +of the point at which this subdividing veil was to stretch across the +tent. The analogy of the Temple inclines us to believe that the Most +Holy Place was a perfect cube, and the Holy Place twice as long as it +was broad and high. There is evident allusion to this final shape of the +Most Holy Place in the description of the New Jerusalem, of which the +length and breadth and height were equal. And yet there is strong reason +to suspect that this arrangement was not the primitive one. For Moses +was ordered to stretch the veil underneath the golden clasps which bound +together the two great curtains of the tabernacle (ver. 33). But these +were certainly in the middle. How, then, could the veil make an unequal +division below? Possibly fifteen feet square would have been too mean a +space for the dimensions of the Most Holy Place, although the perfect +cube became desirable, when the size was doubled. + +A screen of the same rich material, but apparently not embroidered with +cherubim, was to stretch across the door of the tent; but this was +supported on five pillars instead of four, clearly that the central one +might support the ridge-bar of the roof. And their sockets were of brass +(vers. 36, 37). + +The tabernacle, like the Temple, had its entrance on the east (ver. 22); +and in the case of the Temple this was the more remarkable, because the +city lay at the other side, and the worshippers had to pass round the +shrine before they reached the front of it. The object was apparently to +catch the warmth of the sun. For a somewhat similar reason, every pagan +temple in the ancient world, with a few well-defined exceptions which +are easily explained, also faced the east; and the worshippers, with +their backs to the dawn, saw the first beams of the sun kindling their +idol’s face. The orientation of Christian churches is due to the custom +which made the neophyte, standing at first in his familiar position +westward, renounce the devil and all his works, and then, turning his +back upon his idols, recite the creed with his face eastward. + +What ideas would be suggested by this edifice to the worshipper will +better be examined when we have examined also the external court. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +_THE OUTER COURT._ + +xxvii. + +Before describing the tabernacle, its furniture was specified. And so, +when giving instructions for the court of the tabernacle, the altar has +to be described: “Thou shalt make the altar of acacia wood.” The +definite article either implies that an altar was taken for granted, a +thing of course; or else it points back to chap. xx. 24, which said “An +altar of earth shalt thou make.” Nor is the acacia wood of this altar at +all inconsistent with that precept, it being really not an altar but an +altar-case, and “hollow” (ver. 8)—an arrangement for holding the earth +together, and preventing the feet of the priests from desecrating it. At +each corner was a horn, of one piece with the framework, typical of the +power which was there invoked, and practically useful, both to bind the +sacrifice with cords, and also for the grasp of the fugitive, seeking +sanctuary (Ps. cxviii. 27; 1 Kings i. 50). This arrangement is said to +have been peculiar to Judaism. And as the altar was outside the +tabernacle, and both symbolism and art prescribed simpler materials, it +was overlaid with brass (vers. 1, 2). Of the same material were the +vessels necessary for the treatment of the fire and blood (ver. 3). A +network of brass protected the lower part of the altar; and at half the +height a ledge projected, supported by this network, and probably wide +enough to allow the priests to stand upon it when they ministered (vers. +4, 5). Hence we read that Aaron “came down from offering” (Lev. ix. 22). +Lastly, there was the same arrangement of rings and staves to carry it +as for the ark and the table (vers. 6, 7). + +It will be noticed that the laver in this court, like the altar of +incense within, is reserved for mention in a later chapter (xxx. 18) as +being a subordinate feature in the arrangements. + +The enclosure was a quadrangle of one hundred cubits by fifty; it was +five cubits high, and each cubit may be taken as a foot and a half. The +linen which enclosed it was upheld by pillars with sockets of brass; and +one of the few additional facts to be gleaned from the detailed +statement that all these directions were accurately carried out is that +the heads of all the pillars were overlaid with silver (xxxviii. 17). +The pillars were connected by rods (fillets) of silver, and a hanging of +fine-twined linen was stretched by means of silver hooks (9–13). The +entrance was twenty cubits wide, corresponding accurately to the width, +not of the tabernacle, but of “the tent” as it has been described +(reaching out five cubits farther on each side than the tabernacle), and +it was closed by an embroidered curtain (14–17). This fence was drawn +firmly into position and held there by brazen tent-pins; and we here +incidentally learn that so was the tent itself (19). + + [FOR VERSES 20, 21, see page 423.] + +We are now in a position to ask what sentiment all these arrangements +would inspire in the mind of the simple and somewhat superstitious +worshippers. + +Approaching it from outside, the linen enclosure (being seven feet and a +half high) would conceal everything but the great roof of the tent, one +uniform red, except for the sealskin covering along the summit. A gloomy +and menacing prospect, broken possibly by some gleams, if the curtain of +the gable were drawn back, from the gold with which every portion of the +shrine within was plated. + +So does the world outside look askance upon the Church, discerning a +mysterious suggestion everywhere of sternness and awe, yet with flashes +of strange splendour and affluence underneath the gloom. + +In this place God is known to be: it is a tent, not really “of the +congregation,” but “of meeting” between Jehovah and His people: “the +tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, ... and +there I will meet with the children of Israel” (xxix. 42–3). And so the +Israelite, though troubled by sin and fear, is attracted to the gate, +and enters. Right in front stands the altar: this obtrudes itself before +all else upon his attention: he must learn its lesson first of all. +Especially will he feel that this is so if a sacrifice is now to be +offered, since the official must go farther into the court to wash at +the laver, and then return; so that a loss of graduated arrangement has +been accepted in order to force the altar to the front. And he will soon +learn that not only must every approach to the sacred things within be +heralded by sacrifice upon this altar, but the blood of the victim must +be carried as a passport into the shrine. Surely he remembers how the +blood of the lamb saved his own life when the firstborn of Egypt died: +he knows that it is written “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 (or lives): for it is the blood that maketh atonement by +reason of the life (or soul)” (Lev. xvii. 11). + +No Hebrew could watch his fellow-sinner lay his hand on a victim’s head, +and confess his sin before the blow fell on it, without feeling that sin +was being, in some mysterious sense, “borne” for him. The intricacies of +our modern theology would not disturb him, but this is the sentiment by +which the institutions of the tabernacle assuredly ministered comfort +and hope to him. Strong would be his hope as he remembered that the +service and its solace were not of human devising, that God had “given +it to him upon the altar to make atonement for his soul.” + +Taking courage, therefore, the worshipper dares to lift up his eyes. And +beyond the altar he sees a vision of dazzling magnificence. The inner +roof, most unlike the sullen red of the exterior, is blazing with +various colours, and embroidered with emblems of the mysterious +creatures of the sky, winged, yet not utterly afar from human in their +suggestiveness. Encompassed and looked down into by these is the +tabernacle, all of gold. If the curtain is raised he sees a chamber +which tells what the earth should be—a place of consecrated energies +and resources, and of sacred illumination, the oil of God burning in the +sevenfold vessel of the Church. Is this blessed place for him, and may +he enter? Ah, no! and surely his heart would grow heavy with +consciousness that reconciliation was not yet made perfect, when he +learned that he must never approach the place where God had promised to +meet with him. + +Much less might he penetrate the awful chamber within, the true home of +deity. There, he knows, is the record of the mind of God, the +concentrated expression of what is comparatively easy to obey in act, +but difficult beyond hope to love, to accept and to be conformed to. +That record is therefore at once the revelation of God and the +condemnation of His creature. Yet over this, he knows well, there is +poised no dead image such as were then adored in Babylonian and Egyptian +fanes, but a spiritual Presence, the glory of the invisible God. Nor was +He to be thought of as in solitude, loveless, or else needing human +love: above Him were the woven seraphim of the curtain, and on either +side a seraph of beaten gold—types, it may be, of all the created life +which He inhabits, or else pictures of His sinless creatures of the +upper world. And yet this pure Being, to Whom the companionship of +sinful man is so little needed, is there to meet with man; and is +pleased not to look upon His violated law, but to command that a slab, +inestimably precious, shall interpose between it and its Avenger. By +whom, then, shall this most holy floor be trodden? By the official +representative of him who gazes, and longs, and is excluded. He enters +not without blood, which he is careful to sprinkle upon all the +furniture, but chiefly and seven times upon the mercy-seat. + +Thus every worshipper carries away a profound consciousness that he is +utterly unworthy, and yet that his unworthiness has been expiated; that +he is excluded, and yet that his priest, his representative, has been +admitted, and therefore that he may hope. The Holy Ghost did not declare +by sign that no way into the Holiest existed, but only that it was not +yet made manifest. Not yet. + +This leads us to think of the priest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +_“THE HOLY GARMENTS.”_ + +xxviii. + +The tabernacle being complete, the priesthood has to be provided for. +Its dignity is intimated by the command to Moses to bring his brother +Aaron and his sons near to himself (clearly in rank, because the object +is defined, “that he may minister unto Me”), and also by the direction +to make “holy garments for glory and for beauty.” But just as the +furniture is treated before the shrine, and again before the courtyard, +so the vestments are provided before the priesthood is itself discussed. + +The holiness of the raiment implies that separation to office can be +expressed by official robes in the Church as well as in the state; and +their glory and beauty show that God, Who has clothed His creation with +splendour and with loveliness, does not dissever religious feeling from +artistic expression. + +All that are wise-hearted in such work, being inspired by God as really, +though not as profoundly, as if their task were to foretell the advent +of Messiah, are to unite their labours upon these garments. + +The order in the twenty-eighth chapter is perhaps that of their visible +importance. But it will be clearer to describe them in the order in +which they were put on. + +Next the flesh all the priests were clad from the loins to the thighs in +close-fitting linen: the indecency of many pagan rituals must be far +from them, and this was a perpetual ordinance, “that they bear not +iniquity and die” (xxviii. 42–3). + +Over this was a tight-fitting “coat” (a shirt rather) of fine linen, +white, but woven in a chequered pattern, without seam, like the robe of +Jesus, and bound together with a girdle (39–43). + +These garments were common to all the priests; but their “head-tires” +differed from the impressive mitre of the high priest. The rest of the +vestments in this chapter belong to him alone. + +Over the “coat” he wore the flowing “robe of the ephod,” all blue, +little seen from the waist up, but uncovered thence to the feet, and +surrounded at the hem with golden pomegranates, the emblem of +fruitfulness, and with bells to enable the worshippers outside to follow +the movements of their representative. He should die if this expression +of his vicarious function were neglected (31–35). + +Above this robe was the ephod itself—a kind of gorgeous jacket, made in +two pieces which were joined at the shoulders, and bound together at the +waist by a cunningly woven band, which was of the same piece. This +ephod, like the curtains of the tabernacle, was of blue and purple and +scarlet and fine-twined linen; but added to these were threads of gold, +and we read, as if this were a novelty which needed to be explained, +that they beat the gold into thin plates and then cut it into threads +(xxxix. 3, xxviii. 6–8). + +Upon the shoulders were two stones, rightly perhaps called onyx, and set +in “ouches”—of filagree work, as the word seems to say. Upon them were +engraven the names of the twelve tribes, the burden of whose sins and +sorrows he should bear into the presence of his God, “for a memorial” +(9–12). + +Upon the ephod was the breastplate, fastened to it by rings and chains +of twisted gold, made to fold over into a square, a span in measurement, +and blazing with twelve gems, upon which were engraved, as upon the +onyxes on the shoulders, the names of the twelve tribes. All attempts to +derive edification from the nature of these jewels must be governed by +the commonplace reflection that we cannot identify them; and many of the +present names are incorrect. It is almost certain that neither topaz, +sapphire nor diamond could have been engraved, as these stones were, +with the name of one of the twelve tribes (13–30). + +“In the breastplate” (that is, evidently, between the folds as it was +doubled), were placed those mysterious means of ascertaining the will of +God, the Urim and the Thummim, the Lights and the Perfections; but of +their nature, or of the manner in which they became significant, nothing +can be said that is not pure conjecture (30). + +Lastly, there was a mitre of white linen, and upon it was laced with +blue cords a gold plate bearing the inscription “HOLY TO JEHOVAH” (36, +37). + +No mention is made of shoes or sandals; and both from the commandment to +Moses at the burning bush, and from history, it is certain that the +priests officiated with their feet bare. + +The picture thus completed has the clearest ethical significance. There +is modesty, reverence, purity, innocence typified by whiteness, the +grandeur of the office of intercession displayed in the rich colours and +precious jewels by which that whiteness was relieved, sympathy +expressed by the names of the people in the breastplate that heaved with +every throb of his heart, responsibility confessed by the same names +upon the shoulder, where the government was said to press like a load +(Isa. ix. 6); and over all, at once the condition and the explanation of +the rest, upon the seat of intelligence itself, the golden inscription +on the forehead, “Holy to Jehovah.” + +Such was the import of the raiment of the high priest: let us see how it +agrees with the nature of his office. + + +_THE PRIESTHOOD._ + +What, then, are the central ideas connected with the institution of a +priesthood? + +Regarding it in the broadest way, and as a purely human institution, we +may trace it back to the eternal conflict in the breast of man between +two mighty tendencies—the thirst for God and the dread of Him, a strong +instinct of approach and a repelling sense of unworthiness. + +In every age and climate, man prays. If any curious inquirer into savage +habits can point to the doubtful exception of a tribe seemingly without +a ritual, he will not really show that religion is one with +superstition; for they who are said to have escaped its grasp are never +the most advanced and civilised among their fellows upon that +account,—they are the most savage and debased, they are to humanity +what the only people which has formally renounced God is fast becoming +among the European races. + +Certainly history cannot exhibit one community, progressive, energetic +and civilised, which did not feel that more was needful and might be had +than its own resources could supply, and stretch aloft to a Supreme +Being the hands which were so deft to handle the weapon and the tool. +Certainly all experience proves that the foundations of national +greatness are laid in national piety, so that the practical result of +worship, and of the belief that God responds, has not been to dull the +energies of man, but to inspire him with the self-respect befitting a +confidant of deity, and to brace him for labours worthy of one who +draws, from the sense of Divine favour, the hope of an infinite advance. + +And yet, side by side with this spiritual gravitation, there has always +been recoil and dread, such as was expressed when Moses hid his face +because he was afraid to look upon God. + +Now, it is not this apprehension, taken alone, which proves man to be a +fallen creature: it is the combination of the dread of God with the +desire of Him. Why should we shrink from our supreme Good, except as a +sick man turns away from his natural food? He is in an unnatural and +morbid state of body, and we of soul. + +Thus divided between fear and attraction, man has fallen upon the device +of commissioning some one to represent him before God. The priest on +earth has come by the same road with so many other mediators—angel and +demigod, saint and virgin. + +At first it has been the secular chief of the family, tribe or nation, +who has seemed least unworthy to negotiate as well with heaven as with +centres of interest upon earth. But by degrees the duty has everywhere +been transferred into professional hands, patriarch and king recoiling, +feeling the inconsistency of his earthly duties with these sacred ones, +finding his hands to be too soiled and his heart too heavily weighted +with sin for the tremendous Presence into which the family or the tribe +would press him. And yet the union of the two functions might be the +ideal; and the sigh of all truly enlightened hearts might be for a +priest sitting upon his throne, a priest after the order of Melchizedek. +But thus it came to pass that an official, a clique, perhaps a family, +was chosen from among men in things pertaining to God, and the +institution of the priesthood was perfected. + +Now, this is the very process which is recognised in Scripture; for +these two conflicting forces were altogether sound and right. Man ought +to desire God, for Whom he was created, and Whose voice in the garden +was once so welcome: but also he ought to shrink back from Him, afraid +now, because he is conscious of his own nakedness, because he has eaten +of the forbidden fruit. + +Accordingly, as the nation is led out from Egypt, we find that its +intercourse with heaven is at once real and indirect. The leader is +virtually the priest as well, at whose intercession Amalek is vanquished +and the sin of the golden calf is pardoned, who entered the presence of +God and received the law upon their behalf, when they feared to hear His +voice lest they should die, and by whose hand the blood of the covenant +was sprinkled upon the people, when they had sworn to obey all that the +Lord had said (xvii. 11, xxxii. 30, xx. 19, xxiv. 8). + +Soon, however, the express command of God provided for an orthodox and +edifying transfer of the priestly function from Moses to his brother +Aaron. Some such division of duties between the secular chief and the +religious priest would no doubt have come, in Israel as elsewhere, as +soon as Moses disappeared; but it might have come after a very different +fashion, associated with heresy and schism. Especially would it have +been demanded why the family of Moses, if the chieftainship must pass +away from it, could not retain the religious leadership. We know how +cogent such a plea would have appeared; for, although the transfer was +made publicly and by his own act, yet no sooner did the nation begin to +split into tribal subdivisions, amid the confused efforts of each to +conquer its own share of the inheritance, than we find the grandson of +Moses securely establishing himself and his posterity in the apostate +and semi-idolatrous worship of Shechem (Judg. xviii. 30, R.V.). + +And why should not this illustrious family have been chosen? + +Perhaps because it was so illustrious. A priesthood of that great line +might seem to have earned its office, and to claim special access to +God, like the heathen priests, by virtue of some special desert. +Therefore the honour was transferred to the far less eminent line of +Aaron, and that in the very hour when he was lending his help to the +first great apostacy, the type of the many idolatries into which Israel +was yet to fall. So, too, the whole tribe of Levi was in some sense +consecrated, not for its merit, but because, through the sin of its +founder, it lacked a place and share among its brethren, being divided +in Jacob and scattered in Israel by reason of the massacre of Shechem +(Gen. xlix. 7). + +Thus the nation, conscious of its failure to enjoy intercourse with +heaven, found an authorised expression for its various and conflicting +emotions. It was not worthy to commune with God, and yet it could not +rest without Him. Therefore a spokesman, a representative, an +ambassador, was given to it. But he was chosen after such a fashion as +to shut out any suspicion that the merit of Levi had prevailed where +that of Israel at large had failed. It was not because Levi executed +vengeance on the idolaters that he was chosen, for the choice was +already made, and made in the person of Aaron, who was so far from +blameless in that offence. + +And perhaps this is the distinguishing peculiarity of the Jewish priest +among others: that he was chosen from among his brethren, and simply as +one of them; so that while his office was a proof of their exclusion, it +was also a kind of sacrament of their future admission, because he was +their brother and their envoy, and entered not as outshining but as +representing them, their forerunner for them entering. The almond rod of +Aaron was dry and barren as the rest, until the miraculous power of God +invested it with blossoms and fruit. + +Throughout the ritual, the utmost care was taken to inculcate this +double lesson of the ministry. Into the Holy Place, whence the people +were excluded, a whole family could enter. But there was an inner +shrine, whither only the high priest might penetrate, thus reducing the +family to a level with the nation; “the Holy Ghost this signifying, that +the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been made manifest, while as +the first tabernacle (the outer shrine—ver. 6) was yet standing” (Heb. +ix. 8). + +Thus the people felt a deeper awe, a broader separation. And yet, when +the sole and only representative who was left to them entered that +“shrine, remote, occult, untrod,” they saw that the way was not wholly +barred against human footsteps: the lesson suggested was far from being +that of absolute despair,—it was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews said, +“Not yet.” The prophet Zechariah foresaw a time when the bells of the +horses should bear the same consecrating legend that shone upon the +forehead of the priest: HOLY UNTO THE LORD (Zech. xiv. 20). + +It is important to observe that the only book of the New Testament in +which the priesthood is discussed dwells quite as largely upon the +difference as upon the likeness between the Aaronic and the Messianic +priest. The latter offered but one Sacrifice for sins, the former +offered for himself before doing so for the people (Heb. x. 12). The +latter was a royal Priest, and of the order of a Canaanite (Heb. vii. +1–4), thus breaking down all the old system at one long-predicted +blow—for if He were on earth He could not so much as be a priest at all +(Heb. viii. 4)—and with it all the old racial monopolies, all class +distinctions, being Himself of a tribe as to which Moses spake nothing +concerning priests (Heb. vii. 14). Every priest standeth, but this +priest hath for ever sat down, and even at the right hand of God (Heb. +x. 11, 12). + +In one sense this priesthood belongs to Christ alone. In another sense +it belongs to all who are made one with Him, and therefore a kingly +priesthood unto God. But nowhere in the New Testament is the name by +which He is designated bestowed upon any earthly minister by virtue of +his office. The presbyter is never called _sacerdos_. And perhaps the +heaviest blow ever dealt to popular theology was the misapplying of the +New Testament epithet (elder, presbyter or priest) to designate the +sacerdotal functions of the Old Testament, and those of Christ which +they foreshadowed. It is not the word “priest” that is at fault, but +some other word for the Old Testament official which is lacking, and +cannot now be supplied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +_THE CONSECRATION SERVICES._ + +xxix. + +The priest being now selected, and his raiment so provided as that it +shall speak of his office and its glory, there remains his consecration. + +In our day there is a disposition to make light of the formal setting +apart of men and things for sacred uses. If God, we are asked, has +called one to special service, is not that enough? What more can earth +do to commission the chosen of the sky? But the plain answer which we +ought to have the courage to return is that this is not at all enough. +For God Himself had already called Paul and Barnabas when He said to +such folk as Simeon Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen, “Separate Me +Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts xiii. +1–4). And these obscure people not only laid their hands upon the great +apostle, but actually sent him forth. Now, if he was not exempted from +the need of an orderly commission by the marvellous circumstances of his +call, by his apostleship not of man, by the explicit announcement that +he was a chosen vessel to bear the sacred name before kings and peoples, +it is startling to be told of some shallow modern evangelist, who works +for no Church and submits to no discipline, that he can dispense with +the sanction of human ordination because he is so clearly sent of +heaven. + +The example of the Old Testament will no doubt be brushed aside as if +the religion which Jesus learned and honoured were a mere human +superstition. Or else it would be natural to ask, Is it because the +offices and functions of Judaism were more formal, more perfunctory than +ours, that a greater spiritual grace went with their appointments than +with the laying on of hands in the Christian Church, a rite so clearly +sanctioned in the New Testament? + +It is written of Joshua that Moses was to lay his hands upon him, +because already the Spirit was in him; and of Timothy that he had +unfeigned faith, and that prophecies went before concerning him (Num. +xxvii. 18; 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. i. 5). But in neither dispensation did +special grace fail to accompany the official separation to sacred +office: Joshua was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his +hands upon him; and Timothy was bidden to stir into flame that gift of +God which was in him through the laying on of the Apostle’s hands (Deut +xxxiv. 9; 2 Tim. i. 6). + +Accordingly there is great stress laid upon the orderly institution of +the priest. And yet, to make it plain that his authority is only “for +his brethren,” Moses, the chief of the nation, is to officiate +throughout the ceremony of consecration. He it is who shall offer the +sacrifices upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood, not upon the first +day only, but throughout the ceremonies of the week. + +In the first place certain victims must be held in readiness—a bullock +and two rams; and with these must be brought in one basket unleavened +bread, and unleavened cakes made with oil, and unleavened wafers on +which oil is poured. Then, at the door of the tent of the meeting of man +with God, a ceremonial washing must follow, in a laver yet to be +provided. Here the assertion that purity is needed, and that it is not +inherent, is too plain to be dwelt upon. + +But such details as the assuming of the existence of a laver, for which +no directions have yet been given (and presently also of the anointing +oil, the composition of which is still untold), deserve notice. They are +much more in the manner of one who is working out a plan, seen already +by his mental vision, but of which only the salient and essential parts +have been as yet stated, than of any priest of the latter days, who +would first have completed his catalogue of the furniture, and only then +have described the ceremonies in which he was accustomed to see all this +apparatus take its appointed place. + +What we actually find is quite natural to a creative imagination, +striking out the broad design of the work and its uses first, and then +filling in the outlines. It is not natural at a time when freshness and +inspiration have departed, and squared timber, as we are told, has taken +the place of the living tree. + +The priest, when cleansed, was next to be clad in his robes of office, +with the mitre on his head, and upon the mitre the golden plate, with +its inscription, which is here called, as the culminating object in all +his rich array, “the holy crown” (ver. 6). + +And then he was to be anointed. Now, the use of oil, in the ceremony of +investiture to office, is peculiar to revealed religion. And whether we +suppose it to refer to the oil in a lamp, invisible, yet the secret +source of all its illuminating power, or to that refreshment and +renovated strength bestowed upon a weary traveller when his head is +anointed with oil, in either case it expresses the grand doctrine of +revealed religion—that no office may be filled in one’s own strength, +but that the inspiring help of God is offered, as surely as +responsibilities are imposed. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, +because He hath anointed Me.” + +With these three ceremonies—ablution, robing and anointing—the first +and most personal section of the ritual ended. And now began a course of +sacrifices to God, advancing from the humblest expression of sin, and +appeal to heaven to overlook the unworthiness of its servant, to that +which best exhibited conscious acceptance, enjoyment of privilege, +admission to a feast with God. The bullock was a sin-offering: the word +is literally _sin_, and occurs more than once in the double sense: “let +him offer for his _sin_ which he hath _sinned_ a young bullock ... for a +_sin(-offering)_” (Lev. iv. 3, v. 6, etc.). And this is the explanation +of the verse which has perplexed so many: “He made Him to be sin for us, +Who knew no sin” (2 Cor. v. 21). The doctrine that pardon comes not by a +cheap and painless overlooking of transgression, as a thing indifferent, +but by the transfer of its consequences to a victim divinely chosen, +could not easily find clearer expression than in this word. And it was +surely a sobering experience, and a wholesome one, when Aaron, in his +glorious robes, sparkling with gems, and bearing on his forehead the +legend of his holy calling, laid his hand, beside those of his children +and successors, upon the doomed creature which was made sin for him. The +gesture meant confession, acceptance of the appointed expiation, +submission to be freed from guilt by a method so humiliating and +admonitory. There was no undue exaltation in the mind of any priest +whose heart went with this “remembrance of sins.” + +The bullock was immediately slain at the door of “the tent of meeting”; +and to show that the shedding of his blood was an essential part of the +rite, part of it was put with the finger on the horns of the altar, and +the remainder was poured out at the base. Only then might the fat and +the kidney be burned upon the altar; but it is never said of any +sin-offering, as presently of the burnt-offering and the +peace-offerings, that it is “a sweet savour before Jehovah” (vers. 18, +25)—a phrase which is only once extended to a trespass-offering for a +purely unconscious lapse (Lev. iv. 31). The sin-offering is, at the +best, a deplorable necessity. And therefore the notion of a gift, +welcome to Jehovah, is carefully shut out: no portion of such an +offering may go to maintain the priests: all must be burned “with fire +without the camp; it is a sin-offering” (ver. 14). Rightly does the +Epistle to the Hebrews emphasize this fact: “The bodies of those beasts +whose blood is brought into the Holy Place ... as an offering for sin” +are burned without the camp. The bodies of other sacrifices were not +reckoned unfit for food.[40] And so there is a striking example of +humility, as well as an instructive coincidence, in the fact that Jesus +suffered without the gate, being the true Sin-offering, “that He might +sanctify the people through His own blood” (Heb. xiii. 11, 12). + +Thus, by sacrifice for sin, the priest is rendered fit to offer up to +God the symbol of a devoted life. Again, therefore, the hands of Aaron +and his sons are laid upon the head of the ram, because they come to +offer what represents themselves in another sense than that of +expiation—a sweet savour now, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah +(ver. 18). And to show that it is perfectly acceptable to Him, the whole +ram shall be burnt upon the altar, and not now without the camp: “it is +a burnt-offering unto the Lord.” Such is the appointed way of God with +man—first expiation, then devotion. + +The third animal was a “peace-offering” (ver. 28). This is wrongly +explained to mean an offering by which peace is made, for then there +could be no meaning in what went before. It is the offering of one who +is now in a state of peace with God, and who is therefore himself, in +many cases, allowed to partake of what he brings. But on this occasion +some quite peculiar ceremonies were introduced, and the ram is called by +a strange name—“the ram of consecration.” When Aaron and his sons have +again declared their connection with the animal by laying their hands +upon it, it is slain. And then the blood is applied to the tip of their +right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the great toe of their +right foot, that the ear may hearken, and the best energies obey, and +their life become as that of the consecrated animal, their bodies being +presented, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Then the same +blood, with the oil which spoke of heavenly anointing, was sprinkled +upon them and upon their official robes, and all were hallowed. Then the +fattest and richest parts of the animal were taken, with a loaf, a cake, +and a wafer from the basket, and placed in the hands of Aaron and his +sons. This was their formal investiture with official rights; although +not yet performing service, it was as priests that they received these; +and their hands, swayed by those of Moses, solemnly waved them before +the Lord in formal presentation, after which the pieces were consumed by +fire. The breast was likewise waved, and became the perpetual property +of Aaron and his sons—although on this occasion it passed from their +hands to be the portion of Moses, who officiated. The remainder of the +flesh, seethed in a holy place, belonged to Aaron and his sons. No +stranger (of another family) might eat it, and what was left until +morning should be consumed by fire, that is to say, destroyed in a +manner absolutely clean, seeing no corruption. + +For seven days this rite of consecration was repeated; and every day the +altar also was cleansed, rendering it most holy, so that whatever +touched it was holy. + +Thus the people saw their representative and chief purified, accepted +and devoted. Thenceforward, when they too brought their offerings, and +beheld them presented (in person or through his subordinates) by the +high priest with holiness emblazoned upon his brow, they gained hope, +and even assurance, since one so consecrated was bidden to present their +intercession; and sometimes they saw him pass into secret places of +mysterious sanctity, bearing their tribal name on his shoulder and his +bosom, while the chime of golden bells announced his movements, +ministering there for them. + +But the nation as a whole, with which this historical book is chiefly +interested, saw in the high priest the means of continually rendering to +God the service of its loyalty. Every day began and closed with the +burnt-offering of a lamb of the first year, along with a meal-offering +of fine flour and oil, and a drink-offering of wine. This would be a +sweet savour unto God, not after the carnal fashion in which sceptics +have interpreted the words, but in the same sense in which the wicked +are a smoke in His nostrils from a continually burning fire. + +And where this offering was made, the Omnipresent would meet with them. +There He would convey His mind to His priest. There also He would meet +with all the people—not occasionally, as amid the more impressive but +less tolerable splendours of Sinai, but to dwell among them and be their +God. And they should know that all this was true, and also that for this +He led them out of Egypt: “I am Jehovah their God.” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[40] Neither, it must be added, were the bodies of certain sin-offerings +of the lower grade, and in which the priest was not personally concerned +(Lev. x. 17, etc.). + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +_INCENSE._ + +xxx. 1–10. + +The altar of incense was not mentioned when the tent of meeting was +being prepared and furnished. But when, in the Divine idea, this is +done, when all is ready for the intercourse of God and man, and the +priest and the daily victims are provided for, something more than this +formal routine of offerings might yet be sought for. This material +worship of the senses, this round of splendour and of tragedy, this +blaze of gold and gold-encrusted timber, these curtains embroidered in +bright colours, and ministers glowing with gems, this blood and fire +upon the altar, this worldly sanctuary,—was it all? Or should it not do +as nature ever does, which seems to stretch its hands out into the +impalpable, and to grow all but spiritual while we gaze; so that the +mountain folds itself in vapour, and the ocean in mist and foam, and the +rugged stem of the tree is arrayed in fineness of quivering frondage, +and it may be of tinted blossom, and around it breathes a subtle +fragrance, the most impalpable existence known to sense? Fragrance +indeed is matter passing into the immaterial, it is the sigh of the +sensuous for the spiritual state of being, it is an aspiration. + +And therefore an altar, smaller than that of burnt-offering, but much +more precious, being plated all around and on the top with gold (a +“golden altar”) (xxxix. 38), is now to be prepared, on which incense of +sweet spices should be burned whenever a burnt-offering spoke of human +devotion, and especially when the daily lamb was offered, every morning +and every night. + +This altar occupied a significant position. Of necessity, it was without +the Most Holy Place, or else it would have been practically +inaccessible; and yet it was spiritually in the closest connection with +the presence of God within. The Epistle to the Hebrews reckons it among +the furniture of the inner shrine[41] (Heb. ix. 4), close to the veil of +which it stood, and within which its burning odours made their sweetness +palpable. In the temple of Solomon it was “the altar that belonged to +the oracle” (1 Kings vi. 22). In Leviticus (xvi. 12) incense was +connected especially with that spot in the Most Holy Place which best +expressed the grace that it appealed to, and “the cloud of incense” was +to “cover the mercy-seat.” Therefore Moses was bidden to put this altar +“before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the +mercy-seat” (ver. 6). + +It can never have been difficult to see the meaning of the rite for +which this altar was provided. When Zacharias burned incense the +multitude stood without, praying. The incense in the vial of the angel +of the Apocalypse was the prayers of the saints (Luke i. 10; Rev. viii. +3). And, long before, when the Psalmist thought of the priest +approaching the veil which concealed the Supreme Presence, and there +kindling precious spices until their aromatic breath became a silent +plea within, it seemed to him that his own heart was even such an altar, +whence the perfumed flame of holy longings might be wafted into the +presence of his God, and he whispered, “Let my prayer be set forth +before Thee as incense” (Ps. cxli. 2). + +Such being the import of the type, we need not wonder that it was a +perpetual ordinance in their generations, nor yet that no strange +perfume might be offered, but only what was prescribed by God. The +admixture with prayer of any human, self-asserting, intrusive element, +is this unlawful fragrance. It is rhetoric in the leader of extempore +prayer; studied inflexions in the conductor of liturgical service; +animal excitement, or sentimental pensiveness, or assent which is merely +vocal, among the worshippers. It is whatever professes to be prayer, and +is not that but a substitute. And formalism is an empty censer. + +But, however earnest and pure may seem to be the breathing of the soul +to God, something unworthy mingles with what is best in man. The very +altar of incense needs to have an atonement made for it once in the year +throughout their generations with the blood of the sin-offering of +atonement. The prayer of every heart which knows its own secret will be +this: + + “Forgive what seemed my sin in me, + What seemed my worth since I began; + For merit lives from man to man + And not from man, O Lord, to Thee.” + + +_THE CENSUS._ + +xxx. 11–16. + +Moses by Divine command was soon to number Israel, and thus to lay the +foundation for its organisation upon the march. A census was not, +therefore, supposed to be presumptuous or sinful in itself; it was the +vain-glory of David’s census which was culpable. + +But the honour of being numbered among the people of God should awaken a +sense of unworthiness. Men had reason to fear lest the enrolment of such +as they were in the host of God should produce a pestilence to sweep out +the unclean from among the righteous. At least they must make some +practical admission of their demerit. And therefore every man of twenty +years who passed over unto them that were numbered (it is a picturesque +glimpse that is here given into the method of enrolment) should offer +for his soul a ransom of half a shekel after the shekel of the +sanctuary. And because it was a ransom, the tribute was the same for +all; the poor might not bring less, nor the rich more. Here was a grand +assertion of the equality of all souls in the eyes of God—a seed which +long ages might overlook, but which was sure to fructify in its +appointed time. + +For indeed the madness of modern levelling systems is only their attempt +to level down instead of up, their dream that absolute equality can be +obtained, or being obtained can be made a blessing, by the envious +demolition of all that is lofty, and not by all together claiming the +supreme elevation, the measure of the stature of manhood in Jesus +Christ. + +It is not in any _phalanstère_ of Fourier or Harmony Hall of Owen, that +mankind will ever learn to break a common bread and drink of a common +cup; it is at the table of a common Lord. + +And so this first assertion of the equality of man was given to those +who all ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink. + +This half-shekel gradually became an annual impost, levied for the great +expenses of the Temple. “Thus Joash made a proclamation throughout Judah +and Jerusalem, to bring in for the Lord the tax that Moses, the servant +of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness” (2 Chron. xxiv. 9). + +And it was the claim for this impost, too rashly conceded by Peter with +regard to his Master, which led Jesus to distinguish clearly between His +own relation to God and that of others, even of the chosen race. + +He paid no ransom for His soul. He was a Son, in a sense in which no +other, even of the Jews, could claim to be so. Now, the kings of the +earth did not levy tribute from their sons; so that, if Christ paid, it +was not to fulfil a duty, but to avoid being an offence. And God Himself +would provide, directly and miraculously, what He did not demand from +Jesus. Therefore it was that, on this one occasion and no other, Christ +Who sought figs when hungry, and when athirst asked water at alien +hands, met His own personal requirement by a miracle, as if to protest +in deed, as in word, against any burden from such an obligation as +Peter’s rashness had conceded. + +And yet, with that marvellous condescension which shone most brightly +when He most asserted His prerogative, He admitted Peter also to a share +in this miraculous redemption-money, as He admits us all to a share in +His glory in the skies. Is it not He only Who can redeem His brother, +and give to God a ransom for him? + +It is the silver thus levied which was used in the construction of the +sanctuary. All the other materials were free-will offerings; but even as +the entire tabernacle was based upon the ponderous sockets into which +the boards were fitted, made of the silver of this tax, so do all our +glad and willing services depend upon this fundamental truth, that we +are unworthy even to be reckoned His, that we owe before we can bestow, +that we are only allowed to offer any gift because He is so merciful in +His demand. Israel gladly brought much more than was needed of all +things precious. But first, as an absolutely imperative ransom, God +demanded from each soul the half of three shillings and sevenpence. + + +_THE LAVER._ + +xxx. 17–21. + +For the cleansing of various sacrifices, but especially for the +ceremonial washing of the priests, a laver of brass was to be made, and +placed upon a separate base, the more easily to be emptied and +replenished. + +We have seen already that although its actual use preceded that of the +altar, yet the other stood in front of it, as if to assert, to the very +eyes of all men, that sacrifice precedes purification. But the use of +the laver was not by the man as man, but by the priest as mediator. In +his office he represented the absolute purity of Christ. And therefore +it was a capital offence to enter the tabernacle or to burn a sacrifice +without first having washed the hands and feet. At his inauguration, the +whole person of the priest was bathed, and thenceforth he needed not +save to remove the stains of contact with the world. + +When the laver was actually made, an interesting fact was recorded about +its materials: “He made the laver of brass, and the base of it of brass, +of the mirrors of the serving-women which served at the door of the tent +of meeting” (xxxviii. 8). Thus their instruments of personal adornment +were applied to further a personal preparation of a more solemn kind, +like the ointment with which a penitent woman anointed the feet of +Jesus. There is a fitness which ought to be considered in the direction +of our gifts, not as a matter of duty, but of good taste and charm. And +thus also they continually saw the monument of their self-sacrifice. +There is an innocent satisfaction, far indeed from vanity, when one +looks at his own work for God. + + +_THE ANOINTING OIL AND THE INCENSE._ + +xxx. 22–38. + +We have already seen the meaning of the anointing oil and of the +incense. + +But we have further to remark that their ingredients were accurately +prescribed, that they were to be the best and rarest of their kind, and +that special skill was demanded in their preparation. + +Such was the natural dictate of reverence in preparing the symbols of +God’s grace to man, and of man’s appeal to God. + +With the type of grace should be anointed the tent and the ark, and the +table of shewbread and the candlestick, with all their implements, and +the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt sacrifice and the laver. +All the import of every portion of the Temple worship could be realized +only by the outpouring of the Spirit of grace. + +It was added that this should be a holy anointing oil, not to be made, +much less used, for common purposes, on pain of death. The same was +enacted of the incense which should burn before Jehovah: “according to +the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves; it shall be +unto thee holy for the Lord: whosoever shall make like unto that, to +smell thereto, he shall be cut off from his people.” + +And this was meant to teach reverence. One might urge that the spices +and frankincense and salt were not in themselves sacred: there was no +consecrating efficacy in their combination, no charm or spell in the +union of these, more than of any other drugs. Why, then, should they be +denied to culture? Why should her resources be thus restricted? Does any +one suppose that such arguments belong peculiarly to the New Testament +spirit, or that the saints of the older dispensation had any +superstitious views about these ingredients? If it was through such +notions that they abstained from vulgarising its use, then they were on +the way to paganism, through a materialised worship. + +But in truth they knew as well as we that gums were only gums, just as +they knew that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands. +And yet they were bidden to reverence both the shrine and the apparatus +of His worship, for their own sakes, for the solemnity and sobriety of +their feelings, not because God would be a loser if they did otherwise. +And we may well ask ourselves, in these latter days, whether the +constant proposal to secularise religious buildings, revenues, +endowments and seasons does really indicate greater religious freedom, +or only greater freedom from religious control. + +And we may be sure that a light treatment of sacred subjects and sacred +words is a very dangerous symptom: it is not the words and subjects +alone that are being secularised, but also our own souls. + +There is in our time a curious tendency among men of letters to use holy +things for a mere perfume, that literature may “smell thereto.” + +A novelist has chosen for the title of a story “Just as I am.” An +innocent and graceful poet has seen a smile,— + + “’Twas such a smile, + Aaron’s twelve jewels seemed to mix + With the lamps of the golden candlesticks.” + +Another is bolder, and sings of the war of love,— + + “In the great battle when the hosts are met + On Armageddon’s plain, with spears beset.” + +Another thinks of Mazzini as the + + “Dear lord and leader, at whose hand + The first days and the last days stand,” + +and again as he who + + “Said, when all Time’s sea was foam, + ‘Let there be Rome,’ and there was Rome.” + +And Victor Hugo did not shrink from describing, and that with a strange +and scandalous ignorance of the original incidents, the crucifixion by +Louis Napoleon of the Christ of nations. + +Now, Scripture is literature, besides being a great deal more; and, as +such, it is absurd to object to all allusions to it in other +literature. Yet the tendency of which these extracts are examples is not +merely toward allusion, but desecration of solemn and sacred thoughts: +it is the conversion of incense into perfumery. + +There is another development of the same tendency, by no means modern, +noted by the prophet when he complains that the message of God has +become as the “very lovely song of one who hath a pleasant voice and +playeth well on an instrument.” Wherever divine service is only +appreciated in so far as it is “well rendered,” as rich music or stately +enunciation charm the ear, and the surroundings are æsthetic,—wherever +the gospel is heard with enjoyment only of the eloquence or +controversial skill of its rendering, wherever religion is reduced by +the cultivated to a thrill or to a solace, or by the Salvationist to a +riot or a romp, wherever Isaiah and the Psalms are only admired as +poetry, and heaven is only thought of as a languid and sentimental +solace amid wearying cares,—there again is a making of the sacred balms +to smell thereto. + +And as often as a minister of God finds in his holy office a mere outlet +for his natural gifts of rhetoric or of administration, he also is +tempted to commit this crime. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] For it is incredible that, in a catalogue of furniture which +included Aaron’s rod and the pot of manna, this altar should be +omitted, and “a golden censer,” elsewhere unheard of, +substituted. The gloss is too evidently an endeavour to get rid of a +difficulty. But in idea and suggestion this altar belonged to the Most +Holy. That shrine “had” it, though it actually stood +outside. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +_BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB._ + +xxxi. 1–18. + +Next after this marking off so sharply of the holy from the profane, +this consecration of men to special service, this protection of sacred +unguents and sacred gums from secular use, we come upon a passage +curiously contrasted, yet not really antagonistic to the last, of +marvellous practical wisdom, and well calculated to make a nation wise +and great. + +The Lord announces that He has called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, +and has filled him with the Spirit of God. To what sacred office, then, +is he called? Simply to be a supreme craftsman, the rarest of artisans. +This also is a divine gift. “I have filled him with the Spirit of God in +wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of +workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and +in brass and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, +to work in all manner of workmanship,”—that is to say, of manual +dexterity. With him God had appointed Aholiab; “and in the hearts of all +the wise-hearted I have put wisdom.” Thus should be fitly made the +tabernacle and its furniture, and the finely wrought garments, and the +anointing oil and the incense. + +So then it appears that the Holy Spirit of God is to be recognised in +the work of the carpenter and the jeweller, the apothecary and the +tailor. Probably we object to such a statement, so baldly put. But +inspiration does not object. Moses told the children of Israel that +Jehovah had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, and also Aholiab, +for the work “of the engraver ... and of the embroiderer ... and of the +weaver” (xxxv. 31, 35). + +It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as +inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and +beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the +supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left +to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of +the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that + + “On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung”; + +but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures? +Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was “inspired” was a clear +recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp: +now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that +Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this +passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to +claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human +being who is so richly crowned and gifted. + +Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting, +music—things which really compete with nature in their spiritual +suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the +weaver, and the perfumer. + +Nevertheless, the one is carried with the other. Where shall we draw the +line, for example, in architecture or in ironwork? And there is another +consideration which must not be overlooked. God is assuredly in the +growth of humanity, in the progress of true civilisation—in all, the +recognition of which makes history philosophical. It is not only the +saints who feel themselves to be the instruments of a Greater than they. +Cromwell and Bismarck, Columbus, Raleigh and Drake, William the Silent +and William the Third, felt it. Mr. Stanley has told us how the +consciousness that he was being used grew up in him, not through +fanaticism but by slow experience, groping his way through the gloom of +Central Africa. + +But none will deny that one of the greatest factors in modern history is +its industrial development. Is there, then, no sacredness here? + +The doctrine of Scripture is not that man is a tool, but that he is +responsible for vast gifts, which come directly from heaven—that every +good gift is from above, that it was God Himself Who planted in Paradise +the tree of knowledge. + +Nor would anything do more to restrain the passions, to calm the +impulses and to elevate the self-respect of modern life, to call back +its energies from the base competition for gold, and make our industries +what dreamers persuade themselves that the mediæval industries were, +than a quick and general perception of what is meant when faculty goes +by such names as talent, endowment, gift—of the glory of its use, the +tragedy of its defilement. Many persons, indeed, reject this doctrine +because they cannot believe that man has power to abase so high a thing +so sadly. But what, then, do they think of the human body? + +What connection is there between all this and the reiteration of the law +of the Sabbath? Not merely that the moral law is now made a civic +statute as well, for this had been done already (xxiii. 12). But, as our +Lord has taught us that a Jew on the Sabbath was free to perform works +of mercy, it might easily be supposed lawful, and even meritorious, to +hasten forward the construction of the place where God would meet His +people. But He who said “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” said also +that to obey was better than sacrifice. Accordingly this caution closes +the long story of plans and preparations. And when Moses called the +people to the work, his first words were to repeat it (xxxv. 2). + +Finally, there was given to Moses the deposit for which so noble a +shrine was planned—the two tables of the law, miraculously produced. + +If any one, without supposing that they were literally written with a +literal finger, conceives that this was the meaning conveyed to a Hebrew +by the expression “written with the finger of God,” he entirely misses +the Hebrew mode of thought, which habitually connects the Lord with an +arm, with a chariot, with a bow made naked, with a tent and curtains, +without the slightest taint of materialism in its conception. Did not +the magicians, failing to imitate the third plague, say “This is the +finger of a God”? Did not Jesus Himself “cast out devils by the finger +of God”? (Ex. viii. 19; Luke xi. 20). + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +_THE GOLDEN CALF._ + +xxxii. + +While God was thus providing for Israel, what had Israel done with God? +They had grown weary of waiting: had despaired of and slighted their +heroic leader, (“this Moses, the man that brought us up,”) had demanded +gods, or a god, at the hand of Aaron, and had so far carried him with +them or coerced him that he thought it a stroke of policy to save them +from breaking the first commandment by joining them in a breach of the +second, and by infecting “a feast to Jehovah” with the licentious “play” +of paganism. At the beginning, the only fitness attributed to Aaron was +that “he can speak well.” But the plastic and impressible temperament of +a gifted speaker does not favour tenacity of will in danger. Demosthenes +and Cicero, and Savonarola, the most eloquent of the reformers, +illustrate the tendency of such genius to be daunted by visible perils. + +God now rejects them because the covenant is violated. As Jesus spoke no +longer of “My Father’s house,” but “your house, left unto you desolate,” +so the Lord said to Moses, “thy people which thou broughtest up.” + +But what are we to think of the proposal to destroy them, and to make of +Moses a great nation? + +We are to learn from it the solemn reality of intercession, the power of +man with God, Who says not that He will destroy them, but that He will +destroy them if left alone. Who can tell, at any moment, what calamities +the intercession of the Church is averting from the world or from the +nation? + +The first prayer of Moses is brief and intense; there is passionate +appeal, care for the Divine honour, remembrance of the saintly dead for +whose sake the living might yet be spared, and absolute forgetfulness of +self. Already the family of Aaron had been preferred to his, but the +prospect of monopolising the Divine predestination has no charm for this +faithful and patriotic heart. No sooner has the immediate destruction +been arrested than he hastens to check the apostates, makes them exhibit +the madness of their idolatry by drinking the water in which the dust of +their pulverised god was strewn; receives the abject apology of Aaron, +thoroughly spirit-broken and demoralised; and finding the sons of Levi +faithful, sends them to the slaughter of three thousand men. Yet this is +he who said “O Lord, why is Thy wrath hot against Thy people?” He +himself felt it needful to cut deep, in mercy, and doubtless in wrath as +well, for true affection is not limp and nerveless: it is like the ocean +in its depth, and also in its tempests. And the stern action of the +Levites appeared to him almost an omen; it was their “consecration,” the +beginning of their priestly service. + +Again he returns to intercede; and if his prayer must fail, then his own +part in life is over: let him too perish among the rest. For this is +evidently what he means and says: he has not quite anticipated the +spirit of Christ in Paul willing to be anathema for his brethren (Rom. +ix. 3), nor has the idea of a vicarious human sacrifice been suggested +to him by the institutions of the sanctuary. Yet how gladly would he +have died for his people, who made request that he might die among them! + +How nobly he foreshadows, not indeed the Christian doctrine, but the +love of Christ Who died for man, Who from the Mount of Transfiguration, +as Moses from Sinai, came down (while Peter would have lingered) to bear +the sins of His brethren! How superior He is to the Christian hymn which +pronounces nothing worth a thought, except how to make my own election +sure. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +_PREVAILING INTERCESSION._ + +xxxiii. + +At this stage the first concession is announced: Moses shall lead the +people to their rest, and God will send an angel with him. + +We have seen that the original promise of a great Angel in whom was the +Divine Presence was full of encouragement and privilege (xxiii. 20). No +unbiassed reader can suppose that it is the sending of this same Angel +of the Presence which now expresses the absence of God, or that He Who +then would not pardon their transgression “because My Name is in Him” is +now sent because God, if He were in the midst of them for a moment, +would consume them. Nor, when Moses passionately pleads against this +degradation, and is heard in this thing also, can the answer “My +Presence shall go with thee” be merely the repetition of those evil +tidings. Yet it was the Angel of His Presence Who saved them. All this +has been already treated, and what we are now to learn is that the +faithful and sublime urgency of Moses did really save Israel from +degradation and a lower covenant. + +It was during the progress of this mediation that Moses distracted by a +double anxiety—afraid to absent himself from his wayward followers, +equally afraid to be so long withdrawn from the presence of God as the +descending of Sinai and returning thither would involve—made a noble +adventure of faith. Inspired by the conception of the tabernacle, he +took a tent, “his tent,” and pitched it outside the camp, to express the +estrangement of the people, and this he called the Tent of the Meeting +(with God), but in the Hebrew it is never called the Tabernacle. And God +did condescend to meet him there. The mystic cloud guarded the door +against presumptuous intrusion, and all the people, who previously wist +not what had become of him, had now to confess the majesty of his +communion, and they worshipped every man at his tent door. + +It would seem that the anxious vigilance of Moses caused him to pass to +and fro between the tent and the camp, “but his minister, Joshua the son +of Nun, departed not out of the tent.” + +The dread crisis in the history of the nation was now almost over. God +had said, “My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee +rest,”—a phrase which the lowly Jesus thought it no presumption to +appropriate, saying, “_I_ will give you rest,” as He also appropriated +the office of the Shepherd, the benevolence of the Physician, the +tenderness of the Bridegroom, and the glory of the King and the Judge, +all of which belonged to God. + +But Moses is not content merely to be secure, for it is natural that he +who best loves man should also best love God. Therefore he pleads +against the least withdrawal of the Presence: he cannot rest until +repeatedly assured that God will indeed go with him; he speaks as if +there were no “grace” but that. There are many people now who think it +a better proof of being religious to feel either anxious or comforted +about their own salvation, their election, and their going to heaven. +And these would do wisely to consider how it comes to pass that the +Bible first taught men to love and to follow God, and afterwards +revealed to them the mysteries of the inner life and of eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +_THE VISION OF GOD._ + +xxxiv. + +It was when God had most graciously assured Moses of His affection, that +he ventured, in so brief a cry that it is almost a gasp of longing, to +ask, “Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory” (xxxiii. 18). + +We have seen how nobly this petition and the answer condemn all +anthropomorphic misunderstandings of what had already been revealed; and +also how it exemplifies the great law, that they who see most of God, +know best how much is still unrevealed. The elders saw the God of Israel +and did eat and drink: Moses was led from the bush to the flaming top of +Sinai, and thence to the tent where the pillar of cloud was as a +sentinel; but the secret remained unseen, the longing unsatisfied, and +the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision reached by him with whom God +spake face to face as with a friend, was to be hidden in a cleft of the +rock, to be aware of an awful Shadow, and to hear the Voice of the +Unseen. + +It was a fit time for the proclamation which was then made. When the +people had been righteously punished and yet graciously forgiven, the +name of the Self-Existent expanded and grew clearer,—“Jehovah, Jehovah, +a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in +mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and +transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, +visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the +children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.” And +as Moses made haste and bowed himself, it is affecting to hear him again +pleading for that beloved Presence which even yet he can scarce believe +to be restored, and instead of claiming any separation through his +fidelity and his honours, praying “Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and +take us for Thine inheritance” (xxxiv. 10). + +Thereupon the covenant is given, as if newly, but without requiring its +actual re-enactment; and certain of the former precepts are rehearsed, +chiefly such as would guard against a relapse into idolatry when they +entered the good land where God would bestow on them prosperity and +conquest. + +As Moses had broken the former tablets, the task was imposed on him of +hewing out the slabs on which God renewed His awful sanction of the +Decalogue, the fundamental statutes of the nation. And they who had +failed to endure his former absence, were required to be patient while +he tarried again upon the mountain, forty days and nights. + +With his return a strange incident is connected. Unknown by himself, the +“skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him,” and Aaron +and the people recoiled until he called to them. And thenceforth he +lived a strange and isolated life. At each new interview the glory of +his countenance was renewed, and when he conveyed his revelation to the +people, they beheld the lofty sanction, the light of God upon his face. +Then he veiled his face until next he approached his God, so that none +might see what changes came there, and whether—as St. Paul seems to +teach us—the lustre gradually waned. + +His revelation, the apostle argues, was like this occasional and fading +gleam, while the moral glory of the Christian system has no +concealments: it uses great frankness; there is nothing withdrawn, no +veil upon the face. Nor is it given to one alone to behold as in a +mirror the glory of the Lord, and to share its lustre. We all, with face +unveiled, share this experience of the deliverer (2 Cor. iii. 12, 18). + +But the incident itself is most instructive. Since he had already spent +an equal time with God, yet no such results had followed, it seems that +we receive what we are adapted to receive, not straitened in Him but in +our own capabilities; and as Moses, after his vehemence of intercession, +his sublimity of self-negation, and his knowledge of the greater name of +God, received new lustre from the unchangeable Fountain of light, so +does all true service and earnest aspiration, while it approaches God, +elevate and glorify humanity. + +We learn also something of the exaltation of which matter is capable. We +who have seen coarse bulb and soil and rain transmuted by the sunshine +into radiance of bloom and subtlety of perfume, who have seen plain +faces illuminated from within until they were almost angelic,—may we +not hope for something great and rare for ourselves, and the beloved who +are gone, as we muse upon the profound word, “It is raised a spiritual +body”? + +And again we learn that the best religious attainment is the least +self-conscious: Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone. + + + + +CHAPTERS XXXV-XL. + +_THE CONCLUSION._ + + +The remainder of the narrative sets forth in terms almost identical with +the directions already given, the manner in which the Divine injunctions +were obeyed. The people, purified in heart by danger, chastisement and +shame, brought much more than was required. A quarter of a million would +poorly represent the value of the shrine in which, at the last, Moses +and Aaron approached their God, while the cloud covered the tent and the +glory filled the tabernacle, and Moses failed to overcome his awe and +enter. + +Thenceforth the cloud was the guide of their halting and their march. +Many a time they grieved their God in the wilderness, yet the cloud was +on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night, +throughout all their journeyings. + +That cloud is seen no longer; but One has said, “Lo, I am with you all +the days.” If the presence is less material, it is because we ought to +be more spiritual. + + * * * * * + +Looking back upon the story, we can discern more clearly what was +asserted when we began—the forming and training of a nation. + +They are called from shameful servitude by the devotion of a patriot and +a hero, who has learned in failure and exile the difference between +self-confidence and faith. The new name of God, and His remembrance of +their fathers, inspire them at the same time with awe and hope and +nationality. They see the hollowness of earthly force, and of +superstitious worships, in the abasement and ruin of Egypt. They are +taught by the Paschal sacrifice to confess that the Divine favour is a +gift and not a right, that their lives also are justly forfeited. The +overthrow of Pharaoh’s army and the passage of the Sea brings them into +a new and utterly strange life, in an atmosphere and amid scenes well +calculated to expand and deepen their emotions, to develop their sense +of freedom and self-respect, and yet to oblige them to depend wholly on +their God. Privation at Marah chastens them. The attack of Amalek +introduces them to war, and forbids their dependence to sink into abject +softness. The awful scene of Horeb burns and brands his littleness into +man. The covenant shows them that, however little in themselves, they +may enter into communion with the Eternal. It also crushes out what is +selfish and individualising, by making them feel the superiority of what +they all share over anything that is peculiar to one of them. The +Decalogue reveals a holiness at once simple and profound, and forms a +type of character such as will make any nation great. The sacrificial +system tells them at once of the pardon and the heinousness of sin. +Religion is both exalted above the world and infused into it, so that +all is consecrated. The priesthood and the shrine tell them of sin and +pardon, exclusion and hope; but that hope is a common heritage, which +none may appropriate without his brother. + +The especial sanctity of a sacred calling is balanced by an immediate +assertion of the sacredness of toil, and the Divine Spirit is recognised +even in the gift of handicraft. + +A tragic and shameful failure teaches them, more painfully than any +symbolic system of curtains and secret chambers, how little fitted they +are for the immediate intercourse of heaven. And yet the ever-present +cloud, and the shrine in the heart of their encampment, assure them that +God is with them of a truth. + +Could any better system be imagined by which to convert a slavish and +superstitious multitude into a nation at once humble and pure and +gallant—a nation of brothers and of worshippers, chastened by a genuine +sense of ill desert and of responsibility, and yet braced and fired by +the conviction of an exalted destiny? + +To do this, and also to lead mankind to liberty, to rescue them from +sensuous worship, and prepare them for a system yet more spiritual, to +teach the human race that life is not repose but warfare, pilgrimage and +aspiration, and to sow the seeds of beliefs and expectations which only +an atoning Mediator and an Incarnate God could satisfy, this was the +meaning of the Exodus. + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE. + + + 1889–90. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + JUDGES AND RUTH. By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A. + + THE PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH. By the Rev. C. J. + BALL, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln’s Inn. + + THE PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH. Vol. II. Completing the + Work. By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A. + + THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. By the Rev. J. MONRO + GIBSON, D.D., London, Author of “The Mosaic Era,” etc. + + THE BOOK OF EXODUS. By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, + D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + THE BOOK OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By the + Rev. G. T. STOKES, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in + the University of Dublin. + + + 1888–89. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. By the Rev. Professor + G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds. + + THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. Chap. I. to XXXIX. By the Rev. + GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A., Aberdeen. + + THE PASTORAL EPISTLES By the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, + D.D., Master of University College, Durham. + + THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. By the + Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. Second Edition. + + THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. By the Rev. Professor + W. MILLIGAN, D.D., of the University of Aberdeen. + + THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. By the Right Rev. W. + ALEXANDER, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. + + + 1887–88. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. By ALEXANDER + MACLAREN, D.D., of Manchester. Fourth Edition. + + THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. By the Rev. + Prebendary G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + THE BOOK OF GENESIS. By the Rev. Professor MARCUS + DODS, D.D. Fourth Edition. + + THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the Rev. Professor + W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + + THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the same Author. + + THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. By the Rev. Principal + T. C. EDWARDS, M.A. + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + + +Third Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. + +THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. + + Academy.—“Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps + close to his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is + thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and + epigrammatic when he wishes.” + + Scotsman.—“It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and + written in clear, vigorous English.” + + Record.—“Dr. Chadwick’s style is characteristic, thoughtful, clear, + and vigorous. He is never commonplace or trivial.” + + English Churchman.—“A valuable, interesting, and delightful work, + almost every page of which contains something worthy of quotation.” + + Christian.—“If the volumes to come be like the one before us they + may be sure of a warm welcome. Dr. Chadwick has caught something of + the vividness of style and onward rush which characterise the writer + he expounds. Sober in judgment, markedly Scriptural in tone, well + acquainted with exegetical lore, and qualified by patient + investigations to give an individual opinion on disputed points, he + makes good his claim to help and instruct students of Mark’s + Gospel.” + + Methodist Recorder.—“We are glad to say that the beginning of a very + promising series is, in our opinion, distinctly good, and that Dean + Chadwick has hit the mark specially aimed at exceedingly well. We + have found ourselves many sparkling and memorable sentences in his + pages. We hope the ‘Expositor’s Bible’ has many other volumes in + store as instructive as the first instalment.” + + Expositor.—“Dean Chadwick’s readers, even in the first pages, become + aware that they are in the company of a thoroughly original writer, + who repeats nothing, echoes nothing, imitates no one. It is with a + feeling of thankfulness his readers follow him from passage to + passage of the Gospel, finding new truth in familiar words and + incidents, and, unable to confine themselves to the limits they had + set for their day’s reading, are lured on to trespass on to-morrow’s + portion. There is every quality here that is desirable in an + expositor—reverence for his text, sufficient information about it, + sympathetic insight, and keen observation of men and manners. + Equally successful in opening up the significance of the text and in + applying it to present conditions of life, Dean Chadwick has given + us an admirable specimen of what an expositor’s Bible should be.” + + London Quarterly Review.—“Dr. Chadwick’s exposition is thoughtful + and penetrating; his sentences are sharp and crisp.... Often bright + aphoristic sayings occur which are likely to print themselves on the + memory of the reader. The expositor would almost seem to resemble + his subject in the practical and condensed, yet graphic, style in + which he has done his expository work.” + + Rock.—“The style of the commentary is, like its subject, forcible + and terse.” + + Church Bells.—“We have never yet read any commentary which we liked + so well. The preacher will find it full of materials for sermons, + fresh and vigorous, and yet calm and well-weighed.” + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. + + + + +_SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT._ + +THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE. + +Edited by W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D., Editor of _The Expositor_. + +THIRD YEAR’S ISSUE. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each Volume._ + +_Judges and Ruth._ + + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., Author of “Gospels of Yesterday.” + [_Ready._ + +_The Prophecies of Jeremiah._ + + WITH A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND TIMES. + + By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln’s Inn; Contributor + to Bishop Ellicott’s “Commentary,” “The Speaker’s Commentary,” etc. + [_Ready._ + +_The Book of Exodus._ + + By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh, Author of + “The Gospel of St. Mark,” etc. [_Ready._ + +_The Gospel of St. Matthew._ + + By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D., London, Author of “The Ages + before Moses,” “The Mosaic Era,” etc. + +_The Prophecies of Isaiah, Vol. II._ + + Completing the work. + + By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A. + +_The Acts of the Apostles._ + + By the Rev. G. T. STOKES, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History + in the University of Dublin. + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE. + +FIRST SERIES. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each Volume._ + +Fourth Edition. + +The Book of Genesis. + +By Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + “The style of this book is so simple, the march of the thought so + strong and unencumbered, and there is in the ripe result such a + perfect assimilation of varied erudition, that none but + fellow-craftsmen will realise the amount of study, industry, and + many-sided ability that was requisite to produce it.”—_Professor + Elmslie, D.D._ + +Third Edition. + +The First Book of Samuel. + +By the Rev. Professor W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + + “There can be no doubt of the care and thoroughness with which Dr. + Blaikie has executed his task. From his own point of view he has + produced a solid and able piece of work.”—_Academy._ + +Third Edition. + +The Second Book of Samuel. + +By the Rev. Professor W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + + “Of the utmost value to preachers and teachers, being very full of + suggestive thoughts.”—_English Churchman._ + +Third Edition. + +The Gospel according to St. Mark. + +By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + “Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps close to + his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is + thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and + epigrammatic when he wishes.”—_Academy._ + + “It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and written in + clear, vigorous English.”—_Scotsman._ + +Fourth Edition. + +The Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon. + +By the Rev. ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. + + “In nothing Dr. Maclaren has written is there more of beauty, of + spiritual insight, or of brilliant elucidation of Scripture. Indeed, + Dr. Maclaren is here at his best.”—_Expositor._ + + “The book is pre-eminently one for ministers, but there is nothing + in the exposition which may not prove a boon to any diligent student + of the Word of God. It contains a wealth of thought for + preachers.”—_Rock._ + +Third Edition. + +The Epistle to the Hebrews. + +By Rev. Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D., Author of “A Commentary on the +First Epistle to the Corinthians.” + + “He has entered into the spirit and purport of what truly he calls + ‘one of the greatest and most difficult books of the New Testament’ + with a systematic thoroughness and fairness which cannot be too + highly commended. Henceforth English students of this portion of the + New Testament will have only themselves to blame if they cannot + trace the connection of thought and final purport of this + epistle.”—_Academy._ + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE. + +SECOND SERIES. + +_Price 7s. 6d, each Volume._ + +Fifth Edition. + +The Book of Isaiah. Vol. I. Chapters I.-XXXIX. + +By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A., Aberdeen. With Map. + + “This is a very attractive book. Mr. George Adam Smith has evidently + such a mastery of the scholarship of his subject that it would be a + sheer impertinence for most scholars, even though tolerable + Hebraists, to criticise his translations; and certainly it is not + the intention of the present reviewer to attempt anything of the + kind, to do which he is absolutely incompetent. All we desire is to + let English readers know how very lucid, impressive, and, indeed, + how vivid a study of Isaiah is within their reach—the fault of the + book, if it has a fault, being rather that it finds too many points + of connection between Isaiah and our modern world, than that it + finds too few. In other words, no one can say that the book is not + full of life.”—_Spectator._ + +Second Edition. + +The First Epistle to the Corinthians. + +By the Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + “A clear, close, unaffected, unostentatious exposition, not verse by + verse, but thought after thought of this most interesting, perhaps, + and certainly most various, of all the Apostle’s writings.”—_London + Quarterly Review._ + +Second Edition. + +The Epistle to the Galatians. + +By the Rev. Professor G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds. + + “Professor G.G. Findlay discloses a minute acquaintance with his + subject, an earnest desire to penetrate its inmost meaning, and a + marked capacity of illustrating and enforcing the text.”—_Record._ + +Second Edition. + +The Pastoral Epistles. + +By the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, D.D., Master of University College, Durham. + + “It is an admirable example of what popular theology ought to + be—presuming a somewhat high level of education and interest in its + readers, and built throughout upon sound erudition and sensible, + devout, and well-disciplined reflection.”—_Saturday Review._ + +The Epistles of St. John. + +By WILLIAM ALEXANDER, D.D., D.C.L., Brasenose College, Oxford, Lord +Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. + + “Full of felicities of exegesis.... Brilliant and + valuable.”—_Literary Churchman._ + + “The discourses are eloquent and impressive, and show a thorough + knowledge of the subject.”—_Scotsman._ + +The Revelation of St. John. + +By Rev. Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D., of the University of Aberdeen. + + “The most delightful work on the Apocalypse that we have read. The + practical and spiritual teaching even of the most recondite and + mysterious passages is made plain.”—_Methodist Recorder._ + + + + +THE THEOLOGICAL EDUCATOR. + +_Price 2s. 6d. each Volume. Fcap. 8vo._ + + +The Language of the New Testament. + +By Rev. WILLIAM HENRY SIMCOX, M.A., Rector of Harlaxton. + + “The distinctive peculiarities of New Testament Greek are defined + with exactness, the gradations by which one grammatical usage passes + into another are clearly traced, the frontier between grammar and + exegesis marked with unusual sense and discrimination. In a word, + this is the most living grammar of the New Testament we + have.”—_Expositor._ + +Outlines of Christian Doctrine. + +By the Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, M.A., Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. +Fifth Thousand. + + “Marked throughout by the most careful and critical knowledge of + Scripture, more particularly of the New Testament, and the most + patient weighing and comparison of parallel texts.... It forms an + admirable introduction to the subject, and seems in intellectual + power to even surpass any other of Mr. Moule’s published + writings.”—_Record._ + +An Introduction to the New Testament. + +By Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. Now Ready. Fourth Edition. + + “The authenticity, authorship, history, object, and general + character of each book are discussed with admirable condensation and + lucidity, and with ample critical knowledge.”—_Scotsman._ + +A Manual of Christian Evidences. + +By the Rev. C. A. ROW, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul’s. Fifth Thousand. + + “A veritable _multum in parvo_, clear, cogent, and concise, without + being sketchy or superficial.”—_Saturday Review._ + +An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. + +By the Rev. Professor B. B. WARFIELD, D.D. Third Thousand. + +A Hebrew Grammar. + +By the Rev. W. H. LOWE, M.A., Joint Author of “A Commentary on the +Psalms,” etc., etc.; Hebrew Lecturer, Christ’s College, Cambridge. +Second Thousand. + +An Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed. + +By the Rev. J. E. YONGE, M.A., Late Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, +and Assistant-Master in Eton College. + +A Manual of the Book of Common Prayer. + +_Showing its History and Contents._ + +By the Rev. CHARLES HOLE, B.A., King’s College, London. + +A Manual of Church History. + +By the Rev. A. C. JENNINGS, M.A. In Two Vols. + + Vol. I.—From the First to the Tenth Century. + Vol. II.—From the Eleventh to the Nineteenth Century. + + + + +_COMPLETION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT._ + + +THE SERMON BIBLE. + +Each Volume contains upwards of Five Hundred Sermon Outlines and Several +Thousand References. Strongly bound in half buckram. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each._ + +VOLUME I. + +Genesis to 2 Samuel. + + “A very complete guide to the sermon literature of the present + day.”—_Scotsman._ + + “We do not hesitate to pronounce this the most practically useful + work of its kind at present extant. It is not a commentary, but a + _Thesaurus_ of sermons on texts arranged consecutively, chapter + after chapter and book after book.... We are bound to say that the + object announced by the compilers is on the way to be realised, and + here will be given the essence of the best homiletic literature of + this generation.”—_Literary Churchman._ + +VOLUME II. + +1 Kings to Psalm LXXVI. + + “Preachers anxious to discover the best books out of which they may + discover golden thoughts on any particular text, for use in their + sermons, will doubtless be glad of the volume before us, which aims + at being a guide-book, pointing out where sermons and articles on + those texts may be found. In addition to this, extracts from sermons + are given in the book itself.”—_English Churchman._ + + “A hearty word of commendation can be said of the selected and + condensed outlines of sermons in this volume, most of which are by + well-known preachers. They will be of considerable + service.”—_Nonconformist._ + +VOLUME III. + +Psalm LXXVII. to The Song of Solomon. + + “Like its two predecessors, the third volume is distinguished by the + perfect catholicity of the selections, the admirable condensation of + the sermons and expositions that are quoted, and the fulness of the + references to the best sermon literature on each of the texts. It is + beyond question the richest treasury of modern homiletics which has + ever issued from the press.”—_Christian Leader._ + +VOLUME IV. + +Isaiah to Malachi. + + “A marvellous amount of information is here presented in compact and + readable form at a very moderate price.”—_Methodist Recorder._ + + “A great number of the best contemporary sermons are here rendered + generally available in a very convenient form, and at a very low + price indeed.”—_Literary Churchman._ + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: The Book of +Exodus, by G. A. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/33420-0.zip b/33420-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..000ab91 --- /dev/null +++ b/33420-0.zip diff --git a/33420-8.txt b/33420-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdf3ea6 --- /dev/null +++ b/33420-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14372 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus, by +G. A. Chadwick + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus + +Author: G. A. Chadwick + +Editor: W. Robertson Nicoll + +Release Date: August 13, 2010 [EBook #33420] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: EXODUS *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + [Transcriber's Note: + + This e-text is intended for users whose text readers cannot display + the Unicode (utf-8) version of the file. Greek words have been + transliterated and enclosed in equals signs, e.g. =ho logos=. + + _Italic_ words have been similarly enclosed in underscores. + + A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected. + + The Table of Contents refers to original page numbers. + + All advertising material has been placed at the end of the text.] + + + + + THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + + + EDITED BY THE REV. + W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + + _Editor of "The Expositor."_ + + + THE BOOK OF EXODUS. + + BY THE VERY REV. + G. A. CHADWICK, D.D. + _Dean of Armagh_ + + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON, + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + MDCCCXC. + + + + + THE + BOOK OF EXODUS. + + BY THE VERY REV. + G. A. CHADWICK, D.D. + _Dean of Armagh,_ + + AUTHOR OF "CHRIST BEARING WITNESS TO HIMSELF," + "AS HE THAT SERVETH," "THE GOSPEL OF ST. MARK," ETC. + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON, + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + MDCCCXC. + + + + + Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Much is now denied or doubted, within the Church itself, concerning the +Book of Exodus, which was formerly accepted with confidence by all +Christians. + +But one thing can neither be doubted nor denied. Jesus Christ did +certainly treat this book, taking it as He found it, as possessed of +spiritual authority, a sacred scripture. He taught His disciples to +regard it thus, and they did so. + +Therefore, however widely His followers may differ about its date and +origin, they must admit the right of a Christian teacher to treat this +book, taking it as he finds it, as a sacred scripture and invested with +spiritual authority. It is the legitimate subject of exposition in the +Church. + +Such work this volume strives, however imperfectly, to perform. Its +object is to edify in the first place, and also, but in the second +place, to inform. Nor has the author consciously shrunk from saying what +seemed to him proper to be said because the utterance would be +unwelcome, either to the latest critical theory, or to the last +sensational gospel of an hour. + +But since controversy has not been sought, although exposition has not +been suppressed when it carried weapons, by far the greater part of the +volume appeals to all who accept their Bible as, in any true sense, a +gift from God. + +No task is more difficult than to exhibit the Old Testament in the light +of the New, discovering the permanent in the evanescent, and the +spiritual in the form and type which it inhabited and illuminated. This +book is at least the result of a firm belief that such a connection +between the two Testaments does exist, and of a patient endeavour to +receive the edification offered by each Scripture, rather than to force +into it, and then extort from it, what the expositor desires to find. +Nor has it been supposed that by allowing the imagination to assume, in +sacred things, that rank as a guide which reason holds in all other +practical affairs, any honour would be done to Him Who is called the +Spirit of knowledge and wisdom, but not of fancy and quaint conceits. + +If such an attempt does, in any degree, prove successful and bear fruit, +this fact will be of the nature of a scientific demonstration. + +If this ancient Book of Exodus yields solid results to a sober +devotional exposition in the nineteenth Christian century, if it is not +an idle fancy that its teaching harmonises with the principles and +theology of the New Testament, and even demands the New Testament as the +true commentary upon the Old, what follows? How comes it that the oak is +potentially in the acorn, and the living creature in the egg? No germ is +a manufactured article: it is a part of the system of the universe. + + + + +ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE PROLOGUE, i. 1-6. + +Books linked by conjunction "And:" Scripture history a connected whole, +1.--So is secular history organic: "Philosophy of history." The +Pentateuch being a still closer unity, Exodus rehearses the descent into +Egypt, 2.--Heredity: the family of Jacob, 3.--Death of Joseph. Influence +of Egypt on the shepherd race, 4.--A healthy stock: good breeding. +Goethe's aphorism, 5.--Ourselves and our descendants, 6. + +GOD IN HISTORY, i. 7. + +In Exodus, national history replaces biography, 6.--Contrasted +narratives of Jacob and Moses. Spiritual progress from Genesis to +Exodus, 7.--St. Paul's view: Law prepares for Gospel, especially by our +failures, 8.--This explains other phenomena: failures in various +circumstances, of innocence in Eden; of an elect family; now of a race, +a nation, 9.--Israel, failing with all advantages, needs a Messiah. +Faith justifies, in Old Testament as in New, 10.--Scripture history +reveals God in this life, in all things, 11.--True spirituality owns God +in the secular: this is a gospel for our days, 12-13. + +THE OPPRESSION, i. 7-22. + +Early prosperity: its dangers: political supports vain, 13.--Joseph +forgotten. National responsibilities: despotism, 14.--Nations and their +chiefs. Our subject races, 15.--The Church and her King: imputation. +Pharaoh precipitates what he fears, 16.--Egypt and her aliens: modern +parallels, 17.--Tyranny is tyrannous even when cultured, 18.--Our undue +estrangement from the fallen: Jesus a brother. Toil crushes the spirit, +19.--Israel idolatrous. Religious dependence, 20. --Direct interposition +required. Bitter oppression, 21.--Pharaoh drops the mask. Defeated by +the human heart. The midwives, 22.--Their falsehood. Morality is +progressive, 23.--Culture and humanity, 24.--Religion and the child, 25. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE RESCUE OF MOSES, ii. 1-10. + +Importance of the individual, 26.--A man _versus_ "the Time-spirit," +27.--The parents of Moses, 28.--Their family: their goodly child, +29.--Emotion helps faith, 30.--The ark in the bulrushes, 31.--Pharaoh's +daughter and Miriam, 32.--Guidance for good emotions: the Church for +humanity, 33. + +THE CHOICE OF MOSES, ii. 11-15. + +God employs means, 34.--Value of endowment. Moses and his family. "The +reproach of Christ," 35.--An impulsive act, 36.--Impulses not accidents. +The hopes of Moses, 37.--Moses and his brethren. His flight, 38. + +MOSES IN MIDIAN, ii. 16-22. + +Energy in disaster, 39.--Disinterested bravery. Parallels with a +variation, 40.--The Unseen a refuge. Duty of resisting small wrongs. His +wife, 41.--A lonely heart, 42. + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BURNING BUSH, ii. 23-iii. + +Death of Raamses. Misery continues, 43.--The cry of the oppressed, +44.--Discipline of Moses, 45.--How a crisis comes, 46.--God hitherto +unmentioned. The Angel of the Lord, 47.--An unconsuming fire, +48.--Inquiry: reverence. God finds, not man, 49.--"Take off thy shoe." +"The God of thy father," 50.--Immortality. "My people," not saints only, +51.--The good land. The commission, 52.--God with him. A strange token, +53. + +A NEW NAME, iii. 14; vi. 2, 3. + +Why Moses asked the name of God: idolatry: pantheism, 54.--A progressive +revelation, 55.--Jehovah. The sound corrupted. Similar superstitions +yet, 56.--What it told the Jews. Reality of being, 57.--Jews not saved +by ideas. Streams of tendency. The Self-contained. We live in our past, +58.--And in our future, 59.--Yet Jehovah not the impassive God of +Lucretius, 60.--The Immutable is Love. This is our help, 61.--Human +will is not paralysed, 62.--The teaching of St. Paul. All this is +practical, 63.--This gives stability to all other revelations. Our own +needs, 64. + +THE COMMISSION, iii. 10, 16-22. + +God comes where He sends, 65.--The Providential man. Prudence, +66.--Sincerity of demand for a brief respite, 67.--God has already +visited them. By trouble He transplants, 68.--The "borrowing" of jewels, +69. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MOSES HESITATES, iv. 1-17. + +Scripture is impartial: Josephus, 70.--Hindrance from his own people. +The rod, 71.--The serpent: the leprosy, 72.--"I am not eloquent," +73.--God with us. Aaron the Levite, 74.--Responsibility of _not_ +working. The errors of Moses, 75.--Power of fellowship. Vague fears, +76.--With his brother, Moses will go. The Church, 77.--This craving met +by Christ, 78.--Family affection. Examples, 79. + +MOSES OBEYS, iv. 18-31. + +Fidelity to his employer. Reticence, 80.--Resemblance to story of Jesus. +He is the Antitype of all experiences, 81.--Counterpoint in history. +"Israel is My son," 82.--A neglected duty Zipporah. Was she a helpmeet? +83.--Domestic unhappiness. History _v._ myth, 84.--The failures of the +good, 85.--Men of destiny are not irresponsible, 86.--His first +followers: a joyful reception, 87.--Spiritual joy and reaction, 88. + + +CHAPTER V. + +PHARAOH REFUSES, v. 1-23. + +Moses at court again. Formidable, 89.--Power of convictions but also of +tyranny and pride. Menephtah: his story, 90.--Was the Pharaoh drowned? +The demand of Jehovah, 91.--The refusal, 92.--Is religion idleness? +Hebrews were taskmasters, 93.--Demoralised by slavery. They are beaten, +94.--Murmurs against Moses. He returns to God. His remonstrance, +95.--His disappointment. Not really irreverent, 96.--Use of this +abortive attempt, 97-8. + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MOSES, vi. 1-30. + +The word Jehovah known before: its consolations now, 99.--The new truth +is often implicit in the old, 100.--Discernment more needed than +revelation. "Judgments," 101.--My people: your God, 102.--The tie is of +God's binding, 103,--Fatherhood and sonship, 104.--Faith becomes +knowledge. The body hinders the soul, 105.--We are responsible for +bodies. Israel weighs Moses down, 106.--We may hold back the saints, +107.--The pedigree, 107-8.--Indications of genuine history, 108-9.--"As +a god to Pharaoh," 110.--We also, 111. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH'S HEART, vii. 3-13. + +The assertion offends many, 112.--Was he a free agent? When hardened. +A.V. incorrect, 113.--He resists five plagues spontaneously. The last +five are penal, 114.--Not "hardened" in wickedness, but in nerve. A.V. +confuses three words: His heart is (_a_) "hardened," 115.--(_b_) it is +made "strong" (_c_) "heavy," 116.--Other examples of these words, +117.--The warning implied, 117-19.--Moses returns with the signs, +119.--The functions of miracle, 120. + +THE PLAGUES, vii. 14. + +Their vast range, 121.--Their relation to Pantheism, Idolatry, +Philosophy, 122.--And to the gods of Egypt. Their retributive fitness, +123.--Their arrangement, 124.--Like our Lord's, not creative, 125.--God +in common things, 126.--Some we inflict upon ourselves. Yet +rationalistic analogies fail, 127.--Duration of the conflict, 128. + +THE FIRST PLAGUE, vii, 14-25. + +The probable scene, 129.--Extent of the plague. The magicians. Its +duration, 131.--Was Israel exempt? Contrast with first miracle of Jesus, +132. + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE SECOND PLAGUE, viii. 1-15. + +Submission demanded. Severity of plague, 133.--Pharaoh humbles himself, +134.--"Glory over me." Pharaoh breaks faith, 135. + +THE THIRD PLAGUE, viii. 16-19. + +Various theories. A surprise. Magicians baffled, 136.--What they +confess, 137. + +THE FOURTH PLAGUE, viii. 20-32. + +"Rising up early," 137.--Bodily pain. Beetles or flies? "A mixture," +138--Goshen exempt. Pharaoh suffers. He surrenders, 139.--Respite and +treachery. Would Moses have returned? 140. + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE FIFTH PLAGUE, ix. 1-7. + +First attack on life. Animals share our fortunes, 141. The new summons. +Murrain, 142.--Pharaoh's curiosity, 143. + +THE SIXTH PLAGUE, ix. 8-12. + +No warning, yet Author manifest. Ashes of the furnace, 144.---Suffering +in the flesh. The magicians again. Pharaoh's heart "made strong," +145.--Dares not retaliate, 146. + +THE SEVENTH PLAGUE, ix. 13-35. + +Expostulation not mockery, 146-7.--God is wronged by slavery, +147.--Civil liberty is indebted to religion. "Plagues upon thine heart," +148.--A mis-rendering: why he was not crushed, 149.--An opportunity of +escape. The storm, 150.--Ruskin upon terrors of thunderstorm, +151.--Pharaoh confesses sin, 152.--Moses intercedes. The weather in +history. Job's assertion, 153. + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE EIGHTH PLAGUE, x. 1-20. + +Moses encouraged, 154.--Deliverances should be remembered. A sterner +rebuke. Locusts in Egypt, 155.--Their effect. The court interferes. Yet +"their hearts hardened" also, 156--Infatuation of Pharaoh. Parallel of +Napoleon, 157.--Women and little ones did share in festivals, 158.--A +gentle wind. Locusts. Another surrender, 159.--Relief. Our broken vows, +160. + +THE NINTH PLAGUE, x. 21-29. + +Menephtah's sun-worship, 161.--Suddenness of the plague. Concentrated +narrative, 162.--Darkness represents death, 163.--The Book of Wisdom +upon this plague, 164-5.--Isaiah's allusions. The Pharaoh's character, +165.--Altercation with Moses, 166. + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE LAST PLAGUE ANNOUNCED, xi. 1-10. + +This chapter supplements the last. The blow is known to be impending. +Uses of its delay, 167.--Israel shall claim wages. The menace, +168.--Parallel with St. John, 169-70. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE PASSOVER, xii. 1-28. + +Birthday of a nation. The calendar, 171.--"The congregation." The feast +is social, 172.--The nation is based upon the family. No Egyptian house +escapes, 173.--National interdependence. The Passover a sacrifice, +174.--What does the blood mean? Rationalistic theories. Harvest +festivals, 175.--The unbelieving point of view: what theories of +sacrifice were then current? "A sacrifice was a meal," 176.--Human +sacrifices. The Passover "unhistorical." Kuenen rejects this view, +177.--Phenomena irreconcilable with it, 178-9. What is really expressed? +Danger even to Jews, 179.--Salvation by grace. Not unbought, 180.--The +lamb a ransom. All firstborn are forfeited. Tribe of Levi, 181.--Cash +payment. Effect on Hebrew literature, 182.--Its prophetic import, +183.--The Jew must co-operate with God: must also become His guest, +184.--Sacred festivals. Lamb or kid. Four days reserved, 185.--Men are +sheep. Heads of houses originally sacrifice. Transition to Levites in +progress under Hezekiah, complete under Josiah, 186.--Unleavened bread. +The lamb. Roast, not sodden, 187.--Complete consumption. Judgment upon +gods of Egypt, 188.--The blood a token unto themselves. On their +lintels, 189.--The word "pass-over," 190.--Domestic teaching, 191.--Many +who ate the feast perished. Aliens might share, 192. + +THE TENTH PLAGUE, xii. 29-36. + +The blow falls. Pharaoh was not "firstborn": his son "sat upon his +throne," 193.--The scene, 194.--The demands of Israel. St. Augustine's +inference, 195. + +THE EXODUS, xii. 37-42. + +The route, 195.--Their cattle, a suggested explanation, 196.--"Four +hundred and thirty years," 197-8. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN, xiii, 1. + +The consecration of the firstborn, 199.--The Levite. "They are Mine," +200.--Joy is hopeful. Tradition? 201.--Phylacteries. The ass, 202.--The +Philistines. No spiritual miracle, 203.--Education, 204. + +THE BONES OF JOSEPH, xiii. 19. + +Joseph influenced Moses, 204.--His faith, 205.--Circumstances overcome +by soul. God in the cloud, 206.--Hebrew poetry and modern, 207. + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE RED SEA, xiv. 1-31. + +Stopped on the march, 208.--Pharaoh presumes, 209.--The panic, +210.--Moses. Prayer and action. "Self-assertion"? 211.--The midnight +march, 212.--The lost army, 213. + +ON THE SHORE, xiv. 30, 31. + +Impressions deepened. "They believed in Jehovah." So the faith of the +apostles grew, 214. + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE SONG OF MOSES, xv. 1-22. + +A song remembered in heaven. Its structure, 216-17.--The women join. +Instruments. Dances, 218. God the Deliverer, not Moses. "My salvation," +219.--Gratitude. Anthropomorphism. "Ye are gods." "Jehovah is a Man--of +war," 220-2.--The overthrow, 222.--First mention of Divine holiness, +223.--An inverted holiness, 224.--"Thou shalt bring them in," 225. + +SHUR, xv. 22-27. + +Disillusion. Marah, 226.--A universal danger, 227.--Prayer, and the use +of means, 228.--"A statute and an ordinance." Such compacts often +repeated. The offered privilege, 229.--It is still enjoyed, 230.--"The +Lord for the body." Elim, 231. + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +MURMURING FOR FOOD, xvi. 1-14. + +_We_ too fear, although Divinely guarded, 232.--They would fain die +satiated, 233.--Relief tries them as want does, 234.--The Sabbath. A +rebuke, 235.--Moses is zealous. His "meekness," 236.--The glory appears, +237.--Quails and manna, 238. + +MANNA, xvi. 15-36. + +Their course of life is changed, 238.--A drug resembles manna, 239.--The +supernatural follows nature, 240.--They must gather, prepare, be +moderate, 241.--Nothing over and no lack. Socialistic perversion, +242.--Socialism. Christ in politics, 243-4. + +SPIRITUAL MEAT, xvi. 15-36. + +Manna is a type. When given, 244.--An unearthly sustenance, 245. What is +spirituality? Christ the true Manna, 246.--Universal, daily, abundant, +247.--The Sabbath. The pot of manna, 248. + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +MERIBAH, xvii. 1-7. + +A greater strain. What if Israel had stood it? 249.--They murmured +against Moses. The position of Aaron. An exaggerated outcry, +250.--Witnesses to the miracle. The rock in Horeb, 251.--The rod. +Privilege is not acceptance, 252. + +AMALEK, xvii. 8-16. + +A water-raid, 252.--God's sheep must become His warriors. War, +253-4.--Joshua. The rod of God, 255.--A silent prayer. Aaron and Hur +must join in it, 256.--So now. But the army must fight, 257.--"The Lord +my banner." Unlike a myth, 258. + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +JETHRO, xviii. 1-27. + +Gentiles in new aspect. Church may learn from secular wisdom, +259.--Little is said of Zipporah: Jethro's pleasure, 260.--A Gentile +priest recognised. Religious festivity, 261.--Jethro's advice: its +importance, 262.--Divine help does not supersede human gift, 263. + +THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY. + +Narrative is also allegory. Danger of arbitrary fancies. Example from +Bunyan. Scriptural teaching, 264.--Some resemblances are planned: others +are reappearances of same principle, 265.--So that these are evidential +analogies, like Butler's, 266.--Others appear forced. "I called My Son +out of Egypt" refers to Israel, 267.--But the condescending phrase +promised more, and the subsequent coincidence is significant, 268. +Truths cannot all be proved like Euclid's, 269. + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +AT SINAI, xix. 1-25. + +Sinai and Pentecost. The place. Ras Sufsfeh. God speaks in nature, +270.--Moses is stopped; the people must pledge themselves. Dedication +services, 271.--An appeal to gratitude, and a promise, 272.--"A peculiar +treasure." "A kingdom and priests," 273.--The individual, and Church +order. "On eagles' wings," 274.--Israel consents. The Lord in the cloud. +Manifestations are transient, 275.--Precautions. The trumpet, 276. "The +priests." A plbiscite. Contrast between Law and Gospel: Methodius, +277.--Theophanies, 278.--None like this, 279. + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE LAW, xx. 1-17. + +What the law did. It could not justify. It reveals obligation, 280.--It +convicts, not enables. It is an organic whole. And a challenge, +281.--The Spirit enables: love is fulfilment of law. Luther's paradox, +283.--Law and Gospel contrasted. Its spiritual beauty: two noble +failures, 283.--The Jewish arrangement of the Commandments. St. +Augustine's. The Anglican. An equal division, 284-6. + +THE PROLOGUE, xx. 2. + +Their experience of God, 286.--God and the first table. The true object +of adoration: men must adore. Agnosticism, 287.--God and the second +table, 288.--Law appeals to noble motives, 289. + +THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, xx. 3. + +Monotheism and a real God, 289.--False creeds attractive. Spiritualism. +Science indebted to Monotheism, 290.--Unity of nature a religious truth. +Strength of our experimental argument. 291.--Informal apostacy. Luther's +position. Scripture. The Chaldeans, 292.--Animal pleasure, 293.--The +remedy: "Thou shalt have ... Me," 294. + +THE SECOND COMMANDMENT, xx. 4-6. + +Imagery not all idolatry. The subtler paganisms, 295. Spiritual worship, +like a Gothic building, aspires: images lack expansiveness, 296.--God is +jealous, 297.--The shadow of love, 298. Visiting sins on children, 299, +300.--Part of vast beneficent law, 300-2.--Gospel in law, 302. + +THE THIRD COMMANDMENT, xx. 7. + +Meaning of "in vain," 302.--Jewish superstition. Where swearing is +wholly forbidden, 303.--Fruitful and free use of God's name, 304-5. + +THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 8-11. + +Law of Sabbath unique. Confession of Augsburg. Of Westminster, +305.--Anglican position. St. Paul, 306.--The first positive precept. +Love not the abolition of the law, 307.--Property of our friends. The +word "remember." The story of creation, 305.--The manna. Isaiah, +Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 309.--Christ's freedom was that of a Jew. "Sabbath +for man," 310.--Our help, not our fetter. "My Father worketh," 311. + +THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 12. + +Bridge between duty to God and to neighbour, 312.--Father and child, +313.--"Whosoever hateth not." Christ and His mother. Its sanction, 314. + +THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 13. + +Who is neighbour? Ethics and religion, 315-16.--Science and morals, +317.--A Divine creature. Capital punishment, 318. + +THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 14. + +Justice forbids act: Christ forbids desire. Sacredness of body, +319.--Human body connects material and spiritual worlds. Modifies, while +serves, 320.--Marriage a type, 321. + +THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 15. + +Assailed by communism, by Rome. Various specious pleas, 322.--Laws of +community binding, 323.--None may judge his own case, St. Paul enlarges +the precept, 324. + +THE NINTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 16. + +Importance of words. Various transgressions, 325.--Slander against +nations, against the race. Love, 326-7. + +THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 17. + +The list of properties, 328.--The heart. The law searches, 329. + + +THE LESSER LAW, xx. 18-xxiii. 33. + +A remarkable code. The circumstances, 331.--Moses fears: yet bids them +fear not, 332-3.--Presumption v. awe. He receives an expanded decalogue, +an abridged code, 334.--Laws should educate a people; should not outrun +their capabilities, 335-6.--Five subdivisions, 337. + +I. THE LAW OF WORSHIP, xx. 22-26. + +Images again forbidden, 337.--Splendour and simplicity. An objection, +338.--Modesty, 339. + + +CHAPTER XXI. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +II. RIGHTS OF THE PERSON, xxi. 1-32. + +The Hebrew slave. The seventh year. Year of jubilee. His family, +340.--The ear pierced. St. Paul's "marks of the Lord." Assaults, +341.--The Gentile slave, 342. The female slave, 342-3.--Murder and +blood-fiends, 343.--Parents. Kidnappers, 344.--Eye for eye. Mitigations +of _lex talionis_, 344-5.--Vicious cattle, 346. + +III. RIGHTS OF PROPERTY, xxi. 33-xxii. 15. + +Negligence: indirect responsibility: various examples, 346-8.--Theft, +348. + + +CHAPTER XXII. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +IV. VARIOUS ENACTMENTS, xxii. 16-xxiii. 19. + +Disconnected precepts. No trace of systematic revision. Certain capital +crimes, 348-9. + +SORCERY, xxii. 18. + +Abuses have recoiled against religion, 349.--Sorcerers are impostors, +but they existed, and do still, 350.--Moses could not leave them to +enlightened opinion. Propagated apostacy, 351.--Traitors in a theocracy, +352.--When shall witchcraft die? 353. + +THE STRANGER, xxii. 21; xxiii. 9. + +"Ye were strangers," 354.--A fruitful principle. Morality not +expediency, 355.--Cruelty often ignorance: Moses educates, 356.--The +widow. The borrower, 357.--Other precepts, 358. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +An enemy's cattle. A false report, 359.--Influence of multitude: the +world and the Church, 360-1.--Favour not the poor, 361-2.--Other +precepts. "A kid in his mother's milk," 362. + +LESSER LAW, V. ITS SANCTIONS xxiii. 20-33. + +A bold transition: the Angel in Whom is "My Name," 363.--Not a mere +messenger, 364.--Nor the substitute of chap. xxxiii. 2, 3, +365-6.--Parallel verses, 366-7. + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD, xxiv. + +The code is accepted, written, ratified with blood, 368.--Exclusion and +admittance. The elders see God: Moses goes farther. Theophanies of other +creeds, 369.--How could they see God? 370.--Moses feels not +satisfaction, but desire, 371.--His progress is from vision to shadow +and a Voice, 372.--We see not each other, 373.--St. Augustine, +373-4.--The vision suits the period: not post-Exilian, 374-5.--Contrast +with revelation in Christ, 375. + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE SHRINE AND ITS FURNITURE, xxv. 1-40. + +The God of Sinai will inhabit a tent. His other tabernacles, 376-7.--The +furniture is typical. Altar of incense postponed, 377.--The ark +enshrines His law and its sanctions, 377-8.--The mercy-seat covers it, +378-81.--Man's homage. The table of shewbread, 382-3.--The golden +candlestick (lamp-stand), 383-6. + +THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT, xxv. 9, 40. + +Use in Hebrews. Plato, 386.--Not a model, but an idea. Art, +387.--Provisional institutions, 387-8.---The ideal in creation, 388.--In +life, 389. + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE TABERNACLE. + +"Temple" an ambiguous word, 390.--"Curtains of the Tabernacle," +391.--Other coverings, 392.--The boards and sockets, 392-3.--The bars. +The tent, 393.--Position of veil, 394, and of the front, 395. + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE OUTER COURT. + +The altar, 396.--The quadrangle, 397.--General effect, 398-400. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE HOLY GARMENTS. + +Their import, 401.--The drawers. "Coat." Head-tires. Robe of the ephod. +Ephod. Jewels, 402.--Breastplate. Urim and Thummim. Mitre. Symbolism, +403. + +THE PRIESTHOOD. + +Universal desire and dread of God, 404.--Delegates, 405. Scripture. +First Moses, 406.--His family passed over. The double consciousness +expressed, 407-9.--Messianic priesthood, 409. + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +CONSECRATION SERVICES. + +Why consecrate at all? 410.--Moses officiates. The offerings, +411.--Ablution, robing, anointing, 412-13.--The sin-offering, 413-14. +"Without the camp," 414. The burnt-offering, 415.--The peace-offering +("ram of consecration"), 415.--The wave-offerings, 415-16.--The result, +416-17. + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +INCENSE, xxx. 1-10. + +The impalpable in nature, 418.--"The golden altar," 419.--Represents +prayer. Needs cleansing, 420. + +A CENSUS, xxx. ii-16. + +A census not sinful. David's transgression. The half-shekel. Equality of +man, 421.--Christ paid it, 422.--Its employment, 423. + +THE LAVER, xxx. 17-21. + +Behind the altar. Purity of priests, 423.--Made of the mirrors, 424. + +ANOINTING OIL AND INCENSE, xxx. 22-38. + +Their ingredients. All the vessels anointed, 424.--Forbidden to secular +uses, 425.--Modern analogies, 426-7. + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB, xxxi. 1-18. + +Secular gifts are sacred, 428-30.--The Sabbath. The tables and "the +finger of God," 431. + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +THE GOLDEN CALF. + +Sin of the people; of Aaron. God rejects them, 432.--Intercession. The +Christian antitype, 433-4. + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +PREVAILING INTERCESSION. + +The first concession. The angel, 435.--"The Tent of the Meeting," 436. + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +THE VISION OF GOD. + +To know is to desire to know. A fit season. The greater Name, 438.--The +covenant renewed. The tables. The skin of his face shone, 439.--Lessons, +440. + + +CHAPTERS XXXV.-XL. CONCLUSION. + +The people obey, 441.--The forming of the nation: review, 441-3. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +_THE PROLOGUE._ + +EXODUS i. 1-6. + + "And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into + Egypt." + +Many books of the Old Testament begin with the conjunction And. This +fact, it has been often pointed out, is a silent indication of truth, +that each author was not recording certain isolated incidents, but parts +of one great drama, events which joined hands with the past and future, +looking before and after. + +Thus the Book of the Kings took up the tale from Samuel, Samuel from +Judges, and Judges from Joshua, and all carried the sacred movement +forward towards a goal as yet unreached. Indeed, it was impossible, +remembering the first promise that the seed of the woman should bruise +the head of the serpent, and the later assurance that in the seed of +Abraham should be the universal blessing, for a faithful Jew to forget +that all the history of his race was the evolution of some grand hope, a +pilgrimage towards some goal unseen. Bearing in mind that there is now +revealed to us a world-wide tendency toward the supreme consummation, +the bringing all things under the headship of Christ, it is not to be +denied that this hope of the ancient Jew is given to all mankind. Each +new stage in universal history may be said to open with this same +conjunction. It links the history of England with that of Julius Csar +and of the Red Indian; nor is the chain composed of accidents: it is +forged by the hand of the God of providence. Thus, in the conjunction +which binds these Old Testament narratives together, is found the germ +of that instinctive and elevating phrase, the Philosophy of History. But +there is nowhere in Scripture the notion which too often degrades and +stiffens that Philosophy--the notion that history is urged forward by +blind forces, amid which the individual man is too puny to assert +himself. Without a Moses the Exodus is inconceivable, and God always +achieves His purpose through the providential man. + + * * * * * + +The Books of the Pentateuch are held together in a yet stronger unity +than the rest, being sections of one and the same narrative, and having +been accredited with a common authorship from the earliest mention of +them. Accordingly, the Book of Exodus not only begins with this +conjunction (which assumes the previous narrative), but also rehearses +the descent into Egypt. "And these are the names of the sons of Israel +which came into Egypt,"--names blotted with many a crime, rarely +suggesting any lovable or great association, yet the names of men with a +marvellous heritage, as being "the sons of Israel," the Prince who +prevailed with God. Moreover they are consecrated: their father's dying +words had conveyed to every one of them some expectation, some +mysterious import which the future should disclose. In the issue would +be revealed the awful influence of the past upon the future, of the +fathers upon the children even beyond the third and fourth +generation--an influence which is nearer to destiny, in its stern, +subtle and far-reaching strength, than any other recognised by religion. +Destiny, however, it is not, or how should the name of Dan have faded +out from the final list of "every tribe of the children of Israel" in +the Apocalypse (Rev. vii. 5-8), where Manasseh is reckoned separately +from Joseph to complete the twelve? + +We read that with the twelve came their posterity, seventy souls in +direct descent from Jacob; but in this number he is himself included, +according to that well-known Orientalism which Milton strove to force +upon our language in the phrase-- + + "The fairest of her daughters Eve." + +Joseph is also reckoned, although he "was in Egypt already." Now, it +must be observed that of these seventy, sixty-eight were males, and +therefore the people of the Exodus must not be reckoned to have sprung +in the interval from seventy, but (remembering polygamy) from more than +twice that number, even if we refuse to make any account of the +household which is mentioned as coming with every man. These households +were probably smaller in each case than that of Abraham, and the famine +in its early stages may have reduced the number of retainers; yet they +account for much of what is pronounced incredible in the rapid expansion +of the clan into a nation.[1] But when all allowance has been made, the +increase continues to be, such as the narrator clearly regards it, +abnormal, well-nigh preternatural, a fitting type of the expansion, amid +fiercer persecutions, of the later Church of God, the true circumcision, +who also sprang from the spiritual parentage of another Seventy and +another Twelve. + +"And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation." Thus +the connection with Canaan became a mere tradition, and the powerful +courtier who had nursed their interests disappeared. When they +remembered him, in the bitter time which lay before them, it was only to +reflect that all mortal help must perish. It is thus in the spiritual +world also. Paul reminds the Philippians that they can obey in his +absence and not in his presence only, working out their own salvation, +as no apostle can work it out on their behalf. And the reason is that +the one real support is ever present. Work out your own salvation, for +it is God (not any teacher) Who worketh in you. The Hebrew race was to +learn its need of Him, and in Him to recover its freedom. Moreover, the +influences which mould all men's characters, their surroundings and +mental atmosphere, were completely changed. These wanderers for pasture +were now in the presence of a compact and impressive social system, vast +cities, gorgeous temples, an imposing ritual. They were infected as well +as educated there, and we find the men of the Exodus not only murmuring +for Egyptian comforts, but demanding visible gods to go before them. + +Yet, with all its drawbacks, the change was a necessary part of their +development. They should return from Egypt relying upon no courtly +patron, no mortal might or wisdom, aware of a name of God more profound +than was spoken in the covenant of their fathers, with their narrow +family interests and rivalries and their family traditions expanded into +national hopes, national aspirations, a national religion. + +Perhaps there is another reason why Scripture has reminded us of the +vigorous and healthy stock whence came the race that multiplied +exceedingly. For no book attaches more weight to the truth, so miserably +perverted that it is discredited by multitudes, but amply vindicated by +modern science, that good breeding, in the strictest sense of the word, +is a powerful factor in the lives of men and nations. To be well born +does not of necessity require aristocratic parentage, nor does such +parentage involve it: but it implies a virtuous, temperate and pious +stock. In extreme cases the doctrine of race is palpable; for who can +doubt that the sins of dissolute parents are visited upon their puny and +short-lived children, and that the posterity of the just inherit not +only honour and a welcome in the world, "an open door," but also +immunity from many a physical blemish and many a perilous craving? If +the Hebrew race, after eighteen centuries of calamity, retains an +unrivalled vigour and tenacity, be it remembered how its iron sinew has +been twisted, from what a sire it sprang, through what ages of more than +"natural selection" the dross was throughly purged out, and (as Isaiah +loves to reiterate) a chosen remnant left. Already, in Egypt, in the +vigorous multiplication of the race, was visible the germ of that +amazing vitality which makes it, even in its overthrow, so powerful an +element in the best modern thought and action. + +It is a well-known saying of Goethe that the quality for which God chose +Israel was probably toughness. Perhaps the saying would better be +inverted: it was among the most remarkable endowments, unto which Israel +was called, and called by virtue of qualities in which Goethe himself +was remarkably deficient. + +Now, this principle is in full operation still, and ought to be solemnly +pondered by the young. Self-indulgence, the sowing of wild oats, the +seeing of life while one is young, the taking one's fling before one +settles down, the having one's day (like "every dog," for it is to be +observed that no person says, "every Christian"), these things seem +natural enough. And their unsuspected issues in the next generation, +dire and subtle and far-reaching, these also are more natural still, +being the operation of the laws of God. + +On the other hand, there is no youth living in obedience alike to the +higher and humbler laws of our complex nature, in purity and gentleness +and healthful occupation, who may not contribute to the stock of +happiness in other lives beyond his own, to the future well-being of his +native land, and to the day when the sadly polluted stream of human +existence shall again flow clear and glad, a pure river of water of +life. + + +_GOD IN HISTORY._ + +i. 7. + +With the seventh verse, the new narrative, the course of events treated +in the main body of this book, begins. + +And we are at once conscious of this vital difference between Exodus and +Genesis,--that we have passed from the story of men and families to the +history of a nation. In the first book the Canaanites and Egyptians +concern us only as they affect Abraham or Joseph. In the second book, +even Moses himself concerns us only for the sake of Israel. He is in +some respects a more imposing and august character than any who preceded +him; but what we are told is no longer the story of a soul, nor are we +pointed so much to the development of his spiritual life as to the work +he did, the tyrant overthrown, the nation moulded, the law and the +ritual imposed on it. + +For Jacob it was a discovery that God was in Bethel as well as in his +father's house. But now the Hebrew nation was to learn that He could +plague the gods of Egypt in their stronghold, that His way was in the +sea, that Horeb in Arabia was the Mount of God, that He could lead them +like a horse through the wilderness. + +When Jacob in Peniel wrestles with God and prevails, he wins for himself +a new name, expressive of the higher moral elevation which he has +attained. But when Moses meets God in the bush, it is to receive a +commission for the public benefit; and there is no new name for Moses, +but a fresh revelation of God for the nation to learn. And in all their +later history we feel that the national life which it unfolds was +nourished and sustained by these glorious early experiences, the most +unique as well as the most inspiriting on record. + +Here, then, a question of great moment is suggested. Beyond the fact +that Abraham was the father of the Jewish race, can we discover any +closer connection between the lives of the patriarchs and the history of +Israel? Is there a truly spiritual coherence between them, or merely a +genealogical sequence? For if the Bible can make good its claim to be +vitalised throughout by the eternal Spirit of God, and leading forward +steadily to His final revelation in Christ, then its parts will be +symmetrical, proportionate and well designed. If it be a universal +book, there must be a better reason for the space devoted to preliminary +and half secular stories, which is a greater bulk than the whole of the +New Testament, than that these histories chance to belong to the nation +whence Christ came. If no such reason can be found, the failure may not +perhaps outweigh the great evidences of the faith, but it will score for +something on the side of infidelity. But if upon examination it becomes +plain that all has its part in one great movement, and that none can be +omitted without marring the design, and if moreover this design has +become visible only since the fulness of the time is come, the discovery +will go far to establish the claim of Scripture to reveal throughout a +purpose truly divine, dealing with man for ages, and consummated in the +gift of Christ. + +Now, it is to St. Paul that we turn for light upon the connection +between the Old Testament and the New. And he distinctly lays down two +great principles. The first is that the Old Testament is meant to +educate men for the New; and especially that the sense of failure, +impressed upon men's consciences by the stern demands of the Law, was +necessary to make them accept the Gospel. + +The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ: it entered that sin +might abound. And it is worth notice that this effect was actually +wrought, not only upon the gross transgressor by the menace of its +broken precepts, but even more perhaps upon the high-minded and pure, by +the creation in their breasts of an ideal, inaccessible in its +loftiness. He who says, All these things have I kept from my youth up, +is the same who feels the torturing misgiving, What good thing must I do +to attain life?... What lack I yet? He who was blameless as touching +the righteousness of the law, feels that such superficial innocence is +worthless, that the law is spiritual and he is carnal, sold under sin. + +Now, this principle need by no means be restricted to the Mosaic +institutions. If this were the object of the law, it would probably +explain much more. And when we return to the Old Testament with this +clue, we find every condition in life examined, every social and +political experiment exhausted, a series of demonstrations made with +scientific precision, to refute the arch-heresy which underlies all +others--that in favourable circumstances man might save himself, that +for the evil of our lives our evil surroundings are more to be blamed +than we. + +Innocence in prosperous circumstances, unwarped by evil habit, untainted +by corruption in the blood, uncompelled by harsh surroundings, simple +innocence had its day in Paradise, a brief day with a shameful close. +God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions, until the flood +swept away the descendants of him who was made after the image of God. + +Next we have a chosen family, called out from all the perilous +associations of its home beyond the river, to begin a new career in a +new land, in special covenant with the Most High, and with every +endowment for the present and every hope for the future which could help +to retain its loyalty. Yet the third generation reveals the thirst of +Esau for his brother's blood, the treachery of Jacob, and the +distraction and guilt of his fierce and sensual family. It is when +individual and family life have thus proved ineffectual amid the +happiest circumstances, that the tribe and the nation essay the task. +Led up from the furnace of affliction, hardened and tempered in the +stern free life of the desert, impressed by every variety of fortune, by +slavery and escape, by the pursuit of an irresistible foe and by a +rescue visibly divine, awed finally by the sublime revelations of Sinai, +the nation is ready for the covenant (which is also a challenge)--The +man that doeth these things shall live by them: if thou diligently +hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God ... He shall set thee on high +above all nations. + +Such is the connection between this narrative and what went before. And +the continuation of the same experiment, and the same failure, can be +traced through all the subsequent history. Whether in so loose an +organisation that every man does what is right in his own eyes, or under +the sceptre of a hero or a sage,--whether so hard pressed that +self-preservation ought to have driven them to their God, or so +marvellously delivered that gratitude should have brought them to their +knees,--whether engulfed a second time in a more hopeless captivity, or +restored and ruled by a hierarchy whose authority is entirely +spiritual,--in every variety of circumstances the same melancholy +process repeats itself; and lawlessness, luxury, idolatry and +self-righteousness combine to stop every mouth, to make every man guilty +before God, to prove that a greater salvation is still needed, and thus +to pave the way for the Messiah. + +The second great principle of St. Paul is that faith in a divine help, +in pardon, blessing and support, was the true spirit of the Old +Testament as well as of the New. The challenge of the law was meant to +produce self-despair, only that men might trust in God. Appeal was made +especially to the cases of Abraham and David, the founder of the race +and of the dynasty, clearly because the justification without works of +the patriarch and of the king were precedents to decide the general +question (Rom. iv. 1-8). Now, this is pre-eminently the distinction +between Jewish history and all others, that in it God is everything and +man is nothing. Every sceptical treatment of the story makes Moses to be +the deliverer from Egypt, and shows us the Jewish nation gradually +finding out God. But the nation itself believed nothing of the kind. It +confessed itself to have been from the beginning vagrant and rebellious +and unthankful: God had always found out Israel, never Israel God. The +history is an expansion of the parable of the good shepherd. And this +perfect harmony of a long record with itself and with abstract +principles is both instructive and reassuring. + +As the history of Israel opens before us, a third principle claims +attention--one which the apostle quietly assumes, but which is forced on +our consideration by the unhappy state of religious thought in these +degenerate days. + +"They are not to be heard," says the Seventh Article rightly, "which +feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises." But +certainly they also would be unworthy of a hearing who would feign that +the early Scriptures do not give a vast, a preponderating weight, to the +concerns of our life on earth. Only very slowly, and as the result of +long training, does the future begin to reveal its supremacy over the +present. It would startle many a devout reader out of his propriety to +discover the small proportion of Old Testament scriptures in which +eternity and its prospects are discussed, to reckon the passages, +habitually applied to spiritual thraldom and emancipation, which were +spoken at first of earthly tyranny and earthly deliverance, and to +observe, even in the pious aspirations of the Psalms, how much of the +gratitude and joy of the righteous comes from the sense that he is made +wiser than the ancient, and need not fear though a host rose up against +him, and can break a bow of steel, and has a table prepared for him, and +an overflowing cup. Especially is this true of the historical books. God +is here seen ruling states, judging in the earth, remembering Israel in +bondage, and setting him free, providing supernatural food and water, +guiding him by the fiery cloud. There is not a word about regeneration, +conversion, hell, or heaven. And yet there is a profound sense of God. +He is real, active, the most potent factor in the daily lives of men. +Now, this may teach us a lesson, highly important to us all, and +especially to those who must teach others. The difference between +spirituality and secularity is not the difference between the future +life and the present, but between a life that is aware of God and a +godless one. Perhaps, when we find our gospel a matter of indifference +and weariness to men who are absorbed in the bitter monotonous and +dreary struggle for existence, we ourselves are most to blame. Perhaps, +if Moses had approached the Hebrew drudges as we approach men equally +weary and oppressed, they would not have bowed their heads and +worshipped. And perhaps we should have better success, if we took care +to speak of God in this world, making life a noble struggle, charging +with new significance the dull and seemingly degraded lot of all who +remember Him, such a God as Jesus revealed when He cleansed the leper, +and gave sight to the blind, using one and the same word for the +"healing" of diseases and the "saving" of souls, and connecting faith +equally with both. Exodus will have little to teach us, unless we +believe in that God who knoweth that we have need of food and clothing. +And the higher spiritual truths which it expresses will only be found +there in dubious and questionable allegory, unless we firmly grasp the +great truth, that God is not the Saviour of souls, or of bodies, but of +living men in their entirety, and treats their higher and lower wants +upon much the same principle, because He is the same God, dealing with +the same men, through both. + +Moreover, He treats us as the men of other ages. Instead of dealing with +Moses upon exceptional and strange lines, He made known His ways unto +Moses, His characteristic and habitual ways. And it is on this account +that whatsoever things were written aforetime are true admonition for us +also, being not violent interruptions but impressive revelations of the +steady silent methods of the judgment and the grace of God. + + +_THE OPPRESSION._ + +i. 7-22. + +At the beginning of the history of Israel we find a prosperous race. It +was indeed their growing importance, and chiefly their vast numerical +increase, which excited the jealousy of their rulers, at the very time +when a change of dynasty removed the sense of obligation. It is a sound +lesson in political as well as personal godliness that prosperity itself +is dangerous, and needs special protection from on high. + +Is it merely by chance again that we find in this first of histories +examples of the folly of relying upon political connections? As the +chief butler remembered not Joseph, nor did he succeed in escaping from +prison by securing influence at court, so is the influence of Joseph +himself now become vain, although he was the father of Pharaoh and lord +of all his house. His romantic history, his fidelity in temptation, and +the services by which he had at once cemented the royal power and saved +the people, could not keep his memory alive. The hollow wraith of dying +fame died wholly. There arose a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph. + +Such is the value of the highest and purest earthly fame, and such the +gratitude of the world to its benefactors. The nation which Joseph +rescued from starvation is passive in Pharaoh's hands, and persecutes +Israel at his bidding. + +And when the actual deliverer arose, his rank and influence were only +entanglements through which he had to break. + +Meanwhile, except among a few women, obedient to the woman's heart, we +find no trace of independent action, no revolt of conscience against the +absolute behest of the sovereign, until selfishness replaces virtue, and +despair wrings the cry from his servants, Knowest thou not yet that +Egypt is destroyed? + +Now, in Genesis we saw the fate of families, blessed in their father +Abraham, or cursed for the offence of Ham. For a family is a real +entity, and its members, like those of one body, rejoice and suffer +together. But the same is true of nations, and here we have reached the +national stage in the education of the world. Here is exhibited to us, +therefore, a nation suffering with its monarch to the uttermost, until +the cry of the maidservant behind the mill is as wild and bitter as the +cry of Pharaoh upon his throne. It is indeed the eternal curse of +despotism that unlimited calamity may be drawn down upon millions by the +caprice of one most unhappy man, himself blinded and half maddened by +adulation, by the absence of restraint, by unlimited sensual indulgence +if his tendencies be low and animal, and by the pride of power if he be +high-spirited and aspiring. + +If we assume, what seems pretty well established, that the Pharaoh from +whom Moses fled was Rameses the Great, his spirit was of the nobler +kind, and he exhibits a terrible example of the unfitness even of +conquering genius for unbridled and irresponsible power. That lesson has +had to be repeated, even down to the days of the Great Napoleon. + +Now, if the justice of plaguing a nation for the offence of its head be +questioned, let us ask first whether the nation accepts his despotism, +honours him, and is content to regard him as its chief and captain. +According to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, whoever thinks a +tyrant enviable, has already himself tyrannised with him in his heart. +Do we ourselves, then, never sympathise with political audacity, bold +and unscrupulous "resource," success that is bought at the price of +strange compliances, and compromises, and wrongs to other men? + +The great national lesson is now to be taught to Israel that the most +splendid imperial force will be brought to an account for its treatment +of the humblest--that there is a God Who judges in the earth. And they +were bidden to apply in their own land this experience of their own, +dealing kindly with the stranger in the midst of them, "for thou wast a +stranger in the land of Egypt." That lesson we have partly learned, who +have broken the chain of our slaves. But how much have we left undone! +The subject races were never given into our hands to supplant them, as +we have supplanted the Red Indian and the New Zealander, nor to +debauch, as men say we are corrupting the African and the Hindoo, but to +raise, instruct and Christianise. And if the subjects of a despotism are +accountable for the actions of rulers whom they tolerate, how much more +are we? What ought we to infer, from this old-world history, of the +profound responsibilities of all free citizens? + +We attain a principle which reaches far into the spiritual world, when +we reflect that if evil deeds of a ruler can justly draw down vengeance +upon his people, the converse also must hold good. Reverse the case +before us. Let the kingdom be that of the noblest and purest virtue. Let +no subject ever be coerced to enter it, nor to remain one hour longer +than while his adoring loyalty consents. And shall not these subjects be +the better for the virtues of the Monarch whom they love? Is it mere +caprice to say that in choosing such a King they do, in a very real +sense, appropriate the goodness they crown? If it be natural that Egypt +be scourged for the sins of Pharaoh, is it palpably incredible that +Christ is made of God unto His people wisdom and righteousness and +sanctification and redemption? The doctrine of imputation can easily be +so stated as to become absurd. But the imputation of which St. Paul +speaks much can only be denied when we are prepared to assail the +principle on which all bodies of men are treated, families and nations +as well as the Church of God. + +It was the jealous cruelty of Pharaoh which drew down upon his country +the very perils he laboured to turn away. There was no ground for his +fear of any league with foreigners against him. Prosperous and +unambitious, the people would have remained well content beside the +flesh-pots of Egypt, for which they sighed even when emancipated from +heavy bondage and eating the bread of heaven. Or else, if they had gone +forth in peace, from a land whose hospitality had not failed, to their +inheritance in Canaan, they would have become an allied nation upon the +side where the heaviest blows were afterwards struck by the Asiatic +powers. Cruelty and cunning could not retain them, but it could decimate +a population and lose an army in the attempt. And this law prevails in +the modern world, England paid twenty millions to set her bondmen free. +Because America would not follow her example, she ultimately paid the +more terrible ransom of civil war. For the same God was in Jamaica and +in Florida as in the field of Zoan. Nor was there ever yet a crooked +policy which did not recoil either upon its author, or upon his +successors when he had passed away. In this case it fulfilled the plans +and the prophecies of God, and the wrath of man was made to praise Him. + +There is independent reason for believing that at this period one-third +at least of the population of Egypt was of alien blood (Brugsch, +_History_, ii. 100). A politician might fairly be alarmed, especially if +this were the time when the Hittites were threatening the eastern +frontier, and had reduced Egypt to stand on the defensive, and erect +barrier fortresses. And the circumstances of the country made it very +easy to enslave the Hebrews. If any stain of Oriental indifference to +the rights of the masses had mingled with the God-given insight of +Joseph, when he made his benefactor the owner of all the soil, the +Egyptian people were fully avenged upon him now. For this arrangement +laid his pastoral race helpless at their oppressor's feet. Forced +labour quickly degenerates into slavery, and men who find the story of +their misery hard to credit should consider the state of France before +the Revolution, and of the Russian serfs before their emancipation. +Their wretchedness was probably as bitter as that of the Hebrews at any +period but the last climax of their oppression. And they owed it to the +same cause--the absolute ownership of the land by others, too remote +from them to be sympathetic, to take due account of their feelings, to +remember that they were their fellow-men. This was enough to slay +compassion, even without the aggravation of dealing with an alien and +suspected race. + +Now, it is instructive to observe these reappearances of wholesale +crime. They warn us that the utmost achievements of human wickedness are +human still; not wild and grotesque importations by a fiend, originated +in the abyss, foreign to the world we live in. Satan finds the material +for his master-strokes in the estrangement of class from class, in the +drying up of the fountains of reciprocal human feeling, in the failure +of real, fresh, natural affection in our bosom for those who differ +widely from us in rank or circumstances. All cruelties are possible when +a man does not seem to us really a man, nor his woes really woeful. For +when the man has sunk into an animal it is only a step to his +vivisection. + +Nor does anything tend to deepen such perilous estrangement, more than +the very education, culture and refinement, in which men seek a +substitute for religion and the sense of brotherhood in Christ. It is +quite conceivable that the tyrant who drowned the Hebrew infants was an +affectionate father, and pitied his nobles when their children died. But +his sympathies could not reach beyond the barriers of a caste. Do _our_ +sympathies really overleap such barriers? Would God that even His Church +believed aright in the reality of a human nature like our own, soiled, +sorrowful, shamed, despairing, drugged into that apathetical +insensibility which lies even below despair, yet aching still, in ten +thousand bosoms, in every great city of Christendom, every day and every +night! Would to God that she understood what Jesus meant, when He called +one lost creature by the tender name which she had not yet forfeited, +saying, "Woman, where are thine accusers?" and when He asked Simon, who +scorned such another, "Seest thou this woman!" Would God that when she +prays for the Holy Spirit of Jesus she would really seek a mind like +His, not only in piety and prayerfulness, but also in tender and +heartfelt brotherhood with all, even the vilest of the weary and +heavy-laden! + +Many great works of ancient architecture, the pyramids among the rest, +were due to the desire of crushing, by abject toil, the spirit of a +subject people. We cannot ascribe to Hebrew labour any of the more +splendid piles of Egyptian masonry, but the store cities or arsenals +which they built can be identified. They are composed of such crude +brick as the narrative describes; and the absence of straw in the later +portion of them can still be verified. Rameses was evidently named after +their oppressor, and this strengthens the conviction that we are reading +of events in the nineteenth dynasty, when the shepherd kings had +recently been driven out, leaving the eastern frontier so weak as to +demand additional fortresses, and so far depopulated as to give colour +to the exaggerated assertion of Pharaoh, "the people are more and +mightier than we." It is by such exaggerations and alarms that all the +worst crimes of statesmen have been justified to consenting peoples. And +we, when we carry what seems to us a rightful object, by inflaming the +prejudice and misleading the judgment of other men, are moving on the +same treacherous and slippery inclines. Probably no evil is committed +without some amount of justification, which the passions exaggerate, +while they ignore the prohibitions of the law. + +How came it to pass that the fierce Hebrew blood, which was yet to boil +in the veins of the Maccabees, and to give battle, not unworthily, to +the Roman conquerors of the world, failed to resent the cruelties of +Pharaoh? + +Partly, of course, because the Jewish people was only now becoming aware +of its national existence; but also because it had forsaken God. Its +religion, if not supplanted, was at least adulterated by the influence +of the mystic pantheism and the stately ritual which surrounded them. + +Joshua bade his victorious followers to "put away the gods whom your +fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord" +(Josh. xxiv. 14). And in Ezekiel the Lord Himself complains, "They +rebelled against Me and would not hearken unto Me; they did not cast +away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols +of Egypt" (Ezek. xx. 8). + +Now, there is nothing which enfeebles the spirit and breaks the courage +like religious dependence. A strong priesthood always means a feeble +people, most of all when they are of different blood. And Israel was now +dependent on Egypt alike for the highest and lowest needs--grass for the +cattle and religion for the soul. And when they had sunk so low, it is +evident that their emancipation had to be wrought for them entirely +without their help. From first to last they were passive, not only for +want of spirit to help themselves, but because the glory of any exploit +of theirs might have illuminated some false deity whom they adored. + +Standing still, they saw the salvation of God, and it was not possible +to give His glory to another. + +For this cause also, judgment had, first of all, to be wrought upon the +gods of Egypt. + +In the meantime, without spirit enough to resist, they saw complete +destruction drawing nearer to them by successive strides. At first +Pharaoh "dealt wisely with them," and they found themselves entrapped +into a hard bondage almost unawares. But a strange power upheld them, +and the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied and spread +abroad. In this they ought to have discerned a divine support, and +remembered the promise to Abraham that God would multiply his seed as +the stars of heaven. It may have helped them presently to "cry unto the +Lord." And the Egyptians were not merely "grieved" because of them: they +felt as the Israelites afterwards felt towards that monotonous diet of +which they used the same word, and said, "our soul loatheth this light +bread." Here it expresses that fierce and contemptuous attitude which +the Californian and Australian are now assuming toward the swarms of +Chinamen whose labour is so indispensable, yet the infusion of whose +blood into the population is so hateful. Then the Egyptians make their +service rigorous, and their lives bitter. + +And at last that happens which is a part of every downward course: the +veil is dropped; what men have done by stealth, and as if they would +deceive themselves, they soon do consciously, avowing to their +conscience what at first they could not face. Thus Pharaoh began by +striving to check a dangerous population; and ended by committing +wholesale murder. Thus men become drunkards through conviviality, +thieves through borrowing what they mean to restore, and hypocrites +through slightly overstating what they really feel. And, since there are +nice gradations in evil, down to the very last, Pharaoh will not yet +avow publicly the atrocity which he commands a few humble women to +perpetrate; decency is with him, as it is often, the last substitute for +a conscience. + +Among the agents of God for the shipwreck of all full-grown wrongs, the +chief is the revolt of human nature, since, fallen though we know +ourselves to be, the image of God is not yet effaced in us. The better +instincts of humanity are irrepressible--most so perhaps among the poor. +It is by refusing to trust its intuitions that men grow vile; and to the +very last that refusal is never absolute, so that no villainy can reckon +upon its agents, and its agents cannot always reckon upon themselves. +Above all, the heart of every woman is in a plot against the wrong; and +as Pharaoh was afterwards defeated by the ingenuity of a mother and the +sympathy of his own daughter, so his first scheme was spoiled by the +disobedience of the midwives, themselves Hebrews, upon whom he reckoned. + +Let us not fear to avow that these women, whom God rewarded, lied to the +king when he reproached them, since their answer, even if it were not +unfounded, was palpably a misrepresentation of the facts. The reward was +not for their falsehood, but for their humanity. They lived when the +notion of martyrdom for an avowal so easy to evade was utterly unknown. +Abraham lied to Abimelech. Both Samuel and David equivocated with Saul. +We have learned better things from the King of truth, Who was born and +came into the world to bear witness to the truth. We know that the +martyr's bold protest against unrighteousness is the highest vocation of +the Church, and is rewarded in the better country. But they knew nothing +of this, and their service was acceptable according as they had, not +according as they had not. As well might we blame the patriarchs for +having been slave-owners, and David for having invoked mischief upon his +enemies, as these women for having fallen short of the Christian ideal +of veracity. Let us beware lest we come short of it ourselves. And let +us remember that the way of the Church through time is the path of the +just, beset with mist and vapour at the dawn, but shining more and more +unto the perfect day. + +In the meantime, God acknowledges, and Holy Scripture celebrates, the +service of these obscure and lowly heroines. Nothing done for Him goes +unrewarded. To slaves it was written that "From the Lord ye shall +receive the reward of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ" (Col. +iii. 24). And what these women saved for others was what was recompensed +to themselves, domestic happiness, family life and its joys. God made +them houses. + +The king is now driven to avow himself in a public command to drown all +the male infants of the Hebrews; and the people become his accomplices +by obeying him. For this they were yet to experience a terrible +retribution, when there was not a house in Egypt that had not one dead. + +The features of the king to whom these atrocities are pretty certainly +brought home are still to be seen in the museum at Boulak. Seti I. is +the most beautiful of all the Egyptian monarchs whose faces lie bare to +the eyes of modern sightseers; and his refined features, intelligent, +high-bred and cheerful, resemble wonderfully, yet surpass, those of +Rameses II., his successor, from whom Moses fled. This is the builder of +the vast and exquisite temple of Amon at Thebes, the grandeur of which +is amazing even in its ruins; and his culture and artistic gifts are +visible, after all these centuries, upon his face. It is a strange +comment upon the modern doctrine that culture is to become a sufficient +substitute for religion. And his own record of his exploits is enough to +show that the sense of beauty is not that of pity: he is the jackal +leaping through the land of his enemies, the grim lion, the powerful +bull with sharpened horns, who has annihilated the peoples. + +There is no greater mistake than to suppose that artistic refinement can +either inspire morality or replace it. Have we quite forgotten Nero, and +Lucretia Borgia, and Catherine de Medici? + +Many civilisations have thought little of infant life. Ancient Rome +would have regarded this atrocity as lightly as modern China, as we may +see by the absolute silence of its literature concerning the murder of +the innocents--an event strangely parallel with this in its nature and +political motives, and in the escape of one mighty Infant. + +Is it conceivable that the same indifference should return, if the +sanctions of religion lose their power? Every one remembers the +callousness of Rousseau. Strange things are being written by pessimistic +unbelief about the bringing of more sufferers into the world. And a +living writer in France has advocated the legalising of infanticide, and +denounced St. Vincent de Paul because, "thanks to his odious +precautions, this man deferred for years the death of creatures without +intelligence," etc.[2] + +It is to the faith of Jesus, not only revealing by the light of eternity +the value of every soul, but also replenishing the fountains of human +tenderness that had well-nigh become exhausted, that we owe our modern +love of children. In the very helplessness which the ancient masters of +the world exposed to destruction without a pang, we see the type of what +we must ourselves become, if we would enter heaven. But we cannot afford +to forget either the source or the sanctions of the lesson. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Professor Curtiss quotes a volume of family memoirs which shows that +5,564 persons are known to be descended from Lieutenant John Hollister, +who emigrated to America in the year 1642 (_Expositor_, Nov. 1887, p. +329). This is probably equal in ratio to the increase of Israel in +Egypt. + +[2] J. K. Huysmans--quoted in _Nineteenth Century_, May 1888, p. 673. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +_THE RESCUE OF MOSES._ + +ii. 1-10. + +We have said that the Old Testament history teems with political wisdom, +lessons of permanent instruction for mankind, on the level of this life, +yet godly, as all true lessons must be, in a world of which Christ is +King. These our religion must learn to recognise and proclaim, if it is +ever to win the respect of men of affairs, and "leaven the whole lump" +of human life with sacred influence. + +Such a lesson is the importance of the individual in the history of +nations. History, as read in Scripture, is indeed a long relation of +heroic resistance or of base compliance in the presence of influences +which are at work to debase modern peoples as well as those of old. The +holiness of Samuel, the gallant faith of David, the splendour and wisdom +of Solomon, the fervid zeal of Elijah, the self-respecting righteousness +of Nehemiah,--ignore these, and the whole course of affairs becomes +vague and unintelligible. Most of all this is true of Moses, whose +appearance is now related. + +In profane history it is the same. Alexander, Mahomet, Luther, William +the Silent, Napoleon,--will any one pretend that Europe uninfluenced by +these personalities would have become the Europe that we know? + +And this truth is not at all a speculative, unpractical theory: it is +vital. For now there is a fashion of speaking about the tendency of the +age, the time-spirit, as an irresistible force which moulds men like +potters' clay, crowning those who discern and help it, but grinding to +powder all who resist its course. In reality there are always a hundred +time-spirits and tendencies competing for the mastery--some of them +violent, selfish, atheistic, or luxurious (as we see with our own eyes +to-day)--and the shrewdest judges are continually at fault as to which +of them is to be victorious, and recognised hereafter as the spirit of +the age. + +This modern pretence that men are nothing, and streams of tendency are +all, is plainly a gospel of capitulations, of falsehood to one's private +convictions, and of servile obedience to the majority and the popular +cry. For, if individual men are nothing, what am I? If we are all +bubbles floating down a stream, it is folly to strive to breast the +current. Much practical baseness and servility is due to this base and +servile creed. And the cure for it is belief in another spirit than that +of the present age, trust in an inspiring God, who rescued a herd of +slaves and their fading convictions from the greatest nation upon earth +by matching one man, shrinking and reluctant yet obedient to his +mission, against Pharaoh and all the tendencies of the age. + +And it is always so. God turns the scale of events by the vast weight of +a man, faithful and true, and sufficiently aware of Him to refuse, to +universal clamour, the surrender of his liberty or his religion. In +small matters, as in great, there is no man, faithful to a lonely duty +or conviction, understanding that to have discerned it is a gift and a +vocation, but makes the world better and stronger, and works out part +of the answer to that great prayer "Thy will be done." + +We have seen already that the religion of the Hebrews in Egypt was +corrupted and in danger of being lost. To this process, however, there +must have been bright exceptions; and the mother of Moses bore witness, +by her very name, to her fathers' God. The first syllable of Jochebed is +proof that the name of God, which became the keynote of the new +revelation, was not entirely new. + +As yet the parents of Moses are not named; nor is there any allusion to +the close relationship which would have forbidden their union at a later +period (chap. vi. 20). And throughout all the story of his youth and +early manhood there is no mention whatever of God or of religion. +Elsewhere it is not so. The Epistle to the Hebrews declares that through +faith the babe was hidden, and through faith the man refused Egyptian +rank. Stephen tells us that he expected his brethren to know that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance. But the narrative in Exodus is +wholly untheological. If Moses were the author, we can see why he +avoided reflections which directly tended to glorify himself. But if the +story were a subsequent invention, why is the tone so cold, the light so +colourless? + +Now, it is well that we are invited to look at all these things from +their human side, observing the play of human affection, innocent +subtlety, and pity. God commonly works through the heart and brain which +He has given us, and we do not glorify Him at all by ignoring these. If +in this case there were visible a desire to suppress the human agents, +in favour of the Divine Preserver, we might suppose that a different +historian would have given a less wonderful account of the plagues, the +crossing of the Sea, and the revelation from Sinai. But since full +weight is allowed to second causes in the early life of Moses, the story +is entitled to the greater credit when it tells of the burning bush and +the flaming mountain. + +Let us, however, put together the various narratives and their lessons. +At the outset we read of a marriage celebrated between kinsfolk, when +the storm of persecution was rising. And hence we infer that courage or +strong affection made the parents worthy of him through whom God should +show mercy unto thousands. The first child was a girl, and therefore +safe; but we may suppose, although silence in Scripture proves little, +that Aaron, three years before the birth of Moses, had not come into +equal peril with him. Moses was therefore born just when the last +atrocity was devised, when trouble was at its height. + +"At this time Moses was born," said Stephen. Edifying inferences have +been drawn from the statement in Exodus that "the woman ... hid him." +Perhaps the stronger man quailed, but the maternal instinct was not at +fault, and it was rewarded abundantly. From which we only learn, in +reality, not to overstrain the words of Scripture; since the Epistle to +the Hebrews distinctly says that he "was hid three months by his +parents"--both of them, while naturally the mother is the active agent. + +All the accounts agree that he was thus hidden, "because they saw that +he was a goodly child" (Heb. xi. 23). It is a pathetic phrase. We see +them, before the crisis, vaguely submitting in theory to an unrealised +atrocity, ignorant how imperiously their nature would forbid the crime, +not planning disobedience in advance, nor led to it by any reasoning +process. All is changed when the little one gazes at them with that +marvellous appeal in its unconscious eyes, which is known to every +parent, and helps him to be a better man. There is a great difference +between one's thought about an infant, and one's feeling towards the +actual baby. He was their child, their beautiful child; and this it was +that turned the scale. For him they would now dare anything, "because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's +commandment." Now, impulse is often a great power for evil, as when +appetite or fear, suddenly taking visible shape, overwhelms the judgment +and plunges men into guilt. But good impulses may be the very voice of +God, stirring whatever is noble and generous within us. Nor are they +accidental: loving and brave emotions belong to warm and courageous +hearts; they come of themselves, like song birds, but they come surely +where sunshine and still groves invite them, not into clamour and foul +air. Thus arose in their bosoms the sublime thought of God as an active +power to be reckoned upon. For as certainly as every bad passion that we +harbour preaches atheism, so does all goodness tend to sustain itself by +the consciousness of a supreme Goodness in reserve. God had sent them +their beautiful child, and who was Pharaoh to forbid the gift? And so +religion and natural pity joined hands, their supreme convictions and +their yearning for their infant. "By faith Moses was hid ... because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's +commandment." + +Such, if we desire a real and actual salvation, is always the faith +which saves. Postpone salvation to an indefinite future; make it no more +than the escape from vaguely realised penalties for sins which do not +seem very hateful; and you may suppose that faith in theories can obtain +this indulgence; an opinion may weigh against a misgiving. But feel that +sin is not only likely to entail damnation, but is really and in itself +damnable meanwhile, and then there will be no deliverance possible, but +from the hand of a divine Friend, strong to sustain and willing to guide +the life. We read that Amram lived a hundred and thirty and seven years, +and of all that period we only know that he helped to save the deliverer +of his race, by practical faith which made him not afraid, and did not +paralyse but stimulate his energies. + +When the mother could no longer hide the child, she devised the plan +which has made her for ever famous. She placed him in a covered ark, or +casket,[3] plaited (after what we know to have been the Egyptian +fashion) of the papyrus reed, and rendered watertight with bitumen, and +this she laid among the rushes--a lower vegetation, which would not, +like the tall papyrus, hide her treasure--in the well-known and secluded +place where the daughter of Pharaoh used to bathe. Something in the +known character of the princess may have inspired this ingenious device +to move her pity; but it is more likely that the woman's heart, in her +extremity, prompted a simple appeal to the woman who could help her if +she would. For an Egyptian princess was an important personage, with an +establishment of her own, and often possessed of much political +influence. The most sanguinary agent of a tyrant would be likely to +respect the client of such a patron. + +The heart of every woman was in a plot against the cruelty of Pharaoh. +Once already the midwives had defeated him; and now, when his own +daughter[4] unexpectedly found, in the water at her very feet, a +beautiful child sobbing silently (for she knew not what was there until +the ark was opened), her indignation is audible enough in the words, +"This is one of the Hebrews' children." She means to say "This is only +one specimen of the outrages that are going on." + +This was the chance for his sister, who had been set in ambush, not +prepared with the exquisite device which follows, but simply "to know +what would be done to him." Clearly the mother had reckoned upon his +being found, and neglected nothing, although unable herself to endure +the agony of watching, or less easily hidden in that guarded spot. And +her prudence had a rich reward. Hitherto Miriam's duty had been to +remain passive--that hard task so often imposed upon the affection, +especially of women, by sick-beds, and also in many a more stirring +hazard, and many a spiritual crisis, where none can fight his brother's +battle. It is a trying time, when love can only hold its breath, and +pray. But let not love suppose that to watch is to do nothing. Often +there comes a moment when its word, made wise by the teaching of the +heart, is the all-important consideration in deciding mighty issues. + +This girl sees the princess at once pitiful and embarrassed, for how can +she dispose of her strange charge? Let the moment pass, and the movement +of her heart subside, and all may be lost; but Miriam is prompt and +bold, and asks "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, +that she may nurse the child for thee?" It is a daring stroke, for the +princess must have understood the position thoroughly, the moment the +eager Hebrew girl stepped forward. The disguise was very thin. And at +least the heart which pitied the infant must have known the mother when +she saw her face, pale with longing. It is therefore only as a form, +exacted by circumstances, but well enough though tacitly understood upon +both sides, that she bids her nurse the child for her, and promises +wages. What reward could equal that of clasping her child to her own +agitated bosom in safety, while the destroyers were around? + +This incident teaches us that good is never to be despaired of, since +this kindly woman grew up in the family of the persecutor. + +And the promptitude and success of Miriam suggest a reflection. Men do +pity, when it is brought home to them, the privation, suffering, and +wrong, which lie around. Magnificent sums are contributed yearly for +their relief by the generous instincts of the world. The misfortune is +that sentiment is evoked only by visible and pathetic griefs, and that +it will not labour as readily as it will subscribe. It is a harder task +to investigate, to devise appeals, to invent and work the machinery by +which misery may be relieved. Mere compassion will accomplish little, +unless painstaking affection supplement it. Who supplies that? Who +enables common humanity to relieve itself by simply paying "wages," and +confiding the wretched to a painstaking, laborious, loving guardian? The +streets would never have known Hospital Saturday, but for Hospital +Sunday in the churches. The orphanage is wholly a Christian institution. +And so is the lady nurse. The old-fashioned phrase has almost sunk into +a party cry, but in a large and noble sense it will continue to be true +to nature as long as bereavement, pain or penitence requires a tender +bosom and soothing touch, which speaks of Mother Church. + +Thus did God fulfil His mysterious plans. And according to a sad but +noble law, which operates widely, what was best in Egypt worked with Him +for the punishment of its own evil race. The daughter of Pharaoh adopted +the perilous foundling, and educated him in the wisdom of Egypt. + + +_THE CHOICE OF MOSES._ + +ii. 11-15. + +God works even His miracles by means. As He fed the multitude with +barley-loaves, so He would emancipate Israel by human agency. It was +therefore necessary to educate one of the trampled race "in all the +learning of Egypt," and Moses was planted in the court of Pharaoh, like +the German Arminius in Rome. Wonderful legends may be read in Josephus +of his heroism, his wisdom, and his victories; and these have some +foundation in reality, for Stephen tells us that he was mighty in his +words and works. Might in words need not mean the fluent utterance which +he so earnestly disclaimed (iv. 10), even if forty years' disuse of the +language were not enough to explain his later diffidence. It may have +meant such power of composition as appears in the hymn by the Red Sea, +and in the magnificent valediction to his people. + +The point is that among a nation originally pastoral, and now sinking +fast into the degraded animalism of slaves, which afterwards betrayed +itself in their complaining greed, their sighs for the generous Egyptian +dietary, and their impure carouse under the mountain, one man should +possess the culture and mental grasp needed by a leader and lawgiver. +"Could not the grace of God have supplied the place of endowment and +attainment?" Yes, truly; and it was quite as likely to do this for one +who came down from His immediate presence with his face intolerably +bright, as for the last impudent enthusiast who declaims against the +need of education in sentences which at least prove that for him the +want has by no substitute been completely met. But the grace of God +chose to give the qualification, rather than replace it, alike to Moses +and St. Paul. Nor is there any conspicuous example among the saints of a +man being thrust into a rank for which he was not previously made fit. + +The painful contrast between his own refined tastes and habits, and the +coarser manners of his nation, was no doubt one difficulty of the choice +of Moses, and a lifelong trial to him afterwards. He is an example not +only to those whom wealth and power would entangle, but to any who are +too fastidious and sensitive for the humble company of the people of +God. + +While the intellect of Moses was developing, it is plain that his +connection with his family was not entirely broken. Such a tie as often +binds a foster-child to its nurse may have been permitted to associate +him with his real parents. Some means were evidently found to instruct +him in the history and messianic hopes of Israel, for he knew that their +reproach was that of "the Christ," greater riches than all the treasure +of Egypt, and fraught with a reward for which he looked in faith (Heb. +xi. 26). But what is meant by naming as part of his burden their +"reproach," as distinguished from their sufferings? + +We shall understand, if we reflect, that his open rupture with Egypt was +unlikely to be the work of a moment. Like all the best workers, he was +led forward gradually, at first unconscious of his vocation. Many a +protest he must have made against the cruel and unjust policy that +steeped the land in innocent blood. Many a jealous councillor must have +known how to weaken his dangerous influence by some cautious taunt, some +insinuated "reproach" of his own Hebrew origin. The warnings put by +Josephus into the lips of the priests in his childhood, were likely +enough to have been spoken by some one before he was forty years old. At +last, when driven to make his choice, he "refused to be called the son +of Pharaoh's daughter," a phrase, especially in its reference to the +rejected title as distinguished from "the pleasures of sin," which seems +to imply a more formal rupture than Exodus records. + +We saw that the piety of his parents was not unhelped by their emotions: +they hid him by faith when they saw that he was a goodly child. Such was +also the faith by which Moses broke with rank and fortune. He went out +unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian +smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. Twice the word of kinship is +repeated; and Stephen tells us that Moses himself used it in rebuking +the dissensions of his fellow-countrymen. Filled with yearning and pity +for his trampled brethren, and with the shame of generous natures who +are at ease while others suffer, he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew. +With that blended caution and vehemence which belong to his nation +still, he looked and saw that there was no man, and slew the Egyptian. +Like most acts of passion, this was at once an impulse of the moment, +and an outcome of long gathering forces--just as the lightning flash, +sudden though it seem, has been prepared by the accumulated electricity +of weeks. + +And this is the reason why God allows the issues of a lifetime, perhaps +of an eternity, to be decided by a sudden word, a hasty blow. Men plead +that if time had been given, they would have stifled the impulse which +ruined them. But what gave the impulse such violent and dreadful force +that it overwhelmed them before they could reflect? The explosion in the +coal-mine is not caused by the sudden spark, without the accumulation of +dangerous gases, and the absence of such wholesome ventilation as would +carry them away. It is so in the breast where evil desires or tempers +are harboured, unsubdued by grace, until any accident puts them beyond +control. Thank God that such sudden movements do not belong to evil +only! A high soul is surprised into heroism, as often perhaps as a mean +one into theft or falsehood. In the case of Moses there was nothing +unworthy, but much that was unwarranted and presumptuous. The decision +it involved was on the right side, but the act was self-willed and +unwarranted, and it carried heavy penalties. "The trespass originated +not in inveterate cruelty," says St. Augustine, "but in a hasty zeal +which admitted of correction ... resentment against injury was +accompanied by love for a brother.... Here was evil to be rooted out, +but the heart with such capabilities, like good soil, needed only +cultivation to make it fruitful in virtue." + +Stephen tells us, what is very natural, that Moses expected the people +to accept him as their heaven-born deliverer. From which it appears that +he cherished high expectations for himself, from Israel if not from +Egypt. When he interfered next day between two Hebrews, his question as +given in Exodus is somewhat magisterial: "Wherefore smitest thou thy +fellow?" In Stephen's version it dictates less, but it lectures a good +deal: "Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?" And it +was natural enough that they should dispute his pretensions, for God had +not yet given him the rank he claimed. He still needed a discipline +almost as sharp as that of Joseph, who, by talking too boastfully of his +dreams, postponed their fulfilment until he was chastened by slavery and +a dungeon. Even Saul of Tarsus, when converted, needed three years of +close seclusion for the transformation of his fiery ardour into divine +zeal, as iron to be tempered must be chilled as well as heated. The +precipitate and violent zeal of Moses entailed upon him forty years of +exile. + +And yet his was a noble patriotism. There is a false love of country, +born of pride, which blinds one to her faults; and there is a loftier +passion which will brave estrangement and denunciation to correct them. +Such was the patriotism of Moses, and of all whom God has ever truly +called to lead their fellows. Nevertheless he had to suffer for his +error. + +His first act had been a kind of manifesto, a claim to lead, which he +supposed that they would have understood; and yet, when he found his +deed was known, he feared and fled. His false step told against him. One +cannot but infer also that he was conscious of having already forfeited +court favour--that he had before this not only made his choice, but +announced it, and knew that the blow was ready to fall on him at any +provocation. We read that he dwelt in the land of Midian, a name which +was applied to various tracts according to the nomadic wanderings of the +tribe, but which plainly included, at this time, some part of the +peninsula formed by the tongues of the Red Sea. For, as he fed his +flocks, he came to the Mount of God. + + +_MOSES IN MIDIAN._ + +ii. 16-22 + +The interference of Moses on behalf of the daughters of the priest of +Midian is a pleasant trait, courteous, and expressive of a refined +nature. With this remark, and reflecting that, like many courtesies, it +brought its reward, we are often content to pass it by. And yet it +deserves a closer examination. + +1. For it expresses great energy of character. He might well have been +in a state of collapse. He had smitten the Egyptian for Israel's sake: +he had appealed to his own people to make common cause, like brethren, +against the common foe; and he had offered himself to them as their +destined leader in the struggle. But they had refused him the command, +and he was rudely awakened to the consciousness that his life was in +danger through the garrulous ingratitude of the man he rescued. Now he +was a ruined man and an exile, marked for destruction by the greatest of +earthly monarchs, with the habits and tastes of a great noble, but +homeless among wild races. + +It was no common nature which was alert and energetic at such a time. +The greatest men have known a period of prostration in calamity: it was +enough for honour that they should rally and re-collect their forces. +Thinking of Frederick, after Kunersdorf, resigning the command ("I have +no resources more, and will not survive the destruction of my country"), +and of his subsequent despatch, "I am now recovered from my illness"; +and of Napoleon, trembling and weeping on the road to Elba, one turns +with fresh admiration to the fallen prince, the baffled liberator, +sitting exhausted by the well, but as keen on behalf of liberty as when +Pharaoh trampled Israel, though now the oppressors are a group of rude +herdsmen, and the oppressed are Midianite women, driven from the troughs +which they have toiled to fill. One remembers Another, sitting also +exhausted by the well, defying social usage on behalf of a despised +woman, and thereby inspired and invigorated as with meat to eat which +His followers knew not of. + +2. Moreover there is disinterested bravery in the act, since he hazards +the opposition of the men of the land, among whom he seeks refuge, on +behalf of a group from which he can have expected nothing. And here it +is worth while to notice the characteristic variations in three stories +which have certain points of contact. The servant of Abraham, +servant-like, was well content that Rebekah should draw for all his +camels, while he stood still. The prudent Jacob, anxious to introduce +himself to his cousin, rolled away the stone and watered her camels. +Moses sat by the well, but did not interfere while the troughs were +being filled: it was only the overt wrong which kindled him. But as in +great things, so it is in small: our actions never stand alone; having +once befriended them, he will do it thoroughly, "and moreover he drew +water for us, and watered the flock." Such details could hardly have +been thought out by a fabricator; a legend would not have allowed Moses +to be slower in courtesy than Jacob;[5] but the story fits the case +exactly: his eyes were with his heart, and that was far away, until the +injustice of the shepherds roused him. + +And why was Moses thus energetic, fearless, and chivalrous? Because he +was sustained by the presence of the Unseen: he endured as seeing Him +who is invisible; and having, despite of panic, by faith forsaken Egypt, +he was free from the absorbing anxieties which prevent men from caring +for their fellows, free also from the cynical misgivings which suspect +that violence is more than justice, that to be righteous over-much is to +destroy oneself, and that perhaps, after all, one may see a good deal of +wrong without being called upon to interfere. It would be a different +world to-day, if all who claim to be "the salt of the earth" were as +eager to repress injustice in its smaller and meaner forms as to make +money or influential friends. If all petty and cowardly oppression were +sternly trodden down, we should soon have a state of public opinion in +which gross and large tyranny would be almost impossible. And it is very +doubtful whether the flagrant wrongs, which must be comparatively rare, +cause as much real mental suffering as the frequent small ones. Does +mankind suffer more from wild beasts than from insects? But how few that +aspire to emancipate oppressed nations would be content, in the hour of +their overthrow, to assert the rights of a handful of women against a +trifling fraud, to which indeed they were so well accustomed that its +omission surprised their father! + +Is it only because we are reading a history, and not a biography, that +we find no touch of tenderness, like the love of Jacob for Rachel, in +the domestic relations of Moses? + +Joseph also married in a strange land, yet he called the name of his +first son Manasseh, because God had made him to forget his sorrows: but +Moses remembered his. Neither wife nor child could charm away his home +sickness; he called his firstborn Gershom, because he was a sojourner in +a strange land. In truth, his whole life seems to have been a lonely +one. Miriam is called "the sister of Aaron" even when joining in the +song of Moses (xv. 20), and with Aaron she made common cause against +their greater brother (Num. xii. 1-2). Zipporah endangered his life +rather than obey the covenant of circumcision; she complied at last with +a taunt (iv. 24-6), and did not again join him until his victory over +Amalek raised his position to the utmost height (xviii. 2). + +His children are of no account, and his grandson is the founder of a +dangerous and enduring schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +There is much reason to see here the earliest example of the sad rule +that a prophet is not without honour save in his own house; that the law +of compensations reaches farther into life than men suppose; and high +position and great powers are too often counterbalanced by the isolation +of the heart. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] The same word is used for Noah's ark, but not elsewhere; not, for +example, of the ark in the Temple, the name of which occurs elsewhere in +Scripture only of the "coffin" of Joseph, and the "chest" for the Temple +revenues (Gen. 1. 26; 2 Chron. xxiv. 8, 10, 11.) + +[4] Or his sister, the daughter of a former Pharaoh. + +[5] Nor would it have made the women call their deliverer "an Egyptian," +for the Hebrew cast of features is very dissimilar. But Moses wore +Egyptian dress, and the Egyptians worked mines in the peninsula, so that +he was naturally taken for one of them. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +_THE BURNING BUSH._ + +ii. 23-iii. + +"In process of time the king of Egypt died," probably the great Raamses, +no other of whose dynasty had a reign which extended over the indicated +period of time. If so, he had while living every reason to expect an +immortal fame, as the greatest among Egyptian kings, a hero, a conqueror +on three continents, a builder of magnificent works. But he has only won +an immortal notoriety. "Every stone in his buildings was cemented in +human blood." The cause he persecuted has made deathless the banished +refugee, and has gibbeted the great monarch as a tyrant, whose +misplanned severities wrought the ruin of his successor and his army. +Such are the reversals of popular judgment: and such the vanity of fame. +For all the contemporary fame was his. + +"The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they +cried." Another monarch had come at last, a change after sixty-seven +years, and yet no change for them! It filled up the measure of their +patience, and also of the iniquity of Egypt. We are not told that their +cry was addressed to the Lord; what we read is that it reached Him, Who +still overhears and pities many a sob, many a lament, which ought to +have been addressed to Him, and is not. Indeed, if His compassion were +not to reach men until they had remembered and prayed to Him, who among +us would ever have learned to pray to Him at all? Moreover He remembered +His covenant with their forefathers, for the fulfilment of which the +time had now arrived. "And God saw the children of Israel, and God took +knowledge of them." + +These were not the cries of religious individuals, but of oppressed +masses. It is therefore a solemn question to ask How many such appeals +ascend from Christian England? Behold, the hire of labourers ... held +back by fraud crieth out. The half-paid slaves of our haste to be rich, +and the victims of our drinking institutions, and of hideous vices which +entangle and destroy the innocent and unconscious, what cries to heaven +are theirs! As surely as those which St. James records, these have +entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Of these sufferers every +one is His own by purchase, most of them by a covenant and sacrament +more solemn than bound Him to His ancient Israel. Surely He hears their +groaning. And all whose hearts are touched with compassion, yet who +hesitate whether to bestir themselves or to remain inert while evil is +masterful and cruel, should remember the anger of God when Moses said, +"Send, I pray Thee, by whom Thou wilt send." The Lord is not +indifferent. Much less than other sufferers should those who know God be +terrified by their afflictions. Cyprian encouraged the Church of his +time to endure even unto martyrdom, by the words recorded of ancient +Israel, that the more they afflicted them, so much the more they became +greater and waxed stronger. And he was right. For all these things +happened to them for ensamples, and were written for our admonition. + +It is further to be observed that the people were quite unconscious, +until Moses announced it afterwards, that they were heard by God. Yet +their deliverer had now been prepared by a long process for his work. We +are not to despair because relief does not immediately appear: though He +tarry, we are to wait for Him. + +While this anguish was being endured in Egypt, Moses was maturing for +his destiny. Self-reliance, pride of place, hot and impulsive +aggressiveness, were dying in his bosom. To the education of the +courtier and scholar was now added that of the shepherd in the wilds, +amid the most solemn and awful scenes of nature, in solitude, +humiliation, disappointment, and, as we learn from the Epistle to the +Hebrews, in enduring faith. Wordsworth has a remarkable description of +the effect of a similar discipline upon the good Lord Clifford. He +tells-- + + "How he, long forced in humble paths to go, + Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed. + + "Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, + His daily teachers had been woods and rills, + The silence that is in the starry sky, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + + "In him the savage virtues of the race, + Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead; + Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place + The wisdom which adversity had bred." + +There was also the education of advancing age, which teaches many +lessons, and among them two which are essential to leadership,--the +folly of a hasty blow, and of impulsive reliance upon the support of +mobs. Moses the man-slayer became exceeding meek; and he ceased to rely +upon the perception of his people that God by him would deliver them. +His distrust, indeed, became as excessive as his temerity had been, but +it was an error upon the safer side. "Behold, they will not believe me," +he says, "nor hearken unto my voice." + +It is an important truth that in very few lives the decisive moment +comes just when it is expected. Men allow themselves to be +self-indulgent, extravagant and even wicked, often upon the calculation +that their present attitude matters little, and they will do very +differently when the crisis arrives, the turning-point in their career +to nerve them. And they waken up with a start to find their career +already decided, their character moulded. As a snare shall the day of +the Lord come upon all flesh; and as a snare come all His great +visitations meanwhile. When Herod was drinking among bad companions, +admiring a shameless dancer, and boasting loudly of his generosity, he +was sobered and saddened to discover that he had laughed away the life +of his only honest adviser. Moses, like David, was "following the ewes +great with young," when summoned by God to rule His people Israel. +Neither did the call arrive when he was plunged in moody reverie and +abstraction, sighing over his lost fortunes and his defeated +aspirations, rebelling against his lowly duties. The humblest labour is +a preparation for the brightest revelations, whereas discontent, however +lofty, is a preparation for nothing. Thus, too, the birth of Jesus was +first announced to shepherds keeping watch over their flock. Yet +hundreds of third-rate young persons in every city in this land to-day +neglect their work, and unfit themselves for any insight, or any +leadership whatever, by chafing against the obscurity of their +vocation. + +Who does not perceive that the career of Moses hitherto was divinely +directed? The fact that we feel this, although, until now, God has not +once been mentioned in his personal story, is surely a fine lesson for +those who have only one notion of what edifies--the dragging of the most +sacred names and phrases into even the most unsuitable connections. In +truth, such a phraseology is much less attractive than a certain tone, a +recognition of the unseen, which may at times be more consistent with +reverential silence than with obtrusive utterance. It is enough to be +ready and fearless when the fitting time comes, which is sure to arrive, +for the religious heart as for this narrative--the time for the natural +utterance of the great word, God. + +We read that the angel of the Lord appeared to him--a remarkable phrase, +which was already used in connection with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. +xxii. 11). How much it implies will better be discussed in the +twenty-third chapter, where a fuller statement is made. For the present +it is enough to note, that this is one pre-eminent angel, indicated by +the definite article; that he is clearly the medium of a true divine +appearance, because neither the voice nor form of any lesser being is +supposed to be employed, the appearance being that of fire, and the +words being said to be the direct utterance of the Lord, not of any one +who says, Thus saith the Lord. We shall see hereafter that the story of +the Exodus is unique in this respect, that in training a people tainted +with Egyptian superstitions, no 'similitude' is seen, as when there +wrestled a man with Jacob, or when Ezekiel saw a human form upon the +sapphire pavement. + +Man is the true image of God, and His perfect revelation was in flesh. +But now that expression of Himself was perilous, and perhaps unsuitable +besides; for He was to be known as the Avenger, and presently as the +Giver of Law, with its inflexible conditions and its menaces. Therefore +He appeared as fire, which is intense and terrible, even when "the flame +of the grace of God does not consume, but illuminates." + +There is a notion that religion is languid, repressive, and unmanly. But +such is not the scriptural idea. In His presence is the fulness of joy. +Christ has come that we might have life, and might have it more +abundantly. They who are shut out from His blessedness are said to be +asleep and dead. And so Origen quotes this passage among others, with +the comment that "As God is a fire, and His angels a flame of fire, and +all the saints fervent in spirit, so they who have fallen away from God +are said to have cooled, or to have become cold" (_De Princip._, ii. 8). +A revelation by fire involves intensity. + +There is indeed another explanation of the burning bush, which makes the +flame express only the afflictions that did not consume the people. But +this would be a strange adjunct to a divine appearance for their +deliverance, speaking rather of the continuance of suffering than of its +termination, for which the extinction of such fire would be a more +appropriate symbol. + +Yet there is an element of truth even in this view, since fire is +connected with affliction. In His holiness God is light (with which, in +the Hebrew, the very word for holiness seems to be connected); in His +judgments He is fire. "The Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his +Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his +briers in one day" (Isa. x. 17). But God reveals Himself in this thorn +bush as a fire which does not consume; and such a revelation tells at +once Who has brought the people into affliction, and also that they are +not abandoned to it. + +To Moses at first there was visible only an extraordinary phenomenon; He +turned to see a great sight. It is therefore out of the question to find +here the truth, so easy to discover elsewhere, that God rewards the +religious inquirer--that they who seek after Him shall find Him. Rather +we learn the folly of deeming that the intellect and its inquiries are +at war with religion and its mysteries, that revelation is at strife +with mental insight, that he who most stupidly refuses to "see the great +sights" of nature is best entitled to interpret the voice of God. When +the man of science gives ear to voices not of earth, and the man of God +has eyes and interest for the divine wonders which surround us, many a +discord will be harmonised. With the revival of classical learning came +the Reformation. + +But it often happens that the curiosity of the intellect is in danger of +becoming irreverent, and obtrusive into mysteries not of the brain, and +thus the voice of God must speak in solemn warning: "Moses, Moses, ... +Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place +whereon thou standest is holy ground." + +After as prolonged a silence as from the time of Malachi to the Baptist, +it is God Who reveals Himself once more--not Moses who by searching +finds Him out. And this is the established rule. Tidings of the +Incarnation came from heaven, or man would not have discovered the +Divine Babe. Jesus asked His two first disciples "What seek ye?" and +told Simon "Thou shalt be called Cephas," and pronounced the listening +Nathaniel "an Israelite indeed," and bade Zaccheus "make haste and come +down," in each case before He was addressed by them. + +The first words of Jehovah teach something more than ceremonial +reverence. If the dust of common earth on the shoe of Moses may not +mingle with that sacred soil, how dare we carry into the presence of our +God mean passions and selfish cravings? Observe, too, that while Jacob, +when he awoke from his vision, said, "How dreadful is this place!" (Gen. +xxviii. 17), God Himself taught Moses to think rather of the holiness +than the dread of His abode. Nevertheless Moses also was afraid to look +upon God, and hid the face which was thereafter to be veiled, for a +nobler reason, when it was itself illumined with the divine glory. +Humility before God is thus the path to the highest honour, and +reverence, to the closest intercourse. + +Meantime the Divine Person has announced Himself: "I am the God of thy +father" (father is apparently singular with a collective force), "the +God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It is a +blessing which every Christian parent should bequeath to his child, to +be strengthened and invigorated by thinking of God as his father's God. + +It was with this memorable announcement that Jesus refuted the Sadducees +and established His doctrine of the resurrection. So, then, the bygone +ages are not forgotten: Moses may be sure that a kindly relation exists +between God and himself, because the kindly relation still exists in all +its vital force which once bound Him to those who long since appeared to +die. It was impossible, therefore, our Lord inferred, that they had +really died at all. The argument is a forerunner of that by which St. +Paul concludes, from the resurrection of Christ, that none who are "in +Christ" have perished. Nay, since our Lord was not disputing about +immortality only, but the resurrection of the body, His argument implied +that a vital relationship with God involved the imperishability of the +whole man, since all was His, and in truth the very seal of the covenant +was imprinted upon the flesh. How much stronger is the assurance for us, +who know that our very bodies are His temple! Now, if any suspicion +should arise that the argument, which is really subtle, is over-refined +and untrustworthy, let it be observed that no sooner was this +announcement made, than God added the proclamation of His own +immutability, so that it cannot be said He was, but from age to age His +title is I AM. The inference from the divine permanence to the living +and permanent vitality of all His relationships is not a verbal quibble, +it is drawn from the very central truth of this great scripture. + +And now for the first time God calls Israel My people, adopting a phrase +already twice employed by earthly rulers (Gen. xxiii. 11, xli. 40), and +thus making Himself their king and the champion of their cause. Often +afterwards it was used in pathetic appeal:--"Thou hast showed Thy people +hard things,"--"Thou sellest Thy people for nought,"--"Behold, look, we +beseech Thee; we are all Thy people" (Ps. lx. 3, xliv. 12; Isa. lxiv. +9). And often it expressed the returning favour of their king: "Hear, O +My people, and I will speak"; "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people" (Ps. l. +7; Isa. xl. 1). + +It is used of the nation at large, all of whom were brought into the +covenant, although with many of them God was not well pleased. And since +it does not belong only to saints, but speaks of a grace which might be +received in vain, it is a strong appeal to all Christian people, all who +are within the New Covenant. Them also the Lord claims and pities, and +would gladly emancipate: their sorrows also He knows. "I have surely +seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard +their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and +I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to +bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land +flowing with milk and honey." Thus the ways of God exceed the desires of +men. Their subsequent complaints are evidence that Egypt had become +their country: gladly would they have shaken off the iron yoke, but a +successful rebellion is a revolution, not an Exodus. Their destined home +was very different: with the widest variety of climate, scenery, and +soil, a land which demanded much more regular husbandry, but rewarded +labour with exuberant fertility. Secluded from heathenism by deserts on +the south and east, by a sublime range of mountains on the north, and by +a sea with few havens on the west, yet planted in the very bosom of all +the ancient civilisation which at the last it was to leaven, it was a +land where a faithful people could have dwelt alone and not been +reckoned among the nations, yet where the scourge for disobedience was +never far away. + +Next after the promise of this good land, the commission of Moses is +announced. He is to act, because God is already active: "_I_ am come +down to deliver them ... come now, therefore, and I will send _thee_ +unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people." And let this +truth encourage all who are truly sent of God, to the end of time, that +He does not send us to deliver man, until He is Himself prepared to do +so, that when our fears ask, like Moses, Who am I, that I should go? He +does not answer, Thou art capable, but Certainly I will go with thee. +So, wherever the ministry of the word is sent, there is a true purpose +of grace. There is also the presence of One who claims the right to +bestow upon us the same encouragement which was given to Moses by +Jehovah, saying, "Lo, I am with you alway." In so saying, Jesus made +Himself equal with God. + +And as this ancient revelation of God was to give rest to a weary and +heavy-laden people, so Christ bound together the assertion of a more +perfect revelation, made in Him, with the promise of a grander +emancipation. No man knoweth the Father save by revelation of the Son is +the doctrine which introduces the great offer "Come unto Me, all ye that +labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. xi. 27, +28). The claims of Christ in the New Testament will never be fully +recognised until a careful study is made of His treatment of the +functions which in the Old Testament are regarded as Divine. A curious +expression follows: "This shall be a token unto thee that I have sent +thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall +serve God upon this mountain." It seems but vague encouragement, to +offer Moses, hesitating at the moment, a token which could take effect +only when his task was wrought. And yet we know how much easier it is to +believe what is thrown into distinct shape and particularised. Our trust +in good intentions is helped when their expression is detailed and +circumstantial, as a candidate for office will reckon all general +assurances of support much cheaper than a pledge to canvass certain +electors within a certain time. Such is the constitution of human +nature; and its Maker has often deigned to sustain its weakness by going +thus into particulars. He does the same for us, condescending to embody +the most profound of all mysteries in sacramental emblems, clothing his +promises of our future blessedness in much detail, and in concrete +figures which at least symbolise, if they do not literally describe, the +glories of the Jerusalem which is above. + + +_A NEW NAME._ + +iii. 14. vi. 2, 3. + + "God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou + say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." + +We cannot certainly tell why Moses asked for a new name by which to +announce to his brethren the appearance of God. He may have felt that +the memory of their fathers, and of the dealings of God with them, had +faded so far out of mind that merely to indicate their ancestral God +would not sufficiently distinguish Him from the idols of Egypt, whose +worship had infected them. + +If so, he was fully answered by a name which made this God the one +reality, in a world where all is a phantasm except what derives +stability from Him. + +He may have desired to know, for himself, whether there was any truth in +the dreamy and fascinating pantheism which inspired so much of the +Egyptian superstition. + +In that case, the answer met his question by declaring that God existed, +not as the sum of things or soul of the universe, but in Himself, the +only independent Being. + +Or he may simply have desired some name to express more of the mystery +of deity, remembering how a change of name had accompanied new +discoveries of human character and achievement, as of Abraham and +Israel; and expecting a new name likewise when God would make to His +people new revelations of Himself. + +So natural an expectation was fulfilled not only then, but afterwards. +When Moses prayed "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory," the answer was "I +will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name +of the Lord." The proclamation was again Jehovah, but not this alone. It +was "The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to +anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth" (xxxiii. 18, 19, xxxiv. 6, +R.V.) Thus the life of Moses, like the agelong progress of the Church, +advanced towards an ever-deepening knowledge that God is not only the +Independent but the Good. All sets toward the final knowledge that His +highest name is Love. + +Meanwhile, in the development of events, the exact period was come for +epithets, which were shared with gods many and lords many, to be +supplemented by the formal announcement and authoritative adoption of +His proper name Jehovah. The infant nation was to learn to think of Him, +not only as endowed with attributes of terror and power, by which +enemies would be crushed, but as possessing a certain well-defined +personality, upon which the trust of man could repose. Soon their +experience would enable them to receive the formal announcement that He +was merciful and gracious. But first they were required to trust His +promise amid all discouragements; and to this end, stability was the +attribute first to be insisted upon. + +It is true that the derivation of the word Jehovah is still a problem +for critical acumen. It has been sought in more than one language, and +various shades of meaning have been assigned to it, some untenable in +the abstract, others hardly, or not at all, to be reconciled with the +Scriptural narrative. + +Nay, the corruption of the very sound is so notorious, that it is only +worth mention as illustrating a phase of superstition. + +We smile at the Jews, removing the correct vowels lest so holy a word +should be irreverently spoken, placing the sanctity in the cadence, +hoping that light and flippant allusions may offend God less, so long as +they spare at least the vowels of His name, and thus preserve some +vestige undesecrated, while profaning at once the conception of His +majesty and the consonants of the mystic word. + +A more abject superstition could scarcely have made void the spirit, +while grovelling before the letter of the commandment. + +But this very superstition is alive in other forms to-day. Whenever one +recoils from the sin of coarse blasphemy, yet allows himself the +enjoyment of a polished literature which profanes holy +conceptions,--whenever men feel bound to behave with external propriety +in the house of God, yet bring thither wandering thoughts, vile +appetites, sensuous imaginations, and all the chamber of imagery which +is within the unregenerate heart,--there is the same despicable +superstition which strove to escape at least the extreme of blasphemy by +prudently veiling the Holy Name before profaning it. + +But our present concern is with the practical message conveyed to Israel +when Moses declared that Jehovah, I AM, the God of their fathers, had +appeared unto him. And if we find in it a message suited for the time, +and which is the basis, not the superstructure, both of later messages +and also of the national character, then we shall not fail to observe +the bearing of such facts upon an urgent controversy of this time. + +Some significance must have been in that Name, not too abstract for a +servile and degenerate race to apprehend. Nor was it soon to pass away +and be replaced; it was His memorial throughout all generations; and +therefore it has a message for us to-day, to admonish and humble, to +invigorate and uphold. + +That God would be the same to them as to their fathers was much. But +that it was of the essence of His character to be evermore the same, +immutable in heart and mind and reality of being, however their conduct +might modify His bearing towards them, this indeed would be a steadying +and reclaiming consciousness. + +Accordingly Moses receives the answer for himself, "I AM THAT I AM"; and +he is bidden to tell his people "_I am_ hath sent me unto you," and yet +again "JEHOVAH the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you." The +spirit and tenor of these three names may be said to be virtually +comprehended in the first; and they all speak of the essential and +self-existent Being, unchanging and unchangeable. + +I AM expresses an intense reality of being. No image in the dark +recesses of Egyptian or Syrian temples, grotesque and motionless, can +win the adoration of him who has had communion with such a veritable +existence, or has heard His authentic message. No dreamful pantheism, on +its knees to the beneficent principle expressed in one deity, to the +destructive in another, or to the reproductive in a third, but all of +them dependent upon nature, as the rainbow upon the cataract which it +spans, can ever again satisfy the soul which is athirst for the living +God, the Lord, Who is not personified, but IS. + +This profound sense of a living Person within reach, to be offended, to +pardon, and to bless, was the one force which kept the Hebrew nation +itself alive, with a vitality unprecedented since the world began. They +could crave His pardon, whatever natural retributions they had brought +down upon themselves, whatever tendencies of nature they had provoked, +because He was not a dead law without ears or a heart, but their +merciful and gracious God. + +Not the most exquisite subtleties of innuendo and irony could make good +for a day the monstrous paradox that the Hebrew religion, the worship of +I AM, was really nothing but the adoration of that stream of tendencies +which makes for righteousness. + +Israel did not challenge Pharaoh through having suddenly discovered that +goodness ultimately prevails over evil, nor is it any cold calculation +of the sort which ever inspires a nation or a man with heroic fortitude. +But they were nerved by the announcement that they had been remembered +by a God Who is neither an ideal nor a fancy, but the Reality of +realities, beside Whom Pharaoh and his host were but as phantoms. + +I AM THAT I AM is the style not only of permanence, but of permanence +self-contained, and being a distinctive title, it denies such +self-contained permanence to others. + +Man is as the past has moulded him, a compound of attainments and +failures, discoveries and disillusions, his eyes dim with forgotten +tears, his hair grey with surmounted anxieties, his brow furrowed with +bygone studies, his conscience troubled with old sin. Modern unbelief +is ignobly frank respecting him. He is the sum of his parents and his +wet-nurse. He is what he eats. If he drinks beer, he thinks beer. And it +is the element of truth in these hideous paradoxes which makes them +rankle, like an unkind construction put upon a questionable action. As +the foam is what wind and tide have made of it, so are we the product of +our circumstances, the resultant of a thousand forces, far indeed from +being self-poised or self-contained, too often false to our best self, +insomuch that probably no man is actually what in the depth of +self-consciousness he feels himself to be, what moreover he should prove +to be, if only the leaden weight of constraining circumstance were +lifted off the spring which it flattens down to earth. Moses himself was +at heart a very different person from the keeper of the sheep of Jethro. +Therefore man says, Pity and make allowance for me: this is not my true +self, but only what by compression, by starvation and stripes and +bribery and error, I have become. Only God says, I AM THAT I AM. + +Yet in another sense, and quite as deep a one, man is not the coarse +tissue which past circumstances have woven: he is the seed of the +future, as truly as the fruit of the past. Strange compound that he is +of memory and hope, while half of the present depends on what is over, +the other half is projected into the future; and like a bridge, +sustained on these two banks, life throws its quivering shadow on each +moment that fleets by. It is not attainment, but degradation to live +upon the level of one's mere attainment, no longer uplifted by any +aspiration, fired by any emulation, goaded by any but carnal fears. If +we have been shaped by circumstances, yet we are saved by hope. Do not +judge me, we are all entitled to plead, by anything that I am doing or +have done: He only can appraise a soul a right Who knows what it yearns +to become, what within itself it hates and prays to be delivered from, +what is the earnestness of its self-loathing, what the passion of its +appeal to heaven. As the bloom of next April is the true comment upon +the dry bulb of September, as you do not value the fountain by the pint +of water in its basin, but by its inexhaustible capabilities of +replenishment, so the present and its joyless facts are not the true +man; his possibilities, the fears and hopes that control his destiny and +shall unfold it, these are his real self. + +I am not merely what I am: I am very truly that which I long to be. And +thus, man may plead, I am what I move towards and strive after, my +aspiration is myself. But God says, I AM WHAT I AM. The stream hurries +forward: the rock abides. And this is the Rock of Ages. + +Now, such a conception is at first sight not far removed from that +apathetic and impassive kind of deity which the practical atheism of +ancient materialists could well afford to grant;--"ever in itself +enjoying immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and +withdrawn from our concerns, since it, exempt from every pain, exempt +from all danger, strong in its own resources and wanting nought from us, +is neither gained by favour nor moved by wrath." + +Thus Lucretius conceived of the absolute Being as by the necessity of +its nature entirely outside our system. + +But Moses was taught to trust in Jehovah as intervening, pitying sorrow +and wrong, coming down to assist His creatures in distress. + +How could this be possible? Clearly the movement towards them must be +wholly disinterested, and wholly from within; unbought, since no +external influence can modify His condition, no puny sacrifice can +propitiate Him Who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the +inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: a movement prompted by no +irregular emotional impulse, but an abiding law of His nature, incapable +of change, the movement of a nature, personal indeed, yet as steady, as +surely to be reckoned upon in like circumstances, as the operations of +gravitation are. + +There is no such motive, working in such magnificent regularity for +good, save one. The ultimate doctrine of the New Testament, that God is +Love, is already involved in this early assertion, that being wholly +independent of us and our concerns, He is yet not indifferent to them, +so that Moses could say unto the children of Israel "I AM hath sent me +unto you." + +It is this unchangeable consistency of Divine action which gives the +narrative its intense interest to us. To Moses, and therefore to all who +receive any commission from the skies, this title said, Frail creature, +sport of circumstances and of tyrants, He who commissions thee sits +above the waterfloods, and their rage can as little modify or change His +purpose, now committed to thy charge, as the spray can quench the stars. +Perplexed creature, whose best self lives only in aspiration and desire, +now thou art an instrument in the hand of Him with Whom desire and +attainment, will and fruition, are eternally the same. None truly fails +in fighting for Jehovah, for who hath resisted His will? + +To Israel, and to all the oppressed whose minds are open to receive the +tidings and their faith strong to embrace it, He said, Your life is +blighted, and your future is in the hand of taskmasters, yet be of good +cheer, for now your deliverance is undertaken by Him Whose being and +purpose are one, Who _is_ in perfection of enjoyment all that He _is_ in +contemplation and in will. The rescue of Israel by an immutable and +perfect God is the earnest of the breaking of every yoke. + +And to the proud and godless world which knows Him not, He says, +Resistance to My will can only show forth all its power, which is not at +the mercy of opinion or interest or change: I sit upon the throne, not +only supreme but independent, not only victorious but unassailable; +self-contained, self-poised and self-sufficing, I AM THAT I AM. + +Have we now escaped the inert and self-absorbed deity of Lucretius, only +to fall into the palsying grasp of the tyrannous deity of Calvin? Does +our own human will shrivel up and become powerless under the compulsion +of that immutability with which we are strangely brought into contact? + +Evidently this is not the teaching of the Book of Exodus. For it is +here, in this revelation of the Supreme, that we first hear of a nation +as being His: "I have seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt +... and I have come down to bring them into a good land." They were all +baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Yet their carcases fell +in the wilderness. And these things were written for our learning. The +immutability, which suffers no shock when we enter _into_ the covenant, +remains unshaken also if we depart from the living God. The sun shines +alike when we raise the curtain and when we drop it, when our chamber is +illumined and when it is dark. The immutability of God is not in His +operations, for sometimes He gave His people into the hand of their +enemies, and again He turned and helped them. It is in His nature, His +mind, in the principles which guide His actions. If He had not chastened +David for his sin, then, by acting as before, He would have been other +at heart than when He rejected Saul for disobedience and chose the son +of Jesse to fulfil all His word. The wind has veered, if it continues to +propel the vessel in the same direction, although helm and sails are +shifted. + +Such is the Pauline doctrine of His immutability. "If we endure we shall +also reign with Him: if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us,"--and +such is the necessity of His being, for we cannot sway Him with our +changes: "if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny +Himself." And therefore it is presently added that "the firm foundation +of the Lord standeth sure, having" not only "this seal, that the Lord +knoweth those that are His,"--but also this, "Let every one that nameth +the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness" (2 Tim. ii. 12, 13, +19, R.V.). + +The Lord knew that Israel was His, yet for their unrighteousness He +sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest. + +It follows from all this that the new name of God was no academic +subtlety, no metaphysical refinement of the schools, unfitly revealed to +slaves, but a most practical and inspiring truth, a conviction to warm +their blood, to rouse their courage, to convert their despair into +confidence and their alarms into defiance. + +They had the support of a God worthy of trust. And thenceforth every +answer in righteousness, every new disclosure of fidelity, tenderness, +love, was not an abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of a +capricious despot; no, its import was permanent as an observation of the +stars by an astronomer, ever more to be remembered in calculating the +movements of the universe. + +In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient +days, as being He who "cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon." "I am the +Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." + +And as the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God +was built up slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation +which insured the the stability of all, until the Head Stone of the +Corner gave completeness to the vast design, until men saw and could +believe in the very Incarnation of all Love, unshaken amid anguish and +distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious, while they heard +from human lips the awful words, "Before Abraham was, I AM." Then they +learned to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new +and more pathetic revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake +grew strong as he remembered that the Man of Sorrows was the same +yesterday and to-day and for ever; and the great apostle, prostrate +before the glory of his Master, was restored by the touch of a human +hand, and by the voice of Him upon Whose bosom he had leaned, saying, +Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One. + +And if men are once more fain to rend from humanity that great +assurance, which for ages, amid all shocks, has made the frail creature +of the dust to grow strong and firm and fearless, partaker of the Divine +Nature, what will they give us in its stead? Or do they think us too +strong of will, too firm of purpose? Looking around us, we see nations +heaving with internal agitations, armed to the teeth against each +other, and all things like a ship at sea reeling to and fro, and +staggering like a drunken man. There is no stability for us in +constitutions or old formul--none anywhere, if it be not in the soul of +man. Well for us, then, that the anchor of the soul is sure and +steadfast! well that unnumbered millions take courage from their +Saviour's word, that the world's worst anguish is the beginning, not of +dissolution, but of the birth-pangs of a new heaven and earth,--that +when the clouds are blackest because the light of sun and moon is +quenched, then, then we shall behold the Immutable unveiled, the Son of +Man, who is brought nigh unto the Ancient of Days, now sitting in the +clouds of heaven, and coming in the glory of His Father! + + +_THE COMMISSION._ + +iii. 10, 16-22. + +We have already learned from the seventh verse that God commissioned +Moses, only when He had Himself descended to deliver Israel. He sends +none, except with the implied or explicit promise that certainly He will +be with them. But the converse is also true. If God sends no man but +when He comes Himself, He never comes without demanding the agency of +man. The overruled reluctance of Moses, and the inflexible urgency of +his commission, may teach us the honour set by God upon humanity. He has +knit men together in the mutual dependence of nations and of families, +that each may be His minister to all; and in every great crisis of +history He has respected His own principle, and has visited the race by +means of the providential man. The gospel was not preached by angels. +Its first agents found themselves like sheep among wolves: they were an +exhibition to the world and to angels and men, yet necessity was laid +upon them, and a woe if they preached it not. + +All the best gifts of heaven come to us by the agency of inventor and +sage, hero and explorer, organiser and philanthropist, patriot, reformer +and saint. And the hope which inspires their grandest effort is never +that of selfish gain, nor even of fame, though fame is a keen spur, +which perhaps God set before Moses in the noble hope that "thou shalt +bring forth the people" (ver. 12). But the truly impelling force is +always the great deed itself, the haunting thought, the importunate +inspiration, the inward fire; and so God promises Moses neither a +sceptre, nor share in the good land: He simply proposes to him the work, +the rescue of the people; and Moses, for his part, simply objects that +he is unable, not that he is solicitous about his reward. Whatever is +done for payment can be valued by its cost: all the priceless services +done for us by our greatest were, in very deed, unpriced. + +Moses, with the new name of God to reveal, and with the assurance that +He is about to rescue Israel, is bidden to go to work advisedly and +wisely. He is not to appeal to the mob, nor yet to confront Pharaoh +without authority from his people to speak for them, nor is he to make +the great demand for emancipation abruptly and at once. The mistake of +forty years ago must not be repeated now. He is to appeal to the elders +of Israel; and with them, and therefore clearly representing the nation, +he is respectfully to crave permission for a three days' journey, to +sacrifice to Jehovah in the wilderness. The blustering assurance with +which certain fanatics of our own time first assume that they possess a +direct commission from the skies, and thereupon that they are freed +from all order, from all recognition of any human authority, and then +that no considerations of prudence or of decency should restrain the +violence and bad taste which they mistake for zeal, is curiously unlike +anything in the Old Testament or the New. Was ever a commission more +direct than those of Moses and of St. Paul? Yet Moses was to obtain the +recognition of the elders of his people; and St. Paul received formal +ordination by the explicit command of God (Acts xiii. 3). + +Strangely enough, it is often assumed that this demand for a furlough of +three days was insincere. But it would only have been so, if consent +were expected, and if the intention were thereupon to abuse the respite +and refuse to return. There is not the slightest hint of any duplicity +of the kind. The real motives for the demand are very plain. The +excursion which they proposed would have taught the people to move and +act together, reviving their national spirit, and filling them with a +desire for the liberty which they tasted. In the very words which they +should speak, "The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us," +there is a distinct proclamation of nationality, and of its surest and +strongest bulwark, a national religion. From such an excursion, +therefore, the people would have returned, already well-nigh +emancipated, and with recognised leaders. Certainly Pharaoh could not +listen to any such proposal, unless he were prepared to reverse the +whole policy of his dynasty toward Israel. + +But the refusal answered two good ends. In the first place it joined +issue on the best conceivable ground, for Israel was exhibited making +the least possible demand with the greatest possible courtesy--"Let us +go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness." Not even so +much would be granted. The tyrant was palpably in the wrong, and +thenceforth it was perfectly reasonable to increase the severity of the +terms after each of his defeats, which proceeding in its turn made +concession more and more galling to his pride. In the second place, the +quarrel was from the first avowedly and undeniably religious: the gods +of Egypt were matched against Jehovah; and in the successive plagues +which desolated his land Pharaoh gradually learnt Who Jehovah was. + +In the message which Moses should convey to the elders there are two +significant phrases. He was to announce in the name of God, "I have +surely visited you, and seen that which is done unto you in Egypt." The +silent observation of God before He interposes is very solemn and +instructive. So in the Revelation, He walks among the golden +candlesticks, and knows the work, the patience, or the unfaithfulness of +each. So He is not far from any one of us. When a heavy blow falls we +speak of it as "a Visitation of Providence," but in reality the +visitation has been long before. Neither Israel nor Egypt was conscious +of the solemn presence. Who knows what soul of man, or what nation, is +thus visited to-day, for future deliverance or rebuke? + +Again it is said, "I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt +into ... a land flowing with milk and honey." Their affliction was the +divine method of uprooting them. And so is our affliction the method by +which our hearts are released from love of earth and life, that in due +time He may "surely bring us in" to a better and an enduring country. +Now, we wonder that the Israelites clung so fondly to the place of their +captivity. But what of our own hearts? Have they a desire to depart? or +do they groan in bondage, and yet recoil from their emancipation? + +The hesitating nation is not plainly told that their affliction will be +intensified and their lives made burdensome with labour. That is perhaps +implied in the certainty that Pharaoh "will not let you go, no, not by a +mighty hand." But it is with Israel as with us: a general knowledge that +in the world we shall have tribulation is enough; the catalogue of our +trials is not spread out before us in advance. They were assured for +their encouragement that all their long captivity should at last receive +its wages, for they should not borrow[6] but ask of the Egyptians jewels +of silver, and gold, and raiment, and they should spoil the Egyptians. +So are we taught to have "respect unto the recompense of the reward." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] So much ignorant capital has been made by sceptics out of this +unfortunate mistranslation, that it is worth while to inquire whether +the word "borrow" would suit the context in other passages. "He +_borrowed_ water and she gave him milk" (Judges v. 25). "The Lord said +unto Solomon, Because thou hast _borrowed_ this thing, and hast not +_borrowed_ long life for thyself, neither hast _borrowed_ riches for +thyself, nor hast _borrowed_ the life of thine enemies" (1 Kings iii. +11). "And Elijah said unto Elisha, Thou hast _borrowed_ a hard thing" (2 +Kings ii. 10). The absurdity of the cavil is self-evident. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +_MOSES HESITATES._ + +iv. 1-17. + +Holy Scripture is impartial, even towards its heroes. The sin of David +is recorded, and the failure of Peter. And so is the reluctance of Moses +to accept his commission, even after a miracle had been vouchsafed to +him for encouragement. The absolute sinlessness of Jesus is the more +significant because it is found in the records of a creed which knows of +no idealised humanity. + +In Josephus, the refusal of Moses is softened down. Even the modest +words, "Lord, I am still in doubt how I, a private man and of no +abilities, should persuade my countrymen or Pharaoh," are not spoken +after the sign is given. Nor is there any mention of the transfer to +Aaron of a part of his commission, nor of their joint offence at +Meribah, nor of its penalty, which in Scripture is bewailed so often. +And Josephus is equally tender about the misdeeds of the nation. We hear +nothing of their murmurs against Moses and Aaron when their burdens are +increased, or of their making the golden calf. Whereas it is remarkable +and natural that the fear of Moses is less anxious about his reception +by the tyrant than by his own people: "Behold, they will not believe me, +nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared +unto thee." This is very unlike the invention of a later period, +glorifying the beginnings of the nation; but it is absolutely true to +life. Great men do not fear the wrath of enemies if they can be secured +against the indifference and contempt of friends; and Moses in +particular was at last persuaded to undertake his mission by the promise +of the support of Aaron. His hesitation is therefore the earliest +example of what has been so often since observed--the discouragement of +heroes, reformers and messengers from God, less by fear of the attacks +of the world than of the contemptuous scepticism of the people of God. +We often sigh for the appearing, in our degenerate days, of + + "A man with heart, head, hand, + Like some of the simple great ones gone." + +Yet who shall say that the want of them is not our own fault? The +critical apathy and incredulity, not of the world but of the Church, is +what freezes the fountains of Christian daring and the warmth of +Christian zeal. + +For the help of the faith of his people, Moses is commissioned to work +two miracles; and he is caused to rehearse them, for his own. + +Strange tales were told among the later Jews about his wonder-working +rod. It was cut by Adam before leaving Paradise, was brought by Noah +into the ark, passed into Egypt with Joseph, and was recovered by Moses +while he enjoyed the favour of the court. These legends arose from +downright moral inability to receive the true lesson of the incident, +which is the confronting of the sceptre of Egypt with the simple staff +of the shepherd, the choosing of the weak things of earth to confound +the strong, the power of God to work His miracles by the most puny and +inadequate means. Anything was more credible than that He who led His +people like sheep did indeed guide them with a common shepherd's crook. +And yet this was precisely the lesson meant for us to learn--the +glorification of poor resources in the grasp of faith. + +Both miracles were of a menacing kind. First the rod became a serpent, +to declare that at God's bidding enemies would rise up against the +oppressor, even where all seemed innocuous, as in truth the waters of +the river and the dust of the furnace and the winds of heaven conspired +against him. Then, in the grasp of Moses, the serpent from which he fled +became a rod again, to intimate that these avenging forces were subject +to the servant of Jehovah. + +Again, his hand became leprous in his bosom, and was presently restored +to health again--a declaration that he carried with him the power of +death, in its most dreadful form; and perhaps a still more solemn +admonition to those who remember what leprosy betokens, and how every +approach of God to man brings first the knowledge of sin, to be followed +by the assurance that He has cleansed it.[7] + +If the people would not hearken to the voice of the first sign, they +should believe the second; but at the worst, and if they were still +unconvinced, they would believe when they saw the water of the Nile, the +pride and glory of their oppressors, turned into blood before their +eyes. That was an omen which needs no interpretation. What follows is +curious. Moses objects that he has not hitherto been eloquent, nor does +he experience any improvement "since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant" +(a graphic touch!), and he seems to suppose that the popular choice +between liberty and slavery would depend less upon the evidence of a +Divine power than upon sleight of tongue, as if he were in modern +England. + +But let it be observed that the self-consciousness which wears the mask +of humility while refusing to submit its judgment to that of God, is a +form of selfishness--self-absorption blinding one to other +considerations beyond himself--as real, though not as hateful, as greed +and avarice and lust. + +How can Moses call himself slow of speech and of a slow tongue, when +Stephen distinctly declares that he was mighty in word as well as deed? +(Acts vii. 22). Perhaps it is enough to answer that many years of +solitude in a strange land had robbed him of his fluency. Perhaps +Stephen had in mind the words of the Book of Wisdom, that "Wisdom +entered into the soul of the servant of the Lord, and withstood dreadful +kings in wonders and signs.... For Wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, +and made the tongues of them that cannot speak eloquent" (Wisdom x. 16, +21). + +To his scruple the answer was returned, "Who hath made man's mouth?... +Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and +teach thee what thou shalt say." The same encouragement belongs to every +one who truly executes a mandate from above: "Lo, I am with you alway." +For surely this encouragement _is_ the same. Surely Jesus did not mean +to offer His own presence as a substitute for that of God, but as being +in very truth Divine, when He bade His disciples, in reliance upon Him, +to go forth and convert the world. + +And this is the true test which divides faith from presumption, and +unbelief from prudence: do we go because God is with us in Christ, or +because we ourselves are strong and wise? Do we hold back because we are +not sure of _His_ commission, or only because we distrust ourselves? +"Humility without faith is too timorous; faith without humility is too +hasty." The phrase explains the conduct of Moses both now and forty +years before. + +Moses, however, still entreats that any one may be chosen rather than +himself: "Send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send." + +And thereupon the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, although at +the moment his only visible punishment was the partial granting of his +prayer--the association with him in his commission of Aaron, who could +speak well, the forfeiting of a certain part of his vocation, and with +it of a certain part of its reward. The words, "Is not Aaron thy brother +the Levite?" have been used to insinuate that the tribal arrangement was +not perfected when they were written, and so to discredit the narrative. +But when so interpreted they yield no adequate sense, they do not +reinforce the argument; while they are perfectly intelligible as +implying that Aaron is already the leader of his tribe, and therefore +sure to obtain the hearing of which Moses despaired. But the arrangement +involved grave consequences sure to be developed in due time: among +others, the reliance of Israel upon a feebler will, which could be +forced by their clamour to make them a calf of gold. Moses was yet to +learn that lesson which our century knows nothing of,--that a speaker +and a leader of nations are not the same. When he cried to Aaron, in the +bitterness of his soul, "What did this people to thee, that thou hast +brought so great a sin upon them?" did he remember by whose +unfaithfulness Aaron had been thrust into the office, the +responsibilities of which he had betrayed? + +Now, it is the duty of every man, to whom a special vocation presents +itself, to set opposite each other two considerations. Dare I undertake +this task? is a solemn question, but so is this: Dare I let this task go +past me? Am I prepared for the responsibility of allowing it to drift +into weaker hands? These are days when the Church of Christ is calling +for the help of every one capable of aiding her, and we ought to hear it +said more often that one is afraid _not_ to teach in Sunday School, and +another dares not refuse a proffered district, and a third fears to +leave charitable tasks undone. To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth +it not, to him it is sin; and we hear too much about the terrible +responsibility of working for God, but too little about the still graver +responsibility of refusing to work for Him when called. + +Moses indeed attained so much that we are scarcely conscious that he +might have been greater still. He had once presumed to go unsent, and +brought upon himself the exile of half a lifetime. Again he presumed +almost to say, I go not, and well-nigh to incur the guilt of Jonah when +sent to Nineveh, and in so doing he forfeited the fulness of his +vocation. But who reaches the level of his possibilities? Who is not +haunted by faces, "each one a murdered self," a nobler self, that might +have been, and is now impossible for ever? Only Jesus could say "I have +finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." And it is notable that +while Jesus deals, in the parable of the labourers, with the problem of +equal faithfulness during longer and shorter periods of employment; and +in the parable of the pounds with that of equal endowment variously +improved; and yet again, in the parable of the talents, with the problem +of various endowments all doubled alike, He always draws a veil over the +treatment of five talents which earn but two or three besides. + +A more cheerful reflection suggested by this narrative is the strange +power of human fellowship. Moses knew and was persuaded that God, Whose +presence was even then miraculously apparent in the bush, and Who had +invested him with superhuman powers, would go with him. There is no +trace of incredulity in his behaviour, but only of failure to rely, to +cast his shrinking and reluctant will upon the truth he recognised and +the God Whose presence he confessed. He held back, as many a one does, +who is honest when he repeats the Creed in church, yet fails to submit +his life to the easy yoke of Jesus. Nor is it from physical peril that +he recoils: at the bidding of God he has just grasped the serpent from +which he fled; and in confronting a tyrant with armies at his back, he +could hope for small assistance from his brother. But highly strung +spirits, in every great crisis, are aware of vague indefinite +apprehensions that are not cowardly but imaginative. Thus Csar, when +defying the hosts of Pompey, is said to have been disturbed by an +apparition. It is vain to put these apprehensions into logical form, and +argue them down: the slowness of speech of Moses was surely refuted by +the presence of God, Who makes the mouth and inspires the utterance; but +such fears lie deeper than the reasons they assign, and when argument +fails, will yet stubbornly repeat their cry: "Send, I pray Thee, by the +hand of him whom Thou wilt send." Now this shrinking, which is not +craven, is dispelled by nothing so effectually as by the touch of a +human hand. It is like the voice of a friend to one beset by ghostly +terrors: he does not expect his comrade to exorcise a spirit, and yet +his apprehensions are dispelled. Thus Moses cannot summon up courage +from the protection of God, but when assured of the companionship of his +brother he will not only venture to return to Egypt, but will bring with +him his wife and children. Thus, also, He Who knew what was in men's +hearts sent forth His missionaries, both the Twelve and the Seventy (as +we have yet to learn the true economy of sending ours), "by two and two" +(Mark vi. 7; Luke x. 1). + +This is the principle which underlies the institution of the Church of +Christ, and the conception that Christians are brothers, among whom the +strong must help the weak. Such help from their fellow-mortals would +perhaps decide the choice of many hesitating souls, upon the verge of +the divine life, recoiling from its unknown and dread experiences, but +longing for a sympathising comrade. Alas for the unkindly and +unsympathetic religion of men whose faith has never warmed a human +heart, and of congregations in which emotion is a misdemeanour! + +There is no stronger force, among all that make for the abuses of +priestcraft, than this same yearning for human help becomes when robbed +of its proper nourishment, which is the communion of saints, and the +pastoral care of souls. Has it no further nourishment than these? This +instinctive craving for a Brother to help as well as a Father to direct +and govern,--this social instinct, which banished the fears of Moses and +made him set out for Egypt long before Aaron came in sight, content when +assured of Aaron's co-operation,--is there nothing in God Himself to +respond to it? He Who is not ashamed to call us brethren has profoundly +modified the Church's conception of Jehovah, the Eternal, Absolute and +Unconditioned. It is because He can be touched with the feeling of our +infirmities, that we are bidden to draw near with boldness unto the +Throne of Grace. There is no heart so lonely that it cannot commune with +the lofty and kind humanity of Jesus. + +There is a homelier lesson to be learned. Moses was not only solaced by +human fellowship, but nerved and animated by the thought of his brother, +and the mention of his tribe. "Is not Aaron thy brother the Levite?" +They had not met for forty years. Vague rumours of deadly persecution +were doubtless all that had reached the fugitive, whose heart had +burned, in solitary communion with Nature in her sternest forms, as he +brooded over the wrongs of his family, of Aaron, and perhaps of Miriam. + +And now his brother lived. The call which Moses would have put from him +was for the emancipation of his own flesh and blood, and for their +greatness. In that great hour, domestic affection did much to turn the +scale wherein the destinies of humanity were trembling. And his was +affection well returned. It might easily have been otherwise, for Aaron +had seen his younger brother called to a dazzling elevation, living in +enviable magnificence, and earning fame by "word and deed"; and then, +after a momentary fusion of sympathy and of condition, forty years had +poured between them a torrent of cares and joys estranging because +unshared. But it was promised that Aaron, when he saw him, should be +glad at heart; and the words throw a beam of exquisite light into the +depths of the mighty soul which God inspired to emancipate Israel and to +found His Church, by thoughts of his brother's joy on meeting him. + +Let no man dream of attaining real greatness by stifling his affections. +The heart is more important than the intellect; and the brief story of +the Exodus has room for the yearning of Jochebed over her infant "when +she saw him that he was a goodly child," for the bold inspiration of the +young poetess, who "stood afar off to know what should be done to him," +and now for the love of Aaron. So the Virgin, in the dread hour of her +reproach, went in haste to her cousin Elizabeth. So Andrew "findeth +first his own brother Simon." And so the Divine Sufferer, forsaken of +God, did not forsake His mother. + +The Bible is full of domestic life. It is the theme of the greater part +of Genesis, which makes the family the seed-plot of the Church. It is +wisely recognised again at the moment when the larger pulse of the +nation begins to beat. For the life-blood in the heart of a nation must +be the blood in the hearts of men. + + +_MOSES OBEYS._ + +iv. 18-31. + +Moses is now commissioned: he is to go to Egypt, and Aaron is coming +thence to meet him. Yet he first returns to Midian, to Jethro, who is +both his employer and the head of the family, and prays him to sanction +his visit to his own people. + +There are duties which no family resistance can possibly cancel, and the +direct command of God made it plain that this was one of them. But there +are two ways of performing even the most imperative obligation, and +religious people have done irreparable mischief before now, by rudeness, +disregard to natural feeling and the rights of their fellow-men, under +the impression that they showed their allegiance to God by outraging +other ties. It is a theory for which no sanction can be found either in +Holy Scripture or in common sense. + +When he asks permission to visit "his brethren" we cannot say whether he +ever had brothers besides Aaron, or uses the word in the same larger +national sense as when we read that, forty years before, he went out +unto his brethren and saw their burdens. What is to be observed is that +he is reticent with respect to his vast expectations and designs. + +He does not argue that, because a Divine promise must needs be +fulfilled, he need not be discreet, wary and taciturn, any more than St. +Paul supposed, because the lives of his shipmates were promised to him, +that it mattered nothing whether the sailors remained on board. + +The decrees of God have sometimes been used to justify the recklessness +of man, but never by His chosen followers. They have worked out their +own salvation the more earnestly because God worked in them. And every +good cause calls aloud for human energy and wisdom, all the more because +its consummation is the will of God, and sooner or later is assured. +Moses has unlearned his rashness. + +When the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, "Go, return unto Egypt, for all +the men are dead which sought thy life," there is an almost verbal +resemblance to the words in which the infant Jesus is recalled from +exile. We shall have to consider the typical aspect of the whole +narrative, when a convenient stage is reached for pausing to survey it +in its completeness. But resemblances like this have been treated with +so much scorn, they have been so freely perverted into evidence of the +mythical nature of the later story, that some passing allusion appears +desirable. We must beware equally of both extremes. The Old Testament is +tortured, and genuine prophecies are made no better than coincidences, +when coincidences are exalted to all the dignity of express predictions. +One can scarcely venture to speak of the death of Herod when Jesus was +to return from Egypt, as being deliberately typified in the death of +those who sought the life of Moses. But it is quite clear that the words +in St. Matthew do intentionally point the reader back to this narrative. +For, indeed, under both, there are to be recognised the same principles: +that God does not thrust His servants into needless or excessive peril; +and that when the life of a tyrant has really become not only a trial +but a barrier, it will be removed by the King of kings. God is prudent +for His heroes. + +Moreover, we must recognise the lofty fitness of what is very visible in +the Gospels--the coming to a head in Christ of the various experiences +of the people of God; and at the recurrence, in His story, of events +already known elsewhere, we need not be disquieted, as if the suspicion +of a myth were now become difficult to refute; rather should we +recognise the fulness of the supreme life, and its points of contact +with all lives, which are but portions of its vast completeness. Who +does not feel that in the world's greatest events a certain harmony and +correspondence are as charming as they are in music? There is a sort of +counterpoint in history. And to this answering of deep unto deep, this +responsiveness of the story of Jesus to all history, our attention is +silently beckoned by St. Matthew, when, without asserting any closer +link between the incidents, he borrows this phrase so aptly. + +A much deeper meaning underlies the profound expression which God now +commands Moses to employ; and although it must await consideration at a +future time, the progressive education of Moses himself is meantime to +be observed. At first he is taught that the Lord is the God of their +fathers, in whose descendants He is therefore interested. Then the +present Israel is His people, and valued for its own sake. Now he hears, +and is bidden to repeat to Pharaoh, the amazing phrase, "Israel is My +son, even My firstborn: let My son go that he may serve Me; and if thou +refuse to let him go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn." +Thus it is that infant faith is led from height to height. And assuredly +there never was an utterance better fitted than this to prepare human +minds, in the fulness of time, for a still clearer revelation of the +nearness of God to man, and for the possibility of an absolute union +between the Creator and His creature. + +It was on his way into Egypt, with his wife and children, that a +mysterious interposition forced Zipporah reluctantly and tardily to +circumcise her son. + +The meaning of this strange episode lies perhaps below the surface, but +very near it. Danger in some form, probably that of sickness, pressed +Moses hard, and he recognised in it the displeasure of his God. The +form of the narrative leads us to suppose that he had no previous +consciousness of guilt, and had now to infer the nature of his offence +without any explicit announcement, just as we infer it from what +follows. + +If so, he discerned his transgression when trouble awoke his conscience; +and so did his wife Zipporah. Yet her resistance to the circumcision of +their younger son was so tenacious, with such difficulty was it overcome +by her husband's peril or by his command, that her tardy performance of +the rite was accompanied by an insulting action and a bitter taunt. As +she submitted, the Lord "let him go"; but we may perhaps conclude that +the grievance continued to rankle, from the repetition of her gibe, "So +she said, A bridegroom of blood art thou because of the circumcision." +The words mean, "We are betrothed again in blood," and might of +themselves admit a gentler, and even a tender significance; as if, in +the sacrifice of a strong prejudice for her husband's sake, she felt a +revival of "the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals." For +nothing removes the film from the surface of a true affection, and makes +the heart aware how bright it is, so well as a great sacrifice, frankly +offered for the sake of love. + +But such a rendering is excluded by the action which went with her +words, and they must be explained as meaning, This is the kind of +husband I have wedded: these are our espousals. With such an utterance +she fades almost entirely out of the story: it does not even tell how +she drew back to her father; and thenceforth all we know of her is that +she rejoined Moses only when the fame of his victory over Amalek had +gone abroad. + +Their union seems to have been an ill-assorted or at least an +unprosperous one. In the tender hour when their firstborn was to be +named, the bitter sense of loneliness had continued to be nearer to the +heart of Moses than the glad new consciousness of paternity, and he +said, "I am a stranger in a strange land." Different indeed had been the +experience of Joseph, who called his "firstborn Manasseh, for God, said +he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house" (Gen. +xli. 51). The home-life of Moses had not made him forget that he was an +exile. Even the removal of imminent death from her husband could not +hush these selfish complaints of Zipporah, not because he was a father +of blood to her little one, but because he was a bridegroom of blood to +her own shrinking sensibilities. It is Miriam the sister, not Zipporah +the wife, who gives lyrical and passionate voice to his triumph, and is +mourned by the nation when she dies. Both what we read of her and what +we do not read goes far to explain the insignificance of their children +in history, and the more startling fact that the grandson of Moses +became the venal instrument of the Danites in their schismatic worship +(Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +Domestic unhappiness is a palliation, but not a justification, for an +unserviceable life. It is a great advantage to come into action with the +dew and freshness of affection upon the soul. Yet it is not once nor +twice that men have carried the message of God back from the barren +desert and the lonely ways of their unhappiness to the not too happy +race of man. + +Now, who can fail to discern real history in all this? Is it in such a +way that myth or legend would have dealt with the wife of the great +deliverer? Still less conceivable is it that these should have treated +Moses himself as the narrative hitherto has consistently done. At every +step he is made to stumble. His first attempt was homicidal, and brought +upon him forty years of exile. When the Divine commission came he drew +back wilfully, as he had formerly pressed forward unsent. There is not +even any suggestion offered us of Stephen's apology for his violent +deed--namely, that he supposed his brethren understood how that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance (Acts vii. 25). There is nothing +that resembles the eulogium of the Epistle to the Hebrews upon the faith +which glorified his precipitancy, like the rainbow in a torrent, because +that rash blow committed him to share the affliction of the people of +God, and renounced the rank of a grand son of the Pharaoh (Heb. xi. +24-5). All this is very natural, if Moses himself be in any degree +responsible for the narrative. It is incredible, if the narrative were +put together after the Captivity, to claim the sanction of so great a +name for a newly forged hierarchical system. Such a theory could +scarcely be refuted more completely, if the narrative before us were +invented with the deliberate aim to overthrow it. + +But in truth the failures of the good and great are written for our +admonition, teaching us how inconsistent are even the best of mortals, +and how weak the most resolute. Rather than forfeit his own place among +the chosen people, Moses had forsaken a palace and become a proscribed +fugitive; yet he had neglected to claim for his child its rightful share +in the covenant, its recognition among the sons of Abraham. Perhaps +procrastination, perhaps domestic opposition, more potent than a king's +wrath to shake his purpose, perhaps the insidious notion that one who +had sacrificed so much might be at ease about slight negligences,--some +such influence had left the commandment unobserved. And now, when the +dream of his life was being realised at last, and he found himself the +chosen instrument of God for the rebuke of one nation and the making of +another, how pardonable it must have seemed to leave an unpleasant small +domestic duty over until a more convenient season! How natural it still +seems to merge the petty task in the high vocation, to excuse small +lapses in pursuit of lofty aims! But this was the very time when God, +hitherto forbearing, took him sternly to task for his neglect, because +men who are especially honoured should be more obedient and reverential +than their fellows. Let young men who dream of a vast career, and +meanwhile indulge themselves in small obliquities, let all who cast out +demons in the name of Christ, and yet work iniquity, reflect upon this +chosen and long-trained, self-sacrificing and ardent servant of the +Lord, whom Jehovah seeks to kill because he wilfully disobeys even a +purely ceremonial precept. + +Moses was not only religious, but "a man of destiny," one upon whom vast +interests depended. Now, such men have often reckoned themselves exempt +from the ordinary laws of conduct.[8] + +It is not a light thing, therefore, to find God's indignant protest +against the faintest shadow of a doctrine so insidious and so deadly, +set in the forefront of sacred history, at the very point where national +concerns and those of religion begin to touch. If our politics are to be +kept pure and clean, we must learn to exact a higher fidelity, and not a +relaxed morality, from those who propose to sway the destinies of +nations. + +And now the brothers meet, embrace, and exchange confidences. As Andrew, +the first disciple who brought another to Jesus, found first his own +brother Simon, so was Aaron the earliest convert to the mission of +Moses. And that happened which so often puts our faithlessness to shame. +It had seemed very hard to break his strange tidings to the people: it +was in fact very easy to address one whose love had not grown cold +during their severance, who probably retained faith in the Divine +purpose for which the beautiful child of the family had been so +strangely preserved, and who had passed through trial and discipline +unknown to us in the stern intervening years. + +And when they told their marvellous story to the elders of the people, +and displayed the signs, they believed; and when they heard that God had +visited them in their affliction, then they bowed their heads and +worshipped. + +This was their preparation for the wonders that should follow: it +resembled Christ's appeal, "Believest thou that I am able to do this?" +or Peter's word to the impotent man, "Look on us." + +For the moment the announcement had the desired effect, although too +soon the early promise was succeeded by faithlessness and discontent. In +this, again, the teaching of the earliest political movement on record +is as fresh as if it were a tale of yesterday. The offer of emancipation +stirs all hearts; the romance of liberty is beautiful beside the Nile as +in the streets of Paris; but the cost has to be gradually learned; the +losses displace the gains in the popular attention; the labour, the +self-denial and the self-control grow wearisome, and Israel murmurs for +the flesh-pots of Egypt, much as the modern revolution reverts to a +despotism. It is one thing to admire abstract freedom, but a very +different thing to accept the austere conditions of the life of genuine +freemen. And surely the same is true of the soul. The gospel gladdens +the young convert: he bows his head and worships; but he little dreams +of his long discipline, as in the forty desert years, of the solitary +places through which his soul must wander, the drought, the Amalekite, +the absent leader, and the temptations of the flesh. In mercy, the long +future is concealed; it is enough that, like the apostles, we should +consent to follow; gradually we shall obtain the courage to which the +task may be revealed. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Tertullian appealed to the second of these miracles to illustrate +the possibility of the resurrection. "The hand of Moses is changed and +becomes like that of the dead, bloodless, colourless, and stiff with +cold. But on the recovery of heat and restoration of its natural colour, +it is the same flesh and blood.... So will changes, conversions and +reformation be needed to bring about the resurrection, yet the substance +will be preserved safe." (_De Res._, lv.) It is far wiser to be content +with the declaration of St. Paul that the identity of the body does not +depend on that of its corporeal atoms. "Thou sowest not that body that +shall be, but a naked grain.... But God giveth ... to every seed his own +body" (1 Cor. xv. 37-8). + +[8] "I am not an ordinary man," Napoleon used to say, "and the laws of +morals and of custom were never made for me."--_Memoirs of Madame de +Rmusat_, i. 91. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +_PHARAOH REFUSES._ + +v. 1-23. + +After forty years of obscurity and silence, Moses re-enters the +magnificent halls where he had formerly turned his back upon so great a +place. The rod of a shepherd is in his hand, and a lowly Hebrew by his +side. Men who recognise him shake their heads, and pity or despise the +fanatic who had thrown away the most dazzling prospects for a dream. But +he has long since made his choice, and whatever misgivings now beset him +have regard to his success with Pharaoh or with his brethren, not to the +wisdom of his decision. + +Nor had he reason to repent of it. The pomp of an obsequious court was a +poor thing in the eyes of an ambassador of God, who entered the palace +to speak such lofty words as never passed the lips of any son of +Pharaoh's daughter. He was presently to become a god unto Pharaoh, with +Aaron for his prophet. + +In itself, his presence there was formidable. The Hebrews had been +feared when he was an infant. Now their cause was espoused by a man of +culture, who had allied himself with their natural leaders, and was +returned, with the deep and steady fire of a zeal which forty years of +silence could not quench, to assert the rights of Israel as an +independent people. + +There is a terrible power in strong convictions, especially when +supported by the sanctions of religion. Luther on one side, Loyola on +the other, were mightier than kings when armed with this tremendous +weapon. Yet there are forces upon which patriotism and fanaticism +together break in vain. Tyranny and pride of race have also strong +impelling ardours, and carry men far. Pharaoh is in earnest as well as +Moses, and can act with perilous energy. And this great narrative begins +the story of a nation's emancipation with a human demand, boldly made, +but defeated by the pride and vigour of a startled tyrant and the +tameness of a downtrodden people. The limitations of human energy are +clearly exhibited before the direct interference of God begins. All that +a brave man can do, when nerved by lifelong aspiration and by a sudden +conviction that the hour of destiny has struck, all therefore upon which +rationalism can draw, to explain the uprising of Israel, is exhibited in +this preliminary attempt, this first demand of Moses. + +Menephtah was no doubt the new Pharaoh whom the brothers accosted so +boldly. What we glean of him elsewhere is highly suggestive of some +grave event left unrecorded, exhibiting to us a man of uncontrollable +temper yet of broken courage, a ruthless, godless, daunted man. There is +a legend that he once hurled his spear at the Nile when its floods rose +too high, and was punished with ten years of blindness. In the Libyan +war, after fixing a time when he should join his vanguard, with the main +army, a celestial vision forbade him to keep his word in person, and the +victory was gained by his lieutenants. In another war, he boasts of +having slaughtered the people and set fire to them, and netted the +entire country as men net birds. Forty years then elapse without war +and without any great buildings; there are seditions and internal +troubles, and the dynasty closes with his son.[9] All this is exactly +what we should expect, if a series of tremendous blows had depopulated a +country, abolished an army, and removed two millions of the working +classes in one mass. + +But it will be understood that this identification, concerning which +there is now a very general consent of competent authorities, implies +that the Pharaoh was not himself engulfed with his army. Nothing is on +the other side except a poetic assertion in Psalm cxxxvi. 15, which is +not that God destroyed, but that He "shook off" Pharaoh and his host in +the Red Sea, because His mercy endureth for ever. + +To this king, then, whose audacious family had usurped the symbols of +deity for its head-dress, and whose father boasted that in battle "he +became like the god Mentu" and "was as Baal," the brothers came as yet +without miracle, with no credentials except from slaves, and said, "Thus +saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a +feast unto Me in the wilderness." The issue was distinctly raised: did +Israel belong to Jehovah or to the king? And Pharaoh answered, with +equal decision, "Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice? I +know not Jehovah, and what is more, I will not let Israel go." + +Now, the ignorance of the king concerning Jehovah was almost or quite +blameless: the fault was in his practical refusal to inquire. Jehovah +was no concern of his: without waiting for information, he at once +decided that his grasp on his captives should not relax. And his second +fault, which led to this, was the same grinding oppression of the +helpless which for eighty years already had brought upon his nation the +guilt of blood. Crowned and national cupidity, the resolution to wring +from their slaves the last effort consistent with existence, such greed +as took offence at even the momentary pause of hope while Moses pleaded, +because "the people of the land are many, and ye make them rest from +their burdens,"--these shut their hearts against reason and religion, +and therefore God presently hardened those same hearts against natural +misgiving and dread and awe-stricken submission to His judgments. + +For it was against religion also that he was unyielding. In his ample +Pantheon there was room at least for the possibility of the entrance of +the Hebrew God, and in refusing to the subject people, without +investigation, leisure for any worship, the king outraged not only +humanity, but Heaven. + +The brothers proceed to declare that they have themselves met with the +deity, and there must have been many in the court who could attest at +least the sincerity of Moses; they ask for liberty to spend a day in +journeying outward and another in returning, with a day between for +their worship, and warn the king of the much greater loss to himself +which may be involved in vengeance upon refusal, either by war or +pestilence. But the contemptuous answer utterly ignores religion: +"Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? Get +ye unto your burdens." + +And his counter-measures are taken without loss of time: "that same day" +the order goes out to exact the regular quantity of brick, but supply no +straw for binding it together. It is a pitiless mandate, and +illustrates the fact, very natural though often forgotten, that men as a +rule cannot lose sight of the religious value of their fellow-men, and +continue to respect or pity them as before. We do not deny that men who +professed religion have perpetrated nameless cruelties, nor that +unbelievers have been humane, sometimes with a pathetic energy, a +tenacious grasp on the virtue still possible to those who have no Heaven +to serve. But it is plain that the average man will despise his brother, +and his brother's rights, just in proportion as the Divine sanctions of +those rights fade away, and nothing remains to be respected but the +culture, power and affluence which the victim lacks. "I know not +Israel's God" is a sure prelude to the refusal to let Israel go, and +even to the cruelty which beats the slave who fails to render impossible +obedience. + +"They be idle, therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to +our God." And still there are men who hold the same opinion, that time +spent in devotion is wasted, as regards the duties of real life. In +truth, religion means freshness, elasticity and hope: a man will be not +slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, if he serves the Lord. But +perhaps immortal hope, and the knowledge that there is One Who shall +break all prison bars and let the oppressed go free, are not the best +narcotics to drug down the soul of a man into the monotonous tameness of +a slave. + +In the tenth verse we read that the Egyptian taskmasters and the +officers combined to urge the people to their aggravated labours. And by +the fourteenth verse we find that the latter officials were Hebrew +officers whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them. + +So that we have here one of the surest and worst effects of +slavery--namely, the demoralisation of the oppressed, the readiness of +average men, who can obtain for themselves a little relief, to do so at +their brethren's cost. These officials were scribes, "writers": their +business was to register the amount of labour due, and actually +rendered. These were doubtless the more comfortable class, of whom we +read afterwards that they possessed property, for their cattle escaped +the murrain and their trees the hail. And they had the means of +acquiring quite sufficient skill to justify whatever is recorded of the +works done in the construction of the tabernacle. The time is long past +when scepticism found support for its incredulity in these details. + +One advantage of the last sharp agony of persecution was that it finally +detached this official class from the Egyptian interest, and welded +Israel into a homogeneous people, with officers already provided. For, +when the supply of bricks came short, these officials were beaten, and, +as if no cause of the failure were palpable, they were asked, with a +malicious chuckle, "Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task both +yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?" And when they explain to Pharaoh, +in words already expressive of their alienation, that the fault is with +"thine own people," they are repulsed with insult, and made to feel +themselves in evil case. For indeed they needed to be chastised for +their forgetfulness of God. How soon would their hearts have turned +back, how much more bitter yet would have been their complaints in the +desert, if it were not for this last experience! But if judgment began +with them, what should presently be the fate of their oppressors? + +Their broken spirit shows itself by murmuring, not against Pharaoh, but +against Moses and Aaron, who at least had striven to help them. Here, as +in the whole story, there is not a trace of either the lofty spirit +which could have evolved the Mosaic law, or the hero-worship of a later +age. + +It is written that Moses, hearing their reproaches, "returned unto the +Lord," although no visible shrine, no consecrated place of worship, can +be thought of. + +What is involved is the consecration which the heart bestows upon any +place of privacy and prayer, where, in shutting out the world, the soul +is aware of the special nearness of its King. In one sense we never +leave Him, never return to Him. In another sense, by direct address of +the attention and the will, we enter into His presence; we find Him in +the midst of us, Who is everywhere. And all ceremonial consecrations do +their office by helping us to realise and act upon the presence of Him +in Whom, even when He is forgotten, we live and move and have our being. +Therefore in the deepest sense each man consecrates or desecrates for +himself his own place of prayer. There is a city where the Divine +presence saturates every consciousness with rapture. And the seer beheld +no temple therein, for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the +temple of it. + +Startling to our notions of reverence are the words in which Moses +addresses God. "Lord, why hast Thou evil entreated this people? Why is +it that Thou hast sent me? for since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy +name, he hath evil entreated this people; neither hast Thou delivered +Thy people at all." It is almost as if his faith had utterly given way, +like that of the Psalmist when he saw the wicked in great prosperity, +while waters of a full cup were wrung out by the people of God (Ps. +lxxiii. 3, 10). And there is always a dangerous moment when the first +glow of enthusiasm burns down, and we realise how long the process, how +bitter the disappointments, by which even a scanty measure of success +must be obtained. Yet God had expressly warned Moses that Pharaoh would +not release them until Egypt had been smitten with all His plagues. But +the warning passed unapprehended, as we let many a truth pass +intellectually accepted it is true, but only as a theorem, a vague and +abstract formula. As we know that we must die, that worldly pleasures +are brief and unreal, and that sin draws evil in its train, yet wonder +when these phrases become solid and practical in our experience, so, in +the first flush and wonder of the promised emancipation, Moses had +forgotten the predicted interval of trial. + +His words would have been profane and irreverent indeed but for one +redeeming quality. They were addressed to God Himself. Whenever the +people murmured, Moses turned for help to Him Who reckons the most +unconventional and daring appeal to Him far better than the most +ceremonious phrases in which men cover their unbelief: "Lord, wherefore +hast Thou evil entreated this people?" is in reality a much more pious +utterance than "I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord." +Wherefore Moses receives large encouragement, although no formal answer +is vouchsafed to his daring question. + +Even so, in our dangers, our torturing illnesses, and many a crisis +which breaks through all the crust of forms and conventionalities, God +may perhaps recognise a true appeal to Him, in words which only +scandalise the orthodoxy of the formal and precise. In the bold +rejoinder of the Syro-Phoenician woman He recognised great faith. His +disciples would simply have sent her away as clamorous. + +Moses had again failed, even though Divinely commissioned, in the work +of emancipating Israel, and thereupon he had cried to the Lord Himself +to undertake the work. This abortive attempt, however, was far from +useless: it taught humility and patience to the leader, and it pressed +the nation together, as in a vice, by the weight of a common burden, now +become intolerable. At the same moment, the iniquity of the tyrant was +filled up. + +But the Lord did not explain this, in answer to the remonstrance of +Moses. Many things happen, for which no distinct verbal explanation is +possible, many things of which the deep spiritual fitness cannot be +expressed in words. Experience is the true commentator upon Providence, +if only because the slow building of character is more to God than +either the hasting forward of deliverance or the clearing away of +intellectual mists. And it is only as we take His yoke upon us that we +truly learn of Him. Yet much is implied, if not spoken out, in the +words, "Now (because the time is ripe) shalt thou see what I will do to +Pharaoh (I, because others have failed); for by a strong hand shall he +let them go, and by a strong hand shall he drive them out of the land." +It is under the weight of the "strong hand" of God Himself that the +tyrant must either bend or break. + +Similar to this is the explanation of many delays in answering our +prayer, of the strange raising up of tyrants and demagogues, and of much +else that perplexes Christians in history and in their own experience. +These events develop human character, for good or evil. And they give +scope for the revealing of the fulness of the power which rescues. We +have no means of measuring the supernatural force which overcomes but by +the amount of the resistance offered. And if all good things came to us +easily and at once, we should not become aware of the horrible pit, our +rescue from which demands gratitude. The Israelites would not have sung +a hymn of such fervent gratitude when the sea was crossed, if they had +not known the weight of slavery and the anguish of suspense. And in +heaven the redeemed who have come out of great tribulation sing the song +of Moses and of the Lamb. + +Fresh air, a balmy wind, a bright blue sky--which of us feels a thrill +of conscious exultation for these cheap delights? The released prisoner, +the restored invalid, feels it: + + "The common earth, the air, the skies, + To him are opening paradise." + +Even so should Israel be taught to value deliverance. And now the +process could begin. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] Robinson, "The Pharaohs of the Bondage." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +_THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MOSES._ + +vi. 1-30. + +We have seen that the name Jehovah expresses not a philosophic +meditation, but the most bracing and reassuring truth--viz., that an +immutable and independent Being sustains His people; and this great +title is therefore reaffirmed with emphasis in the hour of mortal +discouragement. It is added that their fathers knew God by the name of +God Almighty, but by His name Jehovah was He not known, or made known, +unto them. Now, it is quite clear that they were not utterly ignorant of +this title, for no such theory as that it was hitherto mentioned by +anticipation only, can explain the first syllable in the name of the +mother of Moses himself, nor the assertion that in the time of Seth men +began to call upon the name of Jehovah (Gen. iv. 26), nor the name of +the hill of Abraham's sacrifice, Jehovah-jireh (Gen. xxii. 14). Yet the +statement cannot be made available for the purposes of any reasonable +and moderate scepticism, since the sceptical theory demands a belief in +successive redactions of the work in which an error so gross could not +have escaped detection. + +And the true explanation is that this Name was now, for the first time, +to be realised as a sustaining power. The patriarchs had known the name; +how its fitness should be realised: God should be known by it. They had +drawn support and comfort from that simpler view of the Divine +protection which said, "I am the Almighty God: walk before Me and be +thou perfect" (Gen. xvii. 1). But thenceforth all the experience of the +past was to reinforce the energies of the present, and men were to +remember that their promises came from One who cannot change. Others, +like Abraham, had been stronger in faith than Moses. But faith is not +the same as insight, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets (Deut. +xxxiv. 10). To him, therefore, it was given to confirm the courage of +his nation by this exalting thought of God. And the Lord proceeds to +state what His promises to the patriarchs were, and joins together (as +we should do) the assurance of His compassionate heart and of His +inviolable pledges: "I have heard the groaning of the children of +Israel, ... and I have remembered My covenant." + +It has been the same, in turn, with every new revelation of the Divine. +The new was implicit in the old, but when enforced, unfolded, reapplied, +men found it charged with unsuspected meaning and power, and as full of +vitality and development as a handful of dry seeds when thrown into +congenial soil. So it was pre-eminently with the doctrine of the +Messiah. It will be the same hereafter with the doctrine of the kingdom +of peace and the reign of the saints on earth. Some day men will smile +at our crude theories and ignorant controversies about the Millennium. +We, meantime, possess the saving knowledge of Christ amid many +perplexities and obscurities. And so the patriarchs, who knew God +Almighty, but not by His name Jehovah, were not lost for want of the +knowledge of His name, but saved by faith in Him, in the living Being +to Whom all these names belong, and Who shall yet write upon the brows +of His people some new name, hitherto undreamed by the ripest of the +saints and the purest of the Churches. Meantime, let us learn the +lessons of tolerance for other men's ignorance, remembering the +ignorance of the father of the faithful, tolerance for difference of +views, remembering how the unusual and rare name of God was really the +precursor of a brighter revelation, and yet again, when our hearts are +faint with longing for new light, and weary to death of the babbling of +old words, let us learn a sober and cautious reconsideration, lest +perhaps the very truth needed for altered circumstance and changing +problem may lie, unheeded and dormant, among the dusty old phrases from +which we turn away despairingly. Moreover, since the fathers knew the +name Jehovah, yet gained from it no special knowledge of God, such as +they had from His Almightiness, we are taught that discernment is often +more at fault than revelation. To the quick perception and plastic +imagination of the artist, our world reveals what the boor will never +see. And the saint finds, in the homely and familiar words of Scripture, +revelations for His soul that are unknown to common men. Receptivity is +what we need far more than revelation. + +Again is Moses bidden to appeal to the faith of his countrymen, by a +solemn repetition of the Divine promise. If the tyranny is great, they +shall be redeemed with a stretched out arm, that is to say, with a +palpable interposition of the power of God, "and with great judgments." +It is the first appearance in Scripture of this phrase, afterwards so +common. Not mere vengeance upon enemies or vindication of subjects is in +question: the thought is that of a deliberate weighing of merits, and +rendering out of measured penalties. Now, the Egyptian mythology had a +very clear and solemn view of judgment after death. If king and people +had grown cruel, it was because they failed to realise remote +punishments, and did not believe in present judgments, here, in this +life. But there is a God that judgeth in the earth. Not always, for +mercy rejoiceth over judgment. We may still pray, "Enter not into +judgment with Thy servants, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no man living +be justified." But when men resist warnings, then retribution begins +even here. Sometimes it comes in plague and overthrow, sometimes in the +worse form of a heart made fat, the decay of sensibilities abused, the +dying out of spiritual faculty. Pharaoh was to experience both, the +hardening of his heart and the ruin of his fortunes. + +It is added, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you +for a God." This is the language, not of a mere purpose, a will that has +resolved to vindicate the right, but of affection. God is about to adopt +Israel to Himself, and the same favour which belonged to rare +individuals in the old time is now offered to a whole nation. Just as +the heart of each man is gradually educated, learning first to love a +parent and a family, and so led on to national patriotism, and at last +to a world-wide philanthropy, so was the religious conscience of mankind +awakened to believe that Abraham might be the friend of God, and then +that His oath might be confirmed unto the children, and then that He +could take Israel to Himself for a people, and at last that God loved +the world. + +It is not religion to think that God condescends merely to save us. He +cares for us. He takes us to Himself, He gives Himself away to us, in +return, to be our God. + +Such a revelation ought to have been more to Israel than any pledge of +certain specified advantages. It was meant to be a silken tie, a golden +clasp, to draw together the almighty Heart and the hearts of these +downtrodden slaves. Something within Him desires their little human +love; they shall be to Him for a people. So He said again, "My son, give +Me thine heart." And so, when He carried to the uttermost these +unsought, unhoped for, and, alas! unwelcomed overtures of condescension, +and came among us, He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens +under her wings, those who would not. It is not man who conceives, from +definite services received, the wild hope of some spark of real +affection in the bosom of the Eternal and Mysterious One. It is not man, +amid the lavish joys and splendours of creation, who conceives the +notion of a supreme Heart, as the explanation of the universe. It is God +Himself Who says, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to +you a God." + +Nor is it human conversion that begins the process, but a Divine +covenant and pledge, by which God would fain convert us to Himself; even +as the first disciples did not accost Jesus, but He turned and spoke to +them the first question and the first invitation; "What seek ye?... +Come, and ye shall see." + +To-day, the choice of the civilised world has to be made between a +mechanical universe and a revealed love, for no third possibility +survives. + +This promise establishes a relationship, which God never afterwards +cancelled. Human unbelief rejected its benefits, and chilled the mutual +sympathies which it involved; but the fact always remained, and in their +darkest hour they could appeal to God to remember His covenant and the +oath which He sware. + +And this same assurance belongs to us. We are not to become good, or +desirous of goodness, in order that God may requite with affection our +virtues or our wistfulness. Rather we are to arise and come to our +Father, and to call Him Father, although we are not worthy to be called +His sons. We are to remember how Jesus said, "If ye being evil know how +to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly +Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!" and to learn that He +is the Father of those who are evil, and even of those who are still +unpardoned, as He said again, "If ye forgive not ... neither will your +heavenly Father forgive you." + +Much controversy about the universal Fatherhood of God would be assuaged +if men reflected upon the significant distinction which our Saviour drew +between His Fatherhood and our sonship, the one always a reality of the +Divine affection, the other only a possibility, for human enjoyment or +rejection: "Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, +that ye may be sons of your Father Which is in heaven" (Matt. v. 45). +There is no encouragement to presumption in the assertion of the Divine +Fatherhood upon such terms. For it speaks of a love which is real and +deep without being feeble and indiscriminate. It appeals to faith +because there is an absolute fact to lean upon, and to energy because +privilege is conditional. It reminds us that our relationship is like +that of the ancient Israel,--that we are in a covenant, as they were, +but that the carcases of many of them fell in the wilderness; although +God had taken them for a people, and was to them a God, and said, +"Israel is My son, even My firstborn." + +It is added that faith shall develop into knowledge. Moses is to assure +them now that they "shall know" hereafter that the Lord is Jehovah +their God. And this, too, is a universal law, that we shall know if we +follow on to know: that the trial of our faith worketh patience, and +patience experience, and we have so dim and vague an apprehension of +Divine realities, chiefly because we have made but little trial, and +have not tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious. + +In this respect, as in so many more, religion is analogous with nature. +The squalor of the savage could be civilised, and the distorted and +absurd conceptions of medival science could be corrected, only by +experiment, persistently and wisely carried out. + +And it is so in religion: its true evidence is unknown to these who +never bore its yoke; it is open to just such raillery and rejection as +they who will not love can pour upon domestic affection and the sacred +ties of family life; but, like these, it vindicates itself, in the rest +of their souls, to those who will take the yoke and learn. And its best +wisdom is not of the cunning brain but of the open heart, that wisdom +from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be +entreated. + +And thus, while God leads Israel, they shall know that He is Jehovah, +and true to His highest revelations of Himself. + +All this they heard, and also, to define their hope and brighten it, the +promise of Palestine was repeated; but they hearkened not unto Moses for +anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. Thus the body often holds the +spirit down, and kindly allowance is made by Him Who knoweth our frame +and remembereth that we are dust, and Who, in the hour of His own agony, +found the excuse for His unsympathising followers that the spirit was +willing although the flesh was weak. So when Elijah made request for +himself that he might die, in the utter reaction which followed his +triumph on Carmel and his wild race to Jezreel, the good Physician did +not dazzle him with new splendours of revelation until after he had +slept, and eaten miraculous food, and a second time slept and eaten. + +But if the anguish of the body excuses much weakness of the spirit, it +follows, on the other hand, that men are responsible to God for that +heavy weight which is laid upon the spirit by pampered and luxurious +bodies, incapable of self-sacrifice, rebellious against the lightest of +His demands. It is suggestive, that Moses, when sent again to Pharaoh, +objected, as at first: "Behold, the children of Israel have not +hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of +uncircumcised lips?" + +Every new hope, every great inspiration which calls the heroes of God to +a fresh attack upon the powers of Satan, is checked and hindered more by +the coldness of the Church than by the hostility of the world. That +hostility is expected, and can be defied. But the infidelity of the +faithful is appalling indeed. + +We read with wonder the great things which Christ has promised to +believing prayer, and, at the same time, although we know painfully that +we have never claimed and dare not claim these promises, we wonder +equally at the foreboding question, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall +He find the faith (faith in its fulness) on the earth?" (Luke xviii. 8). +But we ought to remember that our own low standard helps to form the +standard of attainment for the Church at large--that when one member +suffers, all the members suffer with it--that many a large sacrifice +would be readily made for Christ, at this hour, if only ease and +pleasure were at stake, which is refused because it is too hard to be +called well-meaning enthusiasts by those who ought to glorify God in +such attainment, as the first brethren did in the zeal and the gifts of +Paul. + +The vast mountains raise their heads above mountain ranges which +encompass them; and it is not when the level of the whole Church is low, +that giants of faith and of attainment may be hoped for. Nay, Christ +stipulates for the agreement of two or three, to kindle and make +effectual the prayers which shall avail. + +For the purification of our cities, for the shaming of our legislation +until it fears God as much as a vested interest, for the reunion of +those who worship the same Lord, for the conversion of the world, and +first of all for the conversion of the Church, heroic forces are +demanded. But all the tendency of our half-hearted, abject, +semi-Christianity is to repress everything that is unconventional, +abnormal, likely to embroil us with our natural enemy, the world; and +who can doubt that, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, we +shall know of many an aspiring soul, in which the sacred fire had begun +to burn, which sank back into lethargy and the commonplace, murmuring in +its despair, "Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; +how then shall Pharaoh hear me?" + +It was the last fear which ever shook the great heart of the emancipator +Moses. + +At the beginning of the grand historical work, of which all this has +been the prelude, there is set the pedigree of Moses and Aaron, +according to "the heads of their fathers' houses,"--- an epithet which +indicates a subdivision of the "family," as the family is a subdivision +of the tribe. Of the sons of Jacob, Reuben and Simeon are mentioned, to +put Levi in his natural third place. And from Levi to Moses only four +generations are mentioned, favouring somewhat the briefer scheme of +chronology which makes four centuries cover all the time from Abraham, +and not the captivity alone. But it is certain that this is a mere +recapitulation of the more important links in the genealogy. In Num. +xxvi. 58, 59, six generations are reckoned instead of four; in 1 Chron. +ii. 3 there are seven generations; and elsewhere in the same book (vi. +22) there are ten. It is well known that similar omissions of obscure or +unworthy links occur in St. Matthew's pedigree of our Lord, although +some stress is there laid upon the recurrent division into fourteens. +And it is absurd to found any argument against the trustworthiness of +the narrative upon a phenomenon so frequent, and so sure to be avoided +by a forger, or to be corrected by an unscrupulous editor. In point of +fact, nothing is less likely to have occurred, if the narrative were a +late invention. + +Neither, in that case, would the birth of the great emancipator be +ascribed to the union of Amram with his father's sister, for such +marriages were distinctly forbidden by the law (Lev. xviii. 14). + +Nor would the names of the children of the founder of the nation be +omitted, while those of Aaron are recorded, unless we were dealing with +genuine history, which knows that the sons of Aaron inherited the lawful +priesthood, while the descendants of Moses were the jealous founders of +a mischievous schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +Nor again, if this were a religious romance, designed to animate the +nation in its later struggles, should we read of the hesitation and the +fears of a leader "of uncircumcised lips," instead of the trumpet-like +calls to action of a noble champion. + +Nor does the broken-spirited meanness of Israel at all resemble the +conception, popular in every nation, of a virtuous and heroic antiquity, +a golden age. It is indeed impossible to reconcile the motives and the +date to which this narrative is ascribed by some, with the plain +phenomena, with the narrative itself. + +Nor is it easy to understand why the Lord, Who speaks of bringing out +"My hosts, My people, the children of Israel" (vii. 4, etc.), should +never in the Pentateuch be called the Lord of Hosts, if that title were +in common use when it was written; for no epithet would better suit the +song of Miriam or the poetry of the Fifth Book. + +When Moses complained that he was of uncircumcised lips, the Lord +announced that He had already made His servant as a god unto Pharaoh, +having armed him, even then, with the terrors which are soon to shake +the tyrant's soul. + +It is suggestive and natural that his very education in a court should +render him fastidious, less willing than a rougher man might have been +to appear before the king after forty years of retirement, and feeling +almost physically incapable of speaking what he felt so deeply, in words +that would satisfy his own judgment. Yet God had endowed him, even then, +with a supernatural power far greater than any facility of expression. +In his weakness he would thus be made strong; and the less fit he was to +assert for himself any ascendency over Pharaoh, the more signal would be +the victory of his Lord, when he became "very great in the land of +Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the +people" (xi. 3). + +As a proof of this mastery he was from the first to speak to the haughty +king through his brother, as a god through some prophet, being too great +to reveal himself directly. It is a memorable phrase; and so lofty an +assertion could never, in the myth of a later period, have been ascribed +to an origin so lowly as the reluctance of Moses to expose his +deficiency in elocution. + +Therefore he should henceforth be emboldened by the assurance of +qualification bestowed already: not only by the hope of help and +achievement yet to come, but by the certainty of present endowment. And +so should each of us, in his degree, be bold, who have gifts differing +according to the grace given unto us. + +It is certain that every living soul has at least one talent, and is +bound to improve it. But how many of us remember that this loan implies +a commission from God, as real as that of prophet and deliverer, and +that nothing but our own default can prevent it from being, at the last, +received again with usury? + +The same bravery, the same confidence when standing where his Captain +has planted him, should inspire the prophet, and him that giveth alms, +and him that showeth mercy; for all are members in one body, and +therefore animated by one invincible Spirit from above (Rom. xii. 4-9). + +The endowment thus given to Moses made him "as a god" to Pharaoh. + +We must not take this to mean only that he had a prophet or spokesman, +or that he was made formidable, but that the peculiar nature of his +prowess would be felt. It was not his own strength. The supernatural +would become visible in him. He who boasted "I know not Jehovah" would +come to crouch before Him in His agent, and humble himself to the man +whom once he contemptuously ordered back to his burdens, with the abject +prayer, "Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat +Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only." + +Now, every consecrated power may bear witness to the Lord: it is +possible to do all to the glory of God. Not that every separate action +will be ascribed to a preternatural source, but the sum total of the +effect produced by a holy life will be sacred. He who said, "I have made +thee a god unto Pharaoh," says of all believers, "I in them, and Thou, +Father, in Me, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +_THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH'S HEART._ + +vii. 3-13. + +When Moses received his commission, at the bush, words were spoken which +are now repeated with more emphasis, and which have to be considered +carefully. For probably no statement of Scripture has excited fiercer +criticism, more exultation of enemies and perplexity of friends, than +that the Lord said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he shall not let +the people go," and that in consequence of this Divine act Pharaoh +sinned and suffered. Just because the words are startling, it is unjust +to quote them without careful examination of the context, both in the +prediction and the fulfilment. When all is weighed, compared, and +harmonised, it will at last be possible to draw a just conclusion. And +although it may happen long before then, that the objector will charge +us with special pleading, yet he will be the special pleader himself, if +he seeks to hurry us, by prejudice or passion, to give a verdict which +is based upon less than all the evidence, patiently weighed. + +Let us in the first place find out how soon this dreadful process began; +when was it that God fulfilled His threat, and hardened, in any sense +whatever, the heart of Pharaoh? Did He step in at the beginning, and +render the unhappy king incapable of weighing the remonstrances which He +then performed the cruel mockery of addressing to him? Were these as +insincere and futile as if one bade the avalanche to pause which his own +act had started down the icy slopes? Was Pharaoh as little responsible +for his pursuit of Israel as his horses were--being, like them, the +blind agents of a superior force? We do not find it so. In the fifth +chapter, when a demand is made, without any sustaining miracle, simply +appealing to the conscience of the ruler, there is no mention of any +such process, despite the insults with which Pharaoh then assails both +the messengers and Jehovah Himself, Whom he knows not. In the seventh +chapter there is clear evidence that the process is yet unaccomplished; +for, speaking of an act still future, it declares, "I will harden +Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of +Egypt" (vii. 3). And this terrible act is not connected with the +remonstrances and warnings of God, but entirely with the increasing +pressure of the miracles. + +The exact period is marked when the hand of doom closed upon the tyrant. +It is not where the Authorised Version places it. When the magicians +imitated the earlier signs of Moses, "his heart was strong," but the +original does not bear out the assertion that at this time the Lord made +it so by any judicial act of His (vii. 13). That only comes with the +sixth plague; and the course of events may be traced, fairly well, by +the help of the margin of the Revised Version. + +After the plague of blood "Pharaoh's heart was strong" ("hardened"), and +this is distinctly ascribed to his own action, because "he set his heart +even to this" (vii. 22, 23). + +After the second plague, it was still he himself who "made his heart +heavy" (viii. 15). + +After the third plague the magicians warned him that the very finger of +some god was upon him indeed: their rivalry, which hitherto might have +been somewhat of a palliation for his obstinacy, was now ended; but yet +"his heart was strong" (viii. 19). + +Again, after the fourth plague he "made his heart heavy"; and it "was +heavy" after the fifth plague, (viii. 32, ix. 7). + +Only thenceforward comes the judicial infatuation upon him who has +resolutely infatuated himself hitherto. + +But when five warnings and penalties have spent their force in vain, +when personal agony is inflicted in the plague of boils, and the +magicians in particular cannot stand before him through their pain, +would it have been proof of virtuous contrition if he had yielded then? +If he had needed evidence, it was given to him long before. Submission +now would have meant prudence, not penitence; and it was against +prudence, not penitence, that he was hardened. Because he had resisted +evidence, experience, and even the testimony of his own magicians, he +was therefore stiffened against the grudging and unworthy concessions +which must otherwise have been wrested from him, as a wild beast will +turn and fly from fire. He was henceforth himself to become an evidence +and a portent; and so "The Lord made strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he +hearkened not unto them" (ix. 12). It was an awful doom, but it is not +open to the attacks so often made upon it. It only means that for him +the last five plagues were not disciplinary, but wholly penal. + +Nay, it stops short of asserting even this: they might still have +appealed to his reason; they were only not allowed to crush him by the +agency of terror. Not once is it asserted that God hardened his heart +against any nobler impulse than alarm, and desire to evade danger and +death. We see clearly this meaning in the phrase, when it is applied to +his army entering the Red Sea: "I will make strong the hearts of the +Egyptians, and they shall go in" (xiv. 17). It needed no greater moral +turpitude to pursue the Hebrews over the sands than on the shore, but it +certainly required more hardihood. But the unpursued departure which the +good-will of Egypt refused, their common sense was not allowed to grant. +Callousness was followed by infatuation, as even the pagans felt that +whom God wills to ruin He first drives mad. + +This explanation implies that to harden Pharaoh's heart was to inspire +him, not with wickedness, but with nerve. + +And as far as the original language helps us at all, it decidedly +supports this view. Three different expressions have been unhappily +rendered by the same English word, to harden; but they may be +discriminated throughout the narrative in Exodus, by the margin of the +Revised Version. + +One word, which commonly appears without any marginal explanation, is +the same which is employed elsewhere about "the cause which is too +_hard_ for" minor judges (Deut. i. 17, cf. xv. 18, etc.). Now, this word +is found (vii. 13) in the second threat that "I will harden Pharaoh's +heart," and in the account which was to be given to posterity of how +"Pharaoh hardened himself to let us go" (xiii. 15). And it is said +likewise of Sihon, king of Heshbon, that he "would not let us pass by +him, for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart strong" +(Deut. ii. 30). But since it does not occur anywhere in all the +narrative of what God actually did with Pharaoh, it is only just to +interpret this phrase in the prediction by what we read elsewhere of the +manner of its fulfilment. + +The second word is explained in the margin as meaning _to make strong_. +Already God had employed it when He said "I will _make strong_ his +heart" (iv. 21), and this is the term used of the first fulfilment of +the menace, after the sixth plague (ix. 12). God is not said to +interfere again after the seventh, which had few special terrors for +Pharaoh himself; but from henceforth the expression "to make _strong_" +alternates with the phrase "to make _heavy_." "Go in unto Pharaoh, for I +have made heavy his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might +show these My signs in the midst of them" (x. 1). + +It may be safely assumed that these two expressions cover between them +all that is asserted of the judicial action of God in preventing a +recoil of Pharaoh from his calamities. Now, the strengthening of a +heart, however punitive and disastrous when a man's will is evil (just +as the strengthening of his arm is disastrous then), has in itself no +immorality inherent. It is a thing as often good as bad,--as when Israel +and Joshua are exhorted to "Be _strong_ and of a good courage" (Deut. +xxxi. 6, 7, 23), and when the angel laid his hand upon Daniel and said, +"Be strong, yea, be strong" (Dan. x. 19). In these passages the phrase +is identical with that which describes the process by which Pharaoh was +prevented from cowering under the tremendous blows he had provoked. + +The other expression is to make heavy or dull. Thus "the eyes of Israel +were _heavy_ with age" (Gen. xlviii. 10), and as we speak of a _weight_ +of honour, equally with the heaviness of a dull man, so we are twice +commanded, "Make heavy (honour) thy father and thy mother"; and the Lord +declares, "I will make Myself heavy (get Me honour) upon Pharaoh" (Deut. +v. 16, Exod. xx. 12, xiv. 4, 17, 18). In these latter references it will +be observed that the making "strong" the heart of Pharaoh, and the +making "Myself heavy" are so connected as almost to show a design of +indicating how far is either expression from conveying the notion of +immorality, infused into a human heart by God. For one of the two +phrases which have been thus interpreted is still applied to Pharaoh; +but the other (and the more sinister, as we should think, when thus +applied) is appropriated by God to Himself: He makes Himself heavy. + +It is also a curious and significant coincidence that the same word was +used of the burdens that were made _heavy_ when first they claimed their +freedom, which is now used of the treatment of the heart of their +oppressor (v. 9). + +It appears, then, that the Lord is never said to debauch Pharaoh's +heart, but only to strengthen it against prudence and to make it dull; +that the words used do not express the infusion of evil passion, but the +animation of a resolute courage, and the overclouding of a natural +discernment; and, above all, that every one of the three words, to make +hard, to make strong, and to make heavy, is employed to express +Pharaoh's own treatment of himself, before it is applied to any work of +God, as actually taking place already. + +Nevertheless, there is a solemn warning for all time, in the assertion +that what he at first chose, the vengeance of God afterward chose for +him. For indeed the same process, working more slowly but on identical +lines, is constantly seen in the hardening effect of vicious habit. The +gambler did not mean to stake all his fortune upon one chance, when +first he timidly laid down a paltry stake; nor has he changed his mind +since then as to the imprudence of such a hazard. The drunkard, the +murderer himself, is a man who at first did evil as far as he dared, and +afterwards dared to do evil which he would once have shuddered at. + +Let no man assume that prudence will always save him from ruinous +excess, if respect for righteousness cannot withhold him from those +first compliances which sap the will, destroy the restraint of +self-respect, wear away the horror of great wickedness by familiarity +with the same guilt in its lesser phases, and, above all, forfeit the +enlightenment and calmness of judgment which come from the Holy Spirit +of God, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and of counsel, and makes men to be +of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. + +Let no man think that the fear of damnation will bring him to the +mercy-seat at last, if the burden and gloom of being "condemned already" +cannot now bend his will. "Even as they refused to have God in their +knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind" (Rom. i. 28). "I gave +them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he +shall even live in them.... I gave them statutes that were not good, and +judgments wherein they should not live" (Ezek. xx. 11, 25). + +This is the inevitable law, the law of a confused and darkened judgment, +a heart made heavy and ears shut, a conscience seared, an infatuated +will kicking against the pricks, and heaping to itself wrath against the +day of wrath. Wilful sin is always a challenge to God, and it is avenged +by the obscuring of the lamp of God in the soul. Now, a part of His +guiding light is prudence; and it is possible that men who will not be +warned by the fear of injury to their conscience, such as they suppose +that Pharaoh suffered, may be sobered by the danger of such derangement +of their intellectual efficiency as really befel him. + +In this sense men are, at last, impelled blindly to their fate (and this +is a judicial act of God, although it comes in the course of nature), +but first they launch themselves upon the slope which grows steeper at +every downward step, until arrest is impossible. + +On the other hand, every act of obedience helps to release the will from +its entanglement, and to clear the judgment which has grown dull, +anointing the eyes with eye-salve that they may see. Not in vain is the +assertion of the bondage of the sinner and the glorious liberty of the +children of God. + +A second time, then, Moses presented himself before Pharaoh with his +demands; and, as he had been forewarned, he was now challenged to give a +sign in proof of his commission from a god. + +And the demand was treated as reasonable; a sign was given, and a +menacing one. The peaceable rod of the shepherd, a fit symbol of the +meek man who bore it, became a serpent[10] before the king, as Moses was +to become destructive to his realm. But when the wise men of Egypt and +the enchanters were called, they did likewise; and although a marvel was +added which incontestably declared the superior power of the Deity Whom +Aaron represented, yet their rivalry sufficed to make strong the heart +of Pharaoh, and he would not let the people go. The issue was now knit: +the result would be more signal than if the quarrel were decided at one +blow, and upon all the gods of Egypt the Lord would exercise vengeance. + +What are we to think of the authentification of a religion by a sign? +Beyond doubt, Jesus recognised this aspect of His own miracles, when He +said, "If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, +they had not had sin" (John xv. 24). And yet there is reason in the +objection that no amount of marvel ought to deflect by one hair's +breadth our judgment of right and wrong, and the true appeal of a +religion must be to our moral sense. + +No miracle can prove that immoral teaching is sacred. But it can prove +that it is supernatural. And this is precisely what Scripture always +proclaims. In the New Testament, we are bidden to take heed, because a +day will come, when false prophets shall work great signs and wonders, +to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Mark xiii. 22). In the Old +Testament, a prophet may seduce the people to worship other gods, by +giving them a sign or a wonder which shall come to pass, but they must +surely stone him: they must believe that his sign is only a temptation; +and above whatever power enabled him to work it, they must recognise +Jehovah proving them, and know that the supernatural has come to them in +judgment, not in revelation (Deut. xiii. 1-5). + +Now, this is the true function of the miraculous. At the most, it cannot +coerce the conscience, but only challenge it to consider and to judge. + +A teacher of the purest morality may be only a human teacher still; nor +is the Christian bound to follow into the desert every clamorous +innovator, or to seek in the secret chamber every one who whispers a +private doctrine to a few. We are entitled to expect that one who is +commissioned directly from above will bear special credentials with him; +but when these are exhibited, we must still judge whether the document +they attest is forged. And this may explain to us why the magicians were +allowed for awhile to perplex the judgment of Pharaoh whether by fraud, +as we may well suppose, or by infernal help. It was enough that Moses +should set his claims upon a level with those which Pharaoh reverenced: +the king was then bound to weigh their relative merits in other and +wholly different scales. + + +_THE PLAGUES._ + +vii. 14. + +There are many aspects in which the plagues of Egypt may be +contemplated. + +We may think of them as ranging through all nature, and asserting the +mastery of the Lord alike over the river on which depended the +prosperity of the realm, over the minute pests which can make life more +wretched than larger and more conspicuous ills (the frogs of the water, +the reptiles that disgrace humanity, and the insects that infest the +air), over the bodies of animals stricken with murrain, and those of man +tortured with boils, over hail in the cloud and blight in the crop, over +the breeze that bears the locust and the sun that grows dark at noon, +and at last over the secret springs of human life itself. + +No pantheistic creed (and the Egyptian religion struck its roots deep +into pantheistic speculation) could thus completely exalt God above +nature, as a superior and controlling Power, not one with the mighty +wheels of the universe, of which the height is terrible, but, as Ezekiel +saw Him, enthroned above them in the likeness of fire, and yet in the +likeness of humanity. + +No idolatrous creed, however powerful be its conception of one god of +the hills and another of the valleys, could thus represent a single +deity as wielding all the arrows of adverse fortune, able to assail us +from earth and sky and water, formidable alike in the least things and +in the greatest. And presently the demonstration is completed, when at +His bidding the tempest heaps up the sea, and at His frown the waters +return to their strength again. + +And no philosophic theory condescends to bring the Ideal, the Absolute, +and the Unconditioned, into such close and intimate connection with the +frog-spawn of the ditch and the blain upon the tortured skin. + +We may, with ample warrant from Scripture, make the controversial +application still more simple and direct, and think of the plagues as +wreaking vengeance, for the worship they had usurped and the cruelties +they had sanctioned, upon all the gods of Egypt, which are conceived of +for the moment as realities, and as humbled, if not in fact, yet in the +sympathies of priest and worshipper (xii. 12). + +Then we shall see the domain of each impostor invaded, and every vaunted +power to inflict evil or to remove it triumphantly wielded by Him Who +proves His equal mastery over all, and thus we shall find here the +justification of that still bolder personification which says, "Worship +Him, all ye gods" (Psalm xcvii. 7). + +The Nile had a sacred name, and was adored as "Hapee, or Hapee Mu, the +Abyss, or the Abyss of Waters, or the Hidden," and the king was +frequently portrayed standing between two images of this god, his throne +wreathed with water-lilies. The second plague struck at the goddess +HEKT, whose head was that of a frog. The uncleanness of the third plague +deranged the whole system of Egyptian worship, with its punctilious and +elaborate purifications. In every one there is either a presiding +divinity attacked, or a blow dealt upon the priesthood or the sacrifice, +or a sphere invaded which some deity should have protected, until the +sun himself is darkened, the great god RA, to whom their sacred city was +dedicated, and whose name is incorporated in the title of his earthly +representative, the Pharaoh or PH-RA. Then at last, after all these +premonitions, the deadly blow struck home. + +Or we may think of the plagues as retributive, and then we shall +discover a wonderful suitability in them all. It was a direful omen that +the first should afflict the nation through the river, into which, +eighty years before, the Hebrew babes had been cast to die, which now +rolled bloody, and seemed to disclose its dead. It was fit that the +luxurious homes of the oppressors should become squalid as the huts of +the slaves they trampled; that their flesh should suffer torture worse +than that of the whips they used so unmercifully; that the loss of crops +and cattle should bring home to them the hardships of the poor who +toiled for their magnificence; that physical darkness should appal them +with vague terrors and undefined apprehensions, such as ever haunt the +bosom of the oppressed, whose life is the sport of a caprice; and at +last that the aged should learn by the deathbed of the prop and pride of +their declining feebleness, and the younger feel beside the cradle of +the first blossom and fruit of love, all the agony of such bereavement +as they had wantonly inflicted on the innocent. + +And since the fear of disadvantage in war had prompted the murder of the +Hebrew children, it was right that the retributive blow should destroy +first their children and then their men of war. + +When we come to examine the plagues in detail, we discover that it is no +arbitrary fancy which divides them into three triplets, leading up to +the appalling tenth. Thus the first, fourth, and seventh, each of which +begins a triplet, are introduced by a command to Moses to warn Pharaoh +"in the morning" (vii. 15), or "early in the morning" (viii. 20, ix. +13). The third, sixth and ninth, on the contrary, are inflicted without +any warning whatever. The story of the third plague closes with the +defeat of the magicians, the sixth with their inability to stand before +the king, and the ninth with the final rupture, when Moses declares, +"Thou shalt see my face no more" (viii. 19, ix. 11, x. 29). + +The first three are plagues of loathsomeness--blood-stained waters, +frogs and lice; the next three bring actual pain and loss with +them--stinging flies, murrain which afflicts the beasts, and boils upon +all the Egyptians; and the third triplet are "nature-plagues"--hail, +locusts and darkness. It is only after the first three plagues that the +immunity of Israel is mentioned; and after the next three, when the hail +is threatened, instructions are first given by which those Egyptians who +fear Jehovah may also obtain protection. Thus, in orderly and solemn +procession, marched the avengers of God upon the guilty land. + +It has been observed, concerning the miracles of Jesus, that not one of +them was creative, and that, whenever it was possible, He wrought by the +use of material naturally provided. The waterpots should be filled; the +five barley-loaves should be sought out; the nets should be let down for +a draught; and the blind man should have his eyes anointed, and go wash +in the Pool of Siloam. + +And it is easily seen that such miracles were a more natural expression +of His errand, which was to repair and purify the existing system of +things, and to remove our moral disease and dearth, than any exercise of +creative power would have been, however it might have dazzled the +spectators. + +Now, the same remark applies to the miracles of Moses, to the coming of +God in judgment, as to His revelation of Himself in grace; and therefore +we need not be surprised to hear that natural phenomena are not unknown +which offer a sort of dim hint or foreshadowing of the terrible ten +plagues. Either cryptogamic vegetation or the earth borne down from +upper Africa is still seen to redden the river, usually dark, but not so +as to destroy the fish. Frogs and vermin and stinging insects are the +pest of modern travellers. Cattle plagues make ravage there, and hideous +diseases of the skin are still as common as when the Lord promised to +reward the obedience of Israel to sanitary law by putting upon them none +of "the evil diseases of Egypt" which they knew (Deut. vii. 15).[11] The +locust is still dreaded. But some of the other visitations were more +direful because not only their intensity but even their existence was +almost unprecedented: hail in Egypt was only not quite unknown; and such +veiling of the sun as occurs for a few minutes during the storms of sand +in the desert ought scarcely to be quoted as even a suggestion of the +prolonged horror of the ninth plague. + +Now, this accords exactly with the moral effect which was to be +produced. The rescued people were not to think of God as one who strikes +down into nature from outside, with strange and unwonted powers, +superseding utterly its familiar forces. They were to think of Him as +the Author of all; and of the common troubles of mortality as being +indeed the effects of sin, yet ever controlled and governed by Him, let +loose at His will, and capable of mounting to unimagined heights if His +restraints be removed from them. By the east wind He brought the +locusts, and removed them by the south-west wind. By a storm He divided +the sea. The common things of life are in His hands, often for +tremendous results. And this is one of the chief lessons of the +narrative for us. Let the mind range over the list of the nine which +stop short of absolute destruction, and reflect upon the vital +importance of immunities for which we are scarcely grateful. + +The purity of water is now felt to be among the foremost necessities of +life. It is one which asks nothing from us except to refrain from +polluting what comes from heaven so limpid. And yet we are half +satisfied to go on habitually inflicting on ourselves a plague more foul +and noxious than any occasional turning of our rivers into blood. The +two plagues which dealt with minute forms of life may well remind us of +the vast part which we are now aware that the smallest organisms play in +the economy of life, as the agents of the Creator. Who gives thanks +aright for the cheap blessing of the unstained light of heaven? + +But we are insensible to the every-day teaching of this narrative: we +turn our rivers into fluid poison; we spread all around us deleterious +influences, which breed by minute forms of parasitical life the germs of +cruel disease; we load the atmosphere with fumes which slay our cattle +with periodical distempers, and are deadlier to vegetation than the +hail-storm or the locust; we charge it with carbon so dense that +multitudes have forgotten that the sky is blue, and on our Metropolis +comes down at frequent intervals the darkness of the ninth plague, and +all the time we fail to see that God, Who enacts and enforces every law +of nature, does really plague us whenever these outraged laws avenge +themselves. The miraculous use of nature in special emergencies is such +as to show the Hand which regularly wields its powers. + +At the same time there is no more excuse for the rationalism which would +reduce the calamities of Egypt to a coincidence, than for explaining +away the manna which fed a nation during its wanderings by the drug +which is gathered, in scanty morsels, upon the acacia tree. The awful +severity of the judgments, the series which they formed, their advent +and removal at the menace and the prayer of Moses, are considerations +which make such a theory absurd. The older scepticism, which supposed +Moses to have taken advantage of some epidemic, to have learned in the +wilderness the fords of the Red Sea,[12] to have discovered water, when +the caravan was perishing of thirst, by his knowledge of the habits of +wild beasts, and finally to have dazzled the nation at Horeb with some +kind of fireworks, is itself almost a miracle in its violation of the +laws of mind. The concurrence of countless favourable accidents and +strange resources of leadership is like the chance arrangement of a +printer's type to make a poem. + +There is a common notion that the ten plagues followed each other with +breathless speed, and were completed within a few weeks. But nothing in +the narrative asserts or even hints this, and what we do know is in the +opposite direction. The seventh plague was wrought in February, for the +barley was in the ear and the flax in blossom (ix. 31); and the feast of +passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, so that the +destruction of the firstborn was in the middle of April, and there was +an interval of about two months between the last four plagues. Now, the +same interval throughout would bring back the first plague to September +or October. But the natural discoloration of the river, mentioned above, +is in the middle of the year, when the river begins to rise; and this, +it may possibly be inferred, is the natural period at which to fix the +first plague. They would then range over a period of about nine months. +During the interval between them, the promises and treacheries of the +king excited alternate hope and rage in Israel; the scribes of their own +race (once the vassals of their tyrants, but already estranged by their +own oppression) began to take rank as officers among the Jews, and to +exhibit the rudimentary promise of national order and government; and +the growing fears of their enemies fostered that triumphant sense of +mastery, out of which national hope and pride are born. When the time +came for their departure, it was possible to transmit orders throughout +all their tribes, and they came out of Egypt by their armies, which +would have been utterly impossible a few months before. It was with +them, as it is with every man that breathes: the delay of God's grace +was itself a grace; and the slowly ripening fruit grew mellower than if +it had been forced into a speedier maturity. + + +_THE FIRST PLAGUE._ + +vii. 14-25. + +It was perhaps when the Nile was rising, and Pharaoh was coming to the +bank, in pomp of state, to make official observation of its progress, on +which the welfare of the kingdom depended, and to do homage before its +divinity, that the messenger of another Deity confronted him, with a +formal declaration of war. It was a strange contrast. The wicked was in +great prosperity, neither was he plagued like another man. Upon his +head, if this were Menephtah, was the golden symbol of his own divinity. +Around him was an obsequious court. And yet there was moving in his +heart some unconfessed sense of awe, when confronted once more by the +aged shepherd and his brother, who had claimed a commission from above, +and had certainly met his challenge, and made a short end of the rival +snakes of his own seers. Once he had asked "Who is Jehovah?" and had +sent His ambassadors to their tasks again with insult. But now he needs +to harden his heart, in order not to yield to their strange and +persistent demands. He remembers how they had spoken to him already, +"Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn, and I have said +unto thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to +let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn" (iv. 22, R.V.). +Did this awful warning come back to him, when the worn, solemn and +inflexible face of Moses again met him? Did he divine the connection +between this ultimate penalty and what is now announced--the turning of +the pride and refreshment of Egypt into blood? Or was it partly because +each plague, however dire, seemed to fall short of the tremendous +threat, that he hoped to find the power of Moses more limited than his +warnings? "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed +speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to +do evil." + +And might he, at the last, be hardened to pursue the people because, by +their own showing, the keenest arrow in their quiver was now sped? +Whatever his feelings were, it is certain that the brothers come and go, +and inflict their plagues unrestrained; that no insult or violence is +attempted, and we can see the truth of the words "I have made thee as a +god unto Pharaoh." + +It is in clear allusion to his vaunt, "I know not Jehovah," that Moses +and Aaron now repeat the demand for release, and say, "Hitherto thou +hast not hearkened: behold, in this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah." +What follows, when attentively read, makes it plain that the blow falls +upon "the waters that are in the river," and those that have been drawn +from it into canals for artificial irrigation, into reservoirs like the +lakes Moeris and Mareotis, and even into vessels for immediate use. + +But we are expressly told that it was possible to obtain water by +digging wells. Therefore there is no point whatever in the cavil that +if Moses turned all the water into blood, none was left for the +operations of the magicians. But no comparison whatever existed between +their petty performances and the immense and direful work of vengeance +which rolled down a putrid mass of corrupt waters through the land, +spoiling the great stores of water by which later drought should be +relieved, destroying the fish, that important part of the food of the +nation, for which Israel afterwards lusted, and sowing the seeds of +other plagues, by the pollution of that balmy air in which so many of +our own suffering countrymen still find relief, but which was now +infected and loathsome. Even Pharaoh must have felt that his gods might +do better for him than this, and that it would be much more to the point +just then to undo his plague than to increase it--to turn back the blood +to water than contribute a few drops more. If this was their best +effort, he was already helpless in the hand of his assailant, who, by +the uplifting of his rod, and the bold avowal in advance of +responsibility for so great a calamity, had formally defied him. But +Pharaoh dared not accept the challenge: it was effort enough for him to +"set his heart" against surrender to the portent, and he sullenly turned +back into the palace from the spot where Moses met him. + +Two details remain to be observed. The seven days which were fulfilled +do not measure the interval between this plague and the next, but the +period of its infliction. And this information is not given us +concerning any other, until we come to the three days of darkness.[13] +It is important here, because the natural discoloration lasts for three +weeks, and mythical tendencies would rather exaggerate than shorten the +term. + +Again, it is contended that only with the fourth plague did Israel begin +to enjoy exemption, because then only is their immunity recorded.[14] +But it is strange indeed to suppose that they were involved in +punishments the design of which was their relief; and in fact their +exemption is implied in the statement that the Egyptians (only) had to +dig wells. It is to be understood that large stores of water would +everywhere be laid up, because the Nile water, however delicious, +carries much sediment which must be allowed to settle down. They would +not be forced, therefore, to fall back upon the polluted common sources +for a supply. + +And now let us contrast this miracle with the first of the New +Testament. One spoiled the happiness of the guilty; the other rescued +the overclouded joy of the friends of Jesus, not turning water into +blood but into wine; declaring at one stroke all the difference between +the law which worketh wrath, and the gospel of the grace of God. The +first was impressive and public, as the revelation upon Sinai; the other +appealed far more to the heart than to the imagination, and befitted +well the kingdom that was not with observation, the King who grew up +like a tender plant, and did not strive nor cry, the redeeming influence +which was at first unobtrusive as the least of all seeds, but became a +tree, and the shelter of the fowls of heaven. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[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 _phalanstre_ 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). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] Though of course the Person Whose Body was thus offered is Divine +(Acts xx. 28), and this gives inestimable value to the offering. + +[21] Here the sceptical theorists are widely divided among themselves. +Kuenen has discussed this whole theory, and rejected it as +"irreconcilable with what the Old Testament itself asserts in +justification of this sacrifice." And he is driven to connect it with +the notion of atonement. "Jahveh appears as a severe being who must be +propitiated with sacrifices." He has therefore to introduce the notion +of human sacrifice, in order to get rid of the connection with the penal +death of the Egyptians, and of the miraculous, which this example would +establish. (_Religion of Israel_, Eng. Trans., i., 239, 240.) + +[22] The astonishing significance of this declaration would only be +deepened if we accepted the theories now so fashionable, and believed +that the later passage in Isaiah was the fruit of a period when the +full-blown Priestly Code was in process of development out of "the small +body of legislation contained in Lev. xvii.--xxvi." What a strange time +for such a spiritual application of sacrificial language! + +[23] So that it is used equally of the slow action of the lame, and of +the lingering movements of the false prophets when there was none to +answer (2 Sam. iv. 4; 1 Kings xviii. 26). "The Lord of Hosts shall come +down to fight upon Mount Zion.... As birds flying, so will the Lord of +Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will PASS OVER and preserve it" (Isa. xxxi. +4, 5). + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +_THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN._ + +xiii. 1. + +Much that was said in the twelfth chapter is repeated in the thirteenth. +And this repetition is clearly due to a formal rehearsal, made when all +"their hosts" had mustered in Succoth after their first march; for Moses +says, "Remember this day, in which ye came out" (ver. 3). Already it had +been spoken of as a day much to be remembered, and for its perpetuation +the ordinance of the Passover had been founded. + +But now this charge is given as a fit prologue for the remarkable +institution which follows--the consecration to God of all unblemished +males who are the firstborn of their mothers--for such is the full +statement of what is claimed. + +In speaking to Moses the Lord says, "Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn +... it is Mine." But Moses addressing the people advances gradually, and +almost diplomatically. First he reminds them of their deliverance, and +in so doing he employs a phrase which could only have been used at the +exact stage when they were emancipated and yet upon Egyptian soil: "By +strength of hand the Lord brought you out _from this place_" (ver. 3). +Then he charges them not to forget their rescue, in the dangerous time +of their prosperity, when the Lord shall have brought them into the +land which He swore to give them; and he repeats the ordinance of +unleavened bread. And it is only then that he proceeds to announce the +permanent consecration of all their firstborn--the abiding doctrine that +these, who naturally represent the nation, are for its unworthiness +forfeited, and yet by the grace of God redeemed. + +God, Who gave all and pardons all, demands a return, not as a tax which +is levied for its own sake, but as a confession of dependence, and like +the silk flag presented to the sovereign, on the anniversaries of the +two greatest of English victories, by the descendants of the conquerors, +who hold their estates upon that tenure. The firstborn, thus dedicated, +should have formed a sacred class, a powerful element in Hebrew life +enlisted on the side of God. + +For these, as we have already seen, the Levites were afterwards +substituted (Num. iii. 44), and there is perhaps some allusion to this +change in the direction that "all the firstborn of man thou shalt +redeem" (ver. 13). But yet the demand is stated too broadly and +imperatively to belong to that later modification: it suits exactly the +time to which it is attributed, before the tribe of Levi was substituted +for the firstborn of all. + +"They are Mine," said Jehovah, Who needed not, that night, to remind +them what He had wrought the night before. It is for precisely the same +reason, that St. Paul claims all souls for God: "Ye are not your own, ye +are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies and with +your spirits, which are God's." + +And besides the general claim upon us all, each of us should feel, like +the firstborn, that every special mercy is a call to special gratitude, +to more earnest dedication. "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that +ye present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Rom. xii. 1). + +There is a tone of exultant confidence in the words of Moses, very +interesting and curious. He and his nation are breathing the free air at +last. The deliverance that has been given makes all the promise that +remains secure. As one who feels his pardon will surely not despair of +heaven, so Moses twice over instructs the people what to do when God +shall have kept the oath which He swore, and brought them into Canaan, +into the land flowing with milk and honey. Then they must observe His +passover. Then they must consecrate their firstborn. + +And twice over this emancipator and lawgiver, in the first flush of his +success, impresses upon them the homely duty of teaching their +households what God had done for them (vers. 8, 14; cf. xii. 26). + +This, accordingly, the Psalmist learned, and in his turn transmitted. He +heard with his ears and his fathers told him what God did in their days, +in the days of old. And he told the generation to come the praises of +Jehovah, and His strength, and His wondrous works (Ps. xliv. 1, lxxviii. +4). + +But it is absurd to treat these verses, as Kuenen does, as evidence that +the story is mere legend: "transmitted from mouth to mouth, it gradually +lost its accuracy and precision, and adopted all sorts of foreign +elements." To prove which, we are gravely referred to passages like +this. (_Religion of Israel_, i. 22, Eng. Vers.) The duty of oral +instruction is still acknowledged, but this does not prove that the +narrative is still unwritten. + +From the emphatic language in which Moses urged this double duty, too +much forgotten still, of remembering and showing forth the goodness of +God, sprang the curious custom of the wearing of phylacteries. But the +Jews were not bidden to wear signs and frontlets: they were bidden to +let hallowed memories be unto them in the place of such charms as they +had seen the Egyptians wear, "for a sign unto thee, upon thine hand, and +for a frontlet between thine eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in +thy mouth" (ver. 9). Such language is frequent in the Old Testament, +where mercy and truth should be bound around their necks; their fathers' +commandments should be tied around their necks, bound on their fingers, +written on their hearts; and Sion should clothe herself with her +converts as an ornament, and gird them upon her as a bride doth (Prov. +iii. 3, vi. 21, vii. 3; Isa. xlix. 18). + +But human nature still finds the letter of many a commandment easier +than the spirit, a ceremony than an obedient heart, penance than +penitence, ashes on the forehead than a contrite spirit, and a +phylactery than the gratitude and acknowledgment which ought to be unto +us for a sign on the hand and a frontlet between the eyes. + +We have already observed the connection between the thirteenth verse and +the events of the previous night. But there is an interesting touch of +nature in the words "the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a +lamb." It was afterwards rightly perceived that all unclean animals +should follow the same rule; but why was only the ass mentioned? Plainly +because those humble journeyers had no other beast of burden. Horses +pursued them presently, but even the Egyptians of that period used them +only in war. The trampled Hebrews would not possess camels. And thus +again, in the tenth commandment, when the stateliest of their cattle is +specified, no beast of burden is named with it but the ass: "Thou shalt +not covet ... his ox nor his ass." It is an undesigned coincidence of +real value; a phrase which would never have been devised by legislators +of a later date; a frank and unconscious evidence of the genuineness of +the story. + +Some time before this, a new and fierce race, whose name declared them +to be "emigrants," had thrust itself in among the tribes of Canaan--a +race which was long to wage equal war with Israel, and not seldom to see +his back turned in battle. They now held all the south of Palestine, +from the brook of Egypt to Ekron (Josh. xv. 4, 47). And if Moses in the +flush of his success had pushed on by the straight and easy route into +the promised land, the first shock of combat with them would have been +felt in a few weeks. But "God led them not by the way of the +Philistines, though that was near, for God said, Lest peradventure the +people repent them when they see war, and they return to Egypt" (ver. +17). + +From this we learn two lessons. Why did not He, Who presently made +strong the hearts of the Egyptians to plunge into the bed of the sea, +make the hearts of His own people strong to defy the Philistines? The +answer is a striking and solemn one. Neither God in the Old Testament, +nor God manifested in the flesh, is ever recorded to have wrought any +miracle of spiritual advancement or overthrow. Thus the Egyptians were +but confirmed in their own choice: their decision was carried further. +And even Saul of Tarsus was illuminated, not coerced: he might have +disobeyed the heavenly vision. He was not an insincere man suddenly +coerced into earnestness, nor a coward suddenly made brave. In the moral +world, adequate means are always employed for the securing of desired +effects. Love, gratitude, the sense of danger and of grace, are the +powers which elevate characters. And persons who live in sensuality, +fraud, or falsehood, hoping to be saved some day by a sort of miracle of +grace, ought to ponder this truth, which may not be the gospel now +fashionable, but is unquestionably the statement of a Scriptural fact: +_in the moral sphere, God works by means and not by miracle_. + +A free life, the desert air, the rejection of the unfit by many +visitations, and the growth of a new generation amid thrilling events, +in a soul-stirring region, and under the pure influences of the +law,--these were necessary before Israel could cross steel with the +warlike children of the Philistines; and even then, it was not with them +that he should begin. + +The other lesson we learn is the tender fidelity of God, Who will not +suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. He led them +aside into the desert, whither He still in mercy leads very many who +think it a heavy judgment to be there. + + +_THE BONES OF JOSEPH._ + +xiii. 19. + +It is certain that Moses, in the days of his greatness, must often have +mused by the sepulchre of the one Israelite before himself who held high +rank in Egypt. The knowledge that Joseph's elevation was providential +must have helped him at that time, now many years ago, to think rightly +of his own. And now we read that Moses took the bones of Joseph with +him. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 22) it is recorded as the most +characteristic example of the faith of the patriarch, that instead of +desiring to be carried, like his father, at once to Canaan, he made +mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment +concerning his bones. To him Egypt was no longer an alien land. There +only he had known honour without envy, and happiness without betrayal. +There his bones could rest in quiet; but not for ever. Personal +elevation, which had not rent the cord between him and his unworthy +family, could still less sever the bands between him and the sacred +race. Let him sleep in Egypt while his grave there was honoured: let the +remembrance of him be kept fresh, to protect awhile his kindred; and +when the predicted days of evil came, let his ashes share the neglect +and dishonour of his people, if only they would remember his remains +when the Lord would lead them forth. This confidence in their +emancipation was his faith--which meant, here as always, not a clear +view of truth, but an assuring grasp of it. He had straitly sworn the +children of Israel saying, "God will surely visit you; and ye shall +carry up my bones away hence with you." + +Many a Christian might well envy a confidence so practical, so +thoroughly realised, entering so naturally into the tissue of his +thoughts and calculations. And their actual remembrance of him goes to +show that the tradition of his faith had never completely died out, but +was among the influences which kept alive the nation's hope. + +And as the people bore his honoured ashes through the desert, these +being dead spoke of bygone times, they linked the present and the past +together, they deepened the national consciousness that Israel was a +favoured people, called to no common destiny, sustained by no common +promises, pressing toward no common goal. + +If Israel had been wise, they would have thought of him, the Israelite +in heart, though glittering in the splendours of Egypt; and would have +considered well that as little as men detected his secret life from his +appearance, so little could theirs be judged. To the eye, they were free +from the foreign trammels in which he was seemingly entangled, yet many +of them in heart turned back to all which strove in vain to bind his +affections down. The lesson holds good to-day. Many a modern religionist +looks askance at the "worldliness" of high office and rank and state; +little dreaming that the "world" he censures is strong in his own +ambitious and self-asserting spirit, and is overcome by the gentle and +tranquil spirit of hundreds of those whom he condemns. + +Bearing this hallowed burden, which might easily have become an object +of superstitious regard, the nation moved from Succoth to Etham on the +edge of the wilderness. And with them a Presence moved which rebuked all +others, however venerable. The Lord went before them. It has already +been pointed out that throughout the early history of this nation, just +come out of an idolatrous land, and too ready to lapse back into +superstition, God never reveals Himself except in fire. To Abraham and +to Jacob He appeared in human form, and again to Joshua; but in the +interval, never. So now they see Him by day in a pillar of cloud to +guide them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them +light. The glory of the nation was that manifested Presence, lacking +which, Moses besought Him to carry them up no farther. Nothing in the +Exodus is more impressive, and it sank deep into the national heart. +Many centuries afterwards, the ideal of a golden age was that the Lord +should "create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her +assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire +by night" (Isa. iv. 5). + +But it has been well observed that, amid the various allusions to it in +Hebrew poetry, not one treats it as modern literature has done, with an +eye to its marvellous sublimity and picturesque effects: + + "By day, along the astonished lands + The cloudy pillar glided slow: + By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands + Returned the fiery column's glow." + +The Hebrew poetry is vivid and passionate, but all its concerns are +human or divine--God, and the life of man. It is not artistic, but +inspired. "The modern poet is delighting in the scenic effect; the +ancient chronicler was wholly occupied with the overshadowing power of +God."[24] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] Hutton's _Essays_, Vol. ii., _Literary: The Poetry of the Old +Test._ + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +_THE RED SEA._ + +xiv. 1-31. + +It would seem that the Israelites recoiled before a frontier fortress of +Egypt at Khetam (Etham). This is probable, whatever theory of the route +of the Exodus one may adopt; and it is still open to every reader to +adopt almost any theory he pleases, provided that two facts are borne in +mind: viz., first, that the narrative certainly means to describe a +miraculous interference, not superseding the forces of nature, but +wielding them in a fashion impossible to man; and second, that the +phrase translated "Red Sea"[25] (xiii. 18, xv. 4) is the same which is +confessed by all persons to have that meaning in chap. xxiii. 31, and in +Numbers xxi. 4 and xxxiii. 10. + +Checked, without loss or with it, they were bidden to "turn back," and +encamp at Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. And since Migdol is +simply a watch-tower (there were several in the Holy Land, including +that which gave her name to Mary Magdal-ene), we are to infer that from +thence their inexplicable movements were signalled back to Pharaoh. It +was the natural signal for all the wild passions of a baffled and +half-ruined tyrant to leap into flame. We are scarcely able to imagine +the mental condition of men who conceived that a God Who had dealt out +death and destruction might be far from invincible from another side. +But ages after this, a campaign was planned upon the ingenious theory +that "Jehovah is a god of the hills but He is not a god of the valleys" +(1 Kings xx. 28); and plenty of people who would scorn this simple +notion are still of opinion that He is a God of eternity and can save +them from hell, but a little falsehood and knavery are much better able +to save them from want in the meanwhile. Nay, there are many excellent +persons who are not at all of opinion that the prince of this world has +been dethroned. + +Therefore, when his enemies recoiled from his fortresses and wandered +away into the wilderness of Egypt, entangling themselves hopelessly +between the sea, the mountains, and his own strongholds, it might well +appear to Pharaoh that Jehovah was not a warlike deity, that he himself +had now found out the weak point of his enemies, and could pursue and +overtake and satisfy his lust upon them. There is a significant emphasis +in the song of Miriam's triumph--"Jehovah is a man of war." At all +events, it was through an imperfect sense of the universal and practical +importance of Jehovah as a factor not to be neglected in his +calculations, through exactly the same error which misleads every man +who postpones religion, or limits the range of its influence in his +daily life,--it was thus, and not through any rarer infatuation, that +Pharaoh made ready six hundred chosen chariots and all the chariots of +Egypt, and captains over all of them. And his court was of the same +mind, saying, "What is this that we have done, that we have let Israel +go from serving us?" + +These words are hard to reconcile with the strange notion that until now +a return after three days was expected, despite the torrent of blood +which rolled between them, and the demands by which the Israelitish +women had spoiled the Egyptians. Upon this theory it is not their own +error, but the bad faith of their servants, which they should have cried +out against. + +At the sight of the army, a panic seized the servile hearts of the +fugitives. First they cried out unto the Lord. But how possible it is, +without any real faith, to address to Heaven the mere clamours of our +alarm, and to mistake natural agitation for earnestness in prayer, we +learn by the reproaches with which, after thus crying to the Lord, they +assailed His servant. Were there no graves in that land of superb +sepulchres--that land, now, of universal mourning? Would God that they +had perished with the firstborn! Why had they been treated thus? Had +they not urged Moses to let them alone, that they might serve the +Egyptians? + +And yet these men had lately, for the very promise of so much +emancipation as they now enjoyed, bowed their heads in adoring +thankfulness. As it was their fear which now took the form of +supplication, so then it was their hope which took the form of praise. +And we, how shall we know whether that in us which seems to be religious +gladness and religious grief, is mere emotion, or is truly sacred? By +watching whether worship and love continue, when emotion has spent its +force, or has gone round, like the wind, to another quarter. + +How did Moses feel when this outcry told him of the unworthiness and +cowardice of the nation of his heart? Much as we feel, perhaps, when we +see the frailties and failures of converts in the mission-field, and the +lapse of the intemperate who have seemed to be reclaimed for ever. We +thought that perfection was to be reached at a bound. Now we think that +the whole work was unreal. Both extremes are wrong: we have much to +learn from the failures of that ancient church, in which was the germ of +hero, psalmist, and prophet, which was indeed the church in the +wilderness, and whose many relapses were so tenderly borne with by God +and His messenger. + +The settled faith of Moses, and the assurances which he could give the +agitated people,[26] contrast nobly with their alarm. But his confidence +also had its secret springs in prayer, for the Lord said to him, +"Wherefore criest thou unto Me? speak unto the children of Israel that +they go forward." + +The words are remarkable on two accounts. Can prayer ever be out of +place? Not if we mean a prayerful dependent mental attitude toward God. +But certainly, yes, if God has already revealed that for which we still +importune Him, and we are secretly disquieted lest His promise should +fail. It is misplaced if our own duty has to be done, and we pass the +golden moments in inactivity, however pious. Christ spoke of men who +should leave their gift before the altar, unpresented, because of a +neglected duty which should be discharged. And perhaps there are men who +pray for the conversion of the heathen, or of friends at home, to whom +God says, Wherefore criest thou unto Me? because their money and their +faithful efforts must be given, as Moses must arouse himself to lead the +people forward, and to stretch his wand over the sea. + +And again the forces of nature are on the side of God: the strong wind +makes the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over. History +has no scene more picturesque than this wild night march, in the roar of +tempest, amid the flying foam which "baptized" them unto Moses,[27] +while the glimmering waters stood up like a rampart to protect their +flanks; the full moon of passover above them, shown and hidden as the +swift clouds raced before the storm, while high and steadfast overhead, +unshaken by the fiercest blast, illumined by a mysterious splendour, +"stood" the vast cloud which veiled like a curtain their whole host from +the pursuer. This it was, and the experience of such protection that the +Egyptians, overawed, came not near them, which gave them courage to +enter the bed of the sea; and as they trod the strange road they found +that not only were the waters driven off the surface, but the sands were +left firm to traverse. + +But when the blind fury of Pharaoh, "hardened" against everything but +the sense that his prey was escaping, sent his army along the same +track, and this after long delay, at a crisis when every moment was +priceless, then a new element of terrible sublimity was added. Through +the pillar of cloud and fire Jehovah looked forth on the Egyptian host, +as they pressed on behind, unable to penetrate the supernatural gloom, +cold fear creeping into every heart, while the chariot wheels laboured +heavily in the wet sand. In that direful vision at last the question was +answered, "Who is Jehovah, that I should let His people go?" Now it was +the turn of those who said "Israel is entangled in the land, the +wilderness hath shut them in," themselves to be taken in a worse net. +For at that awful gaze the iron curb of military discipline gave way; +their labouring chariots, the pride and defence of the nation, were +forsaken; and a wild cry broke out, "Let us fly from the face of Israel, +for Jehovah"--He who plagued us--"fighteth for them against the +Egyptians." But their humiliation came too late,--for in the morning +watch, at a natural time for atmospheric changes, but in obedience to +the rod of Moses, the furious wind veered or fell, and the sea returned +to its accustomed limits; and first, as the sands beneath became +saturated, the chariots were overturned and the mail-clad charioteers +went down "like lead," and then the hissing line of foam raced forward +and closed around and over the shrieking mob which was the pride and +strength of Egypt only an hour before. + +But, as the story repeats twice over, with a very natural and glad +reiteration, "the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of +the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and +on their left" (ver. 29, cf. 22). + + +_ON THE SHORE._ + +xiv. 30, 31. + +After the haste and agitation of their marvellous deliverance the +children of Israel seem to have halted for awhile at the only spot in +the neighbourhood where there is water, known as the Ayoun Musa or +springs of Moses to this day. There they doubtless brought into some +permanent shape their rudimentary organisation. There, too, their +impressions were given time to deepen. They "saw the Egyptians dead on +the sea-shore," and realised that their oppression was indeed at an end, +their chains broken, themselves introduced into a new life,--"baptized +unto Moses." They reflected upon the difference between all other +deities and the God of their fathers, Who, in that deadly crisis, had +looked upon them and their tyrants out of the fiery pillar. "They feared +Jehovah, and they believed in Jehovah and in His servant Moses." + +"They believed in Jehovah." This expression is noteworthy, because they +had all believed in Him already. "By faith 'they' forsook Egypt. By +faith 'they' kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood. By faith +'they' passed through the Red Sea." But their former trust was poor and +wavering compared with that which filled their bosoms now. So the +disciples followed Jesus because they believed on Him; yet when His +first miracle manifested forth His glory, "His disciples believed on Him +there." And again they said, "By this we believe that Thou camest forth +from God." And after the resurrection He said, "Because thou hast seen +Me thou hast believed" (John ii. 11, xvi. 30, xx. 29). Faith needs to be +edified by successive experiences, as the enthusiasm of a recruit is +converted into the disciplined valour of the veteran. From each new +crisis of the spiritual life the soul should obtain new powers. And that +is a shallow and unstable religion which is content with the level of +its initial act of faith (however genuine and however important), and +seeks not to go from strength to strength. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] The Sea of Zuph, or reeds, the word being used of the reeds in +which Moses was laid by his mother and found by Pharaoh's daughter (ii. +3, 5), rendered "flags" in the Revised Version. + +[26] But his assurance is, "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall +hold your peace." When Wellhausen would summarise the work of Moses, he +tells us that "he taught them to regard self-assertion against the +Egyptians as an article of religion" (_History_, p. 430). It would be +impossible, within the compass of so many words, more completely to miss +the remarkable characteristic which differentiates this whole narrative +from all other revolutionary movements. Expectancy and dependence here +take the place of "self-assertion." + +[27] Not the adults only; nor yet by immersion, whether in the +rain-cloud or the surf. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +_THE SONG OF MOSES._ + +xv. 1-22. + +During this halt they prepared that great song of triumph which St. John +heard sung by them who had been victorious over the beast, standing by +the sea of glass, having the harps of God. For by that calmer sea, +triumphant over a deadlier persecution, they still found their adoration +and joy expressed in this earliest chant of sacred victory. Because all +holy hearts give like thanks to Him Who sitteth upon the throne, +therefore "deep answers unto deep," and every great crisis in the +history of the Church has legacies for all time and for eternity; and +therefore the triumphant song of Moses the servant of God enriches the +worship of heaven, as the penitence and hope and joy of David enrich the +worship of the Church on earth (Rev. xv. 3). + +Like all great poetry, this song is best enjoyed when it is neither +commented upon nor paraphrased, but carefully read and warmly felt. +There are circumstances and lines of thought which it is desirable to +point out, but only as a preparation, not a substitute, for the +submission of a docile mind to the influence of the inspired poem +itself. It is unquestionably archaic. The parallelism of Hebrew verse is +already here, but the structure is more free and unartificial than that +of later poetry; and many ancient words, and words of Egyptian +derivation, authenticate its origin. So does the description of Miriam, +in the fifteenth verse, as "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron." In +what later time would she not rather have been called the sister of +Moses? But from the lonely youth who found Aaron and Miriam together as +often as he stole from the palace to his real home--the lonely man who +regained both together when he returned from forty years of exile, and +who sometimes found them united in opposition to his authority (Num. +xii. 1, 2)--from Moses alone the epithet is entirely natural. + +It is also noteworthy that Philistia is mentioned first among the foes +who shall be terrified (ver. 14, R.V.), because Moses still expected the +invasion to break first on them. But the unbelieving fears of Israel +changed the route, so that no later poet would have set them in the +forefront of his song. Thus also the terror of the Edomites is +anticipated, although in fact they sturdily refused a passage to Israel +through their land (Num. xx. 20). All this authenticates the song, which +thereupon establishes the miraculous deliverance that inspired it. + +The song is divided into two parts. Up to the end of the twelfth verse +it is historical: the remainder expresses the high hopes inspired by +this great experience. Nothing now seems impossible: the fiercest tribes +of Palestine and the desert may be despised, for their own terror will +suffice to "melt" them; and Israel may already reckon itself to be +guided into the holy habitation (ver. 13). + +The former part is again subdivided, by a noble and instinctive art, +into two very unequal sections. With amplitude of triumphant adoration, +the first ten verses tell the same story which the eleventh and twelfth +compress into epigrammatical vigour and terseness. To appreciate the +power of the composition, one should read the fourth, fifth, and sixth +verses, and turn immediately to the twelfth. + +Each of these three divisions closes in praise, and as in the "Israel in +Egypt," it was probably at these points that the voices of Miriam and +the women broke in, repeating the first verse of the ode as a refrain +(vers. 1 and 21). It is the earliest recognition of the place of women +in public worship. And it leads us to remark that the whole service was +responsive. Moses and the men are answered by Miriam and the women, +bearing timbrels in their hands; for although instrumental music had +been sorely misused in Egypt, that was no reason why it should be +excluded now. Those who condemn the use of instruments in Christian +worship virtually contend that Jesus has, in this respect, narrowed the +liberty of the Church, and that a potent method of expression, known to +man, must not be consecrated to the honour of God. And they make the +present time unlike the past, and also unlike what is revealed of the +future state. + +Moreover there was movement, as in very many ancient religious services, +within and without the pale of revelation.[28] Such dances were +generally slow and graceful; yet the motion and the clang of metal, and +the vast multitudes congregated, must be taken into account, if we would +realise the strange enthusiasm of the emancipated host, looking over the +blue sea to Egypt, defeated and twice bereaved, and forward to the +desert wilds of freedom. + +The poem is steeped in a sense of gratitude. In the great deliverance +man has borne no part. It is Jehovah Who has triumphed gloriously, and +cast the horse and charioteer--there was no "rider"--into the sea. And +this is repeated again and again by the women as their response, in the +deepening passion of the ode. "With the breath of His nostrils the +waters were piled up.... He blew with His wind and the sea covered +them." And such is indeed the only possible explanation of the Exodus, +so that whoever rejects the miracle is beset with countless +difficulties. One of these is the fact that Moses, their immortal +leader, has no martial renown whatever. Hebrew poetry is well able to +combine gratitude to God with honour to the men of Zebulun who +jeopardised their lives unto the death, to Jael who put her hand to the +nail, to Saul and Jonathan who were swifter than eagles and stronger +than lions. Joshua and David can win fame without dishonour to God. Why +is it that here alone no mention is made of human agency, except that, +in fact, at the outset of their national existence, they were shown, +once for all, the direct interposition of their God? + +From gratitude springs trust: the great lesson is learned that man has +an interest in the Divine power. "My strength and song is Jah," says the +second verse, using that abbreviated form of the covenant name Jehovah, +which David also frequently associated with his victories. "And He is +become my salvation." It is the same word as when, a little while ago, +the trembling people were bidden to stand still and see the salvation of +God. They have seen it now. Now they give the word Salvation for the +first time to the Lord as an appellation, and as such it is destined to +endure. The Psalmist learns to call Him so, not only when he reproduces +this verse word for word (Ps. cxviii. 14), but also when he says, "He +only is my rock and my salvation" (lxii. 2), and prays, "Before Ephraim, +Benjamin, and Manasseh, come for salvation to us" (lxxx. 2). + +And the same title is known also to Isaiah, who says, "Behold God is my +salvation," and "Be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in +the time of trouble" (Isa. xii. 2, xxxiii. 2). + +The progress is natural from experience of goodness to appropriation: He +has helped me: He gives Himself to me; and from that again to love and +trust, for He has always been the same: "my father," not my ancestors in +general, but he whom I knew best and remember most tenderly, found Him +the same Helper. And then love prompts to some return. My goodness +extendeth not to Him, yet my voice can honour Him; I will praise Him, I +will exalt His name. Now, this is the very spirit of evangelical +obedience, the life-blood of the new dispensation racing in the veins of +the old. + +Where praise and exaltation are a spontaneous instinct, there is loyal +service and every good work, not rendered by a hireling but a child. Had +He not said, "Israel is My son"? + +From exultant gratitude and trust, what is next to spring? That which is +reproachfully called anthropomorphism, something which indeed easily +degenerates into unworthy notions of a God limited by such restraints or +warped by such passions as our own, yet which is after all a great +advance towards true and holy thoughts of Him Who made man after His +image and in His likeness. + +Human affection cannot go forth to God without believing that like +affection meets and responds to it. If He is indeed the best and purest, +we must think of Him as sharing all that is best and purest in our +souls, all that we owe to His inspiring Spirit. + + "So through the thunder comes a human voice, + Saying 'O heart I made, a heart beats here.'" + +If ever any religion was sternly jealous of the Divine prerogatives, +profoundly conscious of the incommunicable dignity of the Lord our God +Who is one Lord, it was the Jewish religion. Yet when Jesus was charged +with making Himself God, He could appeal to the doctrine of their own +Scripture--that the judges of the people exercised so divine a function, +and could claim such divine support, that God Himself spoke through +them, and found representatives in them. "Is it not written in your law, +I said Ye are gods?" (John x. 34). Not in vain did He appeal to such +scriptures--and there are many such--to vindicate His doctrine. For man +is never lifted above himself, but God in the same degree stoops towards +us, and identifies Himself with us and our concerns. Who then shall +limit His condescension? What ground in reason or revelation can be +taken up for denying that it may be perfect, that it may develop into a +permanent union of God with the creature whom He inspired with His own +breath? It is by such steps that the Old Testament prepared Israel for +the Incarnation. Since the Incarnation we have actually needed help from +the other side, to prevent us from humanising our conceptions over-much. +And this has been provided in the ever-expanding views of His creation +given to us by science, which tell us that if He draws nigh to us it is +from heights formerly undreamed of. Now, such a step as we have been +considering is taken unawares in the bold phrase "Jehovah is a man of +war." For in the original, as in the English, this includes the +assertion "Jehovah is a man." Of course it is only a bold figure. But +such a figure prepares the mind for new light, suggesting more than it +logically asserts. + +The phrase is more striking when we remember that remarkable peculiarity +of the Exodus and its revelations which has been already pointed out. +Elsewhere God appears in human likeness. To Abraham it was so, just +before, and to Manoah soon afterwards. Ezekiel saw upon the likeness of +the throne the likeness of the appearance of a man (Ezek. i. 26). But +Israel saw no similitude, only he heard a voice. This was obviously a +safeguard against idolatry. And it makes the words more noteworthy, +"Jehovah is a man of war," marching with us, our champion, into the +battle. And we know Him as our fathers knew Him not,--"Jehovah is His +name." + + * * * * * + +The poem next describes the overthrow of the enemy: the heavy plunge of +men in armour into the deeps, the arm of the Lord dashing them in +pieces, His "fire" consuming them, while the blast of His nostrils is +the storm which "piles up" the waters, solid as a wall of ice, +"congealed in the heart of the sea." Then the singers exultantly +rehearse the short panting eager phrases, full of greedy expectation, of +the enemy breathless in pursuit--a passage well remembered by Deborah, +when her triumphant song closed by an insulting repetition of the vain +calculations of the mother of Sisera and "her wise ladies." + +The eleventh verse is remarkable as being the first announcement of the +holiness of God. "Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness?" And +what does holiness mean? The Hebrew word is apparently suggestive of +"brightness," and the two ideas are coupled by Isaiah (x. 17): "The +Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame." +There is indeed something in the purity of light, in its absolute +immunity from stain--no passive cleanness, as of the sand upon the +shore, but intense and vital--and in its remoteness from the conditions +of common material substances, that well expresses and typifies the +lofty and awful quality which separates holiness from mere virtue. "God +is called the Holy One because He is altogether pure, the clear and +spotless Light; so that in the idea of the holiness of God there are +embodied the absolute moral purity and perfection of the Divine nature, +and His unclouded glory" (Keil, _Pent._, ii. 99). In this thought there +is already involved separation, a lofty remoteness. + +And when holiness is attributed to man, it never means innocence, nor +even virtue, merely as such. It is always a derived attribute: it is +reflected upon us, like light upon our planet; and like consecration, it +speaks not of man in himself, but in his relation to God. It expresses a +kind of separation to God, and thus it can reach to lifeless things +which bear a true relation to the Divine. The seventh day is thus +"hallowed." It is the very name of the "Holy Place," the "Sanctuary." +And the ground where Moses was to stand unshod beside the burning bush +was pronounced "holy," not by any concession to human weakness, but by +the direct teaching of God. Very inseparable from all true holiness is +separation from what is common and unclean. Holy men may be involved in +the duties of active life; but only on condition that in their bosom +shall be some inner shrine, whither the din of worldliness never +penetrates, and where the lamp of God does not go out. + +It is a solemn truth that a kind of inverted holiness is known to +Scripture. Men "sanctify themselves" (it is this very word), "and purify +themselves to go into the gardens, ... eating swine's flesh and the +abomination and the mouse" (Isa. lxvi. 17). The same word is also used +to declare that the whole fruit of a vineyard sown with two kinds of +fruit shall be _forfeited_ (Deut. xxii. 9), although the notion there is +of something unnatural and therefore interdicted, which notion is +carried to the utmost extreme in another derivative from the same root, +expressing the most depraved of human beings. + +Just so, the Greek word "anathema" means both "consecrated" and "marked +out for wrath" (Luke xxi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 22: the difference in form is +insignificant.) And so again our own tongue calls the saints "devoted," +and speaks of the "devoted" head of the doomed sinner, being aware that +there is a "separation" in sin as really as in purity. The gods of the +heathen, like Jehovah, claimed an appropriate "holiness," sometimes +unspeakably degraded. They too were separated, and it was through long +lines of sphinxes, and many successive chambers, that the Egyptian +worshipper attained the shrine of some contemptible or hateful deity. +The religion which does not elevate depresses. But the holiness of +Jehovah is noble as that of light, incapable of defilement. "Who among +the gods is like Thee ... glorious in holiness?" And Israel soon learned +that the worshipper must become assimilated to his Ideal: "Ye shall be +holy men unto Me" (xxii. 31). It is so with us. Jesus is separated from +sinners. And we are to go forth unto Him out of the camp, bearing His +reproach (Heb. vii. 26, xiii. 13). + +The remainder of the song is remarkable chiefly for the confidence with +which the future is inferred from the past. And the same argument runs +through all Scripture. As Moses sang, "Thou shalt bring them in and +plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance," because "Thou +stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth[29] swallowed" their enemies, +so David was sure that goodness and mercy should follow him all the days +of his life, because God was already leading him in green pastures and +beside still waters. And so St. Paul, knowing in Whom he had believed, +was persuaded that He was able to keep his deposit until that day (2 +Tim. i. 12). + +So should pardon and Scripture and the means of grace reassure every +doubting heart; for "if the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not +have ... showed us all these things" (Judg. xiii. 23). And in theory, +and in good hours, we confess that this is so. But after our song of +triumph, if we come upon bitter waters we murmur; and if our bread fail, +we expect only to die in the wilderness. + + +_SHUR._ + +xv. 22-7. + +From the Red Sea the Israelites marched into the wilderness of Shur--a +general name, of Egyptian origin, for the district between Egypt and +Palestine, of which Etham, given as their route in Numbers (xxxiii. 8), +is a subdivision. The rugged way led over stone and sand, with little +vegetation and no water. And the "three days' journey" to Marah, a +distance of thirty-three miles, was their first experience of absolute +hardship, for not even the curtain of miraculous cloud could prevent +them from suffering keenly by heat and thirst. + +It was a period of disillusion. Fond dreams of ease and triumphant +progress, with every trouble miraculously smoothed away, had naturally +been excited by their late adventure. Their song had exulted in the +prospect that their enemies should melt away, and be as still as a +stone. But their difficulties did not melt away. The road was weary. +They found no water. They were still too much impressed by the miracle +at the Red Sea, and by the mysterious Presence overhead, for open +complaining to be heard along the route; but we may be sure that +reaction had set in, and there was many a sinking heart, as the dreary +route stretched on and on, and they realised that, however romantic the +main plan of their journey, the details might still be prosaic and +exacting. They sang praises unto Him. They soon forgat His works. Aching +with such disappointments, at last they reached the waters of Marah, and +they could not drink, for they were bitter. + +And if Marah be indeed Huwara, as seems to be agreed, the waters are +still the worst in all the district. It was when the relief, so +confidently expected, failed, and the term of their sufferings appeared +to be indefinitely prolonged, that their self-control gave way, and they +"murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?" And we may be +sure that wherever discontent and unbelief are working secret mischief +to the soul, some event, some disappointment or temptation, will find +the weak point, and the favourable moment of attack, just as the seeds +of disease find out the morbid constitution, and assail it. + +Now, all this is profoundly instructive, because it is true to the +universal facts of human nature. When a man is promoted to unexpected +rank, or suddenly becomes rich, or reaches any other unlooked-for +elevation, he is apt to forget that life cannot, in any position, be a +romance throughout, a long thrill, a whole song at the top note of the +voice. Affection itself has a dangerous moment, when two united lives +begin to realise that even their union cannot banish aches and +anxieties, weariness and business cares. Well for them if they are +content with the power of love to sweeten what it cannot remove, as +loyal soldiers gladly sacrifice all things for the cause, and as Israel +should have been proud to endure forced marches under the cloudy banner +of its emancipating God. + +As neither rank nor affection exempts men from the dust and tedium of +life, or from its disappointments, so neither does religion. When one is +"made happy" he expects life to be only a triumphal procession towards +Paradise, and he is startled when "now for a season, if need be, he is +in heaviness through manifold temptations." Yet Christ prayed not that +we should be taken out of the world. We are bidden to endure hardness as +good soldiers, and to run with patience the race which is set before us; +and these phrases indicate our need of the very qualities wherein Israel +failed. As yet the people murmured not ostensibly against God, but only +against Moses. But the estrangement of their hearts is plain, since they +made no appeal to God for relief, but assailed His agent and +representative. Yet they had not because they asked not, and relief was +found when Moses cried unto the Lord. Their leader was "faithful in all +his house"; and instead of upbraiding his followers with their +ingratitude, or bewailing the hard lot of all leaders of the multitude, +whose popularity neither merit nor service can long preserve unclouded, +he was content to look for sympathy and help where we too may find it. + +We read that the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the +waters, the waters were made sweet. In this we discern the same union of +Divine grace with human energy and use of means, as in all medicine, and +indeed all uses of the divinely enlightened intellect of man. It would +have been easy to argue that the waters could only be healed by miracle, +and if God wrought a miracle what need was there of human labour? There +was need of obedience, and of the co-operation of the human will with +the divine. We shall see, in the case of the artificers of the +tabernacle, that God inspires even handicraftsmen as well as +theologians--being indeed the universal Light, the Giver of all good, +not only of Bibles, but of rain and fruitful seasons. But the artisan +must labour, and the farmer improve the soil. + +Shall we say with the fathers that the tree cast into the waters +represents the cross of Christ? At least it is a type of the sweetening +and assuaging influences of religion--a new element, entering life, and +as well fitted to combine with it as medicinal bark with water, making +all wholesome and refreshing to the disappointed wayfarer, who found it +so bitter hitherto. + +The Lord was not content with removing the grievance of the hour; He +drew closer the bonds between His people and Himself, to guard them +against another transgression of the kind: "there He made for them a +statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them." It is pure +assumption to pretend that this refers to another account of the giving +of the Jewish law, inconsistent with that in the twentieth chapter, and +placed at Marah instead of Sinai.[30] It is a transaction which +resembles much rather the promises given (and at various times, although +confusion and repetition cannot be inferred) to Abraham and Jacob (Gen. +xii. 1-3, xv. 1, 18-21, xvii. 1-14, xxii. 15-18, xxviii. 13-15, xxxv. +10-12). He said, "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the +Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His eyes, and wilt give +ear to His commandments, and wilt keep all His statutes, I will put none +of the diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am +the Lord which healeth thee." It is a compact of obedient trust on one +side, and protection on the other. If they felt their own sinfulness, it +asserted that He who had just healed the waters could also heal their +hearts. From the connection between these is perhaps derived the +comparison between human hearts and a fountain of sweet water or bitter +(Jas. iii. 11). + +But certainly the promised protection takes an unexpected shape. What in +their circumstances leads to this specific offer of exemption from +certain foul diseases--"the boil of Egypt, and the emerods, and the +scurvy, and the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed" (Deut. xxviii. +27)? How does this meet the case? Doubtless by reminding them that there +are better exemptions than from hardship, and worse evils than +privations. If they do not realise this at the spiritual level, at least +they can appreciate the threat that "He will bring upon thee again all +the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of" (Deut. xxviii. 60). To +be even a luxurious and imperial race, but infected by repulsive and +hopeless ailments, is not a desirable alternative. Now, such evils, +though certainly not in each individual, yet in a race, are the +punishments of non-natural conditions of life, such as make the blood +run slowly and unhealthily, and charge it with impure deposits. It was +God who put them upon the Egyptians. + +If Israel would follow His guidance, and accept a somewhat austere +destiny, then the desert air and exercise, and even its privations, +would become the efficacious means for their exemption from the scourges +of indulgence. A time arrived when they looked back with remorse upon +crimes which forfeited their immunity, when the Lord said, "I have sent +among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt; your young men have +I slain with the sword" (Amos iv. 10). + +But it is a significant fact that at this day, after eighteen hundred +years of oppression, hardship, and persecution, of the ghetto and the +old-clothes trade, the Hebrew race is proverbially exempt from repulsive +and contagious disease. They also "certainly do enjoy immunity from the +ravages of cholera, fever and smallpox in a remarkable degree. Their +blood seems to be in a different condition from that of other people.... +They seem less receptive of disease caused by blood poisoning than +others" (_Journal of Victoria Institute_, xxi. 307). Imperfect as was +their obedience, this covenant at least has been literally fulfilled to +them. + +It is by such means that God is wont to reward His children. Most +commonly the seal of blessing from the skies is not rich fare, but bread +and fish by the lake side with the blessing of Christ upon them; not +removal from the desert, but a closer sense of the protection and +acceptance of Heaven, the nearness of a loving God, and with this, an +elevation and purification of the life, and of the body as well as of +the soul. Not in vain has St. Paul written "The Lord for the body." Nor +was there ever yet a race of men who accepted the covenant of God, and +lived in soberness, temperance and chastity, without a signal +improvement of the national physique, no longer unduly stimulated by +passion, jaded by indulgence, or relaxed by the satiety which resembles +but is not repose. + +From Marah and its agitations there was a journey of but a few hours to +Elim, with its twelve fountains and seventy palm trees--a fair oasis, by +which they encamped and rested, while their flocks spread far and wide +over a grassy and luxuriant valley. + +The picture is still true to the Christian life, with the Palace +Beautiful just beyond the lions, and the Delectable Mountains next after +Doubting Castle. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] There is no warrant in the use of Scripture for Stanley's assertion +that the word translated "dances" should be rendered "guitars." (Smith's +_Dict. of Bible_, Article _Miriam_.) + +[29] This is to be taken literally; it does not mean the waves, but the +quicksands in which they "drave heavily," and which, when steeped in the +returning waters, engulfed them. + +[30] Wellhausen, _Israel_, p. 439. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +_MURMURING FOR FOOD._ + +xvi. 1-14. + +The Israelites were now led farther away from all the associations of +their accustomed life. From the waters and the palms of Elim they +marched deeper into the savage recesses of the desert, haunted by fierce +and hostile tribes, such as presently hung upon their rear-guard and cut +off their stragglers (Deut. xxv. 18). Nor had they quite emerged from +the shadow of their old oppressions, since Egyptian garrisons were +scattered, though sparsely, through this district, in which gems and +copper were obtained. Here, cut off from all natural modes of +sustenance, the hearts of the people failed them. Such is the frequent +experience of renewed souls, when privilege and joy are followed by +trouble from without or from within, and the peace of God is broken by +the strife of tongues, by mental perplexities, by temptations, by +physical pain. It is quite as wonderful that paltry disturbances should +mar for us the life divine, when once that life has become a realised +experience, as that men who moved under the shadow of the marvellous +cloud could be agitated by fear for their supplies. And of this our +experience, what befel Israel is not a mere type or symbol, it is a case +in point, a parallel example. For it also meant the breaking-in of the +flesh upon the spirit, the refusal of fallen nature to rise above +earthly wants and cravings even in the light of trust and acceptance, +the self-assertion of the baser instincts, and the sacrifice to them of +the higher life. We recognise the herd of slaves, from whence it must +perplex the unbeliever to remember that the seed of immortal heroism and +prophetic insight and apostolic service was yet to ripen, in their poor +desire, if they must perish, to perish well fed rather than emancipated +(ver. 3). Most people, we may fear, would choose to live enslaved rather +than to die free men. But there is a special meanness in their regret, +since die they must, that they had not died satiated, like the firstborn +whom God had slain: "Would that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in +the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots and when we ate bread +to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill +this whole assembly with hunger." And to-day, among those who scorn +them, how many are far less ambitious of dying holy and pure than rich, +famous or powerful, having glutted their vanity if not their appetite. +In the sight of angels this is not a much loftier aim; and the apostle +reckoned among the works of the flesh, emulation as well as drunkenness +(Gal. v. 19-21). + +Tertullian draws a striking contrast between Israel, just now baptized +into Moses, but caring more for appetite than for God, and Christ, after +His baptism, also in the desert, fasting forty days. "The Lord +figuratively retorted upon Israel His reproach" (_Baptism_, xx.) + +We are not to suppose that but for their complaining God would have +suffered them to hunger, although Moses declared that the reason why +flesh should be given to them in the evening, and in the morning bread +to the full, is "for that the Lord heareth your murmurings." But there +would have been some difference in the time of the grant, to ripen their +faith, some more direct manifestation of His grace, to reward their +patience, if unbelief had not precipitated His design. Thus the +disciples, when they awakened Jesus in the storm, received the rescue +for which they clamoured, but forfeited some higher experience which +would have crowned a serener confidence: "Wherefore did ye doubt?" +Israel receives what is best in the circumstances, rather than the ideal +best, now made unsuitable by their impatience and infidelity. But while +the Lord discontinued the test of need and penury, which had proved to +be too severe a discipline, He substituted the test of fulness. For we +read that the removal of their suspense and anxiety by the gift of manna +from heaven was "to prove them whether they will walk in My laws or no" +(ver. 4). And in so doing it was seen that worldly and unthankful +natures are not to be satisfied; that the disloyal at heart will +complain, however favoured. For "the children of Israel wept again and +said, Who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did +eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and +the onions and the garlick: but now our soul is dried away; there is +nothing at all: we have nought save this manna to look to" (Num. xi. +4-6). Onions and garlick were more satisfactory to gross appetites than +angels' food. + +At this point we learn that what is called prosperity may indeed be a +result of spiritual failure; that God may sometimes abstain from strong +measures with a soul because what ought to mould would only crush; and +may grant them their hearts' lust, yet send leanness withal into their +souls. Perhaps we are allowed to be comfortable because we are unfit to +be heroic. + +And we also learn, when prosperous, to remember that plenty, equally +with want, has its moral aspect. The Lord tries fortunate men, whether +they will be grateful and obedient, trusting in Him and not in uncertain +riches, or whether they will forget Him who has done so great things for +them, and so perish in calm weather-- + + "Like ships that have gone down at sea + When heaven was all tranquillity." + +There is an experiment being tried upon the soul, curious, slow, +little-suspected, but incessant, in the giving of daily bread. + +In promising relief, God required of them obedience and self-control. +They were to respect the Sabbath, and make provision in advance for its +requirements. And this direction, given before the Mount of the Lord was +reached, has an important bearing upon the question whether the Fourth +Commandment was the first institution of a holy day--whether, except as +a Church ordinance, the duty of sabbath-keeping has no support beyond +the ceremonial law. "For that the Lord hath (already) given you the +Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days" +(ver. 29). + +While conveying the promise of relief, Moses and Aaron rebuked the +people, whose murmurs against them were in reality murmurs against God, +since they were but His agents, and He had been visibly their Leader. +And the same rebuke applies, for exactly the same reason, to many a +modern complaint against the weather, against what people call their +"luck," against a thousand provoking things in which the only possible +provocation must come directly from heaven. It is because our religion +is so shallow, and our consciousness of God in His world so dim and +rudimentary, that we utter such complaints idly, to relieve our +feelings, and hear them spoken without a shock. + +Such dulness is not to be removed by sounder views of doctrine, but by a +more vivid realisation of God. The Israelites knew by what hand they +should have fallen if they had died in Egypt; yet in fact they forgot +their true Captain, and upbraided their mortal leaders. So do we confess +that afflictions arise not out of the ground, yet lose the impress of +divinity upon our daily lives, while we ought, like Moses, to "endure as +seeing Him who is invisible." + +As our Lord was in the habit of asking for some confession, or demanding +some small co-operation from those He was about to bless, so the smoking +flax of Hebrew faith is tended: it is a promise, and not the actual +relief, which calms them. There is a curious difference in the manner of +the communications now made to the people. First of all the two brothers +unite their energies to hush their outcries: "At evening ye shall know +that Jehovah is your leader from Egypt, and in the morning ye shall +behold His glory; and what are we, that ye murmur against us?" Then +Moses affirms, with all the energy of his chieftainship, that in the +evening they shall eat flesh, and in the morning bread to the full. +Again he asks them "What are we?" and more sternly and directly charges +them with murmuring against Jehovah. And this is a good example of the +true meaning of his "meekness." He is fiery enough, but not for his own +greatness; rather because he feels his littleness, and that the offence +is entirely against God, does he resent their conduct; absence of +self-assertion is his "meekness," and thus we read of it when Miriam and +Aaron spake against him, declaring that they were commissioned as well +as he (Num. xii. 3). Finally, when order was restored, and some +mysterious manifestation was at hand, he resumed the solemn and formal +usage of conveying his orders through his brother, and in cold, compact, +impressive words, said unto Aaron, "Say unto all the congregation of the +children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He hath heard your +murmurings." All this is very dignified and natural. And so is--what +after ages could scarcely have invented--the impressive reticence of +what follows. "They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory +of the Lord appeared in the cloud." + +Were they not then intended to "come near"? and was it as they turned +their faces to draw nigh that the Vision revealed itself and stopped +them? And what was the untold sight which they beheld? The narrative +belongs to a primitive age; it is quite unlike the elaborate symbolisms +of Ezekiel and Daniel, or even of Isaiah, but yet this undescribed, +mystic and solitary glory is not less sublime than the train which +covered the Temple-floor, while, hovering above it, reverent seraphim +veiled their faces and their feet, or the terrible crystal and the +wheels of dreadful height, or the throne of flame whence issued a fiery +stream, and before which thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads +stood (Isa. vi. 2; Ezek. i. 22, 18; Dan. vii. 9, 10). But the point to +observe is that it is different, more primitive, an undefined and lonely +vision of awe well fitted for the desert wilds and for the gaze of men +whose hearts must not be misled by the likeness of anything in heaven or +earth; the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud (most probably, but +not of necessity, the cloud which guided them), and in the direction +whence they were so fain to turn away. + +No later inventor would have known how to say so little, much less to +make that little harmonise so exactly with the lessons meant to be +suggested by the wild and solemn solitudes into which they were now +plunged. + +And now the Lord Himself repeats the promise of relief, but first +solemnly announces that He is not heedless of their ill-behaviour while +He tolerates it. The question is suggested, although not asked, How long +will His forbearance last? + +Well for them if they learn the lesson, and "know that I am Jehovah your +God," mindful of their needs, entitled to their fealty. In the evening, +therefore, came a flight of quails; and in the morning they found a +small round thing, small as the hoar-frost, upon the ground. + + +_MANNA._ + +xvi. 15-36. + +The manna which miraculously supplied the wants of Israel was to them an +utterly strange food, the use of which they had to learn. Thus it was +another means of severing their habitual course of life and association +of ideas from their degraded past. And while we may not press too far +the assertion that it was the "corn of heaven" and "angels' food" +(_i.e._ "the bread of the mighty"--Psalm lxxviii. 24-5, R.V.), yet the +narrative shows, even without help from later scriptures, that it was +calculated to sustain their energies and yet to leave their appetites +unstimulated and unpampered. For they were now called to purer joys +than those of the senses--to liberty, a divine vocation, the presence of +God, the revelation of His law and the unfolding of His purposes. +Failing to rise to these heights, they fell far, murmured again, and +perished by the destroyer, not merely to avenge the petulance of an +hour, but for all that it betrayed, for treason to their vocation and +radical inability to even comprehend its meaning. In the language of +modern science, it answered to Nature's rejection of the unfit. + +Their calling was thus, though under very different forms, that which +the apostles found so hard, yet did not quite refuse: it was to mind the +things of God and not the things of men. + +It is well known that the manna of the Israelites bore some resemblance +to a natural product of the wilderness, still exuded by certain plants +during the coolness of the night, and formerly more plentiful than now, +when all vegetation has been ruthlessly swept away by the Bedouin. But +the differences are much greater than the resemblance. The natural +product is a drug, and not a food; it is gathered only during some weeks +of summer; it is not liable to speedy corruption, nor could there be any +reason for preserving a specimen of this common product in the ark; it +could not have sufficed, however aided by their herds and flocks, to +feed one in a hundred of the Hebrew multitudes, even during the season +of its production; nor could it have ceased on the same day when they +ate the first ripe corn of Canaan. + +And yet the resemblance is suggestive. Unbelievers find, in the links +which connect most of our Scripture miracles with nature, in the +undefined and gradual transition from one to the other, as from a +temperate day to night, an excuse for denying that they are miraculous +at all. But the instructed believer finds a confirmation of his faith. +He reflects that when Fancy begins to toy with the supernatural, she +spurns nature from her: the trammels under which she has long chafed are +hateful to her, and she flies from them to the utmost extreme. + +It could not be thus with Him by whom the system of the world was +framed. He will not wantonly interfere with His own plan. He will regard +nature as an elastic band to stretch, rather than as a chain to break. +If He will multiply food, in the New Testament, that is no reason why +His disciples should fare more delicately than Providence intended for +them: they shall still eat barley loaves and fish. And so the winds help +to overthrow Pharaoh and to bring the quails; and when a new thing has +to be created, it approaches in its general idea to one of the few +natural products of that inhospitable region. + +Now let it be supposed for a moment that the supply of manna had never +ceased, so that until this day men could every morning gather a day's +ration off the ground. Such continuance of the provision would not make +it any the less a gift; but only a more lavish boon. And yet it would +clearly cease to be regarded as miraculous, an exception to the course +of nature, miscalled her "laws," since men do strive to subvert the +miracle by representing that such manna, however scantily, may still be +found. And this may expose the folly of a wish, probably sometimes felt +by all men, that some miracle had actually been perpetuated, so that we +could strengthen our faith at pleasure by looking upon an exhibition of +divine power. In truth, no marvel could excel that which annually +multiplies the corn beneath the clod, and by the process of decay in +springtime feeds the world in autumn. Only its steady recurrence throws +a veil over our eyes; and it is a vain conceit that the same web would +not be woven by use between man and the Worker of any other marvel that +was perpetuated. Already the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord, +for all who have eyes to see. + +It is also to be observed that the manna was not given to teach the +people sloth. They were obliged to gather it early, before the sun was +hot. They had still to endure weary marches, and the care of their +flocks and herds. + +And, in curious harmony with the manner of all the gifts of nature, the +manna sent from heaven had yet to be prepared by man: "bake that which +ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will seethe." Thus God, by +natural means and by the sweat of our brow, gives us our daily bread; +and all knowledge, art and culture are His gifts, although elaborated by +the brain and heart of generations whom He taught. + +Moreover, there was a protest against the grasping, unbelieving temper +which cannot trust God with to-morrow, but longs to have much goods laid +up. That is the temper which forfeits the smile of God, and grinds the +faces of the poor, to make an ignoble "provision" for the future. How +often, since the time of Moses, has the unblessed accumulation become +hateful! How often, since the time of St. James, the rust of such +possession has eaten the flesh like fire! Men would be far more +generous, the difference between wealth and poverty would be less +portentous, and the resources of religion and charity less crippled, if +we lived in the spirit of the Lord's prayer, desirous of the advance of +the kingdom, but not asking to be given to-morrow's bread until +to-morrow. That lesson was taught by the manner of the dispensation of +the manna, but the covetousness of Israel would not learn it. The people +actually strove to be dishonest in their enjoyment of a miracle. It is +no wonder that Moses was wroth with them. + +Among the strange properties of their supernatural food not the least +curious was this: that when they came to measure what they had +collected, and compare it with what Moses had bidden,[31] the most eager +and able-bodied had nothing over, and the feeblest had no lack. Every +real worker was supplied, and none was glutted. This result is +apparently miraculous. St. Paul's use of it does not, as some have +supposed, represent it as a result of Hebrew benevolence, sharing with +the weak the more abundant supplies of the strong: the miracle is not +cited as an example of charity, but of that practical equality, divinely +approved, which Christian charity should reproduce; the Christian Church +is bidden to do voluntarily what was done by miracle in the wilderness: +"your abundance being a supply at this present time for their want, that +their abundance also may become a supply for your want, that there may +be equality; as it is written, He that gathered much had nothing over, +and he that gathered little had no lack" (2 Cor. viii. 15). + +It is quite in vain to appeal to this passage in favour of socialistic +theories. In the first place it applies only to the necessities of +existence; and even granting that the state should enforce the +principle to which it points, the duty would not extend beyond a liberal +poor rate. When contributions were afterwards demanded for the +sanctuary, there is no trace of a dead level in their resources: the +rulers gave the gems and spices and oil, some brought gold, with some +were found blue and linen and skins, and others had acacia-wood to offer +(xxxv. 22-4). + +In the second place, this arrangement was only temporary; and while the +soil of Canaan was distinctly claimed for the Lord, the enjoyment of it +by individuals was secured, and perpetuated in their families, by +stringent legislation. Now, land is the kind of property which +socialists most vehemently assail; but persons who appeal to Exodus must +submit to the authority of Judges. + +Socialism, therefore, and its coercive measures, find no more real +sanction here than in the Church of Jerusalem, where the property of +Ananias was his own, and the price of it in his own power. But yet it is +highly significant that in both Testaments, as the Church of God starts +upon its career, an example should be given of the effacing of +inequalities, in the one case by miracle, in the other by such a +voluntary movement as best becomes the gospel. Is not such a movement, +large and free, the true remedy for our modern social distractions and +calamities? Would it not be wise and Christ-like for the rich to give, +as St. Paul taught the Corinthians to give, what the law could never +wisely exact from them? Would not self-denial, on a scale to imply real +sacrifice, and fulfilling in spirit rather than letter the apostle's +aspiration for "equality," secure in return the enthusiastic adhesion to +the rights of property of all that is best and noblest among the poor? + +When will the world, or even the Church, awaken to the great truth that +our politics also need to be steeped in Christian feeling--that humanity +requires not a revolution but a pentecost--that a millennium cannot be +enacted, but will dawn whenever human bosoms are emptied of selfishness +and lust, and filled with brotherly kindness and compassion? Such, and +no more, was the socialism which St. Paul deduced from the equality in +the supply of manna. + + +_SPIRITUAL MEAT._ + +xvi. 15-36. + +Since the journey of Israel is throughout full of sacred meaning, no one +can fail to discern a mystery in the silent ceaseless daily miracle of +bread-giving. But we are not left to our conjectures. St. Paul calls +manna "spiritual meat," not because it nourished the higher life (for +the eaters of it murmured for flesh, and were not estranged from their +lust), but because it answered to realities of the spiritual world (1 +Cor. x. 3). And Christ Himself said, "It was not Moses that gave you the +bread out of heaven, but My Father giveth you the true Bread from +heaven," making manna the type of sustenance which the soul needs in the +wilderness, and which only God can give (John vi. 32). + +We note the time of its bestowal. The soul has come forth out of its +bondage. Perhaps it imagines that emancipation is enough: all is won +when its chains are broken: there is to be no interval between the Egypt +of sin and the Promised Land of milk and honey and repose. Instead of +this serene attainment, it finds that the soul requires to be fed, and +no food is to be seen, but only a wilderness of scorching heat, dry +sand, vacancy, and hunger. Old things have passed away, but it is not +yet realised that all things have become new. Religion threatens to +become a vast system for the removal of accustomed indulgences and +enjoyments, but where is the recompense for all that it forbids? The +soul cries out for food: well for it if the cry be not faithless, nor +spoken to earthly chiefs alone! + +There is a noteworthy distinction between the gift of manna and every +other recorded miracle of sustenance. In Eden the fruit of immortality +was ripening upon an earthly tree. The widow of Zarephath was fed from +her own stores. The ravens bore to Elijah ordinary bread and flesh; and +if an angel fed him, it was with a cake baken upon coals. Christ Himself +was content to multiply common bread and fish, and even after His +resurrection gave His apostles the fare to which they were accustomed. +Thus they learned that the divine life must be led amid the ordinary +conditions of mortality. Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in +the likeness of sinful flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing +of a new life, a strange and unknown energy, to man. + +And here, almost at the beginning of revelation, is typified, not the +homely conditions of the inner life, but its unearthly nature and +essence. Here is no multiplication of their own stores, no gift, like +the quails, of such meat as they were wont to gather. They asked "What +is it?" And this teaches the Christian that his sustenance is not of +this world. They were fed "with manna which they knew not ... to make +them know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that +proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live" (Deut. viii. 3). The +root of worldliness is not in this indulgence or that, in gay clothing +or an active career; but in the soul's endeavour to draw its nourishment +from things below. And spirituality belongs not to an uncouth +vocabulary, nor to the robes of any confraternity, to rigid rules or +austere deportment; it is the blessedness of a life nourished upon the +bread of heaven, and doomed to starve if that bread be not bestowed. Let +not the wealthy find an insuperable bar to spirituality in his +condition, nor the poor suppose that indigence cannot have its treasure +upon earth; but let each man ask whence come his most real and practical +impulses and energies upon life's journey. If these flow from even the +purest earthly source--love of wife or child, anything else than +communion with the Father of spirits, this is not the bread of life, and +can no more nourish a pilgrim towards eternity than the husks which +swine eat. + +There is no mistaking the doctrine of the New Testament as to what this +bread may be. By prayer and faith, by ordinances and sacraments rightly +used, the manna may be gathered; but Jesus Himself is the Bread of life, +His Flesh is meat indeed and His Blood is drink indeed, and He gives His +Flesh for the life of the world. Christ is the Vine, and we are the +branches, fruitful only by the sap which flows from Him. As there are +diseases which cannot be overcome by powerful drugs, but by a generous +and wholesome dietary, so is it with the diseases of the soul--pride, +anger, selfishness, falsehood, lust. As the curse of sin is removed by +the faith which appropriates pardon, so its power is broken by the +steady personal acceptance of Christ; and our Bread and Wine are His new +humanity, given to us, until He becomes the second Father of the race, +which is begotten again in Him. An easy temper is not Christian +meekness; dislike to witness pain is not Christian love. All our +goodness must strike root deeper than in the sensibilities, must be +nourished by the communication to us of the mind which was in Christ +Jesus. + +And this food is universally given, and universally suitable. The strong +and the weak, the aged chieftain and little children, ate and were +nourished. No stern decree excluded any member of the visible Church in +the wilderness from sharing the bread from heaven: they did eat the same +spiritual meat, provided only that they gathered it. Their part was to +be in earnest in accepting, and so is ours; but if we fail, whom shall +we blame except ourselves? In the mystery of its origin, in the silent +and secret mode of its descent from above, in the constancy of its +bestowal, and in its suitability for all the camp, for Moses and the +youngest child, the manna prefigured Christ. + +Every day a fresh supply had to be laid up, and nothing could be held +over from the largest hoard. So it is with us: we must give ourselves to +Christ for ever, but we must ask Him daily to give Himself to us. The +richest experience, the purest aspiration, the humblest self-abandonment +that was ever felt, could not reach forward to supply the morrow. Past +graces will become loathsome if used instead of present supplies from +heaven. And the secret of many a scandalous fall is that the unhappy +soul grew self-confident: unlike St. Paul, he reckoned that he had +already attained; and thereupon the graces in which he trusted became +corrupt and vile. + +The constant supply was not more needful than it was abundant. The manna +lay all around the camp: the Bread of Life is He who stands at our door +and knocks. Alas for those who murmur for grosser indulgences! Israel +demanded and obtained them; but while the flesh was in their nostrils +the angel of the Lord went forth and smote them. Is there no plague any +longer for the perverse? What are the discords that convulse families, +the uncurbed passions to which nothing is sacred, the jaded appetite and +weary discontent which hates the world even as it hates itself? what but +the judgment of God upon those who despise His provision, and must needs +gratify themselves? Be it our happiness, as it is our duty, to trust Him +to prepare our table before us, while He leads us to His Holy Land. + +The Lord of the Sabbath already taught His people to respect His day. +Upon it no manna fell; and we shall hereafter see the bearing of this +incident upon the question whether the Sabbath is only an ordinance of +Judaism. Meanwhile they who went out to gather had a sharp lesson in the +difference between faith, which expects what God has promised, and +presumption, which hopes not to lose much by disobeying Him. + +Lastly, an omer of manna was to be kept throughout all generations, +before the Testimony. Grateful remembrance of past mercies, temporal as +well as spiritual, was to connect itself with the deepest and most awful +mysteries of religion. So let it be with us. The bitter proverb that +eaten bread is soon forgotten must never be true of the Christian. He is +to remember all the way that the Lord his God hath led him. He is bidden +to "forget not all His benefits, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who +healeth all thy diseases ... Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things." +So foolish is the slander that religion is too transcendental for the +common life of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] The "omer" of this passage is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture: +it is known to have been the one-hundredth part of the homer with which +careless readers sometimes confuse it, and its capacity is variously +estimated, from somewhat under half a gallon to somewhat above +three-quarters. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +_MERIBAH._ + +xvii. 1-7. + +The people, miraculously fed, are therefore called to exhibit more +confidence in God than hitherto, because much is required of him to whom +much is given. They have now to plunge deeper into the wilderness; and +after two stages which Exodus omits (Num. xxxiii. 12, 13), and just as +they approach the mount of God, they find themselves without water. Even +the Son of Man Himself was led into the wilderness next after the +descent of the Spirit, and the avowal by the voice of God; nor is any +true Christian to marvel if his seasons of special privilege are +succeeded by special demands upon his firmness. + +One finds himself conjecturing, very often, what nobler history, what +grander analogies between type and antitype, what more gracious and +lavish interpositions might have instructed us, if only the type had +been less woefully imperfect--if Israel had been trustful as Moses was, +and the crude material had not marred the design. + +It would be more practical and edifying to reflect how often we +ourselves, like Israel, might have learned and exemplified deep things +of the grace of God, when all we really exhibited was the well-worn +lesson of human frailty and divine forbearance. + +In the story of our Lord, it has been observed that before the Pharisees +directly assailed Himself, they found fault with His disciples who +fasted not, or accosted them concerning Him Who ate with sinners. And so +here the people really tempted God, but openly "strove with Moses," and +with Aaron too, for the verb is a plural one: "Give _ye_ water" (ver. +2). + +But as Aaron is merely an agent and spokesman, the chief value of this +tacit allusion to him, besides proving his fidelity, is to refute the +notion that he sinks into comparative obscurity only after the sin of +the golden calf. Already his position is one to be indicated rather than +expressed; and Moses said, "Why do ye quarrel with me? wherefore do ye +try the Lord?" + +But the frenzy rose higher: it was he, and not a higher One, who had +brought them out of Egypt; the upshot of it would only be "to kill us, +and our children, and our cattle, with thirst." + +Look closely at this expression, and a curious significance discloses +itself. Was it mere covetousness, the spirit of the Jew Shylock +lamenting in one breath his daughter and his ducats, which introduced +the cattle along with the children into this complaint of dying men? +Shylock himself, when death actually looked him in the face, readily +sacrificed his fortune. Nor is it credible that a large number of +people, really believing that a horrible death was imminent, would have +spent any complaints upon their property. The language is exactly that +of angry exaggeration. They have come through straits quite as +desperate, and they know it well. It is not the fear of death, but the +painful delay of rescue, the discomfort and misery of their condition in +the meanwhile, the contrast between their sufferings and their own +conception of the rights of the favourites of heaven, which is audible +in this complaint. And thus their "Trial" and "Quarrel" are admirably +epitomised in the phrase "Is Jehovah among us or not?" a phrase which +has often since been in the heart, if not upon the lips, of men who had +supposed the life divine to be one long holiday, the pilgrimage an +excursion, when without are fightings and within fears, when they have +great sorrow and heaviness in their hearts. + +Because God is not a Judge, but a Father, the murmurs of Israel do not +prevent Him from showing mercy. Accordingly, when Moses prays, he is +bidden to go on before the people, bringing certain of their elders +along with him for witnesses of the marvel that was to follow. Such is +the Divine method. As soon as unbelief and discontent estranged the Jews +of the New Testament from Christ, He would not vulgarise His miracles, +nor do many mighty works among the unbelieving. After His resurrection +He appeared not unto all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before. +And as the Jews were chosen to bear witness to Him among the nations, so +were these elders now to bear witness among the Jews, who might without +their testimony have fallen into some such rationalising theory as that +of Tacitus, who says that Moses discovered a fountain by examining a +spot where wild asses lay. + +With these witnesses, he is bidden to go to a rock in Horeb (so nearly +had these murmurers approached the scene of the most awful of all +manifestations of Him whose presence they debated), and there God was to +stand before them upon the rock, making His universal presence a +localised consciousness in their experience. + +A true religion is progressive: every stage of it leans on the past and +sustains the future; and so Moses must bring with him "the rod, +wherewith thou smotest the river." The dullest can see the fitness of +this allusion. Among all the wonders which the shepherd's wand had +wrought, the mastery over the Nile, the plague which inflicted an +unwonted thirst upon the inhabitants of that well-watered field of Zoan, +was most to the purpose now. To kill and to make alive are the functions +of the same Being, and He Who spoiled the Egyptian river will now +refresh His heritage that is weary. At the touch of the prophetic wand +the waters poured forth which thenceforth supplied them through all +their desert wanderings. + +Reserving the symbolic meaning of this event for a future study, we have +to remember meanwhile the warning which the apostle here discovered. All +the people drank of the rock, yet with many of them God was not pleased. +Privilege is one thing--acceptance is quite another; and it shall be +more tolerable at last for Sodom and Gomorrah than for nations, churches +and men, who were content to resemble soil that drinketh in the rain +that cometh upon it oft, and yet to remain unfruitful. Already the +conduct of Israel was such that the place was named from human +worthlessness rather than Divine beneficence. Too often, it is the more +conspicuous part of the story of the relations of God and man. + + +_AMALEK._ + +xvii. 8-16. + +Nothing can be more natural, to those who remember the value of a +fountain in the East, than that Amalek should swoop down from his own +territories upon Israel, as soon as this abundant river tempted his +cupidity. This unprovoked attack of a kindred nation leads to another +advance in the education of the people. + +They had hitherto been the sheep of God: now they must become His +warriors. At the Red Sea it was said to them, "Stand still, and see the +salvation of the Lord ... the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall +hold your peace" (xiv. 13). But it is not so now. Just as the function +of every true miracle is to lead to a state of faith in which miracles +are not required; just as a mother reaches her hand to a tottering +infant, that presently the boy may go alone, so the Lord fought for +Israel, that Israel might learn to fight for the Lord. The herd of +slaves who came out of Egypt could not be trusted to stand fast in +battle; and what a defeat would have done with them we may judge by +their outcries at the very sight of Pharaoh. But now they had experience +of Divine succour, and had drawn the inspiring breath of freedom. And so +it was reasonable to expect that some chosen men of them at least will +be able to endure the shock of battle. And if so, it was a matter of the +last importance to develop and render conscious the national spirit, a +spirit so noble in its unselfish readiness to die, and in its scorn of +such material ills as anguish and mutilation compared with baseness and +dishonour, that the re-kindling of it in seasons of peril and conflict +is more than half a compensation for the horrors of a battle-field. + +We do not now inquire what causes avail to justify the infliction and +endurance of those horrors. Probably they will vary from age to age; and +as the ties grow strong which bind mankind together, the rupture of them +will be regarded with an ever-deepening shudder,--just as England +to-day would certainly refuse to make war upon our American kinsmen for +a provocation which (rightly or wrongly) she would not endure from +Russians. But the point to be observed is that war cannot be inherently +immoral, since God instructed in war the first nation that He ever +trained, not using its experience of His immediate interpositions to +supersede all need of human strife, but to make valiant soldiers, and +adding some of the most precious lessons of all their later experience +on the battle-field and by the sword. Now, it assuredly cannot be shown +that anything in itself immoral is fostered and encouraged by the Old +Testament. Slavery and divorce, which it was not yet possible to +extirpate, were hampered, restricted, and reduced to a minimum, being +"suffered" "because of the hardness of 'their' hearts" (Matt. xix. 8). +The wildest assailant of the Pentateuch will scarcely pretend that it +fosters and incites either divorce or slavery, as, beyond all question, +it encourages the martial ardour of the Jews. + +And yet war, though permissible, and in certain circumstances necessary, +is only necessary as the lesser of two evils; it is not in itself good. +Solomon, not David, could build the temple of the Lord; and Isaiah +sharply contrasts the Messiah with even that providentially appointed +conqueror, the only pagan who is called by God "My anointed," in that +the one comes upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth +clay, but the Other breaks not a bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking +flax (Isa. xli. 25, xlii. 3, xlv. 1). The ideal of humanity is peace, +and also it is happiness, but war may not yet have ceased to be a +necessity of life, sometimes as ruinous to evade as any other form of +suffering. + +Another necessity of national development is the advancement of capable +men. The empire of Napoleon would assuredly have withered, if only +because its chief was as jealous of commanding genius as he was ready to +advance and patronise capacity of the second order. It is a maxim that +true greatness finds worthy colleagues and successors, and rejoices in +them. And while the guidance of Jehovah is to be assumed throughout, it +is significant that the first mention of the splendid commander and +godly judge, during all whose days and the days of his contemporaries +Israel served Jehovah, comes not in any express revelation or +commandment of God; but the narrative relates that Moses said unto +Joshua, "Choose out men for us and go out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow +I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand." +They are the words of one who had noted him already as "a man in whom is +the Spirit" (Num. xxvii. 18), of one also who had unlearned, in the +experience now of eighty years, the desire of glittering achievement and +martial fame, who knew that the deepest fountains of real power are +hidden, and was content that another should lead the headlong and +victorious charge, if only it were his to hold, upon the top of the +hill, the rod of God. + +Once it was his own rod: with it the exiled shepherd controlled the +sheep of his master; that it should be the medium of the miraculous had +appeared to be an additional miracle, but now it was the very rod of +God, nor was any cry to heaven more eloquent and better grounded than +simply the reaching toward the skies, in long, steady, mute appeal, of +that symbol of all His dealings with them--the plaguing of Egypt, the +recession of the tide and its wild return, the bringing of water from +the rock. Was all to be in vain? Should the wild boar waste the vine +just brought out of Egypt before ever it reached the appointed vineyard? +And we also should be able to plead with God the noble works that He +hath done in our time. For us also there ought to be such experience as +worketh hope. As long as the exertion was possible even to the heroic +force which age had not abated, Moses thus prayed for his people; for +the gesture was a prayer, and a grand one, and must not be criticised +otherwise than as the act of a poetic and primitive genius, whose +institutions throughout are full of spiritual import. While he did this, +Israel prevailed; but the slow progress of the victory reminds us of +these dreary centuries during which we are just able to discern some +gradual advance of the kingdom of Christ on earth, but no rout, no +collapse of evil. And why was this? Because the sustaining and permanent +energy was not to flow from the prayers of one, however holy and however +eminent; three men were together in the mountain, and the co-operation +of them all was demanded; so that only when Aaron and Hur supported the +sinking hand of their chief was the decisive victory given. + +Now, the lesson from all this does not concern the High-priestly +intercession of our Lord, for the office of Moses is consistently +distinguished from the priesthood. Nor can the notion be tolerated that +if our Lord requires mortal co-operation before asking and being given +the heathen for His heritage, which is obviously the case, the reason +can be at all expressed by that weakness which needed support. + +No, the Lord our Priest is also Himself the dispenser of victory. To Him +all power is given on earth, and to Him it is our duty to appeal for +the triumph of His own cause. And here and there, doubtless, a +Christian heart is fervent and faithful in its intercessions. To these, +unknown, unsuspected by the combatants in the heat of battle,--to humble +saints, some of them bed-ridden, ignorant, poverty-stricken, despised, +holy souls who have no controversial skill, no missionary calling, but +who possess the grace habitually to convert their wishes into +prayers,--to such, perhaps, it is due that the idols of India and China +are now bowing down. And when they cease to be a minority in so doing, +when those who now criticise learn to sustain their flagging energies, +we shall see a day of the Lord. + +Observe, however, that as the active exertion of the host does not +displace the silence of intercession, neither is it displaced itself: +Joshua really bore his part in the discomfiture of Amalek and his host. +And so it is always. The development of human energy to the uttermost is +a part of the design of Him Who gave a task even to unfallen man. Let +none suppose that to labour is (sufficiently and by itself) to pray; but +also let none idly persuade himself that while energies and +responsibilities are his, to pray is sufficiently to labour. + +Thus it came to pass that Israel won its first victory in battle. +Another step was taken toward the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham +to make of him a great nation; and also toward the gradual transference +of the national faith from a passive reliance in Divine interposition to +an abiding confidence in Divine help. Let it be clearly understood that +this latter is the nobler and the more mature faith. + +With martial ardour, God took care to inculcate the sense of national +responsibility, without which warriors become no more than brigands. So +it was with Amalek: he had not been attacked or even menaced; he had +marched out from his own territories to assail an innocent and kindred +race ("then _came_ Amalek" ver. 8), and his attack had been cruel and +cowardly, he smote the hindmost, all that were feeble and in the rear, +when they were faint and weary, and he feared not God (Deut. xxv. 18). +Against all such tactics the wrath of God was denounced when, because of +them, Amalek was doomed to total extirpation. + +Moses now built an altar, to imprint on the mind of the people this new +lesson. And he called it, "The Lord is my Banner," a title which called +the nation at once to valour and to obedience, which asserted that they +were an army, but a consecrated one. + + * * * * * + +Now let us ask whether this simple story is at all the kind of thing +which legend or myth would have created, for the first martial exploit +of Israel. The obscure part played by Moses is not what we would expect; +nor, even as a mediator, is the position of one whose arms must be held +up a very romantic conception. If the object is to inspire the Jews for +later struggles with more formidable foes, the story is ill-contrived, +for we read of no surprising force of Amalek, and no inspiriting exploit +of Joshua. Everything is as prosaic as the real course of events in this +poor world is wont to be. And on that account it is all the more useful +to us who live prosaic lives, and need the help of God among prosaic +circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +_JETHRO._ + +xviii. 1-27. + +The defeat of Amalek is followed by the visit of Jethro; the opposite +pole of the relation between Israel and the nations, the coming of the +Gentiles to his brightness. And already that is true which repeats +itself all through the history of the Church, that much secular wisdom, +the art of organisation, the structure and discipline of societies, may +be drawn from the experience and wisdom of the world. + +Moses was under the special guidance of God, as really as any modern +enthusiast can claim to be. When he turned for aid or direction to +heaven, he was always answered. And yet he did not think scorn of the +counsel of his kinsman. And although eighty years had not dimmed the +fire of his eyes, nor wasted his strength, he neglected not the warning +which taught him to economise his force; not to waste on every paltry +dispute the attention and wisdom which could govern the new-born state. + +Jethro is the kinsman, and probably the brother-in-law of Moses; for if +he were the father-in-law, and the same as Reuel in the second chapter, +why should a new name be introduced without any mark of identification? +When he hears of the emancipation of Israel from Egypt, he brings back +to Moses his two sons and Zipporah, who had been sent away, after the +angry scene at the circumcision of the younger, and before he entered +Egypt with his life in his hand. Now he was a great personage, the +leader of a new nation, and the conqueror of the proudest monarch in the +world. With what feelings would the wife and husband meet? We are told +nothing of their interview, nor have we any reason to qualify the +unfavourable impression produced by the circumstances of their parting, +by the schismatic worship founded by their grandchildren, and by the +loneliness implied in the very names of Gershom and +Eliezer--"A-stranger-there," and "God-a-Help." + +But the relations between Moses and Jethro are charming, whether we look +at the obeisance rendered to the official minister of God by him whom +God had honoured so specially, by the prosperous man to the friend of +his adversity, or at the interest felt by the priest of Midian in all +the details of the great deliverance of which he had heard already, or +his joy in a Divine manifestation, probably not in all respects +according to the prejudices of his race, or his praise of Jehovah as +"greater than all gods, yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly +against them" (ver. 11, R.V.). The meaning of this phrase is either that +the gods were plagued in their own domains, or that Jehovah had finally +vanquished the Egyptians by the very element in which they were most +oppressive, as when Moses himself had been exposed to drown. + +There is another expression, in the first verse, which deserves to be +remarked. How do the friends of a successful man think of the scenes in +which he has borne a memorable part? They chiefly think of them in +connection with their own hero. And amid all the story of the Exodus, in +which so little honour is given to the human actor, the one trace of +personal exultation is where it is most natural and becoming; it is in +the heart of his relative: "When Jethro ... heard of all that the Lord +had done _for Moses_ and for Israel." + +We are told, with marked emphasis, that this Midianite, a priest, and +accustomed to act as such with Moses in his family, "took a +burnt-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came, and all the +elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God." +Nor can we doubt that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who laid +such stress upon the subordination of Abraham to Melchizedek, would have +discerned in the relative position of Jethro and Aaron another evidence +that the ascendency of the Aaronic priesthood was only temporary. We +shall hereafter see that priesthood is a function of redeemed humanity, +and that all limitations upon it were for a season, and due to human +shortcoming. But for this very reason (if there were no other) the chief +priest could only be He Who represents and embodies all humanity, in +Whom is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, +because He is all and in all. + +In the meantime, here is recognised, in the history of Israel, a Gentile +priesthood. + +And, as at the passover, so now, the sacrifice to God is partaken of by +His people, who are conscious of acceptance by Him. Happy was the union +of innocent festivity with a sacramental recognition of God. It is the +same sentiment which was aimed at by the primitive Christian Church in +her feasts of love, genuine meals in the house of God, until licence and +appetite spoiled them, and the apostle asked "Have ye not houses to eat +and drink in?" (1 Cor. xi. 22). Shall there never come a time when the +victorious and pure Church of the latter days shall regain what we have +forfeited, when the doctrine of the consecration of what is called +"secular life" shall be embodied again in forms like these? It speaks to +us meanwhile in a form which is easily ridiculed (as in Lamb's +well-known essay), and yet singularly touching and edifying if rightly +considered, in the asking for a blessing upon our meals. + +On the morrow, Jethro saw Moses, all day long, deciding the small +matters and great which needed already to be adjudicated for the nation. +He who had striven, without a commission, himself to smite the Egyptian +and lead out Israel, is the same self-reliant, heroic, not too discreet +person still. + +But the true statesman and administrator is he who employs to the utmost +all the capabilities and energies of his subordinates. And Jethro made a +deep mark in history when he taught Moses the distinction between the +lawgiver and the judge, between him who sought from God and proclaimed +to the people the principles of justice and their form, and him who +applied the law to each problem as it arose. + +"It is supposed, and with probability," writes Kalisch (_in loco_), +"that Alfred the Great, who was well versed in the Bible, based his own +Saxon constitution of sheriffs in counties, etc., on the example of the +Mosaic division (comp. _Bacon on English Government_, i. 70)." And thus +it may be that our own nation owes its free institutions almost directly +to the generous interest in the well-being of his relative, felt by an +Arabian priest, who cherished, amid the growth of idolatries all around +him, the primitive belief in God, and who rightly held that the first +qualifications of a capable judge were ability, and the fear of God, +truthfulness and hatred of unjust gain. + +We learn from Deuteronomy (i. 9-15), that Moses allowed the people +themselves to elect these officials, who became not only their judges +but their captains. + +From the whole of this narrative we see clearly that the intervention of +God for Israel is no more to be regarded as superseding the exercise of +human prudence and common-sense, than as dispensing with valour in the +repulse of Amalek, and with patience in journeying through the +wilderness. + + +THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY. + + +We are now about to pass from history to legislation. And this is a +convenient stage at which to pause, and ask how it comes to pass that +all this narrative is also, in some sense, an allegory. It is a +discussion full of pitfalls. Countless volumes of arbitrary and fanciful +interpretation have done their worst to discredit every attempt, however +cautious and sober, at finding more than the primary signification in +any narrative.[32] And whoever considers the reckless, violent and +inconsistent methods of the mystical commentators may be forgiven if he +recoils from occupying the ground which they have wasted, and contents +himself with simply drawing the lessons which the story directly +suggests. + +But the New Testament does not warrant such a surrender. It tells us +that leaven answers to malice, and unleavened bread to sincerity; that +at the Red Sea the people were baptized; that the tabernacle and the +altar, the sacrifice and the priest, the mercy-seat and the manna, were +all types and shadows of abiding Christian realities. + +It is more surprising to find the return of the infant Jesus connected +with the words "When Israel was a child then I loved him, and I called +My son out of Egypt,"--for it is impossible to doubt that the prophet +was here speaking of the Exodus, and had in mind the phrase "Israel is +My son, My firstborn: let My son go, that he may serve Me" (Matt. i. 15; +Hos. xi. 1; Exod. iv. 22). + +How are such passages to be explained? Surely not by finding a +superficial resemblance between two things, and thereupon transferring +to one of them whatever is true of the other. No thought can attain +accuracy except by taking care not to confuse in this way things which +superficially resemble each other. + +But no thought can be fertilising and suggestive which neglects real and +deep resemblances, resemblances of principle as well as incident, +resemblances which are due to the mind of God or the character of man. + +In the structure and furniture of the tabernacle, and the order of its +services, there are analogies deliberately planned, and such as every +one would expect, between religious truth shadowed forth in Judaism, and +the same truth spoken in these latter days unto us in the Son. + +But in the emancipation, the progress, and alas! the sins and +chastisements of Israel, there are analogies of another kind, since here +it is history which resembles theology, and chiefly secular things which +are compared with spiritual. But the analogies are not capricious; they +are based upon the obvious fact that the same God Who pitied Israel in +bondage sees, with the same tender heart, a worse tyranny. For it is not +a figure of speech to say that sin is slavery. Sin does outrage the +will, and degrade and spoil the life. The sinner does obey a hard and +merciless master. If his true home is in the kingdom of God, he is, +like Israel, not only a slave but an exile. Is God the God of the Jew +only? for otherwise He must, being immutable, deal with us and our +tyrant as He dealt with Israel and Pharaoh. If He did not, by an +exertion of omnipotence, transplant them from Egypt to their inheritance +at one stroke, but required of them obedience, co-operation, patient +discipline, and a gradual advance, why should we expect the whole work +and process of grace to be summed up in the one experience which we call +conversion? Yet if He did, promptly and completely, break their chains +and consummate their emancipation, then the fact that grace is a +progressive and gradual experience does not forbid us to reckon +ourselves dead unto sin. If the region through which they were led, +during their time of discipline, was very unlike the land of milk and +honey which awaited the close of their pilgrimage, it is not unlikely +that the same God will educate his later Church by the same means, +leading us also by a way that we know not, to humble and prove us, that +He may do us good at the latter end. + +And if He marks, by a solemn institution, the period when we enter into +covenant relations with Himself, and renounce the kingdom and tyranny of +His foe, is it marvellous that the apostle found an analogy for this in +the great event by which God punctuated the emancipation of Israel, +leading them out of Egypt through the sea depths and beneath the +protecting cloud? + +If privilege, and adoption, and the Divine good-will, did not shelter +them from the consequences of ingratitude and rebellion, if He spared +not the natural branches, we should take heed lest He spare not us. + +Such analogies are really arguments, as solid as those of Bishop +Butler. + +But the same cannot be maintained so easily of some others. When that is +quoted of our Lord upon the cross which was written of the paschal lamb, +"a bone shall not be broken" (Exod. xii. 46, John xix. 36), we feel that +the citation needs to be justified upon different grounds. But such +grounds are available. He was the true Lamb of God. For His sake the +avenger passes over all His followers. His flesh is meat indeed. And +therefore, although no analogy can be absolutely perfect, and the type +has nothing to declare that His blood is drink indeed, yet there is an +admirable fitness, worthy of inspired record, in the consummating and +fulfilment in Him, and in Him alone of three sufferers, of the precept +"A bone of Him shall not be broken." It may not be an express prophecy +which is brought to pass, but it is a beautiful and appropriate +correspondence, wrought out by Providence, not available for the +coercion of sceptics, but good for the edifying of believers. + +And so it is with the calling of the Son out of Egypt. Unquestionably +Hosea spoke of Israel. But unquestionably too the phrase "My Son, My +Firstborn" is a startling one. Here is already a suggestive difference +between the monotheism of the Old Testament and the austere jealous +logical orthodoxy of the Koran, which protests "It is not meet for God +to have any Son, God forbid" (Sura xix. 36). Jesus argued that such a +rigid and lifeless orthodoxy as that of later Judaism, ought to have +been scandalised, long before it came to consider His claims, by the +ancient and recognised inspiration which gave the name of gods to men +who sat in judgment as the representatives of Heaven. He claimed the +right to carry still further the same principle--namely, that deity is +not selfish and incommunicable, but practically gives itself away, in +transferring the exercise of its functions. From such condescension +everything may be expected, for God does not halt in the middle of a +path He has begun to tread. + +But if this argument of Jesus were a valid one (and the more it is +examined the more profound it will be seen to be), how significant will +then appear the term "My Son," as applied to Israel! + +In condescending so far, God almost pledged Himself to the Incarnation, +being no dealer in half measures, nor likely to assume rhetorically a +relation to mankind to which in fact He would not stoop. + +Every Christian feels, moreover, that it is by virtue of the grand and +final condescension that all the preliminary steps are possible. Because +Abraham's seed was one, that is Christ, therefore ye (all) if ye are +Christ's, are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise (Gal. iii. 16, +29). + +But when this great harmony comes to be devoutly recognised, a hundred +minor and incidental points of contact are invested with a sacred +interest. + +No doctrinal injury would have resulted, if the Child Jesus had never +left the Holy Land. No infidel could have served his cause by quoting +the words of Hosea. Nor can we now cite them against infidels as a +prophecy fulfilled. But when He does return from Egypt our devotions, +not our polemics, hail and rejoice in the coincidence. It reminds us, +although it does not demonstrate, that He who is thus called out of +Egypt is indeed the Son. + +The sober historian cannot prove anything, logically and to +demonstration, by the reiterated interventions in history of atmospheric +phenomena. And yet no devout thinker can fail to recognise that God has +reserved the hail against the time of trouble and war. + +In short, it is absurd and hopeless to bid us limit our contemplation, +in a divine narrative, to what can be demonstrated like the propositions +of Euclid. We laugh at the French for trying to make colonies and +constitutions according to abstract principles, and proposing, as they +once did, to reform Europe "after the Chinese manner." Well, religion +also is not a theory: it is the true history of the past of humanity, +and it is the formative principle in the history of the present and the +future. + +And hence it follows that we may dwell with interest and edification +upon analogies, as every great thinker confesses the existence of +truths, "which never can be proved." + +In the meantime it is easy to recognise the much simpler fact, that +these things happened unto them by way of example, and they were written +for our admonition. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[32] Take as an example the assertion of Bunyan that the sea in the +Revelation is a sea of glass, because the laver in the tabernacle was +made of the brazen looking-glasses of the women. (_Solomon's Temple_, +xxxvi. 1.) + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +_AT SINAI._ + +xix. 1-25. + +In the third month from the Exodus, and on the selfsame day (which +addition fixes the date precisely), the people reached the wilderness of +Sinai. This answers fairly to the date of Pentecost, which was +afterwards connected by tradition with the giving of the law. And +therefore Pentecost was the right time for the gift of the Holy Ghost, +bringing with Him the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and +that freedom from servile Jewish obedience which is not attained by +violating law, but by being imbued in its spirit, by the love which is +the fulfilling of the law. + + * * * * * + +There is among the solemn solitudes of Sinai a wide amphitheatre, +reached by two converging valleys, and confronted by an enormous +perpendicular cliff, the Ras Sufsfeh--a "natural altar," before which +the nation had room to congregate, awed by the stern magnificence of the +approach, and by the intense loneliness and desolation of the +surrounding scene, and thus prepared for the unparalleled revelation +which awaited them. + +It is the manner of God to speak through nature and the senses to the +soul. We cannot imagine the youth of the Baptist spent in Nazareth, nor +of Jesus in the desert. Elijah, too, was led into the wilderness to +receive the vision of God, and the agony of Jesus was endured at night, +and secluded by the olives from the paschal moon. It is by another +application of the same principle that the settled Jewish worship was +bright with music and splendid with gold and purple; and the notion that +the sublime and beautiful in nature and art cannot awaken the feelings +to which religion appeals, is as shallow as the notion that when these +feelings are awakened all is won. + +What happens next is a protest against this latter extreme. Awe is one +thing: the submission of the will is another. And therefore Moses was +stopped when about to ascend the mountain, there to keep the solemn +appointment that was made when God said, "This shall be the token unto +thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out +of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (iii. 12). His own +sense of the greatness of the crisis perhaps needed to be deepened. +Certainly the nation had to be pledged, induced to make a deliberate +choice, now first, as often again, under Joshua and Samuel, and when +Elijah invoked Jehovah upon Carmel. (Josh. xxiv. 24; 1 Sam. xii. 14; 1 +Kings xviii. 21, 39.) + +It is easy to speak of pledges and formal declarations lightly, but they +have their warrant in many such Scriptural analogies, nor should we +easily find a church, careful to deal with souls, which has not employed +them in some form, whether after the Anglican and Lutheran fashion, by +confirmation, or in the less formal methods of other Protestant +communions, or even by delaying baptism itself until it becomes, for the +adult in Christian lands, what it is to the convert from false creeds. + +Therefore the Lord called to Moses as he climbed the steep, and offered +through him a formal covenant to the people. + +"Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob,[33] and tell the children of +Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you +on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself." + +The appeal is to their personal experience and their gratitude: will +this be enough? will they accept His yoke, as every convert must, not +knowing what it may involve, not yet having His demands specified and +His commandments before their eyes, content to believe that whatever is +required of them will be good, because the requirement is from God? Thus +did Abraham, who went forth, not knowing whither, but knowing that he +was divinely guided. "Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed +and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from +among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine, and ye shall be unto Me a +kingdom of priests and a holy nation." + +Thus God conveys to them, more explicitly than hitherto, the fact that +He is the universal Lord, not ruling one land or nation only, nor, as +the Pentateuch is charged with teaching, their tutelary deity among many +others. Thus also the seeds are sown in them of a wholesome and rational +self-respect, such as the Psalmist felt, who asked "What is man, that +Thou art mindful of him?" yet realised that such mindfulness gave to +man a real dignity, made him but little lower than the angels, and +crowned him with glory and honour. + +Abolish religion, and mankind will divide into two classes,--one in +which vanity, unchecked by any spiritual superior, will obey no +restraints of law, and another of which the conscious pettiness will +aspire to no dignity of holiness, and shrink from no dishonour of sin. +It is only the presence of a loving God which can unite in us the sense +of humility and greatness, as having nothing and yet possessing all +things, and valued by God as His "peculiar treasure."[34] + +And with a reasonable self-respect should come a noble and yet sober +dignity--"Ye shall be a kingdom of priests," a dynasty (for such is the +meaning) of persons invested with royal and also with priestly rank. +This was spoken just before the law gave the priesthood into the hands +of one tribe; and thus we learn that Levi and Aaron were not to supplant +the nation, but to represent it. + +Now, this double rank is the property of redeemed humanity: we are "a +kingdom and priests unto God." Yet the laity of the Corinthian Church +were rebuked for a self-asserting and mutinous enjoyment of their rank: +"Ye have reigned as kings without us"; and others there were in this +Christian dispensation who "perished in the gainsaying of Korah" (1 Cor. +iv. 8; Jude 11). + +If the words "He hath made us a kingdom and priests" furnish any +argument against the existence of an ordained ministry now, then there +should have been no Jewish priesthood, for the same words are here. And +is it supposed that this assertion only began to be true when the +apostles died? Certainly there is a kind of self-assertion in the +ministry which they condemn. But if they are opposed to its existence, +alas for the Pastoral Epistles! It was because the function belonged to +all, that no man might arrogate it who was not commissioned to act on +behalf of all. + +But while the individual may not assert himself to the unsettling of +church order, the privilege is still common property. All believers have +boldness to enter into the holiest place of all. All are called upon to +rule for God "over a few things," to establish a kingdom of God within, +and thus to receive a crown of life, and to sit with Jesus upon His +throne. The very honours by which Israel was drawn to God are offered to +us all, as it is written, "We are the circumcision," "We are Abraham's +seed and heirs according to the promise" (Phil. iii. 3; Gal. iii. 29). + +To this appeal the nation responded gladly. They could feel that indeed +they had been sustained by God as the eagle bears her young--not +grasping them in her claws, like other birds, but as if enthroned +between her wings, and sheltered by her body, which interposed between +the young and any arrow of the hunter. Thus, say the Rabbinical +interpreters, did the pillar of cloud intervene between Israel and the +Egyptians. If the image were to be pressed so far, we could now find a +much closer analogy for the eagle "preferring itself to be pierced +rather than to witness the death of its young" (Kalisch). But far more +tender, and very touching in its domestic homeliness, is the metaphor +of Him Whose discourses teem with allusions to the Old Testament, yet +Who preferred to compare Himself to a hen gathering her chickens under +her wing. + +With the adhesion of Israel to the covenant, Moses returned to God. And +the Lord said, "Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people +may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee for ever." + +The design was to deepen their reverence for the Lawgiver Whose law they +should now receive; to express by lessons, not more dreadful than the +plagues of Egypt, but more vivid and sublime, the tremendous grandeur of +Him Who was making a covenant with them, Who had borne them on His wings +and called them His firstborn Son, Whom therefore they might be tempted +to approach with undue familiarity, were it not for the mountain that +burned up to heaven, the voice of the trumpet waxing louder and louder, +and the Appearance so fearful that Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and +quake" (=to phantazomenon=--Heb. xii. 21). + +When thus the Deity became terrible, the envoy would be honoured also. + +But it is important to observe that these terrible manifestations were +to cease. Like the impressions produced by sickness, by sudden deaths, +by our own imminent danger, the emotion would subside, but the +conviction should remain: they should believe Moses for ever. Emotions +are like the swellings of the Nile: they subside again; but they ought +to leave a fertilising deposit behind. + +That the impression might not be altogether passive, and therefore +ephemeral, the people were bidden to "sanctify themselves"; all that is +common and secular must be suspended for awhile; and it is worth notice +that, as when the family of Jacob put away their strange gods, so now +the Israelites must wash their clothes (cf. Gen. xxxv. 2). For one's +vestment is a kind of outer self, and has been with the man in the old +occupations from which he desires to purify himself. It was therefore +that when Jehu was made king, and when Jesus entered Jerusalem in +triumph, men put their garments under their chief to express their own +subjection (2 Kings ix. 13; Matt. xxi. 7). Much of the philosophy of +Carlyle is latent in these ancient laws and usages. + +Moreover, the mountain was to be fenced from the risk of profanation by +any sudden impulsive movement of the crowd, and even a beast that +touched it should be slain by such weapons as men could hurl without +themselves pursuing it. Only when the trumpet blew a long summons might +the appointed ones come up to the mount (ver. 13). + +On the third day, after a soul-searching interval, there were thunders +and lightnings, and a cloud, and the trumpet blast; and while all the +people trembled, Moses led them forth to meet with God. Again the +narrative reverts to the terrible phenomena--the fire like the smoke of +a furnace (called by an Egyptian name which only occurs in the +Pentateuch), and the whole mountain quaking. Then, since his commission +was now to be established, Moses spake, and the Lord answered him with a +voice. And when he again climbed the mountain, it became necessary to +send him back with yet another warning, whether his example was in +danger of emboldening others to exercise their newly given priesthood, +or the very excess of terror exercised its well-known fascinating power, +as men in a burning ship have been seen to leap into the flames. + +And the priests also, who come near to God, should sanctify themselves. +It has been asked who these were, since the Levitical institutions were +still non-existent (ver. 22, cf. 24). But it is certain that the heads +of houses exercised priestly functions; and it is not impossible that +the elders of Israel who came to eat before God with Jethro (xviii. 12) +had begun to perform religious functions for the people. Is it supposed +that the nation had gone without religious services for three months? + +It has been remarked by many that the law of Moses appealed for +acceptance to popular and even democratic sanctions. The covenant was +ratified by a plbiscite. The tremendous evidence was offered equally to +all. For, said St. Augustine, "as it was fit that the law which was +given, not to one man or a few enlightened people, but to the whole of a +populous nation, should be accompanied by awe-inspiring signs, great +marvels were wrought ... before the people" (_De Civ. Dei_, x. 13). + +We have also to observe the contrast between the appearance of God on +Sinai and His manifestation in Jesus. And this also was strongly wrought +out by an ancient father, who represented the Virgin Mary, in the act of +giving Jesus into the hands of Simeon, as saying, "The blast of the +trumpet does not now terrify those who approach, nor a second time does +the mountain, all on fire, cause terror to those who come nigh, nor does +the law punish relentlessly those who would boldly touch. What is +present here speaks of love to man; what is apparent, of the Divine +compassion." (Methodius _De Sym. et Anna_, vii.) + +But we must remember that the Epistle to the Hebrews regards the second +manifestation as the more solemn of the two, for this very reason: that +we have not come to a burning mountain, or to mortal penalties for +carnal irreverence, but to the spiritual mountain Zion, to countless +angels, to God the Judge, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and +to Jesus Christ. If they escaped not, when they refused Him Who warned +on earth, much more we, who turn away from Him Who warneth from heaven +(Heb. xii. 18-25). + +There is a question, lying far behind all these, which demands +attention. + +It is said that legends of wonderful appearances of the gods are common +to all religions; that there is no reason for giving credit to this one +and rejecting all the rest; and, more than this, that God absolutely +could not reveal Himself by sensuous appearances, being Himself a +Spirit. In what sense and to what extent God can be said to have really +revealed Himself, we shall examine hereafter. At present it is enough to +ask whether human love and hatred, joy and sorrow, homage and scorn can +manifest themselves by looks and tones, by the open palm and the +clenched fist, by laughter and tears, by a bent neck and by a curled +lip. For if what is most immaterial in our own soul can find sensuous +expression, it is somewhat bold to deny that a majesty and power beyond +anything human may at least be conceived as finding utterance, through a +mountain burning to the summit and reeling to the base, and the blast of +a trumpet which the people could not hear and live. + +But when it is argued that wondrous theophanies are common to all +faiths, two replies present themselves. If all the races of mankind +agree in believing that there is a God, and that He manifests Himself +wonderfully, does that really prove that there is no God, or even that +He never manifested Himself wondrously? We should certainly be derided +if we insisted that such a universal belief proved the truth of the +story of Mount Sinai, and perhaps we should deserve our fate. But it is +more absurd by far to pretend that this instinct, this intuition, this +universal expectation that God would some day, somewhere, rend the veil +which hides Him, does actually refute the narrative. + +We have also to ask for the production of those other narratives, +sublime in their conception and in the vast audience which they +challenged, sublimely pure alike from taint of idolatrous superstition +and of moral evil, profound and far-reaching in their practical effect +upon humanity, which deserve to be so closely associated with the giving +of the Mosaic law that in their collapse it also must be destroyed, as +the fall of one tree sometimes breaks the next. But this narrative +stands out so far in the open, and lifts its head so high, that no other +even touches a bough of it when overturned. + +Is it seriously meant to compare the alleged disappearance of Romulus, +or the secret interviews of Numa with his Egeria, to a history like +this? Surely one similar story should be produced, before it is asserted +that such stories are everywhere. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[33] This phrase is not found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Is it fancy +which detects in it a desire to remind them of their connection with the +least worthy rather than the noblest of the Patriarchs? One would not +expect, for instance, to read, Fear not, thou worm Abraham, or even +Israel; but the name of Jacob at once calls up humble associations. + +[34] This word is the same which occurs in the verse so beautifully but +erroneously rendered "They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in +the day when I make up My jewels" (Mal. iii. 17, A.V.). "They shall be +Mine ... in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure" (R.V.). + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +_THE LAW._ + +xx. 1-17. + +We have now reached that great event, one of the most momentous in all +history, the giving of the Ten Commandments. And it is necessary to +consider what was the meaning of this event, what part were they +designed to play in the religious development of mankind. + +1. St. Paul tells us plainly what they did _not_ effect. By the works of +the law could no flesh be justified: to the father of the Hebrew race +faith was reckoned instead of righteousness; the first of their royal +line coveted the blessedness not of the obedient but of the pardoned; +and Habakkuk declared that the just should live by his faith, while the +law is not of faith, and offers life only to the man that doeth these +things (Rom. iv. 3, 6; Gal. iii. 12). In the doctrinal scheme of St. +Paul there was no room for a compromise between salvation by faith and +reliance upon our own performance of any works, even those simple and +obvious duties which are of world-wide obligation. + +2. But he never meant to teach that a Christian is free from the +obligation of the moral law. If it is not true that we can keep it and +so earn heaven, it is equally false that we may break it without penalty +or remorse. What he insisted upon was this: that obligation is one +thing, and energy is another; the law is good, but it has not the gift +of pardon or of inspiration; by itself it will only reveal the +feebleness of him who endeavours to perform it, only force into direst +contrast the spiritual beauty of the pure ideal and the wretchedness of +the sinner, carnal, sold under sin. In this respect, indeed, the law was +its own witness. For if, among all the millions of its children, one had +lived by obedience, how could he have shared in its elaborate +sacrificial apparatus, in the hallowing of the altar from pollution by +the national uncleanness, in the sprinkling of the blood of the offering +for sin? Take the case of the highest official. A sinless high priest +under the law would have been paralysed by his virtue, for his duty on +the greatest day of all the year was to make atonement first for his own +sins. + +3. The law being an authorised statement of what innocence means, and +therefore of the only terms upon which a man might hope to live by +works, is an organic whole, and we either keep it as a whole or break +it. Such is the meaning of the words, he that offendeth in one point is +guilty of all; because He who gave the seventh commandment gave also the +sixth--so that if one commit no adultery, yet kill, he has become a +transgressor of the law in its integrity (James ii. 11). The challenge +of God to human self-righteousness is not one which can be half met. If +we have not thoroughly kept it, we have thoroughly failed. + +4. But this failure of man does not involve any failure, in the law, to +accomplish its intended work. It is, as has been said, a challenge. The +sense of our inability to meet it is the best introduction to Him Who +came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and thus the +law became a tutor to bring men to Christ. It awoke the conscience, +brought home the sense of guilt, and entered, that sin might abound in +us, whose ignorance had not known sin without it. It was strictly that +which Moses most frequently calls it--the Testimony. + +5. Finally, however, the teaching of Scripture is not that Christians +are condemned to live always in a condition of baffled striving, +hopeless longing, conscious transgression of a code which testifies +against them. The old and carnal nature gravitates downward, to +selfishness and sin, as surely as by a law of the physical universe. But +the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus emancipates us from that +law of sin and death--the higher nature doing, by the very quality of +its life, what the lower nature cannot be driven to do, by dread of hell +or by desire of heaven. The creature of earth becomes a creature of air, +and is at home in a new sphere, poised on its wings upon the breeze. +Love is the fulfilling of the law. And the Christian is free from its +dictation, as affectionate men are free from any control of the laws +which command the maintenance of wife and child, not because they may +defy the statutes, but because their volition and the statutes coincide. +Liberty is not lawlessness--it is the reciprocal harmony of law and the +will. + +And thus the grand paradox of Luther is entirely true: "Unless faith be +without any, even the smallest works, it does not justify, nay, it is +not faith. And yet it is impossible for faith to be without +works--earnest, many and great." We are justified by faith without the +works of the law, and yet we do not make void the law by faith--nay, we +establish the law. + +All this agrees exactly with the contrast, so often urged, between the +giving of the Law and the utterance of the Sermon on the Mount. The +former echoes across wild heights, and through savage ravines; the +latter is heard on the grassy slopes of the hillside which overlooks the +smiling Lake of Galilee. The one is spoken in thunder and graven upon +stone: the other comes from the lips, into which grace is poured, of Him +Who was fairer than the children of men. The former repeats again and +again the stern warning, "Thou shalt not!" The latter crowns a sevenfold +description of a blessedness, which is deeper than joy, though pensive +and even weeping, by adding to these abstract descriptions an eighth, +which applies them, and assumes them to be realised in His +hearers--"Blessed are _ye_." If so much as a beast touched the mountain +it should be stoned. But Simeon took the Divine Infant in his arms. + +And this is not because God has become gentler, or man worthier: it is +because God the Lawgiver upon His throne has come down to be God the +Helper. But the beatitudes could never have been spoken, if the law had +not been imposed: the blessedness of a hunger and thirst for +righteousness was created by the majestic and spiritual beauty of the +unattained commandment. + +Yes, it had a spiritual beauty. For, however formal, external, and even +shallow, the commandments may appear to flippant modern babblers, St. +Paul bewailed the contrast between the law, which was spiritual, and his +own carnal heart. And he, who had kept all the letter from his youth, +was only the more vexed and haunted by the fleeting consciousness of a +higher "good thing" unattained. Did not one table say "Thou shalt not +covet," and the other promise mercy to thousands of those that love? + +This leads us to consider the structure and arrangement of the +Decalogue. Scripture itself tells us that there were "ten words" or +precepts, written upon both sides of two tables. But various answers +have been given at different times, to the question, How shall we divide +the ten? + +The Jews of a later period made a first commandment of the words, "I am +the Lord thy God," which is not a commandment at all. And they restored +the proper number, thus exceeded, by uniting in one the prohibition of +other gods and of idolatry; although the worship of the golden calf, +almost immediately after the law was given, suffices to establish the +distinction. For then, as well as under Gideon, Micah and Jeroboam, the +sin of idolatry fell short of apostasy to a wholly different god (Judg. +viii. 23, 27, xvii. 3, 5; 1 Kings xii. 28). The worship of images +dishonours God, even if it be His semblance that they claim. In this +arrangement, the tables were allotted five commandments each. + +Another curious arrangement was devised, apparently by St. Augustine; +and the weight of his authority imposed it upon Western Christianity +until the Reformation, and upon the Latin and Lutheran churches unto +this day. Like the former, it adds the second commandment to the first, +but it divides the tenth. And it gives to the first table three +commandments, "since the number of commandments which concern God seem +to hint at the Trinity to careful students," while the seven +commandments of the second table suggest the Sabbath. Such mystical +references are no longer weighty arguments. And the proposed division +of the tenth commandment seems quite precluded by the fact that in +Exodus we read, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house nor his +wife," while in Deuteronomy the order is reversed; so that its advocates +are divided among themselves as to whether the coveting of a house or a +wife is to attain the dignity of separate mention. + +The ordinary English arrangement assigns to the tables four commandments +and six respectively. And the noble catechism of the Church of England +appears to sanction this arrangement by including among "my duties to my +neighbour" that of loving, honouring and succouring my father and +mother. There are several objections to this arrangement. It is +unsymmetrical. There seems to be something more sacred and divine about +my relationship with my father and mother than those which connect me +with my neighbour. The first table begins with the gravest offence, and +steadily declines to the lowest; sin against the unique personality of +God being followed by sin against His spirituality of nature, His name, +and His holy day. If now the sin against His earthly representative, the +very fountain and sanction of all law to childhood, be added to the +first table, the same order will pervade those of the second--namely, +sin against my neighbour's life, his family, his property, his +reputation, and lastly, his interest in my inner self, in the wishes +that are unspoken, the thoughts and feelings which + + "I wad nae tell to nae man." + +We thus obtain both the simplest division and the clearest arrangement. +In Romans xiii. 9 the fifth commandment is not enumerated when +rehearsing the actions which transgress the second table. In the Hebrew +text of Deuteronomy all the later commandments are joined with the sixth +by the copulative (represented along with the negative fairly enough in +our English by "Neither"), which seems to indicate that these five were +united together in the author's mind. But the fifth stands alone, like +all those of the first table. Now, it is clear that such an arrangement +gives great sanction and weight to the sacred institution of the family. + +Finally, the comprehensiveness and spirituality of the law may be +observed in this; that the first table forbids sin against God in +thought, word and deed; and the second table forbids sin against man in +deed, word and thought. + + +_THE PROLOGUE._ + +xx. 2. + +The Decalogue is introduced by the words "I am the Lord thy God, which +brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." + +Here, and in the previous chapter, is already a great advance upon the +time when it was said to them "The God of thy fathers, the God of +Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, hath appeared." Now they are expected +to remember what He has done for themselves. For, although religion must +begin with testimony, it ought always to grow up into an experience. +Thus it was that many of the Samaritans believed on Jesus because of the +word of the woman; but presently they said, "Now we believe, not because +of thy speaking, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know." And thus +the disciples who heard John the Baptist speak, and so followed Jesus, +having come and seen where He abode, could say, "We have found the +Messiah." + +This prologue is vitally connected with both tables of the law. In +relation to the first, it recognises the instinct of worship in the +human heart. In vain shall we say Do not worship idols, until the true +object of adoration is supplied, for the heart must and will prostrate +itself at some shrine. A leader of modern science confesses "the +immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of man," adding +that "to yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of +problems at the present hour."[35] It is indeed a problem for the +unbelief which, because it professes to be scientific, cannot shut its +eyes to the fact that men whose faith in Christ has suffered shipwreck +are everywhere seen to be clinging to strange planks--spiritualism, +esoteric Buddhism, and other superstitions,--which prove that man must +and will reverence something more than streams of tendencies, or +beneficial results to the greatest numbers. The Law of Moses abolishes +superstition by no mere negation, but by the proclamation of a true God. + +Moreover, it declares that this God is knowable, which flatly +contradicts the brave assertion of modern agnostics that the notion of a +God is not even "thinkable." That assertion is a bald and barren +platitude in the only sense in which it is not contrary to the +experience of all mankind. As we cannot form a complete and perfect, nor +even an adequate notion of God, so no man ever yet conceived a complete +and adequate notion of his neighbour, nor indeed of himself. But as we +can form a notion of one another, dim and fragmentary indeed, yet more +or less accurate and fit to guide our actions, so has every nation and +every man formed some notion of deity. Nor could even the agnostic +declare that God is unthinkable, unless the word God, of which he makes +this assertion, conveyed to him _some_ idea, some thought, more or less +worthy of the thinking. The ancient Jew never dreamed that he could +search out the Almighty to perfection, yet God was known to him by His +actions (the only means by which we know our fellow-men); and the +combined terror and loving-kindness of these at once warned him against +revolt, and appealed to his loyalty for obedience. + +In relation to the second table, the prologue was both an argument and +an appeal. Why should a man hope to prosper by estranging his best +Friend, his Emancipator and Guide? And even if disobedience could obtain +some paltry advantage, how base would he be who snatched at it, when +forbidden by the God Who broke his chains, and brought him out of the +house of bondage--a Benefactor not ungenial and remote, but One Who +enters into closest relations with him, calling Himself "Thy God"! + +Now, a greater emancipation and a closer personal relationship belong to +the Church of Christ. When a Christian hears that God is unthinkable, he +ought to be able to answer, 'God is my God, and He has brought my soul +out of its house of bondage.' + +Moreover, his emancipation by Christ from many sins and inner slaveries +ought to be a fact plain enough to constitute the sorest of problems to +the observing world. + +It must be observed, besides, that the Law, which was the centre of +Judaism, does not appeal chiefly to the meaner side of human nature. +Hell is not yet known, for the depths of eternity could not be uncovered +before the clouds had rolled away from its heights of love and +condescension; or else the sanity and balance of human nature would have +been overthrown. But even temporal judgments are not set in the foremost +place. As St. Paul, who knew the terrors of the Lord, more commonly and +urgently besought men by the mercies of God, so were the ancient Jews, +under the burning mountain, reminded rather of what God had bestowed +upon them, than of what He might inflict if they provoked Him. And our +gratitude, like theirs, should be excited by His temporal as well as His +spiritual gifts to us. + + +_THE FIRST COMMANDMENT._ + +"Thou shalt have none other gods before Me."--xx. 3. + +When these words fell upon the ears of Israel, they conveyed, as their +primary thought, a prohibition of the formal worship of rival deities, +Egyptian or Sidonian gods. Following immediately upon the proclamation +of Jehovah, their own God, they declared His intolerance of rivalry, and +enjoined a strict and jealous monotheism. For God was a reality. Races +who worshipped idealisations or personifications might easily make room +for other poetic embodiments of human thought and feeling; but Jehovah +would vindicate His rights. He had proved himself very real in Egypt. +Other gods would not displace Him: He would observe them: they would be +"before Me."[36] God does not quit the scene when man forgets Him. + +Now, it is hard for us to realise the charm which the worship of false +gods possessed for ancient Israel. To comprehend it we must reflect upon +the universal ignorance which made every phenomenon of nature a +portentous manifestation of mysterious and varied power, which they +could by no means trace back to a common origin, while the crash and +discord of the results appeared to indicate opposing wills behind. We +must reflect how closely akin is awe to worship, and how blind and +unintelligent was the awe which storm and earthquake and pestilence then +excited. We must remember the pressure upon them of surrounding +superstitions armed with all the civilisation and art of their world. +Above all, we must consider that the gods which seduced them were not of +necessity supreme: homage to them was very fairly consistent with a +reservation of the highest place for another; so that false worship in +its early stages need not have been much more startling than belief in +witchcraft, or in the paltry and unimaginative "spirits" which, in our +own day, are reputed to play the banjo in a dark room, and to untie +knots in a cabinet. Is it for us to deride them? + +To oppose all such tendencies, the Lord appealed not to philosophy and +sound reason. These are not the parents of monotheism: they are the +fruit of it. And so is our modern science. Its fundamental principle is +faith in the unity of nature, and in the extent to which the same laws +which govern our little world reach through the vast universe. And that +faith is directly traceable to the conviction that all the universe is +the work of the same Hand. + +"One God, one law, one element;"--the preaching of the first was sure to +suggest the other two. Nor could any race which believed in a multitude +of gods labour earnestly to reduce various phenomena to one cause. +Monotheism is therefore the parent of correct thinking, and could not +draw its sanctions thence. No: the law appeals to the historical +experience of Israel; it is content to stand and fall by that; if they +acknowledged the claim of God upon their loyalty, all the rest followed. +Their own story made good this claim. And so does the whole story of the +Church, and the whole inner life of every man who knows anything of +himself, bear witness to the religion of Jesus. + +Never let us weary of repeating that while we have ample controversial +resource, while no missile can pierce the chain-armour of the Christian +evidences, connected and interwoven into a great whole, and while the +infidelity which is called scientific is really infidel only so far as +it begs its case (which is an unscientific thing to do), nevertheless +the strength of our position is experimental. If the experience which +testifies to Jesus were historical alone, I might refuse to give it +credit: if it were only personal, I might ascribe it to enthusiasm. But +as long as a great cloud of living witnesses, and all the history of the +Church, declare the reality of His salvation, while I myself feel the +sufficiency of what He offers (or else the bitter need of it), so long +the question is not between conflicting theories, but between theories +and facts. To have another god is to place him beside One Whom we +already have, and Who has wrought for us the great emancipation. It is +not an error in theological science: it is ingratitude and treason. + +But it very soon became evident that men could apostatise from God +otherwise than in formal worship, chant and sacrifice and prostration: +"This people honoureth me with their mouths, but their hearts are far +from Me." God asks for love and trust, and our litanies should express +and cultivate these. Whatever steals away these from the Lord is really +His rival, and another god. "What is it to have a God? or what is God?" +Luther asks. And he answers, "He is God, and is so called, from Whose +goodness and power thou dost confidently promise all good things to +thyself, and to Whom thou dost fly from all adverse affairs and pressing +perils. So that to have a God is nothing else than to trust Him and +believe in Him with all the heart, even as I have often alleged that the +reliance of the heart constitutes alike one's God and one's idol.... In +what thing soever thou hast thy mind's reliance and thine heart fixed, +that is beyond doubt thy God" (_Larger Catechism_). + +And again: "What sort of religion is this, to bow not the knees to +riches and honour, but to offer them the noblest part of you, the heart +and mind? It is to worship the true God outwardly and in the flesh, but +the creature inwardly and in spirit" (_X. Prcepta Witt. Prdicata_). + +It was on this ground that he included charms and spells among the sins +against this commandment, because, though "they seem foolish rather than +wicked, yet do they lead to this too grave result, that men learn to +rely upon the creature in trifles, and so fail in great things to rely +upon God" (_Ibid._) + +This view of false worship is frequent in Scripture itself. The +Chaldeans were idolaters of an elaborate and imposing ritual, but their +true deities were not to be found in temples. They adored what they +really trusted upon, and that was their military prowess--the god of the +modern commander, who said that Providence sided with the big +battalions. The Chaldean is "he whose might is his god," whereas the +sacred warrior has the Lord for his strength and shield and very present +help in battle. Nay, regarding men "as the fishes of the sea," and his +own vast armaments as the fisher's apparatus to sweep them away, the +Chaldean, it is said, "sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense +unto his drag; because by them his portion is fat and his meat +plenteous" (Hab. i. 11, 14-16). Multitudes of humbler people practise a +similar idolatry. They say to God "Give us this day our daily bread"; +but they really ascribe their maintenance to their profession or their +trade; and so this is the true object of their homage. They, too, burn +incense to their drag. + +Others had no thought of a higher blessedness than animal enjoyment. +Their god was their belly. They set the excitement of wine in the place +of the fulness of the Spirit, or preferred some depraved union upon +earth to the honour of being one spirit with the Lord (Phil. iii. 19; +Eph. v. 18; 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17). And some tried to combine the world and +righteousness; not to lose heaven while grasping wealth, and receiving +here not only good things, but the only good things they +acknowledged--_their_ good things (Luke xvi. 25). As the Samaritans +feared the Lord and served graven images, so these were fain to serve +God and mammon (2 Kings xvii. 41; Matt. vi. 24). + +Now, these departures from the true Centre of all love and Source of all +light were really a homage to His great rival, "the god of this world." +Whenever men seek to obtain any prize by departing from God, they do +reverence to him who falsely said of all the kingdoms of the earth, and +their glory, "These things are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I +will I give them." They deny Him to Whom indeed all power is committed +in heaven and earth. + +What is the remedy, then, for all such formal or virtual apostasies? It +is to "have" the true God--which means, not only to know and confess, +but to be in real relationship with Him. + +Despite His so-called self-sufficiency, man is not very self-sufficing, +after all. The vast endowments of Julius Csar did not prevent him from +chafing because, at the age when he was still obscure, Alexander had +conquered the world. To be Julius Csar was not enough for him. Nor is +any man able to stand alone. In the Old Testament Joshua said, "If it +seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will +serve,"--implying that they must obey some one and will do better to +choose a service than to drift into one (Josh. xxiv. 15). And in the New +Testament Jesus declared that no man can serve two masters; but added +that he would not break with both and go free, he was sure to love and +cleave to one of them. Now, he only is proof against apostasy, who has +realised the wants of the soul within him, and the powerlessness of all +creatures to satisfy or save, and then, turning to the cross of Christ, +has found his sufficiency in Him. "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast +the words of everlasting life." Marvellous it is to think that +underneath the stern words "Thou shalt have none other," lies all the +condescension of the privilege "Thou shalt have ... Me." + + +_THE SECOND COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, ... thou shalt not + bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them."--xx. 4-6. + +How far does the second of these clauses modify the first? Men there are +who maintain the severe independence of the former, so that it forbids +the presence of any image or likeness in the house of God, even for +innocent purposes of adornment. But the Decalogue is not a liturgical +directory: what it forbids in church it forbids anywhere; and on this +theory the statues in Parliament Square would be idolatrous, as well as +those in Westminster Abbey. And such Christians are more Judaical than +the Jews, who were taught to place in the very Holy of Holies golden +cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat, and to represent them again upon +its curtains. + +It is therefore plain that the precept never forbade imagery, but +idolatry, which is the making of images to satisfy the craving of men's +hearts for a sensuous worship--the making of them "unto thee." The +second clause qualifies and elucidates the first. And what the +commandment prohibits is any attempt to help our worship by representing +the object of adoration to the senses. + +The higher and more subtle idolatries do not conceive that wood or gold +is actually transformed into their deities; but only that the deities +are locally present in the images, which express their attributes--power +in a hundred hands, beneficence in a hundred breasts. But in thus +expressing, they degrade and cramp the conception. + +They may perhaps evade the reproach of Isaiah that they warm themselves +with a portion of timber, and roast meat with another portion, and make +the remainder a god (Isa. xliv. 15-17), by urging that the timber is not +the god, but an abode which he chooses because it expresses his specific +qualities. But they cannot evade the reproach of St. Paul, that being +ourselves the offspring of God, we ought not to compare Him to the +workmanship of our hands, graven with art and man's device (Acts xvii. +29). + +A truly spiritual worship is intellectually as well as morally the most +elevating exercise of the soul, which it leads onward and upward, making +of all that it knows and thinks a vestibule, beyond which lie higher +knowledge and deeper feeling as yet unattained. + +Why is Gothic architecture better adapted for religious buildings than +any Grecian or Oriental style? Because its long aisles, vaulted roofs +and pointed arches, leading the vision up to the unseen, tell of +mystery, and draw the mind away beyond the visible and concrete to +something greater which it hints; while rounded arches and definite +proportions shut in at once the vision and the mind. The difference is +the same as between poetry and logic. + +And so it is with worship. We fetter and cramp our thoughts of deity +when we bind them to even the loftiest conceptions which have ever been +shut up in marble or upon canvas. The best image that ever took shape is +inferior to the poorest spiritual conception of God, in this respect if +in no other--that it has no expansiveness, it cannot grow. And in +connecting our prayers with it, we virtually say, 'This satisfies my +conception of God.' + +It is not to be condemned merely as inadequate, for so are all our +highest thoughts of deity; nor only because average humanity (which is +supposed to stand most in need of the help and suggestion of art) will +never learn the fine distinctions by which subtle intellects withhold +from the image itself the worship which it evokes, and which goes out in +its direction. It is still more mischievous because, even for the +trained theologian, it is the petrifaction of what is meant to develop +and expand, the solidification of the inadequate, the accepting of what +is human as our idea of the divine. + +Nor will it long continue to be merely inadequate. Experience proves +that ideas, like air and water, cannot be confined without stagnating. +Idolatries not only fail to develop, they degenerate; and systems, +however orthodox they may appear at starting, which connect worship with +palpable imagery, are doomed to sink into superstition. + +To this precept there is added a startling and painful caution--"For I +the Lord thy God am a jealous God." That a man should be jealous is no +passport to our friendship: we think of unreasonable estrangements, +exaggerated demands, implacable and cruel resentments. It would not +enter the average mind to doubt that one is highly praised when another +says of him, 'I never traced in his words or actions the slightest stain +of jealousy.' And yet we are to think of God Himself as the jealous God. + +Upon reflection, however, we must admit that a man is not condemned as +jealous-minded because he is capable of jealousy, but because he has an +unjust and unreasonable tendency towards it. It is a narrowing and +suspicious quality when it operates without due cause, a vindictive and +cruel one when it operates in excessive measure. But what should we +think of a parent who felt no jealousy if the heart of his child were +stolen from him by intriguing servants or by frivolous comrades? Now, +God has called Israel His son, even His firstborn. The truth is that +with us jealousy is dangerous and frequently perverted, because we are +bad judges of the measure of our own rights, especially when our +affections are involved. But some measure of jealousy is the necessary +pain of love neglected, love wronged or slighted by those upon whom it +has a claim. Jealousy is the shadow thrown where the sunshine of love is +intercepted, and it is strong in proportion to the strength of the +light. It operates in the heart exactly like the sense of justice in the +reason. Justice expects a recompense where it has given service, and +jealousy asks for love where it has given affection. + +And therefore, when God tells us that He is jealous, He implies that He +condescends to love us, to look for a return, to desire more from us +than outward service. We cannot be jealous concerning things which are +indifferent to us. Even the jealousy of rival competitors for business +or for place may be measured by the desire of each for that which the +other would engross. The politician is not jealous of the millionaire, +nor the capitalist of the prime minister. + +Now, if God is jealous when the enemies of our soul would steal away our +loyalty, it surely follows that we shall not be left to contend with +those enemies alone: He values us; He is upon our side; He will help us +to overcome them. + +And now we begin to see why this attribute is connected with the second +commandment and not the first. The apostate who betakes himself to +another god is almost beyond the reach of this tender and intimate +emotion: he is still loved, for God loves all men; but yet perhaps the +chord is unstrung which trembles responsive to this plaintive note. + +When a man who confesses God begins to weary of spiritual intercourse +with the Lord of spirits, when he can no longer worship One whose actual +presence is realised because His voice is heard within, when the +likeness of man or brute, or brightness of morning, or marvel of life or +its reproductiveness, contents him as a representation of God the +invisible, then his heart is beginning to go after the creature, to +content itself with artistic loveliness or majesty, to let go the grasp +as upon a living hand, by which alone the soul may be sustained when it +stumbles, or guided when it would err. + +To those who are within His covenant--to us, therefore, as to His +ancient Israel--He says, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." Because +I am "thy God." + +The assertion of a Divine jealousy is but one difficulty of this +remarkable verse. The Lord goes on to describe Himself as "visiting the +iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth +generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of +them that love Me and keep My commandments." And is this reasonable? To +punish the child, to be avenged upon the children's children, for sins +which are not their own? We know how often the sceptic has made gain out +of this representation--which is but his own unauthorised gloss, since +in reality God has said nothing about punishing the righteous with the +wicked. It is not true that all sad and disastrous consequences are +penal; many are disciplinary, and even to the people of God some are +surgical, cutting away what would lead to disease and death. Are no +evil consequences probable, if men brought up amid scenes dishonouring +to God were treated exactly like those who have since childhood felt as +it were the hand of a Father upon their head? For themselves it is best +and kindest that so deep a loss could come home to their consciousness +in pain. + +At all events, the assertion so early made in Scripture is confirmed in +all the experience of the race. Insanity, idiocy, scrofula, consumption, +are too often, though not always, the hereditary results of guilt. Sins +of the flesh are visited upon the bodily system. Sins of the temper, +such as pride, cynicism and frivolity, are felt in the mental structure +of the race. And the sins which offend directly against God, do they +bring no results with them? Ask of the investigators of the new science +of heredity and transmitted peculiarities, whether it stops short of the +highest and holiest parts of human nature. Or consider the ravages which +victory and consequent wealth have made, again and again, in the +character of whole nations. + +There is no doctrine impugned in Scripture, which men have less prospect +of shaking off, even if they close their Bibles for ever, than this. If +it were not there, we should be perplexed at a want of conformity +between the ways of God in nature and what is asserted of Him in His +Book. + +But it is either slander or blindness to represent this law, viewed in +its entirety, as other than benevolent. The transmission of the result +of evil is only a part of the vast law which has bound men together in +nations and families, as partners and members with each other. It is +clear that distinctive advantages cannot be bestowed upon the children +of the good, as such, unless the same advantages be withheld from the +evil race beside them. If the prizes of a university are won by +knowledge, the result is that ignorance is "visited," in the withholding +of them. And if, in the vaster university of life, health, affluence, +good repute and a clear intellect are the transmitted results of virtue, +then disease, poverty, neglect and incompetence become the dire bequest +of the unrighteous. + +There is no choice, therefore, except either to carry out this law, or +else to bid every man in the world begin life, not as "the heir of all +the ages," but absolutely destitute of all that has been acquired by his +fellow-men. + +Sometimes a hint is given us of what this would be. There is brought +occasionally into civilised communities, from the depths of forests, a +creature without language or decency or intellect, with low forehead and +brutal appetites, who in his early childhood had wandered away and been +lost,--brought up, men say, by the strange compassion of some lower +creature, and now sunken well-nigh to its level. To this degradation we +should all come, if it were not for the transmitted inheritance of our +fathers. And so vast is the upward force of this grand law, that it is +steadily though slowly upheaving the whole mass; and the lowest of +to-day, visited for ancestral failings by sinking to the bottom, is +higher than if he had been left absolutely alone. + +This over-weight of good is clearly seen by comparing the clauses, for +the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and +fourth generation, but mercy is shown in them that love God upon a +wholly different scale. Even "unto thousands" would enormously +counterbalance three generations. But the Revised Version rightly +suggests "a thousand generations" in the margin, and supports it by one +of its very rare references. It is plainly stated in Deuteronomy vii. 9, +that He "keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His +commandments unto a thousand generations." + +Lastly, it is to be observed that in all this passage the gospel is +shining through the law. It is not a question of just dealing, but of +emotion. God is not a master exacting taskwork, but a Father, jealous if +we refuse our hearts. He visits sin upon the posterity "of them that +hate," not only of them that disobey Him. And when our hearts sink, we +who are responsible for generations yet to be, as we reflect upon our +frailty, our ignorance and our sins, upon the awful consequences which +may result from one heedless act--nay, from a gesture or a look--He +reminds us that He does not requite those who serve Him only with a +measured wage, but shows "mercy" upon those who love Him unto a thousand +generations. + + +_THE THIRD COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."--xx. 7. + +What is the precise force of this prohibition? The word used is +ambiguous: sometimes it must be rendered as here, as in the verses +"_Vain_ is the help of man," and "Except the Lord build the house, their +labour is but _vain_ that build it" (Psalm cviii. 12, cxxvii. 1). But +sometimes it clearly means false, as in the texts "Thou shalt not raise +a _false_ report," and "swearing _falsely_ in making a covenant" (Exod. +xxiii. 1; Hos. x. 4). Yet again, it hangs midway between the two ideas, +as when we read of "_lying_ vanities," and again, "trusting in vanity +and speaking _lies_" (Psalm xxxi. 6; Isa. lix. 4). + +In favour of the rendering "falsely" it is urged that our Lord quotes it +as "said to them of old time 'Thou shalt not forswear thyself'" (Matt. +v. 33). But it is by no means clear that He quotes this text: the +citation is closer to the phraseology of Lev. xix. 12, and it is found +in a section of the Sermon which does not confine its citations to the +Decalogue (cf. ver. 38). + +The Authorised rendering seems the more natural when we remember that +civic duty had not yet come upon the stage. When we have learned to +honour only one God, and not to degrade nor materialise our conception +of Him, the next step is to inculcate, not yet veracity toward men when +God has been invoked, but reverence, in treating the sacred name. + +We have already seen the miserable superstitions by which the Jews +endeavoured to satisfy the letter while outraging the spirit of this +precept. In modern times some have conceived that all invocation of the +Divine Name is unlawful, although St. Paul called God for a witness upon +his soul, and the strong angel shall yet swear "by Him Who liveth for +ever and ever" (2 Cor. i. 23; Rev. x. 6). + +As it is not a temple but a desert which no foot ever treads, so the +sacred name is not honoured by being unspoken, but by being spoken +aright. + +Swearing is indeed forbidden, where it has actually disappeared, namely, +in the mutual intercourse of Christian people, whose affirmation should +suffice their brethren, while the need of stronger sanctions "cometh of +evil," even of the consciousness of a tendency to untruthfulness, which +requires the stronger barrier of an oath. But our Lord Himself, when +adjured by the living God, responded to the solemn authority of that +adjuration, although His death was the result. + +The name of God is not taken in vain when men who are conscious of His +nearness, and act with habitual reference to His will, mention Him more +frequently and familiarly than formalists approve. It is abused when the +insincere and hollow professor joins in the most solemn act of worship, +honours Him with the lips while the heart is far from Him--nay, when one +strives to curb Satan, and reclaim his fellow-sinner, by the use of good +and holy phrases, in which his own belief is merely theoretical; and +fares like the sons of Sceva, who repeated an orthodox adjuration, but +fled away overpowered and wounded. Or if the truth unworthily spoken +assert its inherent power, that will not justify the hollowness of his +profession, and in vain will he plead at last, "Lord, Lord, have we not +in Thy name cast out devils, and in Thy name done many marvellous acts?" + +The only safe rule is to be sure that our conception of God is high and +real and intimate; to be habitually humble and trustful in our attitude +toward Him; and then to speak sincerely and frankly, as then we shall +not fail to do. The words which rise naturally to the lips of men who +think thus cannot fail to do Him honour, for out of the fulness of the +heart the mouth speaketh. + +And the prevalent notion that God should be mentioned seldom and with +bated breath is rather an evidence of men's failure habitually to think +of Him aright, than of filial and loving reverence. There is a large and +powerful school of religion in our own day, whose disciples talk much +more of their own emotions and their own souls than St. Paul did, and +much less about God and Christ. Some day the proportions will be +restored. In the great Church of the future men will not morbidly shrink +from confessing their inner life, but neither will it be the centre of +their contemplation and their discourse: they will be filled with the +fulness of God; out of the abundance of their hearts their mouths will +speak; His name shall be continually in their mouth, and yet they shall +not take the name of the Lord their God in vain. + + +_THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT._ + +xx. 8-11. + +It cannot be denied that the commandment to honour the Sabbath day +occupies a unique place among the ten. It is, at least apparently, a +formal precept embedded in the heart of a moral code, and good men have +thought very differently indeed about its obligation upon the Christian +Church. + +The great Continental reformers, Lutheran and Calvinistic alike, who +subscribed the Confession of Augsburg, there affirmed that "Scripture +hath abolished the Sabbath by teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may be +omitted since the gospel has been revealed" (II. vii. 28). The Scotch +reformers, on the other hand, declared that God "in His Word, by a +positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, +hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept +holy unto Him" (_Westminster Confess._, XXI. vii.). They are even so +bold as to declare that this day "from the beginning of the world to the +resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the +resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week"; but +this proposition would be as hard to prove as the contrary assertion, +still maintained by some obscure religionists, that the change of day, +for however sufficient and sublime a reason, was beyond the capacity of +the Church of Christ to enact. + +Amid these conflicting opinions the doctrinal formularies of the Church +of England are characteristically guarded and prudent; but her +worshippers are bidden to seek mercy from the Lord for past violations +of this law, and an inclination of heart to keep it in the future; and +when the Ten have been recited, they pray that "all these Thy laws" may +be written upon their hearts. There is no doubt, therefore, about the +opinion of our own Reformers concerning the divine obligation of the +commandment. + +In examining the problem thus presented to us, our chief light must be +that of Scripture itself. Is the Sabbath what the Lutheran confession +called it, a mere "Mosaic ceremony," or does it rest upon sanctions +which began earlier and lasted longer than the precept to abstain from +shell-fish, or to sanctify the firstborn of cattle? + +Does its presence in the Decalogue disfigure that great code, as the +intrusion of these other precepts would do? When we find a Gentile +church reminded that the next precept to this "is the first commandment +with promise" (Eph. vi. 2), can we suppose that the tables to which St. +Paul appealed, and the promise which he cited at full length, were both +cancelled; that in so far as a moral element existed in them, that +portion of course survived their repeal, but the code itself was gone? +If so, the temporal promise went with it, and its quotation by St. Paul +is strange. Strange also, upon this supposition, was the stress which +he habitually laid upon the law as a convicting power, and as being only +repealed in the letter so far as it was fulfilled by the spontaneous +instinct of love, which was the fulfilling of the law. + +The position of the commandment among a number of moral and universal +duties cannot but weigh heavily in its favour. It prompts us to ask +whether our duty to God is purely negative, to be fulfilled by a policy +of non-intervention, not worshipping idols, nor blaspheming. Something +more was already intimated in the promise of mercy to them "that love +Me." For love is chiefly the source of active obedience: while fear is +satisfied by the absence of provocation, love wants not only to abstain +from evil but to do good. And how may it satisfy this instinct when its +object is the eternal God, Who, if He were hungry, would not tell us? It +finds the necessary outlet in worship, in adoring communion, in the +exclusion for awhile of worldly cares, in the devotion of time and +thought to Him. Now, the foundation upon which all the institutions of +religion may be securely built, is the day of rest. Call it external, +formal, unspiritual if you will; say that it is a carnal ordinance, and +that he who keeps it in spirit is free from the obligation of the +letter. But then, what about the eighth commandment? Are we absolved +also from the precept "Thou shalt not steal," because it too is +concerned with external actions, because "this ... thou shalt not steal +... and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in +this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"? Do we say, +the spirit has abolished the letter: love is the rescinding of the law? +St. Paul said the very opposite: love is the fulfilling of the law, not +its destruction; and thus he re-echoed the words of Jesus, "I am not +come to destroy the law, but to fulfil." + +All men know that the formal regulations which defend property are +relaxed as the ties of love and mutual understanding are made strong; +that to enter unannounced is not a trespass, that the same action which +will be prosecuted as a theft by a stranger, and resented as a liberty +by an acquaintance, is welcomed as a graceful freedom, almost as an +endearment, by a friend. And yet the commandment and the rights of +property hold good: they are not compromised, but glorified, by being +spiritualised. As it is between man and his brother, so should it be +between us and our Divine Father. We have learned to know Him very +differently from those who shuddered under Sinai: the whole law is not +now written upon tables of stone, but upon fleshly tables of the heart. +But among the precepts which are thus etherialised and yet established, +why should not the fourth commandment retain its place? Why should it be +supposed that it must vanish from the Decalogue, unless the gathering of +sticks deserves stoning? The institution, and the ceremonial application +of it to Jewish life, are entirely different things; just as respect for +property is a fixed obligation, while the laws of succession vary. + +Bearing this distinction in mind, we come to the question, Was the +Sabbath an ordinance born of Mosaism, or not? Grant that the word +"Remember," if it stood alone, might conceivably express the emphasis of +a new precept, and not the recapitulation of an existing one. Grant also +that the mention in Genesis of the Divine rest might be made by +anticipation, to be read with an eye to the institution which would be +mentioned later. But what is to be made of the fact that on the seventh +day manna was withheld from the camp, before they had arrived at Horeb, +and therefore before the commandment had been written by the finger of +God upon the stone? Was this also done by anticipation? Upon any +supposition, it aimed at teaching the nation that the obligation of the +day was not based upon the positive precept, but the precept embodied an +older and more fundamental obligation. + +How is the Sabbath spoken of in those prophecies which set least value +upon the merely ceremonial law? + +Isaiah speaks of mere ritual as slightly as St. Paul. To fast and +afflict one's soul is nothing, if in the day of fasting one smites with +the fist and oppresses his labourers. To loose the bonds of wickedness, +to free the oppressed, to share one's bread with the hungry, this is the +fast which God has chosen, and for him who fasts after this fashion the +light shall break forth like sunrise, and his bones shall be strong, and +he himself like an unfailing water-spring. Now, it is the same chapter +which thus waives aside mere ceremonial in contempt, which lavishes the +most ample promises on him who turns away his foot from the Sabbath, and +calls the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the Lord, honourable, and +honours it (Isa. lviii. 5-11, 13-14). + +There is no such promise in Jeremiah, for the observance of any merely +ceremonial law, as that which bids the people to honour the Sabbath day, +that there may enter into their gates kings and princes riding in +chariots and upon horses, and that the city may remain for ever (Jer. +xvii. 24, 25). + +And Ezekiel declares that in the day when God made Himself known to His +people in the land of Egypt, He gave them statutes and judgments and His +sabbaths (Ezek. xx. 11, 12). Now, this phrase is a clear allusion to +the word of God in Jeremiah, that "I spake not unto their fathers in the +day when I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or +sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto My +voice," etc. (Jer. vii. 23). And it sharply contrasts the sacredness of +God's abiding ordinances with the temporary institutions of the +sanctuary. But it reckons the Sabbath among the former. + +It is objected that our Lord Himself treated the Sabbath lightly, as a +worn-out ordinance. But He was "a minister of the circumcision," and +always discussed the lawfulness of His Sabbath miracles as a Jew with +Jews. Thus He argued that men, admittedly under the law, baked the +shewbread, circumcised children, and even rescued cattle from jeopardy +upon the seventh day. He appealed to the example of David, who met a +sufficiently urgent necessity by eating the consecrated bread, "which +was not lawful for him to eat" (Matt. xii. 4). + +He did not hint that the law of the sabbath had disappeared, but +insisted that it was meant to serve man and not to oppress him: that +"the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark ii. +27). + +Now, there is not in the life of Christ an assertion, so broad and +strong as that the Sabbath was made for the human race, which can be +narrowed down to a discussion of any merely local and temporary +institution. He Who stood highest, and saw the widest horizons, declared +that the Sabbath was intended for humanity, and not for a section or a +sect of it. Not because He was the King of the Jews, but because He was +the Son of Man, the ripe fruit and the leader of the world-wide race +which it was given to bless, therefore He was also its Lord. + +And in Him, so are we. Like all things present and things to come, it is +our help, we are not its slaves. + +There is something abject in the notion of a Christian freeman, who has +been for a long week imprisoned in some gloomy and ill-ventilated +workshop, whose lungs would be purified, and therefore his spirits +uplifted, and therefore his reason and his affections invigorated, and +therefore his worship rendered more fresh, warm and reasonable, by the +breathing of a purer air, yet whose conception of a day of rest is so +slavish that he dares not "rest" from the pollution of an infected +atmosphere, and from the closeness of a London court, because he +conceives it imperative to "rest" only from that bodily exercise, to +enjoy which would be to him the most real and the most delightful repose +of all. + +But there are other things more abject still; and one of them is the +miserable insincerity of the affluent and luxurious, using the +exceptional case of him whose week-days are thus oppressed, to excuse +their own wanton neglect of religious ordinances, accepting at the hands +of Christianity the sacred holiday, but ignoring utterly the fact that +the Lord sanctified and hallowed it, that it is to be called the holy of +the Lord, and to be honoured, and that we are free from the letter of +the precept only in so far as we rise to the spirit of it, in loving and +true communion with the Father of spirits. + +Another utterance of Jesus throws a strong light upon the nature and the +limits of our obligation. "My Father worketh even until now, and I work" +(John v. 17) is an appeal to the fact that in the long sabbath of God +His world is not deserted; creation may be suspended, but the bounties +of Providence go on; and therefore Christ also felt that His day of +rest was not one of torpor, that in healing the impotent man upon the +Sabbath He was but following the example of Him by whose rest the day +was sanctified. All works of beneficent love, all that ministers to +human recovery from anguish, and carries out the Divine purposes of +grace for body or soul, rescue from danger, healing of disease, +reformation of guilt, are sanctioned by this defence of Christ. + +They need not plead that the commandment is abrogated, but that Jesus of +Nazareth, of the seed of David, found nothing in such liberties +inconsistent with the duties of a devout Hebrew. + + +_THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon + the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."--xx. 12. + +This commandment forms a kind of bridge between the first table and the +second. Obedience to parents is not merely a neighbourly virtue; we do +not honour them simply as our fellow-men: they are the vicegerents of +God to our childhood; through them He supplies our necessities, defends +our feebleness, and pours in light and wisdom upon our ignorance; by +them our earliest knowledge of right and wrong is imparted, and upon the +sanction of their voice it long depends. + +It is clear that parental authority cannot be undermined, nor filial +disobedience and irreverence gain ground, without shaking the +foundations of our religious life, even more perhaps than of our social +conduct. + +Accordingly this commandment stands before the sixth, not because +murder is a less offence against society, but because it is more +emphatically against our neighbour, and less directly against God. + +The human infant is dependent and helpless for a longer period, and more +utterly, than the young of any other animal. Its growth, which is to +reach so much higher, is slower, and it is feebler during the process. +And the reason of this is plain to every thoughtful observer. God has +willed that the race of man should be bound together in the closest +relationships, both spiritual and secular; and family affection prepares +the heart for membership alike of the nation and the Church. With this +inner circle the wider ones are concentric. The pathetic dependence of +the child nourishes equally the strong love which protects, and the +grateful love which clings. And from our early knowledge of human +generosity, human care and goodness, there is born the capacity for +belief in the heart of the great Father, from Whom every family in +heaven and earth derived its Greek name of Fatherhood (Eph. iii. 15). + +Woe to the father whose cruelty, selfishness, or evil passions make it +hard for his child to understand the Archetype, because the type is +spoiled! or whose tyranny and self-will suggest rather the stern God of +reprobation, or of servile, slavish subjection, than the tender Father +of freeborn sons, who are no more under tutors and governors, but are +called unto freedom. + +But how much sorer woe to the son who dishonours his earthly parent, and +in so doing slays within himself the very principle of obedience to the +Father of spirits! + +No earthly tie is perfect, and therefore no earthly obedience can be +absolute. Some crisis comes in every life when the most innocent and +praiseworthy affection becomes a snare--when the counsel we most relied +upon would fain mislead our conscience--when a man, to be Christ's +disciple, must "hate father and mother," as Christ Himself heard the +temptation of the evil one speaking through chosen and beloved lips, and +said "Get thee behind Me, Satan." Even then we shall respect them, and +pray as Christ prayed for His failing apostle, and when the storm has +spent itself they shall resume their due place in the loving heart of +their Christian offspring. + +So Jesus, when Mary would interrupt His teaching, said "Who is My +mother?" But imminent death could not prevent Him from pitying her +sorrow, and committing her to His beloved disciple as to a son. + +From the letter of this commandment streams out a loving influence to +sanctify all the rest of our relationships. As the love of God implies +that of our brother also, so does the honour of parents involve the +recognition of all our domestic ties. + +And even unassisted nature will tend to make long the days of the loving +and obedient child; for life and health depend far less upon affluence +and luxury than upon a well-regulated disposition, a loving heart, a +temper which can obey without chafing, and a conscience which respects +law. All these are being learned in disciplined and dutiful households, +which are therefore the nurseries of happy and righteous children, and +so of long-lived families in the next generation also. Exceptions there +must be. But the rule is clear, that violent and curbless lives will +spend themselves faster than the lives of the gentle, the loving, the +law-abiding and the innocent. + + +_THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt do no murder."--xx. 13. + +We have now clearly passed to the consideration of man's duty to his +fellow-man, as a part of his duty to his Maker. It is no longer as +holding a divinely appointed relation to us, but simply as he is a man, +that we are bidden to respect his person, his family, his property, and +his fair fame. + +And the influence of the teaching of our Lord is felt in the very name +which we all give to the second table of the law. We call it "our duty +to our neighbour." But we do not mean to imply that there lives on the +surface of the globe one whom we are free to assault or to pillage. The +obligation is universal, and the name we give it echoes the teaching of +Him who said that no man can enter the sphere of our possible influence, +even as a wounded creature in a swoon whom we may help, but he should +thereupon become our neighbour. Or rather, we should become his; for +while the question asked of Him was "Who is my neighbour?" (whom should +I love?) Jesus reversed the problem when He asked in turn not To whom +was the wounded man a neighbour? but Who was a neighbour unto him? (who +loved him?) + +Social ethics, then, have a religious sanction. It is the constant duty +and effort of the Church of God to saturate the whole life of man, all +his conduct and his thought, with a sense of sacredness; and as the +world is for ever desecrating what is holy, so is religion for ever +consecrating what is secular. + +In these latter days men have thought it a proof of grace to separate +religion from daily life. The Antinomian, who maintains that his +orthodox beliefs or feelings absolve him from the obligations of +morality, joins hands with the Italian brigand who hopes to be forgiven +for cutting throats because he subsidises a priest. The enthusiast who +insists that all sins, past and future, were forgiven him when he +believed, approaches far nearer than he supposes to the fanatic of +another creed, who thinks a formal confession and an external absolution +sufficient to wash away sin. All of them hold the grand heresy that one +may escape the penalties without being freed from the power of evil; +that a life may be saved by grace without being penetrated by religion, +and that it is not exactly accurate to say that Jesus saves His people +from their sins. + +It is scarcely wonderful, when some men thus refuse to morality the +sanctions of religion, that others propose to teach morality how she may +go without them. In spite of the experience of ages, which proves that +human passions are only too ready to defy at once the penalties of both +worlds, it is imagined that the microscope and the scalpel may supersede +the Gospel as teachers of virtue; that the self-interest of a creature +doomed to perish in a few years may prove more effectual to restrain +than eternal hopes and fears; and that a scientific prudence may supply +the place of holiness. It has never been so in the past. Not only Juda, +but Egypt, Greece, and Rome, were strong as long as they were righteous, +and righteous as long as their morality was bound up in their religion. +When they ceased to worship they ceased to be self-controlled, nor could +the most urgent and manifest self-interest, nor all the resources of +lofty philosophy, withhold them from the ruin which always accompanies +or follows vice. + +Is it certain that modern science will fare any better? So far from +deepening our respect for human nature and for law, she is discovering +vile origins for our most sacred institutions and our deepest instincts, +and whispering strange means by which crime may work without detection +and vice without penalty. Never was there a time when educated thought +was more suggestive of contempt for one's self and for one's fellow-man, +and of a prudent, sturdy, remorseless pursuit of self-interest, which +may be very far indeed from virtuous. The next generation will eat the +fruit of this teaching, as we reap what our fathers sowed. The theorist +may be as pure as Epicurus. But the disciples will be as the Epicureans. + +Is there anything in the modern conception of a man which bids me spare +him, if his existence dooms me to poverty and I can quietly push him +over a precipice? It is quite conceivable that I can prove, and very +likely indeed that I can persuade myself, that the shortening of the +life of one hard and grasping man may brighten the lives of hundreds. +And my passions will simply laugh at the attempt to restrain me by +arguing that great advantages result from the respect for human life +upon the whole. Appetites, greeds, resentments do not regard their +objects in this broad and colourless way; they grant the general +proposition, but add that every rule has its exceptions. Something more +is needed: something which can never be obtained except from a universal +law, from the sanctity of all human lives as bearing eternal issues in +their bosom, and from the certainty that He who gave the mandate will +enforce it. + +It is when we see in our fellow-man a divine creature of the Divine, +made by God in His own image, marred and defaced by sin, but not beyond +recovery, when his actions are regarded as wrought in the sight of a +Judge Whose presence supersedes utterly the slightness, heat and +inadequacy of our judgment and our vengeance, when his pure affections +tell us of the love of God which passeth knowledge, when his errors +affright us as dire and melancholy apostacies from a mighty calling, and +when his death is solemn as the unveiling of unknown and unending +destinies, then it is that we discern the sacredness of life, and the +awful presumption of the deed which quenches it. It is when we realise +that he is our brother, holding his place in the universe by the same +tenure by which we hold our own, and dear to the same Father, that we +understand how stern is the duty of repressing the first resentful +movements within our breast which would even wish to crush him, because +they are a rebellion against the Divine ordinance and against the Divine +benevolence. + +Is it asked, how can all this be reconciled with the lawfulness of +capital punishment? The death penalty is frequent in the Mosaic code. +But Scripture regards the judge as the minister and agent of God. The +stern monotheism of the Old Testament "said, Ye are Gods," to those who +thus pronounced the behest of Heaven; and private vengeance becomes only +more culpable when we reflect upon the high sanction and authority by +which alone public justice presumes to act. + +Now, all these considerations vanish together, when religion ceases to +consecrate morality. The judgment of law differs from my own merely as I +like it better, and as I am a party (perhaps unwillingly) to the general +consent which creates it; he whom I would assail is doomed in any case +to speedy and complete extinction; his longer life is possibly +burdensome to himself and to society; and there exists no higher Being +to resent my interference, or to measure out the existence which I think +too protracted. It is clear that such a view of human life must prove +fatal to its sacredness; and that its results would make themselves +increasingly felt, as the awe wore away which old associations now +inspire. + + +_THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not commit adultery."--xx. 14. + +This commandment follows very obviously from even the rudest principle +of justice to our neighbour. It is among those that St. Paul enumerates +as "briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour +as thyself." + +And therefore nothing need here be said about the open sin by which one +man wrongs another. Wild and evil theories may be abroad, new schemes of +social order may be recklessly invented and discussed; yet, when the +institution of the permanent family is assailed, every thoughtful man +knows full well that all our interests are at stake in its defence, and +the nation could no more survive its overthrow than the Church. + +But when our Lord declared that to excite desire through the eyes is +actually this sin, already ripe, He appealed to some deeper and more +spiritual consideration than that of social order. What He pointed to is +the sacredness of the human body--so holy a thing that impurity, and +even the silent excitement of passion, is a wrong done to our nature, +and a dishonour to the temple of the Holy Ghost. + +Now, this is a subject upon which it is all the more necessary to write, +because it is hard to speak about. + +What is the human body, in the view of the Christian? It is the one +bond, as far as we know in all the universe, between the material and +the spiritual worlds, one of which slopes thence down to inert +molecules, and the other upward to the throne of God. + +Our brain is the engine-room and laboratory whereby thought, aspiration, +worship express themselves and become potent, and even communicate +themselves to others. + +But it is a solemn truth that the body not only interprets passively, +but also influences and modifies the higher nature. The mind is helped +by proper diet and exercise, and hindered by impure air and by excess or +lack of food. The influence of music upon the soul has been observed at +least since the time of Saul. And hereafter the Christian body, redeemed +from the contagion of the fall, and promoted to a spiritual +impressibility and receptiveness which it has never yet known, is meant +to share in the heavenly joys of the immortal spirit before God. This is +the meaning of the assertion that it is sown a natural (= _soulish_) +body, but shall be raised a spiritual body. In the meantime it must +learn its true function. Whatever stimulates and excites the animal at +the cost of the immortal within, will in the same degree cloud and +obscure the perception that a man's life consisteth not in his +pleasures, and will keep up the illusion that the senses are the true +ministers of bliss. The soul is attacked through the appetites at a +point far short of their physical indulgence. And when lawless wishes +are deliberately toyed with, it is clear that lawless acts are not +hated, but only avoided through fear of consequences. The reins which +govern the life are no longer in the hands of the spirit, nor is it the +will which now refuses to sin. How, then, can the soul be alert and +pure? It is drugged and stupified: the offices of religion are a dull +form, and its truths are hollow unrealities, assented to but unfelt, +because unholy impulses have set on fire the course of nature, in what +should have been the temple of the Holy Ghost. + +Moreover, the Christian life is not one of mere submission to authority; +its true law is that of ceaseless upward aspiration. And since the union +of husband and wife is consecrated to be the truest and deepest and most +far-reaching of all types of the mystical union between Christ and His +Church, it demands an ever closer approach to that perfect ideal of +mutual love and service. + +And whatever impairs the sacred, mysterious, all-pervading unity of a +perfect wedlock is either the greatest of misfortunes or of crimes. + +If it be frailty of temper, failure of common sympathies, an +irretrievable error recognised too late, it is a calamity which may yet +strengthen the character by evoking such pity and helpfulness as Christ +the Bridegroom showed for the Church when lost. But if estrangement, +even of heart, come through the secret indulgence of lawless reverie and +desire, it is treason, and criminal although the traitor has not struck +a blow, but only whispered sedition under his breath in a darkened room. + + +_THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not steal."--xx. 15. + +There is no commandment against which human ingenuity has brought more +evasions to bear than this. Property itself is theft, says the +communist. "It is no grave sin," says the Roman text-book, "to steal in +moderation"; and this is defined to be, "from a pauper less than a +franc, from a daily labourer less than two or three, from a person in +comfortable circumstances anything under four or five francs, or from a +very rich man ten or twelve francs. And a servant whom force or +necessity compels to accept an unjust payment, may secretly compensate +himself, because the workman is worthy of his hire."[37] A moment's +reflection discovers this to be the most naked rationalism, choosing +some of the commandments of God for honour, and some for contempt as +"not very grave" and wholly ignoring the principle that whoever attacks +the code at any one point "is guilty of all," because he has despised it +as a code, as an organic system. + +Nothing is easier than to confuse one's conscience about the ethics of +property. For the arrangements of various nations differ: it is a +geographical line which defines the right of the elder son against his +brothers, of sons against daughters, and of children against a wife; and +the demand is still more capricious which the state asserts against them +all, under the name of succession duty, and which it makes upon other +property in the form of a multitude of imposts and taxes. Can all these +different arrangements be alike binding? Add to this variability the +immense national revenues, which are apparently so little affected by +individual contributions, and it is no wonder if men fail to see that +honesty to the public is a duty as immutable and stern as any other duty +to their neighbour. Unfortunately the evil spreads. The same +considerations which make it seem pardonable to rob the nation apply +also to the millionaire; and they tempt many a poor man to ask whether +he need respect the wealth of a usurer, or may not adjust the scales of +Mine and Thine, which law causes to hang unfairly. + +It is forgotten that a nation has at least the same authority as a club +to regulate its own affairs, to fix the relative position and the +subscription of its members. Common honesty teaches me that I must +conform to these rules or leave the club; and this duty is not at all +affected by the fact that other associations have different rules. In +three such societies God Himself has placed us all--the family, the +Church, and the nation; and therefore I am directly responsible to God +for due respect to their laws. It is not true that the statute-book is +inspired, any more than that the regulations of a household are divinely +given. Yet a Divine sanction, such as rests upon the parental rule of +fallible human creatures, hallows also national law. I may advocate a +change in laws of which I disapprove, but I am bound in the meantime to +obey the conditions upon which I receive protection from foreign foes +and domestic fraud, and which cannot be subjected to the judgment of +every individual, except at the cost of a dissolution of society, and a +state of anarchy compared with which the worst of laws would be +desirable. + +This revolt of the individual is especially tempting when selfishness +deems itself wronged, as by the laws of property. And the eighth +commandment is necessary to protect society not merely against the +violence of the burglar and the craft of the impostor, but also against +the deceitfulness of our own hearts, asking What harm is in the evasion +of an impost? What right has a successful speculator to his millions? +Why should I not do justice to myself when law refuses it? + +There is always the simple answer, Who made me a judge in my own case? + +But when we regard the matter thus, it becomes clear that honesty is not +mere abstinence from pillage. The community has larger claims than this +upon us, and is wronged if we fail to discharge them. + +The rich man robs the poor if he does not play his part in the great +organisation by which he is served so well: every one robs the community +who takes its benefits and returns none; and in this sense the bold +saying is true, that every man lives by one of two methods--by labour or +by theft. + +St. Paul does not exhort men to refrain from theft merely in order to be +harmless, but to do good. That is the alternative contemplated when he +says, "Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him labour, working +with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give +to him that hath need" (Eph. iv. 28). + + +_THE NINTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."--xx. 16. + +St. James called the tongue a world of iniquity. And against its +lawlessness, which inflames the whole course of nature, each table of +the law contains a warning. For it is equally ready to profane the name +of God, and to rob our neighbour of his fair fame. + +Jesus Christ regarded verbal professions as a very poor thing, and +asked, "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I command +you?" He aimed a parable at the hollowness of merely saying, "I go, +sir." But, worthless though such phrases be, the act which substitutes +professions for actual service is no trifle; and our Lord felt the +importance of words, empty or sincere, so profoundly as to stake upon +this one test the eternal destinies of His people: "By thy words thou +shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Now, the +tongue is thus important because it is so prompt and willing a servant +of the mind within. We scarcely think of it as a servant at all: our +words do not seem to be more than "expressions," manifestations of what +is within us. + +But a thought, once expressed, is transformed and energetic as a bullet +when the charge is fired; it modifies other minds, and the word which we +took to be far less potent than a deed becomes the mover of the fateful +deeds of many men. And thus, being at once powerful and unsuspected, it +is the most treacherous and subtle of all the forces which we wield. + +And the ninth commandment does not undertake to bridle it by merely +forbidding us in a court of justice to wrong our fellow-man by perjury. + +We transgress it whenever we conceive a strong suspicion and repeat it +as a thing we know; when we allow the temptation of a biting epigram to +betray us into an unkind expression not quite warranted by the facts; +when we vindicate ourselves against a charge by throwing blame where it +probably but not certainly ought to lie; or when we are not content to +vindicate ourselves without bringing a countercharge which it would +perplex us to be asked to prove; when we give way to that most shallow +and meanest of all attempts at cleverness which claims credit for +penetration because it can discover base motives for innocent actions, +so that high-mindedness becomes pride, and charity withers up into love +of patronising, and forbearance shrivels into lack of spirit. The +pattern and ideal of such cleverness is the east wind, which makes all +that is fair and sensitive to shut itself up, forbids the bud to expand +into a blossom, and puts back the coming of the springtime and of the +singing bird. + +There are very gifted persons who have never found out that a kindly and +winning phrase may have as much literary merit as a stinging one, and it +is quite as fine a thing to be like the dew on Hermon on as to shoot out +arrows, even bitter words. + +It is a pity that our harsh judgments always speak more loudly and +confidently than our kindly ones, but the reason is plain: angry passion +prompts the former, and its voice is loud; while the calm reflection +which tones down and sweetens the judgment softens also the expression +of it. + +It has to be remembered, also, that false witness can reach to nations, +organisations, political movements as well as individuals. The habit of +putting the worst construction upon the intentions of foreign powers is +what feeds the mutual jealousies that ultimately blaze out in war. The +habit of thinking of rival politicians as deliberately false and +treasonable is what lowers the standard of the noblest of secular +pursuits, until each party, not to be undone, protests too much, raises +its voice to a falsetto to scream its rival down, and relaxes its +standard of righteousness lest it should be outdone by the +unscrupulousness of its rival. + +And there is yet another neighbour, against whom false witness is +woefully rife, both in the Church and in society. That neighbour is +mankind at large. There is a prevalent theory of human sinfulness which +unconsciously scoffs at the appeals of the gospel, striving indeed to +influence me by love, gratitude, admiration for the Perfect One, and +desire to be like Him, by the hope of holiness and the shame of +vileness, but telling me at the same time that I have no sympathies +whatever except with evil. The observation of every day shows that man's +nature is corrupt, but it also shows that he is not a fiend--that he has +fallen indeed, but remembers yet in what image he was made. But the +world cannot upbraid the Church for these exaggerations, since they are +but the echo of its own. + + "I do believe, + Though I have found them not, that there may be + Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, + And virtues which are merciful, nor weave + Snares for the failing; I would also deem + O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; + That two, or one, are almost what they seem, + That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream." + + _Childe Harold_, III., cxiv. + +Cynicism is false witness; and if it does not greatly wrong any one of +our fellow-men, it injures both society and the cynic. If he is of a +coarse fibre, it excuses him to himself in becoming the hard and +unloving creature which he fancies that all men are. If he is too proud +or too self-respecting to yield to this temptation, it isolates him, it +chills and withers his sympathies for people quite as good as himself, +whom he thinks of as the herd. + +As for the more flagrant sins, so for this, the remedy is love. Love +sympathises, makes allowance for frailty, discovers the germs of good, +hopeth all things, taketh not account of evil. + + +_THE TENTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not covet ... anything that is his."--xx. 17. + +It will be remembered that the order of the catalogue of objects of +desire is different in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. In the latter "thy +neighbour's wife" is first, as of supreme importance; and therefore it +has been thought possible to convert it into a separate commandment. + +But this the order in Exodus forbids, by placing the house first, and +then the various living possessions which the householder gathers around +him. What is thought of is the gradual process of acquisition, and the +right of him who wins first a house, then a wife, servants, and cattle, +to be secure in the possession of them all. Now, between foes, we saw +that the evil temper is what leads to the evil deed, and the man who +nurses hatred is a murderer at heart. Just so the householder is not +rendered safe, and certainly not happy in the enjoyment of his rights, +by the seventh commandment and the eighth, unless care be taken to +prevent the accumulation of those forces which will some day break +through them both. To secure cities against explosion, we forbid the +storage of gunpowder and dynamite, and not only the firing of magazines. + +But the moral law is not given to any man for his neighbour's sake +chiefly. It is for me: statutes whereby I myself may live. And as the +Psalmist pondered on them, they expanded strangely for his perception. +"I have kept Thy testimonies," he says; but presently asks to be +quickened,--"So shall I _observe_ the testimony of Thy mouth,"--and +prays, "Give me understanding, that I may _know_ Thy testimonies." And +at the last, he confesses that he has "gone astray like a lost sheep" +(Ps. cxix. 22, 88, 125, 176). Starting with a literal innocence, he +comes to feel a deep inward need, need of vitality to obey, and even of +power to understand aright. If the sacrifices of God are a broken +spirit, it follows that they are a spirit, and inward loyalty is the +necessary condition upon which external obedience can be accepted. The +cheers of a traitor, the flattery of one who scorns, the ritual of a +hypocrite, these are quite as valuable, as indications of what is +within, as a reluctant relinquishment to my neighbour of what is his. I +must not covet. Plainly this is the sharpest and most searching precept +of all; and accordingly St. Paul asserts that without this he would not +have suffered the deep internal discontent, the consciousness of +something wrong, which tortured him, even although no mortal could +reproach him, even though, touching the righteousness of the law, he was +blameless. He had not known coveting, except the law had said "Thou +shalt not covet." + +Here, then, we perceive with the utmost clearness what St. Paul so +clearly discerned--the true meaning of the Law, its convicting power, +its design to work not righteousness, but self-despair as the prelude of +self-surrender. For who can, by resolving, govern his desires? Who can +abstain not only from the usurping deed, but from the aggressive +emotion? Who will not despair when he learns that God desireth truth in +the inward parts? But this despair is the way to that better hope which +adds, "In the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me +with hyssop, and I shall be clean." + +And as a strong interest or affection has power to destroy in the soul +many weaker ones, so the love of God and our neighbour is the appointed +way to overcome the desire of taking from our neighbour what God has +given to him, refusing it to us. + + +THE LESSER LAW. + +xx. 18-xxiii. 33. + +With the close of the Decalogue and its universal obligations, we +approach a brief code of laws, purely Hebrew, but of the deepest moral +interest, confessed by hostile criticism to bear every mark of a remote +antiquity, and distinctly severed from what precedes and follows by a +marked difference in the circumstances. + +This is evidently the book of the Covenant to which the nation gave its +formal assent (xxiv. 7), and is therefore the germ and the centre of the +system afterwards so much expanded. + +And since the adhesion of the people was required, and the final +covenant was ratified as soon as it was given, before any of the more +formal details were elaborated, and before the tabernacle and the +priesthood were established, it may fairly claim the highest and most +unique position among the component parts of the Pentateuch, excepting +only the Ten Commandments. + +Before examining it in detail, the impressive circumstances of its +utterance have to be observed. + +It is written that when the law was given, the voice of the trumpet +waxed louder and louder still. And as the multitude became aware that in +this tempestuous and growing crash there was a living centre, and a +voice of intelligible words, their awe became insufferable: and instead +of needing the barriers which excluded them from the mountain, they +recoiled from their appointed place, trembling and standing afar off. +"And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let +not God speak with us lest we die." It is the same instinct that we have +already so often recognised, the dread of holiness in the hearts of the +impure, the sense of unworthiness, which makes a prophet cry, "Woe is +me, for I am undone!" and an apostle, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful +man." + +Now, the New Testament quotes a confession of Moses himself, well-nigh +overwhelmed, "I do exceedingly fear and quake" (Heb. xii. 21). And yet +we read that he "said unto the people, Fear not, for God is come to +prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not" +(xx. 20). Thus we have the double paradox,--that he exceedingly feared, +yet bade them fear not, and yet again declared that the very object of +God was that they might fear Him. + +Like every paradox, which is not a mere contradiction, this is +instructive. + +There is an abject fear, the dread of cowards and of the guilty, which +masters and destroys the will--the fear which shrank away from the mount +and cried out to Moses for relief. Such fear has torment, and none ought +to admit it who understands that God wishes him well and is merciful. + +There is also a natural agitation, at times inevitable though not +unconquerable, and often strongest in the highest natures because they +are the most finely strung. We are sometimes taught that there is sin in +that instinctive recoil from death, and from whatever brings it close, +which indeed is implanted by God to prevent foolhardiness, and to +preserve the race. Our duty, however, does not require the absence of +sensitive nerves, but only their subjugation and control. Marshal Saxe +was truly brave when he looked at his own trembling frame, as the cannon +opened fire, and said, "Aha! tremblest thou? thou wouldest tremble much +more if thou knewest whither I mean to carry thee to-day." Despite his +fever-shaken nerves, he was perfectly entitled to say to any waverer, +"Fear not." + +And so Moses, while he himself quaked, was entitled to encourage his +people, because he could encourage them, because he saw and announced +the kindly meaning of that tremendous scene, because he dared presently +to draw near unto the thick darkness where God was. + +And therefore the day would come when, with his noble heart aflame for a +yet more splendid vision, he would cry, "O Lord, I beseech Thee show me +Thy glory"--some purer and clearer irradiation, which would neither +baffle the moral sense, nor conceal itself in cloud. + +Meanwhile, there was a fear which should endure, and which God desires: +not panic, but awe; not the terror which stood afar off, but the +reverence which dares not to transgress. "Fear not, for God is come to +prove you" (to see whether the nobler emotion or the baser will +survive), "and that His fear may be before your faces" (so as to guide +you, instead of pressing upon you to crush), "that ye sin not." + +How needful was the lesson, may be seen by what followed when they were +taken at their word, and the pressure of physical dread was lifted off +them. "They soon forgat God their Saviour ... they made a calf in +Horeb, and worshipped the work of their own hands." Perhaps other +pressures which we feel and lament to-day, the uncertainties and fears +of modern life, are equally required to prevent us from forgetting God. + +Of the nobler fear, which is a safeguard of the soul and not a danger, +it is a serious question whether enough is alive among us. + +Much sensational teaching, many popular books and hymns, suggest rather +an irreverent use of the Holy Name, which is profanation, than a filial +approach to a Father equally revered and loved. It is true that we are +bidden to come with boldness to the throne of Grace. Yet the same +Epistle teaches us again that our approach is even more solemn and awful +than to the Mount which might be touched, and the profaning of which was +death; and it exhorts us to have grace whereby we may offer service +well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe, "for our God is a consuming +fire" (Heb. iv. 16, xii. 28). That is the very last grace which some +Christians ever seem to seek. + +When the people recoiled, and Moses, trusting in God, was brave and +entered the cloud, they ceased to have direct communion, and he was +brought nearer to Jehovah than before. + +What is now conveyed to Israel through him is an expansion and +application of the Decalogue, and in turn it becomes the nucleus of the +developed law. Its great antiquity is admitted by the severest critics; +and it is a wonderful example of spirituality and searching depth, and +also of such germinal and fruitful principles as cannot rest in +themselves, literally applied, but must lead the obedient student on to +still better things. + +It is not the function of law to inspire men to obey it; this is +precisely what the law could not do, being weak through the flesh. But +it could arrest the attention and educate the conscience. Simple though +it was in the letter, David could meditate upon it day and night. In the +New Testament we know of two persons who had scrupulously respected its +precepts, but they both, far from being satisfied, were filled with a +divine discontent. One had kept all these things from his youth, yet +felt the need of doing some good thing, and anxiously demanded what it +was that he lacked yet. The other, as touching the righteousness of the +law, was blameless, yet when the law entered, sin revived and slew him. +For the law was spiritual, and reached beyond itself, while he was +carnal, and thwarted by the flesh, sold under sin, even while externally +beyond reproach. + +This subtle characteristic of all noble law will be very apparent in +studying the kernel of the law, the code within the code, which now lies +before us. + +Men sometimes judge the Hebrew legislation harshly, thinking that they +are testing it, as a Divine institution, by the light of this century. +They are really doing nothing of the sort. If there are two principles +of legislation dearer than all others to modern Englishmen, they are the +two which these flippant judgments most ignore, and by which they are +most perfectly refuted. + +One is that institutions educate communities. It is not too much to say +that we have staked the future of our nation, and therefore the hopes of +humanity, upon our conviction that men can be elevated by ennobling +institutions,--that the franchise, for example, is an education as well +as a trust. + +The other, which seems to contradict the first, and does actually modify +it, is that legislation must not move too far in advance of public +opinion. Laws may be highly desirable in the abstract, for which +communities are not yet ripe. A constitution like our own would be +simply ruinous in Hindostan. Many good friends of temperance are the +reluctant opponents of legislation which they desire in theory but which +would only be trampled upon in practice, because public opinion would +rebel against the law. Legislation is indeed educational, but the danger +is that the practical outcome of such legislation would be disobedience +and anarchy. + +Now, these principles are the ample justification of all that startles +us in the Pentateuch. + +Slavery and polygamy, for instance, are not abolished. To forbid them +utterly would have substituted far worse evils, as the Jews then were. +But laws were introduced which vastly ameliorated the condition of the +slave, and elevated the status of woman--laws which were far in advance +of the best Gentile culture, and which so educated and softened the +Jewish character, that men soon came to feel the letter of these very +laws too harsh. + +That is a nobler vindication of the Mosaic legislation than if this +century agreed with every letter of it. To be vital and progressive is a +better thing than to be correct. The law waged a far more effectual war +upon certain evils than by formal prohibition, sound in theory but +premature by centuries. Other good things besides liberty are not for +the nursery or the school. And "we also, when we were children, were +held in bondage" (Gal. iv. 3). + +It is pretty well agreed that this code may be divided into five parts. +To the end of the twentieth chapter it deals directly with the worship +of God. Then follow thirty-two verses treating of the personal rights +of man as distinguished from his rights of property. From the +thirty-third verse of the twenty-first chapter to the fifteenth verse of +the twenty-second, the rights of property are protected. Thence to the +nineteenth verse of the twenty-third chapter is a miscellaneous group of +laws, chiefly moral, but deeply connected with the civil organisation of +the state. And thence to the end of the chapter is an earnest +exhortation from God, introduced by a clearer statement than before of +the manner in which He means to lead them, even by that mysterious Angel +in Whom "is My Name." + + +PART I.--THE LAW OF WORSHIP. + +xx. 22-26. + +It is no vain repetition that this code begins by reasserting the +supremacy of the one God. That principle underlies all the law, and must +be carried into every part of it. And it is now enforced by a new +sanction,--"Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from +heaven: ye shall not make _other gods_ with Me; gods of silver or gods +of gold ye shall not make unto you" (vers. 22, 23). The costliest +material of this low world should be utterly contemned in rivalry with +that spiritual Presence revealing Himself out of a wholly different +sphere; and in so far as they remembered Him, and the Voice which had +thrilled their nature to its core, in so far would they be free from the +desire for any carnal and materialised divinity to go before them. + +Impressed with such views of God, their service of Him would be moulded +accordingly (24, 25). It is true that nothing could be too splendid for +His sanctuary, and Bezaleel was presently to be inspired, that the work +of the tabernacle might be worthy of its destination. Spirituality is +not meanness, nor is art without a consecration of its own. But it must +not intrude too closely upon the solemn act wherein the soul seeks the +pardon of the Creator. The altar should not be a proud structure, richly +sculptured and adorned, and offering in itself, if not an object of +adoration, yet a satisfying centre of attention for the worshipper. It +should be simply a heap of sods. And if they must needs go further, and +erect a more durable pile, it must still be of materials crude, +inartistic, such as the earth itself affords, of unhewn stone. A golden +casket is fit to convey the freedom of some historic city to a prince, +but the noblest offering of man to God is too humble to deserve an +ostentatious altar. + +"If thou lift up a tool upon it thou hast polluted it:" it has lost its +virginal simplicity; it no longer suits a spontaneous offering of the +heart, it has become artificial, sophisticated, self-conscious, +polluted. + +It is vehemently urged that these verses sanction a plurality of altars +(so that one might be of earth and another of stone), and recognise the +lawfulness of worship in other places than at a central appointed +shrine. And it is concluded that early Judaism knew nothing of the +exclusive sanctity of the tabernacle and the temple. + +This argument forgets the circumstances. The Jews had been led to Horeb, +the mount of God. They were soon to wander away thence through the +wilderness. Altars had to be set up in many places, and might be of +different materials. It was an important announcement that in every +place where God would record His name He would come unto them and bless +them. But certainly the inference leans rather toward than against the +belief that it was for Him to select every place which should be sacred. + +The last direction given with regard to worship is a homely one. It +commands that the altar must not be approached with steps, lest the +clothes of the priest should be disturbed and his limbs uncovered. +Already we feel that we have to reckon with the temper as well as the +letter of the precept. It is divinely unlike the frantic indecencies of +many pagan rituals. It protests against all infractions of propriety, +even the slightest, such as even now discredit many a zealous movement, +and bear fruit in many a scandal. It rebukes all misdemeanour, all +forgetfulness in look and gesture of the Sacred Presence, in every +worshipper, at every shrine. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] Prof. Tyndall, _Belfast Address_, p. 60. What progress has +scientific unbelief made since 1874 in solving this "question of +questions for the present hour"? It has perfected the phonograph, but it +has not devised a creed. + +[36] "Or _beside Me_" (R.V.) The preposition is so vague that either of +our English words may suggest quite too definite a meaning, as when +"before Me" is made to mean "in My angry eyes," or "beside Me" is taken +to hint at resentment for intrusion upon the same throne. + +[37] Gury, Compend., i., secs. 607, 623. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +PART II.--RIGHTS OF THE PERSON. + +xxi. 1-32. + +The first words of God from Sinai had declared that He was Jehovah Who +brought them out of slavery. And in this remarkable code, the first +person whose rights are dealt with is the slave. We saw that a +denunciation of all slavery would have been premature, and therefore +unwise; but assuredly the germs of emancipation were already planted by +this giving of the foremost place to the rights of the least of all and +the servant of all. + +As regards the Hebrew slave, the effect was to reduce his utmost bondage +to a comparatively mild apprenticeship. At the worst he should go free +in the seventh year; and if the year of jubilee intervened, it brought a +still speedier emancipation. If his debt or misconduct had involved a +family in his disgrace, they should also share his emancipation, but if +while in bondage his master had provided for his marriage with a slave, +then his family must await their own appointed period of release. It +followed that if he had contracted a degrading alliance with a foreign +slave, his freedom would inflict upon him the pang of final severance +from his dear ones. He might, indeed, escape this pain, but only by a +deliberate and humiliating act, by formally renouncing before the judges +his liberty, the birthright of his nation ("they are My servants, whom I +brought forth out of Egypt, they shall not be sold as +bondservants"--Lev. xxv. 42), and submitting to have his ear pierced, at +the doorpost of his master's house, as if, like that, his body were +become his master's property. It is uncertain, after this decisive step, +whether even the year of jubilee brought him release; and the contrary +seems to be implied in his always bearing about in his body an indelible +and degrading mark. It will be remembered that St. Paul rejoiced to +think that his choice of Christ was practically beyond recall, for the +scars on his body marked the tenacity of his decision (Gal. vi. 17). He +wrote this to Gentiles, and used the Gentile phrase for the branding of +a slave. But beyond question this Hebrew of Hebrews remembered, as he +wrote, that one of his race could incur lifelong subjection only by a +voluntary wound, endured because he loved his master, such as he had +received for love of Jesus. + +When the law came to deal with assaults it was impossible to place the +slave upon quite the same level as the freeman. But Moses excelled the +legislators of Greece and Rome, by making an assault or chastisement +which killed him upon the spot as worthy of death as if a freeman had +been slain. It was only the victim who lingered that died comparatively +unavenged (20, 21). After all, chastisement was a natural right of the +master, because he owned him ("he is his money"); and it would be hard +to treat an excess of what was permissible, inflicted perhaps under +provocation which made some punishment necessary, on the same lines with +an assault that was entirely lawless. But there was this grave restraint +upon bad temper,--that the loss of any member, and even of the tooth of +a slave, involved his instant manumission. And this carried with it the +principle of moral responsibility for every hurt (26, 27). + +It was not quite plain that these enactments extended to the Gentile +slave. But in accordance with the assertion that the whole spirit of the +statutes was elevating, the conclusion arrived at by the later +authorities was the generous one. + +When it is added that man-stealing (upon which all our modern systems of +slavery were founded) was a capital offence, without power of +commutation for a fine (xxi. 16), it becomes clear that the advocates of +slavery appeal to Moses against the outraged conscience of humanity +without any shadow of warrant either from the letter or the spirit of +the code. + +There remains to be considered a remarkable and melancholy sub-section +of the law of slavery. + +In every age degraded beings have made gain of the attractions of their +daughters. With them, the law attempted nothing of moral influence. But +it protected their children, and brought pressure to bear upon the +tempter, by a series of firm provisions, as bold as the age could bear, +and much in advance of the conscience of too many among ourselves +to-day. + +The seduction of any unbetrothed maiden involved marriage, or the +payment of a dowry. And thus one door to evil was firmly closed (xxii. +16). + +But when a man purchased a female slave, with the intention of making +her an inferior wife, whether for himself or for his son (such only are +the purchases here dealt with, and an ordinary female slave was treated +upon the same principles as a man), she was far from being the sport of +his caprice. If indeed he repented at once, he might send her back, or +transfer her to another of her countrymen upon the same terms, but when +once they were united she was protected against his fickleness. He might +not treat her as a servant or domestic, but must, even if he married +another and probably a chief wife, continue to her all the rights and +privileges of a wife. Nor was her position a temporary one, to her +damage, as that of an ordinary slave was, to his benefit. + +And if there was any failure to observe these honourable terms, she +could return with unblemished reputation to her father's home, without +forfeiture of the money which had been paid for her (xxi. 7-11). + +Does any one seriously believe that a system like the African slave +trade could have existed in such a humane and genial atmosphere as these +enactments breathed? Does any one who knows the plague spot and disgrace +of our modern civilisation suppose for a moment that more could have +been attempted, in that age, for the great cause of purity? Would to God +that the spirit of these enactments were even now respected! They would +make of us, as they have made of the Hebrew nation unto this day, models +of domestic tenderness, and of the blessings in health and physical +vigour which an untainted life bestows upon communities. + +By such checks upon the degradation of slavery, the Jew began to learn +the great lesson of the sanctity of manhood. The next step was to teach +him the value of life, not only in the avenging of murder, but also in +the mitigation of such revenge. The blood-feud was too old, too natural +a practice to be suppressed at once; but it was so controlled and +regulated as to become little more than a part of the machinery of +justice. + +A premeditated murder was inexpiable, not to be ransomed; the murderer +must surely die. Even if he fled to the altar of God, intending to +escape thence to a city of refuge when the avenger ceased to watch, he +should be torn from that holy place: to shelter him would not be an +honour, but a desecration to the shrine (xxi. 12, 14). According to this +provision Joab and Adonijah suffered. For the slayer by accident or in +hasty quarrel, "a place whither he shall flee" would be provided, and +the vague phrase indicates the antiquity of the edict (ver. 13). This +arrangement at once respected his life, which did not merit forfeiture, +and provided a penalty for his rashness or his passion. + +It is because the question in hand is the sanctity of man, that the +capital punishment of a son who strikes or curses a parent, the +vicegerent of God, and of a kidnapper, is interposed between these +provisions and minor offences against the person (15-17). + +Of these latter, the first is when lingering illness results from a blow +received in a quarrel. This was not a case for the stern rule, eye for +eye and tooth for tooth,--for how could that rule be applied to it?--but +the violent man should pay for his victim's loss of time, and for +medical treatment until he was thoroughly recovered (18, 19). + +But what is to be said to the general law of retribution in kind? Our +Lord has forbidden a Christian, in his own case, to exact it. But it +does not follow that it was unjust, since Christ plainly means to +instruct private persons not to exact their rights, whereas the +magistrate continues to be "a revenger to execute justice." And, as St. +Augustine argued shrewdly, "this command was not given for exciting the +fires of hatred, but to restrain them. For who would easily be satisfied +with repaying as much injury as he received? Do we not see men slightly +hurt athirst for slaughter and blood?... Upon this immoderate and unjust +vengeance, the law imposed a just limit, not that what was quenched +might be kindled, but that what was burning might not spread." (Cont. +Faust, xix. 25.) + +It is also to be observed that by no other precept were the Jews more +clearly led to a morality still higher than it prescribed. Their +attention was first drawn to the fact that a compensation in money was +nowhere forbidden, as in the case of murder (Num. xxxv. 31). Then they +went on to argue that such compensation must have been intended, because +its literal observance teemed with difficulties. If an eye were injured +but not destroyed, who would undertake to inflict an equivalent hurt? +What if a blind man destroyed an eye? Would it be reasonable to quench +utterly the sight of a one-eyed man who had only destroyed one-half of +the vision of his neighbour? Should the right hand of a painter, by +which he maintains his family, be forfeited for that of a singer who +lives by his voice? Would not the cold and premeditated operation +inflict far greater mental and even physical suffering than a sudden +wound received in a moment of excitement? By all these considerations, +drawn from the very principle which underlay the precept, they learned +to relax its pressure in actual life. The law was already their +schoolmaster, to lead them beyond itself (_vide_ Kalisch _in loco_). + +Lastly, there is the question of injury to the person, wrought by +cattle. + +It is clearly to deepen the sense of reverence for human life, that not +only must the ox which kills a man be slain, but his flesh may not be +eaten; thus carrying further the early aphorism "at the hand of every +beast will I require ... your blood" (Gen. ix. 5). This motive, however, +does not betray the lawgiver into injustice: "the owner of the ox shall +be quit"; the loss of his beast is his sufficient penalty. + +But if its evil temper has been previously observed, and he has been +warned, then his recklessness amounts to blood-guiltiness, and he must +die, or else pay whatever ransom is laid upon him. This last clause +recognises the distinction between his guilt and that of a deliberate +man-slayer, for whose crime the law distinctly prohibited a composition +(Num. xxxv. 31). + +And it is expressly provided, according to the honourable position of +woman in the Hebrew state, that the penalty for a daughter's life shall +be the same as for that of a son. + +As a slave was exposed to especial risk, and his position was an ignoble +one, a fixed composition was appointed, and the amount was memorable. +The ransom of a common slave, killed by the horns of the wild oxen, was +thirty pieces of silver, the goodly price that Messiah was prized at of +them (Zech. xi. 13). + + +PART III.--RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. + +xxi. 33-xxii. 15. + +The vital and quickening principle in this section is the stress it lays +upon man's responsibility for negligence, and the indirect consequences +of his deed. All sin is selfish, and all selfishness ignores the right +of others. Am I my brother's keeper? Let him guard his own property or +pay the forfeit. But this sentiment would quickly prove a disintegrating +force in the community, able to overthrow a state. It is the ignoble +negative of public spirit; patriotism, all by which nations prosper. And +this early legislation is well devised to check it in detail. If an ox +fall into a pit or cistern, from which I have removed the cover, I must +pay the value of the beast, and take the carcase for what it may be +worth. I ought to have considered the public interest (xxi. 33). If I +let my cattle stray into my neighbour's field or vineyard, there must be +no wrangling about the quality of what he has consumed: I must forfeit +an equal quantity of the best of my own field or vineyard (xxii. 5). If +a fire of my kindling burn his grain, standing or piled, I must make +restitution: I had no right to kindle it where he was brought into +hazard (xxii. 6). This is the same principle which had already +pronounced it murder to let a vicious ox go loose. And it has to do with +graver things than oxen and fires,--with the teachers of principles +rightly called incendiary, the ingenious theorists who let loose +abstract speculations pernicious when put into practice, the +well-behaved questioners of morality, and the law-abiding assailants of +the foundations which uphold law. + +It is quite in the same spirit that I am accountable for what I borrow +or hire, and even for its accidental death (since for the time being it +was mine, and so should the loss be); but if I hired the owner with his +beast, it clearly continued to be in his charge (14, 15). But again, my +responsibility may not be pressed too far. If I have not borrowed +property, but consented to keep it for the owner, the risk is fairly +his, and if it be stolen, the presumption is not against my integrity, +although I may be required to clear myself on oath before the judges (7, +8). But I am accountable in such a case for cattle, because it was +certainly understood that I should watch them; and if a wild beast have +torn any, I must prove my courage and vigilance by rescuing the carcase +and producing it (10-13). + +But I must not be plunged into litigation without a compensating hazard +on the other side: he whom God shall condemn shall pay double unto his +neighbour (9). + +It only remains to be observed, with regard to theft, that when cattle +was recovered yet alive, the thief restored double, but when his act was +consummated by slaughtering what he had taken, then he restored a sheep +fourfold, and for an ox five oxen, because his villainy was more +high-handed. And we still retain the law which allows the blood of a +robber at night to be shed, but forbids it in the day, when help can +more easily be had. + +All this is reasonable and enlightened law; founded, like all good +legislation, upon clear and satisfactory principles, and well calculated +to elevate the tone of the public feeling, to be not only so many +specific enactments, but also the germinant seeds of good. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +PART IV. + +xxii. 16-xxiii. 19. + +The Fourth section of this law within the law consists of enactments, +curiously disconnected, many of them without a penalty, varying greatly +in importance, but all of a moral nature, and connected with the +well-being of the state. It is hard to conceive how the systematic +revision of which we hear so much could have left them in the condition +in which they stand. + +It is enacted that a seducer must marry the woman he has betrayed, and +if her father refuse to give her to him, then he must pay the same dower +as a bridegroom would have done (xxii. 16, 17). And presently the +sentence of death is launched against a blacker sensual crime (19). But +between the two is interposed the celebrated mandate which doomed the +sorceress to death, remarkable as the first mention of witchcraft in +Scripture, and the only passage in all the Bible where the word is in +the feminine form--a witch, or sorceress; remarkable also for a far +graver reason, which makes it necessary to linger over the subject at +some length. + + +SORCERY. + + "Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live."--xxii. 18. + +The world knows only too well what sad and shameful inferences have been +drawn from these words. Unspeakable terrors, estrangement of natural +sympathy, tortures and cruel deaths, have been inflicted on many +thousands of the most forlorn creatures upon earth (creatures who were +sustained in their sufferings by no high ardour of conviction or +fanaticism, not being martyrs but simply victims), because it was held +that Moses, in declaring that witches should not live, affirmed the +reality of witchcraft. No sooner did the argument cease to be dangerous +to old women than it became formidable to religion; for now it was urged +that, since Moses was in error about the reality of witchcraft, his +legislation could not have been inspired. + +What are we to say to this? + +In the first place it must be observed that the existence of a sorcerer +is one thing, and the reality of his powers is quite another. What was +most sad and shameful in the medival frenzy was the burning to ashes of +multitudes who made no pretensions to traffic with the invisible world, +who frequently held fast their innocence while enduring the agonies of +torture, who were only aged and ugly and alone. Upon any theory, the +prohibition of sorcery by the Pentateuch was no more answerable for +these iniquities than its other prohibitions for the lynch law of the +backwoods. + +On the other hand, there were real professors of the black art: men did +pretend to hold intercourse with spirits, and extorted great sums from +their dupes in return for bringing them also into communion with +superhuman beings. These it is reasonable to call sorcerers, whether we +accept their professions or not, just as we speak of thought-readers and +of mediums without being understood to commit ourselves to the +pretensions of either one or other. In point of fact, the existence, in +this nineteenth century after Christ, of sorcerers calling themselves +mediums, is much more surprising than the existence of other sorcerers +in the time of Moses or of Saul; and it bears startling witness to the +depth in human nature of that craving for traffic with invisible powers +which the law prohibited so sternly, but the roots of which neither +religion nor education nor scepticism has been able wholly to pluck up. + +Again, from the point of view which Moses occupied, it is plain that +such professors should be punished. They are virtually punished still, +whenever they obtain money under pretence of granting interviews with +the departed. If we now rely chiefly upon educated public opinion to +stamp out such impositions, that is because we have decided that a +struggle between truth and falsehood upon equal terms will be +advantageous to the former. It is a subdivision of the debate between +intolerance and free thought. Our theory works well, but not universally +well, even under modern conditions and in Christian lands. And assuredly +Moses could not proclaim freedom of opinion, among uneducated slaves, +amid the pressure of splendid and of seductive idolatries, and before +the Holy Ghost was given. To complain of Moses for proscribing false +religions would be to denounce the use of glass for seedlings because +the full-grown plant flourishes in the open air. + +Now, it would have been preposterous to proscribe false religions and +yet to tolerate the sorcerer and the sorceress. For these were the +active practitioners of another worship than that of God. They might not +profess idolatry; but they offered help and guidance from sources which +Jehovah frowned upon, rival sources of defence or knowledge. + +The holy people was meant to grow up under the most elevating of all +influences, reliance upon a protecting God, Who had bidden His children +to subdue the world as well as to replenish it, and of Whom one of their +own poets sang that He had put all things under the feet of man. Their +true heritage was not bounded by the strip of land which Joshua and his +followers slowly conquered; to them belonged all the resources of nature +which science, ever since, has wrested from the Philistine hands of +barbarism and ignorance. And this nobler conquest depended upon the +depth and sincerity of man's feeling that the world is well-ordered and +stable and the heritage of man, not a chaos of various and capricious +powers, where Pallas inspires Diomed to hunt Venus bleeding off the +field, or where the incantations of Canidia may disturb the orderly +movements of the skies. Who could hope to discover by inductive science +the secrets of such a world as this? + +The devices of magic cut the links between cause and effect, between +studious labour and the fruits which sorcery bade men to steal rather +than to cultivate. What gambling was to commerce, that was witchcraft to +philosophy, and the mischief no more depended on the validity of its +methods than upon the soundness of the last device for breaking the bank +at Monte Carlo. + +If one could actually extort their secrets from the dead, or win for +luxury and sloth a longer life than is bestowed upon temperance and +labour, he would succeed in his revolt against the God of nature. But +the revolt was the endeavour; and the sorcerer, however falsely, +professed to have succeeded; and preached the same revolt to others. In +religion he was therefore an apostate, and in the theocracy a traitor +against the King, one whose life was forfeited if it was prudent to +exact the penalty. + +And when we consider the fascination wielded by such pretensions, even +in ages when the stability of nature is an axiom, the dread which false +religions all around and their terrible rituals must have inspired, the +superstitious tendencies of the people and their readiness to be misled, +we shall see ample reasons for treading out the first sparks of so +dangerous a fire. + +Beyond this it is vain to pretend that the law of Moses goes. It was +right in declaring the sorcerer and the sorceress to be real and +dangerous phenomena. It never declared their pretensions to be valid +though illegitimate. And in one noteworthy passage it proclaims that a +real sign or a wonder could only proceed from God, and when it +accompanied false teaching was still a sign, though an ominous one, +implying that the Lord would prove them (Deut. xiii. 1-3). This does not +look very like an admission of the existence of rival powers, inferior +though they might be, who could interfere with the order of His world. + +Sorcery in all its forms will die when men realise indeed that the world +is His, that there is no short or crooked way to the prizes which He +offers to wisdom and to labour, that these rewards are infinitely richer +and more splendid than the wildest dreams of magic, and that it is +literally true that all power, in earth as well as heaven, is committed +into the Hands which were pierced for us. In such a conception of the +universe, incantations give place to prayers, and prayer does not seek +to disturb, but to carry forward and to consummate, the orderly rule of +Love. + +The denunciation of witchcraft is quite naturally followed, as we now +perceive, by the reiteration of the command that no sacrifice may be +offered to any god except Jehovah (20). Strange and hateful offerings +were an integral part of witchcraft, long before the hags of Macbeth +brewed their charm, or the child in Horace famished to yield a spell. + + +THE STRANGER. + +xxii. 21, xxiii. 9. + +Immediately after this, a ray of sunlight falls upon the sombre page. + +We read an exhortation rather than a statute, which is repeated almost +literally in the next chapter, and in both is supported by a beautiful +and touching reason. "A stranger shalt thou not wrong, neither shall ye +oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." "A stranger +shall ye not oppress, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye +were strangers in the land of Egypt" (xxii. 21, xxiii. 9). + +The "stranger" of these verses is probably the settler among them, as +distinguished from the traveller passing through the land. His want of +friends and ignorance of their social order would place him at a +disadvantage, of which they are forbidden to avail themselves, either by +legal process (for the first passage is connected with jurisprudence), +or in the affairs of common life. But the spirit of the commandment +could not fail to influence their treatment of all foreigners; and +simple and commonplace though it appear to us, it would have startled +many of the wisest and greatest peoples of antiquity, and would have +fallen as strangely upon the ears of the Greeks of Pericles, as of the +modern Bedouin, with whom Israel had kinship. A foreigner, as such, was +a foe: to wrong him was a paradox, because he had no rights: kinship, or +else alliance or treaty was required to entitle the weaker to any better +treatment than it suited the stronger to allow. + +Yet we find a precept reiterated in this Jewish code which involves, in +its inevitable though slow development, the abolition of negro slavery, +the respect by powerful and civilised nations of the rights of +indigenous tribes, the most boundless advance of philanthropy, through +the most generous recognition of the fraternity of man. + +However sternly the sword of Joshua might fall, it struck not at the +foreigner, as such, but at those tribes, guilty and therefore accursed +of God, the cup of whose iniquity was full. And yet there was enough of +carnage to prove that so gracious a commandment as this could not have +risen spontaneously in the heart of early Judaism. Does it seem to be +made more natural, by any proposed shifting of the date? + +The reason of the precept is beautifully human. It rests upon no +abstract basis of common rights, nor prudential consideration of mutual +advantage. + +In our time it is sometimes proposed to build all morality upon such +foundations; and strange consequences have already been deduced in cases +where the proposed sanction has not seemed to apply. But, in fact, no +advance in virtue has ever been traced to self-interest, although, +after the advance took place, self-interest has always found its account +in it. A progressive community is made of good men, and the motive to +which Moses appeals is compassion fed by memory: "For ye were strangers +in the land of Egypt" (xxii. 21); "For ye know the heart of a stranger, +seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (xxiii. 9). + +The point is not that they may again be carried into captivity: it is +that they have felt its bitterness, and ought to recoil from inflicting +what they writhed under. + +Now, this appeal is a master-stroke of wisdom. Much cruelty, and almost +all the cruelty of the young, springs from ignorance, and that slowness +of the imagination which cannot realise that the pains of others are +like our own. Feeling them to be so, the charities of the poor toward +one another frequently rise almost to sublimity. And thus, when +suffering does not ulcerate the heart and make it savage, it is the most +softening of all influences. In one of the most threadbare lines in the +classics, the queen of Carthage boasts that + + "I, not ignorant of woe, + To pity the distressful know." + +And the boldest assertion in Scripture of the natural development of our +Saviour's human powers, is that which declares that "In that He Himself +hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are +tempted" (Heb. ii. 18). + +To this principle, then, Moses appeals, and by the appeal he educates +the heart. He bids the people reflect on their own cruel hardships, on +the hateful character of their tyrants, on their own greater hatefulness +if they follow the vile example, after such bitter experience of its +character. He does not yet rise to the grand level of the New Testament +morality, Do all to thy neighbour which it is not servile and dependent +to will that he should do for thee. But he attains to the level of that +precept of Confucius and Zoroaster which has been so unworthily compared +with it: Do not unto thy neighbour what thou wouldest not that he should +do to thee--a precept which mere indifference obeys. Nay, he excels it; +for the mental and spiritual attitude of one who respects his helpless +neighbour because he so much resembles himself, will surely not be +content without relieving the griefs that have so closely touched him. +Thus again the legislation of Moses looks beyond itself. + +Now, if the Jew should be merciful because he had himself known +calamity, what implicit confidence may we repose upon the Man of sorrows +and acquainted with grief? + +In the same spirit they are warned against afflicting the widow or the +orphan. And the threat which is added joins hand with the exhortation +which preceded. They should not oppress the stranger, because they had +been strangers and oppressed. Now the argument advances. The same God +Who then heard their cry will hear the cry of the forlorn, and avenge +them, according to the judicial fate which He had just announced, in +kind, by bringing their own wives to widowhood and their children to +orphanage (xxii. 22-4). + +To their brethren they should not lend money upon usury; but loans are +no more recommended than afterwards by Solomon: the words are "if thou +lend" (ver. 25). And if the raiment of the borrower were taken for a +pledge, it must be returned for him to use at night, or else God will +hear his cry, because, it is added very significantly and briefly, "I +am gracious" (ver. 27). It is the most exalting of all motives: Be +merciful, for I am merciful: ye shall be the children of your Father. + +Again is to be observed the influence reaching beyond the +prescription--the motive which cannot be felt without many other and +larger consequences than the restoration of pledges at sunset. + +How comes this precept to be followed by the words, "Thou shalt not +curse God nor blaspheme a ruler" (ver. 28)? and is not this again +somewhat strangely followed by the order not to delay to offer the +firstfruits of the soil, to consecrate the firstborn son, and to devote +the firstborn of cattle at the same age when a son ought to be +circumcised? (vers. 29, 30). + +If any link can be discovered, it is in the sense of communion with God, +suggested by the recent appeal to His character as a motive that should +weigh with man. Therefore they must not blaspheme Him, either directly +or through His agents, nor tardily yield Him what He claims. Therefore +it is added, "Ye shall be holy men unto Me," and from the sense of +dignity which religion thus inspires, a homely corollary is deduced--"Ye +shall not eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field" (ver. 31). +The bondmen of Egypt must learn a high-minded self-respect. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +xxiii. 1-19. + +The twenty-third chapter begins with a series of commands bearing upon +the course of justice; but among these there is interjected very +curiously a command to bring back the stray ox or ass of an enemy, and +to help under a burden the over-weighted ass of him that hateth thee, +even "if thou wouldest forbear to help him." It is just possible that +the lawgiver, urging justice in the bearing of testimony, interrupts +himself to speak of a very different manner in which the action may be +warped by prejudice, but in which (unlike the other) it is lawful to +show not only impartiality but kindness. The help of the cattle of one's +enemy shows that in the bearing of testimony we should not merely +abstain from downright wrong. And it is a fine example of the spirit of +the New Testament, in the Old. + +"Thou shalt not take up a false report" (ver. 1) is a precept which +reaches far. How many heedless whispers, conjectures lightly spoken +because they were amusing, yet influencing the course of lives, and +inferences uncharitably drawn, would have been still-born if this had +been remembered! + +But when the scandal is already abroad, the temptation to aid its +progress is still greater. Therefore it is added, "Put not thine hand +with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness." Whatever be the menace or +the bribe, however the course of opinion seem to be decided, and the +assent of an individual to be harmless because the result is sure, or +blameless because the responsibility lies elsewhere, still each man is a +unit, not an "item," and must act for himself, as hereafter he must give +account. Hence it results inevitably that "Thou shalt not follow a +multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside +after a multitude to wrest judgment" (ver. 2). The blind impulses of a +multitude are often as misleading as the solicitations of the bad, and +to aspiring temperaments much more seductive. There is indeed a strange +magnetism in the voice of the public. Every orator knows that a great +assembly acts upon the speaker as really as he acts upon it: its +emotions are like a rush of waters to sweep him away, beyond his +intentions or his ordinary powers. Yet he is the strongest individual +there; no other has at all the same opportunity for self-assertion, and +therefore its power over others must be more complete than over him. + +This is one reason for the institution of public worship. Men neglect +the house of God because they can pray as well at home, and encourage +wanton subdivisions of the Church because they think there is no very +palpable difference between competing denominations, or even because +competition may be as useful in religion as in trade, as if our +competition with the world and the devil for souls would not +sufficiently animate us, without competing with one another. But in +acting thus they weaken the effect for good of one of the mightiest +influences which work evil among us, the influence of association. Men +are always persuading themselves that they need not be better than their +neighbours, nor ashamed of doing what every one does. And yet no voice +joins in a cry without deepening it: every one who rushes with a crowd +makes its impulse more difficult to stem; his individuality is not lost +by its partnership with a thousand more; and he is accountable for what +he contributes to the result. He has parted with his self-control, but +not with the inner forces which he ought to have controlled. + +Against this dangerous influence of the world, Christ has set the +contagion of godliness within His Church, and every avoidable +subdivision enfeebles this salutary counter-influence. + +Moses warns us, therefore, of the danger of being drawn away by a +multitude to do evil; but he is thinking especially of the peril of +being tempted to "speak" amiss. Who does not know it? From the statesman +who outruns his convictions rather than break with his party, and who +cannot, amid deafening cheers, any longer hear his conscience speak, +down to the humblest who fails to confess Christ before hostile men, and +therefore by-and-by denies Him, there is not one whose speech and +silence have never been in danger of being set to the sympathies of his +own little public like a song to music. + +That Moses was really thinking of this tendency to court popularity, is +plain from the next clause--"Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his +cause" (ver. 3). + +It is an admirable caution. Men there are who would scorn the opposite +injustice, and from whom no rich man could buy a wrongful decision with +gold or favour, but who are habitually unjust, because they load the +other scale. The beam ought to hang straight. When justice is concerned, +the poor man's friend is almost as contemptible as his foe, and he has +taken a bribe, if not in the mean enjoyment of democratic popularity, +yet in his own pride--the fancy that he has done a magnanimous act, the +attitude in which he poses. + +As in law so in literature. There once was a tendency to describe +magnanimous persons of quality, and repulsive clodhoppers and villagers. +Times have changed, and now we think it much more ingenious and +high-toned to be quite as partial and disingenuous, reversing the cases. +Neither is true, and therefore neither is artistic. No class in society +is deficient in noble qualities, or in base ones. Nor is the man of +letters at all more independent, who flatters the democracy in a +democratic age, than he who flattered the aristocracy when they had all +the prizes to bestow. + +Other precepts forbid bribery, command that the soil shall rest in the +seventh year, when its spontaneous produce shall be for the poor, and +further recognise and consecrate relaxation, by instituting (or more +probably adopting into the code) the three feasts of Passover, +Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The section closes with the words "Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk" (ver. 19). Upon this clause +much ingenuity has been expended. It makes occult reference to some +superstitious rite. It is the name for some unduly stimulating compound. +But when we remember that, just before, the sabbatical fruit which the +poor left ungleaned was expressly reserved for the beasts of the field, +that men were bidden to help the overladen ass of their enemies, and +that care is taken elsewhere that the ox should not be muzzled when +treading out grain, that the birdnester should not take the dam with the +young, and that neither cow nor ewe should be slain on the same day with +its young (Deut. xxv. 4, xxii. 6; Lev. xxii. 28), the simplest meaning +seems also the most probable. Men, who have been taught respect for +their fellow-men, are also to learn a fine sensibility even in respect +to the inferior animals. Throughout all this code there is an exquisite +tendency to form a considerate, humane, delicate and high-minded nation. + +It remained, to stamp upon the human conscience a deep sense of +responsibility. + + +PART V.--ITS SANCTIONS. + +xxiii. 20-33. + +This summary of Judaism being now complete, the people have to learn +what mighty issues are at stake upon their obedience. And the transition +is very striking from the simplest duty to the loftiest privilege: "Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. Behold, I send an Angel +before thee.... Beware of him: for My Name is in him" (19-21). + +We have now to ask how much this mysterious phrase involves; who was the +Angel of whom it speaks? + +The question is not, How much did Israel at that moment comprehend? For +we are distinctly told that prophets were conscious of speaking more +than they understood, and searched diligently but in vain what the +spirit that was in them did signify (1 Peter i. 11). + +It would, in fact, be absurd to seek the New Testament doctrine of the +Logos full-blown in the Pentateuch. But it is mere prejudice, +unphilosophical and presumptuous, to shut one's eyes against any +evidence which may be forthcoming that the earliest books of Scripture +were tending towards the last conclusions of theology; that the slender +overture to the Divine oratorio indicates already the same theme which +thunders from all the chorus at the close. + +It is scarcely necessary to refute the position that a mere "messenger" +is intended, because angels have not yet "appeared as personal agents +separate from God." Kalisch himself has amply refuted his own theory. +For, he says, "we are compelled ... to refer it to Moses and his +successor Joshua" (_in loco_). So then He Who will not forgive their +transgressions is he who prayed that if God would not pardon them, his +own name might be blotted from the book of life. He, to whom afterwards +God said "I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee" (xxxiii. +19), is the same of Whom God said "My name is in Him." This position +needs no examination; but the perplexities of those who reject the +deeper interpretation is a strong confirmation of its soundness. We have +still to choose between the promise of a created angel, and some +manifestation and interposition of God, distinguished from Jehovah and +yet one with Him. This latter view is an evident preparation for clearer +knowledge yet to come. It is enough to stamp the dispensation which puts +it forth as but provisional, and therefore bears witness to that other +dispensation which has the key to it. And it is exactly what a Christian +would expect to find somewhere in this summary of the law. + +What, then, do we read elsewhere about the Angel of Jehovah? What do we +find, especially, in these early books? + +A difficulty has to be met at the very outset. The issue would be +decided offhand, if it could be shown that the Angel of this verse is +the same who is offered, as a poor substitute for their Divine +protector, in the thirty-third chapter. But no contrast can be clearer +than between the encouraging promise before us, and the sharp menace +which then plunged Israel into mourning. Here is an Angel who must not +be provoked, who will not pardon you, because "My Name is in Him." There +is an angel who will be sent because God will not go up, ... lest He +consume them (vers. 2, 3). He is not the Angel of God's presence, but of +His absence. When the intercession of Moses won from God a reversal of +the sentence, He then said "My Presence (My Face) shall go with thee, +and I will give thee rest,"[38] but Moses answers, not yet reassured, +"If Thy Presence (Thy Face) go not up with us, carry us not up hence. +For wherein shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight?... +Is it not that Thou goest with us? And the Lord said, I will do this +thing also that thou hast spoken" (14-17). + +Moreover, Isaiah, speaking of this time, says that "In all their +affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence (His Face) +saved them" (Isa. lxiii. 9). + +Thus we find that some angel is to be sent because God will not go up: +that thereupon the nation mourns, although in this twenty-third chapter +they had received as a gladdening promise, the assurance of an Angel +escort in Whom is the name of God; that in response to prayer God +promises that His Face shall accompany them, so that it may be known +that He Himself goes with them; and finally that His Face in Exodus is +the Angel of His Face in Isaiah. The prophet at least had no doubt +whether the gracious promise in the twenty-third chapter answered, in +the thirty-third chapter, to the third verse or the fourteenth--to the +menace, or to the restored favour. + +This difficulty being now converted into an evidence, we turn back to +examine other passages. + +When the Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar, "she called the name of +Jehovah that spake unto her El Roi" (Gen. xvi. 11, 13). When God tempted +Abraham, "the Angel of Jehovah called unto him out of heaven, and said, +... I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son +... from Me" (Gen. xxii. 11, 12). When a man wrestled with Jacob, he +thereupon claimed to have seen God face to face, and called the place +Peniel, the Face (Presence) of God (Gen. xxxii. 4, 30). But Hosea tells +us that "He had power with God: yea, he had power over the Angel, ... +and there He spake with us, even Jehovah, the God of hosts" (Hos. xii. +3, 5). Even earlier, in his exile, the Angel of the Lord had appeared +unto him and said, "I am the God of Bethel ... where thou vowedst a vow +unto Me." But the vow was distinctly made to God Himself: "I will surely +give the tenth to Thee" (xxxi. 11, 13; xxviii. 20, 22). Is it any wonder +that when this patriarch blessed Joseph, he said, "The God before whom +my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my +life long unto this day, the Angel which hath redeemed me from all +evil, (may He) bless the lads" (xlviii. 15, 16)? + +In Exodus iii. 2 the Angel of the Lord appeared out of the bush. But +presently He changes into Jehovah Himself, and announces Himself to be +Jehovah the God of their fathers (iii. 2, 4, 15). In Exodus xiii. 21 +Jehovah went before Israel, but the next chapter tells how "the Angel of +the Lord which went before Israel removed and went behind" (xiv. 19); +while Numbers (xx. 16) says expressly that "He sent an Angel and brought +us out of Egypt." + +By the comparison of these and many later passages (which is nothing but +the scientific process of induction, leaning not on the weight of any +single verse, but on the drift and tendency of all the phenomena) we +learn that God was already revealing Himself through a Medium, a +distinct personality whom He could send, yet not so distinct but that +His name was in Him, and He Himself was the Author of what He did. + +If Israel obeyed Him, He would bring them into the promised land (ver. +23); and if there they continued unseduced by false worships, He would +bless their provisions, their bodily frame, their children; He would +bring terror and a hornet against their foes; He would clear the land +before them as fast as their population could enjoy it; He would extend +their boundaries yet farther, from the Red Sea, where Solomon held Ezion +Geber (1 Kings ix. 26), to the Mediterranean, and from the desert where +they stood to the Euphrates, where Solomon actually possessed Palmyra +and Thiphsah (2 Chron. viii. 4; 1 Kings iv. 24). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[38] Even if the rendering were accepted, "Must My Presence (My Face) go +with thee?" (Can I not be trusted without a direct Presence?) the +argument would not be affected, because Moses presses for the favour and +obtains it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +_THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD._ + +xxiv. + +The opening words of this chapter ("Come up unto the Lord") imply, +without explicitly asserting, that Moses was first sent down to convey +to Israel the laws which had just been enacted. + +This code they unanimously accepted, and he wrote it down. It is a +memorable statement, recording the origin of the first portion of Holy +Scripture that ever existed as such, whatever earlier writings may now +or afterwards have been incorporated in the Pentateuch. He then built an +altar for God, and twelve pillars for the tribes, and sacrificed +burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the Lord. Sin-offerings, it +will be observed, were not yet instituted; and neither was the +priesthood, so that young men slew the offerings. Half of the blood was +poured upon the altar, because God had perfected His share in the +covenant. The remainder was not used until the law had been read aloud, +and the people had answered with one voice, "All that the Lord hath +commanded will we do, and will be obedient." Thereupon they too were +sprinkled with the blood, and the solemn words were spoken, "Behold the +blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all +these words." The people were now finally bound: no later covenant of +the same kind will be found in the Old Testament. + +And now the principle began to work which was afterwards embodied in the +priesthood. That principle, stated broadly, was exclusion from the +presence of God, relieved and made hopeful by the admission of +representatives. The people were still forbidden to approach, under pain +of death. But Moses and Aaron were no longer the only ones to cross the +appointed boundaries. With them came the two sons of Aaron, (afterwards, +despite their privilege, to meet a dreadful doom,) and also seventy +representatives of all the newly covenanted people. Joshua, too, as the +servant of Moses, was free to come, although unspecified in the summons +(vers. 1, 13). + +"They saw the God of Israel," and under His feet the blueness of the sky +like intense sapphire. And they were secure: they beheld God, and ate +and drank. + +But in privilege itself there are degrees: Moses was called up still +higher, and left Aaron and Hur to govern the people while he communed +with his God. For six days the nation saw the flanks of the mountain +swathed in cloud, and its summit crowned with the glory of Jehovah like +devouring fire. Then Moses entered the cloud, and during forty days they +knew not what had become of him. Was it time lost? Say rather that all +time is wasted except what is spent in communion, direct or indirect, +with the Eternal. + +The narrative is at once simple and sublime. We are sometimes told that +other religions besides our own rely for sanction upon their +supernatural origin. "Zarathustra, Skya-Mooni and Mahomed pass among +their followers for envoys of the Godhead; and in the estimation of the +Brahmin the Vedas and the laws of Manou are holy, divine books" (Kuenen, +_Religion of Israel_, i. 6). This is true. But there is a wide +difference between nations which assert that God privately appeared to +their teachers, and a nation which asserts that God appeared to the +public. It is not upon the word of Moses that Israel is said to have +believed; and even those who reject the narrative are not entitled to +confound it with narratives utterly dissimilar. There is not to be found +anywhere a parallel for this majestic story. + +But what are we to think of the assertion that God was seen to stand +upon a burning mountain? + +He it is Whom no man hath seen or can see, and in His presence the +seraphim veil their faces. + +It will not suffice to answer that Moses "endured as seeing Him that is +invisible" (Heb. xi. 27), for the paraphrase is many centuries later, +and hostile critics will rule it out of court as an after-thought. At +least, however, it proves that the problem was faced long ago, and tells +us what solution satisfied the early Church. + +With this clue before us, we ask what notion did the narrative really +convey to its ancient readers? If our defence is to be thoroughly +satisfactory, it must show an escape from heretical and carnal notions +of deity, not only for ourselves, but also for careful readers from the +very first. + +Now it is certain that no such reader could for one moment think of a +manifestation thorough, exhaustive, such as the eye receives of colour +and of form. Because the effect produced is not satisfaction, but +desire. Each new vision deepens the sense of the unseen. Thus we read +first that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders, saw +God, from which revelation the people felt and knew themselves to be +excluded. And yet the multitude also had a vision according to its power +to see; and indeed it was more satisfying to them than was the most +profound insight enjoyed by Moses. To see God is to sail to the horizon: +when you arrive, the horizon is as far in front as ever; but you have +gained a new consciousness of infinitude. "The appearance of the glory +of the Lord was seen like devouring fire in the eyes of the children of +Israel" (ver. 17). But Moses was aware of a glory far greater and more +spiritual than any material splendour. When theophanies had done their +utmost, his longing was still unslaked, and he cried out, "Show me, I +pray Thee, Thy glory" (xxxiii. 18). To his consciousness that glory was +still veiled, which the multitude sufficiently beheld in the flaming +mountain. And the answer which he received ought to put the question at +rest for ever, since, along with the promise "All My goodness shall pass +before thee," came the assertion "Thou shalt not see My face, for no man +shall see Me and live." + +So, then, it is not our modern theology, but this noble book of Exodus +itself, which tells us that Moses did not and could not adequately see +God, however great and sacred the vision which he beheld. From this book +we learn that, side by side with the most intimate communion and the +clearest possible unveiling of God, grew up the profound consciousness +that only some attributes and not the essence of deity had been +displayed. + +It is very instructive also to observe the steps by which Moses is led +upward. From the burning bush to the fiery cloud, and thence to the +blazing mountain, there was an ever-deepening lesson of majesty and awe. +But in answer to the prayer that he might really see the very glory of +his Lord, his mind is led away upon entirely another pathway: it is "All +My goodness" which is now to "pass before" him, and the proclamation is +of "a God full of compassion and gracious," yet retaining His moral +firmness, so that He "will by no means clear the guilty." + +What can cloud and fire avail, toward the manifesting of a God Whose +essence is His love? It is from the Old Testament narrative that the New +Testament inferred that Moses endured as seeing indeed, yet as seeing +Him Who is inevitably and for ever invisible to eyes of flesh: he +learned most, not when he beheld some form of awe, standing on a paved +work of sapphire stone and as it were the very heaven for clearness, but +when hidden in a cleft of the rock and covered by the hand of God while +He passed by. + +On one hand the people saw the glory of God: on the other hand it was +the best lesson taught by a far closer access, still to pray and yearn +to see that glory. The seventy beheld the God of Israel: for their +leader was reserved the more exalting knowledge, that beyond all vision +is the mystic overshadowing of the Divine, and a voice which says "No +man shall see Me and live." The difference in heart is well typified in +this difference in their conduct, that they saw God and ate and drank, +but he, for forty days, ate not. Satisfaction and assurance are a poor +ideal compared with rapt aspiration and desire. + +Thus we see that no conflict exists between this declaration and our +belief in the spirituality of God. + +We have still to ask what is the real force of the assertion that God +was in some lesser sense seen of Israel, and again, more especially, of +its leaders. + +What do we mean even by saying that we see each other?--that, observing +keenly, we see upon one face cunning, upon another sorrow, upon a third +the peace of God? Are not these emotions immaterial and invisible as the +essence of God Himself? Nay, so invisible is the reality within each +bosom, that some day all that eye hath seen shall fall away from us, and +yet the true man shall remain intact. + +Man has never seen more than a hint, an outcome, a partial +self-revelation or self-betrayal of his fellow-man. + + "Yes, in the sea of life in-isled, + With echoing straits between us thrown, + Dotting the shoreless watery wild, + We mortal millions live _alone_. + + * * * * * + + God bade betwixt 'our' shores to be + The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea." + +And yet, incredible as the paradox would seem, if it were not too common +to be strange, the play of muscles and rush of blood, visible through +the skin, do reveal the most spiritual and immaterial changes. Even so +the heavens declare that very glory of God which baffled the undimmed +eyes of Moses. So it was, also, that when rended rocks and burning skies +revealed a more immanent action of Him Who moves through all nature +always, when convulsions hitherto undreamed of by those dwellers in +Egyptian plains overwhelmed them with a new sense of their own smallness +and a supreme Presence, God was manifested there. + +Not unlike this is the explanation of St. Augustine, "We need not be +surprised that God, invisible as He is, appeared visibly to the +patriarchs. For, as the sound which communicates the thought conceived +in the silence of the mind is not the thought itself, so the form by +which God, invisible in His own nature, became visible, was not God +Himself. Nevertheless it was He Himself Who was seen under that form, as +the thought itself is heard in the sound of the voice; and the +patriarchs recognised that, although the bodily form was not God, they +saw the invisible God. For, though Moses was conversing with God, yet he +said, 'If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thyself'" (_De Civ. +Dei_, x. 13). And again: "He knew that he saw corporeally, but he sought +the true vision of God spiritually" (_De Trin._, ii. 27). + +It has still to be added that His manifestation is exactly suited to the +stage now reached in the education of Israel. Their fathers had already +"seen God" in the likeness of man: Abraham had entertained Him; Jacob +had wrestled with Him. And so Joshua before Ai, and Manoah by the rock +at Zorah, and Ezekiel by the river Chebar, should see the likeness of a +man. We who believe the doctrine of a real Incarnation can well perceive +that in these passing and mysterious glimpses God was not only revealing +Himself in the way which would best prepare humanity for His future +coming in actual manhood, but also in the way by which, meanwhile, the +truest and deepest light could be thrown upon His nature, a nature which +could hereafter perfectly manifest itself in flesh. Why, then, do not +the records of the Exodus hint at a human likeness? Why did they "behold +no similitude"? Clearly because the masses of Israel were utterly +unprepared to receive rightly such a vision. To them the likeness of +man would have meant no more than the likeness of a flying eagle or a +calf. Idolatry would have followed, but no sense of sympathy, no +consciousness of the grandeur and responsibility of being made in the +likeness of God. Anthropomorphism is a heresy, although the Incarnation +is the crowning doctrine of the faith. + +But it is hard to see why the human likeness of God should exist in +Genesis and Joshua, but not in the history of the Exodus, if that story +be a post-Exilian forgery. + +This is not all. The revelations of God in the desert were connected +with threats and prohibitions: the law was given by Moses; grace and +truth came by Jesus Christ. And with the different tone of the message a +different aspect of the speaker was to be expected. From the blazing +crags of Sinai, fenced around, the voice of a trumpet waxing louder and +louder, said "Thou shalt not!" On the green hill by the Galilan lake +Jesus sat down, and His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth +and said "Blessed." + +Now, the conscience of every sinner knows that the God of the +commandments is dreadful. It is of Him, not of hell, that Isaiah said +"The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath surprised the godless +ones. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us +shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isa. xxxiii. 14). + +For him who rejects the light yoke of the Lord of Love, the fires of +Sinai are still the truest revelation of deity; and we must not deny +Sinai because we know Bethlehem. We must choose between the two. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +_THE SHRINE AND ITS FURNITURE._ + +xxv. 1-40. + +The first direction given to Moses on the mountain is to prepare for the +making of a tabernacle wherein God may dwell with man. For this he must +invite offerings of various kinds, metals and gems, skins and fabrics, +oil and spices; and the humblest man whose heart is willing may +contribute toward an abode for Him Whom the heaven of heavens cannot +contain. + +Strange indeed is the contrast between the mountain burning up to +heaven, and the lowly structure of the wood of the desert, which was now +to be erected by subscription. + +And yet the change marks not a lower conception of deity, but an +advance, just as the quiet and serene communion of a saint with God is +loftier than the most agitating experience of the convert. + +This is the first announcement of a fixed abiding presence of God in the +midst of men, and it is therefore the precursor of much. St. John +certainly alluded to this earliest dwelling of God on earth when he +wrote, "The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us" (John i. 14). +A little later it was said, "Ye also are builded together for an +habitation of God" (Eph. ii. 22); and again the very words used at first +of the tabernacle are applied to faithful souls: "We are a temple of +the living God, as God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them" (2 +Cor. vi. 16; Lev. xxvi. 11). For God dwelt on earth in the Messiah +hidden by the veil, that is to say His flesh (Heb. x. 20), and also in +the hearts of all the faithful. And a yet fuller communion is to come, +of which the tabernacle in the wilderness was a type, even the descent +of the Holy City, when the true tabernacle of God shall be with men, and +He shall tabernacle with them (Rev. xxi. 3). + +It may seem strange that after the commandment "Let them make Me a +sanctuary" the whole chapter is devoted to instructions, not for the +tabernacle but for its furniture. But indeed the four articles +enumerated in this chapter present a wonderfully graphic picture of the +nature and terms of the intercourse of God with man. On one side is His +revelation of righteousness, but righteousness propitiated and become +gracious, and this is symbolised by the ark of the testimony and the +mercy-seat. On the other side the consecration both of secular and +sacred life is typified by the table with bread and wine, and by the +golden candlestick. Except thus, no tabernacle could have been the +dwelling of the Lord, nor ever shall be. + +And this is the true reason why the altar of incense is not even +mentioned until a later chapter (xxx.). We do homage to God because He +is present: it is rather the consequence than the condition of His abode +with us. + +The first step towards the preparation of a shrine for God on earth is +the enshrining of His will: Moses should therefore make first of all an +ark, wherein to treasure up "the testimony which I shall give thee," the +two tables of the law (xxv. 16). In it were also the pot of manna and +Aaron's rod which budded (Heb. ix. 4), and beside it was laid the whole +book of the law, for a testimony, alas! against them (Deut. xxxi. 26). + +Thus the ark was to treasure up the expression of the will of God, and +the relics which told by what mercies and deliverances He claimed +obedience. It was a precious thing, but not the most precious, as we +shall presently learn; and therefore it was not made of pure gold, but +overlaid with it. That it might be reverently carried, four rings were +cast and fastened to it at the lower corners, and in these four staves, +also overlaid with gold, were permanently inserted. + +The next article mentioned is the most important of all. + +It would be a great mistake to suppose that the mercy-seat was a mere +lid, an ordinary portion of the ark itself. It was made of a different +and more costly material, of pure gold, with which the ark was only +overlaid. There is separate mention that Bezaleel "made the ark, ... and +he made the mercy-seat" (xxxvii. 1, 6), and the special presence of God +in the Most Holy Place is connected much more intimately with the +mercy-seat than with the remainder of the structure. Thus He promises to +"appear in the cloud above the mercy-seat" (Lev. xvi. 2). And when it is +written that "Moses heard the Voice speaking unto him from above the +mercy-seat which is upon the ark of the testimony" (Num. vii. 89), it +would have been more natural to say directly "from above the ark" unless +some stress were to be laid upon the interposing slab of gold. In +reality no distinction could be sharper than between the ark and its +cover, from whence to hear the voice of God. And so thoroughly did all +the symbolism of the Most Holy Place gather around this supreme object, +that in one place it is actually called "the house of the mercy-seat" (1 +Chron. xxviii. 11). + +Let us, then, put ourselves into the place of an ancient worshipper. +Excluded though he is from the Holy Place, and conscious that even the +priests are shut out from the inner shrine, yet the high priest who +enters is his brother: he goes on his behalf: the barrier is a curtain, +not a wall. + +But while the Israelite mused upon what was beyond, the ark, as we have +seen, suggests the depth of his obligation; for there is the rod of his +deliverance and the bread from heaven which fed him; and there also are +the commandments which he ought to have kept. And his conscience tells +him of ingratitude, and a broken covenant; by the law is the knowledge +of sin. + +It is therefore a sinister and menacing thought that immediately above +this ark of the violated covenant burns the visible manifestation of +God, his injured Benefactor. + +And hence arises the golden value of that which interposes, beneath +which the accusing law is buried, by means of which God "hides His face +from our sins." + +The worshipper knows this cover to be provided by a separate ordinance +of God, after the ark and its contents had been arranged for, and finds +in it a vivid concrete representation of the idea "Thou hast cast all my +sins behind Thy back" (Isa. xxxviii. 17). That this was its true +intention becomes more evident when we ascertain exactly the meaning of +the term which we have, not too precisely, rendered "mercy-seat." + +The word "seat" has no part in the original; and we are not to think of +God as reposing on it, but as revealing Himself above. The erroneous +notion has probably transferred itself to the type from the heavenly +antitype, which is "the throne of grace," but it has no countenance +either in the Greek or the Hebrew name of the Mosaic institution. Nor is +the notion expressed that of gratuitous and unbought "mercy." When +Jehovah showeth mercy unto thousands, the word is different. It is true +that the root means "to cover," and is once employed in Scripture in +that sense (Gen. vi. 14); but its ethical use is generally connected +with sacrifice; and when we read of a "sin-offering for _atonement_," of +the half-shekel being an "_atonement_-money," and of "the day of +_atonement_," the word is a simple and very similar development from the +same root with this which we render _mercy-seat_ (Exod. xxx. 10, 16; +Lev. xxiii. 27, etc.). + +The Greek word is found twice in the New Testament: once when the +cherubim of glory overshadow the _mercy-seat_, and again when God hath +set forth Christ to be a _propitiation_ (Heb. ix. 5; Rom. iii. 25). The +mercy-seat is therefore to be thought of in connection with sin, but sin +expiated and thus covered and put away. + +We know mysteries which the Israelite could not guess of the means by +which this was brought to pass. But as he watched the high priest +disappearing into that awful solitude, with God, as he listened to the +chime of bells, swung by his movements, and announcing that still he +lived, two conditions stood out broadly before his mind. One was the +bringing in of incense: "Thou shalt bring a censer full of burning coals +of fire from before the altar, that the cloud of the incense may cover +the mercy-seat" (Lev. xvi. 13). Now, the connection between prayer and +incense was quite familiar to the Jew; and he could not but understand +that the blessing of atonement was to be sought and won by intense and +burning supplication. And the other was that invariable demand, the +offering of a victim's blood. All the sacrifices of Judaism culminated +in the great act when the high priest, standing in the most holy and the +most occult spot in all the world, sprinkled "blood upon the mercy-seat +eastwards, and before the mercy-seat sprinkled of the blood with his +finger seven times" (Lev. xvi. 14). + +Thus the crowning height of the Jewish ritual was attained when the +blood of the great national sacrifice was offered not only before God, +but, with special reference to the covering up of the broken and +accusing law, before the mercy-seat. + +No wonder that on either side of it, and moulded of the same mass of +metal, were the cherubim in an attitude of adoration, their outspread +wings covering it, their faces bent, not only as bowing in reverence +before the Divine presence, but, as we expressly read, "toward the +mercy-seat shall the faces of the cherubim be." For the meaning of this +great symbol was among the things which "the angels desire to look +into." + +We now understand how much was gained when God said "There will I meet +thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat" (ver. 22). +It was an assurance, not only of the love which desires obedience, but +of the mercy which passes over failure.[39] + +Thus far, there has been symbolised the mind of God, His righteousness +and His grace. + +The next articles have to do with man, his homage to God and his witness +for Him. + +There is first the table of the shewbread (vers. 23-30), overlaid with +pure gold, surrounded, like the ark, with "a crown" or moulding of gold, +for ornament and the greater security of the loaves, and strengthened by +a border of pure gold carried around the base, which was also ornamented +with a crown, or moulding. Close to this border were rings for staves, +like those by which the ark was borne. The table was furnished with +dishes upon which, every Sabbath day, new shewbread might be conveyed +into the tabernacle, and the old might be removed for the priests to +eat. There were spoons also, by which to place frankincense upon each +pile of bread; and "flagons and bowls to pour out withal." What was thus +to be poured we do not read, but there is no doubt that it was wine, +second only to bread as a requisite of Jewish life, and forming, like +the frankincense, a link between this weekly presentation and the +meal-offerings. But all these were subordinate to the twelve loaves, one +for each tribe, which were laid in two piles upon the table. It is clear +that their presentation was the essence of the rite, and not their +consumption by the priests, which was possibly little more than a +safeguard against irreverent treatment. For the word shewbread is +literally bread of the face or presence, which word is used of the +presence of God, in the famous prayer "If Thy presence go not with me, +carry us not up hence" (xxxiii. 15). And of whom, other than God, can it +here be reasonably understood? Now Jacob, long before, had vowed "Of all +that Thou givest me, I will surely give the tenth to Thee" (Gen. +xxviii. 22). And it was an edifying ordinance that a regular offering +should be made to God of the staple necessaries of existence, as a +confession that all came from Him, and an appeal, clearly expressed by +covering it with frankincense, which typified prayer (Lev. xxiv. 7) that +He would continue to supply their need. + +Nor is it overstrained to add, that when this bread was given to their +priestly representatives to eat, with all reverence and in a holy place, +God responded, and gave back to His people that which represented the +necessary maintenance of the tribes. Thus it was, "on the behalf of the +children of Israel, an everlasting covenant" (Lev. xxiv. 8). + +The form has perished. But as long as we confess in the Lord's Prayer +that the wealthiest does not possess one day's bread ungiven--as long, +also, as Christian families connect every meal with a due acknowledgment +of dependence and of gratitude--so long will the Church of Christ +continue to make the same confession and appeal which were offered in +the shewbread upon the table. + +The next article of furniture was the golden candlestick (vers. 31-40). +And this presents the curious phenomenon that it is extremely clear in +its typical import, and in its material outline; but the details of the +description are most obscure, and impossible to be gathered from the +Authorised Version. Strictly speaking, it was not a lamp, but only a +gorgeous lamp-stand, with one perpendicular shaft, and six branches, +three springing, one above another, from each side of the shaft, and all +curving up to the same height. Upon these were laid the seven lamps, +which were altogether separate in their construction (ver. 37). It was +of pure gold, the base and the main shaft being of one piece of beaten +metal. Each of the six branches was ornamented with three cups, made +like almond blossoms; above these a "knop," variously compared by Jewish +writers to an apple and a pomegranate, and still higher, a flower or +bud. It is believed that there was a fruit and flower above each of the +cups, making nine ornaments on each branch. The "candlestick" in ver. 34 +can only mean the central shaft, and upon this there were "four cups +with their knops and flowers" instead of three. With the lamp were +tongs, and snuff-dishes in which to remove the charred wick from the +temple. + +As we are told that when the Lord called the child Samuel, "the lamp of +God was not yet gone out" (1 Sam. iii. 3), it follows that the lights +were kept burning only during the night. + +We have now to ascertain the spiritual meaning of this stately symbol. +There are two other passages in Scripture which take up the figure and +carry it forward. In Zechariah (iv. 2-12) we are taught that the +separation of the lamps is a mere incident; they are to be conceived of +as organically one, and moreover as fed by secret ducts with oil from no +limited supply, but from living olive trees, vital, rooted in the system +of the universe. Whatever obscurity may veil those "two sons of oil" +(and this is not the place to discuss the subject), we are distinctly +told that the main lesson is that of lustre derived from supernatural, +invisible sources. Zerubbabel is confronted by a great mountain of +hindrance, but it shall become a plain before him, because the lesson of +the vision of the candlestick is this--"Not by might, nor by power, but +by My Spirit, saith the Lord." A lamp gives light not because the gold +shines, but because the oil burns; and yet the oil is the one thing +which the eye sees not. And so the Church is a witness for her Lord, a +light shining in a dark place, not because of its learning or culture, +its noble ritual, its stately buildings or its ample revenues. All these +things her children, having the power, ought to dedicate. The ancient +symbol put art and preciousness in an honourable place, worthily +upholding the lamp itself; and in the New Testament the seven lamps of +the Apocalypse were still of gold. But the true function of a lamp is to +be luminous, and for this the Church depends wholly upon its supply of +grace from God the Holy Ghost. It is "not by might, nor by power, but by +My Spirit, saith the Lord." + +Again, in the Revelation, we find the New Testament Churches described +as lamps, among which their Lord habitually walks. And no sooner have +the seven churches on earth been warned and cheered, than we are shown +before the throne of God seven torches (burning by their own +incandescence--_vide_ Trench, _N. T. Synonyms_, p. 162), which are the +seven spirits of God, answering to His seven light-bearers upon the +earth (Rev. iv. 5). + +Lastly, the perfect and mystic number, seven, declares that the light of +the Church, shining in a dark place, ought to be full and clear, no +imperfect presentation of the truth: "they shall light the lamps, to +give light over against it." + +Because this lamp shines with the light of the Church, exhibiting the +graces of her Lord, therefore a special command is addressed to the +people, besides the call for contributions to the work in general, that +they shall bring pure olive oil, not obtained by heat and pressure, but +simply beaten, and therefore of the best quality, to feed its flame. + +It is to burn, as the Church ought to shine in all darkness of the +conscience or the heart of man, from evening to morning for ever. And +the care of the ministers of God is to be the continual tending of this +blessed and sacred flame. + + +_THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT._ + +xxv. 9, 40. + +Twice over (vers. 9, 40, and cf. xxvi. 30, xxvii. 8, etc.) Moses was +reminded to be careful to make all things after the pattern shown him in +the mount. And these words have sometimes been so strained as to convey +the meaning that there really exists in heaven a tabernacle and its +furniture, the grand original from which the Mosaic copy was derived. + +That is plainly not what the Epistle to the Hebrews understands (Heb. +viii. 5). For it urges this admonition as a proof that the old +dispensation was a shadow of ours, in which Christ enters into heaven +itself, and our consciences are cleansed from dead works to serve the +living God. The citation is bound indissolubly with all the +demonstration which follows it. + +We are not, then, to think of a heavenly tabernacle, exhibited to the +material senses of Moses, with which all the details of his own work +must be identical. + +Rather we are to conceive of an inspiration, an ideal, a vision of +spiritual truths, to which all this work in gold and acacia-wood should +correspond. It was thus that Socrates told Glaucon, incredulous of his +republic, that in heaven there is laid up a pattern, for him that wishes +to behold it. Nothing short of this would satisfy the inspired +application of the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the +readers, who were Jewish converts, are asked to recognise in this verse +evidence that the light of the new dispensation illuminated the +institutions of the old. + +Without this pervading sentiment, the most elaborate specifications of +weight and measurement, of cup and pomegranate and flower, could never +have produced the required effect. An ideal there was, a divinely +designed suggestiveness, which must be always present to his +superintending vigilance, as once it shone upon his soul in sacred +vision or trance; a suggestiveness which might possibly be lost amid +correct elaborations, like the soul of a poem or a song, evaporating +through a rendering which is correct enough, yet in which the spirit, +even if that alone, has been forgotten. + +It is surely a striking thing to find this need of a pervading sentiment +impressed upon the author of the first piece of religious art that ever +was recognised by heaven. + +For it is the mysterious all-pervading charm of such a dominant +sentiment which marks the impassable difference between the lowliest +work of art, and the highest piece of art-manufacture which is only a +manufactured article. + +And assuredly the recognition of this principle among a people whose +ancient history shows but little interest in art, calls for some +attention from those who regard the tabernacle itself as a fiction, and +its details as elaborated in Babylonia, in the priestly interest. +(Kuenen, _Relig. of Israel_, ii. 148). + +The problem of problems for all who deny the divinity of the Old +Testament is to explain the curious position which its institutions are +consistent in accepting. They rest on the authority of heaven, and yet +they are not definitive, but provisional. They are always looking +forward to another prophet like their founder, a new covenant better +than the present one, a high priest after the order of a Canaanite +enthroned at the right hand of Jehovah, a consecration for every pot in +the city like that of the vessels in the temple (Deut. xviii. 15; Jer. +xxxi. 31; Ps. cx. 1, 4; Zech. xiv. 20). And here, "in the priestly +interest," is an avowal that the Divine habitation which they boast of +is but the likeness and shadow of some Divine reality concealed. And +these strange expectations have proved to be the most fruitful and +energetic principles in their religion. + +This very presence of the ideal is what will for ever make the highest +natures quite certain that the visible universe is no mere resultant of +clashing forces without a soul, but the genuine work of a Creator. The +universe is charged throughout with the most powerful appeals to all +that is artistic and vital within us; so that a cataract is more than +water falling noisily, and the silence of midnight more than the absence +of disturbance, and a snow mountain more than a storehouse to feed the +torrents in summer, being also poems, appeals, revelations, whispers +from a spirit, heard in the depth of ours. + +Does any one, listening to Beethoven's funeral march, doubt the +utterance of a soul, as distinct from clanging metal and vibrating +chords? And the world has in it this mysterious witness to something +more than heat and cold, moisture and drought: something which makes the +difference between a well-filled granary and a field of grain rippling +golden in the breeze. This is not a coercive argument for the hostile +logic-monger: it is an appeal for the open heart. "He that hath ears to +hear, let him hear." + +To fill the tabernacle of Moses with spiritual meaning, the ideal +tabernacle was revealed to him in the Mount of God. + +Let us apply the same principle to human life. There also harmony and +unity, a pervading sense of beauty and of soul, are not to be won by +mere obedience to a mandate here and a prohibition there. Like Moses, it +is not by labour according to specification that we may erect a shrine +for deity. Those parables which tell of obedient toil would be sadly +defective, therefore, without those which speak of love and joy, a +supper, a Shepherd bearing home His sheep, a prodigal whose dull +expectation of hired service is changed for investiture with the best +robe and the gold ring, and welcome of dance and music. + +How shall our lives be made thus harmonious, a spiritual poem and not a +task, a chord vibrating under the musician's hand? How shall thought and +word, desire and deed, become like the blended voices of river and wind +and wood, a witness for the divine? Not by mere elaboration of detail +(though correctness is a condition of all true art), but by a vision +before us of the divine life, the Ideal, the pattern shown to all, and +equally to be imitated (strange though it may seem) by peasant and +prince, by woman and sage and child. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[39] This investigation offers a fine example of the folly of that kind +of interpretation which looks about for some sort of external and +arbitrary resemblance, and fastens upon that as the true meaning. +Nothing is more common among these expounders than to declare that the +wood and gold of the ark are types of the human and Divine natures of +our Lord. If either ark or mercy-seat should be compared to Him, it is +obviously the latter, which speaks of mercy. But this was of pure gold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +_THE TABERNACLE._ + +xxvi. + +We now come to examine the structure of the tabernacle for which the +most essential furniture has been prepared. + +Some confusion of thought exists, even among educated laymen, with +regard to the arrangements of the temple; and this has led to similar +confusion (to a less extent) concerning the corresponding parts of the +tabernacle. "The temple" in which the Child Jesus was found, and into +which Peter and John went up to pray, ought not to be confounded with +that inner shrine, "the temple," in which it was the lot of the priest +Zacharias to burn incense, and into which Judas, forgetful of all its +sacredness in his anguish, hurled his money to the priests (Luke ii. 46; +Acts iii. 3; Luke i. 9; Matt. xxvii. 5). Now, the former of these +corresponded to "the court of the tabernacle," an enclosure open to the +skies, and containing two important articles, the altar of burnt +sacrifices and the laver. This was accessible to the nation, so that the +sinner could lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and the priests +could purify themselves before entering their own sacred place, the +tabernacle proper, the shrine. But when we come to the structure itself, +some attention is still necessary, in order to derive any clear notion +from the description; nor can this easily be done by an English reader +without substituting the Revised Version for the Authorised. He will +then discover that we have a description, first of the "curtains of the +tabernacle" (vers. 1-6), and then of other curtains which are not +considered to belong to the tabernacle proper, but to "the tent over the +tabernacle" (7-13), being no part of the rich ornamental interior, but +only a protection spread above it; and over this again were two further +screens from the weather (14), and finally, inside all, are "the boards +of the tabernacle"--of which boards the two actual apartments were +constructed (15-30)--and the veil which divided the Holy from the Most +Holy Place (31-3). + +"The curtains of the tabernacle" were ten, made of linen, of which every +thread consisted of fine strands twisted together, "and blue and purple +and scarlet," with cherubim not embroidered but woven into the fabric +(1). + +These curtains were sewn together, five and five, so as to make two +great curtains, each slightly larger than forty-two feet by thirty, +being twenty-eight cubits long by five times four cubits broad (2, 3). +Finally these two were linked together, each having fifty loops for that +purpose at corresponding places at the edge, which loops were bound +together by fifty golden clasps (4-6). Thus, when the nation was about +to march, they could easily be divided in the middle and then folded in +the seams. + +This costly fabric was regarded as part of the true tabernacle: why, +then, do we find the outer curtains mentioned before the rest of the +tabernacle proper is described? + +Certainly because these rich curtains lie immediately underneath the +coarser ones, and are to be considered along with "the tent" which +covered all (7). This consisted of curtains of goats' hair, of the same +size, and arranged in all respects like the others, except that their +clasps were only bronze, and that the curtains were eleven in number, +instead of ten, so that half a curtain was available to hang down over +the back, and half was to be doubled back upon itself at the front of +"the tabernacle," that is to say, the richer curtains underneath. The +object of this is obvious: it was to bring the centre of the goatskin +curtains over the edge of the linen ones, as tiles overlap each other, +to shut out the rain at the joints. But this implies, what has been said +already, that the curtains of the tabernacle should lie close to the +curtains of the tent. + +Over these again was an outer covering of rams' skins dyed red, and a +covering of sealskins above all (14). This last, it is generally agreed, +ran only along the top, like a ridge tile, to protect the vulnerable +part of the roof. And now it has to be remembered that we are speaking +of a real tent with sloping sides, not a flat cover laid upon the flat +inner structure of boards, and certain to admit the rain. By calling +attention to this fact, Mr. Fergusson succeeded in solving all the +problems connected with the measurements of the tabernacle, and bringing +order into what was little more than chaos before (_Smith's Bible +Dict._, "Temple"). + +The inner tabernacle was of acacia wood, which was the only timber of +the sanctuary. Each board stood ten cubits high, and was fitted by +tenons into two silver sockets, which probably formed a continuous base. +Each of these contained a talent of silver, and was therefore more than +eighty pounds weight; and they were probably to some extent sunk into +the ground for a foundation (xxxviii. 27). There were twenty boards on +each side; and as they were a cubit and a half broad, the length of the +tabernacle was about forty-five feet (16-18). At the west end there were +six boards (22), which, with the breadth of the two posts or boards for +the corners (23-4) just gives ten cubits, or fifteen feet, for the width +of it. Thus the length of the tabernacle was three times its breadth; +and we know that in the Temple (where all the proportions were the same, +the figures being doubled throughout) the subdividing veil was so hung +as to make the inner shrine a perfect square, leaving the holy place +twice as long as it was broad. + +The posts were held in their places by wooden bars, which were overlaid +with gold (as the boards also were, ver. 29) and fitted into golden +rings. Four such bars, or bolts, ran along a portion of each side, and +there was a fifth great bar which stretched along the whole forty-five +feet from end to end. Thus the edifice was firmly held together; and the +wealth of the material makes it likely that they were fixed on the +inside, and formed a part of the ornament of the edifice (26-9). + +When the two curtains were fastened together with clasps, they gave a +length of sixty feet. But we have seen that the length of the boards +when jointed together was only forty-five feet. This gives a projection +of seven feet and a half (five cubits) for the front and rear of the +tent beyond the tabernacle of boards; and when the great curtains were +drawn tight, sloping from the ridge-pole fourteen cubits on each side, +it has been shown (assuming a right-angle at the top) that they reached +within five cubits of the ground, and extended five cubits beyond the +sides, the same distance as at the front and rear. The next +instructions concern the veil which divided the two chambers of the +sanctuary. This was in all respects like "the curtain of the +tabernacle," and similarly woven with cherubim. It was hung upon four +pillars; and the even number seems to prove that there was no higher one +in the centre, reaching to the roof--which seems to imply that there was +a triangular opening above the veil, between the Holy and the Most Holy +Place (31, 32). + +But here a difficult question arises. There is no specific measurement +of the point at which this subdividing veil was to stretch across the +tent. The analogy of the Temple inclines us to believe that the Most +Holy Place was a perfect cube, and the Holy Place twice as long as it +was broad and high. There is evident allusion to this final shape of the +Most Holy Place in the description of the New Jerusalem, of which the +length and breadth and height were equal. And yet there is strong reason +to suspect that this arrangement was not the primitive one. For Moses +was ordered to stretch the veil underneath the golden clasps which bound +together the two great curtains of the tabernacle (ver. 33). But these +were certainly in the middle. How, then, could the veil make an unequal +division below? Possibly fifteen feet square would have been too mean a +space for the dimensions of the Most Holy Place, although the perfect +cube became desirable, when the size was doubled. + +A screen of the same rich material, but apparently not embroidered with +cherubim, was to stretch across the door of the tent; but this was +supported on five pillars instead of four, clearly that the central one +might support the ridge-bar of the roof. And their sockets were of brass +(vers. 36, 37). + +The tabernacle, like the Temple, had its entrance on the east (ver. 22); +and in the case of the Temple this was the more remarkable, because the +city lay at the other side, and the worshippers had to pass round the +shrine before they reached the front of it. The object was apparently to +catch the warmth of the sun. For a somewhat similar reason, every pagan +temple in the ancient world, with a few well-defined exceptions which +are easily explained, also faced the east; and the worshippers, with +their backs to the dawn, saw the first beams of the sun kindling their +idol's face. The orientation of Christian churches is due to the custom +which made the neophyte, standing at first in his familiar position +westward, renounce the devil and all his works, and then, turning his +back upon his idols, recite the creed with his face eastward. + +What ideas would be suggested by this edifice to the worshipper will +better be examined when we have examined also the external court. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +_THE OUTER COURT._ + +xxvii. + +Before describing the tabernacle, its furniture was specified. And so, +when giving instructions for the court of the tabernacle, the altar has +to be described: "Thou shalt make the altar of acacia wood." The +definite article either implies that an altar was taken for granted, a +thing of course; or else it points back to chap. xx. 24, which said "An +altar of earth shalt thou make." Nor is the acacia wood of this altar at +all inconsistent with that precept, it being really not an altar but an +altar-case, and "hollow" (ver. 8)--an arrangement for holding the earth +together, and preventing the feet of the priests from desecrating it. At +each corner was a horn, of one piece with the framework, typical of the +power which was there invoked, and practically useful, both to bind the +sacrifice with cords, and also for the grasp of the fugitive, seeking +sanctuary (Ps. cxviii. 27; 1 Kings i. 50). This arrangement is said to +have been peculiar to Judaism. And as the altar was outside the +tabernacle, and both symbolism and art prescribed simpler materials, it +was overlaid with brass (vers. 1, 2). Of the same material were the +vessels necessary for the treatment of the fire and blood (ver. 3). A +network of brass protected the lower part of the altar; and at half the +height a ledge projected, supported by this network, and probably wide +enough to allow the priests to stand upon it when they ministered (vers. +4, 5). Hence we read that Aaron "came down from offering" (Lev. ix. 22). +Lastly, there was the same arrangement of rings and staves to carry it +as for the ark and the table (vers. 6, 7). + +It will be noticed that the laver in this court, like the altar of +incense within, is reserved for mention in a later chapter (xxx. 18) as +being a subordinate feature in the arrangements. + +The enclosure was a quadrangle of one hundred cubits by fifty; it was +five cubits high, and each cubit may be taken as a foot and a half. The +linen which enclosed it was upheld by pillars with sockets of brass; and +one of the few additional facts to be gleaned from the detailed +statement that all these directions were accurately carried out is that +the heads of all the pillars were overlaid with silver (xxxviii. 17). +The pillars were connected by rods (fillets) of silver, and a hanging of +fine-twined linen was stretched by means of silver hooks (9-13). The +entrance was twenty cubits wide, corresponding accurately to the width, +not of the tabernacle, but of "the tent" as it has been described +(reaching out five cubits farther on each side than the tabernacle), and +it was closed by an embroidered curtain (14-17). This fence was drawn +firmly into position and held there by brazen tent-pins; and we here +incidentally learn that so was the tent itself (19). + + [FOR VERSES 20, 21, see page 423.] + +We are now in a position to ask what sentiment all these arrangements +would inspire in the mind of the simple and somewhat superstitious +worshippers. + +Approaching it from outside, the linen enclosure (being seven feet and a +half high) would conceal everything but the great roof of the tent, one +uniform red, except for the sealskin covering along the summit. A gloomy +and menacing prospect, broken possibly by some gleams, if the curtain of +the gable were drawn back, from the gold with which every portion of the +shrine within was plated. + +So does the world outside look askance upon the Church, discerning a +mysterious suggestion everywhere of sternness and awe, yet with flashes +of strange splendour and affluence underneath the gloom. + +In this place God is known to be: it is a tent, not really "of the +congregation," but "of meeting" between Jehovah and His people: "the +tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, ... and +there I will meet with the children of Israel" (xxix. 42-3). And so the +Israelite, though troubled by sin and fear, is attracted to the gate, +and enters. Right in front stands the altar: this obtrudes itself before +all else upon his attention: he must learn its lesson first of all. +Especially will he feel that this is so if a sacrifice is now to be +offered, since the official must go farther into the court to wash at +the laver, and then return; so that a loss of graduated arrangement has +been accepted in order to force the altar to the front. And he will soon +learn that not only must every approach to the sacred things within be +heralded by sacrifice upon this altar, but the blood of the victim must +be carried as a passport into the shrine. Surely he remembers how the +blood of the lamb saved his own life when the firstborn of Egypt died: +he knows that it is written "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 (or lives): for it is the blood that maketh atonement by +reason of the life (or soul)" (Lev. xvii. 11). + +No Hebrew could watch his fellow-sinner lay his hand on a victim's head, +and confess his sin before the blow fell on it, without feeling that sin +was being, in some mysterious sense, "borne" for him. The intricacies of +our modern theology would not disturb him, but this is the sentiment by +which the institutions of the tabernacle assuredly ministered comfort +and hope to him. Strong would be his hope as he remembered that the +service and its solace were not of human devising, that God had "given +it to him upon the altar to make atonement for his soul." + +Taking courage, therefore, the worshipper dares to lift up his eyes. And +beyond the altar he sees a vision of dazzling magnificence. The inner +roof, most unlike the sullen red of the exterior, is blazing with +various colours, and embroidered with emblems of the mysterious +creatures of the sky, winged, yet not utterly afar from human in their +suggestiveness. Encompassed and looked down into by these is the +tabernacle, all of gold. If the curtain is raised he sees a chamber +which tells what the earth should be--a place of consecrated energies +and resources, and of sacred illumination, the oil of God burning in the +sevenfold vessel of the Church. Is this blessed place for him, and may +he enter? Ah, no! and surely his heart would grow heavy with +consciousness that reconciliation was not yet made perfect, when he +learned that he must never approach the place where God had promised to +meet with him. + +Much less might he penetrate the awful chamber within, the true home of +deity. There, he knows, is the record of the mind of God, the +concentrated expression of what is comparatively easy to obey in act, +but difficult beyond hope to love, to accept and to be conformed to. +That record is therefore at once the revelation of God and the +condemnation of His creature. Yet over this, he knows well, there is +poised no dead image such as were then adored in Babylonian and Egyptian +fanes, but a spiritual Presence, the glory of the invisible God. Nor was +He to be thought of as in solitude, loveless, or else needing human +love: above Him were the woven seraphim of the curtain, and on either +side a seraph of beaten gold--types, it may be, of all the created life +which He inhabits, or else pictures of His sinless creatures of the +upper world. And yet this pure Being, to Whom the companionship of +sinful man is so little needed, is there to meet with man; and is +pleased not to look upon His violated law, but to command that a slab, +inestimably precious, shall interpose between it and its Avenger. By +whom, then, shall this most holy floor be trodden? By the official +representative of him who gazes, and longs, and is excluded. He enters +not without blood, which he is careful to sprinkle upon all the +furniture, but chiefly and seven times upon the mercy-seat. + +Thus every worshipper carries away a profound consciousness that he is +utterly unworthy, and yet that his unworthiness has been expiated; that +he is excluded, and yet that his priest, his representative, has been +admitted, and therefore that he may hope. The Holy Ghost did not declare +by sign that no way into the Holiest existed, but only that it was not +yet made manifest. Not yet. + +This leads us to think of the priest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +_"THE HOLY GARMENTS."_ + +xxviii. + +The tabernacle being complete, the priesthood has to be provided for. +Its dignity is intimated by the command to Moses to bring his brother +Aaron and his sons near to himself (clearly in rank, because the object +is defined, "that he may minister unto Me"), and also by the direction +to make "holy garments for glory and for beauty." But just as the +furniture is treated before the shrine, and again before the courtyard, +so the vestments are provided before the priesthood is itself discussed. + +The holiness of the raiment implies that separation to office can be +expressed by official robes in the Church as well as in the state; and +their glory and beauty show that God, Who has clothed His creation with +splendour and with loveliness, does not dissever religious feeling from +artistic expression. + +All that are wise-hearted in such work, being inspired by God as really, +though not as profoundly, as if their task were to foretell the advent +of Messiah, are to unite their labours upon these garments. + +The order in the twenty-eighth chapter is perhaps that of their visible +importance. But it will be clearer to describe them in the order in +which they were put on. + +Next the flesh all the priests were clad from the loins to the thighs in +close-fitting linen: the indecency of many pagan rituals must be far +from them, and this was a perpetual ordinance, "that they bear not +iniquity and die" (xxviii. 42-3). + +Over this was a tight-fitting "coat" (a shirt rather) of fine linen, +white, but woven in a chequered pattern, without seam, like the robe of +Jesus, and bound together with a girdle (39-43). + +These garments were common to all the priests; but their "head-tires" +differed from the impressive mitre of the high priest. The rest of the +vestments in this chapter belong to him alone. + +Over the "coat" he wore the flowing "robe of the ephod," all blue, +little seen from the waist up, but uncovered thence to the feet, and +surrounded at the hem with golden pomegranates, the emblem of +fruitfulness, and with bells to enable the worshippers outside to follow +the movements of their representative. He should die if this expression +of his vicarious function were neglected (31-35). + +Above this robe was the ephod itself--a kind of gorgeous jacket, made in +two pieces which were joined at the shoulders, and bound together at the +waist by a cunningly woven band, which was of the same piece. This +ephod, like the curtains of the tabernacle, was of blue and purple and +scarlet and fine-twined linen; but added to these were threads of gold, +and we read, as if this were a novelty which needed to be explained, +that they beat the gold into thin plates and then cut it into threads +(xxxix. 3, xxviii. 6-8). + +Upon the shoulders were two stones, rightly perhaps called onyx, and set +in "ouches"--of filagree work, as the word seems to say. Upon them were +engraven the names of the twelve tribes, the burden of whose sins and +sorrows he should bear into the presence of his God, "for a memorial" +(9-12). + +Upon the ephod was the breastplate, fastened to it by rings and chains +of twisted gold, made to fold over into a square, a span in measurement, +and blazing with twelve gems, upon which were engraved, as upon the +onyxes on the shoulders, the names of the twelve tribes. All attempts to +derive edification from the nature of these jewels must be governed by +the commonplace reflection that we cannot identify them; and many of the +present names are incorrect. It is almost certain that neither topaz, +sapphire nor diamond could have been engraved, as these stones were, +with the name of one of the twelve tribes (13-30). + +"In the breastplate" (that is, evidently, between the folds as it was +doubled), were placed those mysterious means of ascertaining the will of +God, the Urim and the Thummim, the Lights and the Perfections; but of +their nature, or of the manner in which they became significant, nothing +can be said that is not pure conjecture (30). + +Lastly, there was a mitre of white linen, and upon it was laced with +blue cords a gold plate bearing the inscription "HOLY TO JEHOVAH" (36, +37). + +No mention is made of shoes or sandals; and both from the commandment to +Moses at the burning bush, and from history, it is certain that the +priests officiated with their feet bare. + +The picture thus completed has the clearest ethical significance. There +is modesty, reverence, purity, innocence typified by whiteness, the +grandeur of the office of intercession displayed in the rich colours and +precious jewels by which that whiteness was relieved, sympathy +expressed by the names of the people in the breastplate that heaved with +every throb of his heart, responsibility confessed by the same names +upon the shoulder, where the government was said to press like a load +(Isa. ix. 6); and over all, at once the condition and the explanation of +the rest, upon the seat of intelligence itself, the golden inscription +on the forehead, "Holy to Jehovah." + +Such was the import of the raiment of the high priest: let us see how it +agrees with the nature of his office. + + +_THE PRIESTHOOD._ + +What, then, are the central ideas connected with the institution of a +priesthood? + +Regarding it in the broadest way, and as a purely human institution, we +may trace it back to the eternal conflict in the breast of man between +two mighty tendencies--the thirst for God and the dread of Him, a strong +instinct of approach and a repelling sense of unworthiness. + +In every age and climate, man prays. If any curious inquirer into savage +habits can point to the doubtful exception of a tribe seemingly without +a ritual, he will not really show that religion is one with +superstition; for they who are said to have escaped its grasp are never +the most advanced and civilised among their fellows upon that +account,--they are the most savage and debased, they are to humanity +what the only people which has formally renounced God is fast becoming +among the European races. + +Certainly history cannot exhibit one community, progressive, energetic +and civilised, which did not feel that more was needful and might be had +than its own resources could supply, and stretch aloft to a Supreme +Being the hands which were so deft to handle the weapon and the tool. +Certainly all experience proves that the foundations of national +greatness are laid in national piety, so that the practical result of +worship, and of the belief that God responds, has not been to dull the +energies of man, but to inspire him with the self-respect befitting a +confidant of deity, and to brace him for labours worthy of one who +draws, from the sense of Divine favour, the hope of an infinite advance. + +And yet, side by side with this spiritual gravitation, there has always +been recoil and dread, such as was expressed when Moses hid his face +because he was afraid to look upon God. + +Now, it is not this apprehension, taken alone, which proves man to be a +fallen creature: it is the combination of the dread of God with the +desire of Him. Why should we shrink from our supreme Good, except as a +sick man turns away from his natural food? He is in an unnatural and +morbid state of body, and we of soul. + +Thus divided between fear and attraction, man has fallen upon the device +of commissioning some one to represent him before God. The priest on +earth has come by the same road with so many other mediators--angel and +demigod, saint and virgin. + +At first it has been the secular chief of the family, tribe or nation, +who has seemed least unworthy to negotiate as well with heaven as with +centres of interest upon earth. But by degrees the duty has everywhere +been transferred into professional hands, patriarch and king recoiling, +feeling the inconsistency of his earthly duties with these sacred ones, +finding his hands to be too soiled and his heart too heavily weighted +with sin for the tremendous Presence into which the family or the tribe +would press him. And yet the union of the two functions might be the +ideal; and the sigh of all truly enlightened hearts might be for a +priest sitting upon his throne, a priest after the order of Melchizedek. +But thus it came to pass that an official, a clique, perhaps a family, +was chosen from among men in things pertaining to God, and the +institution of the priesthood was perfected. + +Now, this is the very process which is recognised in Scripture; for +these two conflicting forces were altogether sound and right. Man ought +to desire God, for Whom he was created, and Whose voice in the garden +was once so welcome: but also he ought to shrink back from Him, afraid +now, because he is conscious of his own nakedness, because he has eaten +of the forbidden fruit. + +Accordingly, as the nation is led out from Egypt, we find that its +intercourse with heaven is at once real and indirect. The leader is +virtually the priest as well, at whose intercession Amalek is vanquished +and the sin of the golden calf is pardoned, who entered the presence of +God and received the law upon their behalf, when they feared to hear His +voice lest they should die, and by whose hand the blood of the covenant +was sprinkled upon the people, when they had sworn to obey all that the +Lord had said (xvii. 11, xxxii. 30, xx. 19, xxiv. 8). + +Soon, however, the express command of God provided for an orthodox and +edifying transfer of the priestly function from Moses to his brother +Aaron. Some such division of duties between the secular chief and the +religious priest would no doubt have come, in Israel as elsewhere, as +soon as Moses disappeared; but it might have come after a very different +fashion, associated with heresy and schism. Especially would it have +been demanded why the family of Moses, if the chieftainship must pass +away from it, could not retain the religious leadership. We know how +cogent such a plea would have appeared; for, although the transfer was +made publicly and by his own act, yet no sooner did the nation begin to +split into tribal subdivisions, amid the confused efforts of each to +conquer its own share of the inheritance, than we find the grandson of +Moses securely establishing himself and his posterity in the apostate +and semi-idolatrous worship of Shechem (Judg. xviii. 30, R.V.). + +And why should not this illustrious family have been chosen? + +Perhaps because it was so illustrious. A priesthood of that great line +might seem to have earned its office, and to claim special access to +God, like the heathen priests, by virtue of some special desert. +Therefore the honour was transferred to the far less eminent line of +Aaron, and that in the very hour when he was lending his help to the +first great apostacy, the type of the many idolatries into which Israel +was yet to fall. So, too, the whole tribe of Levi was in some sense +consecrated, not for its merit, but because, through the sin of its +founder, it lacked a place and share among its brethren, being divided +in Jacob and scattered in Israel by reason of the massacre of Shechem +(Gen. xlix. 7). + +Thus the nation, conscious of its failure to enjoy intercourse with +heaven, found an authorised expression for its various and conflicting +emotions. It was not worthy to commune with God, and yet it could not +rest without Him. Therefore a spokesman, a representative, an +ambassador, was given to it. But he was chosen after such a fashion as +to shut out any suspicion that the merit of Levi had prevailed where +that of Israel at large had failed. It was not because Levi executed +vengeance on the idolaters that he was chosen, for the choice was +already made, and made in the person of Aaron, who was so far from +blameless in that offence. + +And perhaps this is the distinguishing peculiarity of the Jewish priest +among others: that he was chosen from among his brethren, and simply as +one of them; so that while his office was a proof of their exclusion, it +was also a kind of sacrament of their future admission, because he was +their brother and their envoy, and entered not as outshining but as +representing them, their forerunner for them entering. The almond rod of +Aaron was dry and barren as the rest, until the miraculous power of God +invested it with blossoms and fruit. + +Throughout the ritual, the utmost care was taken to inculcate this +double lesson of the ministry. Into the Holy Place, whence the people +were excluded, a whole family could enter. But there was an inner +shrine, whither only the high priest might penetrate, thus reducing the +family to a level with the nation; "the Holy Ghost this signifying, that +the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been made manifest, while as +the first tabernacle (the outer shrine--ver. 6) was yet standing" (Heb. +ix. 8). + +Thus the people felt a deeper awe, a broader separation. And yet, when +the sole and only representative who was left to them entered that +"shrine, remote, occult, untrod," they saw that the way was not wholly +barred against human footsteps: the lesson suggested was far from being +that of absolute despair,--it was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews said, +"Not yet." The prophet Zechariah foresaw a time when the bells of the +horses should bear the same consecrating legend that shone upon the +forehead of the priest: HOLY UNTO THE LORD (Zech. xiv. 20). + +It is important to observe that the only book of the New Testament in +which the priesthood is discussed dwells quite as largely upon the +difference as upon the likeness between the Aaronic and the Messianic +priest. The latter offered but one Sacrifice for sins, the former +offered for himself before doing so for the people (Heb. x. 12). The +latter was a royal Priest, and of the order of a Canaanite (Heb. vii. +1-4), thus breaking down all the old system at one long-predicted +blow--for if He were on earth He could not so much as be a priest at all +(Heb. viii. 4)--and with it all the old racial monopolies, all class +distinctions, being Himself of a tribe as to which Moses spake nothing +concerning priests (Heb. vii. 14). Every priest standeth, but this +priest hath for ever sat down, and even at the right hand of God (Heb. +x. 11, 12). + +In one sense this priesthood belongs to Christ alone. In another sense +it belongs to all who are made one with Him, and therefore a kingly +priesthood unto God. But nowhere in the New Testament is the name by +which He is designated bestowed upon any earthly minister by virtue of +his office. The presbyter is never called _sacerdos_. And perhaps the +heaviest blow ever dealt to popular theology was the misapplying of the +New Testament epithet (elder, presbyter or priest) to designate the +sacerdotal functions of the Old Testament, and those of Christ which +they foreshadowed. It is not the word "priest" that is at fault, but +some other word for the Old Testament official which is lacking, and +cannot now be supplied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +_THE CONSECRATION SERVICES._ + +xxix. + +The priest being now selected, and his raiment so provided as that it +shall speak of his office and its glory, there remains his consecration. + +In our day there is a disposition to make light of the formal setting +apart of men and things for sacred uses. If God, we are asked, has +called one to special service, is not that enough? What more can earth +do to commission the chosen of the sky? But the plain answer which we +ought to have the courage to return is that this is not at all enough. +For God Himself had already called Paul and Barnabas when He said to +such folk as Simeon Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen, "Separate Me +Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them" (Acts xiii. +1-4). And these obscure people not only laid their hands upon the great +apostle, but actually sent him forth. Now, if he was not exempted from +the need of an orderly commission by the marvellous circumstances of his +call, by his apostleship not of man, by the explicit announcement that +he was a chosen vessel to bear the sacred name before kings and peoples, +it is startling to be told of some shallow modern evangelist, who works +for no Church and submits to no discipline, that he can dispense with +the sanction of human ordination because he is so clearly sent of +heaven. + +The example of the Old Testament will no doubt be brushed aside as if +the religion which Jesus learned and honoured were a mere human +superstition. Or else it would be natural to ask, Is it because the +offices and functions of Judaism were more formal, more perfunctory than +ours, that a greater spiritual grace went with their appointments than +with the laying on of hands in the Christian Church, a rite so clearly +sanctioned in the New Testament? + +It is written of Joshua that Moses was to lay his hands upon him, +because already the Spirit was in him; and of Timothy that he had +unfeigned faith, and that prophecies went before concerning him (Num. +xxvii. 18; 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. i. 5). But in neither dispensation did +special grace fail to accompany the official separation to sacred +office: Joshua was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his +hands upon him; and Timothy was bidden to stir into flame that gift of +God which was in him through the laying on of the Apostle's hands (Deut +xxxiv. 9; 2 Tim. i. 6). + +Accordingly there is great stress laid upon the orderly institution of +the priest. And yet, to make it plain that his authority is only "for +his brethren," Moses, the chief of the nation, is to officiate +throughout the ceremony of consecration. He it is who shall offer the +sacrifices upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood, not upon the first +day only, but throughout the ceremonies of the week. + +In the first place certain victims must be held in readiness--a bullock +and two rams; and with these must be brought in one basket unleavened +bread, and unleavened cakes made with oil, and unleavened wafers on +which oil is poured. Then, at the door of the tent of the meeting of man +with God, a ceremonial washing must follow, in a laver yet to be +provided. Here the assertion that purity is needed, and that it is not +inherent, is too plain to be dwelt upon. + +But such details as the assuming of the existence of a laver, for which +no directions have yet been given (and presently also of the anointing +oil, the composition of which is still untold), deserve notice. They are +much more in the manner of one who is working out a plan, seen already +by his mental vision, but of which only the salient and essential parts +have been as yet stated, than of any priest of the latter days, who +would first have completed his catalogue of the furniture, and only then +have described the ceremonies in which he was accustomed to see all this +apparatus take its appointed place. + +What we actually find is quite natural to a creative imagination, +striking out the broad design of the work and its uses first, and then +filling in the outlines. It is not natural at a time when freshness and +inspiration have departed, and squared timber, as we are told, has taken +the place of the living tree. + +The priest, when cleansed, was next to be clad in his robes of office, +with the mitre on his head, and upon the mitre the golden plate, with +its inscription, which is here called, as the culminating object in all +his rich array, "the holy crown" (ver. 6). + +And then he was to be anointed. Now, the use of oil, in the ceremony of +investiture to office, is peculiar to revealed religion. And whether we +suppose it to refer to the oil in a lamp, invisible, yet the secret +source of all its illuminating power, or to that refreshment and +renovated strength bestowed upon a weary traveller when his head is +anointed with oil, in either case it expresses the grand doctrine of +revealed religion--that no office may be filled in one's own strength, +but that the inspiring help of God is offered, as surely as +responsibilities are imposed. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, +because He hath anointed Me." + +With these three ceremonies--ablution, robing and anointing--the first +and most personal section of the ritual ended. And now began a course of +sacrifices to God, advancing from the humblest expression of sin, and +appeal to heaven to overlook the unworthiness of its servant, to that +which best exhibited conscious acceptance, enjoyment of privilege, +admission to a feast with God. The bullock was a sin-offering: the word +is literally _sin_, and occurs more than once in the double sense: "let +him offer for his _sin_ which he hath _sinned_ a young bullock ... for a +_sin(-offering)_" (Lev. iv. 3, v. 6, etc.). And this is the explanation +of the verse which has perplexed so many: "He made Him to be sin for us, +Who knew no sin" (2 Cor. v. 21). The doctrine that pardon comes not by a +cheap and painless overlooking of transgression, as a thing indifferent, +but by the transfer of its consequences to a victim divinely chosen, +could not easily find clearer expression than in this word. And it was +surely a sobering experience, and a wholesome one, when Aaron, in his +glorious robes, sparkling with gems, and bearing on his forehead the +legend of his holy calling, laid his hand, beside those of his children +and successors, upon the doomed creature which was made sin for him. The +gesture meant confession, acceptance of the appointed expiation, +submission to be freed from guilt by a method so humiliating and +admonitory. There was no undue exaltation in the mind of any priest +whose heart went with this "remembrance of sins." + +The bullock was immediately slain at the door of "the tent of meeting"; +and to show that the shedding of his blood was an essential part of the +rite, part of it was put with the finger on the horns of the altar, and +the remainder was poured out at the base. Only then might the fat and +the kidney be burned upon the altar; but it is never said of any +sin-offering, as presently of the burnt-offering and the +peace-offerings, that it is "a sweet savour before Jehovah" (vers. 18, +25)--a phrase which is only once extended to a trespass-offering for a +purely unconscious lapse (Lev. iv. 31). The sin-offering is, at the +best, a deplorable necessity. And therefore the notion of a gift, +welcome to Jehovah, is carefully shut out: no portion of such an +offering may go to maintain the priests: all must be burned "with fire +without the camp; it is a sin-offering" (ver. 14). Rightly does the +Epistle to the Hebrews emphasize this fact: "The bodies of those beasts +whose blood is brought into the Holy Place ... as an offering for sin" +are burned without the camp. The bodies of other sacrifices were not +reckoned unfit for food.[40] And so there is a striking example of +humility, as well as an instructive coincidence, in the fact that Jesus +suffered without the gate, being the true Sin-offering, "that He might +sanctify the people through His own blood" (Heb. xiii. 11, 12). + +Thus, by sacrifice for sin, the priest is rendered fit to offer up to +God the symbol of a devoted life. Again, therefore, the hands of Aaron +and his sons are laid upon the head of the ram, because they come to +offer what represents themselves in another sense than that of +expiation--a sweet savour now, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah +(ver. 18). And to show that it is perfectly acceptable to Him, the whole +ram shall be burnt upon the altar, and not now without the camp: "it is +a burnt-offering unto the Lord." Such is the appointed way of God with +man--first expiation, then devotion. + +The third animal was a "peace-offering" (ver. 28). This is wrongly +explained to mean an offering by which peace is made, for then there +could be no meaning in what went before. It is the offering of one who +is now in a state of peace with God, and who is therefore himself, in +many cases, allowed to partake of what he brings. But on this occasion +some quite peculiar ceremonies were introduced, and the ram is called by +a strange name--"the ram of consecration." When Aaron and his sons have +again declared their connection with the animal by laying their hands +upon it, it is slain. And then the blood is applied to the tip of their +right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the great toe of their +right foot, that the ear may hearken, and the best energies obey, and +their life become as that of the consecrated animal, their bodies being +presented, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Then the same +blood, with the oil which spoke of heavenly anointing, was sprinkled +upon them and upon their official robes, and all were hallowed. Then the +fattest and richest parts of the animal were taken, with a loaf, a cake, +and a wafer from the basket, and placed in the hands of Aaron and his +sons. This was their formal investiture with official rights; although +not yet performing service, it was as priests that they received these; +and their hands, swayed by those of Moses, solemnly waved them before +the Lord in formal presentation, after which the pieces were consumed by +fire. The breast was likewise waved, and became the perpetual property +of Aaron and his sons--although on this occasion it passed from their +hands to be the portion of Moses, who officiated. The remainder of the +flesh, seethed in a holy place, belonged to Aaron and his sons. No +stranger (of another family) might eat it, and what was left until +morning should be consumed by fire, that is to say, destroyed in a +manner absolutely clean, seeing no corruption. + +For seven days this rite of consecration was repeated; and every day the +altar also was cleansed, rendering it most holy, so that whatever +touched it was holy. + +Thus the people saw their representative and chief purified, accepted +and devoted. Thenceforward, when they too brought their offerings, and +beheld them presented (in person or through his subordinates) by the +high priest with holiness emblazoned upon his brow, they gained hope, +and even assurance, since one so consecrated was bidden to present their +intercession; and sometimes they saw him pass into secret places of +mysterious sanctity, bearing their tribal name on his shoulder and his +bosom, while the chime of golden bells announced his movements, +ministering there for them. + +But the nation as a whole, with which this historical book is chiefly +interested, saw in the high priest the means of continually rendering to +God the service of its loyalty. Every day began and closed with the +burnt-offering of a lamb of the first year, along with a meal-offering +of fine flour and oil, and a drink-offering of wine. This would be a +sweet savour unto God, not after the carnal fashion in which sceptics +have interpreted the words, but in the same sense in which the wicked +are a smoke in His nostrils from a continually burning fire. + +And where this offering was made, the Omnipresent would meet with them. +There He would convey His mind to His priest. There also He would meet +with all the people--not occasionally, as amid the more impressive but +less tolerable splendours of Sinai, but to dwell among them and be their +God. And they should know that all this was true, and also that for this +He led them out of Egypt: "I am Jehovah their God." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[40] Neither, it must be added, were the bodies of certain sin-offerings +of the lower grade, and in which the priest was not personally concerned +(Lev. x. 17, etc.). + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +_INCENSE._ + +xxx. 1-10. + +The altar of incense was not mentioned when the tent of meeting was +being prepared and furnished. But when, in the Divine idea, this is +done, when all is ready for the intercourse of God and man, and the +priest and the daily victims are provided for, something more than this +formal routine of offerings might yet be sought for. This material +worship of the senses, this round of splendour and of tragedy, this +blaze of gold and gold-encrusted timber, these curtains embroidered in +bright colours, and ministers glowing with gems, this blood and fire +upon the altar, this worldly sanctuary,--was it all? Or should it not do +as nature ever does, which seems to stretch its hands out into the +impalpable, and to grow all but spiritual while we gaze; so that the +mountain folds itself in vapour, and the ocean in mist and foam, and the +rugged stem of the tree is arrayed in fineness of quivering frondage, +and it may be of tinted blossom, and around it breathes a subtle +fragrance, the most impalpable existence known to sense? Fragrance +indeed is matter passing into the immaterial, it is the sigh of the +sensuous for the spiritual state of being, it is an aspiration. + +And therefore an altar, smaller than that of burnt-offering, but much +more precious, being plated all around and on the top with gold (a +"golden altar") (xxxix. 38), is now to be prepared, on which incense of +sweet spices should be burned whenever a burnt-offering spoke of human +devotion, and especially when the daily lamb was offered, every morning +and every night. + +This altar occupied a significant position. Of necessity, it was without +the Most Holy Place, or else it would have been practically +inaccessible; and yet it was spiritually in the closest connection with +the presence of God within. The Epistle to the Hebrews reckons it among +the furniture of the inner shrine[41] (Heb. ix. 4), close to the veil of +which it stood, and within which its burning odours made their sweetness +palpable. In the temple of Solomon it was "the altar that belonged to +the oracle" (1 Kings vi. 22). In Leviticus (xvi. 12) incense was +connected especially with that spot in the Most Holy Place which best +expressed the grace that it appealed to, and "the cloud of incense" was +to "cover the mercy-seat." Therefore Moses was bidden to put this altar +"before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the +mercy-seat" (ver. 6). + +It can never have been difficult to see the meaning of the rite for +which this altar was provided. When Zacharias burned incense the +multitude stood without, praying. The incense in the vial of the angel +of the Apocalypse was the prayers of the saints (Luke i. 10; Rev. viii. +3). And, long before, when the Psalmist thought of the priest +approaching the veil which concealed the Supreme Presence, and there +kindling precious spices until their aromatic breath became a silent +plea within, it seemed to him that his own heart was even such an altar, +whence the perfumed flame of holy longings might be wafted into the +presence of his God, and he whispered, "Let my prayer be set forth +before Thee as incense" (Ps. cxli. 2). + +Such being the import of the type, we need not wonder that it was a +perpetual ordinance in their generations, nor yet that no strange +perfume might be offered, but only what was prescribed by God. The +admixture with prayer of any human, self-asserting, intrusive element, +is this unlawful fragrance. It is rhetoric in the leader of extempore +prayer; studied inflexions in the conductor of liturgical service; +animal excitement, or sentimental pensiveness, or assent which is merely +vocal, among the worshippers. It is whatever professes to be prayer, and +is not that but a substitute. And formalism is an empty censer. + +But, however earnest and pure may seem to be the breathing of the soul +to God, something unworthy mingles with what is best in man. The very +altar of incense needs to have an atonement made for it once in the year +throughout their generations with the blood of the sin-offering of +atonement. The prayer of every heart which knows its own secret will be +this: + + "Forgive what seemed my sin in me, + What seemed my worth since I began; + For merit lives from man to man + And not from man, O Lord, to Thee." + + +_THE CENSUS._ + +xxx. 11-16. + +Moses by Divine command was soon to number Israel, and thus to lay the +foundation for its organisation upon the march. A census was not, +therefore, supposed to be presumptuous or sinful in itself; it was the +vain-glory of David's census which was culpable. + +But the honour of being numbered among the people of God should awaken a +sense of unworthiness. Men had reason to fear lest the enrolment of such +as they were in the host of God should produce a pestilence to sweep out +the unclean from among the righteous. At least they must make some +practical admission of their demerit. And therefore every man of twenty +years who passed over unto them that were numbered (it is a picturesque +glimpse that is here given into the method of enrolment) should offer +for his soul a ransom of half a shekel after the shekel of the +sanctuary. And because it was a ransom, the tribute was the same for +all; the poor might not bring less, nor the rich more. Here was a grand +assertion of the equality of all souls in the eyes of God--a seed which +long ages might overlook, but which was sure to fructify in its +appointed time. + +For indeed the madness of modern levelling systems is only their attempt +to level down instead of up, their dream that absolute equality can be +obtained, or being obtained can be made a blessing, by the envious +demolition of all that is lofty, and not by all together claiming the +supreme elevation, the measure of the stature of manhood in Jesus +Christ. + +It is not in any _phalanstre_ of Fourier or Harmony Hall of Owen, that +mankind will ever learn to break a common bread and drink of a common +cup; it is at the table of a common Lord. + +And so this first assertion of the equality of man was given to those +who all ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink. + +This half-shekel gradually became an annual impost, levied for the great +expenses of the Temple. "Thus Joash made a proclamation throughout Judah +and Jerusalem, to bring in for the Lord the tax that Moses, the servant +of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness" (2 Chron. xxiv. 9). + +And it was the claim for this impost, too rashly conceded by Peter with +regard to his Master, which led Jesus to distinguish clearly between His +own relation to God and that of others, even of the chosen race. + +He paid no ransom for His soul. He was a Son, in a sense in which no +other, even of the Jews, could claim to be so. Now, the kings of the +earth did not levy tribute from their sons; so that, if Christ paid, it +was not to fulfil a duty, but to avoid being an offence. And God Himself +would provide, directly and miraculously, what He did not demand from +Jesus. Therefore it was that, on this one occasion and no other, Christ +Who sought figs when hungry, and when athirst asked water at alien +hands, met His own personal requirement by a miracle, as if to protest +in deed, as in word, against any burden from such an obligation as +Peter's rashness had conceded. + +And yet, with that marvellous condescension which shone most brightly +when He most asserted His prerogative, He admitted Peter also to a share +in this miraculous redemption-money, as He admits us all to a share in +His glory in the skies. Is it not He only Who can redeem His brother, +and give to God a ransom for him? + +It is the silver thus levied which was used in the construction of the +sanctuary. All the other materials were free-will offerings; but even as +the entire tabernacle was based upon the ponderous sockets into which +the boards were fitted, made of the silver of this tax, so do all our +glad and willing services depend upon this fundamental truth, that we +are unworthy even to be reckoned His, that we owe before we can bestow, +that we are only allowed to offer any gift because He is so merciful in +His demand. Israel gladly brought much more than was needed of all +things precious. But first, as an absolutely imperative ransom, God +demanded from each soul the half of three shillings and sevenpence. + + +_THE LAVER._ + +xxx. 17-21. + +For the cleansing of various sacrifices, but especially for the +ceremonial washing of the priests, a laver of brass was to be made, and +placed upon a separate base, the more easily to be emptied and +replenished. + +We have seen already that although its actual use preceded that of the +altar, yet the other stood in front of it, as if to assert, to the very +eyes of all men, that sacrifice precedes purification. But the use of +the laver was not by the man as man, but by the priest as mediator. In +his office he represented the absolute purity of Christ. And therefore +it was a capital offence to enter the tabernacle or to burn a sacrifice +without first having washed the hands and feet. At his inauguration, the +whole person of the priest was bathed, and thenceforth he needed not +save to remove the stains of contact with the world. + +When the laver was actually made, an interesting fact was recorded about +its materials: "He made the laver of brass, and the base of it of brass, +of the mirrors of the serving-women which served at the door of the tent +of meeting" (xxxviii. 8). Thus their instruments of personal adornment +were applied to further a personal preparation of a more solemn kind, +like the ointment with which a penitent woman anointed the feet of +Jesus. There is a fitness which ought to be considered in the direction +of our gifts, not as a matter of duty, but of good taste and charm. And +thus also they continually saw the monument of their self-sacrifice. +There is an innocent satisfaction, far indeed from vanity, when one +looks at his own work for God. + + +_THE ANOINTING OIL AND THE INCENSE._ + +xxx. 22-38. + +We have already seen the meaning of the anointing oil and of the +incense. + +But we have further to remark that their ingredients were accurately +prescribed, that they were to be the best and rarest of their kind, and +that special skill was demanded in their preparation. + +Such was the natural dictate of reverence in preparing the symbols of +God's grace to man, and of man's appeal to God. + +With the type of grace should be anointed the tent and the ark, and the +table of shewbread and the candlestick, with all their implements, and +the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt sacrifice and the laver. +All the import of every portion of the Temple worship could be realized +only by the outpouring of the Spirit of grace. + +It was added that this should be a holy anointing oil, not to be made, +much less used, for common purposes, on pain of death. The same was +enacted of the incense which should burn before Jehovah: "according to +the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves; it shall be +unto thee holy for the Lord: whosoever shall make like unto that, to +smell thereto, he shall be cut off from his people." + +And this was meant to teach reverence. One might urge that the spices +and frankincense and salt were not in themselves sacred: there was no +consecrating efficacy in their combination, no charm or spell in the +union of these, more than of any other drugs. Why, then, should they be +denied to culture? Why should her resources be thus restricted? Does any +one suppose that such arguments belong peculiarly to the New Testament +spirit, or that the saints of the older dispensation had any +superstitious views about these ingredients? If it was through such +notions that they abstained from vulgarising its use, then they were on +the way to paganism, through a materialised worship. + +But in truth they knew as well as we that gums were only gums, just as +they knew that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands. +And yet they were bidden to reverence both the shrine and the apparatus +of His worship, for their own sakes, for the solemnity and sobriety of +their feelings, not because God would be a loser if they did otherwise. +And we may well ask ourselves, in these latter days, whether the +constant proposal to secularise religious buildings, revenues, +endowments and seasons does really indicate greater religious freedom, +or only greater freedom from religious control. + +And we may be sure that a light treatment of sacred subjects and sacred +words is a very dangerous symptom: it is not the words and subjects +alone that are being secularised, but also our own souls. + +There is in our time a curious tendency among men of letters to use holy +things for a mere perfume, that literature may "smell thereto." + +A novelist has chosen for the title of a story "Just as I am." An +innocent and graceful poet has seen a smile,-- + + "'Twas such a smile, + Aaron's twelve jewels seemed to mix + With the lamps of the golden candlesticks." + +Another is bolder, and sings of the war of love,-- + + "In the great battle when the hosts are met + On Armageddon's plain, with spears beset." + +Another thinks of Mazzini as the + + "Dear lord and leader, at whose hand + The first days and the last days stand," + +and again as he who + + "Said, when all Time's sea was foam, + 'Let there be Rome,' and there was Rome." + +And Victor Hugo did not shrink from describing, and that with a strange +and scandalous ignorance of the original incidents, the crucifixion by +Louis Napoleon of the Christ of nations. + +Now, Scripture is literature, besides being a great deal more; and, as +such, it is absurd to object to all allusions to it in other +literature. Yet the tendency of which these extracts are examples is not +merely toward allusion, but desecration of solemn and sacred thoughts: +it is the conversion of incense into perfumery. + +There is another development of the same tendency, by no means modern, +noted by the prophet when he complains that the message of God has +become as the "very lovely song of one who hath a pleasant voice and +playeth well on an instrument." Wherever divine service is only +appreciated in so far as it is "well rendered," as rich music or stately +enunciation charm the ear, and the surroundings are sthetic,--wherever +the gospel is heard with enjoyment only of the eloquence or +controversial skill of its rendering, wherever religion is reduced by +the cultivated to a thrill or to a solace, or by the Salvationist to a +riot or a romp, wherever Isaiah and the Psalms are only admired as +poetry, and heaven is only thought of as a languid and sentimental +solace amid wearying cares,--there again is a making of the sacred balms +to smell thereto. + +And as often as a minister of God finds in his holy office a mere outlet +for his natural gifts of rhetoric or of administration, he also is +tempted to commit this crime. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] For it is incredible that, in a catalogue of furniture which +included Aaron's rod and the pot of manna, this altar should be omitted, +and "a golden censer," elsewhere unheard of, substituted. The gloss is +too evidently an endeavour to get rid of a difficulty. But in idea and +suggestion this altar belonged to the Most Holy. That shrine "had" it, +though it actually stood outside. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +_BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB._ + +xxxi. 1-18. + +Next after this marking off so sharply of the holy from the profane, +this consecration of men to special service, this protection of sacred +unguents and sacred gums from secular use, we come upon a passage +curiously contrasted, yet not really antagonistic to the last, of +marvellous practical wisdom, and well calculated to make a nation wise +and great. + +The Lord announces that He has called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, +and has filled him with the Spirit of God. To what sacred office, then, +is he called? Simply to be a supreme craftsman, the rarest of artisans. +This also is a divine gift. "I have filled him with the Spirit of God in +wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of +workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and +in brass and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, +to work in all manner of workmanship,"--that is to say, of manual +dexterity. With him God had appointed Aholiab; "and in the hearts of all +the wise-hearted I have put wisdom." Thus should be fitly made the +tabernacle and its furniture, and the finely wrought garments, and the +anointing oil and the incense. + +So then it appears that the Holy Spirit of God is to be recognised in +the work of the carpenter and the jeweller, the apothecary and the +tailor. Probably we object to such a statement, so baldly put. But +inspiration does not object. Moses told the children of Israel that +Jehovah had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, and also Aholiab, +for the work "of the engraver ... and of the embroiderer ... and of the +weaver" (xxxv. 31, 35). + +It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as +inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and +beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the +supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left +to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of +the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that + + "On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung"; + +but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures? +Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was "inspired" was a clear +recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp: +now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that +Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this +passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to +claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human +being who is so richly crowned and gifted. + +Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting, +music--things which really compete with nature in their spiritual +suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the +weaver, and the perfumer. + +Nevertheless, the one is carried with the other. Where shall we draw the +line, for example, in architecture or in ironwork? And there is another +consideration which must not be overlooked. God is assuredly in the +growth of humanity, in the progress of true civilisation--in all, the +recognition of which makes history philosophical. It is not only the +saints who feel themselves to be the instruments of a Greater than they. +Cromwell and Bismarck, Columbus, Raleigh and Drake, William the Silent +and William the Third, felt it. Mr. Stanley has told us how the +consciousness that he was being used grew up in him, not through +fanaticism but by slow experience, groping his way through the gloom of +Central Africa. + +But none will deny that one of the greatest factors in modern history is +its industrial development. Is there, then, no sacredness here? + +The doctrine of Scripture is not that man is a tool, but that he is +responsible for vast gifts, which come directly from heaven--that every +good gift is from above, that it was God Himself Who planted in Paradise +the tree of knowledge. + +Nor would anything do more to restrain the passions, to calm the +impulses and to elevate the self-respect of modern life, to call back +its energies from the base competition for gold, and make our industries +what dreamers persuade themselves that the medival industries were, +than a quick and general perception of what is meant when faculty goes +by such names as talent, endowment, gift--of the glory of its use, the +tragedy of its defilement. Many persons, indeed, reject this doctrine +because they cannot believe that man has power to abase so high a thing +so sadly. But what, then, do they think of the human body? + +What connection is there between all this and the reiteration of the law +of the Sabbath? Not merely that the moral law is now made a civic +statute as well, for this had been done already (xxiii. 12). But, as our +Lord has taught us that a Jew on the Sabbath was free to perform works +of mercy, it might easily be supposed lawful, and even meritorious, to +hasten forward the construction of the place where God would meet His +people. But He who said "I will have mercy and not sacrifice" said also +that to obey was better than sacrifice. Accordingly this caution closes +the long story of plans and preparations. And when Moses called the +people to the work, his first words were to repeat it (xxxv. 2). + +Finally, there was given to Moses the deposit for which so noble a +shrine was planned--the two tables of the law, miraculously produced. + +If any one, without supposing that they were literally written with a +literal finger, conceives that this was the meaning conveyed to a Hebrew +by the expression "written with the finger of God," he entirely misses +the Hebrew mode of thought, which habitually connects the Lord with an +arm, with a chariot, with a bow made naked, with a tent and curtains, +without the slightest taint of materialism in its conception. Did not +the magicians, failing to imitate the third plague, say "This is the +finger of a God"? Did not Jesus Himself "cast out devils by the finger +of God"? (Ex. viii. 19; Luke xi. 20). + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +_THE GOLDEN CALF._ + +xxxii. + +While God was thus providing for Israel, what had Israel done with God? +They had grown weary of waiting: had despaired of and slighted their +heroic leader, ("this Moses, the man that brought us up,") had demanded +gods, or a god, at the hand of Aaron, and had so far carried him with +them or coerced him that he thought it a stroke of policy to save them +from breaking the first commandment by joining them in a breach of the +second, and by infecting "a feast to Jehovah" with the licentious "play" +of paganism. At the beginning, the only fitness attributed to Aaron was +that "he can speak well." But the plastic and impressible temperament of +a gifted speaker does not favour tenacity of will in danger. Demosthenes +and Cicero, and Savonarola, the most eloquent of the reformers, +illustrate the tendency of such genius to be daunted by visible perils. + +God now rejects them because the covenant is violated. As Jesus spoke no +longer of "My Father's house," but "your house, left unto you desolate," +so the Lord said to Moses, "thy people which thou broughtest up." + +But what are we to think of the proposal to destroy them, and to make of +Moses a great nation? + +We are to learn from it the solemn reality of intercession, the power of +man with God, Who says not that He will destroy them, but that He will +destroy them if left alone. Who can tell, at any moment, what calamities +the intercession of the Church is averting from the world or from the +nation? + +The first prayer of Moses is brief and intense; there is passionate +appeal, care for the Divine honour, remembrance of the saintly dead for +whose sake the living might yet be spared, and absolute forgetfulness of +self. Already the family of Aaron had been preferred to his, but the +prospect of monopolising the Divine predestination has no charm for this +faithful and patriotic heart. No sooner has the immediate destruction +been arrested than he hastens to check the apostates, makes them exhibit +the madness of their idolatry by drinking the water in which the dust of +their pulverised god was strewn; receives the abject apology of Aaron, +thoroughly spirit-broken and demoralised; and finding the sons of Levi +faithful, sends them to the slaughter of three thousand men. Yet this is +he who said "O Lord, why is Thy wrath hot against Thy people?" He +himself felt it needful to cut deep, in mercy, and doubtless in wrath as +well, for true affection is not limp and nerveless: it is like the ocean +in its depth, and also in its tempests. And the stern action of the +Levites appeared to him almost an omen; it was their "consecration," the +beginning of their priestly service. + +Again he returns to intercede; and if his prayer must fail, then his own +part in life is over: let him too perish among the rest. For this is +evidently what he means and says: he has not quite anticipated the +spirit of Christ in Paul willing to be anathema for his brethren (Rom. +ix. 3), nor has the idea of a vicarious human sacrifice been suggested +to him by the institutions of the sanctuary. Yet how gladly would he +have died for his people, who made request that he might die among them! + +How nobly he foreshadows, not indeed the Christian doctrine, but the +love of Christ Who died for man, Who from the Mount of Transfiguration, +as Moses from Sinai, came down (while Peter would have lingered) to bear +the sins of His brethren! How superior He is to the Christian hymn which +pronounces nothing worth a thought, except how to make my own election +sure. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +_PREVAILING INTERCESSION._ + +xxxiii. + +At this stage the first concession is announced: Moses shall lead the +people to their rest, and God will send an angel with him. + +We have seen that the original promise of a great Angel in whom was the +Divine Presence was full of encouragement and privilege (xxiii. 20). No +unbiassed reader can suppose that it is the sending of this same Angel +of the Presence which now expresses the absence of God, or that He Who +then would not pardon their transgression "because My Name is in Him" is +now sent because God, if He were in the midst of them for a moment, +would consume them. Nor, when Moses passionately pleads against this +degradation, and is heard in this thing also, can the answer "My +Presence shall go with thee" be merely the repetition of those evil +tidings. Yet it was the Angel of His Presence Who saved them. All this +has been already treated, and what we are now to learn is that the +faithful and sublime urgency of Moses did really save Israel from +degradation and a lower covenant. + +It was during the progress of this mediation that Moses distracted by a +double anxiety--afraid to absent himself from his wayward followers, +equally afraid to be so long withdrawn from the presence of God as the +descending of Sinai and returning thither would involve--made a noble +adventure of faith. Inspired by the conception of the tabernacle, he +took a tent, "his tent," and pitched it outside the camp, to express the +estrangement of the people, and this he called the Tent of the Meeting +(with God), but in the Hebrew it is never called the Tabernacle. And God +did condescend to meet him there. The mystic cloud guarded the door +against presumptuous intrusion, and all the people, who previously wist +not what had become of him, had now to confess the majesty of his +communion, and they worshipped every man at his tent door. + +It would seem that the anxious vigilance of Moses caused him to pass to +and fro between the tent and the camp, "but his minister, Joshua the son +of Nun, departed not out of the tent." + +The dread crisis in the history of the nation was now almost over. God +had said, "My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee +rest,"--a phrase which the lowly Jesus thought it no presumption to +appropriate, saying, "_I_ will give you rest," as He also appropriated +the office of the Shepherd, the benevolence of the Physician, the +tenderness of the Bridegroom, and the glory of the King and the Judge, +all of which belonged to God. + +But Moses is not content merely to be secure, for it is natural that he +who best loves man should also best love God. Therefore he pleads +against the least withdrawal of the Presence: he cannot rest until +repeatedly assured that God will indeed go with him; he speaks as if +there were no "grace" but that. There are many people now who think it +a better proof of being religious to feel either anxious or comforted +about their own salvation, their election, and their going to heaven. +And these would do wisely to consider how it comes to pass that the +Bible first taught men to love and to follow God, and afterwards +revealed to them the mysteries of the inner life and of eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +_THE VISION OF GOD._ + +xxxiv. + +It was when God had most graciously assured Moses of His affection, that +he ventured, in so brief a cry that it is almost a gasp of longing, to +ask, "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory" (xxxiii. 18). + +We have seen how nobly this petition and the answer condemn all +anthropomorphic misunderstandings of what had already been revealed; and +also how it exemplifies the great law, that they who see most of God, +know best how much is still unrevealed. The elders saw the God of Israel +and did eat and drink: Moses was led from the bush to the flaming top of +Sinai, and thence to the tent where the pillar of cloud was as a +sentinel; but the secret remained unseen, the longing unsatisfied, and +the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision reached by him with whom God +spake face to face as with a friend, was to be hidden in a cleft of the +rock, to be aware of an awful Shadow, and to hear the Voice of the +Unseen. + +It was a fit time for the proclamation which was then made. When the +people had been righteously punished and yet graciously forgiven, the +name of the Self-Existent expanded and grew clearer,--"Jehovah, Jehovah, +a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in +mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and +transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, +visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the +children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation." And +as Moses made haste and bowed himself, it is affecting to hear him again +pleading for that beloved Presence which even yet he can scarce believe +to be restored, and instead of claiming any separation through his +fidelity and his honours, praying "Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and +take us for Thine inheritance" (xxxiv. 10). + +Thereupon the covenant is given, as if newly, but without requiring its +actual re-enactment; and certain of the former precepts are rehearsed, +chiefly such as would guard against a relapse into idolatry when they +entered the good land where God would bestow on them prosperity and +conquest. + +As Moses had broken the former tablets, the task was imposed on him of +hewing out the slabs on which God renewed His awful sanction of the +Decalogue, the fundamental statutes of the nation. And they who had +failed to endure his former absence, were required to be patient while +he tarried again upon the mountain, forty days and nights. + +With his return a strange incident is connected. Unknown by himself, the +"skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him," and Aaron +and the people recoiled until he called to them. And thenceforth he +lived a strange and isolated life. At each new interview the glory of +his countenance was renewed, and when he conveyed his revelation to the +people, they beheld the lofty sanction, the light of God upon his face. +Then he veiled his face until next he approached his God, so that none +might see what changes came there, and whether--as St. Paul seems to +teach us--the lustre gradually waned. + +His revelation, the apostle argues, was like this occasional and fading +gleam, while the moral glory of the Christian system has no +concealments: it uses great frankness; there is nothing withdrawn, no +veil upon the face. Nor is it given to one alone to behold as in a +mirror the glory of the Lord, and to share its lustre. We all, with face +unveiled, share this experience of the deliverer (2 Cor. iii. 12, 18). + +But the incident itself is most instructive. Since he had already spent +an equal time with God, yet no such results had followed, it seems that +we receive what we are adapted to receive, not straitened in Him but in +our own capabilities; and as Moses, after his vehemence of intercession, +his sublimity of self-negation, and his knowledge of the greater name of +God, received new lustre from the unchangeable Fountain of light, so +does all true service and earnest aspiration, while it approaches God, +elevate and glorify humanity. + +We learn also something of the exaltation of which matter is capable. We +who have seen coarse bulb and soil and rain transmuted by the sunshine +into radiance of bloom and subtlety of perfume, who have seen plain +faces illuminated from within until they were almost angelic,--may we +not hope for something great and rare for ourselves, and the beloved who +are gone, as we muse upon the profound word, "It is raised a spiritual +body"? + +And again we learn that the best religious attainment is the least +self-conscious: Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone. + + + + +CHAPTERS XXXV-XL. + +_THE CONCLUSION._ + + +The remainder of the narrative sets forth in terms almost identical with +the directions already given, the manner in which the Divine injunctions +were obeyed. The people, purified in heart by danger, chastisement and +shame, brought much more than was required. A quarter of a million would +poorly represent the value of the shrine in which, at the last, Moses +and Aaron approached their God, while the cloud covered the tent and the +glory filled the tabernacle, and Moses failed to overcome his awe and +enter. + +Thenceforth the cloud was the guide of their halting and their march. +Many a time they grieved their God in the wilderness, yet the cloud was +on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night, +throughout all their journeyings. + +That cloud is seen no longer; but One has said, "Lo, I am with you all +the days." If the presence is less material, it is because we ought to +be more spiritual. + + * * * * * + +Looking back upon the story, we can discern more clearly what was +asserted when we began--the forming and training of a nation. + +They are called from shameful servitude by the devotion of a patriot and +a hero, who has learned in failure and exile the difference between +self-confidence and faith. The new name of God, and His remembrance of +their fathers, inspire them at the same time with awe and hope and +nationality. They see the hollowness of earthly force, and of +superstitious worships, in the abasement and ruin of Egypt. They are +taught by the Paschal sacrifice to confess that the Divine favour is a +gift and not a right, that their lives also are justly forfeited. The +overthrow of Pharaoh's army and the passage of the Sea brings them into +a new and utterly strange life, in an atmosphere and amid scenes well +calculated to expand and deepen their emotions, to develop their sense +of freedom and self-respect, and yet to oblige them to depend wholly on +their God. Privation at Marah chastens them. The attack of Amalek +introduces them to war, and forbids their dependence to sink into abject +softness. The awful scene of Horeb burns and brands his littleness into +man. The covenant shows them that, however little in themselves, they +may enter into communion with the Eternal. It also crushes out what is +selfish and individualising, by making them feel the superiority of what +they all share over anything that is peculiar to one of them. The +Decalogue reveals a holiness at once simple and profound, and forms a +type of character such as will make any nation great. The sacrificial +system tells them at once of the pardon and the heinousness of sin. +Religion is both exalted above the world and infused into it, so that +all is consecrated. The priesthood and the shrine tell them of sin and +pardon, exclusion and hope; but that hope is a common heritage, which +none may appropriate without his brother. + +The especial sanctity of a sacred calling is balanced by an immediate +assertion of the sacredness of toil, and the Divine Spirit is recognised +even in the gift of handicraft. + +A tragic and shameful failure teaches them, more painfully than any +symbolic system of curtains and secret chambers, how little fitted they +are for the immediate intercourse of heaven. And yet the ever-present +cloud, and the shrine in the heart of their encampment, assure them that +God is with them of a truth. + +Could any better system be imagined by which to convert a slavish and +superstitious multitude into a nation at once humble and pure and +gallant--a nation of brothers and of worshippers, chastened by a genuine +sense of ill desert and of responsibility, and yet braced and fired by +the conviction of an exalted destiny? + +To do this, and also to lead mankind to liberty, to rescue them from +sensuous worship, and prepare them for a system yet more spiritual, to +teach the human race that life is not repose but warfare, pilgrimage and +aspiration, and to sow the seeds of beliefs and expectations which only +an atoning Mediator and an Incarnate God could satisfy, this was the +meaning of the Exodus. + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + + + 1889-90. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + JUDGES AND RUTH. By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A. + + THE PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH. By the Rev. C. J. + BALL, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn. + + THE PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH. Vol. II. Completing the + Work. By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A. + + THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. By the Rev. J. MONRO + GIBSON, D.D., London, Author of "The Mosaic Era," etc. + + THE BOOK OF EXODUS. By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, + D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + THE BOOK OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By the + Rev. G. T. STOKES, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in + the University of Dublin. + + + 1888-89. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. By the Rev. Professor + G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds. + + THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. Chap. I. to XXXIX. By the Rev. + GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A., Aberdeen. + + THE PASTORAL EPISTLES By the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, + D.D., Master of University College, Durham. + + THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. By the + Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. Second Edition. + + THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. By the Rev. Professor + W. MILLIGAN, D.D., of the University of Aberdeen. + + THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. By the Right Rev. W. + ALEXANDER, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. + + + 1887-88. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. By ALEXANDER + MACLAREN, D.D., of Manchester. Fourth Edition. + + THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. By the Rev. + Prebendary G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + THE BOOK OF GENESIS. By the Rev. Professor MARCUS + DODS, D.D. Fourth Edition. + + THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the Rev. Professor + W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + + THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the same Author. + + THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. By the Rev. Principal + T. C. EDWARDS, M.A. + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + + +Third Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. + +THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. + + Academy.--"Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps + close to his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is + thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and + epigrammatic when he wishes." + + Scotsman.--"It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and + written in clear, vigorous English." + + Record.--"Dr. Chadwick's style is characteristic, thoughtful, clear, + and vigorous. He is never commonplace or trivial." + + English Churchman.--"A valuable, interesting, and delightful work, + almost every page of which contains something worthy of quotation." + + Christian.--"If the volumes to come be like the one before us they + may be sure of a warm welcome. Dr. Chadwick has caught something of + the vividness of style and onward rush which characterise the writer + he expounds. Sober in judgment, markedly Scriptural in tone, well + acquainted with exegetical lore, and qualified by patient + investigations to give an individual opinion on disputed points, he + makes good his claim to help and instruct students of Mark's + Gospel." + + Methodist Recorder.--"We are glad to say that the beginning of a + very promising series is, in our opinion, distinctly good, and that + Dean Chadwick has hit the mark specially aimed at exceedingly well. + We have found ourselves many sparkling and memorable sentences in + his pages. We hope the 'Expositor's Bible' has many other volumes in + store as instructive as the first instalment." + + Expositor.--"Dean Chadwick's readers, even in the first pages, + become aware that they are in the company of a thoroughly original + writer, who repeats nothing, echoes nothing, imitates no one. It is + with a feeling of thankfulness his readers follow him from passage + to passage of the Gospel, finding new truth in familiar words and + incidents, and, unable to confine themselves to the limits they had + set for their day's reading, are lured on to trespass on to-morrow's + portion. There is every quality here that is desirable in an + expositor--reverence for his text, sufficient information about it, + sympathetic insight, and keen observation of men and manners. + Equally successful in opening up the significance of the text and in + applying it to present conditions of life, Dean Chadwick has given + us an admirable specimen of what an expositor's Bible should be." + + London Quarterly Review.--"Dr. Chadwick's exposition is thoughtful + and penetrating; his sentences are sharp and crisp.... Often bright + aphoristic sayings occur which are likely to print themselves on the + memory of the reader. The expositor would almost seem to resemble + his subject in the practical and condensed, yet graphic, style in + which he has done his expository work." + + Rock.--"The style of the commentary is, like its subject, forcible + and terse." + + Church Bells.--"We have never yet read any commentary which we liked + so well. The preacher will find it full of materials for sermons, + fresh and vigorous, and yet calm and well-weighed." + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. + + + + +_SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT._ + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +Edited by W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D., Editor of _The Expositor_. + +THIRD YEAR'S ISSUE. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each Volume._ + +_Judges and Ruth._ + + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., Author of "Gospels of Yesterday." + [_Ready._ + +_The Prophecies of Jeremiah._ + + WITH A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND TIMES. + + By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn; Contributor + to Bishop Ellicott's "Commentary," "The Speaker's Commentary," etc. + [_Ready._ + +_The Book of Exodus._ + + By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh, Author of + "The Gospel of St. Mark," etc. [_Ready._ + +_The Gospel of St. Matthew._ + + By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D., London, Author of "The Ages + before Moses," "The Mosaic Era," etc. + +_The Prophecies of Isaiah, Vol. II._ + + Completing the work. + + By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A. + +_The Acts of the Apostles._ + + By the Rev. G. T. STOKES, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History + in the University of Dublin. + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +FIRST SERIES. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each Volume._ + +Fourth Edition. + +The Book of Genesis. + +By Rev. 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CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + "Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps close to + his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is + thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and + epigrammatic when he wishes."--_Academy._ + + "It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and written in + clear, vigorous English."--_Scotsman._ + +Fourth Edition. + +The Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon. + +By the Rev. ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. + + "In nothing Dr. Maclaren has written is there more of beauty, of + spiritual insight, or of brilliant elucidation of Scripture. Indeed, + Dr. Maclaren is here at his best."--_Expositor._ + + "The book is pre-eminently one for ministers, but there is nothing + in the exposition which may not prove a boon to any diligent student + of the Word of God. It contains a wealth of thought for + preachers."--_Rock._ + +Third Edition. + +The Epistle to the Hebrews. + +By Rev. Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D., Author of "A Commentary on the +First Epistle to the Corinthians." + + "He has entered into the spirit and purport of what truly he calls + 'one of the greatest and most difficult books of the New Testament' + with a systematic thoroughness and fairness which cannot be too + highly commended. Henceforth English students of this portion of the + New Testament will have only themselves to blame if they cannot + trace the connection of thought and final purport of this + epistle."--_Academy._ + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +SECOND SERIES. + +_Price 7s. 6d, each Volume._ + +Fifth Edition. + +The Book of Isaiah. Vol. I. Chapters I.-XXXIX. + +By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A., Aberdeen. With Map. + + "This is a very attractive book. Mr. George Adam Smith has evidently + such a mastery of the scholarship of his subject that it would be a + sheer impertinence for most scholars, even though tolerable + Hebraists, to criticise his translations; and certainly it is not + the intention of the present reviewer to attempt anything of the + kind, to do which he is absolutely incompetent. All we desire is to + let English readers know how very lucid, impressive, and, indeed, + how vivid a study of Isaiah is within their reach--the fault of the + book, if it has a fault, being rather that it finds too many points + of connection between Isaiah and our modern world, than that it + finds too few. In other words, no one can say that the book is not + full of life."--_Spectator._ + +Second Edition. + +The First Epistle to the Corinthians. + +By the Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + "A clear, close, unaffected, unostentatious exposition, not verse by + verse, but thought after thought of this most interesting, perhaps, + and certainly most various, of all the Apostle's writings."--_London + Quarterly Review._ + +Second Edition. + +The Epistle to the Galatians. + +By the Rev. Professor G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds. + + "Professor G.G. Findlay discloses a minute acquaintance with his + subject, an earnest desire to penetrate its inmost meaning, and a + marked capacity of illustrating and enforcing the text."--_Record._ + +Second Edition. + +The Pastoral Epistles. + +By the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, D.D., Master of University College, Durham. + + "It is an admirable example of what popular theology ought to + be--presuming a somewhat high level of education and interest in its + readers, and built throughout upon sound erudition and sensible, + devout, and well-disciplined reflection."--_Saturday Review._ + +The Epistles of St. John. + +By WILLIAM ALEXANDER, D.D., D.C.L., Brasenose College, Oxford, Lord +Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. + + "Full of felicities of exegesis.... Brilliant and + valuable."--_Literary Churchman._ + + "The discourses are eloquent and impressive, and show a thorough + knowledge of the subject."--_Scotsman._ + +The Revelation of St. John. + +By Rev. Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D., of the University of Aberdeen. + + "The most delightful work on the Apocalypse that we have read. The + practical and spiritual teaching even of the most recondite and + mysterious passages is made plain."--_Methodist Recorder._ + + + + +THE THEOLOGICAL EDUCATOR. + +_Price 2s. 6d. each Volume. Fcap. 8vo._ + + +The Language of the New Testament. + +By Rev. WILLIAM HENRY SIMCOX, M.A., Rector of Harlaxton. + + "The distinctive peculiarities of New Testament Greek are defined + with exactness, the gradations by which one grammatical usage passes + into another are clearly traced, the frontier between grammar and + exegesis marked with unusual sense and discrimination. In a word, + this is the most living grammar of the New Testament we + have."--_Expositor._ + +Outlines of Christian Doctrine. + +By the Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, M.A., Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. +Fifth Thousand. + + "Marked throughout by the most careful and critical knowledge of + Scripture, more particularly of the New Testament, and the most + patient weighing and comparison of parallel texts.... It forms an + admirable introduction to the subject, and seems in intellectual + power to even surpass any other of Mr. Moule's published + writings."--_Record._ + +An Introduction to the New Testament. + +By Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. Now Ready. Fourth Edition. + + "The authenticity, authorship, history, object, and general + character of each book are discussed with admirable condensation and + lucidity, and with ample critical knowledge."--_Scotsman._ + +A Manual of Christian Evidences. + +By the Rev. C. A. ROW, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul's. Fifth Thousand. + + "A veritable _multum in parvo_, clear, cogent, and concise, without + being sketchy or superficial."--_Saturday Review._ + +An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. + +By the Rev. Professor B. B. WARFIELD, D.D. Third Thousand. + +A Hebrew Grammar. + +By the Rev. W. H. LOWE, M.A., Joint Author of "A Commentary on the +Psalms," etc., etc.; Hebrew Lecturer, Christ's College, Cambridge. +Second Thousand. + +An Exposition of the Apostles' Creed. + +By the Rev. J. E. YONGE, M.A., Late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, +and Assistant-Master in Eton College. + +A Manual of the Book of Common Prayer. + +_Showing its History and Contents._ + +By the Rev. CHARLES HOLE, B.A., King's College, London. + +A Manual of Church History. + +By the Rev. A. C. JENNINGS, M.A. In Two Vols. + + Vol. I.--From the First to the Tenth Century. + Vol. II.--From the Eleventh to the Nineteenth Century. + + + + +_COMPLETION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT._ + + +THE SERMON BIBLE. + +Each Volume contains upwards of Five Hundred Sermon Outlines and Several +Thousand References. Strongly bound in half buckram. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each._ + +VOLUME I. + +Genesis to 2 Samuel. + + "A very complete guide to the sermon literature of the present + day."--_Scotsman._ + + "We do not hesitate to pronounce this the most practically useful + work of its kind at present extant. It is not a commentary, but a + _Thesaurus_ of sermons on texts arranged consecutively, chapter + after chapter and book after book.... We are bound to say that the + object announced by the compilers is on the way to be realised, and + here will be given the essence of the best homiletic literature of + this generation."--_Literary Churchman._ + +VOLUME II. + +1 Kings to Psalm LXXVI. + + "Preachers anxious to discover the best books out of which they may + discover golden thoughts on any particular text, for use in their + sermons, will doubtless be glad of the volume before us, which aims + at being a guide-book, pointing out where sermons and articles on + those texts may be found. In addition to this, extracts from sermons + are given in the book itself."--_English Churchman._ + + "A hearty word of commendation can be said of the selected and + condensed outlines of sermons in this volume, most of which are by + well-known preachers. They will be of considerable + service."--_Nonconformist._ + +VOLUME III. + +Psalm LXXVII. to The Song of Solomon. + + "Like its two predecessors, the third volume is distinguished by the + perfect catholicity of the selections, the admirable condensation of + the sermons and expositions that are quoted, and the fulness of the + references to the best sermon literature on each of the texts. It is + beyond question the richest treasury of modern homiletics which has + ever issued from the press."--_Christian Leader._ + +VOLUME IV. + +Isaiah to Malachi. + + "A marvellous amount of information is here presented in compact and + readable form at a very moderate price."--_Methodist Recorder._ + + "A great number of the best contemporary sermons are here rendered + generally available in a very convenient form, and at a very low + price indeed."--_Literary Churchman._ + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: The Book of +Exodus, by G. A. 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A. Chadwick + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus + +Author: G. A. Chadwick + +Editor: W. Robertson Nicoll + +Release Date: August 13, 2010 [EBook #33420] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: EXODUS *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="notes"> +<p>This e-text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode) +file encoding, including Greek words, e.g. <span class="greek" title="ho logos">ὁ λόγος</span>. +If any of these characters do not display properly, or if the apostrophes and quotation marks +in this paragraph appear as garbage, you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts. +First, make sure that the browser’s “character set” or “file encoding” +is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change your browser’s +default font. All Greek words have mouse-hover transliterations.</p> + +<p>A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected. +All advertising material has been moved to the end of the text.</p> + +<p>In the Analysis of Contents in the original text, page numbers greater than 353 were incorrect. +In this version these have been corrected by subtracting 1 from their printed values.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> + +<h1>THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE.</h1> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">EDITED BY THE REV.</span><br /> +<span class="titlebigger">W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.</span><br /> +<i>Editor of “The Expositor.”</i></p> + +<p class="center gaptop"><span class="titlebigger">THE BOOK OF EXODUS.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">BY THE VERY REV.</span><br /> +<span class="titlebigger">G. A. CHADWICK, D.D.,</span><br /> +<i>Dean of Armagh</i></p> + +<p class="center gaptop">London:<br /> +<span class="titlebigger">HODDER AND STOUGHTON,</span><br /> +27, PATERNOSTER ROW.<br /></p> + +<hr class="titlerule" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">MDCCCXC.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + +<h1><span class="titlesmaller">THE</span><br /> +BOOK OF EXODUS.</h1> + +<p class="center gaptop"> +<span class="titlesmaller">BY THE VERY REV.</span><br /> +<span class="titlebigger">G. A. CHADWICK, D.D.,</span><br /> +<i>Dean of Armagh</i>,</p> + +<p class="center titlesmaller">AUTHOR OF “CHRIST BEARING WITNESS TO HIMSELF,”<br /> +“AS HE THAT SERVETH,” “THE GOSPEL OF ST. MARK,” ETC.</p> + +<p class="center gaptop">London:<br /> +<span class="titlebigger">HODDER AND STOUGHTON,</span><br /> +27, PATERNOSTER ROW.<br /></p> + +<hr class="titlerule" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">MDCCCXC.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center">Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p>Much is now denied or doubted, within the Church itself, concerning the +Book of Exodus, which was formerly accepted with confidence by all +Christians.</p> + +<p>But one thing can neither be doubted nor denied. Jesus Christ did +certainly treat this book, taking it as He found it, as possessed of +spiritual authority, a sacred scripture. He taught His disciples to +regard it thus, and they did so.</p> + +<p>Therefore, however widely His followers may differ about its date and +origin, they must admit the right of a Christian teacher to treat this +book, taking it as he finds it, as a sacred scripture and invested with +spiritual authority. It is the legitimate subject of exposition in the +Church.</p> + +<p>Such work this volume strives, however imperfectly, to perform. Its +object is to edify in the first place, and also, but in the second +place, to inform. Nor has the author consciously shrunk from saying what +seemed to him proper to be said because the utterance would be +unwelcome, either to the latest critical theory, or to the last +sensational gospel of an hour.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> +<p>But since controversy has not been sought, although exposition has not +been suppressed when it carried weapons, by far the greater part of the +volume appeals to all who accept their Bible as, in any true sense, a +gift from God.</p> + +<p>No task is more difficult than to exhibit the Old Testament in the light +of the New, discovering the permanent in the evanescent, and the +spiritual in the form and type which it inhabited and illuminated. This +book is at least the result of a firm belief that such a connection +between the two Testaments does exist, and of a patient endeavour to +receive the edification offered by each Scripture, rather than to force +into it, and then extort from it, what the expositor desires to find. +Nor has it been supposed that by allowing the imagination to assume, in +sacred things, that rank as a guide which reason holds in all other +practical affairs, any honour would be done to Him Who is called the +Spirit of knowledge and wisdom, but not of fancy and quaint conceits.</p> + +<p>If such an attempt does, in any degree, prove successful and bear fruit, +this fact will be of the nature of a scientific demonstration.</p> + +<p>If this ancient Book of Exodus yields solid results to a sober +devotional exposition in the nineteenth Christian century, if it is not +an idle fancy that its teaching harmonises with the principles and +theology of the New Testament, and even demands the New Testament as the +true commentary upon the Old, what follows? How comes it that the oak is +potentially in the acorn, and the living creature in the egg? No germ is +a manufactured article: it is a part of the system of the universe.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="contents"> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.</h2> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Prologue</span>, i. 1–6.</h4> + +<p>Books linked by conjunction “And:” Scripture history a connected whole, +<a href="#Page_1">1</a>.—So is secular history organic: “Philosophy of history.” The +Pentateuch being a still closer unity, Exodus rehearses the descent into +Egypt, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.—Heredity: the family of Jacob, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.—Death of Joseph. Influence +of Egypt on the shepherd race, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.—A healthy stock: good breeding. +Goethe’s aphorism, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.—Ourselves and our descendants, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">God in History</span>, i. 7.</h4> + +<p>In Exodus, national history replaces biography, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.—Contrasted +narratives of Jacob and Moses. Spiritual progress from Genesis to +Exodus, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.—St. Paul’s view: Law prepares for Gospel, especially by our +failures, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.—This explains other phenomena: failures in various +circumstances, of innocence in Eden; of an elect family; now of a race, +a nation, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.—Israel, failing with all advantages, needs a Messiah. +Faith justifies, in Old Testament as in New, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.—Scripture history +reveals God in this life, in all things, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.—True spirituality owns God +in the secular: this is a gospel for our days, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>–<a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Oppression</span>, i. 7–22.</h4> + +<p>Early prosperity: its dangers: political supports vain, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.—Joseph +forgotten. National responsibilities: despotism, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.—Nations and their +chiefs. Our subject races, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.—The Church and her King: imputation. +Pharaoh precipitates what he fears, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.—Egypt and her aliens: modern +parallels, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.—Tyranny is tyrannous even when cultured, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.—Our undue +estrangement from the fallen: Jesus a brother. Toil crushes the spirit, +<a href="#Page_19">19</a>.—Israel idolatrous. Religious dependence, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>. —Direct interposition +required. Bitter oppression, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.—Pharaoh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> drops the mask. Defeated by +the human heart. The midwives, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.—Their falsehood. Morality is +progressive, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.—Culture and humanity, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.—Religion and the child, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Rescue of Moses</span>, ii. 1–10.</h4> + +<p>Importance of the individual, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.—A man <i>versus</i> “the Time-spirit,” +<a href="#Page_27">27</a>.—The parents of Moses, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.—Their family: their goodly child, +<a href="#Page_29">29</a>.—Emotion helps faith, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.—The ark in the bulrushes, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.—Pharaoh’s +daughter and Miriam, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.—Guidance for good emotions: the Church for +humanity, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Choice of Moses</span>, ii. 11–15.</h4> + +<p>God employs means, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.—Value of endowment. Moses and his family. “The +reproach of Christ,” <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.—An impulsive act, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.—Impulses not accidents. +The hopes of Moses, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.—Moses and his brethren. His flight, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Moses in Midian</span>, ii. 16–22.</h4> + +<p>Energy in disaster, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.—Disinterested bravery. Parallels with a +variation, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.—The Unseen a refuge. Duty of resisting small wrongs. His +wife, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.—A lonely heart, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Burning Bush</span>, ii. 23–iii.</h4> + +<p>Death of Raamses. Misery continues, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.—The cry of the oppressed, +<a href="#Page_44">44</a>.—Discipline of Moses, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.—How a crisis comes, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.—God hitherto +unmentioned. The Angel of the Lord, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.—An unconsuming fire, +<a href="#Page_48">48</a>.—Inquiry: reverence. God finds, not man, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.—“Take off thy shoe.” +“The God of thy father,” <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.—Immortality. “My people,” not saints only, +<a href="#Page_51">51</a>.—The good land. The commission, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.—God with him. A strange token, +<a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">A New Name</span>, iii. 14; vi. 2, 3.</h4> + +<p>Why Moses asked the name of God: idolatry: pantheism, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.—A progressive +revelation, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.—Jehovah. The sound corrupted. Similar superstitions +yet, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.—What it told the Jews. Reality of being, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.—Jews not saved +by ideas. Streams of tendency. The Self-contained. We live in our past, +<a href="#Page_58">58</a>.—And in our future, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.—Yet Jehovah not the impassive God of +Lucretius,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.—The Immutable is Love. This is our help, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.—Human +will is not paralysed, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.—The teaching of St. Paul. All this is +practical, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.—This gives stability to all other revelations. Our own +needs, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Commission</span>, iii. 10, 16–22.</h4> + +<p>God comes where He sends, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.—The Providential man. Prudence, +<a href="#Page_66">66</a>.—Sincerity of demand for a brief respite, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.—God has already +visited them. By trouble He transplants, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.—The “borrowing” of jewels, +<a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Moses Hesitates</span>, iv. 1–17.</h4> + +<p>Scripture is impartial: Josephus, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.—Hindrance from his own people. +The rod, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.—The serpent: the leprosy, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.—“I am not eloquent,” +<a href="#Page_73">73</a>.—God with us. Aaron the Levite, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.—Responsibility of <i>not</i> +working. The errors of Moses, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.—Power of fellowship. Vague fears, +<a href="#Page_76">76</a>.—With his brother, Moses will go. The Church, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.—This craving met +by Christ, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.—Family affection. Examples, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Moses Obeys</span>, iv. 18–31.</h4> + +<p>Fidelity to his employer. Reticence, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.—Resemblance to story of Jesus. +He is the Antitype of all experiences, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.—Counterpoint in history. +“Israel is My son,” <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.—A neglected duty Zipporah. Was she a helpmeet? +<a href="#Page_83">83</a>.—Domestic unhappiness. History <i>v.</i> myth, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.—The failures of the +good, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.—Men of destiny are not irresponsible, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.—His first +followers: a joyful reception, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.—Spiritual joy and reaction, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Pharaoh Refuses</span>, v. 1–23.</h4> + +<p>Moses at court again. Formidable, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.—Power of convictions but also of +tyranny and pride. Menephtah: his story, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.—Was the Pharaoh drowned? +The demand of Jehovah, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.—The refusal, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.—Is religion idleness? +Hebrews were taskmasters, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.—Demoralised by slavery. They are beaten, +<a href="#Page_94">94</a>.—Murmurs against Moses. He returns to God. His remonstrance, +<a href="#Page_95">95</a>.—His disappointment. Not really irreverent, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.—Use of this +abortive attempt, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>–<a href="#Page_98">8</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Encouragement of Moses</span>, vi. 1–30.</h4> + +<p>The word Jehovah known before: its consolations now, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.—The new truth +is often implicit in the old, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.—Discernment more needed than +revelation. “Judgments,” <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.—My people: your God, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.—The tie is of +God’s binding, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>,—Fatherhood and sonship, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.—Faith becomes +knowledge. The body hinders the soul, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.—We are responsible for +bodies. Israel weighs Moses down, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.—We may hold back the saints, +<a href="#Page_107">107</a>.—The pedigree, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>–<a href="#Page_108">8</a>.—Indications of genuine history, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>–<a href="#Page_109">9</a>.—“As +a god to Pharaoh,” <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.—We also, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart</span>, vii. 3–13.</h4> + +<p>The assertion offends many, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.—Was he a free agent? When hardened. +A.V. incorrect, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.—He resists five plagues spontaneously. The last +five are penal, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.—Not “hardened” in wickedness, but in nerve. A.V. +confuses three words: His heart is (<i>a</i>) “hardened,” <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.—(<i>b</i>) it is +made “strong” (<i>c</i>) “heavy,” <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.—Other examples of these words, +<a href="#Page_117">117</a>.—The warning implied, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>–<a href="#Page_119">19</a>.—Moses returns with the signs, +<a href="#Page_119">119</a>.—The functions of miracle, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Plagues</span>, vii. 14.</h4> + +<p>Their vast range, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.—Their relation to Pantheism, Idolatry, +Philosophy, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.—And to the gods of Egypt. Their retributive fitness, +<a href="#Page_123">123</a>.—Their arrangement, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.—Like our Lord’s, not creative, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.—God +in common things, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.—Some we inflict upon ourselves. Yet +rationalistic analogies fail, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.—Duration of the conflict, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The First Plague</span>, vii, 14–25.</h4> + +<p>The probable scene, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.—Extent of the plague. The magicians. Its +duration, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.—Was Israel exempt? Contrast with first miracle of Jesus, +<a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Second Plague</span>, viii. 1–15.</h4> + +<p>Submission demanded. Severity of plague, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.—Pharaoh humbles himself, +<a href="#Page_134">134</a>.—“Glory over me.” Pharaoh breaks faith, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Third Plague</span>, viii. 16–19.</h4> + +<p>Various theories. A surprise. Magicians baffled, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.—What they +confess, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Fourth Plague</span>, viii. 20–32.</h4> + +<p>“Rising up early,” <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.—Bodily pain. Beetles or flies? “A mixture,” +<a href="#Page_138">138</a>—Goshen exempt. Pharaoh suffers. He surrenders, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.—Respite and +treachery. Would Moses have returned? <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Fifth Plague</span>, ix. 1–7.</h4> + +<p>First attack on life. Animals share our fortunes, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>. The new summons. +Murrain, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.—Pharaoh’s curiosity, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Sixth Plague</span>, ix. 8–12.</h4> + +<p>No warning, yet Author manifest. Ashes of the furnace, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.—-Suffering +in the flesh. The magicians again. Pharaoh’s heart “made strong,” +<a href="#Page_145">145</a>.—Dares not retaliate, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Seventh Plague</span>, ix. 13–35.</h4> + +<p>Expostulation not mockery, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>–<a href="#Page_147">7</a>.—God is wronged by slavery, +<a href="#Page_147">147</a>.—Civil liberty is indebted to religion. “Plagues upon thine heart,” +<a href="#Page_148">148</a>.—A mis-rendering: why he was not crushed, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.—An opportunity of +escape. The storm, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.—Ruskin upon terrors of thunderstorm, +<a href="#Page_151">151</a>.—Pharaoh confesses sin, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.—Moses intercedes. The weather in +history. Job’s assertion, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Eighth Plague</span>, x. 1–20.</h4> + +<p>Moses encouraged, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.—Deliverances should be remembered. A sterner +rebuke. Locusts in Egypt, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.—Their effect. The court interferes. Yet +“their hearts hardened” also, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>—Infatuation of Pharaoh. Parallel of +Napoleon, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.—Women and little ones did share in festivals, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.—A +gentle wind. Locusts. Another surrender, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.—Relief. Our broken vows, +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Ninth Plague</span>, x. 21–29.</h4> + +<p>Menephtah’s sun-worship, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.—Suddenness of the plague. Concentrated +narrative, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.—Darkness represents death, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.—The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span> Book of Wisdom +upon this plague, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>–<a href="#Page_165">5</a>.—Isaiah’s allusions. The Pharaoh’s character, +<a href="#Page_165">165</a>.—Altercation with Moses, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Last Plague announced</span>, xi. 1–10.</h4> + +<p>This chapter supplements the last. The blow is known to be impending. +Uses of its delay, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.—Israel shall claim wages. The menace, +<a href="#Page_168">168</a>.—Parallel with St. John, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>–<a href="#Page_170">70</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Passover</span>, xii. 1–28.</h4> + +<p>Birthday of a nation. The calendar, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.—“The congregation.” The feast +is social, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.—The nation is based upon the family. No Egyptian house +escapes, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.—National interdependence. The Passover a sacrifice, +<a href="#Page_174">174</a>.—What does the blood mean? Rationalistic theories. Harvest +festivals, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.—The unbelieving point of view: what theories of +sacrifice were then current? “A sacrifice was a meal,” <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.—Human +sacrifices. The Passover “unhistorical.” Kuenen rejects this view, +<a href="#Page_177">177</a>.—Phenomena irreconcilable with it, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>–<a href="#Page_179">9</a>. What is really expressed? +Danger even to Jews, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.—Salvation by grace. Not unbought, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.—The +lamb a ransom. All firstborn are forfeited. Tribe of Levi, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.—Cash +payment. Effect on Hebrew literature, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.—Its prophetic import, +<a href="#Page_183">183</a>.—The Jew must co-operate with God: must also become His guest, +<a href="#Page_184">184</a>.—Sacred festivals. Lamb or kid. Four days reserved, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.—Men are +sheep. Heads of houses originally sacrifice. Transition to Levites in +progress under Hezekiah, complete under Josiah, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.—Unleavened bread. +The lamb. Roast, not sodden, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.—Complete consumption. Judgment upon +gods of Egypt, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.—The blood a token unto themselves. On their +lintels, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.—The word “pass-over,” <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.—Domestic teaching, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.—Many +who ate the feast perished. Aliens might share, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Tenth Plague</span>, xii. 29–36.</h4> + +<p>The blow falls. Pharaoh was not “firstborn”: his son “sat upon his +throne,” <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.—The scene, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.—The demands of Israel. St. Augustine’s +inference, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Exodus</span>, xii. 37–42.</h4> + +<p>The route, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.—Their cattle, a suggested explanation, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.—“Four +hundred and thirty years,” <a href="#Page_197">197</a>–<a href="#Page_198">8</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Law of the Firstborn</span>, xiii, 1.</h4> + +<p>The consecration of the firstborn, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.—The Levite. “They are Mine,” +<a href="#Page_200">200</a>.—Joy is hopeful. Tradition? <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.—Phylacteries. The ass, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.—The +Philistines. No spiritual miracle, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.—Education, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Bones of Joseph</span>, xiii. 19.</h4> + +<p>Joseph influenced Moses, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.—His faith, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.—Circumstances overcome +by soul. God in the cloud, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.—Hebrew poetry and modern, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Red Sea</span>, xiv. 1–31.</h4> + +<p>Stopped on the march, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.—Pharaoh presumes, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.—The panic, +<a href="#Page_210">210</a>.—Moses. Prayer and action. “Self-assertion”? <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.—The midnight +march, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.—The lost army, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">On the Shore</span>, xiv. 30, 31.</h4> + +<p>Impressions deepened. “They believed in Jehovah.” So the faith of the +apostles grew, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Song of Moses</span>, xv. 1–22.</h4> + +<p>A song remembered in heaven. Its structure, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>–<a href="#Page_217">17</a>.—The women join. +Instruments. Dances, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>. God the Deliverer, not Moses. “My salvation,” +<a href="#Page_219">219</a>.—Gratitude. Anthropomorphism. “Ye are gods.” “Jehovah is a Man—of +war,” <a href="#Page_220">220</a>–<a href="#Page_222">2</a>.—The overthrow, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.—First mention of Divine holiness, +<a href="#Page_223">223</a>.—An inverted holiness, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.—“Thou shalt bring them in,” <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Shur</span>, xv. 22–27.</h4> + +<p>Disillusion. Marah, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.—A universal danger, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.—Prayer, and the use +of means, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.—“A statute and an ordinance.” Such compacts often +repeated. The offered privilege, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.—It is still enjoyed, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.—“The +Lord for the body.” Elim, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span></p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Murmuring for Food</span>, xvi. 1–14.</h4> + +<p><i>We</i> too fear, although Divinely guarded, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.—They would fain die +satiated, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.—Relief tries them as want does, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.—The Sabbath. A +rebuke, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.—Moses is zealous. His “meekness,” <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.—The glory appears, +<a href="#Page_237">237</a>.—Quails and manna, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Manna</span>, xvi. 15–36.</h4> + +<p>Their course of life is changed, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.—A drug resembles manna, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.—The +supernatural follows nature, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.—They must gather, prepare, be +moderate, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.—Nothing over and no lack. Socialistic perversion, +<a href="#Page_242">242</a>.—Socialism. Christ in politics, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>–<a href="#Page_244">4</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Spiritual Meat</span>, xvi. 15–36.</h4> + +<p>Manna is a type. When given, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.—An unearthly sustenance, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>. What is +spirituality? Christ the true Manna, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.—Universal, daily, abundant, +<a href="#Page_247">247</a>.—The Sabbath. The pot of manna, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Meribah</span>, xvii. 1–7.</h4> + +<p>A greater strain. What if Israel had stood it? <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.—They murmured +against Moses. The position of Aaron. An exaggerated outcry, +<a href="#Page_250">250</a>.—Witnesses to the miracle. The rock in Horeb, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.—The rod. +Privilege is not acceptance, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Amalek</span>, xvii. 8–16.</h4> + +<p>A water-raid, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.—God’s sheep must become His warriors. War, +<a href="#Page_253">253</a>–<a href="#Page_254">4</a>.—Joshua. The rod of God, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.—A silent prayer. Aaron and Hur +must join in it, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.—So now. But the army must fight, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.—“The Lord +my banner.” Unlike a myth, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Jethro</span>, xviii. 1–27.</h4> + +<p>Gentiles in new aspect. Church may learn from secular wisdom, +<a href="#Page_259">259</a>.—Little is said of Zipporah: Jethro’s pleasure, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.—A Gentile +priest recognised. Religious festivity, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.—Jethro’s advice: its +importance, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.—Divine help does not supersede human gift, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span></p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_BEARINGS">THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY.</a></h3> + +<p>Narrative is also allegory. Danger of arbitrary fancies. Example from +Bunyan. Scriptural teaching, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.—Some resemblances are planned: others +are reappearances of same principle, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.—So that these are evidential +analogies, like Butler’s, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.—Others appear forced. “I called My Son +out of Egypt” refers to Israel, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.—But the condescending phrase +promised more, and the subsequent coincidence is significant, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>. +Truths cannot all be proved like Euclid’s, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">At Sinai</span>, xix. 1–25.</h4> + +<p>Sinai and Pentecost. The place. Ras Sufsâfeh. God speaks in nature, +<a href="#Page_270">270</a>.—Moses is stopped; the people must pledge themselves. Dedication +services, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.—An appeal to gratitude, and a promise, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.—“A peculiar +treasure.” “A kingdom and priests,” <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.—The individual, and Church +order. “On eagles’ wings,” <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.—Israel consents. The Lord in the cloud. +Manifestations are transient, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.—Precautions. The trumpet, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>. “The +priests.” A plébiscite. Contrast between Law and Gospel: Methodius, +<a href="#Page_277">277</a>.—Theophanies, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.—None like this, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Law</span>, xx. 1–17.</h4> + +<p>What the law did. It could not justify. It reveals obligation, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.—It +convicts, not enables. It is an organic whole. And a challenge, +<a href="#Page_281">281</a>.—The Spirit enables: love is fulfilment of law. Luther’s paradox, +<a href="#Page_283">283</a>.—Law and Gospel contrasted. Its spiritual beauty: two noble +failures, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.—The Jewish arrangement of the Commandments. St. +Augustine’s. The Anglican. An equal division, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>–<a href="#Page_286">6</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Prologue</span>, xx. 2.</h4> + +<p>Their experience of God, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.—God and the first table. The true object +of adoration: men must adore. Agnosticism, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.—God and the second +table, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.—Law appeals to noble motives, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The First Commandment</span>, xx. 3.</h4> + +<p>Monotheism and a real God, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.—False creeds attractive. Spiritualism. +Science indebted to Monotheism, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.—Unity of nature a religious truth. +Strength of our experimental argument. <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.—Informal apostacy. Luther’s +position. Scripture. The Chaldeans, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.—Animal pleasure, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.—The +remedy: “Thou shalt have ... Me,” <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Second Commandment</span>, xx. 4–6.</h4> + +<p>Imagery not all idolatry. The subtler paganisms, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>. Spiritual worship, +like a Gothic building, aspires: images lack expansiveness, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.—God is +jealous, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.—The shadow of love, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>. Visiting sins on children, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, +<a href="#Page_300">300</a>.—Part of vast beneficent law, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>–<a href="#Page_302">2</a>.—Gospel in law, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Third Commandment</span>, xx. 7.</h4> + +<p>Meaning of “in vain,” <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.—Jewish superstition. Where swearing is +wholly forbidden, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.—Fruitful and free use of God’s name, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>–<a href="#Page_305">5</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Fourth Commandment</span>, xx. 8–11.</h4> + +<p>Law of Sabbath unique. Confession of Augsburg. Of Westminster, +<a href="#Page_305">305</a>.—Anglican position. St. Paul, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.—The first positive precept. +Love not the abolition of the law, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.—Property of our friends. The +word “remember.” The story of creation, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.—The manna. Isaiah, +Jeremiah, Ezekiel, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.—Christ’s freedom was that of a Jew. “Sabbath +for man,” <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.—Our help, not our fetter. “My Father worketh,” <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Fifth Commandment</span>, xx. 12.</h4> + +<p>Bridge between duty to God and to neighbour, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.—Father and child, +<a href="#Page_313">313</a>.—“Whosoever hateth not.” Christ and His mother. Its sanction, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Sixth Commandment</span>, xx. 13.</h4> + +<p>Who is neighbour? Ethics and religion, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>–<a href="#Page_316">16</a>.—Science and morals, +<a href="#Page_317">317</a>.—A Divine creature. Capital punishment, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Seventh Commandment</span>, xx. 14.</h4> + +<p>Justice forbids act: Christ forbids desire. Sacredness of body, +<a href="#Page_319">319</a>.—Human body connects material and spiritual worlds. Modifies, while +serves, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.—Marriage a type, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Eighth Commandment</span>, xx. 15.</h4> + +<p>Assailed by communism, by Rome. Various specious pleas, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.—Laws of +community binding, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.—None may judge his own case, St. Paul enlarges +the precept, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Ninth Commandment</span>, xx. 16.</h4> + +<p>Importance of words. Various transgressions, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.—Slander against +nations, against the race. Love, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>–<a href="#Page_327">7</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Tenth Commandment</span>, xx. 17.</h4> + +<p>The list of properties, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.—The heart. The law searches, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_LESSER_LAW">THE LESSER LAW, xx. 18–xxiii. 33.</a></h3> + +<p>A remarkable code. The circumstances, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.—Moses fears: yet bids them +fear not, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>–<a href="#Page_333">3</a>.—Presumption v. awe. He receives an expanded decalogue, +an abridged code, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.—Laws should educate a people; should not outrun +their capabilities, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>–<a href="#Page_336">6</a>.—Five subdivisions, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">I. The Law of Worship</span>, xx. 22–26.</h4> + +<p>Images again forbidden, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.—Splendour and simplicity. An objection, +<a href="#Page_338">338</a>.—Modesty, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. THE LESSER LAW (<i>continued</i>).</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">II. Rights of the Person</span>, xxi. 1–32.</h4> + +<p>The Hebrew slave. The seventh year. Year of jubilee. His family, +<a href="#Page_340">340</a>.—The ear pierced. St. Paul’s “marks of the Lord.” Assaults, +<a href="#Page_341">341</a>.—The Gentile slave, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>. The female slave, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>–<a href="#Page_343">3</a>.—Murder and +blood-fiends, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.—Parents. Kidnappers, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.—Eye for eye. Mitigations +of <i>lex talionis</i>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>–<a href="#Page_345">5</a>.—Vicious cattle, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">III. Rights of Property</span>, xxi. 33–xxii. 15.</h4> + +<p>Negligence: indirect responsibility: various examples, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>–<a href="#Page_348">8</a>.—Theft, +<a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. THE LESSER LAW (<i>continued</i>).</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">IV. Various Enactments</span>, xxii. 16–xxiii. 19.</h4> + +<p>Disconnected precepts. No trace of systematic revision. Certain capital +crimes, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>–<a href="#Page_349">9</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Sorcery</span>, xxii. 18.</h4> + +<p>Abuses have recoiled against religion, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.—Sorcerers are impostors, +but they existed, and do still, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.—Moses could not leave them to +enlightened opinion. Propagated apostacy, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.—Traitors in a theocracy, +<a href="#Page_352">352</a>.—When shall witchcraft die? <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Stranger</span>, xxii. 21; xxiii. 9.</h4> + +<p>“Ye were strangers,” <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.—A fruitful principle. Morality not +expediency, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.—Cruelty often ignorance: Moses educates, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.—The +widow. The borrower, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.—Other precepts, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. THE LESSER LAW (<i>continued</i>).</a></h3> + +<p>An enemy’s cattle. A false report, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.—Influence of multitude: the +world and the Church, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>–<a href="#Page_360">60</a>.—Favour not the poor, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>–<a href="#Page_361">1</a>.—Other +precepts. “A kid in his mother’s milk,” <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Lesser Law, V. Its Sanctions</span> xxiii. 20–33.</h4> + +<p>A bold transition: the Angel in Whom is “My Name,” <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.—Not a mere +messenger, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.—Nor the substitute of chap. xxxiii. 2, 3, +<a href="#Page_364">364</a>–<a href="#Page_365">5</a>.—Parallel verses, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>–<a href="#Page_366">6</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Covenant Ratified. The Vision of God</span>, xxiv.</h4> + +<p>The code is accepted, written, ratified with blood, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.—Exclusion and +admittance. The elders see God: Moses goes farther. Theophanies of other +creeds, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.—How could they see God? <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.—Moses feels not +satisfaction, but desire, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.—His progress is from vision to shadow +and a Voice, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.—We see not each other, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.—St. Augustine, +<a href="#Page_372">372</a>–<a href="#Page_373">3</a>.—The vision suits the period: not post-Exilian, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>–<a href="#Page_374">4</a>.—Contrast +with revelation in Christ, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Shrine and its Furniture</span>, xxv. 1–40.</h4> + +<p>The God of Sinai will inhabit a tent. His other tabernacles, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>–<a href="#Page_376">6</a>.—The +furniture is typical. Altar of incense postponed, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.—The ark +enshrines His law and its sanctions, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>–<a href="#Page_377">7</a>.—The mercy-seat covers it, +<a href="#Page_377">377</a>–<a href="#Page_380">80</a>.—Man’s homage. The table of shewbread, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>–<a href="#Page_382">2</a>.—The golden +candlestick (lamp-stand), <a href="#Page_382">382</a>–<a href="#Page_385">5</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Pattern in the Mount</span>, xxv. 9, 40.</h4> + +<p>Use in Hebrews. Plato, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.—Not a model, but an idea. Art, +<a href="#Page_386">386</a>.—Provisional institutions, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>–<a href="#Page_387">7</a>.—-The ideal in creation, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.—In +life, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Tabernacle.</span></h4> + +<p>“Temple” an ambiguous word, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.—“Curtains of the Tabernacle,” +<a href="#Page_390">390</a>.—Other coverings, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.—The boards and sockets, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>–<a href="#Page_392">2</a>.—The bars. +The tent, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.—Position of veil, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, and of the front, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Outer Court.</span></h4> + +<p>The altar, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.—The quadrangle, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.—General effect, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>–<a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Holy Garments.</span></h4> + +<p>Their import, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.—The drawers. “Coat.” Head-tires. Robe of the ephod. +Ephod. Jewels, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.—Breastplate. Urim and Thummim. Mitre. Symbolism, +<a href="#Page_402">402</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Priesthood.</span></h4> + +<p>Universal desire and dread of God, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.—Delegates, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>. Scripture. +First Moses, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.—His family passed over. The double consciousness +expressed, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>–<a href="#Page_408">8</a>.—Messianic priesthood, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Consecration Services.</span></h4> + +<p>Why consecrate at all? <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.—Moses officiates. The offerings, +<a href="#Page_410">410</a>.—Ablution, robing, anointing, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>–<a href="#Page_412">12</a>.—The sin-offering, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>–<a href="#Page_413">13</a>. +“Without the camp,” <a href="#Page_413">413</a>. The burnt-offering, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.—The peace-offering +(“ram of consecration”), <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.—The wave-offerings, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>–<a href="#Page_415">15</a>.—The result, +<a href="#Page_415">415</a>–<a href="#Page_416">16</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Incense</span>, xxx. 1–10.</h4> + +<p>The impalpable in nature, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>.—“The golden altar,” <a href="#Page_418">418</a>.—Represents +prayer. Needs cleansing, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">A Census</span>, xxx. ii–16.</h4> + +<p>A census not sinful. David’s transgression. The half-shekel. Equality of +man, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.—Christ paid it, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>.—Its employment, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Laver</span>, xxx. 17–21.</h4> + +<p>Behind the altar. Purity of priests, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>.—Made of the mirrors, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Anointing Oil and Incense</span>, xxx. 22–38.</h4> + +<p>Their ingredients. All the vessels anointed, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.—Forbidden to secular +uses, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>.—Modern analogies, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>–<a href="#Page_426">6</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Bezaleel and Aholiab</span>, xxxi. 1–18.</h4> + +<p>Secular gifts are sacred, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>–<a href="#Page_429">29</a>.—The Sabbath. The tables and “the +finger of God,” <a href="#Page_430">430</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Golden Calf.</span></h4> + +<p>Sin of the people; of Aaron. God rejects them, 431.—Intercession. The +Christian antitype, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>–<a href="#Page_433">3</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Prevailing Intercession.</span></h4> + +<p>The first concession. The angel, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>.—“The Tent of the Meeting,” <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">The Vision of God.</span></h4> + +<p>To know is to desire to know. A fit season. The greater Name, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.—The +covenant renewed. The tables. The skin of his face shone, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>.—Lessons, +<a href="#Page_439">439</a>.</p> + +<h3><a href="#CHAPTERS_XXXV_XL">CHAPTERS XXXV.–XL. CONCLUSION.</a></h3> + +<p>The people obey, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>.—The forming of the nation: review, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>–<a href="#Page_442">2</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE PROLOGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref"><span class="smcap">Exodus</span> i. 1–6.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into +Egypt.”</p></div> + +<p>Many books of the Old Testament begin with the conjunction And. This +fact, it has been often pointed out, is a silent indication of truth, +that each author was not recording certain isolated incidents, but parts +of one great drama, events which joined hands with the past and future, +looking before and after.</p> + +<p>Thus the Book of the Kings took up the tale from Samuel, Samuel from +Judges, and Judges from Joshua, and all carried the sacred movement +forward towards a goal as yet unreached. Indeed, it was impossible, +remembering the first promise that the seed of the woman should bruise +the head of the serpent, and the later assurance that in the seed of +Abraham should be the universal blessing, for a faithful Jew to forget +that all the history of his race was the evolution of some grand hope, a +pilgrimage towards some goal unseen. Bearing in mind that there is now +revealed to us a world-wide tendency toward the supreme consummation, +the bringing all things under the headship of Christ, it is not to be +denied that this hope of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> ancient Jew is given to all mankind. Each +new stage in universal history may be said to open with this same +conjunction. It links the history of England with that of Julius Cæsar +and of the Red Indian; nor is the chain composed of accidents: it is +forged by the hand of the God of providence. Thus, in the conjunction +which binds these Old Testament narratives together, is found the germ +of that instinctive and elevating phrase, the Philosophy of History. But +there is nowhere in Scripture the notion which too often degrades and +stiffens that Philosophy—the notion that history is urged forward by +blind forces, amid which the individual man is too puny to assert +himself. Without a Moses the Exodus is inconceivable, and God always +achieves His purpose through the providential man.</p> + +<p class="gaptop">The Books of the Pentateuch are held together in a yet stronger unity +than the rest, being sections of one and the same narrative, and having +been accredited with a common authorship from the earliest mention of +them. Accordingly, the Book of Exodus not only begins with this +conjunction (which assumes the previous narrative), but also rehearses +the descent into Egypt. “And these are the names of the sons of Israel +which came into Egypt,”—names blotted with many a crime, rarely +suggesting any lovable or great association, yet the names of men with a +marvellous heritage, as being “the sons of Israel,” the Prince who +prevailed with God. Moreover they are consecrated: their father’s dying +words had conveyed to every one of them some expectation, some +mysterious import which the future should disclose. In the issue would +be revealed the awful influence of the past upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> the future, of the +fathers upon the children even beyond the third and fourth +generation—an influence which is nearer to destiny, in its stern, +subtle and far-reaching strength, than any other recognised by religion. +Destiny, however, it is not, or how should the name of Dan have faded +out from the final list of “every tribe of the children of Israel” in +the Apocalypse (Rev. vii. 5–8), where Manasseh is reckoned separately +from Joseph to complete the twelve?</p> + +<p>We read that with the twelve came their posterity, seventy souls in +direct descent from Jacob; but in this number he is himself included, +according to that well-known Orientalism which Milton strove to force +upon our language in the phrase—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The fairest of her daughters Eve.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Joseph is also reckoned, although he “was in Egypt already.” Now, it +must be observed that of these seventy, sixty-eight were males, and +therefore the people of the Exodus must not be reckoned to have sprung +in the interval from seventy, but (remembering polygamy) from more than +twice that number, even if we refuse to make any account of the +household which is mentioned as coming with every man. These households +were probably smaller in each case than that of Abraham, and the famine +in its early stages may have reduced the number of retainers; yet they +account for much of what is pronounced incredible in the rapid expansion +of the clan into a nation.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +But when all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> allowance has been made, the +increase continues to be, such as the narrator clearly regards it, +abnormal, well-nigh preternatural, a fitting type of the expansion, amid +fiercer persecutions, of the later Church of God, the true circumcision, +who also sprang from the spiritual parentage of another Seventy and +another Twelve.</p> + +<p>“And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.” Thus +the connection with Canaan became a mere tradition, and the powerful +courtier who had nursed their interests disappeared. When they +remembered him, in the bitter time which lay before them, it was only to +reflect that all mortal help must perish. It is thus in the spiritual +world also. Paul reminds the Philippians that they can obey in his +absence and not in his presence only, working out their own salvation, +as no apostle can work it out on their behalf. And the reason is that +the one real support is ever present. Work out your own salvation, for +it is God (not any teacher) Who worketh in you. The Hebrew race was to +learn its need of Him, and in Him to recover its freedom. Moreover, the +influences which mould all men’s characters, their surroundings and +mental atmosphere, were completely changed. These wanderers for pasture +were now in the presence of a compact and impressive social system, vast +cities, gorgeous temples, an imposing ritual. They were infected as well +as educated there, and we find the men of the Exodus not only murmuring +for Egyptian comforts, but demanding visible gods to go before them.</p> + +<p>Yet, with all its drawbacks, the change was a necessary part of their +development. They should return from Egypt relying upon no courtly +patron, no mortal might or wisdom, aware of a name of God more profound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +than was spoken in the covenant of their fathers, with their narrow +family interests and rivalries and their family traditions expanded into +national hopes, national aspirations, a national religion.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there is another reason why Scripture has reminded us of the +vigorous and healthy stock whence came the race that multiplied +exceedingly. For no book attaches more weight to the truth, so miserably +perverted that it is discredited by multitudes, but amply vindicated by +modern science, that good breeding, in the strictest sense of the word, +is a powerful factor in the lives of men and nations. To be well born +does not of necessity require aristocratic parentage, nor does such +parentage involve it: but it implies a virtuous, temperate and pious +stock. In extreme cases the doctrine of race is palpable; for who can +doubt that the sins of dissolute parents are visited upon their puny and +short-lived children, and that the posterity of the just inherit not +only honour and a welcome in the world, “an open door,” but also +immunity from many a physical blemish and many a perilous craving? If +the Hebrew race, after eighteen centuries of calamity, retains an +unrivalled vigour and tenacity, be it remembered how its iron sinew has +been twisted, from what a sire it sprang, through what ages of more than +“natural selection” the dross was throughly purged out, and (as Isaiah +loves to reiterate) a chosen remnant left. Already, in Egypt, in the +vigorous multiplication of the race, was visible the germ of that +amazing vitality which makes it, even in its overthrow, so powerful an +element in the best modern thought and action.</p> + +<p>It is a well-known saying of Goethe that the quality for which God chose +Israel was probably toughness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> Perhaps the saying would better be +inverted: it was among the most remarkable endowments, unto which Israel +was called, and called by virtue of qualities in which Goethe himself +was remarkably deficient.</p> + +<p>Now, this principle is in full operation still, and ought to be solemnly +pondered by the young. Self-indulgence, the sowing of wild oats, the +seeing of life while one is young, the taking one’s fling before one +settles down, the having one’s day (like “every dog,” for it is to be +observed that no person says, “every Christian”), these things seem +natural enough. And their unsuspected issues in the next generation, +dire and subtle and far-reaching, these also are more natural still, +being the operation of the laws of God.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, there is no youth living in obedience alike to the +higher and humbler laws of our complex nature, in purity and gentleness +and healthful occupation, who may not contribute to the stock of +happiness in other lives beyond his own, to the future well-being of his +native land, and to the day when the sadly polluted stream of human +existence shall again flow clear and glad, a pure river of water of +life.</p> + +<h3 class="section">GOD IN HISTORY.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">i. 7.</h3> + +<p>With the seventh verse, the new narrative, the course of events treated +in the main body of this book, begins.</p> + +<p>And we are at once conscious of this vital difference between Exodus and +Genesis,—that we have passed from the story of men and families to the +history of a nation. In the first book the Canaanites and Egyptians +concern us only as they affect Abraham or Joseph. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> the second book, +even Moses himself concerns us only for the sake of Israel. He is in +some respects a more imposing and august character than any who preceded +him; but what we are told is no longer the story of a soul, nor are we +pointed so much to the development of his spiritual life as to the work +he did, the tyrant overthrown, the nation moulded, the law and the +ritual imposed on it.</p> + +<p>For Jacob it was a discovery that God was in Bethel as well as in his +father’s house. But now the Hebrew nation was to learn that He could +plague the gods of Egypt in their stronghold, that His way was in the +sea, that Horeb in Arabia was the Mount of God, that He could lead them +like a horse through the wilderness.</p> + +<p>When Jacob in Peniel wrestles with God and prevails, he wins for himself +a new name, expressive of the higher moral elevation which he has +attained. But when Moses meets God in the bush, it is to receive a +commission for the public benefit; and there is no new name for Moses, +but a fresh revelation of God for the nation to learn. And in all their +later history we feel that the national life which it unfolds was +nourished and sustained by these glorious early experiences, the most +unique as well as the most inspiriting on record.</p> + +<p>Here, then, a question of great moment is suggested. Beyond the fact +that Abraham was the father of the Jewish race, can we discover any +closer connection between the lives of the patriarchs and the history of +Israel? Is there a truly spiritual coherence between them, or merely a +genealogical sequence? For if the Bible can make good its claim to be +vitalised throughout by the eternal Spirit of God, and leading forward +steadily to His final revelation in Christ, then its parts will be +symmetrical, proportionate and well designed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> If it be a universal +book, there must be a better reason for the space devoted to preliminary +and half secular stories, which is a greater bulk than the whole of the +New Testament, than that these histories chance to belong to the nation +whence Christ came. If no such reason can be found, the failure may not +perhaps outweigh the great evidences of the faith, but it will score for +something on the side of infidelity. But if upon examination it becomes +plain that all has its part in one great movement, and that none can be +omitted without marring the design, and if moreover this design has +become visible only since the fulness of the time is come, the discovery +will go far to establish the claim of Scripture to reveal throughout a +purpose truly divine, dealing with man for ages, and consummated in the +gift of Christ.</p> + +<p>Now, it is to St. Paul that we turn for light upon the connection +between the Old Testament and the New. And he distinctly lays down two +great principles. The first is that the Old Testament is meant to +educate men for the New; and especially that the sense of failure, +impressed upon men’s consciences by the stern demands of the Law, was +necessary to make them accept the Gospel.</p> + +<p>The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ: it entered that sin +might abound. And it is worth notice that this effect was actually +wrought, not only upon the gross transgressor by the menace of its +broken precepts, but even more perhaps upon the high-minded and pure, by +the creation in their breasts of an ideal, inaccessible in its +loftiness. He who says, All these things have I kept from my youth up, +is the same who feels the torturing misgiving, What good thing must I do +to attain life?... What lack I yet?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> He who was blameless as touching +the righteousness of the law, feels that such superficial innocence is +worthless, that the law is spiritual and he is carnal, sold under sin.</p> + +<p>Now, this principle need by no means be restricted to the Mosaic +institutions. If this were the object of the law, it would probably +explain much more. And when we return to the Old Testament with this +clue, we find every condition in life examined, every social and +political experiment exhausted, a series of demonstrations made with +scientific precision, to refute the arch-heresy which underlies all +others—that in favourable circumstances man might save himself, that +for the evil of our lives our evil surroundings are more to be blamed +than we.</p> + +<p>Innocence in prosperous circumstances, unwarped by evil habit, untainted +by corruption in the blood, uncompelled by harsh surroundings, simple +innocence had its day in Paradise, a brief day with a shameful close. +God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions, until the flood +swept away the descendants of him who was made after the image of God.</p> + +<p>Next we have a chosen family, called out from all the perilous +associations of its home beyond the river, to begin a new career in a +new land, in special covenant with the Most High, and with every +endowment for the present and every hope for the future which could help +to retain its loyalty. Yet the third generation reveals the thirst of +Esau for his brother’s blood, the treachery of Jacob, and the +distraction and guilt of his fierce and sensual family. It is when +individual and family life have thus proved ineffectual amid the +happiest circumstances, that the tribe and the nation essay the task. +Led up from the furnace of affliction,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> hardened and tempered in the +stern free life of the desert, impressed by every variety of fortune, by +slavery and escape, by the pursuit of an irresistible foe and by a +rescue visibly divine, awed finally by the sublime revelations of Sinai, +the nation is ready for the covenant (which is also a challenge)—The +man that doeth these things shall live by them: if thou diligently +hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God ... He shall set thee on high +above all nations.</p> + +<p>Such is the connection between this narrative and what went before. And +the continuation of the same experiment, and the same failure, can be +traced through all the subsequent history. Whether in so loose an +organisation that every man does what is right in his own eyes, or under +the sceptre of a hero or a sage,—whether so hard pressed that +self-preservation ought to have driven them to their God, or so +marvellously delivered that gratitude should have brought them to their +knees,—whether engulfed a second time in a more hopeless captivity, or +restored and ruled by a hierarchy whose authority is entirely +spiritual,—in every variety of circumstances the same melancholy +process repeats itself; and lawlessness, luxury, idolatry and +self-righteousness combine to stop every mouth, to make every man guilty +before God, to prove that a greater salvation is still needed, and thus +to pave the way for the Messiah.</p> + +<p>The second great principle of St. Paul is that faith in a divine help, +in pardon, blessing and support, was the true spirit of the Old +Testament as well as of the New. The challenge of the law was meant to +produce self-despair, only that men might trust in God. Appeal was made +especially to the cases of Abraham and David, the founder of the race +and of the dynasty, clearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> because the justification without works of +the patriarch and of the king were precedents to decide the general +question (Rom. iv. 1–8). Now, this is pre-eminently the distinction +between Jewish history and all others, that in it God is everything and +man is nothing. Every sceptical treatment of the story makes Moses to be +the deliverer from Egypt, and shows us the Jewish nation gradually +finding out God. But the nation itself believed nothing of the kind. It +confessed itself to have been from the beginning vagrant and rebellious +and unthankful: God had always found out Israel, never Israel God. The +history is an expansion of the parable of the good shepherd. And this +perfect harmony of a long record with itself and with abstract +principles is both instructive and reassuring.</p> + +<p>As the history of Israel opens before us, a third principle claims +attention—one which the apostle quietly assumes, but which is forced on +our consideration by the unhappy state of religious thought in these +degenerate days.</p> + +<p>“They are not to be heard,” says the Seventh Article rightly, “which +feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises.” But +certainly they also would be unworthy of a hearing who would feign that +the early Scriptures do not give a vast, a preponderating weight, to the +concerns of our life on earth. Only very slowly, and as the result of +long training, does the future begin to reveal its supremacy over the +present. It would startle many a devout reader out of his propriety to +discover the small proportion of Old Testament scriptures in which +eternity and its prospects are discussed, to reckon the passages, +habitually applied to spiritual thraldom and emancipation, which were +spoken at first of earthly tyranny and earthly deliverance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> and to +observe, even in the pious aspirations of the Psalms, how much of the +gratitude and joy of the righteous comes from the sense that he is made +wiser than the ancient, and need not fear though a host rose up against +him, and can break a bow of steel, and has a table prepared for him, and +an overflowing cup. Especially is this true of the historical books. God +is here seen ruling states, judging in the earth, remembering Israel in +bondage, and setting him free, providing supernatural food and water, +guiding him by the fiery cloud. There is not a word about regeneration, +conversion, hell, or heaven. And yet there is a profound sense of God. +He is real, active, the most potent factor in the daily lives of men. +Now, this may teach us a lesson, highly important to us all, and +especially to those who must teach others. The difference between +spirituality and secularity is not the difference between the future +life and the present, but between a life that is aware of God and a +godless one. Perhaps, when we find our gospel a matter of indifference +and weariness to men who are absorbed in the bitter monotonous and +dreary struggle for existence, we ourselves are most to blame. Perhaps, +if Moses had approached the Hebrew drudges as we approach men equally +weary and oppressed, they would not have bowed their heads and +worshipped. And perhaps we should have better success, if we took care +to speak of God in this world, making life a noble struggle, charging +with new significance the dull and seemingly degraded lot of all who +remember Him, such a God as Jesus revealed when He cleansed the leper, +and gave sight to the blind, using one and the same word for the +“healing” of diseases and the “saving” of souls, and connecting faith +equally with both. Exodus will have little to teach us, unless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> we +believe in that God who knoweth that we have need of food and clothing. +And the higher spiritual truths which it expresses will only be found +there in dubious and questionable allegory, unless we firmly grasp the +great truth, that God is not the Saviour of souls, or of bodies, but of +living men in their entirety, and treats their higher and lower wants +upon much the same principle, because He is the same God, dealing with +the same men, through both.</p> + +<p>Moreover, He treats us as the men of other ages. Instead of dealing with +Moses upon exceptional and strange lines, He made known His ways unto +Moses, His characteristic and habitual ways. And it is on this account +that whatsoever things were written aforetime are true admonition for us +also, being not violent interruptions but impressive revelations of the +steady silent methods of the judgment and the grace of God.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE OPPRESSION.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">i. 7–22.</h3> + +<p>At the beginning of the history of Israel we find a prosperous race. It +was indeed their growing importance, and chiefly their vast numerical +increase, which excited the jealousy of their rulers, at the very time +when a change of dynasty removed the sense of obligation. It is a sound +lesson in political as well as personal godliness that prosperity itself +is dangerous, and needs special protection from on high.</p> + +<p>Is it merely by chance again that we find in this first of histories +examples of the folly of relying upon political connections? As the +chief butler remembered not Joseph, nor did he succeed in escaping from +prison by securing influence at court, so is the influence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> Joseph +himself now become vain, although he was the father of Pharaoh and lord +of all his house. His romantic history, his fidelity in temptation, and +the services by which he had at once cemented the royal power and saved +the people, could not keep his memory alive. The hollow wraith of dying +fame died wholly. There arose a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph.</p> + +<p>Such is the value of the highest and purest earthly fame, and such the +gratitude of the world to its benefactors. The nation which Joseph +rescued from starvation is passive in Pharaoh’s hands, and persecutes +Israel at his bidding.</p> + +<p>And when the actual deliverer arose, his rank and influence were only +entanglements through which he had to break.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, except among a few women, obedient to the woman’s heart, we +find no trace of independent action, no revolt of conscience against the +absolute behest of the sovereign, until selfishness replaces virtue, and +despair wrings the cry from his servants, Knowest thou not yet that +Egypt is destroyed?</p> + +<p>Now, in Genesis we saw the fate of families, blessed in their father +Abraham, or cursed for the offence of Ham. For a family is a real +entity, and its members, like those of one body, rejoice and suffer +together. But the same is true of nations, and here we have reached the +national stage in the education of the world. Here is exhibited to us, +therefore, a nation suffering with its monarch to the uttermost, until +the cry of the maidservant behind the mill is as wild and bitter as the +cry of Pharaoh upon his throne. It is indeed the eternal curse of +despotism that unlimited calamity may be drawn down upon millions by the +caprice of one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> most unhappy man, himself blinded and half maddened by +adulation, by the absence of restraint, by unlimited sensual indulgence +if his tendencies be low and animal, and by the pride of power if he be +high-spirited and aspiring.</p> + +<p>If we assume, what seems pretty well established, that the Pharaoh from +whom Moses fled was Rameses the Great, his spirit was of the nobler +kind, and he exhibits a terrible example of the unfitness even of +conquering genius for unbridled and irresponsible power. That lesson has +had to be repeated, even down to the days of the Great Napoleon.</p> + +<p>Now, if the justice of plaguing a nation for the offence of its head be +questioned, let us ask first whether the nation accepts his despotism, +honours him, and is content to regard him as its chief and captain. +According to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, whoever thinks a +tyrant enviable, has already himself tyrannised with him in his heart. +Do we ourselves, then, never sympathise with political audacity, bold +and unscrupulous “resource,” success that is bought at the price of +strange compliances, and compromises, and wrongs to other men?</p> + +<p>The great national lesson is now to be taught to Israel that the most +splendid imperial force will be brought to an account for its treatment +of the humblest—that there is a God Who judges in the earth. And they +were bidden to apply in their own land this experience of their own, +dealing kindly with the stranger in the midst of them, “for thou wast a +stranger in the land of Egypt.” That lesson we have partly learned, who +have broken the chain of our slaves. But how much have we left undone! +The subject races were never given into our hands to supplant them, as +we have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> supplanted the Red Indian and the New Zealander, nor to +debauch, as men say we are corrupting the African and the Hindoo, but to +raise, instruct and Christianise. And if the subjects of a despotism are +accountable for the actions of rulers whom they tolerate, how much more +are we? What ought we to infer, from this old-world history, of the +profound responsibilities of all free citizens?</p> + +<p>We attain a principle which reaches far into the spiritual world, when +we reflect that if evil deeds of a ruler can justly draw down vengeance +upon his people, the converse also must hold good. Reverse the case +before us. Let the kingdom be that of the noblest and purest virtue. Let +no subject ever be coerced to enter it, nor to remain one hour longer +than while his adoring loyalty consents. And shall not these subjects be +the better for the virtues of the Monarch whom they love? Is it mere +caprice to say that in choosing such a King they do, in a very real +sense, appropriate the goodness they crown? If it be natural that Egypt +be scourged for the sins of Pharaoh, is it palpably incredible that +Christ is made of God unto His people wisdom and righteousness and +sanctification and redemption? The doctrine of imputation can easily be +so stated as to become absurd. But the imputation of which St. Paul +speaks much can only be denied when we are prepared to assail the +principle on which all bodies of men are treated, families and nations +as well as the Church of God.</p> + +<p>It was the jealous cruelty of Pharaoh which drew down upon his country +the very perils he laboured to turn away. There was no ground for his +fear of any league with foreigners against him. Prosperous and +unambitious, the people would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> remained well content beside the +flesh-pots of Egypt, for which they sighed even when emancipated from +heavy bondage and eating the bread of heaven. Or else, if they had gone +forth in peace, from a land whose hospitality had not failed, to their +inheritance in Canaan, they would have become an allied nation upon the +side where the heaviest blows were afterwards struck by the Asiatic +powers. Cruelty and cunning could not retain them, but it could decimate +a population and lose an army in the attempt. And this law prevails in +the modern world, England paid twenty millions to set her bondmen free. +Because America would not follow her example, she ultimately paid the +more terrible ransom of civil war. For the same God was in Jamaica and +in Florida as in the field of Zoan. Nor was there ever yet a crooked +policy which did not recoil either upon its author, or upon his +successors when he had passed away. In this case it fulfilled the plans +and the prophecies of God, and the wrath of man was made to praise Him.</p> + +<p>There is independent reason for believing that at this period one-third +at least of the population of Egypt was of alien blood (Brugsch, +<i>History</i>, ii. 100). A politician might fairly be alarmed, especially if +this were the time when the Hittites were threatening the eastern +frontier, and had reduced Egypt to stand on the defensive, and erect +barrier fortresses. And the circumstances of the country made it very +easy to enslave the Hebrews. If any stain of Oriental indifference to +the rights of the masses had mingled with the God-given insight of +Joseph, when he made his benefactor the owner of all the soil, the +Egyptian people were fully avenged upon him now. For this arrangement +laid his pastoral race helpless at their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> oppressor’s feet. Forced +labour quickly degenerates into slavery, and men who find the story of +their misery hard to credit should consider the state of France before +the Revolution, and of the Russian serfs before their emancipation. +Their wretchedness was probably as bitter as that of the Hebrews at any +period but the last climax of their oppression. And they owed it to the +same cause—the absolute ownership of the land by others, too remote +from them to be sympathetic, to take due account of their feelings, to +remember that they were their fellow-men. This was enough to slay +compassion, even without the aggravation of dealing with an alien and +suspected race.</p> + +<p>Now, it is instructive to observe these reappearances of wholesale +crime. They warn us that the utmost achievements of human wickedness are +human still; not wild and grotesque importations by a fiend, originated +in the abyss, foreign to the world we live in. Satan finds the material +for his master-strokes in the estrangement of class from class, in the +drying up of the fountains of reciprocal human feeling, in the failure +of real, fresh, natural affection in our bosom for those who differ +widely from us in rank or circumstances. All cruelties are possible when +a man does not seem to us really a man, nor his woes really woeful. For +when the man has sunk into an animal it is only a step to his +vivisection.</p> + +<p>Nor does anything tend to deepen such perilous estrangement, more than +the very education, culture and refinement, in which men seek a +substitute for religion and the sense of brotherhood in Christ. It is +quite conceivable that the tyrant who drowned the Hebrew infants was an +affectionate father, and pitied his nobles when their children died. But +his sympathies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> could not reach beyond the barriers of a caste. Do <i>our</i> +sympathies really overleap such barriers? Would God that even His Church +believed aright in the reality of a human nature like our own, soiled, +sorrowful, shamed, despairing, drugged into that apathetical +insensibility which lies even below despair, yet aching still, in ten +thousand bosoms, in every great city of Christendom, every day and every +night! Would to God that she understood what Jesus meant, when He called +one lost creature by the tender name which she had not yet forfeited, +saying, “Woman, where are thine accusers?” and when He asked Simon, who +scorned such another, “Seest thou this woman!” Would God that when she +prays for the Holy Spirit of Jesus she would really seek a mind like +His, not only in piety and prayerfulness, but also in tender and +heartfelt brotherhood with all, even the vilest of the weary and +heavy-laden!</p> + +<p>Many great works of ancient architecture, the pyramids among the rest, +were due to the desire of crushing, by abject toil, the spirit of a +subject people. We cannot ascribe to Hebrew labour any of the more +splendid piles of Egyptian masonry, but the store cities or arsenals +which they built can be identified. They are composed of such crude +brick as the narrative describes; and the absence of straw in the later +portion of them can still be verified. Rameses was evidently named after +their oppressor, and this strengthens the conviction that we are reading +of events in the nineteenth dynasty, when the shepherd kings had +recently been driven out, leaving the eastern frontier so weak as to +demand additional fortresses, and so far depopulated as to give colour +to the exaggerated assertion of Pharaoh, “the people are more and +mightier than we.” It is by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> such exaggerations and alarms that all the +worst crimes of statesmen have been justified to consenting peoples. And +we, when we carry what seems to us a rightful object, by inflaming the +prejudice and misleading the judgment of other men, are moving on the +same treacherous and slippery inclines. Probably no evil is committed +without some amount of justification, which the passions exaggerate, +while they ignore the prohibitions of the law.</p> + +<p>How came it to pass that the fierce Hebrew blood, which was yet to boil +in the veins of the Maccabees, and to give battle, not unworthily, to +the Roman conquerors of the world, failed to resent the cruelties of +Pharaoh?</p> + +<p>Partly, of course, because the Jewish people was only now becoming aware +of its national existence; but also because it had forsaken God. Its +religion, if not supplanted, was at least adulterated by the influence +of the mystic pantheism and the stately ritual which surrounded them.</p> + +<p>Joshua bade his victorious followers to “put away the gods whom your +fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord” +(Josh. xxiv. 14). And in Ezekiel the Lord Himself complains, “They +rebelled against Me and would not hearken unto Me; they did not cast +away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols +of Egypt” (Ezek. xx. 8).</p> + +<p>Now, there is nothing which enfeebles the spirit and breaks the courage +like religious dependence. A strong priesthood always means a feeble +people, most of all when they are of different blood. And Israel was now +dependent on Egypt alike for the highest and lowest needs—grass for the +cattle and religion for the soul. And when they had sunk so low, it is +evident<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> that their emancipation had to be wrought for them entirely +without their help. From first to last they were passive, not only for +want of spirit to help themselves, but because the glory of any exploit +of theirs might have illuminated some false deity whom they adored.</p> + +<p>Standing still, they saw the salvation of God, and it was not possible +to give His glory to another.</p> + +<p>For this cause also, judgment had, first of all, to be wrought upon the +gods of Egypt.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, without spirit enough to resist, they saw complete +destruction drawing nearer to them by successive strides. At first +Pharaoh “dealt wisely with them,” and they found themselves entrapped +into a hard bondage almost unawares. But a strange power upheld them, +and the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied and spread +abroad. In this they ought to have discerned a divine support, and +remembered the promise to Abraham that God would multiply his seed as +the stars of heaven. It may have helped them presently to “cry unto the +Lord.” And the Egyptians were not merely “grieved” because of them: they +felt as the Israelites afterwards felt towards that monotonous diet of +which they used the same word, and said, “our soul loatheth this light +bread.” Here it expresses that fierce and contemptuous attitude which +the Californian and Australian are now assuming toward the swarms of +Chinamen whose labour is so indispensable, yet the infusion of whose +blood into the population is so hateful. Then the Egyptians make their +service rigorous, and their lives bitter.</p> + +<p>And at last that happens which is a part of every downward course: the +veil is dropped; what men have done by stealth, and as if they would +deceive themselves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> they soon do consciously, avowing to their +conscience what at first they could not face. Thus Pharaoh began by +striving to check a dangerous population; and ended by committing +wholesale murder. Thus men become drunkards through conviviality, +thieves through borrowing what they mean to restore, and hypocrites +through slightly overstating what they really feel. And, since there are +nice gradations in evil, down to the very last, Pharaoh will not yet +avow publicly the atrocity which he commands a few humble women to +perpetrate; decency is with him, as it is often, the last substitute for +a conscience.</p> + +<p>Among the agents of God for the shipwreck of all full-grown wrongs, the +chief is the revolt of human nature, since, fallen though we know +ourselves to be, the image of God is not yet effaced in us. The better +instincts of humanity are irrepressible—most so perhaps among the poor. +It is by refusing to trust its intuitions that men grow vile; and to the +very last that refusal is never absolute, so that no villainy can reckon +upon its agents, and its agents cannot always reckon upon themselves. +Above all, the heart of every woman is in a plot against the wrong; and +as Pharaoh was afterwards defeated by the ingenuity of a mother and the +sympathy of his own daughter, so his first scheme was spoiled by the +disobedience of the midwives, themselves Hebrews, upon whom he reckoned.</p> + +<p>Let us not fear to avow that these women, whom God rewarded, lied to the +king when he reproached them, since their answer, even if it were not +unfounded, was palpably a misrepresentation of the facts. The reward was +not for their falsehood, but for their humanity. They lived when the +notion of martyrdom for an avowal so easy to evade was utterly unknown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +Abraham lied to Abimelech. Both Samuel and David equivocated with Saul. +We have learned better things from the King of truth, Who was born and +came into the world to bear witness to the truth. We know that the +martyr’s bold protest against unrighteousness is the highest vocation of +the Church, and is rewarded in the better country. But they knew nothing +of this, and their service was acceptable according as they had, not +according as they had not. As well might we blame the patriarchs for +having been slave-owners, and David for having invoked mischief upon his +enemies, as these women for having fallen short of the Christian ideal +of veracity. Let us beware lest we come short of it ourselves. And let +us remember that the way of the Church through time is the path of the +just, beset with mist and vapour at the dawn, but shining more and more +unto the perfect day.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, God acknowledges, and Holy Scripture celebrates, the +service of these obscure and lowly heroines. Nothing done for Him goes +unrewarded. To slaves it was written that “From the Lord ye shall +receive the reward of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ” (Col. +iii. 24). And what these women saved for others was what was recompensed +to themselves, domestic happiness, family life and its joys. God made +them houses.</p> + +<p>The king is now driven to avow himself in a public command to drown all +the male infants of the Hebrews; and the people become his accomplices +by obeying him. For this they were yet to experience a terrible +retribution, when there was not a house in Egypt that had not one dead.</p> + +<p>The features of the king to whom these atrocities are pretty certainly +brought home are still to be seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> in the museum at Boulak. Seti I. is +the most beautiful of all the Egyptian monarchs whose faces lie bare to +the eyes of modern sightseers; and his refined features, intelligent, +high-bred and cheerful, resemble wonderfully, yet surpass, those of +Rameses II., his successor, from whom Moses fled. This is the builder of +the vast and exquisite temple of Amon at Thebes, the grandeur of which +is amazing even in its ruins; and his culture and artistic gifts are +visible, after all these centuries, upon his face. It is a strange +comment upon the modern doctrine that culture is to become a sufficient +substitute for religion. And his own record of his exploits is enough to +show that the sense of beauty is not that of pity: he is the jackal +leaping through the land of his enemies, the grim lion, the powerful +bull with sharpened horns, who has annihilated the peoples.</p> + +<p>There is no greater mistake than to suppose that artistic refinement can +either inspire morality or replace it. Have we quite forgotten Nero, and +Lucretia Borgia, and Catherine de Medici?</p> + +<p>Many civilisations have thought little of infant life. Ancient Rome +would have regarded this atrocity as lightly as modern China, as we may +see by the absolute silence of its literature concerning the murder of +the innocents—an event strangely parallel with this in its nature and +political motives, and in the escape of one mighty Infant.</p> + +<p>Is it conceivable that the same indifference should return, if the +sanctions of religion lose their power? Every one remembers the +callousness of Rousseau. Strange things are being written by pessimistic +unbelief about the bringing of more sufferers into the world. And a +living writer in France has advocated the legalising of infanticide, and +denounced St. Vincent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> de Paul because, “thanks to his odious +precautions, this man deferred for years the death of creatures without +intelligence,” etc.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>It is to the faith of Jesus, not only revealing by the light of eternity +the value of every soul, but also replenishing the fountains of human +tenderness that had well-nigh become exhausted, that we owe our modern +love of children. In the very helplessness which the ancient masters of +the world exposed to destruction without a pang, we see the type of what +we must ourselves become, if we would enter heaven. But we cannot afford +to forget either the source or the sanctions of the lesson.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Professor Curtiss quotes a volume of family memoirs which +shows that 5,564 persons are known to be descended from Lieutenant John +Hollister, who emigrated to America in the year 1642 (<i>Expositor</i>, Nov. +1887, p. 329). This is probably equal in ratio to the increase of Israel +in Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> J. K. Huysmans—quoted in <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, May 1888, +p. 673.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE RESCUE OF MOSES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">ii. 1–10.</h3> + +<p>We have said that the Old Testament history teems with political wisdom, +lessons of permanent instruction for mankind, on the level of this life, +yet godly, as all true lessons must be, in a world of which Christ is +King. These our religion must learn to recognise and proclaim, if it is +ever to win the respect of men of affairs, and “leaven the whole lump” +of human life with sacred influence.</p> + +<p>Such a lesson is the importance of the individual in the history of +nations. History, as read in Scripture, is indeed a long relation of +heroic resistance or of base compliance in the presence of influences +which are at work to debase modern peoples as well as those of old. The +holiness of Samuel, the gallant faith of David, the splendour and wisdom +of Solomon, the fervid zeal of Elijah, the self-respecting righteousness +of Nehemiah,—ignore these, and the whole course of affairs becomes +vague and unintelligible. Most of all this is true of Moses, whose +appearance is now related.</p> + +<p>In profane history it is the same. Alexander, Mahomet, Luther, William +the Silent, Napoleon,—will any one pretend that Europe uninfluenced by +these personalities would have become the Europe that we know?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> + +<p>And this truth is not at all a speculative, unpractical theory: it is +vital. For now there is a fashion of speaking about the tendency of the +age, the time-spirit, as an irresistible force which moulds men like +potters’ clay, crowning those who discern and help it, but grinding to +powder all who resist its course. In reality there are always a hundred +time-spirits and tendencies competing for the mastery—some of them +violent, selfish, atheistic, or luxurious (as we see with our own eyes +to-day)—and the shrewdest judges are continually at fault as to which +of them is to be victorious, and recognised hereafter as the spirit of +the age.</p> + +<p>This modern pretence that men are nothing, and streams of tendency are +all, is plainly a gospel of capitulations, of falsehood to one’s private +convictions, and of servile obedience to the majority and the popular +cry. For, if individual men are nothing, what am I? If we are all +bubbles floating down a stream, it is folly to strive to breast the +current. Much practical baseness and servility is due to this base and +servile creed. And the cure for it is belief in another spirit than that +of the present age, trust in an inspiring God, who rescued a herd of +slaves and their fading convictions from the greatest nation upon earth +by matching one man, shrinking and reluctant yet obedient to his +mission, against Pharaoh and all the tendencies of the age.</p> + +<p>And it is always so. God turns the scale of events by the vast weight of +a man, faithful and true, and sufficiently aware of Him to refuse, to +universal clamour, the surrender of his liberty or his religion. In +small matters, as in great, there is no man, faithful to a lonely duty +or conviction, understanding that to have discerned it is a gift and a +vocation, but makes the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> better and stronger, and works out part +of the answer to that great prayer “Thy will be done.”</p> + +<p>We have seen already that the religion of the Hebrews in Egypt was +corrupted and in danger of being lost. To this process, however, there +must have been bright exceptions; and the mother of Moses bore witness, +by her very name, to her fathers’ God. The first syllable of Jochebed is +proof that the name of God, which became the keynote of the new +revelation, was not entirely new.</p> + +<p>As yet the parents of Moses are not named; nor is there any allusion to +the close relationship which would have forbidden their union at a later +period (chap. vi. 20). And throughout all the story of his youth and +early manhood there is no mention whatever of God or of religion. +Elsewhere it is not so. The Epistle to the Hebrews declares that through +faith the babe was hidden, and through faith the man refused Egyptian +rank. Stephen tells us that he expected his brethren to know that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance. But the narrative in Exodus is +wholly untheological. If Moses were the author, we can see why he +avoided reflections which directly tended to glorify himself. But if the +story were a subsequent invention, why is the tone so cold, the light so +colourless?</p> + +<p>Now, it is well that we are invited to look at all these things from +their human side, observing the play of human affection, innocent +subtlety, and pity. God commonly works through the heart and brain which +He has given us, and we do not glorify Him at all by ignoring these. If +in this case there were visible a desire to suppress the human agents, +in favour of the Divine Preserver, we might suppose that a different +historian would have given a less wonderful account<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> of the plagues, the +crossing of the Sea, and the revelation from Sinai. But since full +weight is allowed to second causes in the early life of Moses, the story +is entitled to the greater credit when it tells of the burning bush and +the flaming mountain.</p> + +<p>Let us, however, put together the various narratives and their lessons. +At the outset we read of a marriage celebrated between kinsfolk, when +the storm of persecution was rising. And hence we infer that courage or +strong affection made the parents worthy of him through whom God should +show mercy unto thousands. The first child was a girl, and therefore +safe; but we may suppose, although silence in Scripture proves little, +that Aaron, three years before the birth of Moses, had not come into +equal peril with him. Moses was therefore born just when the last +atrocity was devised, when trouble was at its height.</p> + +<p>“At this time Moses was born,” said Stephen. Edifying inferences have +been drawn from the statement in Exodus that “the woman ... hid him.” +Perhaps the stronger man quailed, but the maternal instinct was not at +fault, and it was rewarded abundantly. From which we only learn, in +reality, not to overstrain the words of Scripture; since the Epistle to +the Hebrews distinctly says that he “was hid three months by his +parents”—both of them, while naturally the mother is the active agent.</p> + +<p>All the accounts agree that he was thus hidden, “because they saw that +he was a goodly child” (Heb. xi. 23). It is a pathetic phrase. We see +them, before the crisis, vaguely submitting in theory to an unrealised +atrocity, ignorant how imperiously their nature would forbid the crime, +not planning disobedience in advance, nor led to it by any reasoning +process. All is changed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> when the little one gazes at them with that +marvellous appeal in its unconscious eyes, which is known to every +parent, and helps him to be a better man. There is a great difference +between one’s thought about an infant, and one’s feeling towards the +actual baby. He was their child, their beautiful child; and this it was +that turned the scale. For him they would now dare anything, “because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king’s +commandment.” Now, impulse is often a great power for evil, as when +appetite or fear, suddenly taking visible shape, overwhelms the judgment +and plunges men into guilt. But good impulses may be the very voice of +God, stirring whatever is noble and generous within us. Nor are they +accidental: loving and brave emotions belong to warm and courageous +hearts; they come of themselves, like song birds, but they come surely +where sunshine and still groves invite them, not into clamour and foul +air. Thus arose in their bosoms the sublime thought of God as an active +power to be reckoned upon. For as certainly as every bad passion that we +harbour preaches atheism, so does all goodness tend to sustain itself by +the consciousness of a supreme Goodness in reserve. God had sent them +their beautiful child, and who was Pharaoh to forbid the gift? And so +religion and natural pity joined hands, their supreme convictions and +their yearning for their infant. “By faith Moses was hid ... because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king’s +commandment.”</p> + +<p>Such, if we desire a real and actual salvation, is always the faith +which saves. Postpone salvation to an indefinite future; make it no more +than the escape from vaguely realised penalties for sins which do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +seem very hateful; and you may suppose that faith in theories can obtain +this indulgence; an opinion may weigh against a misgiving. But feel that +sin is not only likely to entail damnation, but is really and in itself +damnable meanwhile, and then there will be no deliverance possible, but +from the hand of a divine Friend, strong to sustain and willing to guide +the life. We read that Amram lived a hundred and thirty and seven years, +and of all that period we only know that he helped to save the deliverer +of his race, by practical faith which made him not afraid, and did not +paralyse but stimulate his energies.</p> + +<p>When the mother could no longer hide the child, she devised the plan +which has made her for ever famous. She placed him in a covered ark, or +casket,<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> plaited (after what we know to have been the Egyptian +fashion) of the papyrus reed, and rendered watertight with bitumen, and +this she laid among the rushes—a lower vegetation, which would not, +like the tall papyrus, hide her treasure—in the well-known and secluded +place where the daughter of Pharaoh used to bathe. Something in the +known character of the princess may have inspired this ingenious device +to move her pity; but it is more likely that the woman’s heart, in her +extremity, prompted a simple appeal to the woman who could help her if +she would. For an Egyptian princess was an important personage, with an +establishment of her own, and often possessed of much political +influence. The most sanguinary agent of a tyrant would be likely to +respect the client of such a patron.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + +<p>The heart of every woman was in a plot against the cruelty of Pharaoh. +Once already the midwives had defeated him; and now, when his own +daughter<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> unexpectedly found, in the water at her very feet, a +beautiful child sobbing silently (for she knew not what was there until +the ark was opened), her indignation is audible enough in the words, +“This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” She means to say “This is only +one specimen of the outrages that are going on.”</p> + +<p>This was the chance for his sister, who had been set in ambush, not +prepared with the exquisite device which follows, but simply “to know +what would be done to him.” Clearly the mother had reckoned upon his +being found, and neglected nothing, although unable herself to endure +the agony of watching, or less easily hidden in that guarded spot. And +her prudence had a rich reward. Hitherto Miriam’s duty had been to +remain passive—that hard task so often imposed upon the affection, +especially of women, by sick-beds, and also in many a more stirring +hazard, and many a spiritual crisis, where none can fight his brother’s +battle. It is a trying time, when love can only hold its breath, and +pray. But let not love suppose that to watch is to do nothing. Often +there comes a moment when its word, made wise by the teaching of the +heart, is the all-important consideration in deciding mighty issues.</p> + +<p>This girl sees the princess at once pitiful and embarrassed, for how can +she dispose of her strange charge? Let the moment pass, and the movement +of her heart subside, and all may be lost; but Miriam is prompt and +bold, and asks “Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, +that she may nurse the child for thee?” It is a daring stroke, for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +princess must have understood the position thoroughly, the moment the +eager Hebrew girl stepped forward. The disguise was very thin. And at +least the heart which pitied the infant must have known the mother when +she saw her face, pale with longing. It is therefore only as a form, +exacted by circumstances, but well enough though tacitly understood upon +both sides, that she bids her nurse the child for her, and promises +wages. What reward could equal that of clasping her child to her own +agitated bosom in safety, while the destroyers were around?</p> + +<p>This incident teaches us that good is never to be despaired of, since +this kindly woman grew up in the family of the persecutor.</p> + +<p>And the promptitude and success of Miriam suggest a reflection. Men do +pity, when it is brought home to them, the privation, suffering, and +wrong, which lie around. Magnificent sums are contributed yearly for +their relief by the generous instincts of the world. The misfortune is +that sentiment is evoked only by visible and pathetic griefs, and that +it will not labour as readily as it will subscribe. It is a harder task +to investigate, to devise appeals, to invent and work the machinery by +which misery may be relieved. Mere compassion will accomplish little, +unless painstaking affection supplement it. Who supplies that? Who +enables common humanity to relieve itself by simply paying “wages,” and +confiding the wretched to a painstaking, laborious, loving guardian? The +streets would never have known Hospital Saturday, but for Hospital +Sunday in the churches. The orphanage is wholly a Christian institution. +And so is the lady nurse. The old-fashioned phrase has almost sunk into +a party cry, but in a large and noble sense it will continue to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> true +to nature as long as bereavement, pain or penitence requires a tender +bosom and soothing touch, which speaks of Mother Church.</p> + +<p>Thus did God fulfil His mysterious plans. And according to a sad but +noble law, which operates widely, what was best in Egypt worked with Him +for the punishment of its own evil race. The daughter of Pharaoh adopted +the perilous foundling, and educated him in the wisdom of Egypt.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE CHOICE OF MOSES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">ii. 11–15.</h3> + +<p>God works even His miracles by means. As He fed the multitude with +barley-loaves, so He would emancipate Israel by human agency. It was +therefore necessary to educate one of the trampled race “in all the +learning of Egypt,” and Moses was planted in the court of Pharaoh, like +the German Arminius in Rome. Wonderful legends may be read in Josephus +of his heroism, his wisdom, and his victories; and these have some +foundation in reality, for Stephen tells us that he was mighty in his +words and works. Might in words need not mean the fluent utterance which +he so earnestly disclaimed (iv. 10), even if forty years’ disuse of the +language were not enough to explain his later diffidence. It may have +meant such power of composition as appears in the hymn by the Red Sea, +and in the magnificent valediction to his people.</p> + +<p>The point is that among a nation originally pastoral, and now sinking +fast into the degraded animalism of slaves, which afterwards betrayed +itself in their complaining greed, their sighs for the generous Egyptian +dietary, and their impure carouse under the mountain, one man should +possess the culture and mental grasp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> needed by a leader and lawgiver. +“Could not the grace of God have supplied the place of endowment and +attainment?” Yes, truly; and it was quite as likely to do this for one +who came down from His immediate presence with his face intolerably +bright, as for the last impudent enthusiast who declaims against the +need of education in sentences which at least prove that for him the +want has by no substitute been completely met. But the grace of God +chose to give the qualification, rather than replace it, alike to Moses +and St. Paul. Nor is there any conspicuous example among the saints of a +man being thrust into a rank for which he was not previously made fit.</p> + +<p>The painful contrast between his own refined tastes and habits, and the +coarser manners of his nation, was no doubt one difficulty of the choice +of Moses, and a lifelong trial to him afterwards. He is an example not +only to those whom wealth and power would entangle, but to any who are +too fastidious and sensitive for the humble company of the people of +God.</p> + +<p>While the intellect of Moses was developing, it is plain that his +connection with his family was not entirely broken. Such a tie as often +binds a foster-child to its nurse may have been permitted to associate +him with his real parents. Some means were evidently found to instruct +him in the history and messianic hopes of Israel, for he knew that their +reproach was that of “the Christ,” greater riches than all the treasure +of Egypt, and fraught with a reward for which he looked in faith (Heb. +xi. 26). But what is meant by naming as part of his burden their +“reproach,” as distinguished from their sufferings?</p> + +<p>We shall understand, if we reflect, that his open rupture with Egypt was +unlikely to be the work of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> moment. Like all the best workers, he was +led forward gradually, at first unconscious of his vocation. Many a +protest he must have made against the cruel and unjust policy that +steeped the land in innocent blood. Many a jealous councillor must have +known how to weaken his dangerous influence by some cautious taunt, some +insinuated “reproach” of his own Hebrew origin. The warnings put by +Josephus into the lips of the priests in his childhood, were likely +enough to have been spoken by some one before he was forty years old. At +last, when driven to make his choice, he “refused to be called the son +of Pharaoh’s daughter,” a phrase, especially in its reference to the +rejected title as distinguished from “the pleasures of sin,” which seems +to imply a more formal rupture than Exodus records.</p> + +<p>We saw that the piety of his parents was not unhelped by their emotions: +they hid him by faith when they saw that he was a goodly child. Such was +also the faith by which Moses broke with rank and fortune. He went out +unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian +smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. Twice the word of kinship is +repeated; and Stephen tells us that Moses himself used it in rebuking +the dissensions of his fellow-countrymen. Filled with yearning and pity +for his trampled brethren, and with the shame of generous natures who +are at ease while others suffer, he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew. +With that blended caution and vehemence which belong to his nation +still, he looked and saw that there was no man, and slew the Egyptian. +Like most acts of passion, this was at once an impulse of the moment, +and an outcome of long gathering forces—just as the lightning flash, +sudden though it seem, has been prepared by the accumulated electricity +of weeks.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>And this is the reason why God allows the issues of a lifetime, perhaps +of an eternity, to be decided by a sudden word, a hasty blow. Men plead +that if time had been given, they would have stifled the impulse which +ruined them. But what gave the impulse such violent and dreadful force +that it overwhelmed them before they could reflect? The explosion in the +coal-mine is not caused by the sudden spark, without the accumulation of +dangerous gases, and the absence of such wholesome ventilation as would +carry them away. It is so in the breast where evil desires or tempers +are harboured, unsubdued by grace, until any accident puts them beyond +control. Thank God that such sudden movements do not belong to evil +only! A high soul is surprised into heroism, as often perhaps as a mean +one into theft or falsehood. In the case of Moses there was nothing +unworthy, but much that was unwarranted and presumptuous. The decision +it involved was on the right side, but the act was self-willed and +unwarranted, and it carried heavy penalties. “The trespass originated +not in inveterate cruelty,” says St. Augustine, “but in a hasty zeal +which admitted of correction ... resentment against injury was +accompanied by love for a brother.... Here was evil to be rooted out, +but the heart with such capabilities, like good soil, needed only +cultivation to make it fruitful in virtue.”</p> + +<p>Stephen tells us, what is very natural, that Moses expected the people +to accept him as their heaven-born deliverer. From which it appears that +he cherished high expectations for himself, from Israel if not from +Egypt. When he interfered next day between two Hebrews, his question as +given in Exodus is somewhat magisterial: “Wherefore smitest thou thy +fellow?” In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> Stephen’s version it dictates less, but it lectures a good +deal: “Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?” And it +was natural enough that they should dispute his pretensions, for God had +not yet given him the rank he claimed. He still needed a discipline +almost as sharp as that of Joseph, who, by talking too boastfully of his +dreams, postponed their fulfilment until he was chastened by slavery and +a dungeon. Even Saul of Tarsus, when converted, needed three years of +close seclusion for the transformation of his fiery ardour into divine +zeal, as iron to be tempered must be chilled as well as heated. The +precipitate and violent zeal of Moses entailed upon him forty years of +exile.</p> + +<p>And yet his was a noble patriotism. There is a false love of country, +born of pride, which blinds one to her faults; and there is a loftier +passion which will brave estrangement and denunciation to correct them. +Such was the patriotism of Moses, and of all whom God has ever truly +called to lead their fellows. Nevertheless he had to suffer for his +error.</p> + +<p>His first act had been a kind of manifesto, a claim to lead, which he +supposed that they would have understood; and yet, when he found his +deed was known, he feared and fled. His false step told against him. One +cannot but infer also that he was conscious of having already forfeited +court favour—that he had before this not only made his choice, but +announced it, and knew that the blow was ready to fall on him at any +provocation. We read that he dwelt in the land of Midian, a name which +was applied to various tracts according to the nomadic wanderings of the +tribe, but which plainly included, at this time, some part of the +peninsula formed by the tongues of the Red Sea. For, as he fed his +flocks, he came to the Mount of God.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="section">MOSES IN MIDIAN.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">ii. 16–22</h3> + +<p>The interference of Moses on behalf of the daughters of the priest of +Midian is a pleasant trait, courteous, and expressive of a refined +nature. With this remark, and reflecting that, like many courtesies, it +brought its reward, we are often content to pass it by. And yet it +deserves a closer examination.</p> + +<p>1. For it expresses great energy of character. He might well have been +in a state of collapse. He had smitten the Egyptian for Israel’s sake: +he had appealed to his own people to make common cause, like brethren, +against the common foe; and he had offered himself to them as their +destined leader in the struggle. But they had refused him the command, +and he was rudely awakened to the consciousness that his life was in +danger through the garrulous ingratitude of the man he rescued. Now he +was a ruined man and an exile, marked for destruction by the greatest of +earthly monarchs, with the habits and tastes of a great noble, but +homeless among wild races.</p> + +<p>It was no common nature which was alert and energetic at such a time. +The greatest men have known a period of prostration in calamity: it was +enough for honour that they should rally and re-collect their forces. +Thinking of Frederick, after Kunersdorf, resigning the command (“I have +no resources more, and will not survive the destruction of my country”), +and of his subsequent despatch, “I am now recovered from my illness”; +and of Napoleon, trembling and weeping on the road to Elba, one turns +with fresh admiration to the fallen prince, the baffled liberator, +sitting exhausted by the well, but as keen on behalf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> of liberty as when +Pharaoh trampled Israel, though now the oppressors are a group of rude +herdsmen, and the oppressed are Midianite women, driven from the troughs +which they have toiled to fill. One remembers Another, sitting also +exhausted by the well, defying social usage on behalf of a despised +woman, and thereby inspired and invigorated as with meat to eat which +His followers knew not of.</p> + +<p>2. Moreover there is disinterested bravery in the act, since he hazards +the opposition of the men of the land, among whom he seeks refuge, on +behalf of a group from which he can have expected nothing. And here it +is worth while to notice the characteristic variations in three stories +which have certain points of contact. The servant of Abraham, +servant-like, was well content that Rebekah should draw for all his +camels, while he stood still. The prudent Jacob, anxious to introduce +himself to his cousin, rolled away the stone and watered her camels. +Moses sat by the well, but did not interfere while the troughs were +being filled: it was only the overt wrong which kindled him. But as in +great things, so it is in small: our actions never stand alone; having +once befriended them, he will do it thoroughly, “and moreover he drew +water for us, and watered the flock.” Such details could hardly have +been thought out by a fabricator; a legend would not have allowed Moses +to be slower in courtesy than Jacob;<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> but the story fits the case +exactly: his eyes were with his heart, and that was far away, until the +injustice of the shepherds roused him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> + +<p>And why was Moses thus energetic, fearless, and chivalrous? Because he +was sustained by the presence of the Unseen: he endured as seeing Him +who is invisible; and having, despite of panic, by faith forsaken Egypt, +he was free from the absorbing anxieties which prevent men from caring +for their fellows, free also from the cynical misgivings which suspect +that violence is more than justice, that to be righteous over-much is to +destroy oneself, and that perhaps, after all, one may see a good deal of +wrong without being called upon to interfere. It would be a different +world to-day, if all who claim to be “the salt of the earth” were as +eager to repress injustice in its smaller and meaner forms as to make +money or influential friends. If all petty and cowardly oppression were +sternly trodden down, we should soon have a state of public opinion in +which gross and large tyranny would be almost impossible. And it is very +doubtful whether the flagrant wrongs, which must be comparatively rare, +cause as much real mental suffering as the frequent small ones. Does +mankind suffer more from wild beasts than from insects? But how few that +aspire to emancipate oppressed nations would be content, in the hour of +their overthrow, to assert the rights of a handful of women against a +trifling fraud, to which indeed they were so well accustomed that its +omission surprised their father!</p> + +<p>Is it only because we are reading a history, and not a biography, that +we find no touch of tenderness, like the love of Jacob for Rachel, in +the domestic relations of Moses?</p> + +<p>Joseph also married in a strange land, yet he called the name of his +first son Manasseh, because God had made him to forget his sorrows: but +Moses remembered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> his. Neither wife nor child could charm away his home +sickness; he called his firstborn Gershom, because he was a sojourner in +a strange land. In truth, his whole life seems to have been a lonely +one. Miriam is called “the sister of Aaron” even when joining in the +song of Moses (xv. 20), and with Aaron she made common cause against +their greater brother (Num. xii. 1–2). Zipporah endangered his life +rather than obey the covenant of circumcision; she complied at last with +a taunt (iv. 24–6), and did not again join him until his victory over +Amalek raised his position to the utmost height (xviii. 2).</p> + +<p>His children are of no account, and his grandson is the founder of a +dangerous and enduring schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.).</p> + +<p>There is much reason to see here the earliest example of the sad rule +that a prophet is not without honour save in his own house; that the law +of compensations reaches farther into life than men suppose; and high +position and great powers are too often counterbalanced by the isolation +of the heart.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The same word is used for Noah’s ark, but not elsewhere; +not, for example, of the ark in the Temple, the name of which occurs +elsewhere in Scripture only of the “coffin” of Joseph, and the “chest” +for the Temple revenues (Gen. 1. 26; 2 Chron. xxiv. 8, 10, 11.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Or his sister, the daughter of a former Pharaoh.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Nor would it have made the women call their deliverer “an +Egyptian,” for the Hebrew cast of features is very dissimilar. But Moses +wore Egyptian dress, and the Egyptians worked mines in the peninsula, so +that he was naturally taken for one of them.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE BURNING BUSH.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">ii. 23–iii.</h3> + +<p>“In process of time the king of Egypt died,” probably the great Raamses, +no other of whose dynasty had a reign which extended over the indicated +period of time. If so, he had while living every reason to expect an +immortal fame, as the greatest among Egyptian kings, a hero, a conqueror +on three continents, a builder of magnificent works. But he has only won +an immortal notoriety. “Every stone in his buildings was cemented in +human blood.” The cause he persecuted has made deathless the banished +refugee, and has gibbeted the great monarch as a tyrant, whose +misplanned severities wrought the ruin of his successor and his army. +Such are the reversals of popular judgment: and such the vanity of fame. +For all the contemporary fame was his.</p> + +<p>“The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they +cried.” Another monarch had come at last, a change after sixty-seven +years, and yet no change for them! It filled up the measure of their +patience, and also of the iniquity of Egypt. We are not told that their +cry was addressed to the Lord; what we read is that it reached Him, Who +still overhears and pities many a sob, many a lament, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> ought to +have been addressed to Him, and is not. Indeed, if His compassion were +not to reach men until they had remembered and prayed to Him, who among +us would ever have learned to pray to Him at all? Moreover He remembered +His covenant with their forefathers, for the fulfilment of which the +time had now arrived. “And God saw the children of Israel, and God took +knowledge of them.”</p> + +<p>These were not the cries of religious individuals, but of oppressed +masses. It is therefore a solemn question to ask How many such appeals +ascend from Christian England? Behold, the hire of labourers ... held +back by fraud crieth out. The half-paid slaves of our haste to be rich, +and the victims of our drinking institutions, and of hideous vices which +entangle and destroy the innocent and unconscious, what cries to heaven +are theirs! As surely as those which St. James records, these have +entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Of these sufferers every +one is His own by purchase, most of them by a covenant and sacrament +more solemn than bound Him to His ancient Israel. Surely He hears their +groaning. And all whose hearts are touched with compassion, yet who +hesitate whether to bestir themselves or to remain inert while evil is +masterful and cruel, should remember the anger of God when Moses said, +“Send, I pray Thee, by whom Thou wilt send.” The Lord is not +indifferent. Much less than other sufferers should those who know God be +terrified by their afflictions. Cyprian encouraged the Church of his +time to endure even unto martyrdom, by the words recorded of ancient +Israel, that the more they afflicted them, so much the more they became +greater and waxed stronger. And he was right. For all these things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +happened to them for ensamples, and were written for our admonition.</p> + +<p>It is further to be observed that the people were quite unconscious, +until Moses announced it afterwards, that they were heard by God. Yet +their deliverer had now been prepared by a long process for his work. We +are not to despair because relief does not immediately appear: though He +tarry, we are to wait for Him.</p> + +<p>While this anguish was being endured in Egypt, Moses was maturing for +his destiny. Self-reliance, pride of place, hot and impulsive +aggressiveness, were dying in his bosom. To the education of the +courtier and scholar was now added that of the shepherd in the wilds, +amid the most solemn and awful scenes of nature, in solitude, +humiliation, disappointment, and, as we learn from the Epistle to the +Hebrews, in enduring faith. Wordsworth has a remarkable description of +the effect of a similar discipline upon the good Lord Clifford. He +tells—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“How he, long forced in humble paths to go,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Love had he found in huts where poor men lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His daily teachers had been woods and rills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The silence that is in the starry sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sleep that is among the lonely hills.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“In him the savage virtues of the race,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The wisdom which adversity had bred.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There was also the education of advancing age, which teaches many +lessons, and among them two which are essential to leadership,—the +folly of a hasty blow, and of impulsive reliance upon the support of +mobs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> Moses the man-slayer became exceeding meek; and he ceased to rely +upon the perception of his people that God by him would deliver them. +His distrust, indeed, became as excessive as his temerity had been, but +it was an error upon the safer side. “Behold, they will not believe me,” +he says, “nor hearken unto my voice.”</p> + +<p>It is an important truth that in very few lives the decisive moment +comes just when it is expected. Men allow themselves to be +self-indulgent, extravagant and even wicked, often upon the calculation +that their present attitude matters little, and they will do very +differently when the crisis arrives, the turning-point in their career +to nerve them. And they waken up with a start to find their career +already decided, their character moulded. As a snare shall the day of +the Lord come upon all flesh; and as a snare come all His great +visitations meanwhile. When Herod was drinking among bad companions, +admiring a shameless dancer, and boasting loudly of his generosity, he +was sobered and saddened to discover that he had laughed away the life +of his only honest adviser. Moses, like David, was “following the ewes +great with young,” when summoned by God to rule His people Israel. +Neither did the call arrive when he was plunged in moody reverie and +abstraction, sighing over his lost fortunes and his defeated +aspirations, rebelling against his lowly duties. The humblest labour is +a preparation for the brightest revelations, whereas discontent, however +lofty, is a preparation for nothing. Thus, too, the birth of Jesus was +first announced to shepherds keeping watch over their flock. Yet +hundreds of third-rate young persons in every city in this land to-day +neglect their work, and unfit themselves for any insight, or any +leadership<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> whatever, by chafing against the obscurity of their +vocation.</p> + +<p>Who does not perceive that the career of Moses hitherto was divinely +directed? The fact that we feel this, although, until now, God has not +once been mentioned in his personal story, is surely a fine lesson for +those who have only one notion of what edifies—the dragging of the most +sacred names and phrases into even the most unsuitable connections. In +truth, such a phraseology is much less attractive than a certain tone, a +recognition of the unseen, which may at times be more consistent with +reverential silence than with obtrusive utterance. It is enough to be +ready and fearless when the fitting time comes, which is sure to arrive, +for the religious heart as for this narrative—the time for the natural +utterance of the great word, God.</p> + +<p>We read that the angel of the Lord appeared to him—a remarkable phrase, +which was already used in connection with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. +xxii. 11). How much it implies will better be discussed in the +twenty-third chapter, where a fuller statement is made. For the present +it is enough to note, that this is one pre-eminent angel, indicated by +the definite article; that he is clearly the medium of a true divine +appearance, because neither the voice nor form of any lesser being is +supposed to be employed, the appearance being that of fire, and the +words being said to be the direct utterance of the Lord, not of any one +who says, Thus saith the Lord. We shall see hereafter that the story of +the Exodus is unique in this respect, that in training a people tainted +with Egyptian superstitions, no ‘similitude’ is seen, as when there +wrestled a man with Jacob, or when Ezekiel saw a human form upon the +sapphire pavement.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>Man is the true image of God, and His perfect revelation was in flesh. +But now that expression of Himself was perilous, and perhaps unsuitable +besides; for He was to be known as the Avenger, and presently as the +Giver of Law, with its inflexible conditions and its menaces. Therefore +He appeared as fire, which is intense and terrible, even when “the flame +of the grace of God does not consume, but illuminates.”</p> + +<p>There is a notion that religion is languid, repressive, and unmanly. But +such is not the scriptural idea. In His presence is the fulness of joy. +Christ has come that we might have life, and might have it more +abundantly. They who are shut out from His blessedness are said to be +asleep and dead. And so Origen quotes this passage among others, with +the comment that “As God is a fire, and His angels a flame of fire, and +all the saints fervent in spirit, so they who have fallen away from God +are said to have cooled, or to have become cold” (<i>De Princip.</i>, ii. 8). +A revelation by fire involves intensity.</p> + +<p>There is indeed another explanation of the burning bush, which makes the +flame express only the afflictions that did not consume the people. But +this would be a strange adjunct to a divine appearance for their +deliverance, speaking rather of the continuance of suffering than of its +termination, for which the extinction of such fire would be a more +appropriate symbol.</p> + +<p>Yet there is an element of truth even in this view, since fire is +connected with affliction. In His holiness God is light (with which, in +the Hebrew, the very word for holiness seems to be connected); in His +judgments He is fire. “The Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his +Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his +briers in one day” (Isa. x. 17).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> But God reveals Himself in this thorn +bush as a fire which does not consume; and such a revelation tells at +once Who has brought the people into affliction, and also that they are +not abandoned to it.</p> + +<p>To Moses at first there was visible only an extraordinary phenomenon; He +turned to see a great sight. It is therefore out of the question to find +here the truth, so easy to discover elsewhere, that God rewards the +religious inquirer—that they who seek after Him shall find Him. Rather +we learn the folly of deeming that the intellect and its inquiries are +at war with religion and its mysteries, that revelation is at strife +with mental insight, that he who most stupidly refuses to “see the great +sights” of nature is best entitled to interpret the voice of God. When +the man of science gives ear to voices not of earth, and the man of God +has eyes and interest for the divine wonders which surround us, many a +discord will be harmonised. With the revival of classical learning came +the Reformation.</p> + +<p>But it often happens that the curiosity of the intellect is in danger of +becoming irreverent, and obtrusive into mysteries not of the brain, and +thus the voice of God must speak in solemn warning: “Moses, Moses, ... +Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place +whereon thou standest is holy ground.”</p> + +<p>After as prolonged a silence as from the time of Malachi to the Baptist, +it is God Who reveals Himself once more—not Moses who by searching +finds Him out. And this is the established rule. Tidings of the +Incarnation came from heaven, or man would not have discovered the +Divine Babe. Jesus asked His two first disciples “What seek ye?” and +told Simon “Thou shalt be called Cephas,” and pronounced the listening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +Nathaniel “an Israelite indeed,” and bade Zaccheus “make haste and come +down,” in each case before He was addressed by them.</p> + +<p>The first words of Jehovah teach something more than ceremonial +reverence. If the dust of common earth on the shoe of Moses may not +mingle with that sacred soil, how dare we carry into the presence of our +God mean passions and selfish cravings? Observe, too, that while Jacob, +when he awoke from his vision, said, “How dreadful is this place!” (Gen. +xxviii. 17), God Himself taught Moses to think rather of the holiness +than the dread of His abode. Nevertheless Moses also was afraid to look +upon God, and hid the face which was thereafter to be veiled, for a +nobler reason, when it was itself illumined with the divine glory. +Humility before God is thus the path to the highest honour, and +reverence, to the closest intercourse.</p> + +<p>Meantime the Divine Person has announced Himself: “I am the God of thy +father” (father is apparently singular with a collective force), “the +God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” It is a +blessing which every Christian parent should bequeath to his child, to +be strengthened and invigorated by thinking of God as his father’s God.</p> + +<p>It was with this memorable announcement that Jesus refuted the Sadducees +and established His doctrine of the resurrection. So, then, the bygone +ages are not forgotten: Moses may be sure that a kindly relation exists +between God and himself, because the kindly relation still exists in all +its vital force which once bound Him to those who long since appeared to +die. It was impossible, therefore, our Lord inferred, that they had +really died at all. The argument is a forerunner of that by which St. +Paul concludes, from the resurrection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> of Christ, that none who are “in +Christ” have perished. Nay, since our Lord was not disputing about +immortality only, but the resurrection of the body, His argument implied +that a vital relationship with God involved the imperishability of the +whole man, since all was His, and in truth the very seal of the covenant +was imprinted upon the flesh. How much stronger is the assurance for us, +who know that our very bodies are His temple! Now, if any suspicion +should arise that the argument, which is really subtle, is over-refined +and untrustworthy, let it be observed that no sooner was this +announcement made, than God added the proclamation of His own +immutability, so that it cannot be said He was, but from age to age His +title is I AM. The inference from the divine permanence to the living +and permanent vitality of all His relationships is not a verbal quibble, +it is drawn from the very central truth of this great scripture.</p> + +<p>And now for the first time God calls Israel My people, adopting a phrase +already twice employed by earthly rulers (Gen. xxiii. 11, xli. 40), and +thus making Himself their king and the champion of their cause. Often +afterwards it was used in pathetic appeal:—“Thou hast showed Thy people +hard things,”—“Thou sellest Thy people for nought,”—“Behold, look, we +beseech Thee; we are all Thy people” (Ps. lx. 3, xliv. 12; Isa. lxiv. +9). And often it expressed the returning favour of their king: “Hear, O +My people, and I will speak”; “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people” (Ps. l. +7; Isa. xl. 1).</p> + +<p>It is used of the nation at large, all of whom were brought into the +covenant, although with many of them God was not well pleased. And since +it does not belong only to saints, but speaks of a grace which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> might be +received in vain, it is a strong appeal to all Christian people, all who +are within the New Covenant. Them also the Lord claims and pities, and +would gladly emancipate: their sorrows also He knows. “I have surely +seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard +their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and +I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to +bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land +flowing with milk and honey.” Thus the ways of God exceed the desires of +men. Their subsequent complaints are evidence that Egypt had become +their country: gladly would they have shaken off the iron yoke, but a +successful rebellion is a revolution, not an Exodus. Their destined home +was very different: with the widest variety of climate, scenery, and +soil, a land which demanded much more regular husbandry, but rewarded +labour with exuberant fertility. Secluded from heathenism by deserts on +the south and east, by a sublime range of mountains on the north, and by +a sea with few havens on the west, yet planted in the very bosom of all +the ancient civilisation which at the last it was to leaven, it was a +land where a faithful people could have dwelt alone and not been +reckoned among the nations, yet where the scourge for disobedience was +never far away.</p> + +<p>Next after the promise of this good land, the commission of Moses is +announced. He is to act, because God is already active: “<i>I</i> am come +down to deliver them ... come now, therefore, and I will send <i>thee</i> +unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people.” And let this +truth encourage all who are truly sent of God, to the end of time, that +He does not send us to deliver man, until He is Himself prepared to do +so,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> that when our fears ask, like Moses, Who am I, that I should go? He +does not answer, Thou art capable, but Certainly I will go with thee. +So, wherever the ministry of the word is sent, there is a true purpose +of grace. There is also the presence of One who claims the right to +bestow upon us the same encouragement which was given to Moses by +Jehovah, saying, “Lo, I am with you alway.” In so saying, Jesus made +Himself equal with God.</p> + +<p>And as this ancient revelation of God was to give rest to a weary and +heavy-laden people, so Christ bound together the assertion of a more +perfect revelation, made in Him, with the promise of a grander +emancipation. No man knoweth the Father save by revelation of the Son is +the doctrine which introduces the great offer “Come unto Me, all ye that +labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. xi. 27, +28). The claims of Christ in the New Testament will never be fully +recognised until a careful study is made of His treatment of the +functions which in the Old Testament are regarded as Divine. A curious +expression follows: “This shall be a token unto thee that I have sent +thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall +serve God upon this mountain.” It seems but vague encouragement, to +offer Moses, hesitating at the moment, a token which could take effect +only when his task was wrought. And yet we know how much easier it is to +believe what is thrown into distinct shape and particularised. Our trust +in good intentions is helped when their expression is detailed and +circumstantial, as a candidate for office will reckon all general +assurances of support much cheaper than a pledge to canvass certain +electors within a certain time. Such is the constitution of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> human +nature; and its Maker has often deigned to sustain its weakness by going +thus into particulars. He does the same for us, condescending to embody +the most profound of all mysteries in sacramental emblems, clothing his +promises of our future blessedness in much detail, and in concrete +figures which at least symbolise, if they do not literally describe, the +glories of the Jerusalem which is above.</p> + +<h3 class="section">A NEW NAME.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">iii. 14. vi. 2, 3.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“God said unto Moses, <span class="smcap">I am that I am</span>: and He said, Thus shalt thou +say unto the children of Israel, <span class="smcap">I am</span> hath sent me unto you.”</p></div> + +<p>We cannot certainly tell why Moses asked for a new name by which to +announce to his brethren the appearance of God. He may have felt that +the memory of their fathers, and of the dealings of God with them, had +faded so far out of mind that merely to indicate their ancestral God +would not sufficiently distinguish Him from the idols of Egypt, whose +worship had infected them.</p> + +<p>If so, he was fully answered by a name which made this God the one +reality, in a world where all is a phantasm except what derives +stability from Him.</p> + +<p>He may have desired to know, for himself, whether there was any truth in +the dreamy and fascinating pantheism which inspired so much of the +Egyptian superstition.</p> + +<p>In that case, the answer met his question by declaring that God existed, +not as the sum of things or soul of the universe, but in Himself, the +only independent Being.</p> + +<p>Or he may simply have desired some name to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> express more of the mystery +of deity, remembering how a change of name had accompanied new +discoveries of human character and achievement, as of Abraham and +Israel; and expecting a new name likewise when God would make to His +people new revelations of Himself.</p> + +<p>So natural an expectation was fulfilled not only then, but afterwards. +When Moses prayed “Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory,” the answer was “I +will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name +of the Lord.” The proclamation was again Jehovah, but not this alone. It +was “The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to +anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth” (xxxiii. 18, 19, xxxiv. 6, +R.V.) Thus the life of Moses, like the agelong progress of the Church, +advanced towards an ever-deepening knowledge that God is not only the +Independent but the Good. All sets toward the final knowledge that His +highest name is Love.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in the development of events, the exact period was come for +epithets, which were shared with gods many and lords many, to be +supplemented by the formal announcement and authoritative adoption of +His proper name Jehovah. The infant nation was to learn to think of Him, +not only as endowed with attributes of terror and power, by which +enemies would be crushed, but as possessing a certain well-defined +personality, upon which the trust of man could repose. Soon their +experience would enable them to receive the formal announcement that He +was merciful and gracious. But first they were required to trust His +promise amid all discouragements; and to this end, stability was the +attribute first to be insisted upon.</p> + +<p>It is true that the derivation of the word Jehovah is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> still a problem +for critical acumen. It has been sought in more than one language, and +various shades of meaning have been assigned to it, some untenable in +the abstract, others hardly, or not at all, to be reconciled with the +Scriptural narrative.</p> + +<p>Nay, the corruption of the very sound is so notorious, that it is only +worth mention as illustrating a phase of superstition.</p> + +<p>We smile at the Jews, removing the correct vowels lest so holy a word +should be irreverently spoken, placing the sanctity in the cadence, +hoping that light and flippant allusions may offend God less, so long as +they spare at least the vowels of His name, and thus preserve some +vestige undesecrated, while profaning at once the conception of His +majesty and the consonants of the mystic word.</p> + +<p>A more abject superstition could scarcely have made void the spirit, +while grovelling before the letter of the commandment.</p> + +<p>But this very superstition is alive in other forms to-day. Whenever one +recoils from the sin of coarse blasphemy, yet allows himself the +enjoyment of a polished literature which profanes holy +conceptions,—whenever men feel bound to behave with external propriety +in the house of God, yet bring thither wandering thoughts, vile +appetites, sensuous imaginations, and all the chamber of imagery which +is within the unregenerate heart,—there is the same despicable +superstition which strove to escape at least the extreme of blasphemy by +prudently veiling the Holy Name before profaning it.</p> + +<p>But our present concern is with the practical message conveyed to Israel +when Moses declared that Jehovah, <span class="smcap">I am</span>, the God of their fathers, had +appeared unto him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> And if we find in it a message suited for the time, +and which is the basis, not the superstructure, both of later messages +and also of the national character, then we shall not fail to observe +the bearing of such facts upon an urgent controversy of this time.</p> + +<p>Some significance must have been in that Name, not too abstract for a +servile and degenerate race to apprehend. Nor was it soon to pass away +and be replaced; it was His memorial throughout all generations; and +therefore it has a message for us to-day, to admonish and humble, to +invigorate and uphold.</p> + +<p>That God would be the same to them as to their fathers was much. But +that it was of the essence of His character to be evermore the same, +immutable in heart and mind and reality of being, however their conduct +might modify His bearing towards them, this indeed would be a steadying +and reclaiming consciousness.</p> + +<p>Accordingly Moses receives the answer for himself, “<span class="smcap">I am that I am</span>”; and +he is bidden to tell his people “<i>I am</i> hath sent me unto you,” and yet +again “<span class="smcap">Jehovah</span> the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you.” The +spirit and tenor of these three names may be said to be virtually +comprehended in the first; and they all speak of the essential and +self-existent Being, unchanging and unchangeable.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">I am</span> expresses an intense reality of being. No image in the dark +recesses of Egyptian or Syrian temples, grotesque and motionless, can +win the adoration of him who has had communion with such a veritable +existence, or has heard His authentic message. No dreamful pantheism, on +its knees to the beneficent principle expressed in one deity, to the +destructive in another, or to the reproductive in a third, but all of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +them dependent upon nature, as the rainbow upon the cataract which it +spans, can ever again satisfy the soul which is athirst for the living +God, the Lord, Who is not personified, but <span class="smcap lowercase">IS</span>.</p> + +<p>This profound sense of a living Person within reach, to be offended, to +pardon, and to bless, was the one force which kept the Hebrew nation +itself alive, with a vitality unprecedented since the world began. They +could crave His pardon, whatever natural retributions they had brought +down upon themselves, whatever tendencies of nature they had provoked, +because He was not a dead law without ears or a heart, but their +merciful and gracious God.</p> + +<p>Not the most exquisite subtleties of innuendo and irony could make good +for a day the monstrous paradox that the Hebrew religion, the worship of +<span class="smcap">I am</span>, was really nothing but the adoration of that stream of tendencies +which makes for righteousness.</p> + +<p>Israel did not challenge Pharaoh through having suddenly discovered that +goodness ultimately prevails over evil, nor is it any cold calculation +of the sort which ever inspires a nation or a man with heroic fortitude. +But they were nerved by the announcement that they had been remembered +by a God Who is neither an ideal nor a fancy, but the Reality of +realities, beside Whom Pharaoh and his host were but as phantoms.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">I am that I am</span> is the style not only of permanence, but of permanence +self-contained, and being a distinctive title, it denies such +self-contained permanence to others.</p> + +<p>Man is as the past has moulded him, a compound of attainments and +failures, discoveries and disillusions, his eyes dim with forgotten +tears, his hair grey with surmounted anxieties, his brow furrowed with +bygone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> studies, his conscience troubled with old sin. Modern unbelief +is ignobly frank respecting him. He is the sum of his parents and his +wet-nurse. He is what he eats. If he drinks beer, he thinks beer. And it +is the element of truth in these hideous paradoxes which makes them +rankle, like an unkind construction put upon a questionable action. As +the foam is what wind and tide have made of it, so are we the product of +our circumstances, the resultant of a thousand forces, far indeed from +being self-poised or self-contained, too often false to our best self, +insomuch that probably no man is actually what in the depth of +self-consciousness he feels himself to be, what moreover he should prove +to be, if only the leaden weight of constraining circumstance were +lifted off the spring which it flattens down to earth. Moses himself was +at heart a very different person from the keeper of the sheep of Jethro. +Therefore man says, Pity and make allowance for me: this is not my true +self, but only what by compression, by starvation and stripes and +bribery and error, I have become. Only God says, <span class="smcap">I am that I am</span>.</p> + +<p>Yet in another sense, and quite as deep a one, man is not the coarse +tissue which past circumstances have woven: he is the seed of the +future, as truly as the fruit of the past. Strange compound that he is +of memory and hope, while half of the present depends on what is over, +the other half is projected into the future; and like a bridge, +sustained on these two banks, life throws its quivering shadow on each +moment that fleets by. It is not attainment, but degradation to live +upon the level of one’s mere attainment, no longer uplifted by any +aspiration, fired by any emulation, goaded by any but carnal fears. If +we have been shaped by circumstances, yet we are saved by hope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> Do not +judge me, we are all entitled to plead, by anything that I am doing or +have done: He only can appraise a soul a right Who knows what it yearns +to become, what within itself it hates and prays to be delivered from, +what is the earnestness of its self-loathing, what the passion of its +appeal to heaven. As the bloom of next April is the true comment upon +the dry bulb of September, as you do not value the fountain by the pint +of water in its basin, but by its inexhaustible capabilities of +replenishment, so the present and its joyless facts are not the true +man; his possibilities, the fears and hopes that control his destiny and +shall unfold it, these are his real self.</p> + +<p>I am not merely what I am: I am very truly that which I long to be. And +thus, man may plead, I am what I move towards and strive after, my +aspiration is myself. But God says, <span class="smcap">I am what I am</span>. The stream hurries +forward: the rock abides. And this is the Rock of Ages.</p> + +<p>Now, such a conception is at first sight not far removed from that +apathetic and impassive kind of deity which the practical atheism of +ancient materialists could well afford to grant;—“ever in itself +enjoying immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and +withdrawn from our concerns, since it, exempt from every pain, exempt +from all danger, strong in its own resources and wanting nought from us, +is neither gained by favour nor moved by wrath.”</p> + +<p>Thus Lucretius conceived of the absolute Being as by the necessity of +its nature entirely outside our system.</p> + +<p>But Moses was taught to trust in Jehovah as intervening, pitying sorrow +and wrong, coming down to assist His creatures in distress.</p> + +<p>How could this be possible? Clearly the movement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> towards them must be +wholly disinterested, and wholly from within; unbought, since no +external influence can modify His condition, no puny sacrifice can +propitiate Him Who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the +inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: a movement prompted by no +irregular emotional impulse, but an abiding law of His nature, incapable +of change, the movement of a nature, personal indeed, yet as steady, as +surely to be reckoned upon in like circumstances, as the operations of +gravitation are.</p> + +<p>There is no such motive, working in such magnificent regularity for +good, save one. The ultimate doctrine of the New Testament, that God is +Love, is already involved in this early assertion, that being wholly +independent of us and our concerns, He is yet not indifferent to them, +so that Moses could say unto the children of Israel “<span class="smcap">I am</span> hath sent me +unto you.”</p> + +<p>It is this unchangeable consistency of Divine action which gives the +narrative its intense interest to us. To Moses, and therefore to all who +receive any commission from the skies, this title said, Frail creature, +sport of circumstances and of tyrants, He who commissions thee sits +above the waterfloods, and their rage can as little modify or change His +purpose, now committed to thy charge, as the spray can quench the stars. +Perplexed creature, whose best self lives only in aspiration and desire, +now thou art an instrument in the hand of Him with Whom desire and +attainment, will and fruition, are eternally the same. None truly fails +in fighting for Jehovah, for who hath resisted His will?</p> + +<p>To Israel, and to all the oppressed whose minds are open to receive the +tidings and their faith strong to embrace it, He said, Your life is +blighted, and your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> future is in the hand of taskmasters, yet be of good +cheer, for now your deliverance is undertaken by Him Whose being and +purpose are one, Who <i>is</i> in perfection of enjoyment all that He <i>is</i> in +contemplation and in will. The rescue of Israel by an immutable and +perfect God is the earnest of the breaking of every yoke.</p> + +<p>And to the proud and godless world which knows Him not, He says, +Resistance to My will can only show forth all its power, which is not at +the mercy of opinion or interest or change: I sit upon the throne, not +only supreme but independent, not only victorious but unassailable; +self-contained, self-poised and self-sufficing, <span class="smcap">I am that I am</span>.</p> + +<p>Have we now escaped the inert and self-absorbed deity of Lucretius, only +to fall into the palsying grasp of the tyrannous deity of Calvin? Does +our own human will shrivel up and become powerless under the compulsion +of that immutability with which we are strangely brought into contact?</p> + +<p>Evidently this is not the teaching of the Book of Exodus. For it is +here, in this revelation of the Supreme, that we first hear of a nation +as being His: “I have seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt +... and I have come down to bring them into a good land.” They were all +baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Yet their carcases fell +in the wilderness. And these things were written for our learning. The +immutability, which suffers no shock when we enter <i>into</i> the covenant, +remains unshaken also if we depart from the living God. The sun shines +alike when we raise the curtain and when we drop it, when our chamber is +illumined and when it is dark. The immutability of God is not in His +operations, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> sometimes He gave His people into the hand of their +enemies, and again He turned and helped them. It is in His nature, His +mind, in the principles which guide His actions. If He had not chastened +David for his sin, then, by acting as before, He would have been other +at heart than when He rejected Saul for disobedience and chose the son +of Jesse to fulfil all His word. The wind has veered, if it continues to +propel the vessel in the same direction, although helm and sails are +shifted.</p> + +<p>Such is the Pauline doctrine of His immutability. “If we endure we shall +also reign with Him: if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us,”—and +such is the necessity of His being, for we cannot sway Him with our +changes: “if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny +Himself.” And therefore it is presently added that “the firm foundation +of the Lord standeth sure, having” not only “this seal, that the Lord +knoweth those that are His,”—but also this, “Let every one that nameth +the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness” (2 Tim. ii. 12, 13, +19, R.V.).</p> + +<p>The Lord knew that Israel was His, yet for their unrighteousness He +sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest.</p> + +<p>It follows from all this that the new name of God was no academic +subtlety, no metaphysical refinement of the schools, unfitly revealed to +slaves, but a most practical and inspiring truth, a conviction to warm +their blood, to rouse their courage, to convert their despair into +confidence and their alarms into defiance.</p> + +<p>They had the support of a God worthy of trust. And thenceforth every +answer in righteousness, every new disclosure of fidelity, tenderness, +love, was not an abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> a +capricious despot; no, its import was permanent as an observation of the +stars by an astronomer, ever more to be remembered in calculating the +movements of the universe.</p> + +<p>In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient +days, as being He who “cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon.” “I am the +Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”</p> + +<p>And as the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God +was built up slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation +which insured the the stability of all, until the Head Stone of the +Corner gave completeness to the vast design, until men saw and could +believe in the very Incarnation of all Love, unshaken amid anguish and +distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious, while they heard +from human lips the awful words, “Before Abraham was, <span class="smcap">I am</span>.” Then they +learned to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new +and more pathetic revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake +grew strong as he remembered that the Man of Sorrows was the same +yesterday and to-day and for ever; and the great apostle, prostrate +before the glory of his Master, was restored by the touch of a human +hand, and by the voice of Him upon Whose bosom he had leaned, saying, +Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One.</p> + +<p>And if men are once more fain to rend from humanity that great +assurance, which for ages, amid all shocks, has made the frail creature +of the dust to grow strong and firm and fearless, partaker of the Divine +Nature, what will they give us in its stead? Or do they think us too +strong of will, too firm of purpose? Looking around us, we see nations +heaving with internal agitations, armed to the teeth against each +other,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> and all things like a ship at sea reeling to and fro, and +staggering like a drunken man. There is no stability for us in +constitutions or old formulæ—none anywhere, if it be not in the soul of +man. Well for us, then, that the anchor of the soul is sure and +steadfast! well that unnumbered millions take courage from their +Saviour’s word, that the world’s worst anguish is the beginning, not of +dissolution, but of the birth-pangs of a new heaven and earth,—that +when the clouds are blackest because the light of sun and moon is +quenched, then, then we shall behold the Immutable unveiled, the Son of +Man, who is brought nigh unto the Ancient of Days, now sitting in the +clouds of heaven, and coming in the glory of His Father!</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE COMMISSION.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">iii. 10, 16–22.</h3> + +<p>We have already learned from the seventh verse that God commissioned +Moses, only when He had Himself descended to deliver Israel. He sends +none, except with the implied or explicit promise that certainly He will +be with them. But the converse is also true. If God sends no man but +when He comes Himself, He never comes without demanding the agency of +man. The overruled reluctance of Moses, and the inflexible urgency of +his commission, may teach us the honour set by God upon humanity. He has +knit men together in the mutual dependence of nations and of families, +that each may be His minister to all; and in every great crisis of +history He has respected His own principle, and has visited the race by +means of the providential man. The gospel was not preached by angels. +Its first agents found themselves like sheep among wolves:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> they were an +exhibition to the world and to angels and men, yet necessity was laid +upon them, and a woe if they preached it not.</p> + +<p>All the best gifts of heaven come to us by the agency of inventor and +sage, hero and explorer, organiser and philanthropist, patriot, reformer +and saint. And the hope which inspires their grandest effort is never +that of selfish gain, nor even of fame, though fame is a keen spur, +which perhaps God set before Moses in the noble hope that “thou shalt +bring forth the people” (ver. 12). But the truly impelling force is +always the great deed itself, the haunting thought, the importunate +inspiration, the inward fire; and so God promises Moses neither a +sceptre, nor share in the good land: He simply proposes to him the work, +the rescue of the people; and Moses, for his part, simply objects that +he is unable, not that he is solicitous about his reward. Whatever is +done for payment can be valued by its cost: all the priceless services +done for us by our greatest were, in very deed, unpriced.</p> + +<p>Moses, with the new name of God to reveal, and with the assurance that +He is about to rescue Israel, is bidden to go to work advisedly and +wisely. He is not to appeal to the mob, nor yet to confront Pharaoh +without authority from his people to speak for them, nor is he to make +the great demand for emancipation abruptly and at once. The mistake of +forty years ago must not be repeated now. He is to appeal to the elders +of Israel; and with them, and therefore clearly representing the nation, +he is respectfully to crave permission for a three days’ journey, to +sacrifice to Jehovah in the wilderness. The blustering assurance with +which certain fanatics of our own time first assume that they possess a +direct commission from the skies, and thereupon that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> are freed +from all order, from all recognition of any human authority, and then +that no considerations of prudence or of decency should restrain the +violence and bad taste which they mistake for zeal, is curiously unlike +anything in the Old Testament or the New. Was ever a commission more +direct than those of Moses and of St. Paul? Yet Moses was to obtain the +recognition of the elders of his people; and St. Paul received formal +ordination by the explicit command of God (Acts xiii. 3).</p> + +<p>Strangely enough, it is often assumed that this demand for a furlough of +three days was insincere. But it would only have been so, if consent +were expected, and if the intention were thereupon to abuse the respite +and refuse to return. There is not the slightest hint of any duplicity +of the kind. The real motives for the demand are very plain. The +excursion which they proposed would have taught the people to move and +act together, reviving their national spirit, and filling them with a +desire for the liberty which they tasted. In the very words which they +should speak, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us,” +there is a distinct proclamation of nationality, and of its surest and +strongest bulwark, a national religion. From such an excursion, +therefore, the people would have returned, already well-nigh +emancipated, and with recognised leaders. Certainly Pharaoh could not +listen to any such proposal, unless he were prepared to reverse the +whole policy of his dynasty toward Israel.</p> + +<p>But the refusal answered two good ends. In the first place it joined +issue on the best conceivable ground, for Israel was exhibited making +the least possible demand with the greatest possible courtesy—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>“Let us +go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness.” Not even so +much would be granted. The tyrant was palpably in the wrong, and +thenceforth it was perfectly reasonable to increase the severity of the +terms after each of his defeats, which proceeding in its turn made +concession more and more galling to his pride. In the second place, the +quarrel was from the first avowedly and undeniably religious: the gods +of Egypt were matched against Jehovah; and in the successive plagues +which desolated his land Pharaoh gradually learnt Who Jehovah was.</p> + +<p>In the message which Moses should convey to the elders there are two +significant phrases. He was to announce in the name of God, “I have +surely visited you, and seen that which is done unto you in Egypt.” The +silent observation of God before He interposes is very solemn and +instructive. So in the Revelation, He walks among the golden +candlesticks, and knows the work, the patience, or the unfaithfulness of +each. So He is not far from any one of us. When a heavy blow falls we +speak of it as “a Visitation of Providence,” but in reality the +visitation has been long before. Neither Israel nor Egypt was conscious +of the solemn presence. Who knows what soul of man, or what nation, is +thus visited to-day, for future deliverance or rebuke?</p> + +<p>Again it is said, “I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt +into ... a land flowing with milk and honey.” Their affliction was the +divine method of uprooting them. And so is our affliction the method by +which our hearts are released from love of earth and life, that in due +time He may “surely bring us in” to a better and an enduring country. +Now, we wonder that the Israelites clung so fondly to the place of their +captivity. But what of our own hearts? Have they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> a desire to depart? or +do they groan in bondage, and yet recoil from their emancipation?</p> + +<p>The hesitating nation is not plainly told that their affliction will be +intensified and their lives made burdensome with labour. That is perhaps +implied in the certainty that Pharaoh “will not let you go, no, not by a +mighty hand.” But it is with Israel as with us: a general knowledge that +in the world we shall have tribulation is enough; the catalogue of our +trials is not spread out before us in advance. They were assured for +their encouragement that all their long captivity should at last receive +its wages, for they should not borrow<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> but ask of the Egyptians jewels +of silver, and gold, and raiment, and they should spoil the Egyptians. +So are we taught to have “respect unto the recompense of the reward.”</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> So much ignorant capital has been made by sceptics out of +this unfortunate mistranslation, that it is worth while to inquire +whether the word “borrow” would suit the context in other passages. “He +<i>borrowed</i> water and she gave him milk” (Judges v. 25). “The Lord said +unto Solomon, Because thou hast <i>borrowed</i> this thing, and hast not +<i>borrowed</i> long life for thyself, neither hast <i>borrowed</i> riches for +thyself, nor hast <i>borrowed</i> the life of thine enemies” (1 Kings iii. +11). “And Elijah said unto Elisha, Thou hast <i>borrowed</i> a hard thing” (2 +Kings ii. 10). The absurdity of the cavil is self-evident.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">MOSES HESITATES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">iv. 1–17.</h3> + +<p>Holy Scripture is impartial, even towards its heroes. The sin of David +is recorded, and the failure of Peter. And so is the reluctance of Moses +to accept his commission, even after a miracle had been vouchsafed to +him for encouragement. The absolute sinlessness of Jesus is the more +significant because it is found in the records of a creed which knows of +no idealised humanity.</p> + +<p>In Josephus, the refusal of Moses is softened down. Even the modest +words, “Lord, I am still in doubt how I, a private man and of no +abilities, should persuade my countrymen or Pharaoh,” are not spoken +after the sign is given. Nor is there any mention of the transfer to +Aaron of a part of his commission, nor of their joint offence at +Meribah, nor of its penalty, which in Scripture is bewailed so often. +And Josephus is equally tender about the misdeeds of the nation. We hear +nothing of their murmurs against Moses and Aaron when their burdens are +increased, or of their making the golden calf. Whereas it is remarkable +and natural that the fear of Moses is less anxious about his reception +by the tyrant than by his own people: “Behold, they will not believe me, +nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared +unto thee.” This is very unlike the invention of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> later period, +glorifying the beginnings of the nation; but it is absolutely true to +life. Great men do not fear the wrath of enemies if they can be secured +against the indifference and contempt of friends; and Moses in +particular was at last persuaded to undertake his mission by the promise +of the support of Aaron. His hesitation is therefore the earliest +example of what has been so often since observed—the discouragement of +heroes, reformers and messengers from God, less by fear of the attacks +of the world than of the contemptuous scepticism of the people of God. +We often sigh for the appearing, in our degenerate days, of</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“A man with heart, head, hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like some of the simple great ones gone.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet who shall say that the want of them is not our own fault? The +critical apathy and incredulity, not of the world but of the Church, is +what freezes the fountains of Christian daring and the warmth of +Christian zeal.</p> + +<p>For the help of the faith of his people, Moses is commissioned to work +two miracles; and he is caused to rehearse them, for his own.</p> + +<p>Strange tales were told among the later Jews about his wonder-working +rod. It was cut by Adam before leaving Paradise, was brought by Noah +into the ark, passed into Egypt with Joseph, and was recovered by Moses +while he enjoyed the favour of the court. These legends arose from +downright moral inability to receive the true lesson of the incident, +which is the confronting of the sceptre of Egypt with the simple staff +of the shepherd, the choosing of the weak things of earth to confound +the strong, the power of God to work His miracles by the most puny and +inadequate means.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> Anything was more credible than that He who led His +people like sheep did indeed guide them with a common shepherd’s crook. +And yet this was precisely the lesson meant for us to learn—the +glorification of poor resources in the grasp of faith.</p> + +<p>Both miracles were of a menacing kind. First the rod became a serpent, +to declare that at God’s bidding enemies would rise up against the +oppressor, even where all seemed innocuous, as in truth the waters of +the river and the dust of the furnace and the winds of heaven conspired +against him. Then, in the grasp of Moses, the serpent from which he fled +became a rod again, to intimate that these avenging forces were subject +to the servant of Jehovah.</p> + +<p>Again, his hand became leprous in his bosom, and was presently restored +to health again—a declaration that he carried with him the power of +death, in its most dreadful form; and perhaps a still more solemn +admonition to those who remember what leprosy betokens, and how every +approach of God to man brings first the knowledge of sin, to be followed +by the assurance that He has cleansed it.<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>If the people would not hearken to the voice of the first sign, they +should believe the second; but at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> worst, and if they were still +unconvinced, they would believe when they saw the water of the Nile, the +pride and glory of their oppressors, turned into blood before their +eyes. That was an omen which needs no interpretation. What follows is +curious. Moses objects that he has not hitherto been eloquent, nor does +he experience any improvement “since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant” +(a graphic touch!), and he seems to suppose that the popular choice +between liberty and slavery would depend less upon the evidence of a +Divine power than upon sleight of tongue, as if he were in modern +England.</p> + +<p>But let it be observed that the self-consciousness which wears the mask +of humility while refusing to submit its judgment to that of God, is a +form of selfishness—self-absorption blinding one to other +considerations beyond himself—as real, though not as hateful, as greed +and avarice and lust.</p> + +<p>How can Moses call himself slow of speech and of a slow tongue, when +Stephen distinctly declares that he was mighty in word as well as deed? +(Acts vii. 22). Perhaps it is enough to answer that many years of +solitude in a strange land had robbed him of his fluency. Perhaps +Stephen had in mind the words of the Book of Wisdom, that “Wisdom +entered into the soul of the servant of the Lord, and withstood dreadful +kings in wonders and signs.... For Wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, +and made the tongues of them that cannot speak eloquent” (Wisdom x. 16, +21).</p> + +<p>To his scruple the answer was returned, “Who hath made man’s mouth?... +Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and +teach thee what thou shalt say.” The same encouragement belongs to every +one who truly executes a mandate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> from above: “Lo, I am with you alway.” +For surely this encouragement <i>is</i> the same. Surely Jesus did not mean +to offer His own presence as a substitute for that of God, but as being +in very truth Divine, when He bade His disciples, in reliance upon Him, +to go forth and convert the world.</p> + +<p>And this is the true test which divides faith from presumption, and +unbelief from prudence: do we go because God is with us in Christ, or +because we ourselves are strong and wise? Do we hold back because we are +not sure of <i>His</i> commission, or only because we distrust ourselves? +“Humility without faith is too timorous; faith without humility is too +hasty.” The phrase explains the conduct of Moses both now and forty +years before.</p> + +<p>Moses, however, still entreats that any one may be chosen rather than +himself: “Send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send.”</p> + +<p>And thereupon the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, although at +the moment his only visible punishment was the partial granting of his +prayer—the association with him in his commission of Aaron, who could +speak well, the forfeiting of a certain part of his vocation, and with +it of a certain part of its reward. The words, “Is not Aaron thy brother +the Levite?” have been used to insinuate that the tribal arrangement was +not perfected when they were written, and so to discredit the narrative. +But when so interpreted they yield no adequate sense, they do not +reinforce the argument; while they are perfectly intelligible as +implying that Aaron is already the leader of his tribe, and therefore +sure to obtain the hearing of which Moses despaired. But the arrangement +involved grave consequences sure to be developed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> due time: among +others, the reliance of Israel upon a feebler will, which could be +forced by their clamour to make them a calf of gold. Moses was yet to +learn that lesson which our century knows nothing of,—that a speaker +and a leader of nations are not the same. When he cried to Aaron, in the +bitterness of his soul, “What did this people to thee, that thou hast +brought so great a sin upon them?” did he remember by whose +unfaithfulness Aaron had been thrust into the office, the +responsibilities of which he had betrayed?</p> + +<p>Now, it is the duty of every man, to whom a special vocation presents +itself, to set opposite each other two considerations. Dare I undertake +this task? is a solemn question, but so is this: Dare I let this task go +past me? Am I prepared for the responsibility of allowing it to drift +into weaker hands? These are days when the Church of Christ is calling +for the help of every one capable of aiding her, and we ought to hear it +said more often that one is afraid <i>not</i> to teach in Sunday School, and +another dares not refuse a proffered district, and a third fears to +leave charitable tasks undone. To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth +it not, to him it is sin; and we hear too much about the terrible +responsibility of working for God, but too little about the still graver +responsibility of refusing to work for Him when called.</p> + +<p>Moses indeed attained so much that we are scarcely conscious that he +might have been greater still. He had once presumed to go unsent, and +brought upon himself the exile of half a lifetime. Again he presumed +almost to say, I go not, and well-nigh to incur the guilt of Jonah when +sent to Nineveh, and in so doing he forfeited the fulness of his +vocation. But who reaches the level of his possibilities? Who is not +haunted by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> faces, “each one a murdered self,” a nobler self, that might +have been, and is now impossible for ever? Only Jesus could say “I have +finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” And it is notable that +while Jesus deals, in the parable of the labourers, with the problem of +equal faithfulness during longer and shorter periods of employment; and +in the parable of the pounds with that of equal endowment variously +improved; and yet again, in the parable of the talents, with the problem +of various endowments all doubled alike, He always draws a veil over the +treatment of five talents which earn but two or three besides.</p> + +<p>A more cheerful reflection suggested by this narrative is the strange +power of human fellowship. Moses knew and was persuaded that God, Whose +presence was even then miraculously apparent in the bush, and Who had +invested him with superhuman powers, would go with him. There is no +trace of incredulity in his behaviour, but only of failure to rely, to +cast his shrinking and reluctant will upon the truth he recognised and +the God Whose presence he confessed. He held back, as many a one does, +who is honest when he repeats the Creed in church, yet fails to submit +his life to the easy yoke of Jesus. Nor is it from physical peril that +he recoils: at the bidding of God he has just grasped the serpent from +which he fled; and in confronting a tyrant with armies at his back, he +could hope for small assistance from his brother. But highly strung +spirits, in every great crisis, are aware of vague indefinite +apprehensions that are not cowardly but imaginative. Thus Cæsar, when +defying the hosts of Pompey, is said to have been disturbed by an +apparition. It is vain to put these apprehensions into logical form, and +argue them down: the slowness of speech of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> Moses was surely refuted by +the presence of God, Who makes the mouth and inspires the utterance; but +such fears lie deeper than the reasons they assign, and when argument +fails, will yet stubbornly repeat their cry: “Send, I pray Thee, by the +hand of him whom Thou wilt send.” Now this shrinking, which is not +craven, is dispelled by nothing so effectually as by the touch of a +human hand. It is like the voice of a friend to one beset by ghostly +terrors: he does not expect his comrade to exorcise a spirit, and yet +his apprehensions are dispelled. Thus Moses cannot summon up courage +from the protection of God, but when assured of the companionship of his +brother he will not only venture to return to Egypt, but will bring with +him his wife and children. Thus, also, He Who knew what was in men’s +hearts sent forth His missionaries, both the Twelve and the Seventy (as +we have yet to learn the true economy of sending ours), “by two and two” +(Mark vi. 7; Luke x. 1).</p> + +<p>This is the principle which underlies the institution of the Church of +Christ, and the conception that Christians are brothers, among whom the +strong must help the weak. Such help from their fellow-mortals would +perhaps decide the choice of many hesitating souls, upon the verge of +the divine life, recoiling from its unknown and dread experiences, but +longing for a sympathising comrade. Alas for the unkindly and +unsympathetic religion of men whose faith has never warmed a human +heart, and of congregations in which emotion is a misdemeanour!</p> + +<p>There is no stronger force, among all that make for the abuses of +priestcraft, than this same yearning for human help becomes when robbed +of its proper nourishment, which is the communion of saints, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +pastoral care of souls. Has it no further nourishment than these? This +instinctive craving for a Brother to help as well as a Father to direct +and govern,—this social instinct, which banished the fears of Moses and +made him set out for Egypt long before Aaron came in sight, content when +assured of Aaron’s co-operation,—is there nothing in God Himself to +respond to it? He Who is not ashamed to call us brethren has profoundly +modified the Church’s conception of Jehovah, the Eternal, Absolute and +Unconditioned. It is because He can be touched with the feeling of our +infirmities, that we are bidden to draw near with boldness unto the +Throne of Grace. There is no heart so lonely that it cannot commune with +the lofty and kind humanity of Jesus.</p> + +<p>There is a homelier lesson to be learned. Moses was not only solaced by +human fellowship, but nerved and animated by the thought of his brother, +and the mention of his tribe. “Is not Aaron thy brother the Levite?” +They had not met for forty years. Vague rumours of deadly persecution +were doubtless all that had reached the fugitive, whose heart had +burned, in solitary communion with Nature in her sternest forms, as he +brooded over the wrongs of his family, of Aaron, and perhaps of Miriam.</p> + +<p>And now his brother lived. The call which Moses would have put from him +was for the emancipation of his own flesh and blood, and for their +greatness. In that great hour, domestic affection did much to turn the +scale wherein the destinies of humanity were trembling. And his was +affection well returned. It might easily have been otherwise, for Aaron +had seen his younger brother called to a dazzling elevation, living in +enviable magnificence, and earning fame by “word and deed”; and then, +after a momentary fusion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> of sympathy and of condition, forty years had +poured between them a torrent of cares and joys estranging because +unshared. But it was promised that Aaron, when he saw him, should be +glad at heart; and the words throw a beam of exquisite light into the +depths of the mighty soul which God inspired to emancipate Israel and to +found His Church, by thoughts of his brother’s joy on meeting him.</p> + +<p>Let no man dream of attaining real greatness by stifling his affections. +The heart is more important than the intellect; and the brief story of +the Exodus has room for the yearning of Jochebed over her infant “when +she saw him that he was a goodly child,” for the bold inspiration of the +young poetess, who “stood afar off to know what should be done to him,” +and now for the love of Aaron. So the Virgin, in the dread hour of her +reproach, went in haste to her cousin Elizabeth. So Andrew “findeth +first his own brother Simon.” And so the Divine Sufferer, forsaken of +God, did not forsake His mother.</p> + +<p>The Bible is full of domestic life. It is the theme of the greater part +of Genesis, which makes the family the seed-plot of the Church. It is +wisely recognised again at the moment when the larger pulse of the +nation begins to beat. For the life-blood in the heart of a nation must +be the blood in the hearts of men.</p> + +<h3 class="section">MOSES OBEYS.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">iv. 18–31.</h3> + +<p>Moses is now commissioned: he is to go to Egypt, and Aaron is coming +thence to meet him. Yet he first returns to Midian, to Jethro, who is +both his employer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> and the head of the family, and prays him to sanction +his visit to his own people.</p> + +<p>There are duties which no family resistance can possibly cancel, and the +direct command of God made it plain that this was one of them. But there +are two ways of performing even the most imperative obligation, and +religious people have done irreparable mischief before now, by rudeness, +disregard to natural feeling and the rights of their fellow-men, under +the impression that they showed their allegiance to God by outraging +other ties. It is a theory for which no sanction can be found either in +Holy Scripture or in common sense.</p> + +<p>When he asks permission to visit “his brethren” we cannot say whether he +ever had brothers besides Aaron, or uses the word in the same larger +national sense as when we read that, forty years before, he went out +unto his brethren and saw their burdens. What is to be observed is that +he is reticent with respect to his vast expectations and designs.</p> + +<p>He does not argue that, because a Divine promise must needs be +fulfilled, he need not be discreet, wary and taciturn, any more than St. +Paul supposed, because the lives of his shipmates were promised to him, +that it mattered nothing whether the sailors remained on board.</p> + +<p>The decrees of God have sometimes been used to justify the recklessness +of man, but never by His chosen followers. They have worked out their +own salvation the more earnestly because God worked in them. And every +good cause calls aloud for human energy and wisdom, all the more because +its consummation is the will of God, and sooner or later is assured. +Moses has unlearned his rashness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, “Go, return unto Egypt, for all +the men are dead which sought thy life,” there is an almost verbal +resemblance to the words in which the infant Jesus is recalled from +exile. We shall have to consider the typical aspect of the whole +narrative, when a convenient stage is reached for pausing to survey it +in its completeness. But resemblances like this have been treated with +so much scorn, they have been so freely perverted into evidence of the +mythical nature of the later story, that some passing allusion appears +desirable. We must beware equally of both extremes. The Old Testament is +tortured, and genuine prophecies are made no better than coincidences, +when coincidences are exalted to all the dignity of express predictions. +One can scarcely venture to speak of the death of Herod when Jesus was +to return from Egypt, as being deliberately typified in the death of +those who sought the life of Moses. But it is quite clear that the words +in St. Matthew do intentionally point the reader back to this narrative. +For, indeed, under both, there are to be recognised the same principles: +that God does not thrust His servants into needless or excessive peril; +and that when the life of a tyrant has really become not only a trial +but a barrier, it will be removed by the King of kings. God is prudent +for His heroes.</p> + +<p>Moreover, we must recognise the lofty fitness of what is very visible in +the Gospels—the coming to a head in Christ of the various experiences +of the people of God; and at the recurrence, in His story, of events +already known elsewhere, we need not be disquieted, as if the suspicion +of a myth were now become difficult to refute; rather should we +recognise the fulness of the supreme life, and its points of contact +with all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> lives, which are but portions of its vast completeness. Who +does not feel that in the world’s greatest events a certain harmony and +correspondence are as charming as they are in music? There is a sort of +counterpoint in history. And to this answering of deep unto deep, this +responsiveness of the story of Jesus to all history, our attention is +silently beckoned by St. Matthew, when, without asserting any closer +link between the incidents, he borrows this phrase so aptly.</p> + +<p>A much deeper meaning underlies the profound expression which God now +commands Moses to employ; and although it must await consideration at a +future time, the progressive education of Moses himself is meantime to +be observed. At first he is taught that the Lord is the God of their +fathers, in whose descendants He is therefore interested. Then the +present Israel is His people, and valued for its own sake. Now he hears, +and is bidden to repeat to Pharaoh, the amazing phrase, “Israel is My +son, even My firstborn: let My son go that he may serve Me; and if thou +refuse to let him go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.” +Thus it is that infant faith is led from height to height. And assuredly +there never was an utterance better fitted than this to prepare human +minds, in the fulness of time, for a still clearer revelation of the +nearness of God to man, and for the possibility of an absolute union +between the Creator and His creature.</p> + +<p>It was on his way into Egypt, with his wife and children, that a +mysterious interposition forced Zipporah reluctantly and tardily to +circumcise her son.</p> + +<p>The meaning of this strange episode lies perhaps below the surface, but +very near it. Danger in some form, probably that of sickness, pressed +Moses hard, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> he recognised in it the displeasure of his God. The +form of the narrative leads us to suppose that he had no previous +consciousness of guilt, and had now to infer the nature of his offence +without any explicit announcement, just as we infer it from what +follows.</p> + +<p>If so, he discerned his transgression when trouble awoke his conscience; +and so did his wife Zipporah. Yet her resistance to the circumcision of +their younger son was so tenacious, with such difficulty was it overcome +by her husband’s peril or by his command, that her tardy performance of +the rite was accompanied by an insulting action and a bitter taunt. As +she submitted, the Lord “let him go”; but we may perhaps conclude that +the grievance continued to rankle, from the repetition of her gibe, “So +she said, A bridegroom of blood art thou because of the circumcision.” +The words mean, “We are betrothed again in blood,” and might of +themselves admit a gentler, and even a tender significance; as if, in +the sacrifice of a strong prejudice for her husband’s sake, she felt a +revival of “the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals.” For +nothing removes the film from the surface of a true affection, and makes +the heart aware how bright it is, so well as a great sacrifice, frankly +offered for the sake of love.</p> + +<p>But such a rendering is excluded by the action which went with her +words, and they must be explained as meaning, This is the kind of +husband I have wedded: these are our espousals. With such an utterance +she fades almost entirely out of the story: it does not even tell how +she drew back to her father; and thenceforth all we know of her is that +she rejoined Moses only when the fame of his victory over Amalek had +gone abroad.</p> + +<p>Their union seems to have been an ill-assorted or at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> least an +unprosperous one. In the tender hour when their firstborn was to be +named, the bitter sense of loneliness had continued to be nearer to the +heart of Moses than the glad new consciousness of paternity, and he +said, “I am a stranger in a strange land.” Different indeed had been the +experience of Joseph, who called his “firstborn Manasseh, for God, said +he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house” (Gen. +xli. 51). The home-life of Moses had not made him forget that he was an +exile. Even the removal of imminent death from her husband could not +hush these selfish complaints of Zipporah, not because he was a father +of blood to her little one, but because he was a bridegroom of blood to +her own shrinking sensibilities. It is Miriam the sister, not Zipporah +the wife, who gives lyrical and passionate voice to his triumph, and is +mourned by the nation when she dies. Both what we read of her and what +we do not read goes far to explain the insignificance of their children +in history, and the more startling fact that the grandson of Moses +became the venal instrument of the Danites in their schismatic worship +(Judges xviii. 30, R.V.).</p> + +<p>Domestic unhappiness is a palliation, but not a justification, for an +unserviceable life. It is a great advantage to come into action with the +dew and freshness of affection upon the soul. Yet it is not once nor +twice that men have carried the message of God back from the barren +desert and the lonely ways of their unhappiness to the not too happy +race of man.</p> + +<p>Now, who can fail to discern real history in all this? Is it in such a +way that myth or legend would have dealt with the wife of the great +deliverer? Still less conceivable is it that these should have treated +Moses himself as the narrative hitherto has consistently done.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> At every +step he is made to stumble. His first attempt was homicidal, and brought +upon him forty years of exile. When the Divine commission came he drew +back wilfully, as he had formerly pressed forward unsent. There is not +even any suggestion offered us of Stephen’s apology for his violent +deed—namely, that he supposed his brethren understood how that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance (Acts vii. 25). There is nothing +that resembles the eulogium of the Epistle to the Hebrews upon the faith +which glorified his precipitancy, like the rainbow in a torrent, because +that rash blow committed him to share the affliction of the people of +God, and renounced the rank of a grand son of the Pharaoh (Heb. xi. +24–5). All this is very natural, if Moses himself be in any degree +responsible for the narrative. It is incredible, if the narrative were +put together after the Captivity, to claim the sanction of so great a +name for a newly forged hierarchical system. Such a theory could +scarcely be refuted more completely, if the narrative before us were +invented with the deliberate aim to overthrow it.</p> + +<p>But in truth the failures of the good and great are written for our +admonition, teaching us how inconsistent are even the best of mortals, +and how weak the most resolute. Rather than forfeit his own place among +the chosen people, Moses had forsaken a palace and become a proscribed +fugitive; yet he had neglected to claim for his child its rightful share +in the covenant, its recognition among the sons of Abraham. Perhaps +procrastination, perhaps domestic opposition, more potent than a king’s +wrath to shake his purpose, perhaps the insidious notion that one who +had sacrificed so much might be at ease about slight negligences,—some +such influence had left the commandment unobserved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> And now, when the +dream of his life was being realised at last, and he found himself the +chosen instrument of God for the rebuke of one nation and the making of +another, how pardonable it must have seemed to leave an unpleasant small +domestic duty over until a more convenient season! How natural it still +seems to merge the petty task in the high vocation, to excuse small +lapses in pursuit of lofty aims! But this was the very time when God, +hitherto forbearing, took him sternly to task for his neglect, because +men who are especially honoured should be more obedient and reverential +than their fellows. Let young men who dream of a vast career, and +meanwhile indulge themselves in small obliquities, let all who cast out +demons in the name of Christ, and yet work iniquity, reflect upon this +chosen and long-trained, self-sacrificing and ardent servant of the +Lord, whom Jehovah seeks to kill because he wilfully disobeys even a +purely ceremonial precept.</p> + +<p>Moses was not only religious, but “a man of destiny,” one upon whom vast +interests depended. Now, such men have often reckoned themselves exempt +from the ordinary laws of conduct.<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>It is not a light thing, therefore, to find God’s indignant protest +against the faintest shadow of a doctrine so insidious and so deadly, +set in the forefront of sacred history, at the very point where national +concerns and those of religion begin to touch. If our politics are to be +kept pure and clean, we must learn to exact a higher fidelity, and not a +relaxed morality, from those who propose to sway the destinies of +nations.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> + +<p>And now the brothers meet, embrace, and exchange confidences. As Andrew, +the first disciple who brought another to Jesus, found first his own +brother Simon, so was Aaron the earliest convert to the mission of +Moses. And that happened which so often puts our faithlessness to shame. +It had seemed very hard to break his strange tidings to the people: it +was in fact very easy to address one whose love had not grown cold +during their severance, who probably retained faith in the Divine +purpose for which the beautiful child of the family had been so +strangely preserved, and who had passed through trial and discipline +unknown to us in the stern intervening years.</p> + +<p>And when they told their marvellous story to the elders of the people, +and displayed the signs, they believed; and when they heard that God had +visited them in their affliction, then they bowed their heads and +worshipped.</p> + +<p>This was their preparation for the wonders that should follow: it +resembled Christ’s appeal, “Believest thou that I am able to do this?” +or Peter’s word to the impotent man, “Look on us.”</p> + +<p>For the moment the announcement had the desired effect, although too +soon the early promise was succeeded by faithlessness and discontent. In +this, again, the teaching of the earliest political movement on record +is as fresh as if it were a tale of yesterday. The offer of emancipation +stirs all hearts; the romance of liberty is beautiful beside the Nile as +in the streets of Paris; but the cost has to be gradually learned; the +losses displace the gains in the popular attention; the labour, the +self-denial and the self-control grow wearisome, and Israel murmurs for +the flesh-pots of Egypt, much as the modern revolution reverts to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +despotism. It is one thing to admire abstract freedom, but a very +different thing to accept the austere conditions of the life of genuine +freemen. And surely the same is true of the soul. The gospel gladdens +the young convert: he bows his head and worships; but he little dreams +of his long discipline, as in the forty desert years, of the solitary +places through which his soul must wander, the drought, the Amalekite, +the absent leader, and the temptations of the flesh. In mercy, the long +future is concealed; it is enough that, like the apostles, we should +consent to follow; gradually we shall obtain the courage to which the +task may be revealed.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Tertullian appealed to the second of these miracles to +illustrate the possibility of the resurrection. “The hand of Moses is +changed and becomes like that of the dead, bloodless, colourless, and +stiff with cold. But on the recovery of heat and restoration of its +natural colour, it is the same flesh and blood.... So will changes, +conversions and reformation be needed to bring about the resurrection, +yet the substance will be preserved safe.” (<i>De Res.</i>, lv.) It is far +wiser to be content with the declaration of St. Paul that the identity +of the body does not depend on that of its corporeal atoms. “Thou sowest +not that body that shall be, but a naked grain.... But God giveth ... to +every seed his own body” (1 Cor. xv. 37–8).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> “I am not an ordinary man,” Napoleon used to say, “and the +laws of morals and of custom were never made for me.”—<i>Memoirs of +Madame de Rémusat</i>, i. 91.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">PHARAOH REFUSES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">v. 1–23.</h3> + +<p>After forty years of obscurity and silence, Moses re-enters the +magnificent halls where he had formerly turned his back upon so great a +place. The rod of a shepherd is in his hand, and a lowly Hebrew by his +side. Men who recognise him shake their heads, and pity or despise the +fanatic who had thrown away the most dazzling prospects for a dream. But +he has long since made his choice, and whatever misgivings now beset him +have regard to his success with Pharaoh or with his brethren, not to the +wisdom of his decision.</p> + +<p>Nor had he reason to repent of it. The pomp of an obsequious court was a +poor thing in the eyes of an ambassador of God, who entered the palace +to speak such lofty words as never passed the lips of any son of +Pharaoh’s daughter. He was presently to become a god unto Pharaoh, with +Aaron for his prophet.</p> + +<p>In itself, his presence there was formidable. The Hebrews had been +feared when he was an infant. Now their cause was espoused by a man of +culture, who had allied himself with their natural leaders, and was +returned, with the deep and steady fire of a zeal which forty years of +silence could not quench, to assert the rights of Israel as an +independent people.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is a terrible power in strong convictions, especially when +supported by the sanctions of religion. Luther on one side, Loyola on +the other, were mightier than kings when armed with this tremendous +weapon. Yet there are forces upon which patriotism and fanaticism +together break in vain. Tyranny and pride of race have also strong +impelling ardours, and carry men far. Pharaoh is in earnest as well as +Moses, and can act with perilous energy. And this great narrative begins +the story of a nation’s emancipation with a human demand, boldly made, +but defeated by the pride and vigour of a startled tyrant and the +tameness of a downtrodden people. The limitations of human energy are +clearly exhibited before the direct interference of God begins. All that +a brave man can do, when nerved by lifelong aspiration and by a sudden +conviction that the hour of destiny has struck, all therefore upon which +rationalism can draw, to explain the uprising of Israel, is exhibited in +this preliminary attempt, this first demand of Moses.</p> + +<p>Menephtah was no doubt the new Pharaoh whom the brothers accosted so +boldly. What we glean of him elsewhere is highly suggestive of some +grave event left unrecorded, exhibiting to us a man of uncontrollable +temper yet of broken courage, a ruthless, godless, daunted man. There is +a legend that he once hurled his spear at the Nile when its floods rose +too high, and was punished with ten years of blindness. In the Libyan +war, after fixing a time when he should join his vanguard, with the main +army, a celestial vision forbade him to keep his word in person, and the +victory was gained by his lieutenants. In another war, he boasts of +having slaughtered the people and set fire to them, and netted the +entire country as men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> net birds. Forty years then elapse without war +and without any great buildings; there are seditions and internal +troubles, and the dynasty closes with his son.<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> All this is exactly +what we should expect, if a series of tremendous blows had depopulated a +country, abolished an army, and removed two millions of the working +classes in one mass.</p> + +<p>But it will be understood that this identification, concerning which +there is now a very general consent of competent authorities, implies +that the Pharaoh was not himself engulfed with his army. Nothing is on +the other side except a poetic assertion in Psalm cxxxvi. 15, which is +not that God destroyed, but that He “shook off” Pharaoh and his host in +the Red Sea, because His mercy endureth for ever.</p> + +<p>To this king, then, whose audacious family had usurped the symbols of +deity for its head-dress, and whose father boasted that in battle “he +became like the god Mentu” and “was as Baal,” the brothers came as yet +without miracle, with no credentials except from slaves, and said, “Thus +saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a +feast unto Me in the wilderness.” The issue was distinctly raised: did +Israel belong to Jehovah or to the king? And Pharaoh answered, with +equal decision, “Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice? I +know not Jehovah, and what is more, I will not let Israel go.”</p> + +<p>Now, the ignorance of the king concerning Jehovah was almost or quite +blameless: the fault was in his practical refusal to inquire. Jehovah +was no concern of his: without waiting for information, he at once +decided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> that his grasp on his captives should not relax. And his second +fault, which led to this, was the same grinding oppression of the +helpless which for eighty years already had brought upon his nation the +guilt of blood. Crowned and national cupidity, the resolution to wring +from their slaves the last effort consistent with existence, such greed +as took offence at even the momentary pause of hope while Moses pleaded, +because “the people of the land are many, and ye make them rest from +their burdens,”—these shut their hearts against reason and religion, +and therefore God presently hardened those same hearts against natural +misgiving and dread and awe-stricken submission to His judgments.</p> + +<p>For it was against religion also that he was unyielding. In his ample +Pantheon there was room at least for the possibility of the entrance of +the Hebrew God, and in refusing to the subject people, without +investigation, leisure for any worship, the king outraged not only +humanity, but Heaven.</p> + +<p>The brothers proceed to declare that they have themselves met with the +deity, and there must have been many in the court who could attest at +least the sincerity of Moses; they ask for liberty to spend a day in +journeying outward and another in returning, with a day between for +their worship, and warn the king of the much greater loss to himself +which may be involved in vengeance upon refusal, either by war or +pestilence. But the contemptuous answer utterly ignores religion: +“Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? Get +ye unto your burdens.”</p> + +<p>And his counter-measures are taken without loss of time: “that same day” +the order goes out to exact the regular quantity of brick, but supply no +straw for binding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> it together. It is a pitiless mandate, and +illustrates the fact, very natural though often forgotten, that men as a +rule cannot lose sight of the religious value of their fellow-men, and +continue to respect or pity them as before. We do not deny that men who +professed religion have perpetrated nameless cruelties, nor that +unbelievers have been humane, sometimes with a pathetic energy, a +tenacious grasp on the virtue still possible to those who have no Heaven +to serve. But it is plain that the average man will despise his brother, +and his brother’s rights, just in proportion as the Divine sanctions of +those rights fade away, and nothing remains to be respected but the +culture, power and affluence which the victim lacks. “I know not +Israel’s God” is a sure prelude to the refusal to let Israel go, and +even to the cruelty which beats the slave who fails to render impossible +obedience.</p> + +<p>“They be idle, therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to +our God.” And still there are men who hold the same opinion, that time +spent in devotion is wasted, as regards the duties of real life. In +truth, religion means freshness, elasticity and hope: a man will be not +slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, if he serves the Lord. But +perhaps immortal hope, and the knowledge that there is One Who shall +break all prison bars and let the oppressed go free, are not the best +narcotics to drug down the soul of a man into the monotonous tameness of +a slave.</p> + +<p>In the tenth verse we read that the Egyptian taskmasters and the +officers combined to urge the people to their aggravated labours. And by +the fourteenth verse we find that the latter officials were Hebrew +officers whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them.</p> + +<p>So that we have here one of the surest and worst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> effects of +slavery—namely, the demoralisation of the oppressed, the readiness of +average men, who can obtain for themselves a little relief, to do so at +their brethren’s cost. These officials were scribes, “writers”: their +business was to register the amount of labour due, and actually +rendered. These were doubtless the more comfortable class, of whom we +read afterwards that they possessed property, for their cattle escaped +the murrain and their trees the hail. And they had the means of +acquiring quite sufficient skill to justify whatever is recorded of the +works done in the construction of the tabernacle. The time is long past +when scepticism found support for its incredulity in these details.</p> + +<p>One advantage of the last sharp agony of persecution was that it finally +detached this official class from the Egyptian interest, and welded +Israel into a homogeneous people, with officers already provided. For, +when the supply of bricks came short, these officials were beaten, and, +as if no cause of the failure were palpable, they were asked, with a +malicious chuckle, “Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task both +yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?” And when they explain to Pharaoh, +in words already expressive of their alienation, that the fault is with +“thine own people,” they are repulsed with insult, and made to feel +themselves in evil case. For indeed they needed to be chastised for +their forgetfulness of God. How soon would their hearts have turned +back, how much more bitter yet would have been their complaints in the +desert, if it were not for this last experience! But if judgment began +with them, what should presently be the fate of their oppressors?</p> + +<p>Their broken spirit shows itself by murmuring, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> against Pharaoh, but +against Moses and Aaron, who at least had striven to help them. Here, as +in the whole story, there is not a trace of either the lofty spirit +which could have evolved the Mosaic law, or the hero-worship of a later +age.</p> + +<p>It is written that Moses, hearing their reproaches, “returned unto the +Lord,” although no visible shrine, no consecrated place of worship, can +be thought of.</p> + +<p>What is involved is the consecration which the heart bestows upon any +place of privacy and prayer, where, in shutting out the world, the soul +is aware of the special nearness of its King. In one sense we never +leave Him, never return to Him. In another sense, by direct address of +the attention and the will, we enter into His presence; we find Him in +the midst of us, Who is everywhere. And all ceremonial consecrations do +their office by helping us to realise and act upon the presence of Him +in Whom, even when He is forgotten, we live and move and have our being. +Therefore in the deepest sense each man consecrates or desecrates for +himself his own place of prayer. There is a city where the Divine +presence saturates every consciousness with rapture. And the seer beheld +no temple therein, for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the +temple of it.</p> + +<p>Startling to our notions of reverence are the words in which Moses +addresses God. “Lord, why hast Thou evil entreated this people? Why is +it that Thou hast sent me? for since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy +name, he hath evil entreated this people; neither hast Thou delivered +Thy people at all.” It is almost as if his faith had utterly given way, +like that of the Psalmist when he saw the wicked in great prosperity, +while waters of a full cup were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> wrung out by the people of God (Ps. +lxxiii. 3, 10). And there is always a dangerous moment when the first +glow of enthusiasm burns down, and we realise how long the process, how +bitter the disappointments, by which even a scanty measure of success +must be obtained. Yet God had expressly warned Moses that Pharaoh would +not release them until Egypt had been smitten with all His plagues. But +the warning passed unapprehended, as we let many a truth pass +intellectually accepted it is true, but only as a theorem, a vague and +abstract formula. As we know that we must die, that worldly pleasures +are brief and unreal, and that sin draws evil in its train, yet wonder +when these phrases become solid and practical in our experience, so, in +the first flush and wonder of the promised emancipation, Moses had +forgotten the predicted interval of trial.</p> + +<p>His words would have been profane and irreverent indeed but for one +redeeming quality. They were addressed to God Himself. Whenever the +people murmured, Moses turned for help to Him Who reckons the most +unconventional and daring appeal to Him far better than the most +ceremonious phrases in which men cover their unbelief: “Lord, wherefore +hast Thou evil entreated this people?” is in reality a much more pious +utterance than “I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.” +Wherefore Moses receives large encouragement, although no formal answer +is vouchsafed to his daring question.</p> + +<p>Even so, in our dangers, our torturing illnesses, and many a crisis +which breaks through all the crust of forms and conventionalities, God +may perhaps recognise a true appeal to Him, in words which only +scandalise the orthodoxy of the formal and precise. In the bold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +rejoinder of the Syro-Phœnician woman He recognised great faith. His +disciples would simply have sent her away as clamorous.</p> + +<p>Moses had again failed, even though Divinely commissioned, in the work +of emancipating Israel, and thereupon he had cried to the Lord Himself +to undertake the work. This abortive attempt, however, was far from +useless: it taught humility and patience to the leader, and it pressed +the nation together, as in a vice, by the weight of a common burden, now +become intolerable. At the same moment, the iniquity of the tyrant was +filled up.</p> + +<p>But the Lord did not explain this, in answer to the remonstrance of +Moses. Many things happen, for which no distinct verbal explanation is +possible, many things of which the deep spiritual fitness cannot be +expressed in words. Experience is the true commentator upon Providence, +if only because the slow building of character is more to God than +either the hasting forward of deliverance or the clearing away of +intellectual mists. And it is only as we take His yoke upon us that we +truly learn of Him. Yet much is implied, if not spoken out, in the +words, “Now (because the time is ripe) shalt thou see what I will do to +Pharaoh (I, because others have failed); for by a strong hand shall he +let them go, and by a strong hand shall he drive them out of the land.” +It is under the weight of the “strong hand” of God Himself that the +tyrant must either bend or break.</p> + +<p>Similar to this is the explanation of many delays in answering our +prayer, of the strange raising up of tyrants and demagogues, and of much +else that perplexes Christians in history and in their own experience. +These events develop human character,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> for good or evil. And they give +scope for the revealing of the fulness of the power which rescues. We +have no means of measuring the supernatural force which overcomes but by +the amount of the resistance offered. And if all good things came to us +easily and at once, we should not become aware of the horrible pit, our +rescue from which demands gratitude. The Israelites would not have sung +a hymn of such fervent gratitude when the sea was crossed, if they had +not known the weight of slavery and the anguish of suspense. And in +heaven the redeemed who have come out of great tribulation sing the song +of Moses and of the Lamb.</p> + +<p>Fresh air, a balmy wind, a bright blue sky—which of us feels a thrill +of conscious exultation for these cheap delights? The released prisoner, +the restored invalid, feels it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The common earth, the air, the skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To him are opening paradise.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Even so should Israel be taught to value deliverance. And now the +process could begin.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Robinson, “The Pharaohs of the Bondage.”</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MOSES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">vi. 1–30.</h3> + +<p>We have seen that the name Jehovah expresses not a philosophic +meditation, but the most bracing and reassuring truth—viz., that an +immutable and independent Being sustains His people; and this great +title is therefore reaffirmed with emphasis in the hour of mortal +discouragement. It is added that their fathers knew God by the name of +God Almighty, but by His name Jehovah was He not known, or made known, +unto them. Now, it is quite clear that they were not utterly ignorant of +this title, for no such theory as that it was hitherto mentioned by +anticipation only, can explain the first syllable in the name of the +mother of Moses himself, nor the assertion that in the time of Seth men +began to call upon the name of Jehovah (Gen. iv. 26), nor the name of +the hill of Abraham’s sacrifice, Jehovah-jireh (Gen. xxii. 14). Yet the +statement cannot be made available for the purposes of any reasonable +and moderate scepticism, since the sceptical theory demands a belief in +successive redactions of the work in which an error so gross could not +have escaped detection.</p> + +<p>And the true explanation is that this Name was now, for the first time, +to be realised as a sustaining power. The patriarchs had known the name; +how its fitness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> should be realised: God should be known by it. They had +drawn support and comfort from that simpler view of the Divine +protection which said, “I am the Almighty God: walk before Me and be +thou perfect” (Gen. xvii. 1). But thenceforth all the experience of the +past was to reinforce the energies of the present, and men were to +remember that their promises came from One who cannot change. Others, +like Abraham, had been stronger in faith than Moses. But faith is not +the same as insight, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets (Deut. +xxxiv. 10). To him, therefore, it was given to confirm the courage of +his nation by this exalting thought of God. And the Lord proceeds to +state what His promises to the patriarchs were, and joins together (as +we should do) the assurance of His compassionate heart and of His +inviolable pledges: “I have heard the groaning of the children of +Israel, ... and I have remembered My covenant.”</p> + +<p>It has been the same, in turn, with every new revelation of the Divine. +The new was implicit in the old, but when enforced, unfolded, reapplied, +men found it charged with unsuspected meaning and power, and as full of +vitality and development as a handful of dry seeds when thrown into +congenial soil. So it was pre-eminently with the doctrine of the +Messiah. It will be the same hereafter with the doctrine of the kingdom +of peace and the reign of the saints on earth. Some day men will smile +at our crude theories and ignorant controversies about the Millennium. +We, meantime, possess the saving knowledge of Christ amid many +perplexities and obscurities. And so the patriarchs, who knew God +Almighty, but not by His name Jehovah, were not lost for want of the +knowledge of His name, but saved by faith in Him, in the living Being +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> Whom all these names belong, and Who shall yet write upon the brows +of His people some new name, hitherto undreamed by the ripest of the +saints and the purest of the Churches. Meantime, let us learn the +lessons of tolerance for other men’s ignorance, remembering the +ignorance of the father of the faithful, tolerance for difference of +views, remembering how the unusual and rare name of God was really the +precursor of a brighter revelation, and yet again, when our hearts are +faint with longing for new light, and weary to death of the babbling of +old words, let us learn a sober and cautious reconsideration, lest +perhaps the very truth needed for altered circumstance and changing +problem may lie, unheeded and dormant, among the dusty old phrases from +which we turn away despairingly. Moreover, since the fathers knew the +name Jehovah, yet gained from it no special knowledge of God, such as +they had from His Almightiness, we are taught that discernment is often +more at fault than revelation. To the quick perception and plastic +imagination of the artist, our world reveals what the boor will never +see. And the saint finds, in the homely and familiar words of Scripture, +revelations for His soul that are unknown to common men. Receptivity is +what we need far more than revelation.</p> + +<p>Again is Moses bidden to appeal to the faith of his countrymen, by a +solemn repetition of the Divine promise. If the tyranny is great, they +shall be redeemed with a stretched out arm, that is to say, with a +palpable interposition of the power of God, “and with great judgments.” +It is the first appearance in Scripture of this phrase, afterwards so +common. Not mere vengeance upon enemies or vindication of subjects is in +question: the thought is that of a deliberate weighing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> of merits, and +rendering out of measured penalties. Now, the Egyptian mythology had a +very clear and solemn view of judgment after death. If king and people +had grown cruel, it was because they failed to realise remote +punishments, and did not believe in present judgments, here, in this +life. But there is a God that judgeth in the earth. Not always, for +mercy rejoiceth over judgment. We may still pray, “Enter not into +judgment with Thy servants, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no man living +be justified.” But when men resist warnings, then retribution begins +even here. Sometimes it comes in plague and overthrow, sometimes in the +worse form of a heart made fat, the decay of sensibilities abused, the +dying out of spiritual faculty. Pharaoh was to experience both, the +hardening of his heart and the ruin of his fortunes.</p> + +<p>It is added, “I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you +for a God.” This is the language, not of a mere purpose, a will that has +resolved to vindicate the right, but of affection. God is about to adopt +Israel to Himself, and the same favour which belonged to rare +individuals in the old time is now offered to a whole nation. Just as +the heart of each man is gradually educated, learning first to love a +parent and a family, and so led on to national patriotism, and at last +to a world-wide philanthropy, so was the religious conscience of mankind +awakened to believe that Abraham might be the friend of God, and then +that His oath might be confirmed unto the children, and then that He +could take Israel to Himself for a people, and at last that God loved +the world.</p> + +<p>It is not religion to think that God condescends merely to save us. He +cares for us. He takes us to Himself, He gives Himself away to us, in +return, to be our God.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>Such a revelation ought to have been more to Israel than any pledge of +certain specified advantages. It was meant to be a silken tie, a golden +clasp, to draw together the almighty Heart and the hearts of these +downtrodden slaves. Something within Him desires their little human +love; they shall be to Him for a people. So He said again, “My son, give +Me thine heart.” And so, when He carried to the uttermost these +unsought, unhoped for, and, alas! unwelcomed overtures of condescension, +and came among us, He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens +under her wings, those who would not. It is not man who conceives, from +definite services received, the wild hope of some spark of real +affection in the bosom of the Eternal and Mysterious One. It is not man, +amid the lavish joys and splendours of creation, who conceives the +notion of a supreme Heart, as the explanation of the universe. It is God +Himself Who says, “I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to +you a God.”</p> + +<p>Nor is it human conversion that begins the process, but a Divine +covenant and pledge, by which God would fain convert us to Himself; even +as the first disciples did not accost Jesus, but He turned and spoke to +them the first question and the first invitation; “What seek ye?... +Come, and ye shall see.”</p> + +<p>To-day, the choice of the civilised world has to be made between a +mechanical universe and a revealed love, for no third possibility +survives.</p> + +<p>This promise establishes a relationship, which God never afterwards +cancelled. Human unbelief rejected its benefits, and chilled the mutual +sympathies which it involved; but the fact always remained, and in their +darkest hour they could appeal to God to remember His covenant and the +oath which He sware.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p> + +<p>And this same assurance belongs to us. We are not to become good, or +desirous of goodness, in order that God may requite with affection our +virtues or our wistfulness. Rather we are to arise and come to our +Father, and to call Him Father, although we are not worthy to be called +His sons. We are to remember how Jesus said, “If ye being evil know how +to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly +Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!” and to learn that He +is the Father of those who are evil, and even of those who are still +unpardoned, as He said again, “If ye forgive not ... neither will your +heavenly Father forgive you.”</p> + +<p>Much controversy about the universal Fatherhood of God would be assuaged +if men reflected upon the significant distinction which our Saviour drew +between His Fatherhood and our sonship, the one always a reality of the +Divine affection, the other only a possibility, for human enjoyment or +rejection: “Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, +that ye may be sons of your Father Which is in heaven” (Matt. v. 45). +There is no encouragement to presumption in the assertion of the Divine +Fatherhood upon such terms. For it speaks of a love which is real and +deep without being feeble and indiscriminate. It appeals to faith +because there is an absolute fact to lean upon, and to energy because +privilege is conditional. It reminds us that our relationship is like +that of the ancient Israel,—that we are in a covenant, as they were, +but that the carcases of many of them fell in the wilderness; although +God had taken them for a people, and was to them a God, and said, +“Israel is My son, even My firstborn.”</p> + +<p>It is added that faith shall develop into knowledge. Moses is to assure +them now that they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>“shall know” hereafter that the Lord is Jehovah +their God. And this, too, is a universal law, that we shall know if we +follow on to know: that the trial of our faith worketh patience, and +patience experience, and we have so dim and vague an apprehension of +Divine realities, chiefly because we have made but little trial, and +have not tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious.</p> + +<p>In this respect, as in so many more, religion is analogous with nature. +The squalor of the savage could be civilised, and the distorted and +absurd conceptions of mediæval science could be corrected, only by +experiment, persistently and wisely carried out.</p> + +<p>And it is so in religion: its true evidence is unknown to these who +never bore its yoke; it is open to just such raillery and rejection as +they who will not love can pour upon domestic affection and the sacred +ties of family life; but, like these, it vindicates itself, in the rest +of their souls, to those who will take the yoke and learn. And its best +wisdom is not of the cunning brain but of the open heart, that wisdom +from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be +entreated.</p> + +<p>And thus, while God leads Israel, they shall know that He is Jehovah, +and true to His highest revelations of Himself.</p> + +<p>All this they heard, and also, to define their hope and brighten it, the +promise of Palestine was repeated; but they hearkened not unto Moses for +anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. Thus the body often holds the +spirit down, and kindly allowance is made by Him Who knoweth our frame +and remembereth that we are dust, and Who, in the hour of His own agony, +found the excuse for His unsympathising followers that the spirit was +willing although the flesh was weak. So<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> when Elijah made request for +himself that he might die, in the utter reaction which followed his +triumph on Carmel and his wild race to Jezreel, the good Physician did +not dazzle him with new splendours of revelation until after he had +slept, and eaten miraculous food, and a second time slept and eaten.</p> + +<p>But if the anguish of the body excuses much weakness of the spirit, it +follows, on the other hand, that men are responsible to God for that +heavy weight which is laid upon the spirit by pampered and luxurious +bodies, incapable of self-sacrifice, rebellious against the lightest of +His demands. It is suggestive, that Moses, when sent again to Pharaoh, +objected, as at first: “Behold, the children of Israel have not +hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of +uncircumcised lips?”</p> + +<p>Every new hope, every great inspiration which calls the heroes of God to +a fresh attack upon the powers of Satan, is checked and hindered more by +the coldness of the Church than by the hostility of the world. That +hostility is expected, and can be defied. But the infidelity of the +faithful is appalling indeed.</p> + +<p>We read with wonder the great things which Christ has promised to +believing prayer, and, at the same time, although we know painfully that +we have never claimed and dare not claim these promises, we wonder +equally at the foreboding question, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall +He find the faith (faith in its fulness) on the earth?” (Luke xviii. 8). +But we ought to remember that our own low standard helps to form the +standard of attainment for the Church at large—that when one member +suffers, all the members suffer with it—that many a large sacrifice +would be readily made for Christ, at this hour, if only ease and +pleasure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> were at stake, which is refused because it is too hard to be +called well-meaning enthusiasts by those who ought to glorify God in +such attainment, as the first brethren did in the zeal and the gifts of +Paul.</p> + +<p>The vast mountains raise their heads above mountain ranges which +encompass them; and it is not when the level of the whole Church is low, +that giants of faith and of attainment may be hoped for. Nay, Christ +stipulates for the agreement of two or three, to kindle and make +effectual the prayers which shall avail.</p> + +<p>For the purification of our cities, for the shaming of our legislation +until it fears God as much as a vested interest, for the reunion of +those who worship the same Lord, for the conversion of the world, and +first of all for the conversion of the Church, heroic forces are +demanded. But all the tendency of our half-hearted, abject, +semi-Christianity is to repress everything that is unconventional, +abnormal, likely to embroil us with our natural enemy, the world; and +who can doubt that, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, we +shall know of many an aspiring soul, in which the sacred fire had begun +to burn, which sank back into lethargy and the commonplace, murmuring in +its despair, “Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; +how then shall Pharaoh hear me?”</p> + +<p>It was the last fear which ever shook the great heart of the emancipator +Moses.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of the grand historical work, of which all this has +been the prelude, there is set the pedigree of Moses and Aaron, +according to “the heads of their fathers’ houses,”—- an epithet which +indicates a subdivision of the “family,” as the family is a subdivision +of the tribe. Of the sons of Jacob, Reuben<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> and Simeon are mentioned, to +put Levi in his natural third place. And from Levi to Moses only four +generations are mentioned, favouring somewhat the briefer scheme of +chronology which makes four centuries cover all the time from Abraham, +and not the captivity alone. But it is certain that this is a mere +recapitulation of the more important links in the genealogy. In Num. +xxvi. 58, 59, six generations are reckoned instead of four; in 1 Chron. +ii. 3 there are seven generations; and elsewhere in the same book (vi. +22) there are ten. It is well known that similar omissions of obscure or +unworthy links occur in St. Matthew’s pedigree of our Lord, although +some stress is there laid upon the recurrent division into fourteens. +And it is absurd to found any argument against the trustworthiness of +the narrative upon a phenomenon so frequent, and so sure to be avoided +by a forger, or to be corrected by an unscrupulous editor. In point of +fact, nothing is less likely to have occurred, if the narrative were a +late invention.</p> + +<p>Neither, in that case, would the birth of the great emancipator be +ascribed to the union of Amram with his father’s sister, for such +marriages were distinctly forbidden by the law (Lev. xviii. 14).</p> + +<p>Nor would the names of the children of the founder of the nation be +omitted, while those of Aaron are recorded, unless we were dealing with +genuine history, which knows that the sons of Aaron inherited the lawful +priesthood, while the descendants of Moses were the jealous founders of +a mischievous schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.).</p> + +<p>Nor again, if this were a religious romance, designed to animate the +nation in its later struggles, should we read of the hesitation and the +fears of a leader <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>“of uncircumcised lips,” instead of the trumpet-like +calls to action of a noble champion.</p> + +<p>Nor does the broken-spirited meanness of Israel at all resemble the +conception, popular in every nation, of a virtuous and heroic antiquity, +a golden age. It is indeed impossible to reconcile the motives and the +date to which this narrative is ascribed by some, with the plain +phenomena, with the narrative itself.</p> + +<p>Nor is it easy to understand why the Lord, Who speaks of bringing out +“My hosts, My people, the children of Israel” (vii. 4, etc.), should +never in the Pentateuch be called the Lord of Hosts, if that title were +in common use when it was written; for no epithet would better suit the +song of Miriam or the poetry of the Fifth Book.</p> + +<p>When Moses complained that he was of uncircumcised lips, the Lord +announced that He had already made His servant as a god unto Pharaoh, +having armed him, even then, with the terrors which are soon to shake +the tyrant’s soul.</p> + +<p>It is suggestive and natural that his very education in a court should +render him fastidious, less willing than a rougher man might have been +to appear before the king after forty years of retirement, and feeling +almost physically incapable of speaking what he felt so deeply, in words +that would satisfy his own judgment. Yet God had endowed him, even then, +with a supernatural power far greater than any facility of expression. +In his weakness he would thus be made strong; and the less fit he was to +assert for himself any ascendency over Pharaoh, the more signal would be +the victory of his Lord, when he became “very great in the land of +Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight of the +people” (xi. 3).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> + +<p>As a proof of this mastery he was from the first to speak to the haughty +king through his brother, as a god through some prophet, being too great +to reveal himself directly. It is a memorable phrase; and so lofty an +assertion could never, in the myth of a later period, have been ascribed +to an origin so lowly as the reluctance of Moses to expose his +deficiency in elocution.</p> + +<p>Therefore he should henceforth be emboldened by the assurance of +qualification bestowed already: not only by the hope of help and +achievement yet to come, but by the certainty of present endowment. And +so should each of us, in his degree, be bold, who have gifts differing +according to the grace given unto us.</p> + +<p>It is certain that every living soul has at least one talent, and is +bound to improve it. But how many of us remember that this loan implies +a commission from God, as real as that of prophet and deliverer, and +that nothing but our own default can prevent it from being, at the last, +received again with usury?</p> + +<p>The same bravery, the same confidence when standing where his Captain +has planted him, should inspire the prophet, and him that giveth alms, +and him that showeth mercy; for all are members in one body, and +therefore animated by one invincible Spirit from above (Rom. xii. 4–9).</p> + +<p>The endowment thus given to Moses made him “as a god” to Pharaoh.</p> + +<p>We must not take this to mean only that he had a prophet or spokesman, +or that he was made formidable, but that the peculiar nature of his +prowess would be felt. It was not his own strength. The supernatural +would become visible in him. He who boasted “I know not Jehovah” would +come to crouch before Him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> in His agent, and humble himself to the man +whom once he contemptuously ordered back to his burdens, with the abject +prayer, “Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat +Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only.”</p> + +<p>Now, every consecrated power may bear witness to the Lord: it is +possible to do all to the glory of God. Not that every separate action +will be ascribed to a preternatural source, but the sum total of the +effect produced by a holy life will be sacred. He who said, “I have made +thee a god unto Pharaoh,” says of all believers, “I in them, and Thou, +Father, in Me, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH’S HEART.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">vii. 3–13.</h3> + +<p>When Moses received his commission, at the bush, words were spoken which +are now repeated with more emphasis, and which have to be considered +carefully. For probably no statement of Scripture has excited fiercer +criticism, more exultation of enemies and perplexity of friends, than +that the Lord said, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he shall not let +the people go,” and that in consequence of this Divine act Pharaoh +sinned and suffered. Just because the words are startling, it is unjust +to quote them without careful examination of the context, both in the +prediction and the fulfilment. When all is weighed, compared, and +harmonised, it will at last be possible to draw a just conclusion. And +although it may happen long before then, that the objector will charge +us with special pleading, yet he will be the special pleader himself, if +he seeks to hurry us, by prejudice or passion, to give a verdict which +is based upon less than all the evidence, patiently weighed.</p> + +<p>Let us in the first place find out how soon this dreadful process began; +when was it that God fulfilled His threat, and hardened, in any sense +whatever, the heart of Pharaoh? Did He step in at the beginning,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> and +render the unhappy king incapable of weighing the remonstrances which He +then performed the cruel mockery of addressing to him? Were these as +insincere and futile as if one bade the avalanche to pause which his own +act had started down the icy slopes? Was Pharaoh as little responsible +for his pursuit of Israel as his horses were—being, like them, the +blind agents of a superior force? We do not find it so. In the fifth +chapter, when a demand is made, without any sustaining miracle, simply +appealing to the conscience of the ruler, there is no mention of any +such process, despite the insults with which Pharaoh then assails both +the messengers and Jehovah Himself, Whom he knows not. In the seventh +chapter there is clear evidence that the process is yet unaccomplished; +for, speaking of an act still future, it declares, “I will harden +Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of +Egypt” (vii. 3). And this terrible act is not connected with the +remonstrances and warnings of God, but entirely with the increasing +pressure of the miracles.</p> + +<p>The exact period is marked when the hand of doom closed upon the tyrant. +It is not where the Authorised Version places it. When the magicians +imitated the earlier signs of Moses, “his heart was strong,” but the +original does not bear out the assertion that at this time the Lord made +it so by any judicial act of His (vii. 13). That only comes with the +sixth plague; and the course of events may be traced, fairly well, by +the help of the margin of the Revised Version.</p> + +<p>After the plague of blood “Pharaoh’s heart was strong” (“hardened”), and +this is distinctly ascribed to his own action, because “he set his heart +even to this” (vii. 22, 23).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<p>After the second plague, it was still he himself who “made his heart +heavy” (viii. 15).</p> + +<p>After the third plague the magicians warned him that the very finger of +some god was upon him indeed: their rivalry, which hitherto might have +been somewhat of a palliation for his obstinacy, was now ended; but yet +“his heart was strong” (viii. 19).</p> + +<p>Again, after the fourth plague he “made his heart heavy”; and it “was +heavy” after the fifth plague, (viii. 32, ix. 7).</p> + +<p>Only thenceforward comes the judicial infatuation upon him who has +resolutely infatuated himself hitherto.</p> + +<p>But when five warnings and penalties have spent their force in vain, +when personal agony is inflicted in the plague of boils, and the +magicians in particular cannot stand before him through their pain, +would it have been proof of virtuous contrition if he had yielded then? +If he had needed evidence, it was given to him long before. Submission +now would have meant prudence, not penitence; and it was against +prudence, not penitence, that he was hardened. Because he had resisted +evidence, experience, and even the testimony of his own magicians, he +was therefore stiffened against the grudging and unworthy concessions +which must otherwise have been wrested from him, as a wild beast will +turn and fly from fire. He was henceforth himself to become an evidence +and a portent; and so “The Lord made strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he +hearkened not unto them” (ix. 12). It was an awful doom, but it is not +open to the attacks so often made upon it. It only means that for him +the last five plagues were not disciplinary, but wholly penal.</p> + +<p>Nay, it stops short of asserting even this: they might still have +appealed to his reason; they were only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> not allowed to crush him by the +agency of terror. Not once is it asserted that God hardened his heart +against any nobler impulse than alarm, and desire to evade danger and +death. We see clearly this meaning in the phrase, when it is applied to +his army entering the Red Sea: “I will make strong the hearts of the +Egyptians, and they shall go in” (xiv. 17). It needed no greater moral +turpitude to pursue the Hebrews over the sands than on the shore, but it +certainly required more hardihood. But the unpursued departure which the +good-will of Egypt refused, their common sense was not allowed to grant. +Callousness was followed by infatuation, as even the pagans felt that +whom God wills to ruin He first drives mad.</p> + +<p>This explanation implies that to harden Pharaoh’s heart was to inspire +him, not with wickedness, but with nerve.</p> + +<p>And as far as the original language helps us at all, it decidedly +supports this view. Three different expressions have been unhappily +rendered by the same English word, to harden; but they may be +discriminated throughout the narrative in Exodus, by the margin of the +Revised Version.</p> + +<p>One word, which commonly appears without any marginal explanation, is +the same which is employed elsewhere about “the cause which is too +<i>hard</i> for” minor judges (Deut. i. 17, cf. xv. 18, etc.). Now, this word +is found (vii. 13) in the second threat that “I will harden Pharaoh’s +heart,” and in the account which was to be given to posterity of how +“Pharaoh hardened himself to let us go” (xiii. 15). And it is said +likewise of Sihon, king of Heshbon, that he “would not let us pass by +him, for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart strong” +(Deut. ii. 30). But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> since it does not occur anywhere in all the +narrative of what God actually did with Pharaoh, it is only just to +interpret this phrase in the prediction by what we read elsewhere of the +manner of its fulfilment.</p> + +<p>The second word is explained in the margin as meaning <i>to make strong</i>. +Already God had employed it when He said “I will <i>make strong</i> his +heart” (iv. 21), and this is the term used of the first fulfilment of +the menace, after the sixth plague (ix. 12). God is not said to +interfere again after the seventh, which had few special terrors for +Pharaoh himself; but from henceforth the expression “to make <i>strong</i>” +alternates with the phrase “to make <i>heavy</i>.” “Go in unto Pharaoh, for I +have made heavy his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might +show these My signs in the midst of them” (x. 1).</p> + +<p>It may be safely assumed that these two expressions cover between them +all that is asserted of the judicial action of God in preventing a +recoil of Pharaoh from his calamities. Now, the strengthening of a +heart, however punitive and disastrous when a man’s will is evil (just +as the strengthening of his arm is disastrous then), has in itself no +immorality inherent. It is a thing as often good as bad,—as when Israel +and Joshua are exhorted to “Be <i>strong</i> and of a good courage” (Deut. +xxxi. 6, 7, 23), and when the angel laid his hand upon Daniel and said, +“Be strong, yea, be strong” (Dan. x. 19). In these passages the phrase +is identical with that which describes the process by which Pharaoh was +prevented from cowering under the tremendous blows he had provoked.</p> + +<p>The other expression is to make heavy or dull. Thus “the eyes of Israel +were <i>heavy</i> with age” (Gen. xlviii. 10), and as we speak of a <i>weight</i> +of honour,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> equally with the heaviness of a dull man, so we are twice +commanded, “Make heavy (honour) thy father and thy mother”; and the Lord +declares, “I will make Myself heavy (get Me honour) upon Pharaoh” (Deut. +v. 16, Exod. xx. 12, xiv. 4, 17, 18). In these latter references it will +be observed that the making “strong” the heart of Pharaoh, and the +making “Myself heavy” are so connected as almost to show a design of +indicating how far is either expression from conveying the notion of +immorality, infused into a human heart by God. For one of the two +phrases which have been thus interpreted is still applied to Pharaoh; +but the other (and the more sinister, as we should think, when thus +applied) is appropriated by God to Himself: He makes Himself heavy.</p> + +<p>It is also a curious and significant coincidence that the same word was +used of the burdens that were made <i>heavy</i> when first they claimed their +freedom, which is now used of the treatment of the heart of their +oppressor (v. 9).</p> + +<p>It appears, then, that the Lord is never said to debauch Pharaoh’s +heart, but only to strengthen it against prudence and to make it dull; +that the words used do not express the infusion of evil passion, but the +animation of a resolute courage, and the overclouding of a natural +discernment; and, above all, that every one of the three words, to make +hard, to make strong, and to make heavy, is employed to express +Pharaoh’s own treatment of himself, before it is applied to any work of +God, as actually taking place already.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, there is a solemn warning for all time, in the assertion +that what he at first chose, the vengeance of God afterward chose for +him. For indeed the same process, working more slowly but on identical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +lines, is constantly seen in the hardening effect of vicious habit. The +gambler did not mean to stake all his fortune upon one chance, when +first he timidly laid down a paltry stake; nor has he changed his mind +since then as to the imprudence of such a hazard. The drunkard, the +murderer himself, is a man who at first did evil as far as he dared, and +afterwards dared to do evil which he would once have shuddered at.</p> + +<p>Let no man assume that prudence will always save him from ruinous +excess, if respect for righteousness cannot withhold him from those +first compliances which sap the will, destroy the restraint of +self-respect, wear away the horror of great wickedness by familiarity +with the same guilt in its lesser phases, and, above all, forfeit the +enlightenment and calmness of judgment which come from the Holy Spirit +of God, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and of counsel, and makes men to be +of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.</p> + +<p>Let no man think that the fear of damnation will bring him to the +mercy-seat at last, if the burden and gloom of being “condemned already” +cannot now bend his will. “Even as they refused to have God in their +knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind” (Rom. i. 28). “I gave +them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he +shall even live in them.... I gave them statutes that were not good, and +judgments wherein they should not live” (Ezek. xx. 11, 25).</p> + +<p>This is the inevitable law, the law of a confused and darkened judgment, +a heart made heavy and ears shut, a conscience seared, an infatuated +will kicking against the pricks, and heaping to itself wrath against the +day of wrath. Wilful sin is always a challenge to God, and it is avenged +by the obscuring of the lamp of God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> in the soul. Now, a part of His +guiding light is prudence; and it is possible that men who will not be +warned by the fear of injury to their conscience, such as they suppose +that Pharaoh suffered, may be sobered by the danger of such derangement +of their intellectual efficiency as really befel him.</p> + +<p>In this sense men are, at last, impelled blindly to their fate (and this +is a judicial act of God, although it comes in the course of nature), +but first they launch themselves upon the slope which grows steeper at +every downward step, until arrest is impossible.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, every act of obedience helps to release the will from +its entanglement, and to clear the judgment which has grown dull, +anointing the eyes with eye-salve that they may see. Not in vain is the +assertion of the bondage of the sinner and the glorious liberty of the +children of God.</p> + +<p>A second time, then, Moses presented himself before Pharaoh with his +demands; and, as he had been forewarned, he was now challenged to give a +sign in proof of his commission from a god.</p> + +<p>And the demand was treated as reasonable; a sign was given, and a +menacing one. The peaceable rod of the shepherd, a fit symbol of the +meek man who bore it, became a serpent<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> before the king, as Moses was +to become destructive to his realm. But when the wise men of Egypt and +the enchanters were called, they did likewise; and although a marvel was +added<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> which incontestably declared the superior power of the Deity Whom +Aaron represented, yet their rivalry sufficed to make strong the heart +of Pharaoh, and he would not let the people go. The issue was now knit: +the result would be more signal than if the quarrel were decided at one +blow, and upon all the gods of Egypt the Lord would exercise vengeance.</p> + +<p>What are we to think of the authentification of a religion by a sign? +Beyond doubt, Jesus recognised this aspect of His own miracles, when He +said, “If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, +they had not had sin” (John xv. 24). And yet there is reason in the +objection that no amount of marvel ought to deflect by one hair’s +breadth our judgment of right and wrong, and the true appeal of a +religion must be to our moral sense.</p> + +<p>No miracle can prove that immoral teaching is sacred. But it can prove +that it is supernatural. And this is precisely what Scripture always +proclaims. In the New Testament, we are bidden to take heed, because a +day will come, when false prophets shall work great signs and wonders, +to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Mark xiii. 22). In the Old +Testament, a prophet may seduce the people to worship other gods, by +giving them a sign or a wonder which shall come to pass, but they must +surely stone him: they must believe that his sign is only a temptation; +and above whatever power enabled him to work it, they must recognise +Jehovah proving them, and know that the supernatural has come to them in +judgment, not in revelation (Deut. xiii. 1–5).</p> + +<p>Now, this is the true function of the miraculous. At the most, it cannot +coerce the conscience, but only challenge it to consider and to judge.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> + +<p>A teacher of the purest morality may be only a human teacher still; nor +is the Christian bound to follow into the desert every clamorous +innovator, or to seek in the secret chamber every one who whispers a +private doctrine to a few. We are entitled to expect that one who is +commissioned directly from above will bear special credentials with him; +but when these are exhibited, we must still judge whether the document +they attest is forged. And this may explain to us why the magicians were +allowed for awhile to perplex the judgment of Pharaoh whether by fraud, +as we may well suppose, or by infernal help. It was enough that Moses +should set his claims upon a level with those which Pharaoh reverenced: +the king was then bound to weigh their relative merits in other and +wholly different scales.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE PLAGUES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">vii. 14.</h3> + +<p>There are many aspects in which the plagues of Egypt may be +contemplated.</p> + +<p>We may think of them as ranging through all nature, and asserting the +mastery of the Lord alike over the river on which depended the +prosperity of the realm, over the minute pests which can make life more +wretched than larger and more conspicuous ills (the frogs of the water, +the reptiles that disgrace humanity, and the insects that infest the +air), over the bodies of animals stricken with murrain, and those of man +tortured with boils, over hail in the cloud and blight in the crop, over +the breeze that bears the locust and the sun that grows dark at noon, +and at last over the secret springs of human life itself.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + +<p>No pantheistic creed (and the Egyptian religion struck its roots deep +into pantheistic speculation) could thus completely exalt God above +nature, as a superior and controlling Power, not one with the mighty +wheels of the universe, of which the height is terrible, but, as Ezekiel +saw Him, enthroned above them in the likeness of fire, and yet in the +likeness of humanity.</p> + +<p>No idolatrous creed, however powerful be its conception of one god of +the hills and another of the valleys, could thus represent a single +deity as wielding all the arrows of adverse fortune, able to assail us +from earth and sky and water, formidable alike in the least things and +in the greatest. And presently the demonstration is completed, when at +His bidding the tempest heaps up the sea, and at His frown the waters +return to their strength again.</p> + +<p>And no philosophic theory condescends to bring the Ideal, the Absolute, +and the Unconditioned, into such close and intimate connection with the +frog-spawn of the ditch and the blain upon the tortured skin.</p> + +<p>We may, with ample warrant from Scripture, make the controversial +application still more simple and direct, and think of the plagues as +wreaking vengeance, for the worship they had usurped and the cruelties +they had sanctioned, upon all the gods of Egypt, which are conceived of +for the moment as realities, and as humbled, if not in fact, yet in the +sympathies of priest and worshipper (xii. 12).</p> + +<p>Then we shall see the domain of each impostor invaded, and every vaunted +power to inflict evil or to remove it triumphantly wielded by Him Who +proves His equal mastery over all, and thus we shall find here the +justification of that still bolder personification which says, “Worship +Him, all ye gods” (Psalm xcvii. 7).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Nile had a sacred name, and was adored as “Hapee, or Hapee Mu, the +Abyss, or the Abyss of Waters, or the Hidden,” and the king was +frequently portrayed standing between two images of this god, his throne +wreathed with water-lilies. The second plague struck at the goddess +<span class="smcap">Hekt</span>, whose head was that of a frog. The uncleanness of the third plague +deranged the whole system of Egyptian worship, with its punctilious and +elaborate purifications. In every one there is either a presiding +divinity attacked, or a blow dealt upon the priesthood or the sacrifice, +or a sphere invaded which some deity should have protected, until the +sun himself is darkened, the great god <span class="smcap">Ra</span>, to whom their sacred city was +dedicated, and whose name is incorporated in the title of his earthly +representative, the Pharaoh or <span class="smcap">Ph-ra</span>. Then at last, after all these +premonitions, the deadly blow struck home.</p> + +<p>Or we may think of the plagues as retributive, and then we shall +discover a wonderful suitability in them all. It was a direful omen that +the first should afflict the nation through the river, into which, +eighty years before, the Hebrew babes had been cast to die, which now +rolled bloody, and seemed to disclose its dead. It was fit that the +luxurious homes of the oppressors should become squalid as the huts of +the slaves they trampled; that their flesh should suffer torture worse +than that of the whips they used so unmercifully; that the loss of crops +and cattle should bring home to them the hardships of the poor who +toiled for their magnificence; that physical darkness should appal them +with vague terrors and undefined apprehensions, such as ever haunt the +bosom of the oppressed, whose life is the sport of a caprice; and at +last that the aged should learn by the deathbed of the prop and pride of +their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> declining feebleness, and the younger feel beside the cradle of +the first blossom and fruit of love, all the agony of such bereavement +as they had wantonly inflicted on the innocent.</p> + +<p>And since the fear of disadvantage in war had prompted the murder of the +Hebrew children, it was right that the retributive blow should destroy +first their children and then their men of war.</p> + +<p>When we come to examine the plagues in detail, we discover that it is no +arbitrary fancy which divides them into three triplets, leading up to +the appalling tenth. Thus the first, fourth, and seventh, each of which +begins a triplet, are introduced by a command to Moses to warn Pharaoh +“in the morning” (vii. 15), or “early in the morning” (viii. 20, ix. +13). The third, sixth and ninth, on the contrary, are inflicted without +any warning whatever. The story of the third plague closes with the +defeat of the magicians, the sixth with their inability to stand before +the king, and the ninth with the final rupture, when Moses declares, +“Thou shalt see my face no more” (viii. 19, ix. 11, x. 29).</p> + +<p>The first three are plagues of loathsomeness—blood-stained waters, +frogs and lice; the next three bring actual pain and loss with +them—stinging flies, murrain which afflicts the beasts, and boils upon +all the Egyptians; and the third triplet are “nature-plagues”—hail, +locusts and darkness. It is only after the first three plagues that the +immunity of Israel is mentioned; and after the next three, when the hail +is threatened, instructions are first given by which those Egyptians who +fear Jehovah may also obtain protection. Thus, in orderly and solemn +procession, marched the avengers of God upon the guilty land.</p> + +<p>It has been observed, concerning the miracles of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> Jesus, that not one of +them was creative, and that, whenever it was possible, He wrought by the +use of material naturally provided. The waterpots should be filled; the +five barley-loaves should be sought out; the nets should be let down for +a draught; and the blind man should have his eyes anointed, and go wash +in the Pool of Siloam.</p> + +<p>And it is easily seen that such miracles were a more natural expression +of His errand, which was to repair and purify the existing system of +things, and to remove our moral disease and dearth, than any exercise of +creative power would have been, however it might have dazzled the +spectators.</p> + +<p>Now, the same remark applies to the miracles of Moses, to the coming of +God in judgment, as to His revelation of Himself in grace; and therefore +we need not be surprised to hear that natural phenomena are not unknown +which offer a sort of dim hint or foreshadowing of the terrible ten +plagues. Either cryptogamic vegetation or the earth borne down from +upper Africa is still seen to redden the river, usually dark, but not so +as to destroy the fish. Frogs and vermin and stinging insects are the +pest of modern travellers. Cattle plagues make ravage there, and hideous +diseases of the skin are still as common as when the Lord promised to +reward the obedience of Israel to sanitary law by putting upon them none +of “the evil diseases of Egypt” which they knew (Deut. vii. 15).<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The +locust is still dreaded. But some of the other visitations were more +direful because not only their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> intensity but even their existence was +almost unprecedented: hail in Egypt was only not quite unknown; and such +veiling of the sun as occurs for a few minutes during the storms of sand +in the desert ought scarcely to be quoted as even a suggestion of the +prolonged horror of the ninth plague.</p> + +<p>Now, this accords exactly with the moral effect which was to be +produced. The rescued people were not to think of God as one who strikes +down into nature from outside, with strange and unwonted powers, +superseding utterly its familiar forces. They were to think of Him as +the Author of all; and of the common troubles of mortality as being +indeed the effects of sin, yet ever controlled and governed by Him, let +loose at His will, and capable of mounting to unimagined heights if His +restraints be removed from them. By the east wind He brought the +locusts, and removed them by the south-west wind. By a storm He divided +the sea. The common things of life are in His hands, often for +tremendous results. And this is one of the chief lessons of the +narrative for us. Let the mind range over the list of the nine which +stop short of absolute destruction, and reflect upon the vital +importance of immunities for which we are scarcely grateful.</p> + +<p>The purity of water is now felt to be among the foremost necessities of +life. It is one which asks nothing from us except to refrain from +polluting what comes from heaven so limpid. And yet we are half +satisfied to go on habitually inflicting on ourselves a plague more foul +and noxious than any occasional turning of our rivers into blood. The +two plagues which dealt with minute forms of life may well remind us of +the vast part which we are now aware that the smallest organisms play in +the economy of life, as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> agents of the Creator. Who gives thanks +aright for the cheap blessing of the unstained light of heaven?</p> + +<p>But we are insensible to the every-day teaching of this narrative: we +turn our rivers into fluid poison; we spread all around us deleterious +influences, which breed by minute forms of parasitical life the germs of +cruel disease; we load the atmosphere with fumes which slay our cattle +with periodical distempers, and are deadlier to vegetation than the +hail-storm or the locust; we charge it with carbon so dense that +multitudes have forgotten that the sky is blue, and on our Metropolis +comes down at frequent intervals the darkness of the ninth plague, and +all the time we fail to see that God, Who enacts and enforces every law +of nature, does really plague us whenever these outraged laws avenge +themselves. The miraculous use of nature in special emergencies is such +as to show the Hand which regularly wields its powers.</p> + +<p>At the same time there is no more excuse for the rationalism which would +reduce the calamities of Egypt to a coincidence, than for explaining +away the manna which fed a nation during its wanderings by the drug +which is gathered, in scanty morsels, upon the acacia tree. The awful +severity of the judgments, the series which they formed, their advent +and removal at the menace and the prayer of Moses, are considerations +which make such a theory absurd. The older scepticism, which supposed +Moses to have taken advantage of some epidemic, to have learned in the +wilderness the fords of the Red Sea,<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> to have discovered water, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +the caravan was perishing of thirst, by his knowledge of the habits of +wild beasts, and finally to have dazzled the nation at Horeb with some +kind of fireworks, is itself almost a miracle in its violation of the +laws of mind. The concurrence of countless favourable accidents and +strange resources of leadership is like the chance arrangement of a +printer’s type to make a poem.</p> + +<p>There is a common notion that the ten plagues followed each other with +breathless speed, and were completed within a few weeks. But nothing in +the narrative asserts or even hints this, and what we do know is in the +opposite direction. The seventh plague was wrought in February, for the +barley was in the ear and the flax in blossom (ix. 31); and the feast of +passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, so that the +destruction of the firstborn was in the middle of April, and there was +an interval of about two months between the last four plagues. Now, the +same interval throughout would bring back the first plague to September +or October. But the natural discoloration of the river, mentioned above, +is in the middle of the year, when the river begins to rise; and this, +it may possibly be inferred, is the natural period at which to fix the +first plague. They would then range over a period of about nine months. +During the interval between them, the promises and treacheries of the +king excited alternate hope and rage in Israel; the scribes of their own +race (once the vassals of their tyrants, but already estranged by their +own oppression) began to take rank as officers among the Jews, and to +exhibit the rudimentary promise of national order and government; and +the growing fears of their enemies fostered that triumphant sense of +mastery, out of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> national hope and pride are born. When the time +came for their departure, it was possible to transmit orders throughout +all their tribes, and they came out of Egypt by their armies, which +would have been utterly impossible a few months before. It was with +them, as it is with every man that breathes: the delay of God’s grace +was itself a grace; and the slowly ripening fruit grew mellower than if +it had been forced into a speedier maturity.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE FIRST PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">vii. 14–25.</h3> + +<p>It was perhaps when the Nile was rising, and Pharaoh was coming to the +bank, in pomp of state, to make official observation of its progress, on +which the welfare of the kingdom depended, and to do homage before its +divinity, that the messenger of another Deity confronted him, with a +formal declaration of war. It was a strange contrast. The wicked was in +great prosperity, neither was he plagued like another man. Upon his +head, if this were Menephtah, was the golden symbol of his own divinity. +Around him was an obsequious court. And yet there was moving in his +heart some unconfessed sense of awe, when confronted once more by the +aged shepherd and his brother, who had claimed a commission from above, +and had certainly met his challenge, and made a short end of the rival +snakes of his own seers. Once he had asked “Who is Jehovah?” and had +sent His ambassadors to their tasks again with insult. But now he needs +to harden his heart, in order not to yield to their strange and +persistent demands. He remembers how they had spoken to him already, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>“Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn, and I have said +unto thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to +let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn” (iv. 22, R.V.). +Did this awful warning come back to him, when the worn, solemn and +inflexible face of Moses again met him? Did he divine the connection +between this ultimate penalty and what is now announced—the turning of +the pride and refreshment of Egypt into blood? Or was it partly because +each plague, however dire, seemed to fall short of the tremendous +threat, that he hoped to find the power of Moses more limited than his +warnings? “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed +speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to +do evil.”</p> + +<p>And might he, at the last, be hardened to pursue the people because, by +their own showing, the keenest arrow in their quiver was now sped? +Whatever his feelings were, it is certain that the brothers come and go, +and inflict their plagues unrestrained; that no insult or violence is +attempted, and we can see the truth of the words “I have made thee as a +god unto Pharaoh.”</p> + +<p>It is in clear allusion to his vaunt, “I know not Jehovah,” that Moses +and Aaron now repeat the demand for release, and say, “Hitherto thou +hast not hearkened: behold, in this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah.” +What follows, when attentively read, makes it plain that the blow falls +upon “the waters that are in the river,” and those that have been drawn +from it into canals for artificial irrigation, into reservoirs like the +lakes Mœris and Mareotis, and even into vessels for immediate use.</p> + +<p>But we are expressly told that it was possible to obtain water by +digging wells. Therefore there is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> point whatever in the cavil that +if Moses turned all the water into blood, none was left for the +operations of the magicians. But no comparison whatever existed between +their petty performances and the immense and direful work of vengeance +which rolled down a putrid mass of corrupt waters through the land, +spoiling the great stores of water by which later drought should be +relieved, destroying the fish, that important part of the food of the +nation, for which Israel afterwards lusted, and sowing the seeds of +other plagues, by the pollution of that balmy air in which so many of +our own suffering countrymen still find relief, but which was now +infected and loathsome. Even Pharaoh must have felt that his gods might +do better for him than this, and that it would be much more to the point +just then to undo his plague than to increase it—to turn back the blood +to water than contribute a few drops more. If this was their best +effort, he was already helpless in the hand of his assailant, who, by +the uplifting of his rod, and the bold avowal in advance of +responsibility for so great a calamity, had formally defied him. But +Pharaoh dared not accept the challenge: it was effort enough for him to +“set his heart” against surrender to the portent, and he sullenly turned +back into the palace from the spot where Moses met him.</p> + +<p>Two details remain to be observed. The seven days which were fulfilled +do not measure the interval between this plague and the next, but the +period of its infliction. And this information is not given us +concerning any other, until we come to the three days of darkness.<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +It is important here, because the natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> discoloration lasts for three +weeks, and mythical tendencies would rather exaggerate than shorten the +term.</p> + +<p>Again, it is contended that only with the fourth plague did Israel begin +to enjoy exemption, because then only is their immunity recorded.<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +But it is strange indeed to suppose that they were involved in +punishments the design of which was their relief; and in fact their +exemption is implied in the statement that the Egyptians (only) had to +dig wells. It is to be understood that large stores of water would +everywhere be laid up, because the Nile water, however delicious, +carries much sediment which must be allowed to settle down. They would +not be forced, therefore, to fall back upon the polluted common sources +for a supply.</p> + +<p>And now let us contrast this miracle with the first of the New +Testament. One spoiled the happiness of the guilty; the other rescued +the overclouded joy of the friends of Jesus, not turning water into +blood but into wine; declaring at one stroke all the difference between +the law which worketh wrath, and the gospel of the grace of God. The +first was impressive and public, as the revelation upon Sinai; the other +appealed far more to the heart than to the imagination, and befitted +well the kingdom that was not with observation, the King who grew up +like a tender plant, and did not strive nor cry, the redeeming influence +which was at first unobtrusive as the least of all seeds, but became a +tree, and the shelter of the fowls of heaven.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> It is true that the word means any large reptile, as when +“God created great <i>whales</i>”; 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 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.—<i>Wellhausen</i>, “Israel,” in <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 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 <i>in loco</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Speaker’s Commentary</i>, i., p. 242; Kalisch on viii. 18; +Kiel, i. 484.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE SECOND PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">viii. 1–15.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +“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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="section">THE THIRD PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">viii. 16–19.</h3> + +<p>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 <i>in +loco</i>).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE FOURTH PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">viii. 20–32.</h3> + +<p>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—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>“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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>Palestine</i>, 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, <i>Abyssinia</i>, p. 143, in Kalisch).</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> 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<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>], and also the ground whereon they +are.”</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> 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.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE FIFTH PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">ix. 1–7.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE SIXTH PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">ix. 8–12.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>But, apart from any such reference to their cruel idolatry, it was right +that they should suffer in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> attained +fulfilment, in the manner which we have discussed already.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE SEVENTH PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">ix. 13–35.</h3> + +<p>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 <i>be of good courage</i>”; “<i>Be strong</i>, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; +and <i>be strong</i>, O Joshua, son of Josadak the high priest; and <i>be +strong</i>, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 “<i>all</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> blast, than the darkness at noon and the midnight wail of a +bereaved nation. For his infatuation involved all these.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Added to all this is a kind of half-ironical clemency,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> 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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In such a storm, the terror was even greater than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“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, <i>Stones of Venice</i>, III. 197–8.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And by these signs, every experienced observer expects that if they are +delivered out of trouble they will forget their vows.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.”<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> And so it +came to pass. The heart of Pharaoh was made heavy, and he would not let +Israel go.</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Except in one passage (Gen. ii. 4 to iii. 23) these titles +of Deity are nowhere else combined in the books of Moses.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE EIGHTH PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">x. 1–20.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>“know that I am Jehovah.”</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>Has <i>our</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>“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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>After uttering the appointed warning, Moses abruptly left, awaiting no +negociations, plainly regarding them as vain.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> “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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> 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).</p> + +<p>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!<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> If he had only respected himself enough to be +faithful, instead of being too vain really to yield!</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Thoroughness, decision, depth, and self-surrender, needed by Pharaoh, +are needed by every soul of man.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="section">THE NINTH PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">x. 21–29.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Lord of the Two Lands, Beloved of the God Amen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of Diadems, Beloved of the God Ptah:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crowned by Amen with dominion of the world:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cherished by the Sun in the great abode.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>The worship, thus chosen as the most characteristic of this king, either +by himself or by some consummate artist, was to be tested now.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>There is a terrible abruptness about the coming of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> 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!</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>“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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> to +later narratives, that long night was haunted.<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The land of darkness and of the shadow of death;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A land of thick darkness, as darkness itself;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A land of the shadow of death without any order,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where the light is as darkness” (x. 21, 22).<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> 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).</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> 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.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Such is probably not the meaning in Ps. lxxviii. 49 (see +R.V.), though from it the tradition may have sprung.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3 class="section"><i>THE LAST PLAGUE ANNOUNCED</i>.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xi. 1–10.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> absurdly +rendered “borrow” means to ask; and is the same as when Sisera <i>asked</i> +water and Jael gave him milk, and when Solomon <i>asked</i> wisdom, and did +not <i>ask</i> long life, neither <i>asked</i> riches, neither <i>asked</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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: <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>“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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE PASSOVER.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xii. 1–28.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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). <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>“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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>phalanstère</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> 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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What, then, might a pious and well-instructed Israelite discern beneath +the surface of this institution?</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>But when we approach the theories of rationalistic thinkers, we find a +perfect chaos of rival speculations.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> 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 <i>at the end of the year</i>, when thou gatherest in thy +labours out of the field” (Exod. xxiii. 16).</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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, <i>Israel</i>, 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” (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 81).</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> 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 <i>they</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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).<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>But this claim is by no means the only stumbling-block in the way of the +theory, serious a stumbling-block<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> 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?</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <span class="smcap lowercase">PASS OVER</span> 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).</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> 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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 “<i>Deliver</i> me because of mine enemies ... <i>deliver</i> 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 <i>ransomed</i> +of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion” (Isa. xxxv. +10, li. 11); and at the last “I will <i>ransom</i> them from the power of the +grave” (Hos. xiii. 14). In all these places, the word is the same as in +this narrative.</p> + +<p>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 +Phœnicians 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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 (<i>or</i> 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” (<i>or</i> “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.”<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is now time to examine the chapter in more detail, and gather up such +points as the preceding discussion has not reached.</p> + +<p>(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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>(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.</p> + +<p>(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?</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>But now it has to be observed that throughout the poetic literature the +people is taught to think of itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> 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).</p> + +<p>(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).</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>(Ver. 8.) The use of unleavened bread is distinctly said to be in +commemoration of their haste—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>mixed</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>(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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>(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.</p> + +<p>(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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>(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 <i>to them?</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Will any one deny that a similar help is offered to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And (ver. 23) upon the condition of this marking of their doorposts the +Lord should <i>pass over</i> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> and beautiful +expansion of the hovering poised notion which belongs to the word.<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>“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.</p> + +<p>On these terms, they cannot be Christ’s disciples.</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And if a sojourner desired to eat thereof, he should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE TENTH PLAGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xii. 29–36.</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Strange and confident movements and doubtless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>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” (<i>De Doct. Chr.</i>, 60, 61).</p> + +<p>And the main lesson of the story lies so plainly upon the surface that +one scarcely needs to state it. What God requires <i>must</i> ultimately be +done; and human resistance, however stubborn and protracted, will only +make the result more painful and more signal at the last.</p> + +<p>Now, every concern of our obscure daily lives comes under this law as +surely as the actions of a Pharaoh.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE EXODUS.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xii. 37–42.</h3> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>“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).</p> + +<p>Certain ancient versions have departed from this text. The Septuagint +reads, “The sojourning of the children of Israel which they sojourned in +Egypt and <i>in the land of Canaan</i>, was four hundred and thirty years”; +and the Samaritan agrees with this, except that it has “the sojourning +of the children of Israel and <i>of their fathers</i>.” 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?</p> + +<p>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>i.e.</i> after the time of Abraham) +“could not disannul it” (Gal. iii. 17).</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> 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).</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Though of course the Person Whose Body was thus offered is +Divine (Acts xx. 28), and this gives inestimable value to the offering.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Here the sceptical theorists are widely divided among +themselves. Kuenen has discussed this whole theory, and rejected it as +“irreconcilable with what the Old Testament itself asserts in +justification of this sacrifice.” And he is driven to connect it with +the notion of atonement. “Jahveh appears as a severe being who must be +propitiated with sacrifices.” He has therefore to introduce the notion +of human sacrifice, in order to get rid of the connection with the penal +death of the Egyptians, and of the miraculous, which this example would +establish. (<i>Religion of Israel</i>, Eng. Trans., i., 239, 240.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The astonishing significance of this declaration would +only be deepened if we accepted the theories now so fashionable, and +believed that the later passage in Isaiah was the fruit of a period when +the full-blown Priestly Code was in process of development out of “the +small body of legislation contained in Lev. xvii.—xxvi.” What a strange +time for such a spiritual application of sacrificial language!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> So that it is used equally of the slow action of the lame, +and of the lingering movements of the false prophets when there was none +to answer (2 Sam. iv. 4; 1 Kings xviii. 26). “The Lord of Hosts shall +come down to fight upon Mount Zion.... As birds flying, so will the Lord +of Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will <span class="smcap lowercase">PASS OVER</span> and preserve it” (Isa. +xxxi. 4, 5).</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xiii. 1.</h3> + +<p>Much that was said in the twelfth chapter is repeated in the thirteenth. +And this repetition is clearly due to a formal rehearsal, made when all +“their hosts” had mustered in Succoth after their first march; for Moses +says, “Remember this day, in which ye came out” (ver. 3). Already it had +been spoken of as a day much to be remembered, and for its perpetuation +the ordinance of the Passover had been founded.</p> + +<p>But now this charge is given as a fit prologue for the remarkable +institution which follows—the consecration to God of all unblemished +males who are the firstborn of their mothers—for such is the full +statement of what is claimed.</p> + +<p>In speaking to Moses the Lord says, “Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn +... it is Mine.” But Moses addressing the people advances gradually, and +almost diplomatically. First he reminds them of their deliverance, and +in so doing he employs a phrase which could only have been used at the +exact stage when they were emancipated and yet upon Egyptian soil: “By +strength of hand the Lord brought you out <i>from this place</i>” (ver. 3). +Then he charges them not to forget their rescue, in the dangerous time +of their prosperity, when the Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> shall have brought them into the +land which He swore to give them; and he repeats the ordinance of +unleavened bread. And it is only then that he proceeds to announce the +permanent consecration of all their firstborn—the abiding doctrine that +these, who naturally represent the nation, are for its unworthiness +forfeited, and yet by the grace of God redeemed.</p> + +<p>God, Who gave all and pardons all, demands a return, not as a tax which +is levied for its own sake, but as a confession of dependence, and like +the silk flag presented to the sovereign, on the anniversaries of the +two greatest of English victories, by the descendants of the conquerors, +who hold their estates upon that tenure. The firstborn, thus dedicated, +should have formed a sacred class, a powerful element in Hebrew life +enlisted on the side of God.</p> + +<p>For these, as we have already seen, the Levites were afterwards +substituted (Num. iii. 44), and there is perhaps some allusion to this +change in the direction that “all the firstborn of man thou shalt +redeem” (ver. 13). But yet the demand is stated too broadly and +imperatively to belong to that later modification: it suits exactly the +time to which it is attributed, before the tribe of Levi was substituted +for the firstborn of all.</p> + +<p>“They are Mine,” said Jehovah, Who needed not, that night, to remind +them what He had wrought the night before. It is for precisely the same +reason, that St. Paul claims all souls for God: “Ye are not your own, ye +are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies and with +your spirits, which are God’s.”</p> + +<p>And besides the general claim upon us all, each of us should feel, like +the firstborn, that every special<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> mercy is a call to special gratitude, +to more earnest dedication. “I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that +ye present your bodies a living sacrifice” (Rom. xii. 1).</p> + +<p>There is a tone of exultant confidence in the words of Moses, very +interesting and curious. He and his nation are breathing the free air at +last. The deliverance that has been given makes all the promise that +remains secure. As one who feels his pardon will surely not despair of +heaven, so Moses twice over instructs the people what to do when God +shall have kept the oath which He swore, and brought them into Canaan, +into the land flowing with milk and honey. Then they must observe His +passover. Then they must consecrate their firstborn.</p> + +<p>And twice over this emancipator and lawgiver, in the first flush of his +success, impresses upon them the homely duty of teaching their +households what God had done for them (vers. 8, 14; cf. xii. 26).</p> + +<p>This, accordingly, the Psalmist learned, and in his turn transmitted. He +heard with his ears and his fathers told him what God did in their days, +in the days of old. And he told the generation to come the praises of +Jehovah, and His strength, and His wondrous works (Ps. xliv. 1, lxxviii. +4).</p> + +<p>But it is absurd to treat these verses, as Kuenen does, as evidence that +the story is mere legend: “transmitted from mouth to mouth, it gradually +lost its accuracy and precision, and adopted all sorts of foreign +elements.” To prove which, we are gravely referred to passages like +this. (<i>Religion of Israel</i>, i. 22, Eng. Vers.) The duty of oral +instruction is still acknowledged, but this does not prove that the +narrative is still unwritten.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> + +<p>From the emphatic language in which Moses urged this double duty, too +much forgotten still, of remembering and showing forth the goodness of +God, sprang the curious custom of the wearing of phylacteries. But the +Jews were not bidden to wear signs and frontlets: they were bidden to +let hallowed memories be unto them in the place of such charms as they +had seen the Egyptians wear, “for a sign unto thee, upon thine hand, and +for a frontlet between thine eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in +thy mouth” (ver. 9). Such language is frequent in the Old Testament, +where mercy and truth should be bound around their necks; their fathers’ +commandments should be tied around their necks, bound on their fingers, +written on their hearts; and Sion should clothe herself with her +converts as an ornament, and gird them upon her as a bride doth (Prov. +iii. 3, vi. 21, vii. 3; Isa. xlix. 18).</p> + +<p>But human nature still finds the letter of many a commandment easier +than the spirit, a ceremony than an obedient heart, penance than +penitence, ashes on the forehead than a contrite spirit, and a +phylactery than the gratitude and acknowledgment which ought to be unto +us for a sign on the hand and a frontlet between the eyes.</p> + +<p>We have already observed the connection between the thirteenth verse and +the events of the previous night. But there is an interesting touch of +nature in the words “the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a +lamb.” It was afterwards rightly perceived that all unclean animals +should follow the same rule; but why was only the ass mentioned? Plainly +because those humble journeyers had no other beast of burden. Horses +pursued them presently, but even the Egyptians of that period used them +only in war. The trampled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> Hebrews would not possess camels. And thus +again, in the tenth commandment, when the stateliest of their cattle is +specified, no beast of burden is named with it but the ass: “Thou shalt +not covet ... his ox nor his ass.” It is an undesigned coincidence of +real value; a phrase which would never have been devised by legislators +of a later date; a frank and unconscious evidence of the genuineness of +the story.</p> + +<p>Some time before this, a new and fierce race, whose name declared them +to be “emigrants,” had thrust itself in among the tribes of Canaan—a +race which was long to wage equal war with Israel, and not seldom to see +his back turned in battle. They now held all the south of Palestine, +from the brook of Egypt to Ekron (Josh. xv. 4, 47). And if Moses in the +flush of his success had pushed on by the straight and easy route into +the promised land, the first shock of combat with them would have been +felt in a few weeks. But “God led them not by the way of the +Philistines, though that was near, for God said, Lest peradventure the +people repent them when they see war, and they return to Egypt” (ver. +17).</p> + +<p>From this we learn two lessons. Why did not He, Who presently made +strong the hearts of the Egyptians to plunge into the bed of the sea, +make the hearts of His own people strong to defy the Philistines? The +answer is a striking and solemn one. Neither God in the Old Testament, +nor God manifested in the flesh, is ever recorded to have wrought any +miracle of spiritual advancement or overthrow. Thus the Egyptians were +but confirmed in their own choice: their decision was carried further. +And even Saul of Tarsus was illuminated, not coerced: he might have +disobeyed the heavenly vision. He was not an insincere man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> suddenly +coerced into earnestness, nor a coward suddenly made brave. In the moral +world, adequate means are always employed for the securing of desired +effects. Love, gratitude, the sense of danger and of grace, are the +powers which elevate characters. And persons who live in sensuality, +fraud, or falsehood, hoping to be saved some day by a sort of miracle of +grace, ought to ponder this truth, which may not be the gospel now +fashionable, but is unquestionably the statement of a Scriptural fact: +<i>in the moral sphere, God works by means and not by miracle</i>.</p> + +<p>A free life, the desert air, the rejection of the unfit by many +visitations, and the growth of a new generation amid thrilling events, +in a soul-stirring region, and under the pure influences of the +law,—these were necessary before Israel could cross steel with the +warlike children of the Philistines; and even then, it was not with them +that he should begin.</p> + +<p>The other lesson we learn is the tender fidelity of God, Who will not +suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. He led them +aside into the desert, whither He still in mercy leads very many who +think it a heavy judgment to be there.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE BONES OF JOSEPH.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xiii. 19.</h3> + +<p>It is certain that Moses, in the days of his greatness, must often have +mused by the sepulchre of the one Israelite before himself who held high +rank in Egypt. The knowledge that Joseph’s elevation was providential +must have helped him at that time, now many years ago, to think rightly +of his own. And now we read that Moses took the bones of Joseph with +him. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 22) it is recorded as the most +characteristic example of the faith of the patriarch, that instead of +desiring to be carried, like his father, at once to Canaan, he made +mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment +concerning his bones. To him Egypt was no longer an alien land. There +only he had known honour without envy, and happiness without betrayal. +There his bones could rest in quiet; but not for ever. Personal +elevation, which had not rent the cord between him and his unworthy +family, could still less sever the bands between him and the sacred +race. Let him sleep in Egypt while his grave there was honoured: let the +remembrance of him be kept fresh, to protect awhile his kindred; and +when the predicted days of evil came, let his ashes share the neglect +and dishonour of his people, if only they would remember his remains +when the Lord would lead them forth. This confidence in their +emancipation was his faith—which meant, here as always, not a clear +view of truth, but an assuring grasp of it. He had straitly sworn the +children of Israel saying, “God will surely visit you; and ye shall +carry up my bones away hence with you.”</p> + +<p>Many a Christian might well envy a confidence so practical, so +thoroughly realised, entering so naturally into the tissue of his +thoughts and calculations. And their actual remembrance of him goes to +show that the tradition of his faith had never completely died out, but +was among the influences which kept alive the nation’s hope.</p> + +<p>And as the people bore his honoured ashes through the desert, these +being dead spoke of bygone times, they linked the present and the past +together, they deepened the national consciousness that Israel was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> a +favoured people, called to no common destiny, sustained by no common +promises, pressing toward no common goal.</p> + +<p>If Israel had been wise, they would have thought of him, the Israelite +in heart, though glittering in the splendours of Egypt; and would have +considered well that as little as men detected his secret life from his +appearance, so little could theirs be judged. To the eye, they were free +from the foreign trammels in which he was seemingly entangled, yet many +of them in heart turned back to all which strove in vain to bind his +affections down. The lesson holds good to-day. Many a modern religionist +looks askance at the “worldliness” of high office and rank and state; +little dreaming that the “world” he censures is strong in his own +ambitious and self-asserting spirit, and is overcome by the gentle and +tranquil spirit of hundreds of those whom he condemns.</p> + +<p>Bearing this hallowed burden, which might easily have become an object +of superstitious regard, the nation moved from Succoth to Etham on the +edge of the wilderness. And with them a Presence moved which rebuked all +others, however venerable. The Lord went before them. It has already +been pointed out that throughout the early history of this nation, just +come out of an idolatrous land, and too ready to lapse back into +superstition, God never reveals Himself except in fire. To Abraham and +to Jacob He appeared in human form, and again to Joshua; but in the +interval, never. So now they see Him by day in a pillar of cloud to +guide them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them +light. The glory of the nation was that manifested Presence, lacking +which, Moses besought Him to carry them up no farther.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> Nothing in the +Exodus is more impressive, and it sank deep into the national heart. +Many centuries afterwards, the ideal of a golden age was that the Lord +should “create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her +assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire +by night” (Isa. iv. 5).</p> + +<p>But it has been well observed that, amid the various allusions to it in +Hebrew poetry, not one treats it as modern literature has done, with an +eye to its marvellous sublimity and picturesque effects:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“By day, along the astonished lands<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The cloudy pillar glided slow:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sands<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Returned the fiery column’s glow.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Hebrew poetry is vivid and passionate, but all its concerns are +human or divine—God, and the life of man. It is not artistic, but +inspired. “The modern poet is delighting in the scenic effect; the +ancient chronicler was wholly occupied with the overshadowing power of +God.”<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Hutton’s <i>Essays</i>, Vol. ii., <i>Literary: The Poetry of the +Old Test.</i></p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE RED SEA.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xiv. 1–31.</h3> + +<p>It would seem that the Israelites recoiled before a frontier fortress of +Egypt at Khetam (Etham). This is probable, whatever theory of the route +of the Exodus one may adopt; and it is still open to every reader to +adopt almost any theory he pleases, provided that two facts are borne in +mind: viz., first, that the narrative certainly means to describe a +miraculous interference, not superseding the forces of nature, but +wielding them in a fashion impossible to man; and second, that the +phrase translated “Red Sea”<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> (xiii. 18, xv. 4) is the same which is +confessed by all persons to have that meaning in chap. xxiii. 31, and in +Numbers xxi. 4 and xxxiii. 10.</p> + +<p>Checked, without loss or with it, they were bidden to “turn back,” and +encamp at Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. And since Migdol is +simply a watch-tower (there were several in the Holy Land, including +that which gave her name to Mary Magdal-ene), we are to infer that from +thence their inexplicable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> movements were signalled back to Pharaoh. It +was the natural signal for all the wild passions of a baffled and +half-ruined tyrant to leap into flame. We are scarcely able to imagine +the mental condition of men who conceived that a God Who had dealt out +death and destruction might be far from invincible from another side. +But ages after this, a campaign was planned upon the ingenious theory +that “Jehovah is a god of the hills but He is not a god of the valleys” +(1 Kings xx. 28); and plenty of people who would scorn this simple +notion are still of opinion that He is a God of eternity and can save +them from hell, but a little falsehood and knavery are much better able +to save them from want in the meanwhile. Nay, there are many excellent +persons who are not at all of opinion that the prince of this world has +been dethroned.</p> + +<p>Therefore, when his enemies recoiled from his fortresses and wandered +away into the wilderness of Egypt, entangling themselves hopelessly +between the sea, the mountains, and his own strongholds, it might well +appear to Pharaoh that Jehovah was not a warlike deity, that he himself +had now found out the weak point of his enemies, and could pursue and +overtake and satisfy his lust upon them. There is a significant emphasis +in the song of Miriam’s triumph—“Jehovah is a man of war.” At all +events, it was through an imperfect sense of the universal and practical +importance of Jehovah as a factor not to be neglected in his +calculations, through exactly the same error which misleads every man +who postpones religion, or limits the range of its influence in his +daily life,—it was thus, and not through any rarer infatuation, that +Pharaoh made ready six hundred chosen chariots and all the chariots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> of +Egypt, and captains over all of them. And his court was of the same +mind, saying, “What is this that we have done, that we have let Israel +go from serving us?”</p> + +<p>These words are hard to reconcile with the strange notion that until now +a return after three days was expected, despite the torrent of blood +which rolled between them, and the demands by which the Israelitish +women had spoiled the Egyptians. Upon this theory it is not their own +error, but the bad faith of their servants, which they should have cried +out against.</p> + +<p>At the sight of the army, a panic seized the servile hearts of the +fugitives. First they cried out unto the Lord. But how possible it is, +without any real faith, to address to Heaven the mere clamours of our +alarm, and to mistake natural agitation for earnestness in prayer, we +learn by the reproaches with which, after thus crying to the Lord, they +assailed His servant. Were there no graves in that land of superb +sepulchres—that land, now, of universal mourning? Would God that they +had perished with the firstborn! Why had they been treated thus? Had +they not urged Moses to let them alone, that they might serve the +Egyptians?</p> + +<p>And yet these men had lately, for the very promise of so much +emancipation as they now enjoyed, bowed their heads in adoring +thankfulness. As it was their fear which now took the form of +supplication, so then it was their hope which took the form of praise. +And we, how shall we know whether that in us which seems to be religious +gladness and religious grief, is mere emotion, or is truly sacred? By +watching whether worship and love continue, when emotion has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> spent its +force, or has gone round, like the wind, to another quarter.</p> + +<p>How did Moses feel when this outcry told him of the unworthiness and +cowardice of the nation of his heart? Much as we feel, perhaps, when we +see the frailties and failures of converts in the mission-field, and the +lapse of the intemperate who have seemed to be reclaimed for ever. We +thought that perfection was to be reached at a bound. Now we think that +the whole work was unreal. Both extremes are wrong: we have much to +learn from the failures of that ancient church, in which was the germ of +hero, psalmist, and prophet, which was indeed the church in the +wilderness, and whose many relapses were so tenderly borne with by God +and His messenger.</p> + +<p>The settled faith of Moses, and the assurances which he could give the +agitated people,<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> contrast nobly with their alarm. But his confidence +also had its secret springs in prayer, for the Lord said to him, +“Wherefore criest thou unto Me? speak unto the children of Israel that +they go forward.”</p> + +<p>The words are remarkable on two accounts. Can prayer ever be out of +place? Not if we mean a prayerful dependent mental attitude toward God. +But certainly, yes, if God has already revealed that for which we still +importune Him, and we are secretly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> disquieted lest His promise should +fail. It is misplaced if our own duty has to be done, and we pass the +golden moments in inactivity, however pious. Christ spoke of men who +should leave their gift before the altar, unpresented, because of a +neglected duty which should be discharged. And perhaps there are men who +pray for the conversion of the heathen, or of friends at home, to whom +God says, Wherefore criest thou unto Me? because their money and their +faithful efforts must be given, as Moses must arouse himself to lead the +people forward, and to stretch his wand over the sea.</p> + +<p>And again the forces of nature are on the side of God: the strong wind +makes the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over. History +has no scene more picturesque than this wild night march, in the roar of +tempest, amid the flying foam which “baptized” them unto Moses,<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> +while the glimmering waters stood up like a rampart to protect their +flanks; the full moon of passover above them, shown and hidden as the +swift clouds raced before the storm, while high and steadfast overhead, +unshaken by the fiercest blast, illumined by a mysterious splendour, +“stood” the vast cloud which veiled like a curtain their whole host from +the pursuer. This it was, and the experience of such protection that the +Egyptians, overawed, came not near them, which gave them courage to +enter the bed of the sea; and as they trod the strange road they found +that not only were the waters driven off the surface, but the sands were +left firm to traverse.</p> + +<p>But when the blind fury of Pharaoh, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>“hardened” against everything but +the sense that his prey was escaping, sent his army along the same +track, and this after long delay, at a crisis when every moment was +priceless, then a new element of terrible sublimity was added. Through +the pillar of cloud and fire Jehovah looked forth on the Egyptian host, +as they pressed on behind, unable to penetrate the supernatural gloom, +cold fear creeping into every heart, while the chariot wheels laboured +heavily in the wet sand. In that direful vision at last the question was +answered, “Who is Jehovah, that I should let His people go?” Now it was +the turn of those who said “Israel is entangled in the land, the +wilderness hath shut them in,” themselves to be taken in a worse net. +For at that awful gaze the iron curb of military discipline gave way; +their labouring chariots, the pride and defence of the nation, were +forsaken; and a wild cry broke out, “Let us fly from the face of Israel, +for Jehovah”—He who plagued us—“fighteth for them against the +Egyptians.” But their humiliation came too late,—for in the morning +watch, at a natural time for atmospheric changes, but in obedience to +the rod of Moses, the furious wind veered or fell, and the sea returned +to its accustomed limits; and first, as the sands beneath became +saturated, the chariots were overturned and the mail-clad charioteers +went down “like lead,” and then the hissing line of foam raced forward +and closed around and over the shrieking mob which was the pride and +strength of Egypt only an hour before.</p> + +<p>But, as the story repeats twice over, with a very natural and glad +reiteration, “the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of +the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and +on their left” (ver. 29, cf. 22).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="section">ON THE SHORE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xiv. 30, 31.</h3> + +<p>After the haste and agitation of their marvellous deliverance the +children of Israel seem to have halted for awhile at the only spot in +the neighbourhood where there is water, known as the Ayoun Musa or +springs of Moses to this day. There they doubtless brought into some +permanent shape their rudimentary organisation. There, too, their +impressions were given time to deepen. They “saw the Egyptians dead on +the sea-shore,” and realised that their oppression was indeed at an end, +their chains broken, themselves introduced into a new life,—“baptized +unto Moses.” They reflected upon the difference between all other +deities and the God of their fathers, Who, in that deadly crisis, had +looked upon them and their tyrants out of the fiery pillar. “They feared +Jehovah, and they believed in Jehovah and in His servant Moses.”</p> + +<p>“They believed in Jehovah.” This expression is noteworthy, because they +had all believed in Him already. “By faith ‘they’ forsook Egypt. By +faith ‘they’ kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood. By faith +‘they’ passed through the Red Sea.” But their former trust was poor and +wavering compared with that which filled their bosoms now. So the +disciples followed Jesus because they believed on Him; yet when His +first miracle manifested forth His glory, “His disciples believed on Him +there.” And again they said, “By this we believe that Thou camest forth +from God.” And after the resurrection He said, “Because thou hast seen +Me thou hast believed” (John ii. 11, xvi. 30, xx. 29). Faith needs to be +edified<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> by successive experiences, as the enthusiasm of a recruit is +converted into the disciplined valour of the veteran. From each new +crisis of the spiritual life the soul should obtain new powers. And that +is a shallow and unstable religion which is content with the level of +its initial act of faith (however genuine and however important), and +seeks not to go from strength to strength.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The Sea of Zuph, or reeds, the word being used of the +reeds in which Moses was laid by his mother and found by Pharaoh’s +daughter (ii. 3, 5), rendered “flags” in the Revised Version.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> But his assurance is, “The Lord shall fight for you, and +ye shall hold your peace.” When Wellhausen would summarise the work of +Moses, he tells us that “he taught them to regard self-assertion against +the Egyptians as an article of religion” (<i>History</i>, p. 430). It would +be impossible, within the compass of so many words, more completely to +miss the remarkable characteristic which differentiates this whole +narrative from all other revolutionary movements. Expectancy and +dependence here take the place of “self-assertion.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Not the adults only; nor yet by immersion, whether in the +rain-cloud or the surf.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE SONG OF MOSES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xv. 1–22.</h3> + +<p>During this halt they prepared that great song of triumph which St. John +heard sung by them who had been victorious over the beast, standing by +the sea of glass, having the harps of God. For by that calmer sea, +triumphant over a deadlier persecution, they still found their adoration +and joy expressed in this earliest chant of sacred victory. Because all +holy hearts give like thanks to Him Who sitteth upon the throne, +therefore “deep answers unto deep,” and every great crisis in the +history of the Church has legacies for all time and for eternity; and +therefore the triumphant song of Moses the servant of God enriches the +worship of heaven, as the penitence and hope and joy of David enrich the +worship of the Church on earth (Rev. xv. 3).</p> + +<p>Like all great poetry, this song is best enjoyed when it is neither +commented upon nor paraphrased, but carefully read and warmly felt. +There are circumstances and lines of thought which it is desirable to +point out, but only as a preparation, not a substitute, for the +submission of a docile mind to the influence of the inspired poem +itself. It is unquestionably archaic. The parallelism of Hebrew verse is +already here, but the structure is more free and unartificial than that +of later poetry; and many ancient words, and words of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> Egyptian +derivation, authenticate its origin. So does the description of Miriam, +in the fifteenth verse, as “the prophetess, the sister of Aaron.” In +what later time would she not rather have been called the sister of +Moses? But from the lonely youth who found Aaron and Miriam together as +often as he stole from the palace to his real home—the lonely man who +regained both together when he returned from forty years of exile, and +who sometimes found them united in opposition to his authority (Num. +xii. 1, 2)—from Moses alone the epithet is entirely natural.</p> + +<p>It is also noteworthy that Philistia is mentioned first among the foes +who shall be terrified (ver. 14, R.V.), because Moses still expected the +invasion to break first on them. But the unbelieving fears of Israel +changed the route, so that no later poet would have set them in the +forefront of his song. Thus also the terror of the Edomites is +anticipated, although in fact they sturdily refused a passage to Israel +through their land (Num. xx. 20). All this authenticates the song, which +thereupon establishes the miraculous deliverance that inspired it.</p> + +<p>The song is divided into two parts. Up to the end of the twelfth verse +it is historical: the remainder expresses the high hopes inspired by +this great experience. Nothing now seems impossible: the fiercest tribes +of Palestine and the desert may be despised, for their own terror will +suffice to “melt” them; and Israel may already reckon itself to be +guided into the holy habitation (ver. 13).</p> + +<p>The former part is again subdivided, by a noble and instinctive art, +into two very unequal sections. With amplitude of triumphant adoration, +the first ten verses tell the same story which the eleventh and twelfth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +compress into epigrammatical vigour and terseness. To appreciate the +power of the composition, one should read the fourth, fifth, and sixth +verses, and turn immediately to the twelfth.</p> + +<p>Each of these three divisions closes in praise, and as in the “Israel in +Egypt,” it was probably at these points that the voices of Miriam and +the women broke in, repeating the first verse of the ode as a refrain +(vers. 1 and 21). It is the earliest recognition of the place of women +in public worship. And it leads us to remark that the whole service was +responsive. Moses and the men are answered by Miriam and the women, +bearing timbrels in their hands; for although instrumental music had +been sorely misused in Egypt, that was no reason why it should be +excluded now. Those who condemn the use of instruments in Christian +worship virtually contend that Jesus has, in this respect, narrowed the +liberty of the Church, and that a potent method of expression, known to +man, must not be consecrated to the honour of God. And they make the +present time unlike the past, and also unlike what is revealed of the +future state.</p> + +<p>Moreover there was movement, as in very many ancient religious services, +within and without the pale of revelation.<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Such dances were +generally slow and graceful; yet the motion and the clang of metal, and +the vast multitudes congregated, must be taken into account, if we would +realise the strange enthusiasm of the emancipated host, looking over the +blue sea to Egypt, defeated and twice bereaved, and forward to the +desert wilds of freedom.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> + +<p>The poem is steeped in a sense of gratitude. In the great deliverance +man has borne no part. It is Jehovah Who has triumphed gloriously, and +cast the horse and charioteer—there was no “rider”—into the sea. And +this is repeated again and again by the women as their response, in the +deepening passion of the ode. “With the breath of His nostrils the +waters were piled up.... He blew with His wind and the sea covered +them.” And such is indeed the only possible explanation of the Exodus, +so that whoever rejects the miracle is beset with countless +difficulties. One of these is the fact that Moses, their immortal +leader, has no martial renown whatever. Hebrew poetry is well able to +combine gratitude to God with honour to the men of Zebulun who +jeopardised their lives unto the death, to Jael who put her hand to the +nail, to Saul and Jonathan who were swifter than eagles and stronger +than lions. Joshua and David can win fame without dishonour to God. Why +is it that here alone no mention is made of human agency, except that, +in fact, at the outset of their national existence, they were shown, +once for all, the direct interposition of their God?</p> + +<p>From gratitude springs trust: the great lesson is learned that man has +an interest in the Divine power. “My strength and song is Jah,” says the +second verse, using that abbreviated form of the covenant name Jehovah, +which David also frequently associated with his victories. “And He is +become my salvation.” It is the same word as when, a little while ago, +the trembling people were bidden to stand still and see the salvation of +God. They have seen it now. Now they give the word Salvation for the +first time to the Lord as an appellation, and as such it is destined to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +endure. The Psalmist learns to call Him so, not only when he reproduces +this verse word for word (Ps. cxviii. 14), but also when he says, “He +only is my rock and my salvation” (lxii. 2), and prays, “Before Ephraim, +Benjamin, and Manasseh, come for salvation to us” (lxxx. 2).</p> + +<p>And the same title is known also to Isaiah, who says, “Behold God is my +salvation,” and “Be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in +the time of trouble” (Isa. xii. 2, xxxiii. 2).</p> + +<p>The progress is natural from experience of goodness to appropriation: He +has helped me: He gives Himself to me; and from that again to love and +trust, for He has always been the same: “my father,” not my ancestors in +general, but he whom I knew best and remember most tenderly, found Him +the same Helper. And then love prompts to some return. My goodness +extendeth not to Him, yet my voice can honour Him; I will praise Him, I +will exalt His name. Now, this is the very spirit of evangelical +obedience, the life-blood of the new dispensation racing in the veins of +the old.</p> + +<p>Where praise and exaltation are a spontaneous instinct, there is loyal +service and every good work, not rendered by a hireling but a child. Had +He not said, “Israel is My son”?</p> + +<p>From exultant gratitude and trust, what is next to spring? That which is +reproachfully called anthropomorphism, something which indeed easily +degenerates into unworthy notions of a God limited by such restraints or +warped by such passions as our own, yet which is after all a great +advance towards true and holy thoughts of Him Who made man after His +image and in His likeness.</p> + +<p>Human affection cannot go forth to God without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> believing that like +affection meets and responds to it. If He is indeed the best and purest, +we must think of Him as sharing all that is best and purest in our +souls, all that we owe to His inspiring Spirit.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“So through the thunder comes a human voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saying ‘O heart I made, a heart beats here.’”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If ever any religion was sternly jealous of the Divine prerogatives, +profoundly conscious of the incommunicable dignity of the Lord our God +Who is one Lord, it was the Jewish religion. Yet when Jesus was charged +with making Himself God, He could appeal to the doctrine of their own +Scripture—that the judges of the people exercised so divine a function, +and could claim such divine support, that God Himself spoke through +them, and found representatives in them. “Is it not written in your law, +I said Ye are gods?” (John x. 34). Not in vain did He appeal to such +scriptures—and there are many such—to vindicate His doctrine. For man +is never lifted above himself, but God in the same degree stoops towards +us, and identifies Himself with us and our concerns. Who then shall +limit His condescension? What ground in reason or revelation can be +taken up for denying that it may be perfect, that it may develop into a +permanent union of God with the creature whom He inspired with His own +breath? It is by such steps that the Old Testament prepared Israel for +the Incarnation. Since the Incarnation we have actually needed help from +the other side, to prevent us from humanising our conceptions over-much. +And this has been provided in the ever-expanding views of His creation +given to us by science, which tell us that if He draws nigh to us it is +from heights formerly undreamed of. Now, such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> a step as we have been +considering is taken unawares in the bold phrase “Jehovah is a man of +war.” For in the original, as in the English, this includes the +assertion “Jehovah is a man.” Of course it is only a bold figure. But +such a figure prepares the mind for new light, suggesting more than it +logically asserts.</p> + +<p>The phrase is more striking when we remember that remarkable peculiarity +of the Exodus and its revelations which has been already pointed out. +Elsewhere God appears in human likeness. To Abraham it was so, just +before, and to Manoah soon afterwards. Ezekiel saw upon the likeness of +the throne the likeness of the appearance of a man (Ezek. i. 26). But +Israel saw no similitude, only he heard a voice. This was obviously a +safeguard against idolatry. And it makes the words more noteworthy, +“Jehovah is a man of war,” marching with us, our champion, into the +battle. And we know Him as our fathers knew Him not,—“Jehovah is His +name.”</p> + +<p class="gaptop">The poem next describes the overthrow of the enemy: the heavy plunge of +men in armour into the deeps, the arm of the Lord dashing them in +pieces, His “fire” consuming them, while the blast of His nostrils is +the storm which “piles up” the waters, solid as a wall of ice, +“congealed in the heart of the sea.” Then the singers exultantly +rehearse the short panting eager phrases, full of greedy expectation, of +the enemy breathless in pursuit—a passage well remembered by Deborah, +when her triumphant song closed by an insulting repetition of the vain +calculations of the mother of Sisera and “her wise ladies.”</p> + +<p>The eleventh verse is remarkable as being the first announcement of the +holiness of God. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>“Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness?” And +what does holiness mean? The Hebrew word is apparently suggestive of +“brightness,” and the two ideas are coupled by Isaiah (x. 17): “The +Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame.” +There is indeed something in the purity of light, in its absolute +immunity from stain—no passive cleanness, as of the sand upon the +shore, but intense and vital—and in its remoteness from the conditions +of common material substances, that well expresses and typifies the +lofty and awful quality which separates holiness from mere virtue. “God +is called the Holy One because He is altogether pure, the clear and +spotless Light; so that in the idea of the holiness of God there are +embodied the absolute moral purity and perfection of the Divine nature, +and His unclouded glory” (Keil, <i>Pent.</i>, ii. 99). In this thought there +is already involved separation, a lofty remoteness.</p> + +<p>And when holiness is attributed to man, it never means innocence, nor +even virtue, merely as such. It is always a derived attribute: it is +reflected upon us, like light upon our planet; and like consecration, it +speaks not of man in himself, but in his relation to God. It expresses a +kind of separation to God, and thus it can reach to lifeless things +which bear a true relation to the Divine. The seventh day is thus +“hallowed.” It is the very name of the “Holy Place,” the “Sanctuary.” +And the ground where Moses was to stand unshod beside the burning bush +was pronounced “holy,” not by any concession to human weakness, but by +the direct teaching of God. Very inseparable from all true holiness is +separation from what is common and unclean. Holy men may be involved in +the duties of active life; but only on condition that in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> their bosom +shall be some inner shrine, whither the din of worldliness never +penetrates, and where the lamp of God does not go out.</p> + +<p>It is a solemn truth that a kind of inverted holiness is known to +Scripture. Men “sanctify themselves” (it is this very word), “and purify +themselves to go into the gardens, ... eating swine’s flesh and the +abomination and the mouse” (Isa. lxvi. 17). The same word is also used +to declare that the whole fruit of a vineyard sown with two kinds of +fruit shall be <i>forfeited</i> (Deut. xxii. 9), although the notion there is +of something unnatural and therefore interdicted, which notion is +carried to the utmost extreme in another derivative from the same root, +expressing the most depraved of human beings.</p> + +<p>Just so, the Greek word “anathema” means both “consecrated” and “marked +out for wrath” (Luke xxi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 22: the difference in form is +insignificant.) And so again our own tongue calls the saints “devoted,” +and speaks of the “devoted” head of the doomed sinner, being aware that +there is a “separation” in sin as really as in purity. The gods of the +heathen, like Jehovah, claimed an appropriate “holiness,” sometimes +unspeakably degraded. They too were separated, and it was through long +lines of sphinxes, and many successive chambers, that the Egyptian +worshipper attained the shrine of some contemptible or hateful deity. +The religion which does not elevate depresses. But the holiness of +Jehovah is noble as that of light, incapable of defilement. “Who among +the gods is like Thee ... glorious in holiness?” And Israel soon learned +that the worshipper must become assimilated to his Ideal: “Ye shall be +holy men unto Me” (xxii. 31). It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> so with us. Jesus is separated from +sinners. And we are to go forth unto Him out of the camp, bearing His +reproach (Heb. vii. 26, xiii. 13).</p> + +<p>The remainder of the song is remarkable chiefly for the confidence with +which the future is inferred from the past. And the same argument runs +through all Scripture. As Moses sang, “Thou shalt bring them in and +plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,” because “Thou +stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> swallowed” their enemies, +so David was sure that goodness and mercy should follow him all the days +of his life, because God was already leading him in green pastures and +beside still waters. And so St. Paul, knowing in Whom he had believed, +was persuaded that He was able to keep his deposit until that day (2 +Tim. i. 12).</p> + +<p>So should pardon and Scripture and the means of grace reassure every +doubting heart; for “if the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not +have ... showed us all these things” (Judg. xiii. 23). And in theory, +and in good hours, we confess that this is so. But after our song of +triumph, if we come upon bitter waters we murmur; and if our bread fail, +we expect only to die in the wilderness.</p> + +<h3 class="section">SHUR.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xv. 22–7.</h3> + +<p>From the Red Sea the Israelites marched into the wilderness of Shur—a +general name, of Egyptian origin, for the district between Egypt and +Palestine, of which Etham, given as their route in Numbers (xxxiii. 8), +is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> a subdivision. The rugged way led over stone and sand, with little +vegetation and no water. And the “three days’ journey” to Marah, a +distance of thirty-three miles, was their first experience of absolute +hardship, for not even the curtain of miraculous cloud could prevent +them from suffering keenly by heat and thirst.</p> + +<p>It was a period of disillusion. Fond dreams of ease and triumphant +progress, with every trouble miraculously smoothed away, had naturally +been excited by their late adventure. Their song had exulted in the +prospect that their enemies should melt away, and be as still as a +stone. But their difficulties did not melt away. The road was weary. +They found no water. They were still too much impressed by the miracle +at the Red Sea, and by the mysterious Presence overhead, for open +complaining to be heard along the route; but we may be sure that +reaction had set in, and there was many a sinking heart, as the dreary +route stretched on and on, and they realised that, however romantic the +main plan of their journey, the details might still be prosaic and +exacting. They sang praises unto Him. They soon forgat His works. Aching +with such disappointments, at last they reached the waters of Marah, and +they could not drink, for they were bitter.</p> + +<p>And if Marah be indeed Huwara, as seems to be agreed, the waters are +still the worst in all the district. It was when the relief, so +confidently expected, failed, and the term of their sufferings appeared +to be indefinitely prolonged, that their self-control gave way, and they +“murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?” And we may be +sure that wherever discontent and unbelief are working secret mischief +to the soul, some event, some disappointment or temptation, will find +the weak point, and the favourable moment of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> attack, just as the seeds +of disease find out the morbid constitution, and assail it.</p> + +<p>Now, all this is profoundly instructive, because it is true to the +universal facts of human nature. When a man is promoted to unexpected +rank, or suddenly becomes rich, or reaches any other unlooked-for +elevation, he is apt to forget that life cannot, in any position, be a +romance throughout, a long thrill, a whole song at the top note of the +voice. Affection itself has a dangerous moment, when two united lives +begin to realise that even their union cannot banish aches and +anxieties, weariness and business cares. Well for them if they are +content with the power of love to sweeten what it cannot remove, as +loyal soldiers gladly sacrifice all things for the cause, and as Israel +should have been proud to endure forced marches under the cloudy banner +of its emancipating God.</p> + +<p>As neither rank nor affection exempts men from the dust and tedium of +life, or from its disappointments, so neither does religion. When one is +“made happy” he expects life to be only a triumphal procession towards +Paradise, and he is startled when “now for a season, if need be, he is +in heaviness through manifold temptations.” Yet Christ prayed not that +we should be taken out of the world. We are bidden to endure hardness as +good soldiers, and to run with patience the race which is set before us; +and these phrases indicate our need of the very qualities wherein Israel +failed. As yet the people murmured not ostensibly against God, but only +against Moses. But the estrangement of their hearts is plain, since they +made no appeal to God for relief, but assailed His agent and +representative. Yet they had not because they asked not, and relief was +found when Moses cried unto the Lord. Their leader was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> “faithful in all +his house”; and instead of upbraiding his followers with their +ingratitude, or bewailing the hard lot of all leaders of the multitude, +whose popularity neither merit nor service can long preserve unclouded, +he was content to look for sympathy and help where we too may find it.</p> + +<p>We read that the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the +waters, the waters were made sweet. In this we discern the same union of +Divine grace with human energy and use of means, as in all medicine, and +indeed all uses of the divinely enlightened intellect of man. It would +have been easy to argue that the waters could only be healed by miracle, +and if God wrought a miracle what need was there of human labour? There +was need of obedience, and of the co-operation of the human will with +the divine. We shall see, in the case of the artificers of the +tabernacle, that God inspires even handicraftsmen as well as +theologians—being indeed the universal Light, the Giver of all good, +not only of Bibles, but of rain and fruitful seasons. But the artisan +must labour, and the farmer improve the soil.</p> + +<p>Shall we say with the fathers that the tree cast into the waters +represents the cross of Christ? At least it is a type of the sweetening +and assuaging influences of religion—a new element, entering life, and +as well fitted to combine with it as medicinal bark with water, making +all wholesome and refreshing to the disappointed wayfarer, who found it +so bitter hitherto.</p> + +<p>The Lord was not content with removing the grievance of the hour; He +drew closer the bonds between His people and Himself, to guard them +against another transgression of the kind: <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>“there He made for them a +statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them.” It is pure +assumption to pretend that this refers to another account of the giving +of the Jewish law, inconsistent with that in the twentieth chapter, and +placed at Marah instead of Sinai.<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> It is a transaction which +resembles much rather the promises given (and at various times, although +confusion and repetition cannot be inferred) to Abraham and Jacob (Gen. +xii. 1–3, xv. 1, 18–21, xvii. 1–14, xxii. 15–18, xxviii. 13–15, xxxv. +10–12). He said, “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the +Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His eyes, and wilt give +ear to His commandments, and wilt keep all His statutes, I will put none +of the diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am +the Lord which healeth thee.” It is a compact of obedient trust on one +side, and protection on the other. If they felt their own sinfulness, it +asserted that He who had just healed the waters could also heal their +hearts. From the connection between these is perhaps derived the +comparison between human hearts and a fountain of sweet water or bitter +(Jas. iii. 11).</p> + +<p>But certainly the promised protection takes an unexpected shape. What in +their circumstances leads to this specific offer of exemption from +certain foul diseases—“the boil of Egypt, and the emerods, and the +scurvy, and the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed” (Deut. xxviii. +27)? How does this meet the case? Doubtless by reminding them that there +are better exemptions than from hardship, and worse evils than +privations. If they do not realise this at the spiritual level, at least +they can appreciate the threat that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>“He will bring upon thee again all +the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of” (Deut. xxviii. 60). To +be even a luxurious and imperial race, but infected by repulsive and +hopeless ailments, is not a desirable alternative. Now, such evils, +though certainly not in each individual, yet in a race, are the +punishments of non-natural conditions of life, such as make the blood +run slowly and unhealthily, and charge it with impure deposits. It was +God who put them upon the Egyptians.</p> + +<p>If Israel would follow His guidance, and accept a somewhat austere +destiny, then the desert air and exercise, and even its privations, +would become the efficacious means for their exemption from the scourges +of indulgence. A time arrived when they looked back with remorse upon +crimes which forfeited their immunity, when the Lord said, “I have sent +among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt; your young men have +I slain with the sword” (Amos iv. 10).</p> + +<p>But it is a significant fact that at this day, after eighteen hundred +years of oppression, hardship, and persecution, of the ghetto and the +old-clothes trade, the Hebrew race is proverbially exempt from repulsive +and contagious disease. They also “certainly do enjoy immunity from the +ravages of cholera, fever and smallpox in a remarkable degree. Their +blood seems to be in a different condition from that of other people.... +They seem less receptive of disease caused by blood poisoning than +others” (<i>Journal of Victoria Institute</i>, xxi. 307). Imperfect as was +their obedience, this covenant at least has been literally fulfilled to +them.</p> + +<p>It is by such means that God is wont to reward His children. Most +commonly the seal of blessing from the skies is not rich fare, but bread +and fish by the lake side with the blessing of Christ upon them; not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +removal from the desert, but a closer sense of the protection and +acceptance of Heaven, the nearness of a loving God, and with this, an +elevation and purification of the life, and of the body as well as of +the soul. Not in vain has St. Paul written “The Lord for the body.” Nor +was there ever yet a race of men who accepted the covenant of God, and +lived in soberness, temperance and chastity, without a signal +improvement of the national physique, no longer unduly stimulated by +passion, jaded by indulgence, or relaxed by the satiety which resembles +but is not repose.</p> + +<p>From Marah and its agitations there was a journey of but a few hours to +Elim, with its twelve fountains and seventy palm trees—a fair oasis, by +which they encamped and rested, while their flocks spread far and wide +over a grassy and luxuriant valley.</p> + +<p>The picture is still true to the Christian life, with the Palace +Beautiful just beyond the lions, and the Delectable Mountains next after +Doubting Castle.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> There is no warrant in the use of Scripture for Stanley’s +assertion that the word translated “dances” should be rendered +“guitars.” (Smith’s <i>Dict. of Bible</i>, Article <i>Miriam</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> This is to be taken literally; it does not mean the waves, +but the quicksands in which they “drave heavily,” and which, when +steeped in the returning waters, engulfed them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Wellhausen, <i>Israel</i>, p. 439.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">MURMURING FOR FOOD.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xvi. 1–14.</h3> + +<p>The Israelites were now led farther away from all the associations of +their accustomed life. From the waters and the palms of Elim they +marched deeper into the savage recesses of the desert, haunted by fierce +and hostile tribes, such as presently hung upon their rear-guard and cut +off their stragglers (Deut. xxv. 18). Nor had they quite emerged from +the shadow of their old oppressions, since Egyptian garrisons were +scattered, though sparsely, through this district, in which gems and +copper were obtained. Here, cut off from all natural modes of +sustenance, the hearts of the people failed them. Such is the frequent +experience of renewed souls, when privilege and joy are followed by +trouble from without or from within, and the peace of God is broken by +the strife of tongues, by mental perplexities, by temptations, by +physical pain. It is quite as wonderful that paltry disturbances should +mar for us the life divine, when once that life has become a realised +experience, as that men who moved under the shadow of the marvellous +cloud could be agitated by fear for their supplies. And of this our +experience, what befel Israel is not a mere type or symbol, it is a case +in point, a parallel example. For it also meant the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> breaking-in of the +flesh upon the spirit, the refusal of fallen nature to rise above +earthly wants and cravings even in the light of trust and acceptance, +the self-assertion of the baser instincts, and the sacrifice to them of +the higher life. We recognise the herd of slaves, from whence it must +perplex the unbeliever to remember that the seed of immortal heroism and +prophetic insight and apostolic service was yet to ripen, in their poor +desire, if they must perish, to perish well fed rather than emancipated +(ver. 3). Most people, we may fear, would choose to live enslaved rather +than to die free men. But there is a special meanness in their regret, +since die they must, that they had not died satiated, like the firstborn +whom God had slain: “Would that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in +the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots and when we ate bread +to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill +this whole assembly with hunger.” And to-day, among those who scorn +them, how many are far less ambitious of dying holy and pure than rich, +famous or powerful, having glutted their vanity if not their appetite. +In the sight of angels this is not a much loftier aim; and the apostle +reckoned among the works of the flesh, emulation as well as drunkenness +(Gal. v. 19–21).</p> + +<p>Tertullian draws a striking contrast between Israel, just now baptized +into Moses, but caring more for appetite than for God, and Christ, after +His baptism, also in the desert, fasting forty days. “The Lord +figuratively retorted upon Israel His reproach” (<i>Baptism</i>, xx.)</p> + +<p>We are not to suppose that but for their complaining God would have +suffered them to hunger, although Moses declared that the reason why +flesh should be given to them in the evening, and in the morning bread<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +to the full, is “for that the Lord heareth your murmurings.” But there +would have been some difference in the time of the grant, to ripen their +faith, some more direct manifestation of His grace, to reward their +patience, if unbelief had not precipitated His design. Thus the +disciples, when they awakened Jesus in the storm, received the rescue +for which they clamoured, but forfeited some higher experience which +would have crowned a serener confidence: “Wherefore did ye doubt?” +Israel receives what is best in the circumstances, rather than the ideal +best, now made unsuitable by their impatience and infidelity. But while +the Lord discontinued the test of need and penury, which had proved to +be too severe a discipline, He substituted the test of fulness. For we +read that the removal of their suspense and anxiety by the gift of manna +from heaven was “to prove them whether they will walk in My laws or no” +(ver. 4). And in so doing it was seen that worldly and unthankful +natures are not to be satisfied; that the disloyal at heart will +complain, however favoured. For “the children of Israel wept again and +said, Who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did +eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and +the onions and the garlick: but now our soul is dried away; there is +nothing at all: we have nought save this manna to look to” (Num. xi. +4–6). Onions and garlick were more satisfactory to gross appetites than +angels’ food.</p> + +<p>At this point we learn that what is called prosperity may indeed be a +result of spiritual failure; that God may sometimes abstain from strong +measures with a soul because what ought to mould would only crush; and +may grant them their hearts’ lust, yet send leanness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> withal into their +souls. Perhaps we are allowed to be comfortable because we are unfit to +be heroic.</p> + +<p>And we also learn, when prosperous, to remember that plenty, equally +with want, has its moral aspect. The Lord tries fortunate men, whether +they will be grateful and obedient, trusting in Him and not in uncertain +riches, or whether they will forget Him who has done so great things for +them, and so perish in calm weather—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Like ships that have gone down at sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When heaven was all tranquillity.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There is an experiment being tried upon the soul, curious, slow, +little-suspected, but incessant, in the giving of daily bread.</p> + +<p>In promising relief, God required of them obedience and self-control. +They were to respect the Sabbath, and make provision in advance for its +requirements. And this direction, given before the Mount of the Lord was +reached, has an important bearing upon the question whether the Fourth +Commandment was the first institution of a holy day—whether, except as +a Church ordinance, the duty of sabbath-keeping has no support beyond +the ceremonial law. “For that the Lord hath (already) given you the +Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days” +(ver. 29).</p> + +<p>While conveying the promise of relief, Moses and Aaron rebuked the +people, whose murmurs against them were in reality murmurs against God, +since they were but His agents, and He had been visibly their Leader. +And the same rebuke applies, for exactly the same reason, to many a +modern complaint against the weather, against what people call their +“luck,” against a thousand provoking things in which the only possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +provocation must come directly from heaven. It is because our religion +is so shallow, and our consciousness of God in His world so dim and +rudimentary, that we utter such complaints idly, to relieve our +feelings, and hear them spoken without a shock.</p> + +<p>Such dulness is not to be removed by sounder views of doctrine, but by a +more vivid realisation of God. The Israelites knew by what hand they +should have fallen if they had died in Egypt; yet in fact they forgot +their true Captain, and upbraided their mortal leaders. So do we confess +that afflictions arise not out of the ground, yet lose the impress of +divinity upon our daily lives, while we ought, like Moses, to “endure as +seeing Him who is invisible.”</p> + +<p>As our Lord was in the habit of asking for some confession, or demanding +some small co-operation from those He was about to bless, so the smoking +flax of Hebrew faith is tended: it is a promise, and not the actual +relief, which calms them. There is a curious difference in the manner of +the communications now made to the people. First of all the two brothers +unite their energies to hush their outcries: “At evening ye shall know +that Jehovah is your leader from Egypt, and in the morning ye shall +behold His glory; and what are we, that ye murmur against us?” Then +Moses affirms, with all the energy of his chieftainship, that in the +evening they shall eat flesh, and in the morning bread to the full. +Again he asks them “What are we?” and more sternly and directly charges +them with murmuring against Jehovah. And this is a good example of the +true meaning of his “meekness.” He is fiery enough, but not for his own +greatness; rather because he feels his littleness, and that the offence +is entirely against God, does he resent their conduct; absence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +self-assertion is his “meekness,” and thus we read of it when Miriam and +Aaron spake against him, declaring that they were commissioned as well +as he (Num. xii. 3). Finally, when order was restored, and some +mysterious manifestation was at hand, he resumed the solemn and formal +usage of conveying his orders through his brother, and in cold, compact, +impressive words, said unto Aaron, “Say unto all the congregation of the +children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He hath heard your +murmurings.” All this is very dignified and natural. And so is—what +after ages could scarcely have invented—the impressive reticence of +what follows. “They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory +of the Lord appeared in the cloud.”</p> + +<p>Were they not then intended to “come near”? and was it as they turned +their faces to draw nigh that the Vision revealed itself and stopped +them? And what was the untold sight which they beheld? The narrative +belongs to a primitive age; it is quite unlike the elaborate symbolisms +of Ezekiel and Daniel, or even of Isaiah, but yet this undescribed, +mystic and solitary glory is not less sublime than the train which +covered the Temple-floor, while, hovering above it, reverent seraphim +veiled their faces and their feet, or the terrible crystal and the +wheels of dreadful height, or the throne of flame whence issued a fiery +stream, and before which thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads +stood (Isa. vi. 2; Ezek. i. 22, 18; Dan. vii. 9, 10). But the point to +observe is that it is different, more primitive, an undefined and lonely +vision of awe well fitted for the desert wilds and for the gaze of men +whose hearts must not be misled by the likeness of anything in heaven or +earth; the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> (most probably, but +not of necessity, the cloud which guided them), and in the direction +whence they were so fain to turn away.</p> + +<p>No later inventor would have known how to say so little, much less to +make that little harmonise so exactly with the lessons meant to be +suggested by the wild and solemn solitudes into which they were now +plunged.</p> + +<p>And now the Lord Himself repeats the promise of relief, but first +solemnly announces that He is not heedless of their ill-behaviour while +He tolerates it. The question is suggested, although not asked, How long +will His forbearance last?</p> + +<p>Well for them if they learn the lesson, and “know that I am Jehovah your +God,” mindful of their needs, entitled to their fealty. In the evening, +therefore, came a flight of quails; and in the morning they found a +small round thing, small as the hoar-frost, upon the ground.</p> + +<h3 class="section">MANNA.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xvi. 15–36.</h3> + +<p>The manna which miraculously supplied the wants of Israel was to them an +utterly strange food, the use of which they had to learn. Thus it was +another means of severing their habitual course of life and association +of ideas from their degraded past. And while we may not press too far +the assertion that it was the “corn of heaven” and “angels’ food” +(<i>i.e.</i> “the bread of the mighty”—Psalm lxxviii. 24–5, R.V.), yet the +narrative shows, even without help from later scriptures, that it was +calculated to sustain their energies and yet to leave their appetites +unstimulated and unpampered. For they were now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> called to purer joys +than those of the senses—to liberty, a divine vocation, the presence of +God, the revelation of His law and the unfolding of His purposes. +Failing to rise to these heights, they fell far, murmured again, and +perished by the destroyer, not merely to avenge the petulance of an +hour, but for all that it betrayed, for treason to their vocation and +radical inability to even comprehend its meaning. In the language of +modern science, it answered to Nature’s rejection of the unfit.</p> + +<p>Their calling was thus, though under very different forms, that which +the apostles found so hard, yet did not quite refuse: it was to mind the +things of God and not the things of men.</p> + +<p>It is well known that the manna of the Israelites bore some resemblance +to a natural product of the wilderness, still exuded by certain plants +during the coolness of the night, and formerly more plentiful than now, +when all vegetation has been ruthlessly swept away by the Bedouin. But +the differences are much greater than the resemblance. The natural +product is a drug, and not a food; it is gathered only during some weeks +of summer; it is not liable to speedy corruption, nor could there be any +reason for preserving a specimen of this common product in the ark; it +could not have sufficed, however aided by their herds and flocks, to +feed one in a hundred of the Hebrew multitudes, even during the season +of its production; nor could it have ceased on the same day when they +ate the first ripe corn of Canaan.</p> + +<p>And yet the resemblance is suggestive. Unbelievers find, in the links +which connect most of our Scripture miracles with nature, in the +undefined and gradual transition from one to the other, as from a +temperate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> day to night, an excuse for denying that they are miraculous +at all. But the instructed believer finds a confirmation of his faith. +He reflects that when Fancy begins to toy with the supernatural, she +spurns nature from her: the trammels under which she has long chafed are +hateful to her, and she flies from them to the utmost extreme.</p> + +<p>It could not be thus with Him by whom the system of the world was +framed. He will not wantonly interfere with His own plan. He will regard +nature as an elastic band to stretch, rather than as a chain to break. +If He will multiply food, in the New Testament, that is no reason why +His disciples should fare more delicately than Providence intended for +them: they shall still eat barley loaves and fish. And so the winds help +to overthrow Pharaoh and to bring the quails; and when a new thing has +to be created, it approaches in its general idea to one of the few +natural products of that inhospitable region.</p> + +<p>Now let it be supposed for a moment that the supply of manna had never +ceased, so that until this day men could every morning gather a day’s +ration off the ground. Such continuance of the provision would not make +it any the less a gift; but only a more lavish boon. And yet it would +clearly cease to be regarded as miraculous, an exception to the course +of nature, miscalled her “laws,” since men do strive to subvert the +miracle by representing that such manna, however scantily, may still be +found. And this may expose the folly of a wish, probably sometimes felt +by all men, that some miracle had actually been perpetuated, so that we +could strengthen our faith at pleasure by looking upon an exhibition of +divine power. In truth, no marvel could excel that which annually +multiplies the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> corn beneath the clod, and by the process of decay in +springtime feeds the world in autumn. Only its steady recurrence throws +a veil over our eyes; and it is a vain conceit that the same web would +not be woven by use between man and the Worker of any other marvel that +was perpetuated. Already the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord, +for all who have eyes to see.</p> + +<p>It is also to be observed that the manna was not given to teach the +people sloth. They were obliged to gather it early, before the sun was +hot. They had still to endure weary marches, and the care of their +flocks and herds.</p> + +<p>And, in curious harmony with the manner of all the gifts of nature, the +manna sent from heaven had yet to be prepared by man: “bake that which +ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will seethe.” Thus God, by +natural means and by the sweat of our brow, gives us our daily bread; +and all knowledge, art and culture are His gifts, although elaborated by +the brain and heart of generations whom He taught.</p> + +<p>Moreover, there was a protest against the grasping, unbelieving temper +which cannot trust God with to-morrow, but longs to have much goods laid +up. That is the temper which forfeits the smile of God, and grinds the +faces of the poor, to make an ignoble “provision” for the future. How +often, since the time of Moses, has the unblessed accumulation become +hateful! How often, since the time of St. James, the rust of such +possession has eaten the flesh like fire! Men would be far more +generous, the difference between wealth and poverty would be less +portentous, and the resources of religion and charity less crippled, if +we lived in the spirit of the Lord’s prayer, desirous of the advance of +the kingdom, but not asking to be given<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> to-morrow’s bread until +to-morrow. That lesson was taught by the manner of the dispensation of +the manna, but the covetousness of Israel would not learn it. The people +actually strove to be dishonest in their enjoyment of a miracle. It is +no wonder that Moses was wroth with them.</p> + +<p>Among the strange properties of their supernatural food not the least +curious was this: that when they came to measure what they had +collected, and compare it with what Moses had bidden,<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> the most eager +and able-bodied had nothing over, and the feeblest had no lack. Every +real worker was supplied, and none was glutted. This result is +apparently miraculous. St. Paul’s use of it does not, as some have +supposed, represent it as a result of Hebrew benevolence, sharing with +the weak the more abundant supplies of the strong: the miracle is not +cited as an example of charity, but of that practical equality, divinely +approved, which Christian charity should reproduce; the Christian Church +is bidden to do voluntarily what was done by miracle in the wilderness: +“your abundance being a supply at this present time for their want, that +their abundance also may become a supply for your want, that there may +be equality; as it is written, He that gathered much had nothing over, +and he that gathered little had no lack” (2 Cor. viii. 15).</p> + +<p>It is quite in vain to appeal to this passage in favour of socialistic +theories. In the first place it applies only to the necessities of +existence; and even granting that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> the state should enforce the +principle to which it points, the duty would not extend beyond a liberal +poor rate. When contributions were afterwards demanded for the +sanctuary, there is no trace of a dead level in their resources: the +rulers gave the gems and spices and oil, some brought gold, with some +were found blue and linen and skins, and others had acacia-wood to offer +(xxxv. 22–4).</p> + +<p>In the second place, this arrangement was only temporary; and while the +soil of Canaan was distinctly claimed for the Lord, the enjoyment of it +by individuals was secured, and perpetuated in their families, by +stringent legislation. Now, land is the kind of property which +socialists most vehemently assail; but persons who appeal to Exodus must +submit to the authority of Judges.</p> + +<p>Socialism, therefore, and its coercive measures, find no more real +sanction here than in the Church of Jerusalem, where the property of +Ananias was his own, and the price of it in his own power. But yet it is +highly significant that in both Testaments, as the Church of God starts +upon its career, an example should be given of the effacing of +inequalities, in the one case by miracle, in the other by such a +voluntary movement as best becomes the gospel. Is not such a movement, +large and free, the true remedy for our modern social distractions and +calamities? Would it not be wise and Christ-like for the rich to give, +as St. Paul taught the Corinthians to give, what the law could never +wisely exact from them? Would not self-denial, on a scale to imply real +sacrifice, and fulfilling in spirit rather than letter the apostle’s +aspiration for “equality,” secure in return the enthusiastic adhesion to +the rights of property of all that is best and noblest among the poor?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> + +<p>When will the world, or even the Church, awaken to the great truth that +our politics also need to be steeped in Christian feeling—that humanity +requires not a revolution but a pentecost—that a millennium cannot be +enacted, but will dawn whenever human bosoms are emptied of selfishness +and lust, and filled with brotherly kindness and compassion? Such, and +no more, was the socialism which St. Paul deduced from the equality in +the supply of manna.</p> + +<h3 class="section">SPIRITUAL MEAT.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xvi. 15–36.</h3> + +<p>Since the journey of Israel is throughout full of sacred meaning, no one +can fail to discern a mystery in the silent ceaseless daily miracle of +bread-giving. But we are not left to our conjectures. St. Paul calls +manna “spiritual meat,” not because it nourished the higher life (for +the eaters of it murmured for flesh, and were not estranged from their +lust), but because it answered to realities of the spiritual world (1 +Cor. x. 3). And Christ Himself said, “It was not Moses that gave you the +bread out of heaven, but My Father giveth you the true Bread from +heaven,” making manna the type of sustenance which the soul needs in the +wilderness, and which only God can give (John vi. 32).</p> + +<p>We note the time of its bestowal. The soul has come forth out of its +bondage. Perhaps it imagines that emancipation is enough: all is won +when its chains are broken: there is to be no interval between the Egypt +of sin and the Promised Land of milk and honey and repose. Instead of +this serene attainment, it finds that the soul requires to be fed, and +no food is to be seen, but only a wilderness of scorching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> heat, dry +sand, vacancy, and hunger. Old things have passed away, but it is not +yet realised that all things have become new. Religion threatens to +become a vast system for the removal of accustomed indulgences and +enjoyments, but where is the recompense for all that it forbids? The +soul cries out for food: well for it if the cry be not faithless, nor +spoken to earthly chiefs alone!</p> + +<p>There is a noteworthy distinction between the gift of manna and every +other recorded miracle of sustenance. In Eden the fruit of immortality +was ripening upon an earthly tree. The widow of Zarephath was fed from +her own stores. The ravens bore to Elijah ordinary bread and flesh; and +if an angel fed him, it was with a cake baken upon coals. Christ Himself +was content to multiply common bread and fish, and even after His +resurrection gave His apostles the fare to which they were accustomed. +Thus they learned that the divine life must be led amid the ordinary +conditions of mortality. Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in +the likeness of sinful flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing +of a new life, a strange and unknown energy, to man.</p> + +<p>And here, almost at the beginning of revelation, is typified, not the +homely conditions of the inner life, but its unearthly nature and +essence. Here is no multiplication of their own stores, no gift, like +the quails, of such meat as they were wont to gather. They asked “What +is it?” And this teaches the Christian that his sustenance is not of +this world. They were fed “with manna which they knew not ... to make +them know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that +proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live” (Deut. viii. 3). The +root of worldliness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> is not in this indulgence or that, in gay clothing +or an active career; but in the soul’s endeavour to draw its nourishment +from things below. And spirituality belongs not to an uncouth +vocabulary, nor to the robes of any confraternity, to rigid rules or +austere deportment; it is the blessedness of a life nourished upon the +bread of heaven, and doomed to starve if that bread be not bestowed. Let +not the wealthy find an insuperable bar to spirituality in his +condition, nor the poor suppose that indigence cannot have its treasure +upon earth; but let each man ask whence come his most real and practical +impulses and energies upon life’s journey. If these flow from even the +purest earthly source—love of wife or child, anything else than +communion with the Father of spirits, this is not the bread of life, and +can no more nourish a pilgrim towards eternity than the husks which +swine eat.</p> + +<p>There is no mistaking the doctrine of the New Testament as to what this +bread may be. By prayer and faith, by ordinances and sacraments rightly +used, the manna may be gathered; but Jesus Himself is the Bread of life, +His Flesh is meat indeed and His Blood is drink indeed, and He gives His +Flesh for the life of the world. Christ is the Vine, and we are the +branches, fruitful only by the sap which flows from Him. As there are +diseases which cannot be overcome by powerful drugs, but by a generous +and wholesome dietary, so is it with the diseases of the soul—pride, +anger, selfishness, falsehood, lust. As the curse of sin is removed by +the faith which appropriates pardon, so its power is broken by the +steady personal acceptance of Christ; and our Bread and Wine are His new +humanity, given to us, until He becomes the second Father of the race, +which is begotten again in Him. An easy temper is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> not Christian +meekness; dislike to witness pain is not Christian love. All our +goodness must strike root deeper than in the sensibilities, must be +nourished by the communication to us of the mind which was in Christ +Jesus.</p> + +<p>And this food is universally given, and universally suitable. The strong +and the weak, the aged chieftain and little children, ate and were +nourished. No stern decree excluded any member of the visible Church in +the wilderness from sharing the bread from heaven: they did eat the same +spiritual meat, provided only that they gathered it. Their part was to +be in earnest in accepting, and so is ours; but if we fail, whom shall +we blame except ourselves? In the mystery of its origin, in the silent +and secret mode of its descent from above, in the constancy of its +bestowal, and in its suitability for all the camp, for Moses and the +youngest child, the manna prefigured Christ.</p> + +<p>Every day a fresh supply had to be laid up, and nothing could be held +over from the largest hoard. So it is with us: we must give ourselves to +Christ for ever, but we must ask Him daily to give Himself to us. The +richest experience, the purest aspiration, the humblest self-abandonment +that was ever felt, could not reach forward to supply the morrow. Past +graces will become loathsome if used instead of present supplies from +heaven. And the secret of many a scandalous fall is that the unhappy +soul grew self-confident: unlike St. Paul, he reckoned that he had +already attained; and thereupon the graces in which he trusted became +corrupt and vile.</p> + +<p>The constant supply was not more needful than it was abundant. The manna +lay all around the camp: the Bread of Life is He who stands at our door +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> knocks. Alas for those who murmur for grosser indulgences! Israel +demanded and obtained them; but while the flesh was in their nostrils +the angel of the Lord went forth and smote them. Is there no plague any +longer for the perverse? What are the discords that convulse families, +the uncurbed passions to which nothing is sacred, the jaded appetite and +weary discontent which hates the world even as it hates itself? what but +the judgment of God upon those who despise His provision, and must needs +gratify themselves? Be it our happiness, as it is our duty, to trust Him +to prepare our table before us, while He leads us to His Holy Land.</p> + +<p>The Lord of the Sabbath already taught His people to respect His day. +Upon it no manna fell; and we shall hereafter see the bearing of this +incident upon the question whether the Sabbath is only an ordinance of +Judaism. Meanwhile they who went out to gather had a sharp lesson in the +difference between faith, which expects what God has promised, and +presumption, which hopes not to lose much by disobeying Him.</p> + +<p>Lastly, an omer of manna was to be kept throughout all generations, +before the Testimony. Grateful remembrance of past mercies, temporal as +well as spiritual, was to connect itself with the deepest and most awful +mysteries of religion. So let it be with us. The bitter proverb that +eaten bread is soon forgotten must never be true of the Christian. He is +to remember all the way that the Lord his God hath led him. He is bidden +to “forget not all His benefits, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who +healeth all thy diseases ... Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things.” +So foolish is the slander that religion is too transcendental for the +common life of man.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The “omer” of this passage is not mentioned elsewhere in +Scripture: it is known to have been the one-hundredth part of the homer +with which careless readers sometimes confuse it, and its capacity is +variously estimated, from somewhat under half a gallon to somewhat above +three-quarters.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">MERIBAH.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xvii. 1–7.</h3> + +<p>The people, miraculously fed, are therefore called to exhibit more +confidence in God than hitherto, because much is required of him to whom +much is given. They have now to plunge deeper into the wilderness; and +after two stages which Exodus omits (Num. xxxiii. 12, 13), and just as +they approach the mount of God, they find themselves without water. Even +the Son of Man Himself was led into the wilderness next after the +descent of the Spirit, and the avowal by the voice of God; nor is any +true Christian to marvel if his seasons of special privilege are +succeeded by special demands upon his firmness.</p> + +<p>One finds himself conjecturing, very often, what nobler history, what +grander analogies between type and antitype, what more gracious and +lavish interpositions might have instructed us, if only the type had +been less woefully imperfect—if Israel had been trustful as Moses was, +and the crude material had not marred the design.</p> + +<p>It would be more practical and edifying to reflect how often we +ourselves, like Israel, might have learned and exemplified deep things +of the grace of God, when all we really exhibited was the well-worn +lesson of human frailty and divine forbearance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the story of our Lord, it has been observed that before the Pharisees +directly assailed Himself, they found fault with His disciples who +fasted not, or accosted them concerning Him Who ate with sinners. And so +here the people really tempted God, but openly “strove with Moses,” and +with Aaron too, for the verb is a plural one: “Give <i>ye</i> water” (ver. +2).</p> + +<p>But as Aaron is merely an agent and spokesman, the chief value of this +tacit allusion to him, besides proving his fidelity, is to refute the +notion that he sinks into comparative obscurity only after the sin of +the golden calf. Already his position is one to be indicated rather than +expressed; and Moses said, “Why do ye quarrel with me? wherefore do ye +try the Lord?”</p> + +<p>But the frenzy rose higher: it was he, and not a higher One, who had +brought them out of Egypt; the upshot of it would only be “to kill us, +and our children, and our cattle, with thirst.”</p> + +<p>Look closely at this expression, and a curious significance discloses +itself. Was it mere covetousness, the spirit of the Jew Shylock +lamenting in one breath his daughter and his ducats, which introduced +the cattle along with the children into this complaint of dying men? +Shylock himself, when death actually looked him in the face, readily +sacrificed his fortune. Nor is it credible that a large number of +people, really believing that a horrible death was imminent, would have +spent any complaints upon their property. The language is exactly that +of angry exaggeration. They have come through straits quite as +desperate, and they know it well. It is not the fear of death, but the +painful delay of rescue, the discomfort and misery of their condition in +the meanwhile, the contrast between their sufferings and their own +conception of the rights of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> favourites of heaven, which is audible +in this complaint. And thus their “Trial” and “Quarrel” are admirably +epitomised in the phrase “Is Jehovah among us or not?” a phrase which +has often since been in the heart, if not upon the lips, of men who had +supposed the life divine to be one long holiday, the pilgrimage an +excursion, when without are fightings and within fears, when they have +great sorrow and heaviness in their hearts.</p> + +<p>Because God is not a Judge, but a Father, the murmurs of Israel do not +prevent Him from showing mercy. Accordingly, when Moses prays, he is +bidden to go on before the people, bringing certain of their elders +along with him for witnesses of the marvel that was to follow. Such is +the Divine method. As soon as unbelief and discontent estranged the Jews +of the New Testament from Christ, He would not vulgarise His miracles, +nor do many mighty works among the unbelieving. After His resurrection +He appeared not unto all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before. +And as the Jews were chosen to bear witness to Him among the nations, so +were these elders now to bear witness among the Jews, who might without +their testimony have fallen into some such rationalising theory as that +of Tacitus, who says that Moses discovered a fountain by examining a +spot where wild asses lay.</p> + +<p>With these witnesses, he is bidden to go to a rock in Horeb (so nearly +had these murmurers approached the scene of the most awful of all +manifestations of Him whose presence they debated), and there God was to +stand before them upon the rock, making His universal presence a +localised consciousness in their experience.</p> + +<p>A true religion is progressive: every stage of it leans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> on the past and +sustains the future; and so Moses must bring with him “the rod, +wherewith thou smotest the river.” The dullest can see the fitness of +this allusion. Among all the wonders which the shepherd’s wand had +wrought, the mastery over the Nile, the plague which inflicted an +unwonted thirst upon the inhabitants of that well-watered field of Zoan, +was most to the purpose now. To kill and to make alive are the functions +of the same Being, and He Who spoiled the Egyptian river will now +refresh His heritage that is weary. At the touch of the prophetic wand +the waters poured forth which thenceforth supplied them through all +their desert wanderings.</p> + +<p>Reserving the symbolic meaning of this event for a future study, we have +to remember meanwhile the warning which the apostle here discovered. All +the people drank of the rock, yet with many of them God was not pleased. +Privilege is one thing—acceptance is quite another; and it shall be +more tolerable at last for Sodom and Gomorrah than for nations, churches +and men, who were content to resemble soil that drinketh in the rain +that cometh upon it oft, and yet to remain unfruitful. Already the +conduct of Israel was such that the place was named from human +worthlessness rather than Divine beneficence. Too often, it is the more +conspicuous part of the story of the relations of God and man.</p> + +<h3 class="section">AMALEK.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xvii. 8–16.</h3> + +<p>Nothing can be more natural, to those who remember the value of a +fountain in the East, than that Amalek should swoop down from his own +territories upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> Israel, as soon as this abundant river tempted his +cupidity. This unprovoked attack of a kindred nation leads to another +advance in the education of the people.</p> + +<p>They had hitherto been the sheep of God: now they must become His +warriors. At the Red Sea it was said to them, “Stand still, and see the +salvation of the Lord ... the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall +hold your peace” (xiv. 13). But it is not so now. Just as the function +of every true miracle is to lead to a state of faith in which miracles +are not required; just as a mother reaches her hand to a tottering +infant, that presently the boy may go alone, so the Lord fought for +Israel, that Israel might learn to fight for the Lord. The herd of +slaves who came out of Egypt could not be trusted to stand fast in +battle; and what a defeat would have done with them we may judge by +their outcries at the very sight of Pharaoh. But now they had experience +of Divine succour, and had drawn the inspiring breath of freedom. And so +it was reasonable to expect that some chosen men of them at least will +be able to endure the shock of battle. And if so, it was a matter of the +last importance to develop and render conscious the national spirit, a +spirit so noble in its unselfish readiness to die, and in its scorn of +such material ills as anguish and mutilation compared with baseness and +dishonour, that the re-kindling of it in seasons of peril and conflict +is more than half a compensation for the horrors of a battle-field.</p> + +<p>We do not now inquire what causes avail to justify the infliction and +endurance of those horrors. Probably they will vary from age to age; and +as the ties grow strong which bind mankind together, the rupture of them +will be regarded with an ever-deepening shudder,—just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> as England +to-day would certainly refuse to make war upon our American kinsmen for +a provocation which (rightly or wrongly) she would not endure from +Russians. But the point to be observed is that war cannot be inherently +immoral, since God instructed in war the first nation that He ever +trained, not using its experience of His immediate interpositions to +supersede all need of human strife, but to make valiant soldiers, and +adding some of the most precious lessons of all their later experience +on the battle-field and by the sword. Now, it assuredly cannot be shown +that anything in itself immoral is fostered and encouraged by the Old +Testament. Slavery and divorce, which it was not yet possible to +extirpate, were hampered, restricted, and reduced to a minimum, being +“suffered” “because of the hardness of ‘their’ hearts” (Matt. xix. 8). +The wildest assailant of the Pentateuch will scarcely pretend that it +fosters and incites either divorce or slavery, as, beyond all question, +it encourages the martial ardour of the Jews.</p> + +<p>And yet war, though permissible, and in certain circumstances necessary, +is only necessary as the lesser of two evils; it is not in itself good. +Solomon, not David, could build the temple of the Lord; and Isaiah +sharply contrasts the Messiah with even that providentially appointed +conqueror, the only pagan who is called by God “My anointed,” in that +the one comes upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth +clay, but the Other breaks not a bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking +flax (Isa. xli. 25, xlii. 3, xlv. 1). The ideal of humanity is peace, +and also it is happiness, but war may not yet have ceased to be a +necessity of life, sometimes as ruinous to evade as any other form of +suffering.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another necessity of national development is the advancement of capable +men. The empire of Napoleon would assuredly have withered, if only +because its chief was as jealous of commanding genius as he was ready to +advance and patronise capacity of the second order. It is a maxim that +true greatness finds worthy colleagues and successors, and rejoices in +them. And while the guidance of Jehovah is to be assumed throughout, it +is significant that the first mention of the splendid commander and +godly judge, during all whose days and the days of his contemporaries +Israel served Jehovah, comes not in any express revelation or +commandment of God; but the narrative relates that Moses said unto +Joshua, “Choose out men for us and go out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow +I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” +They are the words of one who had noted him already as “a man in whom is +the Spirit” (Num. xxvii. 18), of one also who had unlearned, in the +experience now of eighty years, the desire of glittering achievement and +martial fame, who knew that the deepest fountains of real power are +hidden, and was content that another should lead the headlong and +victorious charge, if only it were his to hold, upon the top of the +hill, the rod of God.</p> + +<p>Once it was his own rod: with it the exiled shepherd controlled the +sheep of his master; that it should be the medium of the miraculous had +appeared to be an additional miracle, but now it was the very rod of +God, nor was any cry to heaven more eloquent and better grounded than +simply the reaching toward the skies, in long, steady, mute appeal, of +that symbol of all His dealings with them—the plaguing of Egypt, the +recession of the tide and its wild return, the bringing of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> water from +the rock. Was all to be in vain? Should the wild boar waste the vine +just brought out of Egypt before ever it reached the appointed vineyard? +And we also should be able to plead with God the noble works that He +hath done in our time. For us also there ought to be such experience as +worketh hope. As long as the exertion was possible even to the heroic +force which age had not abated, Moses thus prayed for his people; for +the gesture was a prayer, and a grand one, and must not be criticised +otherwise than as the act of a poetic and primitive genius, whose +institutions throughout are full of spiritual import. While he did this, +Israel prevailed; but the slow progress of the victory reminds us of +these dreary centuries during which we are just able to discern some +gradual advance of the kingdom of Christ on earth, but no rout, no +collapse of evil. And why was this? Because the sustaining and permanent +energy was not to flow from the prayers of one, however holy and however +eminent; three men were together in the mountain, and the co-operation +of them all was demanded; so that only when Aaron and Hur supported the +sinking hand of their chief was the decisive victory given.</p> + +<p>Now, the lesson from all this does not concern the High-priestly +intercession of our Lord, for the office of Moses is consistently +distinguished from the priesthood. Nor can the notion be tolerated that +if our Lord requires mortal co-operation before asking and being given +the heathen for His heritage, which is obviously the case, the reason +can be at all expressed by that weakness which needed support.</p> + +<p>No, the Lord our Priest is also Himself the dispenser of victory. To Him +all power is given on earth, and to Him it is our duty to appeal for +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> triumph of His own cause. And here and there, doubtless, a +Christian heart is fervent and faithful in its intercessions. To these, +unknown, unsuspected by the combatants in the heat of battle,—to humble +saints, some of them bed-ridden, ignorant, poverty-stricken, despised, +holy souls who have no controversial skill, no missionary calling, but +who possess the grace habitually to convert their wishes into +prayers,—to such, perhaps, it is due that the idols of India and China +are now bowing down. And when they cease to be a minority in so doing, +when those who now criticise learn to sustain their flagging energies, +we shall see a day of the Lord.</p> + +<p>Observe, however, that as the active exertion of the host does not +displace the silence of intercession, neither is it displaced itself: +Joshua really bore his part in the discomfiture of Amalek and his host. +And so it is always. The development of human energy to the uttermost is +a part of the design of Him Who gave a task even to unfallen man. Let +none suppose that to labour is (sufficiently and by itself) to pray; but +also let none idly persuade himself that while energies and +responsibilities are his, to pray is sufficiently to labour.</p> + +<p>Thus it came to pass that Israel won its first victory in battle. +Another step was taken toward the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham +to make of him a great nation; and also toward the gradual transference +of the national faith from a passive reliance in Divine interposition to +an abiding confidence in Divine help. Let it be clearly understood that +this latter is the nobler and the more mature faith.</p> + +<p>With martial ardour, God took care to inculcate the sense of national +responsibility, without which warriors become no more than brigands. So +it was with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> Amalek: he had not been attacked or even menaced; he had +marched out from his own territories to assail an innocent and kindred +race (“then <i>came</i> Amalek” ver. 8), and his attack had been cruel and +cowardly, he smote the hindmost, all that were feeble and in the rear, +when they were faint and weary, and he feared not God (Deut. xxv. 18). +Against all such tactics the wrath of God was denounced when, because of +them, Amalek was doomed to total extirpation.</p> + +<p>Moses now built an altar, to imprint on the mind of the people this new +lesson. And he called it, “The Lord is my Banner,” a title which called +the nation at once to valour and to obedience, which asserted that they +were an army, but a consecrated one.</p> + +<p class="gaptop">Now let us ask whether this simple story is at all the kind of thing +which legend or myth would have created, for the first martial exploit +of Israel. The obscure part played by Moses is not what we would expect; +nor, even as a mediator, is the position of one whose arms must be held +up a very romantic conception. If the object is to inspire the Jews for +later struggles with more formidable foes, the story is ill-contrived, +for we read of no surprising force of Amalek, and no inspiriting exploit +of Joshua. Everything is as prosaic as the real course of events in this +poor world is wont to be. And on that account it is all the more useful +to us who live prosaic lives, and need the help of God among prosaic +circumstances.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">JETHRO.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xviii. 1–27.</h3> + +<p>The defeat of Amalek is followed by the visit of Jethro; the opposite +pole of the relation between Israel and the nations, the coming of the +Gentiles to his brightness. And already that is true which repeats +itself all through the history of the Church, that much secular wisdom, +the art of organisation, the structure and discipline of societies, may +be drawn from the experience and wisdom of the world.</p> + +<p>Moses was under the special guidance of God, as really as any modern +enthusiast can claim to be. When he turned for aid or direction to +heaven, he was always answered. And yet he did not think scorn of the +counsel of his kinsman. And although eighty years had not dimmed the +fire of his eyes, nor wasted his strength, he neglected not the warning +which taught him to economise his force; not to waste on every paltry +dispute the attention and wisdom which could govern the new-born state.</p> + +<p>Jethro is the kinsman, and probably the brother-in-law of Moses; for if +he were the father-in-law, and the same as Reuel in the second chapter, +why should a new name be introduced without any mark of identification? +When he hears of the emancipation of Israel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> from Egypt, he brings back +to Moses his two sons and Zipporah, who had been sent away, after the +angry scene at the circumcision of the younger, and before he entered +Egypt with his life in his hand. Now he was a great personage, the +leader of a new nation, and the conqueror of the proudest monarch in the +world. With what feelings would the wife and husband meet? We are told +nothing of their interview, nor have we any reason to qualify the +unfavourable impression produced by the circumstances of their parting, +by the schismatic worship founded by their grandchildren, and by the +loneliness implied in the very names of Gershom and +Eliezer—“A-stranger-there,” and “God-a-Help.”</p> + +<p>But the relations between Moses and Jethro are charming, whether we look +at the obeisance rendered to the official minister of God by him whom +God had honoured so specially, by the prosperous man to the friend of +his adversity, or at the interest felt by the priest of Midian in all +the details of the great deliverance of which he had heard already, or +his joy in a Divine manifestation, probably not in all respects +according to the prejudices of his race, or his praise of Jehovah as +“greater than all gods, yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly +against them” (ver. 11, R.V.). The meaning of this phrase is either that +the gods were plagued in their own domains, or that Jehovah had finally +vanquished the Egyptians by the very element in which they were most +oppressive, as when Moses himself had been exposed to drown.</p> + +<p>There is another expression, in the first verse, which deserves to be +remarked. How do the friends of a successful man think of the scenes in +which he has borne a memorable part? They chiefly think of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> in +connection with their own hero. And amid all the story of the Exodus, in +which so little honour is given to the human actor, the one trace of +personal exultation is where it is most natural and becoming; it is in +the heart of his relative: “When Jethro ... heard of all that the Lord +had done <i>for Moses</i> and for Israel.”</p> + +<p>We are told, with marked emphasis, that this Midianite, a priest, and +accustomed to act as such with Moses in his family, “took a +burnt-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came, and all the +elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.” +Nor can we doubt that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who laid +such stress upon the subordination of Abraham to Melchizedek, would have +discerned in the relative position of Jethro and Aaron another evidence +that the ascendency of the Aaronic priesthood was only temporary. We +shall hereafter see that priesthood is a function of redeemed humanity, +and that all limitations upon it were for a season, and due to human +shortcoming. But for this very reason (if there were no other) the chief +priest could only be He Who represents and embodies all humanity, in +Whom is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, +because He is all and in all.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, here is recognised, in the history of Israel, a Gentile +priesthood.</p> + +<p>And, as at the passover, so now, the sacrifice to God is partaken of by +His people, who are conscious of acceptance by Him. Happy was the union +of innocent festivity with a sacramental recognition of God. It is the +same sentiment which was aimed at by the primitive Christian Church in +her feasts of love, genuine meals in the house of God, until licence and +appetite spoiled them, and the apostle asked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>“Have ye not houses to eat +and drink in?” (1 Cor. xi. 22). Shall there never come a time when the +victorious and pure Church of the latter days shall regain what we have +forfeited, when the doctrine of the consecration of what is called +“secular life” shall be embodied again in forms like these? It speaks to +us meanwhile in a form which is easily ridiculed (as in Lamb’s +well-known essay), and yet singularly touching and edifying if rightly +considered, in the asking for a blessing upon our meals.</p> + +<p>On the morrow, Jethro saw Moses, all day long, deciding the small +matters and great which needed already to be adjudicated for the nation. +He who had striven, without a commission, himself to smite the Egyptian +and lead out Israel, is the same self-reliant, heroic, not too discreet +person still.</p> + +<p>But the true statesman and administrator is he who employs to the utmost +all the capabilities and energies of his subordinates. And Jethro made a +deep mark in history when he taught Moses the distinction between the +lawgiver and the judge, between him who sought from God and proclaimed +to the people the principles of justice and their form, and him who +applied the law to each problem as it arose.</p> + +<p>“It is supposed, and with probability,” writes Kalisch (<i>in loco</i>), +“that Alfred the Great, who was well versed in the Bible, based his own +Saxon constitution of sheriffs in counties, etc., on the example of the +Mosaic division (comp. <i>Bacon on English Government</i>, i. 70).” And thus +it may be that our own nation owes its free institutions almost directly +to the generous interest in the well-being of his relative, felt by an +Arabian priest, who cherished, amid the growth of idolatries all around +him, the primitive belief in God, and who rightly held that the first +qualifications of a capable judge were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> ability, and the fear of God, +truthfulness and hatred of unjust gain.</p> + +<p>We learn from Deuteronomy (i. 9–15), that Moses allowed the people +themselves to elect these officials, who became not only their judges +but their captains.</p> + +<p>From the whole of this narrative we see clearly that the intervention of +God for Israel is no more to be regarded as superseding the exercise of +human prudence and common-sense, than as dispensing with valour in the +repulse of Amalek, and with patience in journeying through the +wilderness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BEARINGS" id="CHAPTER_BEARINGS"></a>THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY.</h2> + +<p>We are now about to pass from history to legislation. And this is a +convenient stage at which to pause, and ask how it comes to pass that +all this narrative is also, in some sense, an allegory. It is a +discussion full of pitfalls. Countless volumes of arbitrary and fanciful +interpretation have done their worst to discredit every attempt, however +cautious and sober, at finding more than the primary signification in +any narrative.<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> And whoever considers the reckless, violent and +inconsistent methods of the mystical commentators may be forgiven if he +recoils from occupying the ground which they have wasted, and contents +himself with simply drawing the lessons which the story directly +suggests.</p> + +<p>But the New Testament does not warrant such a surrender. It tells us +that leaven answers to malice, and unleavened bread to sincerity; that +at the Red Sea the people were baptized; that the tabernacle and the +altar, the sacrifice and the priest, the mercy-seat and the manna, were +all types and shadows of abiding Christian realities.</p> + +<p>It is more surprising to find the return of the infant Jesus connected +with the words <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>“When Israel was a child then I loved him, and I called +My son out of Egypt,”—for it is impossible to doubt that the prophet +was here speaking of the Exodus, and had in mind the phrase “Israel is +My son, My firstborn: let My son go, that he may serve Me” (Matt. i. 15; +Hos. xi. 1; Exod. iv. 22).</p> + +<p>How are such passages to be explained? Surely not by finding a +superficial resemblance between two things, and thereupon transferring +to one of them whatever is true of the other. No thought can attain +accuracy except by taking care not to confuse in this way things which +superficially resemble each other.</p> + +<p>But no thought can be fertilising and suggestive which neglects real and +deep resemblances, resemblances of principle as well as incident, +resemblances which are due to the mind of God or the character of man.</p> + +<p>In the structure and furniture of the tabernacle, and the order of its +services, there are analogies deliberately planned, and such as every +one would expect, between religious truth shadowed forth in Judaism, and +the same truth spoken in these latter days unto us in the Son.</p> + +<p>But in the emancipation, the progress, and alas! the sins and +chastisements of Israel, there are analogies of another kind, since here +it is history which resembles theology, and chiefly secular things which +are compared with spiritual. But the analogies are not capricious; they +are based upon the obvious fact that the same God Who pitied Israel in +bondage sees, with the same tender heart, a worse tyranny. For it is not +a figure of speech to say that sin is slavery. Sin does outrage the +will, and degrade and spoil the life. The sinner does obey a hard and +merciless master. If his true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> home is in the kingdom of God, he is, +like Israel, not only a slave but an exile. Is God the God of the Jew +only? for otherwise He must, being immutable, deal with us and our +tyrant as He dealt with Israel and Pharaoh. If He did not, by an +exertion of omnipotence, transplant them from Egypt to their inheritance +at one stroke, but required of them obedience, co-operation, patient +discipline, and a gradual advance, why should we expect the whole work +and process of grace to be summed up in the one experience which we call +conversion? Yet if He did, promptly and completely, break their chains +and consummate their emancipation, then the fact that grace is a +progressive and gradual experience does not forbid us to reckon +ourselves dead unto sin. If the region through which they were led, +during their time of discipline, was very unlike the land of milk and +honey which awaited the close of their pilgrimage, it is not unlikely +that the same God will educate his later Church by the same means, +leading us also by a way that we know not, to humble and prove us, that +He may do us good at the latter end.</p> + +<p>And if He marks, by a solemn institution, the period when we enter into +covenant relations with Himself, and renounce the kingdom and tyranny of +His foe, is it marvellous that the apostle found an analogy for this in +the great event by which God punctuated the emancipation of Israel, +leading them out of Egypt through the sea depths and beneath the +protecting cloud?</p> + +<p>If privilege, and adoption, and the Divine good-will, did not shelter +them from the consequences of ingratitude and rebellion, if He spared +not the natural branches, we should take heed lest He spare not us.</p> + +<p>Such analogies are really arguments, as solid as those of Bishop +Butler.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the same cannot be maintained so easily of some others. When that is +quoted of our Lord upon the cross which was written of the paschal lamb, +“a bone shall not be broken” (Exod. xii. 46, John xix. 36), we feel that +the citation needs to be justified upon different grounds. But such +grounds are available. He was the true Lamb of God. For His sake the +avenger passes over all His followers. His flesh is meat indeed. And +therefore, although no analogy can be absolutely perfect, and the type +has nothing to declare that His blood is drink indeed, yet there is an +admirable fitness, worthy of inspired record, in the consummating and +fulfilment in Him, and in Him alone of three sufferers, of the precept +“A bone of Him shall not be broken.” It may not be an express prophecy +which is brought to pass, but it is a beautiful and appropriate +correspondence, wrought out by Providence, not available for the +coercion of sceptics, but good for the edifying of believers.</p> + +<p>And so it is with the calling of the Son out of Egypt. Unquestionably +Hosea spoke of Israel. But unquestionably too the phrase “My Son, My +Firstborn” is a startling one. Here is already a suggestive difference +between the monotheism of the Old Testament and the austere jealous +logical orthodoxy of the Koran, which protests “It is not meet for God +to have any Son, God forbid” (Sura xix. 36). Jesus argued that such a +rigid and lifeless orthodoxy as that of later Judaism, ought to have +been scandalised, long before it came to consider His claims, by the +ancient and recognised inspiration which gave the name of gods to men +who sat in judgment as the representatives of Heaven. He claimed the +right to carry still further the same principle—namely, that deity is +not selfish and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> incommunicable, but practically gives itself away, in +transferring the exercise of its functions. From such condescension +everything may be expected, for God does not halt in the middle of a +path He has begun to tread.</p> + +<p>But if this argument of Jesus were a valid one (and the more it is +examined the more profound it will be seen to be), how significant will +then appear the term “My Son,” as applied to Israel!</p> + +<p>In condescending so far, God almost pledged Himself to the Incarnation, +being no dealer in half measures, nor likely to assume rhetorically a +relation to mankind to which in fact He would not stoop.</p> + +<p>Every Christian feels, moreover, that it is by virtue of the grand and +final condescension that all the preliminary steps are possible. Because +Abraham’s seed was one, that is Christ, therefore ye (all) if ye are +Christ’s, are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise (Gal. iii. 16, +29).</p> + +<p>But when this great harmony comes to be devoutly recognised, a hundred +minor and incidental points of contact are invested with a sacred +interest.</p> + +<p>No doctrinal injury would have resulted, if the Child Jesus had never +left the Holy Land. No infidel could have served his cause by quoting +the words of Hosea. Nor can we now cite them against infidels as a +prophecy fulfilled. But when He does return from Egypt our devotions, +not our polemics, hail and rejoice in the coincidence. It reminds us, +although it does not demonstrate, that He who is thus called out of +Egypt is indeed the Son.</p> + +<p>The sober historian cannot prove anything, logically and to +demonstration, by the reiterated interventions in history of atmospheric +phenomena. And yet no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> devout thinker can fail to recognise that God has +reserved the hail against the time of trouble and war.</p> + +<p>In short, it is absurd and hopeless to bid us limit our contemplation, +in a divine narrative, to what can be demonstrated like the propositions +of Euclid. We laugh at the French for trying to make colonies and +constitutions according to abstract principles, and proposing, as they +once did, to reform Europe “after the Chinese manner.” Well, religion +also is not a theory: it is the true history of the past of humanity, +and it is the formative principle in the history of the present and the +future.</p> + +<p>And hence it follows that we may dwell with interest and edification +upon analogies, as every great thinker confesses the existence of +truths, “which never can be proved.”</p> + +<p>In the meantime it is easy to recognise the much simpler fact, that +these things happened unto them by way of example, and they were written +for our admonition.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Take as an example the assertion of Bunyan that the sea in +the Revelation is a sea of glass, because the laver in the tabernacle +was made of the brazen looking-glasses of the women. (<i>Solomon’s +Temple</i>, xxxvi. 1.)</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">AT SINAI.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xix. 1–25.</h3> + +<p>In the third month from the Exodus, and on the selfsame day (which +addition fixes the date precisely), the people reached the wilderness of +Sinai. This answers fairly to the date of Pentecost, which was +afterwards connected by tradition with the giving of the law. And +therefore Pentecost was the right time for the gift of the Holy Ghost, +bringing with Him the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and +that freedom from servile Jewish obedience which is not attained by +violating law, but by being imbued in its spirit, by the love which is +the fulfilling of the law.</p> + +<p class="gaptop">There is among the solemn solitudes of Sinai a wide amphitheatre, +reached by two converging valleys, and confronted by an enormous +perpendicular cliff, the Ras Sufsâfeh—a “natural altar,” before which +the nation had room to congregate, awed by the stern magnificence of the +approach, and by the intense loneliness and desolation of the +surrounding scene, and thus prepared for the unparalleled revelation +which awaited them.</p> + +<p>It is the manner of God to speak through nature and the senses to the +soul. We cannot imagine the youth of the Baptist spent in Nazareth, nor +of Jesus in the desert. Elijah, too, was led into the wilderness to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> +receive the vision of God, and the agony of Jesus was endured at night, +and secluded by the olives from the paschal moon. It is by another +application of the same principle that the settled Jewish worship was +bright with music and splendid with gold and purple; and the notion that +the sublime and beautiful in nature and art cannot awaken the feelings +to which religion appeals, is as shallow as the notion that when these +feelings are awakened all is won.</p> + +<p>What happens next is a protest against this latter extreme. Awe is one +thing: the submission of the will is another. And therefore Moses was +stopped when about to ascend the mountain, there to keep the solemn +appointment that was made when God said, “This shall be the token unto +thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out +of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain” (iii. 12). His own +sense of the greatness of the crisis perhaps needed to be deepened. +Certainly the nation had to be pledged, induced to make a deliberate +choice, now first, as often again, under Joshua and Samuel, and when +Elijah invoked Jehovah upon Carmel. (Josh. xxiv. 24; 1 Sam. xii. 14; 1 +Kings xviii. 21, 39.)</p> + +<p>It is easy to speak of pledges and formal declarations lightly, but they +have their warrant in many such Scriptural analogies, nor should we +easily find a church, careful to deal with souls, which has not employed +them in some form, whether after the Anglican and Lutheran fashion, by +confirmation, or in the less formal methods of other Protestant +communions, or even by delaying baptism itself until it becomes, for the +adult in Christian lands, what it is to the convert from false creeds.</p> + +<p>Therefore the Lord called to Moses as he climbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> the steep, and offered +through him a formal covenant to the people.</p> + +<p>“Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob,<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and tell the children of +Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you +on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself.”</p> + +<p>The appeal is to their personal experience and their gratitude: will +this be enough? will they accept His yoke, as every convert must, not +knowing what it may involve, not yet having His demands specified and +His commandments before their eyes, content to believe that whatever is +required of them will be good, because the requirement is from God? Thus +did Abraham, who went forth, not knowing whither, but knowing that he +was divinely guided. “Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed +and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from +among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine, and ye shall be unto Me a +kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”</p> + +<p>Thus God conveys to them, more explicitly than hitherto, the fact that +He is the universal Lord, not ruling one land or nation only, nor, as +the Pentateuch is charged with teaching, their tutelary deity among many +others. Thus also the seeds are sown in them of a wholesome and rational +self-respect, such as the Psalmist felt, who asked “What is man, that +Thou art mindful of him?” yet realised that such mindfulness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> gave to +man a real dignity, made him but little lower than the angels, and +crowned him with glory and honour.</p> + +<p>Abolish religion, and mankind will divide into two classes,—one in +which vanity, unchecked by any spiritual superior, will obey no +restraints of law, and another of which the conscious pettiness will +aspire to no dignity of holiness, and shrink from no dishonour of sin. +It is only the presence of a loving God which can unite in us the sense +of humility and greatness, as having nothing and yet possessing all +things, and valued by God as His “peculiar treasure.”<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<p>And with a reasonable self-respect should come a noble and yet sober +dignity—“Ye shall be a kingdom of priests,” a dynasty (for such is the +meaning) of persons invested with royal and also with priestly rank. +This was spoken just before the law gave the priesthood into the hands +of one tribe; and thus we learn that Levi and Aaron were not to supplant +the nation, but to represent it.</p> + +<p>Now, this double rank is the property of redeemed humanity: we are “a +kingdom and priests unto God.” Yet the laity of the Corinthian Church +were rebuked for a self-asserting and mutinous enjoyment of their rank: +“Ye have reigned as kings without us”; and others there were in this +Christian dispensation who “perished in the gainsaying of Korah” (1 Cor. +iv. 8; Jude 11).</p> + +<p>If the words <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>“He hath made us a kingdom and priests” furnish any +argument against the existence of an ordained ministry now, then there +should have been no Jewish priesthood, for the same words are here. And +is it supposed that this assertion only began to be true when the +apostles died? Certainly there is a kind of self-assertion in the +ministry which they condemn. But if they are opposed to its existence, +alas for the Pastoral Epistles! It was because the function belonged to +all, that no man might arrogate it who was not commissioned to act on +behalf of all.</p> + +<p>But while the individual may not assert himself to the unsettling of +church order, the privilege is still common property. All believers have +boldness to enter into the holiest place of all. All are called upon to +rule for God “over a few things,” to establish a kingdom of God within, +and thus to receive a crown of life, and to sit with Jesus upon His +throne. The very honours by which Israel was drawn to God are offered to +us all, as it is written, “We are the circumcision,” “We are Abraham’s +seed and heirs according to the promise” (Phil. iii. 3; Gal. iii. 29).</p> + +<p>To this appeal the nation responded gladly. They could feel that indeed +they had been sustained by God as the eagle bears her young—not +grasping them in her claws, like other birds, but as if enthroned +between her wings, and sheltered by her body, which interposed between +the young and any arrow of the hunter. Thus, say the Rabbinical +interpreters, did the pillar of cloud intervene between Israel and the +Egyptians. If the image were to be pressed so far, we could now find a +much closer analogy for the eagle “preferring itself to be pierced +rather than to witness the death of its young” (Kalisch). But far more +tender, and very touching in its domestic homeliness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> is the metaphor +of Him Whose discourses teem with allusions to the Old Testament, yet +Who preferred to compare Himself to a hen gathering her chickens under +her wing.</p> + +<p>With the adhesion of Israel to the covenant, Moses returned to God. And +the Lord said, “Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people +may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee for ever.”</p> + +<p>The design was to deepen their reverence for the Lawgiver Whose law they +should now receive; to express by lessons, not more dreadful than the +plagues of Egypt, but more vivid and sublime, the tremendous grandeur of +Him Who was making a covenant with them, Who had borne them on His wings +and called them His firstborn Son, Whom therefore they might be tempted +to approach with undue familiarity, were it not for the mountain that +burned up to heaven, the voice of the trumpet waxing louder and louder, +and the Appearance so fearful that Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and +quake” (<span class="greek" title="to phantazomenon">τὸ φανταζόμενον</span>—Heb. xii. 21).</p> + +<p>When thus the Deity became terrible, the envoy would be honoured also.</p> + +<p>But it is important to observe that these terrible manifestations were +to cease. Like the impressions produced by sickness, by sudden deaths, +by our own imminent danger, the emotion would subside, but the +conviction should remain: they should believe Moses for ever. Emotions +are like the swellings of the Nile: they subside again; but they ought +to leave a fertilising deposit behind.</p> + +<p>That the impression might not be altogether passive, and therefore +ephemeral, the people were bidden to “sanctify themselves”; all that is +common and secular must be suspended for awhile; and it is worth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> notice +that, as when the family of Jacob put away their strange gods, so now +the Israelites must wash their clothes (cf. Gen. xxxv. 2). For one’s +vestment is a kind of outer self, and has been with the man in the old +occupations from which he desires to purify himself. It was therefore +that when Jehu was made king, and when Jesus entered Jerusalem in +triumph, men put their garments under their chief to express their own +subjection (2 Kings ix. 13; Matt. xxi. 7). Much of the philosophy of +Carlyle is latent in these ancient laws and usages.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the mountain was to be fenced from the risk of profanation by +any sudden impulsive movement of the crowd, and even a beast that +touched it should be slain by such weapons as men could hurl without +themselves pursuing it. Only when the trumpet blew a long summons might +the appointed ones come up to the mount (ver. 13).</p> + +<p>On the third day, after a soul-searching interval, there were thunders +and lightnings, and a cloud, and the trumpet blast; and while all the +people trembled, Moses led them forth to meet with God. Again the +narrative reverts to the terrible phenomena—the fire like the smoke of +a furnace (called by an Egyptian name which only occurs in the +Pentateuch), and the whole mountain quaking. Then, since his commission +was now to be established, Moses spake, and the Lord answered him with a +voice. And when he again climbed the mountain, it became necessary to +send him back with yet another warning, whether his example was in +danger of emboldening others to exercise their newly given priesthood, +or the very excess of terror exercised its well-known fascinating power, +as men in a burning ship have been seen to leap into the flames.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p> + +<p>And the priests also, who come near to God, should sanctify themselves. +It has been asked who these were, since the Levitical institutions were +still non-existent (ver. 22, cf. 24). But it is certain that the heads +of houses exercised priestly functions; and it is not impossible that +the elders of Israel who came to eat before God with Jethro (xviii. 12) +had begun to perform religious functions for the people. Is it supposed +that the nation had gone without religious services for three months?</p> + +<p>It has been remarked by many that the law of Moses appealed for +acceptance to popular and even democratic sanctions. The covenant was +ratified by a plébiscite. The tremendous evidence was offered equally to +all. For, said St. Augustine, “as it was fit that the law which was +given, not to one man or a few enlightened people, but to the whole of a +populous nation, should be accompanied by awe-inspiring signs, great +marvels were wrought ... before the people” (<i>De Civ. Dei</i>, x. 13).</p> + +<p>We have also to observe the contrast between the appearance of God on +Sinai and His manifestation in Jesus. And this also was strongly wrought +out by an ancient father, who represented the Virgin Mary, in the act of +giving Jesus into the hands of Simeon, as saying, “The blast of the +trumpet does not now terrify those who approach, nor a second time does +the mountain, all on fire, cause terror to those who come nigh, nor does +the law punish relentlessly those who would boldly touch. What is +present here speaks of love to man; what is apparent, of the Divine +compassion.” (Methodius <i>De Sym. et Anna</i>, vii.)</p> + +<p>But we must remember that the Epistle to the Hebrews regards the second +manifestation as the more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> solemn of the two, for this very reason: that +we have not come to a burning mountain, or to mortal penalties for +carnal irreverence, but to the spiritual mountain Zion, to countless +angels, to God the Judge, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and +to Jesus Christ. If they escaped not, when they refused Him Who warned +on earth, much more we, who turn away from Him Who warneth from heaven +(Heb. xii. 18–25).</p> + +<p>There is a question, lying far behind all these, which demands +attention.</p> + +<p>It is said that legends of wonderful appearances of the gods are common +to all religions; that there is no reason for giving credit to this one +and rejecting all the rest; and, more than this, that God absolutely +could not reveal Himself by sensuous appearances, being Himself a +Spirit. In what sense and to what extent God can be said to have really +revealed Himself, we shall examine hereafter. At present it is enough to +ask whether human love and hatred, joy and sorrow, homage and scorn can +manifest themselves by looks and tones, by the open palm and the +clenched fist, by laughter and tears, by a bent neck and by a curled +lip. For if what is most immaterial in our own soul can find sensuous +expression, it is somewhat bold to deny that a majesty and power beyond +anything human may at least be conceived as finding utterance, through a +mountain burning to the summit and reeling to the base, and the blast of +a trumpet which the people could not hear and live.</p> + +<p>But when it is argued that wondrous theophanies are common to all +faiths, two replies present themselves. If all the races of mankind +agree in believing that there is a God, and that He manifests Himself +wonderfully, does that really prove that there is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> God, or even that +He never manifested Himself wondrously? We should certainly be derided +if we insisted that such a universal belief proved the truth of the +story of Mount Sinai, and perhaps we should deserve our fate. But it is +more absurd by far to pretend that this instinct, this intuition, this +universal expectation that God would some day, somewhere, rend the veil +which hides Him, does actually refute the narrative.</p> + +<p>We have also to ask for the production of those other narratives, +sublime in their conception and in the vast audience which they +challenged, sublimely pure alike from taint of idolatrous superstition +and of moral evil, profound and far-reaching in their practical effect +upon humanity, which deserve to be so closely associated with the giving +of the Mosaic law that in their collapse it also must be destroyed, as +the fall of one tree sometimes breaks the next. But this narrative +stands out so far in the open, and lifts its head so high, that no other +even touches a bough of it when overturned.</p> + +<p>Is it seriously meant to compare the alleged disappearance of Romulus, +or the secret interviews of Numa with his Egeria, to a history like +this? Surely one similar story should be produced, before it is asserted +that such stories are everywhere.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> This phrase is not found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Is +it fancy which detects in it a desire to remind them of their connection +with the least worthy rather than the noblest of the Patriarchs? One +would not expect, for instance, to read, Fear not, thou worm Abraham, or +even Israel; but the name of Jacob at once calls up humble +associations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> This word is the same which occurs in the verse so +beautifully but erroneously rendered “They shall be Mine, saith the Lord +of hosts, in the day when I make up My jewels” (Mal. iii. 17, A.V.). +“They shall be Mine ... in the day that I do make, even a peculiar +treasure” (R.V.).</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE LAW.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xx. 1–17.</h3> + +<p>We have now reached that great event, one of the most momentous in all +history, the giving of the Ten Commandments. And it is necessary to +consider what was the meaning of this event, what part were they +designed to play in the religious development of mankind.</p> + +<p>1. St. Paul tells us plainly what they did <i>not</i> effect. By the works of +the law could no flesh be justified: to the father of the Hebrew race +faith was reckoned instead of righteousness; the first of their royal +line coveted the blessedness not of the obedient but of the pardoned; +and Habakkuk declared that the just should live by his faith, while the +law is not of faith, and offers life only to the man that doeth these +things (Rom. iv. 3, 6; Gal. iii. 12). In the doctrinal scheme of St. +Paul there was no room for a compromise between salvation by faith and +reliance upon our own performance of any works, even those simple and +obvious duties which are of world-wide obligation.</p> + +<p>2. But he never meant to teach that a Christian is free from the +obligation of the moral law. If it is not true that we can keep it and +so earn heaven, it is equally false that we may break it without penalty +or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> remorse. What he insisted upon was this: that obligation is one +thing, and energy is another; the law is good, but it has not the gift +of pardon or of inspiration; by itself it will only reveal the +feebleness of him who endeavours to perform it, only force into direst +contrast the spiritual beauty of the pure ideal and the wretchedness of +the sinner, carnal, sold under sin. In this respect, indeed, the law was +its own witness. For if, among all the millions of its children, one had +lived by obedience, how could he have shared in its elaborate +sacrificial apparatus, in the hallowing of the altar from pollution by +the national uncleanness, in the sprinkling of the blood of the offering +for sin? Take the case of the highest official. A sinless high priest +under the law would have been paralysed by his virtue, for his duty on +the greatest day of all the year was to make atonement first for his own +sins.</p> + +<p>3. The law being an authorised statement of what innocence means, and +therefore of the only terms upon which a man might hope to live by +works, is an organic whole, and we either keep it as a whole or break +it. Such is the meaning of the words, he that offendeth in one point is +guilty of all; because He who gave the seventh commandment gave also the +sixth—so that if one commit no adultery, yet kill, he has become a +transgressor of the law in its integrity (James ii. 11). The challenge +of God to human self-righteousness is not one which can be half met. If +we have not thoroughly kept it, we have thoroughly failed.</p> + +<p>4. But this failure of man does not involve any failure, in the law, to +accomplish its intended work. It is, as has been said, a challenge. The +sense of our inability to meet it is the best introduction to Him Who +came not to call the righteous but sinners to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> repentance, and thus the +law became a tutor to bring men to Christ. It awoke the conscience, +brought home the sense of guilt, and entered, that sin might abound in +us, whose ignorance had not known sin without it. It was strictly that +which Moses most frequently calls it—the Testimony.</p> + +<p>5. Finally, however, the teaching of Scripture is not that Christians +are condemned to live always in a condition of baffled striving, +hopeless longing, conscious transgression of a code which testifies +against them. The old and carnal nature gravitates downward, to +selfishness and sin, as surely as by a law of the physical universe. But +the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus emancipates us from that +law of sin and death—the higher nature doing, by the very quality of +its life, what the lower nature cannot be driven to do, by dread of hell +or by desire of heaven. The creature of earth becomes a creature of air, +and is at home in a new sphere, poised on its wings upon the breeze. +Love is the fulfilling of the law. And the Christian is free from its +dictation, as affectionate men are free from any control of the laws +which command the maintenance of wife and child, not because they may +defy the statutes, but because their volition and the statutes coincide. +Liberty is not lawlessness—it is the reciprocal harmony of law and the +will.</p> + +<p>And thus the grand paradox of Luther is entirely true: “Unless faith be +without any, even the smallest works, it does not justify, nay, it is +not faith. And yet it is impossible for faith to be without +works—earnest, many and great.” We are justified by faith without the +works of the law, and yet we do not make void the law by faith—nay, we +establish the law.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p> + +<p>All this agrees exactly with the contrast, so often urged, between the +giving of the Law and the utterance of the Sermon on the Mount. The +former echoes across wild heights, and through savage ravines; the +latter is heard on the grassy slopes of the hillside which overlooks the +smiling Lake of Galilee. The one is spoken in thunder and graven upon +stone: the other comes from the lips, into which grace is poured, of Him +Who was fairer than the children of men. The former repeats again and +again the stern warning, “Thou shalt not!” The latter crowns a sevenfold +description of a blessedness, which is deeper than joy, though pensive +and even weeping, by adding to these abstract descriptions an eighth, +which applies them, and assumes them to be realised in His +hearers—“Blessed are <i>ye</i>.” If so much as a beast touched the mountain +it should be stoned. But Simeon took the Divine Infant in his arms.</p> + +<p>And this is not because God has become gentler, or man worthier: it is +because God the Lawgiver upon His throne has come down to be God the +Helper. But the beatitudes could never have been spoken, if the law had +not been imposed: the blessedness of a hunger and thirst for +righteousness was created by the majestic and spiritual beauty of the +unattained commandment.</p> + +<p>Yes, it had a spiritual beauty. For, however formal, external, and even +shallow, the commandments may appear to flippant modern babblers, St. +Paul bewailed the contrast between the law, which was spiritual, and his +own carnal heart. And he, who had kept all the letter from his youth, +was only the more vexed and haunted by the fleeting consciousness of a +higher “good thing” unattained. Did not one table say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> “Thou shalt not +covet,” and the other promise mercy to thousands of those that love?</p> + +<p>This leads us to consider the structure and arrangement of the +Decalogue. Scripture itself tells us that there were “ten words” or +precepts, written upon both sides of two tables. But various answers +have been given at different times, to the question, How shall we divide +the ten?</p> + +<p>The Jews of a later period made a first commandment of the words, “I am +the Lord thy God,” which is not a commandment at all. And they restored +the proper number, thus exceeded, by uniting in one the prohibition of +other gods and of idolatry; although the worship of the golden calf, +almost immediately after the law was given, suffices to establish the +distinction. For then, as well as under Gideon, Micah and Jeroboam, the +sin of idolatry fell short of apostasy to a wholly different god (Judg. +viii. 23, 27, xvii. 3, 5; 1 Kings xii. 28). The worship of images +dishonours God, even if it be His semblance that they claim. In this +arrangement, the tables were allotted five commandments each.</p> + +<p>Another curious arrangement was devised, apparently by St. Augustine; +and the weight of his authority imposed it upon Western Christianity +until the Reformation, and upon the Latin and Lutheran churches unto +this day. Like the former, it adds the second commandment to the first, +but it divides the tenth. And it gives to the first table three +commandments, “since the number of commandments which concern God seem +to hint at the Trinity to careful students,” while the seven +commandments of the second table suggest the Sabbath. Such mystical +references are no longer weighty arguments. And the proposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> division +of the tenth commandment seems quite precluded by the fact that in +Exodus we read, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house nor his +wife,” while in Deuteronomy the order is reversed; so that its advocates +are divided among themselves as to whether the coveting of a house or a +wife is to attain the dignity of separate mention.</p> + +<p>The ordinary English arrangement assigns to the tables four commandments +and six respectively. And the noble catechism of the Church of England +appears to sanction this arrangement by including among “my duties to my +neighbour” that of loving, honouring and succouring my father and +mother. There are several objections to this arrangement. It is +unsymmetrical. There seems to be something more sacred and divine about +my relationship with my father and mother than those which connect me +with my neighbour. The first table begins with the gravest offence, and +steadily declines to the lowest; sin against the unique personality of +God being followed by sin against His spirituality of nature, His name, +and His holy day. If now the sin against His earthly representative, the +very fountain and sanction of all law to childhood, be added to the +first table, the same order will pervade those of the second—namely, +sin against my neighbour’s life, his family, his property, his +reputation, and lastly, his interest in my inner self, in the wishes +that are unspoken, the thoughts and feelings which</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">“I wad nae tell to nae man.”</p></div> + +<p>We thus obtain both the simplest division and the clearest arrangement. +In Romans xiii. 9 the fifth commandment is not enumerated when +rehearsing the actions which transgress the second table. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> Hebrew +text of Deuteronomy all the later commandments are joined with the sixth +by the copulative (represented along with the negative fairly enough in +our English by “Neither”), which seems to indicate that these five were +united together in the author’s mind. But the fifth stands alone, like +all those of the first table. Now, it is clear that such an arrangement +gives great sanction and weight to the sacred institution of the family.</p> + +<p>Finally, the comprehensiveness and spirituality of the law may be +observed in this; that the first table forbids sin against God in +thought, word and deed; and the second table forbids sin against man in +deed, word and thought.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE PROLOGUE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xx. 2.</h3> + +<p>The Decalogue is introduced by the words “I am the Lord thy God, which +brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”</p> + +<p>Here, and in the previous chapter, is already a great advance upon the +time when it was said to them “The God of thy fathers, the God of +Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, hath appeared.” Now they are expected +to remember what He has done for themselves. For, although religion must +begin with testimony, it ought always to grow up into an experience. +Thus it was that many of the Samaritans believed on Jesus because of the +word of the woman; but presently they said, “Now we believe, not because +of thy speaking, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know.” And thus +the disciples who heard John the Baptist speak, and so followed Jesus, +having come and seen where He abode, could say, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>“We have found the +Messiah.”</p> + +<p>This prologue is vitally connected with both tables of the law. In +relation to the first, it recognises the instinct of worship in the +human heart. In vain shall we say Do not worship idols, until the true +object of adoration is supplied, for the heart must and will prostrate +itself at some shrine. A leader of modern science confesses “the +immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of man,” adding +that “to yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of +problems at the present hour.”<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> It is indeed a problem for the +unbelief which, because it professes to be scientific, cannot shut its +eyes to the fact that men whose faith in Christ has suffered shipwreck +are everywhere seen to be clinging to strange planks—spiritualism, +esoteric Buddhism, and other superstitions,—which prove that man must +and will reverence something more than streams of tendencies, or +beneficial results to the greatest numbers. The Law of Moses abolishes +superstition by no mere negation, but by the proclamation of a true God.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it declares that this God is knowable, which flatly +contradicts the brave assertion of modern agnostics that the notion of a +God is not even “thinkable.” That assertion is a bald and barren +platitude in the only sense in which it is not contrary to the +experience of all mankind. As we cannot form a complete and perfect, nor +even an adequate notion of God, so no man ever yet conceived a complete +and adequate notion of his neighbour, nor indeed of himself. But as we +can form a notion of one another, dim and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> fragmentary indeed, yet more +or less accurate and fit to guide our actions, so has every nation and +every man formed some notion of deity. Nor could even the agnostic +declare that God is unthinkable, unless the word God, of which he makes +this assertion, conveyed to him <i>some</i> idea, some thought, more or less +worthy of the thinking. The ancient Jew never dreamed that he could +search out the Almighty to perfection, yet God was known to him by His +actions (the only means by which we know our fellow-men); and the +combined terror and loving-kindness of these at once warned him against +revolt, and appealed to his loyalty for obedience.</p> + +<p>In relation to the second table, the prologue was both an argument and +an appeal. Why should a man hope to prosper by estranging his best +Friend, his Emancipator and Guide? And even if disobedience could obtain +some paltry advantage, how base would he be who snatched at it, when +forbidden by the God Who broke his chains, and brought him out of the +house of bondage—a Benefactor not ungenial and remote, but One Who +enters into closest relations with him, calling Himself “Thy God”!</p> + +<p>Now, a greater emancipation and a closer personal relationship belong to +the Church of Christ. When a Christian hears that God is unthinkable, he +ought to be able to answer, ‘God is my God, and He has brought my soul +out of its house of bondage.’</p> + +<p>Moreover, his emancipation by Christ from many sins and inner slaveries +ought to be a fact plain enough to constitute the sorest of problems to +the observing world.</p> + +<p>It must be observed, besides, that the Law, which was the centre of +Judaism, does not appeal chiefly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> the meaner side of human nature. +Hell is not yet known, for the depths of eternity could not be uncovered +before the clouds had rolled away from its heights of love and +condescension; or else the sanity and balance of human nature would have +been overthrown. But even temporal judgments are not set in the foremost +place. As St. Paul, who knew the terrors of the Lord, more commonly and +urgently besought men by the mercies of God, so were the ancient Jews, +under the burning mountain, reminded rather of what God had bestowed +upon them, than of what He might inflict if they provoked Him. And our +gratitude, like theirs, should be excited by His temporal as well as His +spiritual gifts to us.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt have none other gods before Me.”—xx. 3.</p></div> + +<p>When these words fell upon the ears of Israel, they conveyed, as their +primary thought, a prohibition of the formal worship of rival deities, +Egyptian or Sidonian gods. Following immediately upon the proclamation +of Jehovah, their own God, they declared His intolerance of rivalry, and +enjoined a strict and jealous monotheism. For God was a reality. Races +who worshipped idealisations or personifications might easily make room +for other poetic embodiments of human thought and feeling; but Jehovah +would vindicate His rights. He had proved himself very real in Egypt. +Other gods would not displace Him: He would observe them: they would be +“before Me.”<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> +God does not quit the scene when man forgets Him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, it is hard for us to realise the charm which the worship of false +gods possessed for ancient Israel. To comprehend it we must reflect upon +the universal ignorance which made every phenomenon of nature a +portentous manifestation of mysterious and varied power, which they +could by no means trace back to a common origin, while the crash and +discord of the results appeared to indicate opposing wills behind. We +must reflect how closely akin is awe to worship, and how blind and +unintelligent was the awe which storm and earthquake and pestilence then +excited. We must remember the pressure upon them of surrounding +superstitions armed with all the civilisation and art of their world. +Above all, we must consider that the gods which seduced them were not of +necessity supreme: homage to them was very fairly consistent with a +reservation of the highest place for another; so that false worship in +its early stages need not have been much more startling than belief in +witchcraft, or in the paltry and unimaginative “spirits” which, in our +own day, are reputed to play the banjo in a dark room, and to untie +knots in a cabinet. Is it for us to deride them?</p> + +<p>To oppose all such tendencies, the Lord appealed not to philosophy and +sound reason. These are not the parents of monotheism: they are the +fruit of it. And so is our modern science. Its fundamental principle is +faith in the unity of nature, and in the extent to which the same laws +which govern our little world reach through the vast universe. And that +faith is directly traceable to the conviction that all the universe is +the work of the same Hand.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> + +<p>“One God, one law, one element;”—the preaching of the first was sure to +suggest the other two. Nor could any race which believed in a multitude +of gods labour earnestly to reduce various phenomena to one cause. +Monotheism is therefore the parent of correct thinking, and could not +draw its sanctions thence. No: the law appeals to the historical +experience of Israel; it is content to stand and fall by that; if they +acknowledged the claim of God upon their loyalty, all the rest followed. +Their own story made good this claim. And so does the whole story of the +Church, and the whole inner life of every man who knows anything of +himself, bear witness to the religion of Jesus.</p> + +<p>Never let us weary of repeating that while we have ample controversial +resource, while no missile can pierce the chain-armour of the Christian +evidences, connected and interwoven into a great whole, and while the +infidelity which is called scientific is really infidel only so far as +it begs its case (which is an unscientific thing to do), nevertheless +the strength of our position is experimental. If the experience which +testifies to Jesus were historical alone, I might refuse to give it +credit: if it were only personal, I might ascribe it to enthusiasm. But +as long as a great cloud of living witnesses, and all the history of the +Church, declare the reality of His salvation, while I myself feel the +sufficiency of what He offers (or else the bitter need of it), so long +the question is not between conflicting theories, but between theories +and facts. To have another god is to place him beside One Whom we +already have, and Who has wrought for us the great emancipation. It is +not an error in theological science: it is ingratitude and treason.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p> + +<p>But it very soon became evident that men could apostatise from God +otherwise than in formal worship, chant and sacrifice and prostration: +“This people honoureth me with their mouths, but their hearts are far +from Me.” God asks for love and trust, and our litanies should express +and cultivate these. Whatever steals away these from the Lord is really +His rival, and another god. “What is it to have a God? or what is God?” +Luther asks. And he answers, “He is God, and is so called, from Whose +goodness and power thou dost confidently promise all good things to +thyself, and to Whom thou dost fly from all adverse affairs and pressing +perils. So that to have a God is nothing else than to trust Him and +believe in Him with all the heart, even as I have often alleged that the +reliance of the heart constitutes alike one’s God and one’s idol.... In +what thing soever thou hast thy mind’s reliance and thine heart fixed, +that is beyond doubt thy God” (<i>Larger Catechism</i>).</p> + +<p>And again: “What sort of religion is this, to bow not the knees to +riches and honour, but to offer them the noblest part of you, the heart +and mind? It is to worship the true God outwardly and in the flesh, but +the creature inwardly and in spirit” (<i>X. Præcepta Witt. Prædicata</i>).</p> + +<p>It was on this ground that he included charms and spells among the sins +against this commandment, because, though “they seem foolish rather than +wicked, yet do they lead to this too grave result, that men learn to +rely upon the creature in trifles, and so fail in great things to rely +upon God” (<i>Ibid.</i>)</p> + +<p>This view of false worship is frequent in Scripture itself. The +Chaldeans were idolaters of an elaborate and imposing ritual, but their +true deities were not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> be found in temples. They adored what they +really trusted upon, and that was their military prowess—the god of the +modern commander, who said that Providence sided with the big +battalions. The Chaldean is “he whose might is his god,” whereas the +sacred warrior has the Lord for his strength and shield and very present +help in battle. Nay, regarding men “as the fishes of the sea,” and his +own vast armaments as the fisher’s apparatus to sweep them away, the +Chaldean, it is said, “sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense +unto his drag; because by them his portion is fat and his meat +plenteous” (Hab. i. 11, 14–16). Multitudes of humbler people practise a +similar idolatry. They say to God “Give us this day our daily bread”; +but they really ascribe their maintenance to their profession or their +trade; and so this is the true object of their homage. They, too, burn +incense to their drag.</p> + +<p>Others had no thought of a higher blessedness than animal enjoyment. +Their god was their belly. They set the excitement of wine in the place +of the fulness of the Spirit, or preferred some depraved union upon +earth to the honour of being one spirit with the Lord (Phil. iii. 19; +Eph. v. 18; 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17). And some tried to combine the world and +righteousness; not to lose heaven while grasping wealth, and receiving +here not only good things, but the only good things they +acknowledged—<i>their</i> good things (Luke xvi. 25). As the Samaritans +feared the Lord and served graven images, so these were fain to serve +God and mammon (2 Kings xvii. 41; Matt. vi. 24).</p> + +<p>Now, these departures from the true Centre of all love and Source of all +light were really a homage to His great rival, “the god of this world.” +Whenever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> men seek to obtain any prize by departing from God, they do +reverence to him who falsely said of all the kingdoms of the earth, and +their glory, “These things are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I +will I give them.” They deny Him to Whom indeed all power is committed +in heaven and earth.</p> + +<p>What is the remedy, then, for all such formal or virtual apostasies? It +is to “have” the true God—which means, not only to know and confess, +but to be in real relationship with Him.</p> + +<p>Despite His so-called self-sufficiency, man is not very self-sufficing, +after all. The vast endowments of Julius Cæsar did not prevent him from +chafing because, at the age when he was still obscure, Alexander had +conquered the world. To be Julius Cæsar was not enough for him. Nor is +any man able to stand alone. In the Old Testament Joshua said, “If it +seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will +serve,”—implying that they must obey some one and will do better to +choose a service than to drift into one (Josh. xxiv. 15). And in the New +Testament Jesus declared that no man can serve two masters; but added +that he would not break with both and go free, he was sure to love and +cleave to one of them. Now, he only is proof against apostasy, who has +realised the wants of the soul within him, and the powerlessness of all +creatures to satisfy or save, and then, turning to the cross of Christ, +has found his sufficiency in Him. “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast +the words of everlasting life.” Marvellous it is to think that +underneath the stern words “Thou shalt have none other,” lies all the +condescension of the privilege “Thou shalt have ... Me.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="section">THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, ... thou shalt not +bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them.”—xx. 4–6.</p></div> + +<p>How far does the second of these clauses modify the first? Men there are +who maintain the severe independence of the former, so that it forbids +the presence of any image or likeness in the house of God, even for +innocent purposes of adornment. But the Decalogue is not a liturgical +directory: what it forbids in church it forbids anywhere; and on this +theory the statues in Parliament Square would be idolatrous, as well as +those in Westminster Abbey. And such Christians are more Judaical than +the Jews, who were taught to place in the very Holy of Holies golden +cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat, and to represent them again upon +its curtains.</p> + +<p>It is therefore plain that the precept never forbade imagery, but +idolatry, which is the making of images to satisfy the craving of men’s +hearts for a sensuous worship—the making of them “unto thee.” The +second clause qualifies and elucidates the first. And what the +commandment prohibits is any attempt to help our worship by representing +the object of adoration to the senses.</p> + +<p>The higher and more subtle idolatries do not conceive that wood or gold +is actually transformed into their deities; but only that the deities +are locally present in the images, which express their attributes—power +in a hundred hands, beneficence in a hundred breasts. But in thus +expressing, they degrade and cramp the conception.</p> + +<p>They may perhaps evade the reproach of Isaiah that they warm themselves +with a portion of timber, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> roast meat with another portion, and make +the remainder a god (Isa. xliv. 15–17), by urging that the timber is not +the god, but an abode which he chooses because it expresses his specific +qualities. But they cannot evade the reproach of St. Paul, that being +ourselves the offspring of God, we ought not to compare Him to the +workmanship of our hands, graven with art and man’s device (Acts xvii. +29).</p> + +<p>A truly spiritual worship is intellectually as well as morally the most +elevating exercise of the soul, which it leads onward and upward, making +of all that it knows and thinks a vestibule, beyond which lie higher +knowledge and deeper feeling as yet unattained.</p> + +<p>Why is Gothic architecture better adapted for religious buildings than +any Grecian or Oriental style? Because its long aisles, vaulted roofs +and pointed arches, leading the vision up to the unseen, tell of +mystery, and draw the mind away beyond the visible and concrete to +something greater which it hints; while rounded arches and definite +proportions shut in at once the vision and the mind. The difference is +the same as between poetry and logic.</p> + +<p>And so it is with worship. We fetter and cramp our thoughts of deity +when we bind them to even the loftiest conceptions which have ever been +shut up in marble or upon canvas. The best image that ever took shape is +inferior to the poorest spiritual conception of God, in this respect if +in no other—that it has no expansiveness, it cannot grow. And in +connecting our prayers with it, we virtually say, ‘This satisfies my +conception of God.’</p> + +<p>It is not to be condemned merely as inadequate, for so are all our +highest thoughts of deity; nor only because average humanity (which is +supposed to stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> most in need of the help and suggestion of art) will +never learn the fine distinctions by which subtle intellects withhold +from the image itself the worship which it evokes, and which goes out in +its direction. It is still more mischievous because, even for the +trained theologian, it is the petrifaction of what is meant to develop +and expand, the solidification of the inadequate, the accepting of what +is human as our idea of the divine.</p> + +<p>Nor will it long continue to be merely inadequate. Experience proves +that ideas, like air and water, cannot be confined without stagnating. +Idolatries not only fail to develop, they degenerate; and systems, +however orthodox they may appear at starting, which connect worship with +palpable imagery, are doomed to sink into superstition.</p> + +<p>To this precept there is added a startling and painful caution—“For I +the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” That a man should be jealous is no +passport to our friendship: we think of unreasonable estrangements, +exaggerated demands, implacable and cruel resentments. It would not +enter the average mind to doubt that one is highly praised when another +says of him, ‘I never traced in his words or actions the slightest stain +of jealousy.’ And yet we are to think of God Himself as the jealous God.</p> + +<p>Upon reflection, however, we must admit that a man is not condemned as +jealous-minded because he is capable of jealousy, but because he has an +unjust and unreasonable tendency towards it. It is a narrowing and +suspicious quality when it operates without due cause, a vindictive and +cruel one when it operates in excessive measure. But what should we +think of a parent who felt no jealousy if the heart of his child<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> were +stolen from him by intriguing servants or by frivolous comrades? Now, +God has called Israel His son, even His firstborn. The truth is that +with us jealousy is dangerous and frequently perverted, because we are +bad judges of the measure of our own rights, especially when our +affections are involved. But some measure of jealousy is the necessary +pain of love neglected, love wronged or slighted by those upon whom it +has a claim. Jealousy is the shadow thrown where the sunshine of love is +intercepted, and it is strong in proportion to the strength of the +light. It operates in the heart exactly like the sense of justice in the +reason. Justice expects a recompense where it has given service, and +jealousy asks for love where it has given affection.</p> + +<p>And therefore, when God tells us that He is jealous, He implies that He +condescends to love us, to look for a return, to desire more from us +than outward service. We cannot be jealous concerning things which are +indifferent to us. Even the jealousy of rival competitors for business +or for place may be measured by the desire of each for that which the +other would engross. The politician is not jealous of the millionaire, +nor the capitalist of the prime minister.</p> + +<p>Now, if God is jealous when the enemies of our soul would steal away our +loyalty, it surely follows that we shall not be left to contend with +those enemies alone: He values us; He is upon our side; He will help us +to overcome them.</p> + +<p>And now we begin to see why this attribute is connected with the second +commandment and not the first. The apostate who betakes himself to +another god is almost beyond the reach of this tender and intimate +emotion: he is still loved, for God loves all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> men; but yet perhaps the +chord is unstrung which trembles responsive to this plaintive note.</p> + +<p>When a man who confesses God begins to weary of spiritual intercourse +with the Lord of spirits, when he can no longer worship One whose actual +presence is realised because His voice is heard within, when the +likeness of man or brute, or brightness of morning, or marvel of life or +its reproductiveness, contents him as a representation of God the +invisible, then his heart is beginning to go after the creature, to +content itself with artistic loveliness or majesty, to let go the grasp +as upon a living hand, by which alone the soul may be sustained when it +stumbles, or guided when it would err.</p> + +<p>To those who are within His covenant—to us, therefore, as to His +ancient Israel—He says, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” Because +I am “thy God.”</p> + +<p>The assertion of a Divine jealousy is but one difficulty of this +remarkable verse. The Lord goes on to describe Himself as “visiting the +iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth +generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of +them that love Me and keep My commandments.” And is this reasonable? To +punish the child, to be avenged upon the children’s children, for sins +which are not their own? We know how often the sceptic has made gain out +of this representation—which is but his own unauthorised gloss, since +in reality God has said nothing about punishing the righteous with the +wicked. It is not true that all sad and disastrous consequences are +penal; many are disciplinary, and even to the people of God some are +surgical, cutting away what would lead to disease<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> and death. Are no +evil consequences probable, if men brought up amid scenes dishonouring +to God were treated exactly like those who have since childhood felt as +it were the hand of a Father upon their head? For themselves it is best +and kindest that so deep a loss could come home to their consciousness +in pain.</p> + +<p>At all events, the assertion so early made in Scripture is confirmed in +all the experience of the race. Insanity, idiocy, scrofula, consumption, +are too often, though not always, the hereditary results of guilt. Sins +of the flesh are visited upon the bodily system. Sins of the temper, +such as pride, cynicism and frivolity, are felt in the mental structure +of the race. And the sins which offend directly against God, do they +bring no results with them? Ask of the investigators of the new science +of heredity and transmitted peculiarities, whether it stops short of the +highest and holiest parts of human nature. Or consider the ravages which +victory and consequent wealth have made, again and again, in the +character of whole nations.</p> + +<p>There is no doctrine impugned in Scripture, which men have less prospect +of shaking off, even if they close their Bibles for ever, than this. If +it were not there, we should be perplexed at a want of conformity +between the ways of God in nature and what is asserted of Him in His +Book.</p> + +<p>But it is either slander or blindness to represent this law, viewed in +its entirety, as other than benevolent. The transmission of the result +of evil is only a part of the vast law which has bound men together in +nations and families, as partners and members with each other. It is +clear that distinctive advantages cannot be bestowed upon the children +of the good, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> such, unless the same advantages be withheld from the +evil race beside them. If the prizes of a university are won by +knowledge, the result is that ignorance is “visited,” in the withholding +of them. And if, in the vaster university of life, health, affluence, +good repute and a clear intellect are the transmitted results of virtue, +then disease, poverty, neglect and incompetence become the dire bequest +of the unrighteous.</p> + +<p>There is no choice, therefore, except either to carry out this law, or +else to bid every man in the world begin life, not as “the heir of all +the ages,” but absolutely destitute of all that has been acquired by his +fellow-men.</p> + +<p>Sometimes a hint is given us of what this would be. There is brought +occasionally into civilised communities, from the depths of forests, a +creature without language or decency or intellect, with low forehead and +brutal appetites, who in his early childhood had wandered away and been +lost,—brought up, men say, by the strange compassion of some lower +creature, and now sunken well-nigh to its level. To this degradation we +should all come, if it were not for the transmitted inheritance of our +fathers. And so vast is the upward force of this grand law, that it is +steadily though slowly upheaving the whole mass; and the lowest of +to-day, visited for ancestral failings by sinking to the bottom, is +higher than if he had been left absolutely alone.</p> + +<p>This over-weight of good is clearly seen by comparing the clauses, for +the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and +fourth generation, but mercy is shown in them that love God upon a +wholly different scale. Even “unto thousands” would enormously +counterbalance three generations. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> the Revised Version rightly +suggests “a thousand generations” in the margin, and supports it by one +of its very rare references. It is plainly stated in Deuteronomy vii. 9, +that He “keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His +commandments unto a thousand generations.”</p> + +<p>Lastly, it is to be observed that in all this passage the gospel is +shining through the law. It is not a question of just dealing, but of +emotion. God is not a master exacting taskwork, but a Father, jealous if +we refuse our hearts. He visits sin upon the posterity “of them that +hate,” not only of them that disobey Him. And when our hearts sink, we +who are responsible for generations yet to be, as we reflect upon our +frailty, our ignorance and our sins, upon the awful consequences which +may result from one heedless act—nay, from a gesture or a look—He +reminds us that He does not requite those who serve Him only with a +measured wage, but shows “mercy” upon those who love Him unto a thousand +generations.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”—xx. 7.</p></div> + +<p>What is the precise force of this prohibition? The word used is +ambiguous: sometimes it must be rendered as here, as in the verses +“<i>Vain</i> is the help of man,” and “Except the Lord build the house, their +labour is but <i>vain</i> that build it” (Psalm cviii. 12, cxxvii. 1). But +sometimes it clearly means false, as in the texts “Thou shalt not raise +a <i>false</i> report,” and “swearing <i>falsely</i> in making a covenant” (Exod. +xxiii. 1; Hos. x. 4). Yet again, it hangs midway between the two ideas, +as when we read of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>“<i>lying</i> vanities,” and again, “trusting in vanity +and speaking <i>lies</i>” (Psalm xxxi. 6; Isa. lix. 4).</p> + +<p>In favour of the rendering “falsely” it is urged that our Lord quotes it +as “said to them of old time ‘Thou shalt not forswear thyself’” (Matt. +v. 33). But it is by no means clear that He quotes this text: the +citation is closer to the phraseology of Lev. xix. 12, and it is found +in a section of the Sermon which does not confine its citations to the +Decalogue (cf. ver. 38).</p> + +<p>The Authorised rendering seems the more natural when we remember that +civic duty had not yet come upon the stage. When we have learned to +honour only one God, and not to degrade nor materialise our conception +of Him, the next step is to inculcate, not yet veracity toward men when +God has been invoked, but reverence, in treating the sacred name.</p> + +<p>We have already seen the miserable superstitions by which the Jews +endeavoured to satisfy the letter while outraging the spirit of this +precept. In modern times some have conceived that all invocation of the +Divine Name is unlawful, although St. Paul called God for a witness upon +his soul, and the strong angel shall yet swear “by Him Who liveth for +ever and ever” (2 Cor. i. 23; Rev. x. 6).</p> + +<p>As it is not a temple but a desert which no foot ever treads, so the +sacred name is not honoured by being unspoken, but by being spoken +aright.</p> + +<p>Swearing is indeed forbidden, where it has actually disappeared, namely, +in the mutual intercourse of Christian people, whose affirmation should +suffice their brethren, while the need of stronger sanctions “cometh of +evil,” even of the consciousness of a tendency to untruthfulness, which +requires the stronger barrier of an oath. But our Lord Himself, when +adjured by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> living God, responded to the solemn authority of that +adjuration, although His death was the result.</p> + +<p>The name of God is not taken in vain when men who are conscious of His +nearness, and act with habitual reference to His will, mention Him more +frequently and familiarly than formalists approve. It is abused when the +insincere and hollow professor joins in the most solemn act of worship, +honours Him with the lips while the heart is far from Him—nay, when one +strives to curb Satan, and reclaim his fellow-sinner, by the use of good +and holy phrases, in which his own belief is merely theoretical; and +fares like the sons of Sceva, who repeated an orthodox adjuration, but +fled away overpowered and wounded. Or if the truth unworthily spoken +assert its inherent power, that will not justify the hollowness of his +profession, and in vain will he plead at last, “Lord, Lord, have we not +in Thy name cast out devils, and in Thy name done many marvellous acts?”</p> + +<p>The only safe rule is to be sure that our conception of God is high and +real and intimate; to be habitually humble and trustful in our attitude +toward Him; and then to speak sincerely and frankly, as then we shall +not fail to do. The words which rise naturally to the lips of men who +think thus cannot fail to do Him honour, for out of the fulness of the +heart the mouth speaketh.</p> + +<p>And the prevalent notion that God should be mentioned seldom and with +bated breath is rather an evidence of men’s failure habitually to think +of Him aright, than of filial and loving reverence. There is a large and +powerful school of religion in our own day, whose disciples talk much +more of their own emotions and their own souls than St. Paul did, and +much less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> about God and Christ. Some day the proportions will be +restored. In the great Church of the future men will not morbidly shrink +from confessing their inner life, but neither will it be the centre of +their contemplation and their discourse: they will be filled with the +fulness of God; out of the abundance of their hearts their mouths will +speak; His name shall be continually in their mouth, and yet they shall +not take the name of the Lord their God in vain.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xx. 8–11.</h3> + +<p>It cannot be denied that the commandment to honour the Sabbath day +occupies a unique place among the ten. It is, at least apparently, a +formal precept embedded in the heart of a moral code, and good men have +thought very differently indeed about its obligation upon the Christian +Church.</p> + +<p>The great Continental reformers, Lutheran and Calvinistic alike, who +subscribed the Confession of Augsburg, there affirmed that “Scripture +hath abolished the Sabbath by teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may be +omitted since the gospel has been revealed” (II. vii. 28). The Scotch +reformers, on the other hand, declared that God “in His Word, by a +positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, +hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept +holy unto Him” (<i>Westminster Confess.</i>, XXI. vii.). They are even so +bold as to declare that this day “from the beginning of the world to the +resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the +resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week”; but +this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> proposition would be as hard to prove as the contrary assertion, +still maintained by some obscure religionists, that the change of day, +for however sufficient and sublime a reason, was beyond the capacity of +the Church of Christ to enact.</p> + +<p>Amid these conflicting opinions the doctrinal formularies of the Church +of England are characteristically guarded and prudent; but her +worshippers are bidden to seek mercy from the Lord for past violations +of this law, and an inclination of heart to keep it in the future; and +when the Ten have been recited, they pray that “all these Thy laws” may +be written upon their hearts. There is no doubt, therefore, about the +opinion of our own Reformers concerning the divine obligation of the +commandment.</p> + +<p>In examining the problem thus presented to us, our chief light must be +that of Scripture itself. Is the Sabbath what the Lutheran confession +called it, a mere “Mosaic ceremony,” or does it rest upon sanctions +which began earlier and lasted longer than the precept to abstain from +shell-fish, or to sanctify the firstborn of cattle?</p> + +<p>Does its presence in the Decalogue disfigure that great code, as the +intrusion of these other precepts would do? When we find a Gentile +church reminded that the next precept to this “is the first commandment +with promise” (Eph. vi. 2), can we suppose that the tables to which St. +Paul appealed, and the promise which he cited at full length, were both +cancelled; that in so far as a moral element existed in them, that +portion of course survived their repeal, but the code itself was gone? +If so, the temporal promise went with it, and its quotation by St. Paul +is strange. Strange also, upon this supposition, was the stress<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> which +he habitually laid upon the law as a convicting power, and as being only +repealed in the letter so far as it was fulfilled by the spontaneous +instinct of love, which was the fulfilling of the law.</p> + +<p>The position of the commandment among a number of moral and universal +duties cannot but weigh heavily in its favour. It prompts us to ask +whether our duty to God is purely negative, to be fulfilled by a policy +of non-intervention, not worshipping idols, nor blaspheming. Something +more was already intimated in the promise of mercy to them “that love +Me.” For love is chiefly the source of active obedience: while fear is +satisfied by the absence of provocation, love wants not only to abstain +from evil but to do good. And how may it satisfy this instinct when its +object is the eternal God, Who, if He were hungry, would not tell us? It +finds the necessary outlet in worship, in adoring communion, in the +exclusion for awhile of worldly cares, in the devotion of time and +thought to Him. Now, the foundation upon which all the institutions of +religion may be securely built, is the day of rest. Call it external, +formal, unspiritual if you will; say that it is a carnal ordinance, and +that he who keeps it in spirit is free from the obligation of the +letter. But then, what about the eighth commandment? Are we absolved +also from the precept “Thou shalt not steal,” because it too is +concerned with external actions, because “this ... thou shalt not steal +... and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in +this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”? Do we say, +the spirit has abolished the letter: love is the rescinding of the law? +St. Paul said the very opposite: love is the fulfilling of the law, not +its destruction; and thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> he re-echoed the words of Jesus, “I am not +come to destroy the law, but to fulfil.”</p> + +<p>All men know that the formal regulations which defend property are +relaxed as the ties of love and mutual understanding are made strong; +that to enter unannounced is not a trespass, that the same action which +will be prosecuted as a theft by a stranger, and resented as a liberty +by an acquaintance, is welcomed as a graceful freedom, almost as an +endearment, by a friend. And yet the commandment and the rights of +property hold good: they are not compromised, but glorified, by being +spiritualised. As it is between man and his brother, so should it be +between us and our Divine Father. We have learned to know Him very +differently from those who shuddered under Sinai: the whole law is not +now written upon tables of stone, but upon fleshly tables of the heart. +But among the precepts which are thus etherialised and yet established, +why should not the fourth commandment retain its place? Why should it be +supposed that it must vanish from the Decalogue, unless the gathering of +sticks deserves stoning? The institution, and the ceremonial application +of it to Jewish life, are entirely different things; just as respect for +property is a fixed obligation, while the laws of succession vary.</p> + +<p>Bearing this distinction in mind, we come to the question, Was the +Sabbath an ordinance born of Mosaism, or not? Grant that the word +“Remember,” if it stood alone, might conceivably express the emphasis of +a new precept, and not the recapitulation of an existing one. Grant also +that the mention in Genesis of the Divine rest might be made by +anticipation, to be read with an eye to the institution which would be +mentioned later. But what is to be made of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> fact that on the seventh +day manna was withheld from the camp, before they had arrived at Horeb, +and therefore before the commandment had been written by the finger of +God upon the stone? Was this also done by anticipation? Upon any +supposition, it aimed at teaching the nation that the obligation of the +day was not based upon the positive precept, but the precept embodied an +older and more fundamental obligation.</p> + +<p>How is the Sabbath spoken of in those prophecies which set least value +upon the merely ceremonial law?</p> + +<p>Isaiah speaks of mere ritual as slightly as St. Paul. To fast and +afflict one’s soul is nothing, if in the day of fasting one smites with +the fist and oppresses his labourers. To loose the bonds of wickedness, +to free the oppressed, to share one’s bread with the hungry, this is the +fast which God has chosen, and for him who fasts after this fashion the +light shall break forth like sunrise, and his bones shall be strong, and +he himself like an unfailing water-spring. Now, it is the same chapter +which thus waives aside mere ceremonial in contempt, which lavishes the +most ample promises on him who turns away his foot from the Sabbath, and +calls the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the Lord, honourable, and +honours it (Isa. lviii. 5–11, 13–14).</p> + +<p>There is no such promise in Jeremiah, for the observance of any merely +ceremonial law, as that which bids the people to honour the Sabbath day, +that there may enter into their gates kings and princes riding in +chariots and upon horses, and that the city may remain for ever (Jer. +xvii. 24, 25).</p> + +<p>And Ezekiel declares that in the day when God made Himself known to His +people in the land of Egypt, He gave them statutes and judgments and His +sabbaths (Ezek. xx. 11, 12). Now, this phrase is a clear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> allusion to +the word of God in Jeremiah, that “I spake not unto their fathers in the +day when I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or +sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto My +voice,” etc. (Jer. vii. 23). And it sharply contrasts the sacredness of +God’s abiding ordinances with the temporary institutions of the +sanctuary. But it reckons the Sabbath among the former.</p> + +<p>It is objected that our Lord Himself treated the Sabbath lightly, as a +worn-out ordinance. But He was “a minister of the circumcision,” and +always discussed the lawfulness of His Sabbath miracles as a Jew with +Jews. Thus He argued that men, admittedly under the law, baked the +shewbread, circumcised children, and even rescued cattle from jeopardy +upon the seventh day. He appealed to the example of David, who met a +sufficiently urgent necessity by eating the consecrated bread, “which +was not lawful for him to eat” (Matt. xii. 4).</p> + +<p>He did not hint that the law of the sabbath had disappeared, but +insisted that it was meant to serve man and not to oppress him: that +“the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark ii. +27).</p> + +<p>Now, there is not in the life of Christ an assertion, so broad and +strong as that the Sabbath was made for the human race, which can be +narrowed down to a discussion of any merely local and temporary +institution. He Who stood highest, and saw the widest horizons, declared +that the Sabbath was intended for humanity, and not for a section or a +sect of it. Not because He was the King of the Jews, but because He was +the Son of Man, the ripe fruit and the leader of the world-wide race +which it was given to bless, therefore He was also its Lord.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p> + +<p>And in Him, so are we. Like all things present and things to come, it is +our help, we are not its slaves.</p> + +<p>There is something abject in the notion of a Christian freeman, who has +been for a long week imprisoned in some gloomy and ill-ventilated +workshop, whose lungs would be purified, and therefore his spirits +uplifted, and therefore his reason and his affections invigorated, and +therefore his worship rendered more fresh, warm and reasonable, by the +breathing of a purer air, yet whose conception of a day of rest is so +slavish that he dares not “rest” from the pollution of an infected +atmosphere, and from the closeness of a London court, because he +conceives it imperative to “rest” only from that bodily exercise, to +enjoy which would be to him the most real and the most delightful repose +of all.</p> + +<p>But there are other things more abject still; and one of them is the +miserable insincerity of the affluent and luxurious, using the +exceptional case of him whose week-days are thus oppressed, to excuse +their own wanton neglect of religious ordinances, accepting at the hands +of Christianity the sacred holiday, but ignoring utterly the fact that +the Lord sanctified and hallowed it, that it is to be called the holy of +the Lord, and to be honoured, and that we are free from the letter of +the precept only in so far as we rise to the spirit of it, in loving and +true communion with the Father of spirits.</p> + +<p>Another utterance of Jesus throws a strong light upon the nature and the +limits of our obligation. “My Father worketh even until now, and I work” +(John v. 17) is an appeal to the fact that in the long sabbath of God +His world is not deserted; creation may be suspended, but the bounties +of Providence go on;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> and therefore Christ also felt that His day of +rest was not one of torpor, that in healing the impotent man upon the +Sabbath He was but following the example of Him by whose rest the day +was sanctified. All works of beneficent love, all that ministers to +human recovery from anguish, and carries out the Divine purposes of +grace for body or soul, rescue from danger, healing of disease, +reformation of guilt, are sanctioned by this defence of Christ.</p> + +<p>They need not plead that the commandment is abrogated, but that Jesus of +Nazareth, of the seed of David, found nothing in such liberties +inconsistent with the duties of a devout Hebrew.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon +the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”—xx. 12.</p></div> + +<p>This commandment forms a kind of bridge between the first table and the +second. Obedience to parents is not merely a neighbourly virtue; we do +not honour them simply as our fellow-men: they are the vicegerents of +God to our childhood; through them He supplies our necessities, defends +our feebleness, and pours in light and wisdom upon our ignorance; by +them our earliest knowledge of right and wrong is imparted, and upon the +sanction of their voice it long depends.</p> + +<p>It is clear that parental authority cannot be undermined, nor filial +disobedience and irreverence gain ground, without shaking the +foundations of our religious life, even more perhaps than of our social +conduct.</p> + +<p>Accordingly this commandment stands before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> sixth, not because +murder is a less offence against society, but because it is more +emphatically against our neighbour, and less directly against God.</p> + +<p>The human infant is dependent and helpless for a longer period, and more +utterly, than the young of any other animal. Its growth, which is to +reach so much higher, is slower, and it is feebler during the process. +And the reason of this is plain to every thoughtful observer. God has +willed that the race of man should be bound together in the closest +relationships, both spiritual and secular; and family affection prepares +the heart for membership alike of the nation and the Church. With this +inner circle the wider ones are concentric. The pathetic dependence of +the child nourishes equally the strong love which protects, and the +grateful love which clings. And from our early knowledge of human +generosity, human care and goodness, there is born the capacity for +belief in the heart of the great Father, from Whom every family in +heaven and earth derived its Greek name of Fatherhood (Eph. iii. 15).</p> + +<p>Woe to the father whose cruelty, selfishness, or evil passions make it +hard for his child to understand the Archetype, because the type is +spoiled! or whose tyranny and self-will suggest rather the stern God of +reprobation, or of servile, slavish subjection, than the tender Father +of freeborn sons, who are no more under tutors and governors, but are +called unto freedom.</p> + +<p>But how much sorer woe to the son who dishonours his earthly parent, and +in so doing slays within himself the very principle of obedience to the +Father of spirits!</p> + +<p>No earthly tie is perfect, and therefore no earthly obedience can be +absolute. Some crisis comes in every life when the most innocent and +praiseworthy affection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> becomes a snare—when the counsel we most relied +upon would fain mislead our conscience—when a man, to be Christ’s +disciple, must “hate father and mother,” as Christ Himself heard the +temptation of the evil one speaking through chosen and beloved lips, and +said “Get thee behind Me, Satan.” Even then we shall respect them, and +pray as Christ prayed for His failing apostle, and when the storm has +spent itself they shall resume their due place in the loving heart of +their Christian offspring.</p> + +<p>So Jesus, when Mary would interrupt His teaching, said “Who is My +mother?” But imminent death could not prevent Him from pitying her +sorrow, and committing her to His beloved disciple as to a son.</p> + +<p>From the letter of this commandment streams out a loving influence to +sanctify all the rest of our relationships. As the love of God implies +that of our brother also, so does the honour of parents involve the +recognition of all our domestic ties.</p> + +<p>And even unassisted nature will tend to make long the days of the loving +and obedient child; for life and health depend far less upon affluence +and luxury than upon a well-regulated disposition, a loving heart, a +temper which can obey without chafing, and a conscience which respects +law. All these are being learned in disciplined and dutiful households, +which are therefore the nurseries of happy and righteous children, and +so of long-lived families in the next generation also. Exceptions there +must be. But the rule is clear, that violent and curbless lives will +spend themselves faster than the lives of the gentle, the loving, the +law-abiding and the innocent.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="section">THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt do no murder.”—xx. 13.</p></div> + +<p>We have now clearly passed to the consideration of man’s duty to his +fellow-man, as a part of his duty to his Maker. It is no longer as +holding a divinely appointed relation to us, but simply as he is a man, +that we are bidden to respect his person, his family, his property, and +his fair fame.</p> + +<p>And the influence of the teaching of our Lord is felt in the very name +which we all give to the second table of the law. We call it “our duty +to our neighbour.” But we do not mean to imply that there lives on the +surface of the globe one whom we are free to assault or to pillage. The +obligation is universal, and the name we give it echoes the teaching of +Him who said that no man can enter the sphere of our possible influence, +even as a wounded creature in a swoon whom we may help, but he should +thereupon become our neighbour. Or rather, we should become his; for +while the question asked of Him was “Who is my neighbour?” (whom should +I love?) Jesus reversed the problem when He asked in turn not To whom +was the wounded man a neighbour? but Who was a neighbour unto him? (who +loved him?)</p> + +<p>Social ethics, then, have a religious sanction. It is the constant duty +and effort of the Church of God to saturate the whole life of man, all +his conduct and his thought, with a sense of sacredness; and as the +world is for ever desecrating what is holy, so is religion for ever +consecrating what is secular.</p> + +<p>In these latter days men have thought it a proof of grace to separate +religion from daily life. The Antinomian, who maintains that his +orthodox beliefs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> or feelings absolve him from the obligations of +morality, joins hands with the Italian brigand who hopes to be forgiven +for cutting throats because he subsidises a priest. The enthusiast who +insists that all sins, past and future, were forgiven him when he +believed, approaches far nearer than he supposes to the fanatic of +another creed, who thinks a formal confession and an external absolution +sufficient to wash away sin. All of them hold the grand heresy that one +may escape the penalties without being freed from the power of evil; +that a life may be saved by grace without being penetrated by religion, +and that it is not exactly accurate to say that Jesus saves His people +from their sins.</p> + +<p>It is scarcely wonderful, when some men thus refuse to morality the +sanctions of religion, that others propose to teach morality how she may +go without them. In spite of the experience of ages, which proves that +human passions are only too ready to defy at once the penalties of both +worlds, it is imagined that the microscope and the scalpel may supersede +the Gospel as teachers of virtue; that the self-interest of a creature +doomed to perish in a few years may prove more effectual to restrain +than eternal hopes and fears; and that a scientific prudence may supply +the place of holiness. It has never been so in the past. Not only Judæa, +but Egypt, Greece, and Rome, were strong as long as they were righteous, +and righteous as long as their morality was bound up in their religion. +When they ceased to worship they ceased to be self-controlled, nor could +the most urgent and manifest self-interest, nor all the resources of +lofty philosophy, withhold them from the ruin which always accompanies +or follows vice.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></p> + +<p>Is it certain that modern science will fare any better? So far from +deepening our respect for human nature and for law, she is discovering +vile origins for our most sacred institutions and our deepest instincts, +and whispering strange means by which crime may work without detection +and vice without penalty. Never was there a time when educated thought +was more suggestive of contempt for one’s self and for one’s fellow-man, +and of a prudent, sturdy, remorseless pursuit of self-interest, which +may be very far indeed from virtuous. The next generation will eat the +fruit of this teaching, as we reap what our fathers sowed. The theorist +may be as pure as Epicurus. But the disciples will be as the Epicureans.</p> + +<p>Is there anything in the modern conception of a man which bids me spare +him, if his existence dooms me to poverty and I can quietly push him +over a precipice? It is quite conceivable that I can prove, and very +likely indeed that I can persuade myself, that the shortening of the +life of one hard and grasping man may brighten the lives of hundreds. +And my passions will simply laugh at the attempt to restrain me by +arguing that great advantages result from the respect for human life +upon the whole. Appetites, greeds, resentments do not regard their +objects in this broad and colourless way; they grant the general +proposition, but add that every rule has its exceptions. Something more +is needed: something which can never be obtained except from a universal +law, from the sanctity of all human lives as bearing eternal issues in +their bosom, and from the certainty that He who gave the mandate will +enforce it.</p> + +<p>It is when we see in our fellow-man a divine creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> of the Divine, +made by God in His own image, marred and defaced by sin, but not beyond +recovery, when his actions are regarded as wrought in the sight of a +Judge Whose presence supersedes utterly the slightness, heat and +inadequacy of our judgment and our vengeance, when his pure affections +tell us of the love of God which passeth knowledge, when his errors +affright us as dire and melancholy apostacies from a mighty calling, and +when his death is solemn as the unveiling of unknown and unending +destinies, then it is that we discern the sacredness of life, and the +awful presumption of the deed which quenches it. It is when we realise +that he is our brother, holding his place in the universe by the same +tenure by which we hold our own, and dear to the same Father, that we +understand how stern is the duty of repressing the first resentful +movements within our breast which would even wish to crush him, because +they are a rebellion against the Divine ordinance and against the Divine +benevolence.</p> + +<p>Is it asked, how can all this be reconciled with the lawfulness of +capital punishment? The death penalty is frequent in the Mosaic code. +But Scripture regards the judge as the minister and agent of God. The +stern monotheism of the Old Testament “said, Ye are Gods,” to those who +thus pronounced the behest of Heaven; and private vengeance becomes only +more culpable when we reflect upon the high sanction and authority by +which alone public justice presumes to act.</p> + +<p>Now, all these considerations vanish together, when religion ceases to +consecrate morality. The judgment of law differs from my own merely as I +like it better, and as I am a party (perhaps unwillingly) to the general +consent which creates it; he whom I would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> assail is doomed in any case +to speedy and complete extinction; his longer life is possibly +burdensome to himself and to society; and there exists no higher Being +to resent my interference, or to measure out the existence which I think +too protracted. It is clear that such a view of human life must prove +fatal to its sacredness; and that its results would make themselves +increasingly felt, as the awe wore away which old associations now +inspire.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”—xx. 14.</p></div> + +<p>This commandment follows very obviously from even the rudest principle +of justice to our neighbour. It is among those that St. Paul enumerates +as “briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour +as thyself.”</p> + +<p>And therefore nothing need here be said about the open sin by which one +man wrongs another. Wild and evil theories may be abroad, new schemes of +social order may be recklessly invented and discussed; yet, when the +institution of the permanent family is assailed, every thoughtful man +knows full well that all our interests are at stake in its defence, and +the nation could no more survive its overthrow than the Church.</p> + +<p>But when our Lord declared that to excite desire through the eyes is +actually this sin, already ripe, He appealed to some deeper and more +spiritual consideration than that of social order. What He pointed to is +the sacredness of the human body—so holy a thing that impurity, and +even the silent excitement of passion, is a wrong done to our nature, +and a dishonour to the temple of the Holy Ghost.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, this is a subject upon which it is all the more necessary to write, +because it is hard to speak about.</p> + +<p>What is the human body, in the view of the Christian? It is the one +bond, as far as we know in all the universe, between the material and +the spiritual worlds, one of which slopes thence down to inert +molecules, and the other upward to the throne of God.</p> + +<p>Our brain is the engine-room and laboratory whereby thought, aspiration, +worship express themselves and become potent, and even communicate +themselves to others.</p> + +<p>But it is a solemn truth that the body not only interprets passively, +but also influences and modifies the higher nature. The mind is helped +by proper diet and exercise, and hindered by impure air and by excess or +lack of food. The influence of music upon the soul has been observed at +least since the time of Saul. And hereafter the Christian body, redeemed +from the contagion of the fall, and promoted to a spiritual +impressibility and receptiveness which it has never yet known, is meant +to share in the heavenly joys of the immortal spirit before God. This is +the meaning of the assertion that it is sown a natural (= <i>soulish</i>) +body, but shall be raised a spiritual body. In the meantime it must +learn its true function. Whatever stimulates and excites the animal at +the cost of the immortal within, will in the same degree cloud and +obscure the perception that a man’s life consisteth not in his +pleasures, and will keep up the illusion that the senses are the true +ministers of bliss. The soul is attacked through the appetites at a +point far short of their physical indulgence. And when lawless wishes +are deliberately toyed with, it is clear that lawless acts are not +hated, but only avoided through fear of consequences. The reins which +govern the life are no longer in the hands of the spirit, nor is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> it the +will which now refuses to sin. How, then, can the soul be alert and +pure? It is drugged and stupified: the offices of religion are a dull +form, and its truths are hollow unrealities, assented to but unfelt, +because unholy impulses have set on fire the course of nature, in what +should have been the temple of the Holy Ghost.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the Christian life is not one of mere submission to authority; +its true law is that of ceaseless upward aspiration. And since the union +of husband and wife is consecrated to be the truest and deepest and most +far-reaching of all types of the mystical union between Christ and His +Church, it demands an ever closer approach to that perfect ideal of +mutual love and service.</p> + +<p>And whatever impairs the sacred, mysterious, all-pervading unity of a +perfect wedlock is either the greatest of misfortunes or of crimes.</p> + +<p>If it be frailty of temper, failure of common sympathies, an +irretrievable error recognised too late, it is a calamity which may yet +strengthen the character by evoking such pity and helpfulness as Christ +the Bridegroom showed for the Church when lost. But if estrangement, +even of heart, come through the secret indulgence of lawless reverie and +desire, it is treason, and criminal although the traitor has not struck +a blow, but only whispered sedition under his breath in a darkened room.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt not steal.”—xx. 15.</p></div> + +<p>There is no commandment against which human ingenuity has brought more +evasions to bear than this.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> Property itself is theft, says the +communist. “It is no grave sin,” says the Roman text-book, “to steal in +moderation”; and this is defined to be, “from a pauper less than a +franc, from a daily labourer less than two or three, from a person in +comfortable circumstances anything under four or five francs, or from a +very rich man ten or twelve francs. And a servant whom force or +necessity compels to accept an unjust payment, may secretly compensate +himself, because the workman is worthy of his hire.”<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> A moment’s +reflection discovers this to be the most naked rationalism, choosing +some of the commandments of God for honour, and some for contempt as +“not very grave” and wholly ignoring the principle that whoever attacks +the code at any one point “is guilty of all,” because he has despised it +as a code, as an organic system.</p> + +<p>Nothing is easier than to confuse one’s conscience about the ethics of +property. For the arrangements of various nations differ: it is a +geographical line which defines the right of the elder son against his +brothers, of sons against daughters, and of children against a wife; and +the demand is still more capricious which the state asserts against them +all, under the name of succession duty, and which it makes upon other +property in the form of a multitude of imposts and taxes. Can all these +different arrangements be alike binding? Add to this variability the +immense national revenues, which are apparently so little affected by +individual contributions, and it is no wonder if men fail to see that +honesty to the public is a duty as immutable and stern as any other duty +to their neighbour. Unfortunately the evil spreads. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> same +considerations which make it seem pardonable to rob the nation apply +also to the millionaire; and they tempt many a poor man to ask whether +he need respect the wealth of a usurer, or may not adjust the scales of +Mine and Thine, which law causes to hang unfairly.</p> + +<p>It is forgotten that a nation has at least the same authority as a club +to regulate its own affairs, to fix the relative position and the +subscription of its members. Common honesty teaches me that I must +conform to these rules or leave the club; and this duty is not at all +affected by the fact that other associations have different rules. In +three such societies God Himself has placed us all—the family, the +Church, and the nation; and therefore I am directly responsible to God +for due respect to their laws. It is not true that the statute-book is +inspired, any more than that the regulations of a household are divinely +given. Yet a Divine sanction, such as rests upon the parental rule of +fallible human creatures, hallows also national law. I may advocate a +change in laws of which I disapprove, but I am bound in the meantime to +obey the conditions upon which I receive protection from foreign foes +and domestic fraud, and which cannot be subjected to the judgment of +every individual, except at the cost of a dissolution of society, and a +state of anarchy compared with which the worst of laws would be +desirable.</p> + +<p>This revolt of the individual is especially tempting when selfishness +deems itself wronged, as by the laws of property. And the eighth +commandment is necessary to protect society not merely against the +violence of the burglar and the craft of the impostor, but also against +the deceitfulness of our own hearts, asking What harm is in the evasion +of an impost? What<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> right has a successful speculator to his millions? +Why should I not do justice to myself when law refuses it?</p> + +<p>There is always the simple answer, Who made me a judge in my own case?</p> + +<p>But when we regard the matter thus, it becomes clear that honesty is not +mere abstinence from pillage. The community has larger claims than this +upon us, and is wronged if we fail to discharge them.</p> + +<p>The rich man robs the poor if he does not play his part in the great +organisation by which he is served so well: every one robs the community +who takes its benefits and returns none; and in this sense the bold +saying is true, that every man lives by one of two methods—by labour or +by theft.</p> + +<p>St. Paul does not exhort men to refrain from theft merely in order to be +harmless, but to do good. That is the alternative contemplated when he +says, “Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him labour, working +with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give +to him that hath need” (Eph. iv. 28).</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE NINTH COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”—xx. 16.</p></div> + +<p>St. James called the tongue a world of iniquity. And against its +lawlessness, which inflames the whole course of nature, each table of +the law contains a warning. For it is equally ready to profane the name +of God, and to rob our neighbour of his fair fame.</p> + +<p>Jesus Christ regarded verbal professions as a very poor thing, and +asked, “Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I command +you?” He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> aimed a parable at the hollowness of merely saying, “I go, +sir.” But, worthless though such phrases be, the act which substitutes +professions for actual service is no trifle; and our Lord felt the +importance of words, empty or sincere, so profoundly as to stake upon +this one test the eternal destinies of His people: “By thy words thou +shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Now, the +tongue is thus important because it is so prompt and willing a servant +of the mind within. We scarcely think of it as a servant at all: our +words do not seem to be more than “expressions,” manifestations of what +is within us.</p> + +<p>But a thought, once expressed, is transformed and energetic as a bullet +when the charge is fired; it modifies other minds, and the word which we +took to be far less potent than a deed becomes the mover of the fateful +deeds of many men. And thus, being at once powerful and unsuspected, it +is the most treacherous and subtle of all the forces which we wield.</p> + +<p>And the ninth commandment does not undertake to bridle it by merely +forbidding us in a court of justice to wrong our fellow-man by perjury.</p> + +<p>We transgress it whenever we conceive a strong suspicion and repeat it +as a thing we know; when we allow the temptation of a biting epigram to +betray us into an unkind expression not quite warranted by the facts; +when we vindicate ourselves against a charge by throwing blame where it +probably but not certainly ought to lie; or when we are not content to +vindicate ourselves without bringing a countercharge which it would +perplex us to be asked to prove; when we give way to that most shallow +and meanest of all attempts at cleverness which claims credit for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> +penetration because it can discover base motives for innocent actions, +so that high-mindedness becomes pride, and charity withers up into love +of patronising, and forbearance shrivels into lack of spirit. The +pattern and ideal of such cleverness is the east wind, which makes all +that is fair and sensitive to shut itself up, forbids the bud to expand +into a blossom, and puts back the coming of the springtime and of the +singing bird.</p> + +<p>There are very gifted persons who have never found out that a kindly and +winning phrase may have as much literary merit as a stinging one, and it +is quite as fine a thing to be like the dew on Hermon on as to shoot out +arrows, even bitter words.</p> + +<p>It is a pity that our harsh judgments always speak more loudly and +confidently than our kindly ones, but the reason is plain: angry passion +prompts the former, and its voice is loud; while the calm reflection +which tones down and sweetens the judgment softens also the expression +of it.</p> + +<p>It has to be remembered, also, that false witness can reach to nations, +organisations, political movements as well as individuals. The habit of +putting the worst construction upon the intentions of foreign powers is +what feeds the mutual jealousies that ultimately blaze out in war. The +habit of thinking of rival politicians as deliberately false and +treasonable is what lowers the standard of the noblest of secular +pursuits, until each party, not to be undone, protests too much, raises +its voice to a falsetto to scream its rival down, and relaxes its +standard of righteousness lest it should be outdone by the +unscrupulousness of its rival.</p> + +<p>And there is yet another neighbour, against whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> false witness is +woefully rife, both in the Church and in society. That neighbour is +mankind at large. There is a prevalent theory of human sinfulness which +unconsciously scoffs at the appeals of the gospel, striving indeed to +influence me by love, gratitude, admiration for the Perfect One, and +desire to be like Him, by the hope of holiness and the shame of +vileness, but telling me at the same time that I have no sympathies +whatever except with evil. The observation of every day shows that man’s +nature is corrupt, but it also shows that he is not a fiend—that he has +fallen indeed, but remembers yet in what image he was made. But the +world cannot upbraid the Church for these exaggerations, since they are +but the echo of its own.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i24">“I do believe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though I have found them not, that there may be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And virtues which are merciful, nor weave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snares for the failing; I would also deem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O’er others’ griefs that some sincerely grieve;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That two, or one, are almost what they seem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.”<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i24"><i>Childe Harold</i>, III., cxiv.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Cynicism is false witness; and if it does not greatly wrong any one of +our fellow-men, it injures both society and the cynic. If he is of a +coarse fibre, it excuses him to himself in becoming the hard and +unloving creature which he fancies that all men are. If he is too proud +or too self-respecting to yield to this temptation, it isolates him, it +chills and withers his sympathies for people quite as good as himself, +whom he thinks of as the herd.</p> + +<p>As for the more flagrant sins, so for this, the remedy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> is love. Love +sympathises, makes allowance for frailty, discovers the germs of good, +hopeth all things, taketh not account of evil.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Thou shalt not covet ... anything that is his.”—xx. 17.</p></div> + +<p>It will be remembered that the order of the catalogue of objects of +desire is different in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. In the latter “thy +neighbour’s wife” is first, as of supreme importance; and therefore it +has been thought possible to convert it into a separate commandment.</p> + +<p>But this the order in Exodus forbids, by placing the house first, and +then the various living possessions which the householder gathers around +him. What is thought of is the gradual process of acquisition, and the +right of him who wins first a house, then a wife, servants, and cattle, +to be secure in the possession of them all. Now, between foes, we saw +that the evil temper is what leads to the evil deed, and the man who +nurses hatred is a murderer at heart. Just so the householder is not +rendered safe, and certainly not happy in the enjoyment of his rights, +by the seventh commandment and the eighth, unless care be taken to +prevent the accumulation of those forces which will some day break +through them both. To secure cities against explosion, we forbid the +storage of gunpowder and dynamite, and not only the firing of magazines.</p> + +<p>But the moral law is not given to any man for his neighbour’s sake +chiefly. It is for me: statutes whereby I myself may live. And as the +Psalmist pondered on them, they expanded strangely for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> perception. +“I have kept Thy testimonies,” he says; but presently asks to be +quickened,—“So shall I <i>observe</i> the testimony of Thy mouth,”—and +prays, “Give me understanding, that I may <i>know</i> Thy testimonies.” And +at the last, he confesses that he has “gone astray like a lost sheep” +(Ps. cxix. 22, 88, 125, 176). Starting with a literal innocence, he +comes to feel a deep inward need, need of vitality to obey, and even of +power to understand aright. If the sacrifices of God are a broken +spirit, it follows that they are a spirit, and inward loyalty is the +necessary condition upon which external obedience can be accepted. The +cheers of a traitor, the flattery of one who scorns, the ritual of a +hypocrite, these are quite as valuable, as indications of what is +within, as a reluctant relinquishment to my neighbour of what is his. I +must not covet. Plainly this is the sharpest and most searching precept +of all; and accordingly St. Paul asserts that without this he would not +have suffered the deep internal discontent, the consciousness of +something wrong, which tortured him, even although no mortal could +reproach him, even though, touching the righteousness of the law, he was +blameless. He had not known coveting, except the law had said “Thou +shalt not covet.”</p> + +<p>Here, then, we perceive with the utmost clearness what St. Paul so +clearly discerned—the true meaning of the Law, its convicting power, +its design to work not righteousness, but self-despair as the prelude of +self-surrender. For who can, by resolving, govern his desires? Who can +abstain not only from the usurping deed, but from the aggressive +emotion? Who will not despair when he learns that God desireth truth in +the inward parts? But this despair is the way to that better hope which +adds, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>“In the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me +with hyssop, and I shall be clean.”</p> + +<p>And as a strong interest or affection has power to destroy in the soul +many weaker ones, so the love of God and our neighbour is the appointed +way to overcome the desire of taking from our neighbour what God has +given to him, refusing it to us.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LESSER_LAW" id="CHAPTER_LESSER_LAW"></a>THE LESSER LAW.</h2> +<h3 class="ref">xx. 18–xxiii. 33.</h3> + +<p>With the close of the Decalogue and its universal obligations, we +approach a brief code of laws, purely Hebrew, but of the deepest moral +interest, confessed by hostile criticism to bear every mark of a remote +antiquity, and distinctly severed from what precedes and follows by a +marked difference in the circumstances.</p> + +<p>This is evidently the book of the Covenant to which the nation gave its +formal assent (xxiv. 7), and is therefore the germ and the centre of the +system afterwards so much expanded.</p> + +<p>And since the adhesion of the people was required, and the final +covenant was ratified as soon as it was given, before any of the more +formal details were elaborated, and before the tabernacle and the +priesthood were established, it may fairly claim the highest and most +unique position among the component parts of the Pentateuch, excepting +only the Ten Commandments.</p> + +<p>Before examining it in detail, the impressive circumstances of its +utterance have to be observed.</p> + +<p>It is written that when the law was given, the voice of the trumpet +waxed louder and louder still. And as the multitude became aware that in +this tempestuous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> and growing crash there was a living centre, and a +voice of intelligible words, their awe became insufferable: and instead +of needing the barriers which excluded them from the mountain, they +recoiled from their appointed place, trembling and standing afar off. +“And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let +not God speak with us lest we die.” It is the same instinct that we have +already so often recognised, the dread of holiness in the hearts of the +impure, the sense of unworthiness, which makes a prophet cry, “Woe is +me, for I am undone!” and an apostle, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful +man.”</p> + +<p>Now, the New Testament quotes a confession of Moses himself, well-nigh +overwhelmed, “I do exceedingly fear and quake” (Heb. xii. 21). And yet +we read that he “said unto the people, Fear not, for God is come to +prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not” +(xx. 20). Thus we have the double paradox,—that he exceedingly feared, +yet bade them fear not, and yet again declared that the very object of +God was that they might fear Him.</p> + +<p>Like every paradox, which is not a mere contradiction, this is +instructive.</p> + +<p>There is an abject fear, the dread of cowards and of the guilty, which +masters and destroys the will—the fear which shrank away from the mount +and cried out to Moses for relief. Such fear has torment, and none ought +to admit it who understands that God wishes him well and is merciful.</p> + +<p>There is also a natural agitation, at times inevitable though not +unconquerable, and often strongest in the highest natures because they +are the most finely strung. We are sometimes taught that there is sin in +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> instinctive recoil from death, and from whatever brings it close, +which indeed is implanted by God to prevent foolhardiness, and to +preserve the race. Our duty, however, does not require the absence of +sensitive nerves, but only their subjugation and control. Marshal Saxe +was truly brave when he looked at his own trembling frame, as the cannon +opened fire, and said, “Aha! tremblest thou? thou wouldest tremble much +more if thou knewest whither I mean to carry thee to-day.” Despite his +fever-shaken nerves, he was perfectly entitled to say to any waverer, +“Fear not.”</p> + +<p>And so Moses, while he himself quaked, was entitled to encourage his +people, because he could encourage them, because he saw and announced +the kindly meaning of that tremendous scene, because he dared presently +to draw near unto the thick darkness where God was.</p> + +<p>And therefore the day would come when, with his noble heart aflame for a +yet more splendid vision, he would cry, “O Lord, I beseech Thee show me +Thy glory”—some purer and clearer irradiation, which would neither +baffle the moral sense, nor conceal itself in cloud.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, there was a fear which should endure, and which God desires: +not panic, but awe; not the terror which stood afar off, but the +reverence which dares not to transgress. “Fear not, for God is come to +prove you” (to see whether the nobler emotion or the baser will +survive), “and that His fear may be before your faces” (so as to guide +you, instead of pressing upon you to crush), “that ye sin not.”</p> + +<p>How needful was the lesson, may be seen by what followed when they were +taken at their word, and the pressure of physical dread was lifted off +them. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>“They soon forgat God their Saviour ... they made a calf in +Horeb, and worshipped the work of their own hands.” Perhaps other +pressures which we feel and lament to-day, the uncertainties and fears +of modern life, are equally required to prevent us from forgetting God.</p> + +<p>Of the nobler fear, which is a safeguard of the soul and not a danger, +it is a serious question whether enough is alive among us.</p> + +<p>Much sensational teaching, many popular books and hymns, suggest rather +an irreverent use of the Holy Name, which is profanation, than a filial +approach to a Father equally revered and loved. It is true that we are +bidden to come with boldness to the throne of Grace. Yet the same +Epistle teaches us again that our approach is even more solemn and awful +than to the Mount which might be touched, and the profaning of which was +death; and it exhorts us to have grace whereby we may offer service +well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe, “for our God is a consuming +fire” (Heb. iv. 16, xii. 28). That is the very last grace which some +Christians ever seem to seek.</p> + +<p>When the people recoiled, and Moses, trusting in God, was brave and +entered the cloud, they ceased to have direct communion, and he was +brought nearer to Jehovah than before.</p> + +<p>What is now conveyed to Israel through him is an expansion and +application of the Decalogue, and in turn it becomes the nucleus of the +developed law. Its great antiquity is admitted by the severest critics; +and it is a wonderful example of spirituality and searching depth, and +also of such germinal and fruitful principles as cannot rest in +themselves, literally applied, but must lead the obedient student on to +still better things.</p> + +<p>It is not the function of law to inspire men to obey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> it; this is +precisely what the law could not do, being weak through the flesh. But +it could arrest the attention and educate the conscience. Simple though +it was in the letter, David could meditate upon it day and night. In the +New Testament we know of two persons who had scrupulously respected its +precepts, but they both, far from being satisfied, were filled with a +divine discontent. One had kept all these things from his youth, yet +felt the need of doing some good thing, and anxiously demanded what it +was that he lacked yet. The other, as touching the righteousness of the +law, was blameless, yet when the law entered, sin revived and slew him. +For the law was spiritual, and reached beyond itself, while he was +carnal, and thwarted by the flesh, sold under sin, even while externally +beyond reproach.</p> + +<p>This subtle characteristic of all noble law will be very apparent in +studying the kernel of the law, the code within the code, which now lies +before us.</p> + +<p>Men sometimes judge the Hebrew legislation harshly, thinking that they +are testing it, as a Divine institution, by the light of this century. +They are really doing nothing of the sort. If there are two principles +of legislation dearer than all others to modern Englishmen, they are the +two which these flippant judgments most ignore, and by which they are +most perfectly refuted.</p> + +<p>One is that institutions educate communities. It is not too much to say +that we have staked the future of our nation, and therefore the hopes of +humanity, upon our conviction that men can be elevated by ennobling +institutions,—that the franchise, for example, is an education as well +as a trust.</p> + +<p>The other, which seems to contradict the first, and does actually modify +it, is that legislation must not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> move too far in advance of public +opinion. Laws may be highly desirable in the abstract, for which +communities are not yet ripe. A constitution like our own would be +simply ruinous in Hindostan. Many good friends of temperance are the +reluctant opponents of legislation which they desire in theory but which +would only be trampled upon in practice, because public opinion would +rebel against the law. Legislation is indeed educational, but the danger +is that the practical outcome of such legislation would be disobedience +and anarchy.</p> + +<p>Now, these principles are the ample justification of all that startles +us in the Pentateuch.</p> + +<p>Slavery and polygamy, for instance, are not abolished. To forbid them +utterly would have substituted far worse evils, as the Jews then were. +But laws were introduced which vastly ameliorated the condition of the +slave, and elevated the status of woman—laws which were far in advance +of the best Gentile culture, and which so educated and softened the +Jewish character, that men soon came to feel the letter of these very +laws too harsh.</p> + +<p>That is a nobler vindication of the Mosaic legislation than if this +century agreed with every letter of it. To be vital and progressive is a +better thing than to be correct. The law waged a far more effectual war +upon certain evils than by formal prohibition, sound in theory but +premature by centuries. Other good things besides liberty are not for +the nursery or the school. And “we also, when we were children, were +held in bondage” (Gal. iv. 3).</p> + +<p>It is pretty well agreed that this code may be divided into five parts. +To the end of the twentieth chapter it deals directly with the worship +of God. Then follow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> thirty-two verses treating of the personal rights +of man as distinguished from his rights of property. From the +thirty-third verse of the twenty-first chapter to the fifteenth verse of +the twenty-second, the rights of property are protected. Thence to the +nineteenth verse of the twenty-third chapter is a miscellaneous group of +laws, chiefly moral, but deeply connected with the civil organisation of +the state. And thence to the end of the chapter is an earnest +exhortation from God, introduced by a clearer statement than before of +the manner in which He means to lead them, even by that mysterious Angel +in Whom “is My Name.”</p> + +<h3 class="sectionpart">Part I.—The Law of Worship.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xx. 22–26.</h3> + +<p>It is no vain repetition that this code begins by reasserting the +supremacy of the one God. That principle underlies all the law, and must +be carried into every part of it. And it is now enforced by a new +sanction,—“Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from +heaven: ye shall not make <i>other gods</i> with Me; gods of silver or gods +of gold ye shall not make unto you” (vers. 22, 23). The costliest +material of this low world should be utterly contemned in rivalry with +that spiritual Presence revealing Himself out of a wholly different +sphere; and in so far as they remembered Him, and the Voice which had +thrilled their nature to its core, in so far would they be free from the +desire for any carnal and materialised divinity to go before them.</p> + +<p>Impressed with such views of God, their service of Him would be moulded +accordingly (24, 25). It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> true that nothing could be too splendid for +His sanctuary, and Bezaleel was presently to be inspired, that the work +of the tabernacle might be worthy of its destination. Spirituality is +not meanness, nor is art without a consecration of its own. But it must +not intrude too closely upon the solemn act wherein the soul seeks the +pardon of the Creator. The altar should not be a proud structure, richly +sculptured and adorned, and offering in itself, if not an object of +adoration, yet a satisfying centre of attention for the worshipper. It +should be simply a heap of sods. And if they must needs go further, and +erect a more durable pile, it must still be of materials crude, +inartistic, such as the earth itself affords, of unhewn stone. A golden +casket is fit to convey the freedom of some historic city to a prince, +but the noblest offering of man to God is too humble to deserve an +ostentatious altar.</p> + +<p>“If thou lift up a tool upon it thou hast polluted it:” it has lost its +virginal simplicity; it no longer suits a spontaneous offering of the +heart, it has become artificial, sophisticated, self-conscious, +polluted.</p> + +<p>It is vehemently urged that these verses sanction a plurality of altars +(so that one might be of earth and another of stone), and recognise the +lawfulness of worship in other places than at a central appointed +shrine. And it is concluded that early Judaism knew nothing of the +exclusive sanctity of the tabernacle and the temple.</p> + +<p>This argument forgets the circumstances. The Jews had been led to Horeb, +the mount of God. They were soon to wander away thence through the +wilderness. Altars had to be set up in many places, and might be of +different materials. It was an important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> announcement that in every +place where God would record His name He would come unto them and bless +them. But certainly the inference leans rather toward than against the +belief that it was for Him to select every place which should be sacred.</p> + +<p>The last direction given with regard to worship is a homely one. It +commands that the altar must not be approached with steps, lest the +clothes of the priest should be disturbed and his limbs uncovered. +Already we feel that we have to reckon with the temper as well as the +letter of the precept. It is divinely unlike the frantic indecencies of +many pagan rituals. It protests against all infractions of propriety, +even the slightest, such as even now discredit many a zealous movement, +and bear fruit in many a scandal. It rebukes all misdemeanour, all +forgetfulness in look and gesture of the Sacred Presence, in every +worshipper, at every shrine.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Prof. Tyndall, <i>Belfast Address</i>, p. 60. What progress has +scientific unbelief made since 1874 in solving this “question of +questions for the present hour”? It has perfected the phonograph, but it +has not devised a creed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> “Or <i>beside Me</i>” (R.V.) The preposition is so vague that +either of our English words may suggest quite too definite a meaning, as +when “before Me” is made to mean “in My angry eyes,” or “beside Me” is +taken to hint at resentment for intrusion upon the same throne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Gury, Compend., i., secs. 607, 623.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE LESSER LAW (continued).</h3> + +<h3 class="sectionpart">Part II.—Rights of the Person.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxi. 1–32.</h3> + +<p>The first words of God from Sinai had declared that He was Jehovah Who +brought them out of slavery. And in this remarkable code, the first +person whose rights are dealt with is the slave. We saw that a +denunciation of all slavery would have been premature, and therefore +unwise; but assuredly the germs of emancipation were already planted by +this giving of the foremost place to the rights of the least of all and +the servant of all.</p> + +<p>As regards the Hebrew slave, the effect was to reduce his utmost bondage +to a comparatively mild apprenticeship. At the worst he should go free +in the seventh year; and if the year of jubilee intervened, it brought a +still speedier emancipation. If his debt or misconduct had involved a +family in his disgrace, they should also share his emancipation, but if +while in bondage his master had provided for his marriage with a slave, +then his family must await their own appointed period of release. It +followed that if he had contracted a degrading alliance with a foreign +slave, his freedom would inflict upon him the pang<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> of final severance +from his dear ones. He might, indeed, escape this pain, but only by a +deliberate and humiliating act, by formally renouncing before the judges +his liberty, the birthright of his nation (“they are My servants, whom I +brought forth out of Egypt, they shall not be sold as +bondservants”—Lev. xxv. 42), and submitting to have his ear pierced, at +the doorpost of his master’s house, as if, like that, his body were +become his master’s property. It is uncertain, after this decisive step, +whether even the year of jubilee brought him release; and the contrary +seems to be implied in his always bearing about in his body an indelible +and degrading mark. It will be remembered that St. Paul rejoiced to +think that his choice of Christ was practically beyond recall, for the +scars on his body marked the tenacity of his decision (Gal. vi. 17). He +wrote this to Gentiles, and used the Gentile phrase for the branding of +a slave. But beyond question this Hebrew of Hebrews remembered, as he +wrote, that one of his race could incur lifelong subjection only by a +voluntary wound, endured because he loved his master, such as he had +received for love of Jesus.</p> + +<p>When the law came to deal with assaults it was impossible to place the +slave upon quite the same level as the freeman. But Moses excelled the +legislators of Greece and Rome, by making an assault or chastisement +which killed him upon the spot as worthy of death as if a freeman had +been slain. It was only the victim who lingered that died comparatively +unavenged (20, 21). After all, chastisement was a natural right of the +master, because he owned him (“he is his money”); and it would be hard +to treat an excess of what was permissible, inflicted perhaps under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> +provocation which made some punishment necessary, on the same lines with +an assault that was entirely lawless. But there was this grave restraint +upon bad temper,—that the loss of any member, and even of the tooth of +a slave, involved his instant manumission. And this carried with it the +principle of moral responsibility for every hurt (26, 27).</p> + +<p>It was not quite plain that these enactments extended to the Gentile +slave. But in accordance with the assertion that the whole spirit of the +statutes was elevating, the conclusion arrived at by the later +authorities was the generous one.</p> + +<p>When it is added that man-stealing (upon which all our modern systems of +slavery were founded) was a capital offence, without power of +commutation for a fine (xxi. 16), it becomes clear that the advocates of +slavery appeal to Moses against the outraged conscience of humanity +without any shadow of warrant either from the letter or the spirit of +the code.</p> + +<p>There remains to be considered a remarkable and melancholy sub-section +of the law of slavery.</p> + +<p>In every age degraded beings have made gain of the attractions of their +daughters. With them, the law attempted nothing of moral influence. But +it protected their children, and brought pressure to bear upon the +tempter, by a series of firm provisions, as bold as the age could bear, +and much in advance of the conscience of too many among ourselves +to-day.</p> + +<p>The seduction of any unbetrothed maiden involved marriage, or the +payment of a dowry. And thus one door to evil was firmly closed (xxii. +16).</p> + +<p>But when a man purchased a female slave, with the intention of making +her an inferior wife, whether for himself or for his son (such only are +the purchases<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span> here dealt with, and an ordinary female slave was treated +upon the same principles as a man), she was far from being the sport of +his caprice. If indeed he repented at once, he might send her back, or +transfer her to another of her countrymen upon the same terms, but when +once they were united she was protected against his fickleness. He might +not treat her as a servant or domestic, but must, even if he married +another and probably a chief wife, continue to her all the rights and +privileges of a wife. Nor was her position a temporary one, to her +damage, as that of an ordinary slave was, to his benefit.</p> + +<p>And if there was any failure to observe these honourable terms, she +could return with unblemished reputation to her father’s home, without +forfeiture of the money which had been paid for her (xxi. 7–11).</p> + +<p>Does any one seriously believe that a system like the African slave +trade could have existed in such a humane and genial atmosphere as these +enactments breathed? Does any one who knows the plague spot and disgrace +of our modern civilisation suppose for a moment that more could have +been attempted, in that age, for the great cause of purity? Would to God +that the spirit of these enactments were even now respected! They would +make of us, as they have made of the Hebrew nation unto this day, models +of domestic tenderness, and of the blessings in health and physical +vigour which an untainted life bestows upon communities.</p> + +<p>By such checks upon the degradation of slavery, the Jew began to learn +the great lesson of the sanctity of manhood. The next step was to teach +him the value of life, not only in the avenging of murder, but also in +the mitigation of such revenge. The blood-feud was too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> old, too natural +a practice to be suppressed at once; but it was so controlled and +regulated as to become little more than a part of the machinery of +justice.</p> + +<p>A premeditated murder was inexpiable, not to be ransomed; the murderer +must surely die. Even if he fled to the altar of God, intending to +escape thence to a city of refuge when the avenger ceased to watch, he +should be torn from that holy place: to shelter him would not be an +honour, but a desecration to the shrine (xxi. 12, 14). According to this +provision Joab and Adonijah suffered. For the slayer by accident or in +hasty quarrel, “a place whither he shall flee” would be provided, and +the vague phrase indicates the antiquity of the edict (ver. 13). This +arrangement at once respected his life, which did not merit forfeiture, +and provided a penalty for his rashness or his passion.</p> + +<p>It is because the question in hand is the sanctity of man, that the +capital punishment of a son who strikes or curses a parent, the +vicegerent of God, and of a kidnapper, is interposed between these +provisions and minor offences against the person (15–17).</p> + +<p>Of these latter, the first is when lingering illness results from a blow +received in a quarrel. This was not a case for the stern rule, eye for +eye and tooth for tooth,—for how could that rule be applied to it?—but +the violent man should pay for his victim’s loss of time, and for +medical treatment until he was thoroughly recovered (18, 19).</p> + +<p>But what is to be said to the general law of retribution in kind? Our +Lord has forbidden a Christian, in his own case, to exact it. But it +does not follow that it was unjust, since Christ plainly means to +instruct private persons not to exact their rights, whereas the +magistrate continues to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>“a revenger to execute justice.” And, as St. +Augustine argued shrewdly, “this command was not given for exciting the +fires of hatred, but to restrain them. For who would easily be satisfied +with repaying as much injury as he received? Do we not see men slightly +hurt athirst for slaughter and blood?... Upon this immoderate and unjust +vengeance, the law imposed a just limit, not that what was quenched +might be kindled, but that what was burning might not spread.” (Cont. +Faust, xix. 25.)</p> + +<p>It is also to be observed that by no other precept were the Jews more +clearly led to a morality still higher than it prescribed. Their +attention was first drawn to the fact that a compensation in money was +nowhere forbidden, as in the case of murder (Num. xxxv. 31). Then they +went on to argue that such compensation must have been intended, because +its literal observance teemed with difficulties. If an eye were injured +but not destroyed, who would undertake to inflict an equivalent hurt? +What if a blind man destroyed an eye? Would it be reasonable to quench +utterly the sight of a one-eyed man who had only destroyed one-half of +the vision of his neighbour? Should the right hand of a painter, by +which he maintains his family, be forfeited for that of a singer who +lives by his voice? Would not the cold and premeditated operation +inflict far greater mental and even physical suffering than a sudden +wound received in a moment of excitement? By all these considerations, +drawn from the very principle which underlay the precept, they learned +to relax its pressure in actual life. The law was already their +schoolmaster, to lead them beyond itself (<i>vide</i> Kalisch <i>in loco</i>).</p> + +<p>Lastly, there is the question of injury to the person, wrought by +cattle.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is clearly to deepen the sense of reverence for human life, that not +only must the ox which kills a man be slain, but his flesh may not be +eaten; thus carrying further the early aphorism “at the hand of every +beast will I require ... your blood” (Gen. ix. 5). This motive, however, +does not betray the lawgiver into injustice: “the owner of the ox shall +be quit”; the loss of his beast is his sufficient penalty.</p> + +<p>But if its evil temper has been previously observed, and he has been +warned, then his recklessness amounts to blood-guiltiness, and he must +die, or else pay whatever ransom is laid upon him. This last clause +recognises the distinction between his guilt and that of a deliberate +man-slayer, for whose crime the law distinctly prohibited a composition +(Num. xxxv. 31).</p> + +<p>And it is expressly provided, according to the honourable position of +woman in the Hebrew state, that the penalty for a daughter’s life shall +be the same as for that of a son.</p> + +<p>As a slave was exposed to especial risk, and his position was an ignoble +one, a fixed composition was appointed, and the amount was memorable. +The ransom of a common slave, killed by the horns of the wild oxen, was +thirty pieces of silver, the goodly price that Messiah was prized at of +them (Zech. xi. 13).</p> + +<h3 class="sectionpart">Part III.—Rights of Property.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxi. 33–xxii. 15.</h3> + +<p>The vital and quickening principle in this section is the stress it lays +upon man’s responsibility for negligence, and the indirect consequences +of his deed. All sin is selfish, and all selfishness ignores the right +of others. Am I my brother’s keeper? Let him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> guard his own property or +pay the forfeit. But this sentiment would quickly prove a disintegrating +force in the community, able to overthrow a state. It is the ignoble +negative of public spirit; patriotism, all by which nations prosper. And +this early legislation is well devised to check it in detail. If an ox +fall into a pit or cistern, from which I have removed the cover, I must +pay the value of the beast, and take the carcase for what it may be +worth. I ought to have considered the public interest (xxi. 33). If I +let my cattle stray into my neighbour’s field or vineyard, there must be +no wrangling about the quality of what he has consumed: I must forfeit +an equal quantity of the best of my own field or vineyard (xxii. 5). If +a fire of my kindling burn his grain, standing or piled, I must make +restitution: I had no right to kindle it where he was brought into +hazard (xxii. 6). This is the same principle which had already +pronounced it murder to let a vicious ox go loose. And it has to do with +graver things than oxen and fires,—with the teachers of principles +rightly called incendiary, the ingenious theorists who let loose +abstract speculations pernicious when put into practice, the +well-behaved questioners of morality, and the law-abiding assailants of +the foundations which uphold law.</p> + +<p>It is quite in the same spirit that I am accountable for what I borrow +or hire, and even for its accidental death (since for the time being it +was mine, and so should the loss be); but if I hired the owner with his +beast, it clearly continued to be in his charge (14, 15). But again, my +responsibility may not be pressed too far. If I have not borrowed +property, but consented to keep it for the owner, the risk is fairly +his, and if it be stolen, the presumption is not against my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> integrity, +although I may be required to clear myself on oath before the judges (7, +8). But I am accountable in such a case for cattle, because it was +certainly understood that I should watch them; and if a wild beast have +torn any, I must prove my courage and vigilance by rescuing the carcase +and producing it (10–13).</p> + +<p>But I must not be plunged into litigation without a compensating hazard +on the other side: he whom God shall condemn shall pay double unto his +neighbour (9).</p> + +<p>It only remains to be observed, with regard to theft, that when cattle +was recovered yet alive, the thief restored double, but when his act was +consummated by slaughtering what he had taken, then he restored a sheep +fourfold, and for an ox five oxen, because his villainy was more +high-handed. And we still retain the law which allows the blood of a +robber at night to be shed, but forbids it in the day, when help can +more easily be had.</p> + +<p>All this is reasonable and enlightened law; founded, like all good +legislation, upon clear and satisfactory principles, and well calculated +to elevate the tone of the public feeling, to be not only so many +specific enactments, but also the germinant seeds of good.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE LESSER LAW (continued).</h3> + +<h3 class="sectionpart">Part IV.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxii. 16–xxiii. 19.</h3> + +<p>The Fourth section of this law within the law consists of enactments, +curiously disconnected, many of them without a penalty, varying greatly +in importance, but all of a moral nature, and connected with the +well-being of the state. It is hard to conceive how the systematic +revision of which we hear so much could have left them in the condition +in which they stand.</p> + +<p>It is enacted that a seducer must marry the woman he has betrayed, and +if her father refuse to give her to him, then he must pay the same dower +as a bridegroom would have done (xxii. 16, 17). And presently the +sentence of death is launched against a blacker sensual crime (19). But +between the two is interposed the celebrated mandate which doomed the +sorceress to death, remarkable as the first mention of witchcraft in +Scripture, and the only passage in all the Bible where the word is in +the feminine form—a witch, or sorceress; remarkable also for a far +graver reason, which makes it necessary to linger over the subject at +some length.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="subsection">SORCERY.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">“Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.”—xxii. 18.</h3> + +<p>The world knows only too well what sad and shameful inferences have been +drawn from these words. Unspeakable terrors, estrangement of natural +sympathy, tortures and cruel deaths, have been inflicted on many +thousands of the most forlorn creatures upon earth (creatures who were +sustained in their sufferings by no high ardour of conviction or +fanaticism, not being martyrs but simply victims), because it was held +that Moses, in declaring that witches should not live, affirmed the +reality of witchcraft. No sooner did the argument cease to be dangerous +to old women than it became formidable to religion; for now it was urged +that, since Moses was in error about the reality of witchcraft, his +legislation could not have been inspired.</p> + +<p>What are we to say to this?</p> + +<p>In the first place it must be observed that the existence of a sorcerer +is one thing, and the reality of his powers is quite another. What was +most sad and shameful in the mediæval frenzy was the burning to ashes of +multitudes who made no pretensions to traffic with the invisible world, +who frequently held fast their innocence while enduring the agonies of +torture, who were only aged and ugly and alone. Upon any theory, the +prohibition of sorcery by the Pentateuch was no more answerable for +these iniquities than its other prohibitions for the lynch law of the +backwoods.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, there were real professors of the black art: men did +pretend to hold intercourse with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> spirits, and extorted great sums from +their dupes in return for bringing them also into communion with +superhuman beings. These it is reasonable to call sorcerers, whether we +accept their professions or not, just as we speak of thought-readers and +of mediums without being understood to commit ourselves to the +pretensions of either one or other. In point of fact, the existence, in +this nineteenth century after Christ, of sorcerers calling themselves +mediums, is much more surprising than the existence of other sorcerers +in the time of Moses or of Saul; and it bears startling witness to the +depth in human nature of that craving for traffic with invisible powers +which the law prohibited so sternly, but the roots of which neither +religion nor education nor scepticism has been able wholly to pluck up.</p> + +<p>Again, from the point of view which Moses occupied, it is plain that +such professors should be punished. They are virtually punished still, +whenever they obtain money under pretence of granting interviews with +the departed. If we now rely chiefly upon educated public opinion to +stamp out such impositions, that is because we have decided that a +struggle between truth and falsehood upon equal terms will be +advantageous to the former. It is a subdivision of the debate between +intolerance and free thought. Our theory works well, but not universally +well, even under modern conditions and in Christian lands. And assuredly +Moses could not proclaim freedom of opinion, among uneducated slaves, +amid the pressure of splendid and of seductive idolatries, and before +the Holy Ghost was given. To complain of Moses for proscribing false +religions would be to denounce the use of glass for seedlings because +the full-grown plant flourishes in the open air.</p> + +<p>Now, it would have been preposterous to proscribe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> false religions and +yet to tolerate the sorcerer and the sorceress. For these were the +active practitioners of another worship than that of God. They might not +profess idolatry; but they offered help and guidance from sources which +Jehovah frowned upon, rival sources of defence or knowledge.</p> + +<p>The holy people was meant to grow up under the most elevating of all +influences, reliance upon a protecting God, Who had bidden His children +to subdue the world as well as to replenish it, and of Whom one of their +own poets sang that He had put all things under the feet of man. Their +true heritage was not bounded by the strip of land which Joshua and his +followers slowly conquered; to them belonged all the resources of nature +which science, ever since, has wrested from the Philistine hands of +barbarism and ignorance. And this nobler conquest depended upon the +depth and sincerity of man’s feeling that the world is well-ordered and +stable and the heritage of man, not a chaos of various and capricious +powers, where Pallas inspires Diomed to hunt Venus bleeding off the +field, or where the incantations of Canidia may disturb the orderly +movements of the skies. Who could hope to discover by inductive science +the secrets of such a world as this?</p> + +<p>The devices of magic cut the links between cause and effect, between +studious labour and the fruits which sorcery bade men to steal rather +than to cultivate. What gambling was to commerce, that was witchcraft to +philosophy, and the mischief no more depended on the validity of its +methods than upon the soundness of the last device for breaking the bank +at Monte Carlo.</p> + +<p>If one could actually extort their secrets from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> dead, or win for +luxury and sloth a longer life than is bestowed upon temperance and +labour, he would succeed in his revolt against the God of nature. But +the revolt was the endeavour; and the sorcerer, however falsely, +professed to have succeeded; and preached the same revolt to others. In +religion he was therefore an apostate, and in the theocracy a traitor +against the King, one whose life was forfeited if it was prudent to +exact the penalty.</p> + +<p>And when we consider the fascination wielded by such pretensions, even +in ages when the stability of nature is an axiom, the dread which false +religions all around and their terrible rituals must have inspired, the +superstitious tendencies of the people and their readiness to be misled, +we shall see ample reasons for treading out the first sparks of so +dangerous a fire.</p> + +<p>Beyond this it is vain to pretend that the law of Moses goes. It was +right in declaring the sorcerer and the sorceress to be real and +dangerous phenomena. It never declared their pretensions to be valid +though illegitimate. And in one noteworthy passage it proclaims that a +real sign or a wonder could only proceed from God, and when it +accompanied false teaching was still a sign, though an ominous one, +implying that the Lord would prove them (Deut. xiii. 1–3). This does not +look very like an admission of the existence of rival powers, inferior +though they might be, who could interfere with the order of His world.</p> + +<p>Sorcery in all its forms will die when men realise indeed that the world +is His, that there is no short or crooked way to the prizes which He +offers to wisdom and to labour, that these rewards are infinitely richer +and more splendid than the wildest dreams of magic, and that it is +literally true that all power, in earth as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> well as heaven, is committed +into the Hands which were pierced for us. In such a conception of the +universe, incantations give place to prayers, and prayer does not seek +to disturb, but to carry forward and to consummate, the orderly rule of +Love.</p> + +<p>The denunciation of witchcraft is quite naturally followed, as we now +perceive, by the reiteration of the command that no sacrifice may be +offered to any god except Jehovah (20). Strange and hateful offerings +were an integral part of witchcraft, long before the hags of Macbeth +brewed their charm, or the child in Horace famished to yield a spell.</p> + +<h3 class="subsection">THE STRANGER.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxii. 21, xxiii. 9.</h3> + +<p>Immediately after this, a ray of sunlight falls upon the sombre page.</p> + +<p>We read an exhortation rather than a statute, which is repeated almost +literally in the next chapter, and in both is supported by a beautiful +and touching reason. “A stranger shalt thou not wrong, neither shall ye +oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” “A stranger +shall ye not oppress, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye +were strangers in the land of Egypt” (xxii. 21, xxiii. 9).</p> + +<p>The “stranger” of these verses is probably the settler among them, as +distinguished from the traveller passing through the land. His want of +friends and ignorance of their social order would place him at a +disadvantage, of which they are forbidden to avail themselves, either by +legal process (for the first passage is connected with jurisprudence), +or in the affairs of common life. But the spirit of the commandment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> +could not fail to influence their treatment of all foreigners; and +simple and commonplace though it appear to us, it would have startled +many of the wisest and greatest peoples of antiquity, and would have +fallen as strangely upon the ears of the Greeks of Pericles, as of the +modern Bedouin, with whom Israel had kinship. A foreigner, as such, was +a foe: to wrong him was a paradox, because he had no rights: kinship, or +else alliance or treaty was required to entitle the weaker to any better +treatment than it suited the stronger to allow.</p> + +<p>Yet we find a precept reiterated in this Jewish code which involves, in +its inevitable though slow development, the abolition of negro slavery, +the respect by powerful and civilised nations of the rights of +indigenous tribes, the most boundless advance of philanthropy, through +the most generous recognition of the fraternity of man.</p> + +<p>However sternly the sword of Joshua might fall, it struck not at the +foreigner, as such, but at those tribes, guilty and therefore accursed +of God, the cup of whose iniquity was full. And yet there was enough of +carnage to prove that so gracious a commandment as this could not have +risen spontaneously in the heart of early Judaism. Does it seem to be +made more natural, by any proposed shifting of the date?</p> + +<p>The reason of the precept is beautifully human. It rests upon no +abstract basis of common rights, nor prudential consideration of mutual +advantage.</p> + +<p>In our time it is sometimes proposed to build all morality upon such +foundations; and strange consequences have already been deduced in cases +where the proposed sanction has not seemed to apply. But, in fact, no +advance in virtue has ever been traced to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> self-interest, although, +after the advance took place, self-interest has always found its account +in it. A progressive community is made of good men, and the motive to +which Moses appeals is compassion fed by memory: “For ye were strangers +in the land of Egypt” (xxii. 21); “For ye know the heart of a stranger, +seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (xxiii. 9).</p> + +<p>The point is not that they may again be carried into captivity: it is +that they have felt its bitterness, and ought to recoil from inflicting +what they writhed under.</p> + +<p>Now, this appeal is a master-stroke of wisdom. Much cruelty, and almost +all the cruelty of the young, springs from ignorance, and that slowness +of the imagination which cannot realise that the pains of others are +like our own. Feeling them to be so, the charities of the poor toward +one another frequently rise almost to sublimity. And thus, when +suffering does not ulcerate the heart and make it savage, it is the most +softening of all influences. In one of the most threadbare lines in the +classics, the queen of Carthage boasts that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“I, not ignorant of woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pity the distressful know.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And the boldest assertion in Scripture of the natural development of our +Saviour’s human powers, is that which declares that “In that He Himself +hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are +tempted” (Heb. ii. 18).</p> + +<p>To this principle, then, Moses appeals, and by the appeal he educates +the heart. He bids the people reflect on their own cruel hardships, on +the hateful character of their tyrants, on their own greater hatefulness +if they follow the vile example, after such bitter experience of its +character. He does not yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> rise to the grand level of the New Testament +morality, Do all to thy neighbour which it is not servile and dependent +to will that he should do for thee. But he attains to the level of that +precept of Confucius and Zoroaster which has been so unworthily compared +with it: Do not unto thy neighbour what thou wouldest not that he should +do to thee—a precept which mere indifference obeys. Nay, he excels it; +for the mental and spiritual attitude of one who respects his helpless +neighbour because he so much resembles himself, will surely not be +content without relieving the griefs that have so closely touched him. +Thus again the legislation of Moses looks beyond itself.</p> + +<p>Now, if the Jew should be merciful because he had himself known +calamity, what implicit confidence may we repose upon the Man of sorrows +and acquainted with grief?</p> + +<p>In the same spirit they are warned against afflicting the widow or the +orphan. And the threat which is added joins hand with the exhortation +which preceded. They should not oppress the stranger, because they had +been strangers and oppressed. Now the argument advances. The same God +Who then heard their cry will hear the cry of the forlorn, and avenge +them, according to the judicial fate which He had just announced, in +kind, by bringing their own wives to widowhood and their children to +orphanage (xxii. 22–4).</p> + +<p>To their brethren they should not lend money upon usury; but loans are +no more recommended than afterwards by Solomon: the words are “if thou +lend” (ver. 25). And if the raiment of the borrower were taken for a +pledge, it must be returned for him to use at night, or else God will +hear his cry, because, it is added<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> very significantly and briefly, “I +am gracious” (ver. 27). It is the most exalting of all motives: Be +merciful, for I am merciful: ye shall be the children of your Father.</p> + +<p>Again is to be observed the influence reaching beyond the +prescription—the motive which cannot be felt without many other and +larger consequences than the restoration of pledges at sunset.</p> + +<p>How comes this precept to be followed by the words, “Thou shalt not +curse God nor blaspheme a ruler” (ver. 28)? and is not this again +somewhat strangely followed by the order not to delay to offer the +firstfruits of the soil, to consecrate the firstborn son, and to devote +the firstborn of cattle at the same age when a son ought to be +circumcised? (vers. 29, 30).</p> + +<p>If any link can be discovered, it is in the sense of communion with God, +suggested by the recent appeal to His character as a motive that should +weigh with man. Therefore they must not blaspheme Him, either directly +or through His agents, nor tardily yield Him what He claims. Therefore +it is added, “Ye shall be holy men unto Me,” and from the sense of +dignity which religion thus inspires, a homely corollary is deduced—“Ye +shall not eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field” (ver. 31). +The bondmen of Egypt must learn a high-minded self-respect.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE LESSER LAW (continued).</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxiii. 1–19.</h3> + +<p>The twenty-third chapter begins with a series of commands bearing upon +the course of justice; but among these there is interjected very +curiously a command to bring back the stray ox or ass of an enemy, and +to help under a burden the over-weighted ass of him that hateth thee, +even “if thou wouldest forbear to help him.” It is just possible that +the lawgiver, urging justice in the bearing of testimony, interrupts +himself to speak of a very different manner in which the action may be +warped by prejudice, but in which (unlike the other) it is lawful to +show not only impartiality but kindness. The help of the cattle of one’s +enemy shows that in the bearing of testimony we should not merely +abstain from downright wrong. And it is a fine example of the spirit of +the New Testament, in the Old.</p> + +<p>“Thou shalt not take up a false report” (ver. 1) is a precept which +reaches far. How many heedless whispers, conjectures lightly spoken +because they were amusing, yet influencing the course of lives, and +inferences uncharitably drawn, would have been still-born if this had +been remembered!</p> + +<p>But when the scandal is already abroad, the temptation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> to aid its +progress is still greater. Therefore it is added, “Put not thine hand +with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.” Whatever be the menace or +the bribe, however the course of opinion seem to be decided, and the +assent of an individual to be harmless because the result is sure, or +blameless because the responsibility lies elsewhere, still each man is a +unit, not an “item,” and must act for himself, as hereafter he must give +account. Hence it results inevitably that “Thou shalt not follow a +multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside +after a multitude to wrest judgment” (ver. 2). The blind impulses of a +multitude are often as misleading as the solicitations of the bad, and +to aspiring temperaments much more seductive. There is indeed a strange +magnetism in the voice of the public. Every orator knows that a great +assembly acts upon the speaker as really as he acts upon it: its +emotions are like a rush of waters to sweep him away, beyond his +intentions or his ordinary powers. Yet he is the strongest individual +there; no other has at all the same opportunity for self-assertion, and +therefore its power over others must be more complete than over him.</p> + +<p>This is one reason for the institution of public worship. Men neglect +the house of God because they can pray as well at home, and encourage +wanton subdivisions of the Church because they think there is no very +palpable difference between competing denominations, or even because +competition may be as useful in religion as in trade, as if our +competition with the world and the devil for souls would not +sufficiently animate us, without competing with one another. But in +acting thus they weaken the effect for good of one of the mightiest +influences which work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> evil among us, the influence of association. Men +are always persuading themselves that they need not be better than their +neighbours, nor ashamed of doing what every one does. And yet no voice +joins in a cry without deepening it: every one who rushes with a crowd +makes its impulse more difficult to stem; his individuality is not lost +by its partnership with a thousand more; and he is accountable for what +he contributes to the result. He has parted with his self-control, but +not with the inner forces which he ought to have controlled.</p> + +<p>Against this dangerous influence of the world, Christ has set the +contagion of godliness within His Church, and every avoidable +subdivision enfeebles this salutary counter-influence.</p> + +<p>Moses warns us, therefore, of the danger of being drawn away by a +multitude to do evil; but he is thinking especially of the peril of +being tempted to “speak” amiss. Who does not know it? From the statesman +who outruns his convictions rather than break with his party, and who +cannot, amid deafening cheers, any longer hear his conscience speak, +down to the humblest who fails to confess Christ before hostile men, and +therefore by-and-by denies Him, there is not one whose speech and +silence have never been in danger of being set to the sympathies of his +own little public like a song to music.</p> + +<p>That Moses was really thinking of this tendency to court popularity, is +plain from the next clause—“Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his +cause” (ver. 3).</p> + +<p>It is an admirable caution. Men there are who would scorn the opposite +injustice, and from whom no rich man could buy a wrongful decision with +gold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> or favour, but who are habitually unjust, because they load the +other scale. The beam ought to hang straight. When justice is concerned, +the poor man’s friend is almost as contemptible as his foe, and he has +taken a bribe, if not in the mean enjoyment of democratic popularity, +yet in his own pride—the fancy that he has done a magnanimous act, the +attitude in which he poses.</p> + +<p>As in law so in literature. There once was a tendency to describe +magnanimous persons of quality, and repulsive clodhoppers and villagers. +Times have changed, and now we think it much more ingenious and +high-toned to be quite as partial and disingenuous, reversing the cases. +Neither is true, and therefore neither is artistic. No class in society +is deficient in noble qualities, or in base ones. Nor is the man of +letters at all more independent, who flatters the democracy in a +democratic age, than he who flattered the aristocracy when they had all +the prizes to bestow.</p> + +<p>Other precepts forbid bribery, command that the soil shall rest in the +seventh year, when its spontaneous produce shall be for the poor, and +further recognise and consecrate relaxation, by instituting (or more +probably adopting into the code) the three feasts of Passover, +Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The section closes with the words “Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk” (ver. 19). Upon this clause +much ingenuity has been expended. It makes occult reference to some +superstitious rite. It is the name for some unduly stimulating compound. +But when we remember that, just before, the sabbatical fruit which the +poor left ungleaned was expressly reserved for the beasts of the field, +that men were bidden to help the overladen ass of their enemies, and +that care<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> is taken elsewhere that the ox should not be muzzled when +treading out grain, that the birdnester should not take the dam with the +young, and that neither cow nor ewe should be slain on the same day with +its young (Deut. xxv. 4, xxii. 6; Lev. xxii. 28), the simplest meaning +seems also the most probable. Men, who have been taught respect for +their fellow-men, are also to learn a fine sensibility even in respect +to the inferior animals. Throughout all this code there is an exquisite +tendency to form a considerate, humane, delicate and high-minded nation.</p> + +<p>It remained, to stamp upon the human conscience a deep sense of +responsibility.</p> + +<h3 class="sectionpart">Part V.—Its Sanctions.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxiii. 20–33.</h3> + +<p>This summary of Judaism being now complete, the people have to learn +what mighty issues are at stake upon their obedience. And the transition +is very striking from the simplest duty to the loftiest privilege: “Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. Behold, I send an Angel +before thee.... Beware of him: for My Name is in him” (19–21).</p> + +<p>We have now to ask how much this mysterious phrase involves; who was the +Angel of whom it speaks?</p> + +<p>The question is not, How much did Israel at that moment comprehend? For +we are distinctly told that prophets were conscious of speaking more +than they understood, and searched diligently but in vain what the +spirit that was in them did signify (1 Peter i. 11).</p> + +<p>It would, in fact, be absurd to seek the New Testament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> doctrine of the +Logos full-blown in the Pentateuch. But it is mere prejudice, +unphilosophical and presumptuous, to shut one’s eyes against any +evidence which may be forthcoming that the earliest books of Scripture +were tending towards the last conclusions of theology; that the slender +overture to the Divine oratorio indicates already the same theme which +thunders from all the chorus at the close.</p> + +<p>It is scarcely necessary to refute the position that a mere “messenger” +is intended, because angels have not yet “appeared as personal agents +separate from God.” Kalisch himself has amply refuted his own theory. +For, he says, “we are compelled ... to refer it to Moses and his +successor Joshua” (<i>in loco</i>). So then He Who will not forgive their +transgressions is he who prayed that if God would not pardon them, his +own name might be blotted from the book of life. He, to whom afterwards +God said “I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee” (xxxiii. +19), is the same of Whom God said “My name is in Him.” This position +needs no examination; but the perplexities of those who reject the +deeper interpretation is a strong confirmation of its soundness. We have +still to choose between the promise of a created angel, and some +manifestation and interposition of God, distinguished from Jehovah and +yet one with Him. This latter view is an evident preparation for clearer +knowledge yet to come. It is enough to stamp the dispensation which puts +it forth as but provisional, and therefore bears witness to that other +dispensation which has the key to it. And it is exactly what a Christian +would expect to find somewhere in this summary of the law.</p> + +<p>What, then, do we read elsewhere about the Angel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> of Jehovah? What do we +find, especially, in these early books?</p> + +<p>A difficulty has to be met at the very outset. The issue would be +decided offhand, if it could be shown that the Angel of this verse is +the same who is offered, as a poor substitute for their Divine +protector, in the thirty-third chapter. But no contrast can be clearer +than between the encouraging promise before us, and the sharp menace +which then plunged Israel into mourning. Here is an Angel who must not +be provoked, who will not pardon you, because “My Name is in Him.” There +is an angel who will be sent because God will not go up, ... lest He +consume them (vers. 2, 3). He is not the Angel of God’s presence, but of +His absence. When the intercession of Moses won from God a reversal of +the sentence, He then said “My Presence (My Face) shall go with thee, +and I will give thee rest,”<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> but Moses answers, not yet reassured, +“If Thy Presence (Thy Face) go not up with us, carry us not up hence. +For wherein shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight?... +Is it not that Thou goest with us? And the Lord said, I will do this +thing also that thou hast spoken” (14–17).</p> + +<p>Moreover, Isaiah, speaking of this time, says that “In all their +affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence (His Face) +saved them” (Isa. lxiii. 9).</p> + +<p>Thus we find that some angel is to be sent because God will not go up: +that thereupon the nation mourns,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> although in this twenty-third chapter +they had received as a gladdening promise, the assurance of an Angel +escort in Whom is the name of God; that in response to prayer God +promises that His Face shall accompany them, so that it may be known +that He Himself goes with them; and finally that His Face in Exodus is +the Angel of His Face in Isaiah. The prophet at least had no doubt +whether the gracious promise in the twenty-third chapter answered, in +the thirty-third chapter, to the third verse or the fourteenth—to the +menace, or to the restored favour.</p> + +<p>This difficulty being now converted into an evidence, we turn back to +examine other passages.</p> + +<p>When the Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar, “she called the name of +Jehovah that spake unto her El Roi” (Gen. xvi. 11, 13). When God tempted +Abraham, “the Angel of Jehovah called unto him out of heaven, and said, +... I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son +... from Me” (Gen. xxii. 11, 12). When a man wrestled with Jacob, he +thereupon claimed to have seen God face to face, and called the place +Peniel, the Face (Presence) of God (Gen. xxxii. 4, 30). But Hosea tells +us that “He had power with God: yea, he had power over the Angel, ... +and there He spake with us, even Jehovah, the God of hosts” (Hos. xii. +3, 5). Even earlier, in his exile, the Angel of the Lord had appeared +unto him and said, “I am the God of Bethel ... where thou vowedst a vow +unto Me.” But the vow was distinctly made to God Himself: “I will surely +give the tenth to Thee” (xxxi. 11, 13; xxviii. 20, 22). Is it any wonder +that when this patriarch blessed Joseph, he said, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>“The God before whom +my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my +life long unto this day, the Angel which hath redeemed me from all +evil, (may He) bless the lads” (xlviii. 15, 16)?</p> + +<p>In Exodus iii. 2 the Angel of the Lord appeared out of the bush. But +presently He changes into Jehovah Himself, and announces Himself to be +Jehovah the God of their fathers (iii. 2, 4, 15). In Exodus xiii. 21 +Jehovah went before Israel, but the next chapter tells how “the Angel of +the Lord which went before Israel removed and went behind” (xiv. 19); +while Numbers (xx. 16) says expressly that “He sent an Angel and brought +us out of Egypt.”</p> + +<p>By the comparison of these and many later passages (which is nothing but +the scientific process of induction, leaning not on the weight of any +single verse, but on the drift and tendency of all the phenomena) we +learn that God was already revealing Himself through a Medium, a +distinct personality whom He could send, yet not so distinct but that +His name was in Him, and He Himself was the Author of what He did.</p> + +<p>If Israel obeyed Him, He would bring them into the promised land (ver. +23); and if there they continued unseduced by false worships, He would +bless their provisions, their bodily frame, their children; He would +bring terror and a hornet against their foes; He would clear the land +before them as fast as their population could enjoy it; He would extend +their boundaries yet farther, from the Red Sea, where Solomon held Ezion +Geber (1 Kings ix. 26), to the Mediterranean, and from the desert where +they stood to the Euphrates, where Solomon actually possessed Palmyra +and Thiphsah (2 Chron. viii. 4; 1 Kings iv. 24).</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Even if the rendering were accepted, “Must My Presence (My +Face) go with thee?” (Can I not be trusted without a direct Presence?) +the argument would not be affected, because Moses presses for the favour +and obtains it.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxiv.</h3> + +<p>The opening words of this chapter (“Come up unto the Lord”) imply, +without explicitly asserting, that Moses was first sent down to convey +to Israel the laws which had just been enacted.</p> + +<p>This code they unanimously accepted, and he wrote it down. It is a +memorable statement, recording the origin of the first portion of Holy +Scripture that ever existed as such, whatever earlier writings may now +or afterwards have been incorporated in the Pentateuch. He then built an +altar for God, and twelve pillars for the tribes, and sacrificed +burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the Lord. Sin-offerings, it +will be observed, were not yet instituted; and neither was the +priesthood, so that young men slew the offerings. Half of the blood was +poured upon the altar, because God had perfected His share in the +covenant. The remainder was not used until the law had been read aloud, +and the people had answered with one voice, “All that the Lord hath +commanded will we do, and will be obedient.” Thereupon they too were +sprinkled with the blood, and the solemn words were spoken, “Behold the +blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all +these words.” The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> people were now finally bound: no later covenant of +the same kind will be found in the Old Testament.</p> + +<p>And now the principle began to work which was afterwards embodied in the +priesthood. That principle, stated broadly, was exclusion from the +presence of God, relieved and made hopeful by the admission of +representatives. The people were still forbidden to approach, under pain +of death. But Moses and Aaron were no longer the only ones to cross the +appointed boundaries. With them came the two sons of Aaron, (afterwards, +despite their privilege, to meet a dreadful doom,) and also seventy +representatives of all the newly covenanted people. Joshua, too, as the +servant of Moses, was free to come, although unspecified in the summons +(vers. 1, 13).</p> + +<p>“They saw the God of Israel,” and under His feet the blueness of the sky +like intense sapphire. And they were secure: they beheld God, and ate +and drank.</p> + +<p>But in privilege itself there are degrees: Moses was called up still +higher, and left Aaron and Hur to govern the people while he communed +with his God. For six days the nation saw the flanks of the mountain +swathed in cloud, and its summit crowned with the glory of Jehovah like +devouring fire. Then Moses entered the cloud, and during forty days they +knew not what had become of him. Was it time lost? Say rather that all +time is wasted except what is spent in communion, direct or indirect, +with the Eternal.</p> + +<p>The narrative is at once simple and sublime. We are sometimes told that +other religions besides our own rely for sanction upon their +supernatural origin. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>“Zarathustra, Sâkya-Mooni and Mahomed pass among +their followers for envoys of the Godhead; and in the estimation of the +Brahmin the Vedas and the laws of Manou are holy, divine books” (Kuenen, +<i>Religion of Israel</i>, i. 6). This is true. But there is a wide +difference between nations which assert that God privately appeared to +their teachers, and a nation which asserts that God appeared to the +public. It is not upon the word of Moses that Israel is said to have +believed; and even those who reject the narrative are not entitled to +confound it with narratives utterly dissimilar. There is not to be found +anywhere a parallel for this majestic story.</p> + +<p>But what are we to think of the assertion that God was seen to stand +upon a burning mountain?</p> + +<p>He it is Whom no man hath seen or can see, and in His presence the +seraphim veil their faces.</p> + +<p>It will not suffice to answer that Moses “endured as seeing Him that is +invisible” (Heb. xi. 27), for the paraphrase is many centuries later, +and hostile critics will rule it out of court as an after-thought. At +least, however, it proves that the problem was faced long ago, and tells +us what solution satisfied the early Church.</p> + +<p>With this clue before us, we ask what notion did the narrative really +convey to its ancient readers? If our defence is to be thoroughly +satisfactory, it must show an escape from heretical and carnal notions +of deity, not only for ourselves, but also for careful readers from the +very first.</p> + +<p>Now it is certain that no such reader could for one moment think of a +manifestation thorough, exhaustive, such as the eye receives of colour +and of form. Because the effect produced is not satisfaction, but +desire. Each new vision deepens the sense of the unseen. Thus we read +first that Moses and Aaron,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders, saw +God, from which revelation the people felt and knew themselves to be +excluded. And yet the multitude also had a vision according to its power +to see; and indeed it was more satisfying to them than was the most +profound insight enjoyed by Moses. To see God is to sail to the horizon: +when you arrive, the horizon is as far in front as ever; but you have +gained a new consciousness of infinitude. “The appearance of the glory +of the Lord was seen like devouring fire in the eyes of the children of +Israel” (ver. 17). But Moses was aware of a glory far greater and more +spiritual than any material splendour. When theophanies had done their +utmost, his longing was still unslaked, and he cried out, “Show me, I +pray Thee, Thy glory” (xxxiii. 18). To his consciousness that glory was +still veiled, which the multitude sufficiently beheld in the flaming +mountain. And the answer which he received ought to put the question at +rest for ever, since, along with the promise “All My goodness shall pass +before thee,” came the assertion “Thou shalt not see My face, for no man +shall see Me and live.”</p> + +<p>So, then, it is not our modern theology, but this noble book of Exodus +itself, which tells us that Moses did not and could not adequately see +God, however great and sacred the vision which he beheld. From this book +we learn that, side by side with the most intimate communion and the +clearest possible unveiling of God, grew up the profound consciousness +that only some attributes and not the essence of deity had been +displayed.</p> + +<p>It is very instructive also to observe the steps by which Moses is led +upward. From the burning bush<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> to the fiery cloud, and thence to the +blazing mountain, there was an ever-deepening lesson of majesty and awe. +But in answer to the prayer that he might really see the very glory of +his Lord, his mind is led away upon entirely another pathway: it is “All +My goodness” which is now to “pass before” him, and the proclamation is +of “a God full of compassion and gracious,” yet retaining His moral +firmness, so that He “will by no means clear the guilty.”</p> + +<p>What can cloud and fire avail, toward the manifesting of a God Whose +essence is His love? It is from the Old Testament narrative that the New +Testament inferred that Moses endured as seeing indeed, yet as seeing +Him Who is inevitably and for ever invisible to eyes of flesh: he +learned most, not when he beheld some form of awe, standing on a paved +work of sapphire stone and as it were the very heaven for clearness, but +when hidden in a cleft of the rock and covered by the hand of God while +He passed by.</p> + +<p>On one hand the people saw the glory of God: on the other hand it was +the best lesson taught by a far closer access, still to pray and yearn +to see that glory. The seventy beheld the God of Israel: for their +leader was reserved the more exalting knowledge, that beyond all vision +is the mystic overshadowing of the Divine, and a voice which says “No +man shall see Me and live.” The difference in heart is well typified in +this difference in their conduct, that they saw God and ate and drank, +but he, for forty days, ate not. Satisfaction and assurance are a poor +ideal compared with rapt aspiration and desire.</p> + +<p>Thus we see that no conflict exists between this declaration and our +belief in the spirituality of God.</p> + +<p>We have still to ask what is the real force of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> assertion that God +was in some lesser sense seen of Israel, and again, more especially, of +its leaders.</p> + +<p>What do we mean even by saying that we see each other?—that, observing +keenly, we see upon one face cunning, upon another sorrow, upon a third +the peace of God? Are not these emotions immaterial and invisible as the +essence of God Himself? Nay, so invisible is the reality within each +bosom, that some day all that eye hath seen shall fall away from us, and +yet the true man shall remain intact.</p> + +<p>Man has never seen more than a hint, an outcome, a partial +self-revelation or self-betrayal of his fellow-man.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Yes, in the sea of life in-isled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With echoing straits between us thrown,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dotting the shoreless watery wild,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We mortal millions live <i>alone</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<hr class="poemtb" /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">God bade betwixt ‘our’ shores to be<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And yet, incredible as the paradox would seem, if it were not too common +to be strange, the play of muscles and rush of blood, visible through +the skin, do reveal the most spiritual and immaterial changes. Even so +the heavens declare that very glory of God which baffled the undimmed +eyes of Moses. So it was, also, that when rended rocks and burning skies +revealed a more immanent action of Him Who moves through all nature +always, when convulsions hitherto undreamed of by those dwellers in +Egyptian plains overwhelmed them with a new sense of their own smallness +and a supreme Presence, God was manifested there.</p> + +<p>Not unlike this is the explanation of St. Augustine,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> “We need not be +surprised that God, invisible as He is, appeared visibly to the +patriarchs. For, as the sound which communicates the thought conceived +in the silence of the mind is not the thought itself, so the form by +which God, invisible in His own nature, became visible, was not God +Himself. Nevertheless it was He Himself Who was seen under that form, as +the thought itself is heard in the sound of the voice; and the +patriarchs recognised that, although the bodily form was not God, they +saw the invisible God. For, though Moses was conversing with God, yet he +said, ‘If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thyself’” (<i>De Civ. +Dei</i>, x. 13). And again: “He knew that he saw corporeally, but he sought +the true vision of God spiritually” (<i>De Trin.</i>, ii. 27).</p> + +<p>It has still to be added that His manifestation is exactly suited to the +stage now reached in the education of Israel. Their fathers had already +“seen God” in the likeness of man: Abraham had entertained Him; Jacob +had wrestled with Him. And so Joshua before Ai, and Manoah by the rock +at Zorah, and Ezekiel by the river Chebar, should see the likeness of a +man. We who believe the doctrine of a real Incarnation can well perceive +that in these passing and mysterious glimpses God was not only revealing +Himself in the way which would best prepare humanity for His future +coming in actual manhood, but also in the way by which, meanwhile, the +truest and deepest light could be thrown upon His nature, a nature which +could hereafter perfectly manifest itself in flesh. Why, then, do not +the records of the Exodus hint at a human likeness? Why did they “behold +no similitude”? Clearly because the masses of Israel were utterly +unprepared to receive rightly such a vision. To them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> the likeness of +man would have meant no more than the likeness of a flying eagle or a +calf. Idolatry would have followed, but no sense of sympathy, no +consciousness of the grandeur and responsibility of being made in the +likeness of God. Anthropomorphism is a heresy, although the Incarnation +is the crowning doctrine of the faith.</p> + +<p>But it is hard to see why the human likeness of God should exist in +Genesis and Joshua, but not in the history of the Exodus, if that story +be a post-Exilian forgery.</p> + +<p>This is not all. The revelations of God in the desert were connected +with threats and prohibitions: the law was given by Moses; grace and +truth came by Jesus Christ. And with the different tone of the message a +different aspect of the speaker was to be expected. From the blazing +crags of Sinai, fenced around, the voice of a trumpet waxing louder and +louder, said “Thou shalt not!” On the green hill by the Galilæan lake +Jesus sat down, and His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth +and said “Blessed.”</p> + +<p>Now, the conscience of every sinner knows that the God of the +commandments is dreadful. It is of Him, not of hell, that Isaiah said +“The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath surprised the godless +ones. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us +shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” (Isa. xxxiii. 14).</p> + +<p>For him who rejects the light yoke of the Lord of Love, the fires of +Sinai are still the truest revelation of deity; and we must not deny +Sinai because we know Bethlehem. We must choose between the two.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE SHRINE AND ITS FURNITURE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxv. 1–40.</h3> + +<p>The first direction given to Moses on the mountain is to prepare for the +making of a tabernacle wherein God may dwell with man. For this he must +invite offerings of various kinds, metals and gems, skins and fabrics, +oil and spices; and the humblest man whose heart is willing may +contribute toward an abode for Him Whom the heaven of heavens cannot +contain.</p> + +<p>Strange indeed is the contrast between the mountain burning up to +heaven, and the lowly structure of the wood of the desert, which was now +to be erected by subscription.</p> + +<p>And yet the change marks not a lower conception of deity, but an +advance, just as the quiet and serene communion of a saint with God is +loftier than the most agitating experience of the convert.</p> + +<p>This is the first announcement of a fixed abiding presence of God in the +midst of men, and it is therefore the precursor of much. St. John +certainly alluded to this earliest dwelling of God on earth when he +wrote, “The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us” (John i. 14). +A little later it was said, “Ye also are builded together for an +habitation of God” (Eph. ii. 22); and again the very words used at first +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> tabernacle are applied to faithful souls: “We are a temple of +the living God, as God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them” (2 +Cor. vi. 16; Lev. xxvi. 11). For God dwelt on earth in the Messiah +hidden by the veil, that is to say His flesh (Heb. x. 20), and also in +the hearts of all the faithful. And a yet fuller communion is to come, +of which the tabernacle in the wilderness was a type, even the descent +of the Holy City, when the true tabernacle of God shall be with men, and +He shall tabernacle with them (Rev. xxi. 3).</p> + +<p>It may seem strange that after the commandment “Let them make Me a +sanctuary” the whole chapter is devoted to instructions, not for the +tabernacle but for its furniture. But indeed the four articles +enumerated in this chapter present a wonderfully graphic picture of the +nature and terms of the intercourse of God with man. On one side is His +revelation of righteousness, but righteousness propitiated and become +gracious, and this is symbolised by the ark of the testimony and the +mercy-seat. On the other side the consecration both of secular and +sacred life is typified by the table with bread and wine, and by the +golden candlestick. Except thus, no tabernacle could have been the +dwelling of the Lord, nor ever shall be.</p> + +<p>And this is the true reason why the altar of incense is not even +mentioned until a later chapter (xxx.). We do homage to God because He +is present: it is rather the consequence than the condition of His abode +with us.</p> + +<p>The first step towards the preparation of a shrine for God on earth is +the enshrining of His will: Moses should therefore make first of all an +ark, wherein to treasure up “the testimony which I shall give thee,” the +two tables of the law (xxv. 16). In it were also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> the pot of manna and +Aaron’s rod which budded (Heb. ix. 4), and beside it was laid the whole +book of the law, for a testimony, alas! against them (Deut. xxxi. 26).</p> + +<p>Thus the ark was to treasure up the expression of the will of God, and +the relics which told by what mercies and deliverances He claimed +obedience. It was a precious thing, but not the most precious, as we +shall presently learn; and therefore it was not made of pure gold, but +overlaid with it. That it might be reverently carried, four rings were +cast and fastened to it at the lower corners, and in these four staves, +also overlaid with gold, were permanently inserted.</p> + +<p>The next article mentioned is the most important of all.</p> + +<p>It would be a great mistake to suppose that the mercy-seat was a mere +lid, an ordinary portion of the ark itself. It was made of a different +and more costly material, of pure gold, with which the ark was only +overlaid. There is separate mention that Bezaleel “made the ark, ... and +he made the mercy-seat” (xxxvii. 1, 6), and the special presence of God +in the Most Holy Place is connected much more intimately with the +mercy-seat than with the remainder of the structure. Thus He promises to +“appear in the cloud above the mercy-seat” (Lev. xvi. 2). And when it is +written that “Moses heard the Voice speaking unto him from above the +mercy-seat which is upon the ark of the testimony” (Num. vii. 89), it +would have been more natural to say directly “from above the ark” unless +some stress were to be laid upon the interposing slab of gold. In +reality no distinction could be sharper than between the ark and its +cover, from whence to hear the voice of God. And so thoroughly did all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> +the symbolism of the Most Holy Place gather around this supreme object, +that in one place it is actually called “the house of the mercy-seat” (1 +Chron. xxviii. 11).</p> + +<p>Let us, then, put ourselves into the place of an ancient worshipper. +Excluded though he is from the Holy Place, and conscious that even the +priests are shut out from the inner shrine, yet the high priest who +enters is his brother: he goes on his behalf: the barrier is a curtain, +not a wall.</p> + +<p>But while the Israelite mused upon what was beyond, the ark, as we have +seen, suggests the depth of his obligation; for there is the rod of his +deliverance and the bread from heaven which fed him; and there also are +the commandments which he ought to have kept. And his conscience tells +him of ingratitude, and a broken covenant; by the law is the knowledge +of sin.</p> + +<p>It is therefore a sinister and menacing thought that immediately above +this ark of the violated covenant burns the visible manifestation of +God, his injured Benefactor.</p> + +<p>And hence arises the golden value of that which interposes, beneath +which the accusing law is buried, by means of which God “hides His face +from our sins.”</p> + +<p>The worshipper knows this cover to be provided by a separate ordinance +of God, after the ark and its contents had been arranged for, and finds +in it a vivid concrete representation of the idea “Thou hast cast all my +sins behind Thy back” (Isa. xxxviii. 17). That this was its true +intention becomes more evident when we ascertain exactly the meaning of +the term which we have, not too precisely, rendered “mercy-seat.”</p> + +<p>The word “seat” has no part in the original; and we are not to think of +God as reposing on it, but as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> revealing Himself above. The erroneous +notion has probably transferred itself to the type from the heavenly +antitype, which is “the throne of grace,” but it has no countenance +either in the Greek or the Hebrew name of the Mosaic institution. Nor is +the notion expressed that of gratuitous and unbought “mercy.” When +Jehovah showeth mercy unto thousands, the word is different. It is true +that the root means “to cover,” and is once employed in Scripture in +that sense (Gen. vi. 14); but its ethical use is generally connected +with sacrifice; and when we read of a “sin-offering for <i>atonement</i>,” of +the half-shekel being an “<i>atonement</i>-money,” and of “the day of +<i>atonement</i>,” the word is a simple and very similar development from the +same root with this which we render <i>mercy-seat</i> (Exod. xxx. 10, 16; +Lev. xxiii. 27, etc.).</p> + +<p>The Greek word is found twice in the New Testament: once when the +cherubim of glory overshadow the <i>mercy-seat</i>, and again when God hath +set forth Christ to be a <i>propitiation</i> (Heb. ix. 5; Rom. iii. 25). The +mercy-seat is therefore to be thought of in connection with sin, but sin +expiated and thus covered and put away.</p> + +<p>We know mysteries which the Israelite could not guess of the means by +which this was brought to pass. But as he watched the high priest +disappearing into that awful solitude, with God, as he listened to the +chime of bells, swung by his movements, and announcing that still he +lived, two conditions stood out broadly before his mind. One was the +bringing in of incense: “Thou shalt bring a censer full of burning coals +of fire from before the altar, that the cloud of the incense may cover +the mercy-seat” (Lev. xvi. 13). Now, the connection between prayer and +incense was quite familiar to the Jew; and he could not but understand +that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> blessing of atonement was to be sought and won by intense and +burning supplication. And the other was that invariable demand, the +offering of a victim’s blood. All the sacrifices of Judaism culminated +in the great act when the high priest, standing in the most holy and the +most occult spot in all the world, sprinkled “blood upon the mercy-seat +eastwards, and before the mercy-seat sprinkled of the blood with his +finger seven times” (Lev. xvi. 14).</p> + +<p>Thus the crowning height of the Jewish ritual was attained when the +blood of the great national sacrifice was offered not only before God, +but, with special reference to the covering up of the broken and +accusing law, before the mercy-seat.</p> + +<p>No wonder that on either side of it, and moulded of the same mass of +metal, were the cherubim in an attitude of adoration, their outspread +wings covering it, their faces bent, not only as bowing in reverence +before the Divine presence, but, as we expressly read, “toward the +mercy-seat shall the faces of the cherubim be.” For the meaning of this +great symbol was among the things which “the angels desire to look +into.”</p> + +<p>We now understand how much was gained when God said “There will I meet +thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat” (ver. 22). +It was an assurance, not only of the love which desires obedience, but +of the mercy which passes over failure.<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus far, there has been symbolised the mind of God, His righteousness +and His grace.</p> + +<p>The next articles have to do with man, his homage to God and his witness +for Him.</p> + +<p>There is first the table of the shewbread (vers. 23–30), overlaid with +pure gold, surrounded, like the ark, with “a crown” or moulding of gold, +for ornament and the greater security of the loaves, and strengthened by +a border of pure gold carried around the base, which was also ornamented +with a crown, or moulding. Close to this border were rings for staves, +like those by which the ark was borne. The table was furnished with +dishes upon which, every Sabbath day, new shewbread might be conveyed +into the tabernacle, and the old might be removed for the priests to +eat. There were spoons also, by which to place frankincense upon each +pile of bread; and “flagons and bowls to pour out withal.” What was thus +to be poured we do not read, but there is no doubt that it was wine, +second only to bread as a requisite of Jewish life, and forming, like +the frankincense, a link between this weekly presentation and the +meal-offerings. But all these were subordinate to the twelve loaves, one +for each tribe, which were laid in two piles upon the table. It is clear +that their presentation was the essence of the rite, and not their +consumption by the priests, which was possibly little more than a +safeguard against irreverent treatment. For the word shewbread is +literally bread of the face or presence, which word is used of the +presence of God, in the famous prayer “If Thy presence go not with me, +carry us not up hence” (xxxiii. 15). And of whom, other than God, can it +here be reasonably understood? Now Jacob, long before, had vowed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>“Of all +that Thou givest me, I will surely give the tenth to Thee” (Gen. +xxviii. 22). And it was an edifying ordinance that a regular offering +should be made to God of the staple necessaries of existence, as a +confession that all came from Him, and an appeal, clearly expressed by +covering it with frankincense, which typified prayer (Lev. xxiv. 7) that +He would continue to supply their need.</p> + +<p>Nor is it overstrained to add, that when this bread was given to their +priestly representatives to eat, with all reverence and in a holy place, +God responded, and gave back to His people that which represented the +necessary maintenance of the tribes. Thus it was, “on the behalf of the +children of Israel, an everlasting covenant” (Lev. xxiv. 8).</p> + +<p>The form has perished. But as long as we confess in the Lord’s Prayer +that the wealthiest does not possess one day’s bread ungiven—as long, +also, as Christian families connect every meal with a due acknowledgment +of dependence and of gratitude—so long will the Church of Christ +continue to make the same confession and appeal which were offered in +the shewbread upon the table.</p> + +<p>The next article of furniture was the golden candlestick (vers. 31–40). +And this presents the curious phenomenon that it is extremely clear in +its typical import, and in its material outline; but the details of the +description are most obscure, and impossible to be gathered from the +Authorised Version. Strictly speaking, it was not a lamp, but only a +gorgeous lamp-stand, with one perpendicular shaft, and six branches, +three springing, one above another, from each side of the shaft, and all +curving up to the same height. Upon these were laid the seven lamps, +which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> were altogether separate in their construction (ver. 37). It was +of pure gold, the base and the main shaft being of one piece of beaten +metal. Each of the six branches was ornamented with three cups, made +like almond blossoms; above these a “knop,” variously compared by Jewish +writers to an apple and a pomegranate, and still higher, a flower or +bud. It is believed that there was a fruit and flower above each of the +cups, making nine ornaments on each branch. The “candlestick” in ver. 34 +can only mean the central shaft, and upon this there were “four cups +with their knops and flowers” instead of three. With the lamp were +tongs, and snuff-dishes in which to remove the charred wick from the +temple.</p> + +<p>As we are told that when the Lord called the child Samuel, “the lamp of +God was not yet gone out” (1 Sam. iii. 3), it follows that the lights +were kept burning only during the night.</p> + +<p>We have now to ascertain the spiritual meaning of this stately symbol. +There are two other passages in Scripture which take up the figure and +carry it forward. In Zechariah (iv. 2–12) we are taught that the +separation of the lamps is a mere incident; they are to be conceived of +as organically one, and moreover as fed by secret ducts with oil from no +limited supply, but from living olive trees, vital, rooted in the system +of the universe. Whatever obscurity may veil those “two sons of oil” +(and this is not the place to discuss the subject), we are distinctly +told that the main lesson is that of lustre derived from supernatural, +invisible sources. Zerubbabel is confronted by a great mountain of +hindrance, but it shall become a plain before him, because the lesson of +the vision of the candlestick is this—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>“Not by might, nor by power, but +by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” A lamp gives light not because the gold +shines, but because the oil burns; and yet the oil is the one thing +which the eye sees not. And so the Church is a witness for her Lord, a +light shining in a dark place, not because of its learning or culture, +its noble ritual, its stately buildings or its ample revenues. All these +things her children, having the power, ought to dedicate. The ancient +symbol put art and preciousness in an honourable place, worthily +upholding the lamp itself; and in the New Testament the seven lamps of +the Apocalypse were still of gold. But the true function of a lamp is to +be luminous, and for this the Church depends wholly upon its supply of +grace from God the Holy Ghost. It is “not by might, nor by power, but by +My Spirit, saith the Lord.”</p> + +<p>Again, in the Revelation, we find the New Testament Churches described +as lamps, among which their Lord habitually walks. And no sooner have +the seven churches on earth been warned and cheered, than we are shown +before the throne of God seven torches (burning by their own +incandescence—<i>vide</i> Trench, <i>N. T. Synonyms</i>, p. 162), which are the +seven spirits of God, answering to His seven light-bearers upon the +earth (Rev. iv. 5).</p> + +<p>Lastly, the perfect and mystic number, seven, declares that the light of +the Church, shining in a dark place, ought to be full and clear, no +imperfect presentation of the truth: “they shall light the lamps, to +give light over against it.”</p> + +<p>Because this lamp shines with the light of the Church, exhibiting the +graces of her Lord, therefore a special command is addressed to the +people, besides the call for contributions to the work in general, that +they shall bring pure olive oil, not obtained by heat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> and pressure, but +simply beaten, and therefore of the best quality, to feed its flame.</p> + +<p>It is to burn, as the Church ought to shine in all darkness of the +conscience or the heart of man, from evening to morning for ever. And +the care of the ministers of God is to be the continual tending of this +blessed and sacred flame.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxv. 9, 40.</h3> + +<p>Twice over (vers. 9, 40, and cf. xxvi. 30, xxvii. 8, etc.) Moses was +reminded to be careful to make all things after the pattern shown him in +the mount. And these words have sometimes been so strained as to convey +the meaning that there really exists in heaven a tabernacle and its +furniture, the grand original from which the Mosaic copy was derived.</p> + +<p>That is plainly not what the Epistle to the Hebrews understands (Heb. +viii. 5). For it urges this admonition as a proof that the old +dispensation was a shadow of ours, in which Christ enters into heaven +itself, and our consciences are cleansed from dead works to serve the +living God. The citation is bound indissolubly with all the +demonstration which follows it.</p> + +<p>We are not, then, to think of a heavenly tabernacle, exhibited to the +material senses of Moses, with which all the details of his own work +must be identical.</p> + +<p>Rather we are to conceive of an inspiration, an ideal, a vision of +spiritual truths, to which all this work in gold and acacia-wood should +correspond. It was thus that Socrates told Glaucon, incredulous of his +republic, that in heaven there is laid up a pattern, for him that wishes +to behold it. Nothing short of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> would satisfy the inspired +application of the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the +readers, who were Jewish converts, are asked to recognise in this verse +evidence that the light of the new dispensation illuminated the +institutions of the old.</p> + +<p>Without this pervading sentiment, the most elaborate specifications of +weight and measurement, of cup and pomegranate and flower, could never +have produced the required effect. An ideal there was, a divinely +designed suggestiveness, which must be always present to his +superintending vigilance, as once it shone upon his soul in sacred +vision or trance; a suggestiveness which might possibly be lost amid +correct elaborations, like the soul of a poem or a song, evaporating +through a rendering which is correct enough, yet in which the spirit, +even if that alone, has been forgotten.</p> + +<p>It is surely a striking thing to find this need of a pervading sentiment +impressed upon the author of the first piece of religious art that ever +was recognised by heaven.</p> + +<p>For it is the mysterious all-pervading charm of such a dominant +sentiment which marks the impassable difference between the lowliest +work of art, and the highest piece of art-manufacture which is only a +manufactured article.</p> + +<p>And assuredly the recognition of this principle among a people whose +ancient history shows but little interest in art, calls for some +attention from those who regard the tabernacle itself as a fiction, and +its details as elaborated in Babylonia, in the priestly interest. +(Kuenen, <i>Relig. of Israel</i>, ii. 148).</p> + +<p>The problem of problems for all who deny the divinity of the Old +Testament is to explain the curious position which its institutions are +consistent in accepting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> They rest on the authority of heaven, and yet +they are not definitive, but provisional. They are always looking +forward to another prophet like their founder, a new covenant better +than the present one, a high priest after the order of a Canaanite +enthroned at the right hand of Jehovah, a consecration for every pot in +the city like that of the vessels in the temple (Deut. xviii. 15; Jer. +xxxi. 31; Ps. cx. 1, 4; Zech. xiv. 20). And here, “in the priestly +interest,” is an avowal that the Divine habitation which they boast of +is but the likeness and shadow of some Divine reality concealed. And +these strange expectations have proved to be the most fruitful and +energetic principles in their religion.</p> + +<p>This very presence of the ideal is what will for ever make the highest +natures quite certain that the visible universe is no mere resultant of +clashing forces without a soul, but the genuine work of a Creator. The +universe is charged throughout with the most powerful appeals to all +that is artistic and vital within us; so that a cataract is more than +water falling noisily, and the silence of midnight more than the absence +of disturbance, and a snow mountain more than a storehouse to feed the +torrents in summer, being also poems, appeals, revelations, whispers +from a spirit, heard in the depth of ours.</p> + +<p>Does any one, listening to Beethoven’s funeral march, doubt the +utterance of a soul, as distinct from clanging metal and vibrating +chords? And the world has in it this mysterious witness to something +more than heat and cold, moisture and drought: something which makes the +difference between a well-filled granary and a field of grain rippling +golden in the breeze. This is not a coercive argument for the hostile +logic-monger:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> it is an appeal for the open heart. “He that hath ears to +hear, let him hear.”</p> + +<p>To fill the tabernacle of Moses with spiritual meaning, the ideal +tabernacle was revealed to him in the Mount of God.</p> + +<p>Let us apply the same principle to human life. There also harmony and +unity, a pervading sense of beauty and of soul, are not to be won by +mere obedience to a mandate here and a prohibition there. Like Moses, it +is not by labour according to specification that we may erect a shrine +for deity. Those parables which tell of obedient toil would be sadly +defective, therefore, without those which speak of love and joy, a +supper, a Shepherd bearing home His sheep, a prodigal whose dull +expectation of hired service is changed for investiture with the best +robe and the gold ring, and welcome of dance and music.</p> + +<p>How shall our lives be made thus harmonious, a spiritual poem and not a +task, a chord vibrating under the musician’s hand? How shall thought and +word, desire and deed, become like the blended voices of river and wind +and wood, a witness for the divine? Not by mere elaboration of detail +(though correctness is a condition of all true art), but by a vision +before us of the divine life, the Ideal, the pattern shown to all, and +equally to be imitated (strange though it may seem) by peasant and +prince, by woman and sage and child.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> This investigation offers a fine example of the folly of +that kind of interpretation which looks about for some sort of external +and arbitrary resemblance, and fastens upon that as the true meaning. +Nothing is more common among these expounders than to declare that the +wood and gold of the ark are types of the human and Divine natures of +our Lord. If either ark or mercy-seat should be compared to Him, it is +obviously the latter, which speaks of mercy. But this was of pure gold.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE TABERNACLE</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxvi.</h3> + +<p>We now come to examine the structure of the tabernacle for which the +most essential furniture has been prepared.</p> + +<p>Some confusion of thought exists, even among educated laymen, with +regard to the arrangements of the temple; and this has led to similar +confusion (to a less extent) concerning the corresponding parts of the +tabernacle. “The temple” in which the Child Jesus was found, and into +which Peter and John went up to pray, ought not to be confounded with +that inner shrine, “the temple,” in which it was the lot of the priest +Zacharias to burn incense, and into which Judas, forgetful of all its +sacredness in his anguish, hurled his money to the priests (Luke ii. 46; +Acts iii. 3; Luke i. 9; Matt. xxvii. 5). Now, the former of these +corresponded to “the court of the tabernacle,” an enclosure open to the +skies, and containing two important articles, the altar of burnt +sacrifices and the laver. This was accessible to the nation, so that the +sinner could lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and the priests +could purify themselves before entering their own sacred place, the +tabernacle proper, the shrine. But when we come to the structure itself, +some attention is still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> necessary, in order to derive any clear notion +from the description; nor can this easily be done by an English reader +without substituting the Revised Version for the Authorised. He will +then discover that we have a description, first of the “curtains of the +tabernacle” (vers. 1–6), and then of other curtains which are not +considered to belong to the tabernacle proper, but to “the tent over the +tabernacle” (7–13), being no part of the rich ornamental interior, but +only a protection spread above it; and over this again were two further +screens from the weather (14), and finally, inside all, are “the boards +of the tabernacle”—of which boards the two actual apartments were +constructed (15–30)—and the veil which divided the Holy from the Most +Holy Place (31–3).</p> + +<p>“The curtains of the tabernacle” were ten, made of linen, of which every +thread consisted of fine strands twisted together, “and blue and purple +and scarlet,” with cherubim not embroidered but woven into the fabric +(1).</p> + +<p>These curtains were sewn together, five and five, so as to make two +great curtains, each slightly larger than forty-two feet by thirty, +being twenty-eight cubits long by five times four cubits broad (2, 3). +Finally these two were linked together, each having fifty loops for that +purpose at corresponding places at the edge, which loops were bound +together by fifty golden clasps (4–6). Thus, when the nation was about +to march, they could easily be divided in the middle and then folded in +the seams.</p> + +<p>This costly fabric was regarded as part of the true tabernacle: why, +then, do we find the outer curtains mentioned before the rest of the +tabernacle proper is described?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span></p> + +<p>Certainly because these rich curtains lie immediately underneath the +coarser ones, and are to be considered along with “the tent” which +covered all (7). This consisted of curtains of goats’ hair, of the same +size, and arranged in all respects like the others, except that their +clasps were only bronze, and that the curtains were eleven in number, +instead of ten, so that half a curtain was available to hang down over +the back, and half was to be doubled back upon itself at the front of +“the tabernacle,” that is to say, the richer curtains underneath. The +object of this is obvious: it was to bring the centre of the goatskin +curtains over the edge of the linen ones, as tiles overlap each other, +to shut out the rain at the joints. But this implies, what has been said +already, that the curtains of the tabernacle should lie close to the +curtains of the tent.</p> + +<p>Over these again was an outer covering of rams’ skins dyed red, and a +covering of sealskins above all (14). This last, it is generally agreed, +ran only along the top, like a ridge tile, to protect the vulnerable +part of the roof. And now it has to be remembered that we are speaking +of a real tent with sloping sides, not a flat cover laid upon the flat +inner structure of boards, and certain to admit the rain. By calling +attention to this fact, Mr. Fergusson succeeded in solving all the +problems connected with the measurements of the tabernacle, and bringing +order into what was little more than chaos before (<i>Smith’s Bible +Dict.</i>, “Temple”).</p> + +<p>The inner tabernacle was of acacia wood, which was the only timber of +the sanctuary. Each board stood ten cubits high, and was fitted by +tenons into two silver sockets, which probably formed a continuous base. +Each of these contained a talent of silver, and was therefore more than +eighty pounds weight; and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> were probably to some extent sunk into +the ground for a foundation (xxxviii. 27). There were twenty boards on +each side; and as they were a cubit and a half broad, the length of the +tabernacle was about forty-five feet (16–18). At the west end there were +six boards (22), which, with the breadth of the two posts or boards for +the corners (23–4) just gives ten cubits, or fifteen feet, for the width +of it. Thus the length of the tabernacle was three times its breadth; +and we know that in the Temple (where all the proportions were the same, +the figures being doubled throughout) the subdividing veil was so hung +as to make the inner shrine a perfect square, leaving the holy place +twice as long as it was broad.</p> + +<p>The posts were held in their places by wooden bars, which were overlaid +with gold (as the boards also were, ver. 29) and fitted into golden +rings. Four such bars, or bolts, ran along a portion of each side, and +there was a fifth great bar which stretched along the whole forty-five +feet from end to end. Thus the edifice was firmly held together; and the +wealth of the material makes it likely that they were fixed on the +inside, and formed a part of the ornament of the edifice (26–9).</p> + +<p>When the two curtains were fastened together with clasps, they gave a +length of sixty feet. But we have seen that the length of the boards +when jointed together was only forty-five feet. This gives a projection +of seven feet and a half (five cubits) for the front and rear of the +tent beyond the tabernacle of boards; and when the great curtains were +drawn tight, sloping from the ridge-pole fourteen cubits on each side, +it has been shown (assuming a right-angle at the top) that they reached +within five cubits of the ground, and extended five cubits beyond the +sides, the same distance as at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> the front and rear. The next +instructions concern the veil which divided the two chambers of the +sanctuary. This was in all respects like “the curtain of the +tabernacle,” and similarly woven with cherubim. It was hung upon four +pillars; and the even number seems to prove that there was no higher one +in the centre, reaching to the roof—which seems to imply that there was +a triangular opening above the veil, between the Holy and the Most Holy +Place (31, 32).</p> + +<p>But here a difficult question arises. There is no specific measurement +of the point at which this subdividing veil was to stretch across the +tent. The analogy of the Temple inclines us to believe that the Most +Holy Place was a perfect cube, and the Holy Place twice as long as it +was broad and high. There is evident allusion to this final shape of the +Most Holy Place in the description of the New Jerusalem, of which the +length and breadth and height were equal. And yet there is strong reason +to suspect that this arrangement was not the primitive one. For Moses +was ordered to stretch the veil underneath the golden clasps which bound +together the two great curtains of the tabernacle (ver. 33). But these +were certainly in the middle. How, then, could the veil make an unequal +division below? Possibly fifteen feet square would have been too mean a +space for the dimensions of the Most Holy Place, although the perfect +cube became desirable, when the size was doubled.</p> + +<p>A screen of the same rich material, but apparently not embroidered with +cherubim, was to stretch across the door of the tent; but this was +supported on five pillars instead of four, clearly that the central one +might support the ridge-bar of the roof. And their sockets were of brass +(vers. 36, 37).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p> + +<p>The tabernacle, like the Temple, had its entrance on the east (ver. 22); +and in the case of the Temple this was the more remarkable, because the +city lay at the other side, and the worshippers had to pass round the +shrine before they reached the front of it. The object was apparently to +catch the warmth of the sun. For a somewhat similar reason, every pagan +temple in the ancient world, with a few well-defined exceptions which +are easily explained, also faced the east; and the worshippers, with +their backs to the dawn, saw the first beams of the sun kindling their +idol’s face. The orientation of Christian churches is due to the custom +which made the neophyte, standing at first in his familiar position +westward, renounce the devil and all his works, and then, turning his +back upon his idols, recite the creed with his face eastward.</p> + +<p>What ideas would be suggested by this edifice to the worshipper will +better be examined when we have examined also the external court.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE OUTER COURT.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxvii.</h3> + +<p>Before describing the tabernacle, its furniture was specified. And so, +when giving instructions for the court of the tabernacle, the altar has +to be described: “Thou shalt make the altar of acacia wood.” The +definite article either implies that an altar was taken for granted, a +thing of course; or else it points back to chap. xx. 24, which said “An +altar of earth shalt thou make.” Nor is the acacia wood of this altar at +all inconsistent with that precept, it being really not an altar but an +altar-case, and “hollow” (ver. 8)—an arrangement for holding the earth +together, and preventing the feet of the priests from desecrating it. At +each corner was a horn, of one piece with the framework, typical of the +power which was there invoked, and practically useful, both to bind the +sacrifice with cords, and also for the grasp of the fugitive, seeking +sanctuary (Ps. cxviii. 27; 1 Kings i. 50). This arrangement is said to +have been peculiar to Judaism. And as the altar was outside the +tabernacle, and both symbolism and art prescribed simpler materials, it +was overlaid with brass (vers. 1, 2). Of the same material were the +vessels necessary for the treatment of the fire and blood (ver. 3). A +network<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> of brass protected the lower part of the altar; and at half the +height a ledge projected, supported by this network, and probably wide +enough to allow the priests to stand upon it when they ministered (vers. +4, 5). Hence we read that Aaron “came down from offering” (Lev. ix. 22). +Lastly, there was the same arrangement of rings and staves to carry it +as for the ark and the table (vers. 6, 7).</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that the laver in this court, like the altar of +incense within, is reserved for mention in a later chapter (xxx. 18) as +being a subordinate feature in the arrangements.</p> + +<p>The enclosure was a quadrangle of one hundred cubits by fifty; it was +five cubits high, and each cubit may be taken as a foot and a half. The +linen which enclosed it was upheld by pillars with sockets of brass; and +one of the few additional facts to be gleaned from the detailed +statement that all these directions were accurately carried out is that +the heads of all the pillars were overlaid with silver (xxxviii. 17). +The pillars were connected by rods (fillets) of silver, and a hanging of +fine-twined linen was stretched by means of silver hooks (9–13). The +entrance was twenty cubits wide, corresponding accurately to the width, +not of the tabernacle, but of “the tent” as it has been described +(reaching out five cubits farther on each side than the tabernacle), and +it was closed by an embroidered curtain (14–17). This fence was drawn +firmly into position and held there by brazen tent-pins; and we here +incidentally learn that so was the tent itself (19).</p> + +<p class="center">[<span class="smcap">For verses</span> 20, 21, see page <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.]</p> + +<p>We are now in a position to ask what sentiment all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> these arrangements +would inspire in the mind of the simple and somewhat superstitious +worshippers.</p> + +<p>Approaching it from outside, the linen enclosure (being seven feet and a +half high) would conceal everything but the great roof of the tent, one +uniform red, except for the sealskin covering along the summit. A gloomy +and menacing prospect, broken possibly by some gleams, if the curtain of +the gable were drawn back, from the gold with which every portion of the +shrine within was plated.</p> + +<p>So does the world outside look askance upon the Church, discerning a +mysterious suggestion everywhere of sternness and awe, yet with flashes +of strange splendour and affluence underneath the gloom.</p> + +<p>In this place God is known to be: it is a tent, not really “of the +congregation,” but “of meeting” between Jehovah and His people: “the +tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, ... and +there I will meet with the children of Israel” (xxix. 42–3). And so the +Israelite, though troubled by sin and fear, is attracted to the gate, +and enters. Right in front stands the altar: this obtrudes itself before +all else upon his attention: he must learn its lesson first of all. +Especially will he feel that this is so if a sacrifice is now to be +offered, since the official must go farther into the court to wash at +the laver, and then return; so that a loss of graduated arrangement has +been accepted in order to force the altar to the front. And he will soon +learn that not only must every approach to the sacred things within be +heralded by sacrifice upon this altar, but the blood of the victim must +be carried as a passport into the shrine. Surely he remembers how the +blood of the lamb saved his own life when the firstborn of Egypt died: +he knows that it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> written “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 (or lives): for it is the blood that maketh atonement by +reason of the life (or soul)” (Lev. xvii. 11).</p> + +<p>No Hebrew could watch his fellow-sinner lay his hand on a victim’s head, +and confess his sin before the blow fell on it, without feeling that sin +was being, in some mysterious sense, “borne” for him. The intricacies of +our modern theology would not disturb him, but this is the sentiment by +which the institutions of the tabernacle assuredly ministered comfort +and hope to him. Strong would be his hope as he remembered that the +service and its solace were not of human devising, that God had “given +it to him upon the altar to make atonement for his soul.”</p> + +<p>Taking courage, therefore, the worshipper dares to lift up his eyes. And +beyond the altar he sees a vision of dazzling magnificence. The inner +roof, most unlike the sullen red of the exterior, is blazing with +various colours, and embroidered with emblems of the mysterious +creatures of the sky, winged, yet not utterly afar from human in their +suggestiveness. Encompassed and looked down into by these is the +tabernacle, all of gold. If the curtain is raised he sees a chamber +which tells what the earth should be—a place of consecrated energies +and resources, and of sacred illumination, the oil of God burning in the +sevenfold vessel of the Church. Is this blessed place for him, and may +he enter? Ah, no! and surely his heart would grow heavy with +consciousness that reconciliation was not yet made perfect, when he +learned that he must never approach the place where God had promised to +meet with him.</p> + +<p>Much less might he penetrate the awful chamber<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span> within, the true home of +deity. There, he knows, is the record of the mind of God, the +concentrated expression of what is comparatively easy to obey in act, +but difficult beyond hope to love, to accept and to be conformed to. +That record is therefore at once the revelation of God and the +condemnation of His creature. Yet over this, he knows well, there is +poised no dead image such as were then adored in Babylonian and Egyptian +fanes, but a spiritual Presence, the glory of the invisible God. Nor was +He to be thought of as in solitude, loveless, or else needing human +love: above Him were the woven seraphim of the curtain, and on either +side a seraph of beaten gold—types, it may be, of all the created life +which He inhabits, or else pictures of His sinless creatures of the +upper world. And yet this pure Being, to Whom the companionship of +sinful man is so little needed, is there to meet with man; and is +pleased not to look upon His violated law, but to command that a slab, +inestimably precious, shall interpose between it and its Avenger. By +whom, then, shall this most holy floor be trodden? By the official +representative of him who gazes, and longs, and is excluded. He enters +not without blood, which he is careful to sprinkle upon all the +furniture, but chiefly and seven times upon the mercy-seat.</p> + +<p>Thus every worshipper carries away a profound consciousness that he is +utterly unworthy, and yet that his unworthiness has been expiated; that +he is excluded, and yet that his priest, his representative, has been +admitted, and therefore that he may hope. The Holy Ghost did not declare +by sign that no way into the Holiest existed, but only that it was not +yet made manifest. Not yet.</p> + +<p>This leads us to think of the priest.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3 class="section">“THE HOLY GARMENTS.”</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxviii.</h3> + +<p>The tabernacle being complete, the priesthood has to be provided for. +Its dignity is intimated by the command to Moses to bring his brother +Aaron and his sons near to himself (clearly in rank, because the object +is defined, “that he may minister unto Me”), and also by the direction +to make “holy garments for glory and for beauty.” But just as the +furniture is treated before the shrine, and again before the courtyard, +so the vestments are provided before the priesthood is itself discussed.</p> + +<p>The holiness of the raiment implies that separation to office can be +expressed by official robes in the Church as well as in the state; and +their glory and beauty show that God, Who has clothed His creation with +splendour and with loveliness, does not dissever religious feeling from +artistic expression.</p> + +<p>All that are wise-hearted in such work, being inspired by God as really, +though not as profoundly, as if their task were to foretell the advent +of Messiah, are to unite their labours upon these garments.</p> + +<p>The order in the twenty-eighth chapter is perhaps that of their visible +importance. But it will be clearer to describe them in the order in +which they were put on.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span></p> + +<p>Next the flesh all the priests were clad from the loins to the thighs in +close-fitting linen: the indecency of many pagan rituals must be far +from them, and this was a perpetual ordinance, “that they bear not +iniquity and die” (xxviii. 42–3).</p> + +<p>Over this was a tight-fitting “coat” (a shirt rather) of fine linen, +white, but woven in a chequered pattern, without seam, like the robe of +Jesus, and bound together with a girdle (39–43).</p> + +<p>These garments were common to all the priests; but their “head-tires” +differed from the impressive mitre of the high priest. The rest of the +vestments in this chapter belong to him alone.</p> + +<p>Over the “coat” he wore the flowing “robe of the ephod,” all blue, +little seen from the waist up, but uncovered thence to the feet, and +surrounded at the hem with golden pomegranates, the emblem of +fruitfulness, and with bells to enable the worshippers outside to follow +the movements of their representative. He should die if this expression +of his vicarious function were neglected (31–35).</p> + +<p>Above this robe was the ephod itself—a kind of gorgeous jacket, made in +two pieces which were joined at the shoulders, and bound together at the +waist by a cunningly woven band, which was of the same piece. This +ephod, like the curtains of the tabernacle, was of blue and purple and +scarlet and fine-twined linen; but added to these were threads of gold, +and we read, as if this were a novelty which needed to be explained, +that they beat the gold into thin plates and then cut it into threads +(xxxix. 3, xxviii. 6–8).</p> + +<p>Upon the shoulders were two stones, rightly perhaps called onyx, and set +in “ouches”—of filagree work, as the word seems to say. Upon them were +engraven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span> the names of the twelve tribes, the burden of whose sins and +sorrows he should bear into the presence of his God, “for a memorial” +(9–12).</p> + +<p>Upon the ephod was the breastplate, fastened to it by rings and chains +of twisted gold, made to fold over into a square, a span in measurement, +and blazing with twelve gems, upon which were engraved, as upon the +onyxes on the shoulders, the names of the twelve tribes. All attempts to +derive edification from the nature of these jewels must be governed by +the commonplace reflection that we cannot identify them; and many of the +present names are incorrect. It is almost certain that neither topaz, +sapphire nor diamond could have been engraved, as these stones were, +with the name of one of the twelve tribes (13–30).</p> + +<p>“In the breastplate” (that is, evidently, between the folds as it was +doubled), were placed those mysterious means of ascertaining the will of +God, the Urim and the Thummim, the Lights and the Perfections; but of +their nature, or of the manner in which they became significant, nothing +can be said that is not pure conjecture (30).</p> + +<p>Lastly, there was a mitre of white linen, and upon it was laced with +blue cords a gold plate bearing the inscription “<span class="smcap">Holy to Jehovah</span>” (36, +37).</p> + +<p>No mention is made of shoes or sandals; and both from the commandment to +Moses at the burning bush, and from history, it is certain that the +priests officiated with their feet bare.</p> + +<p>The picture thus completed has the clearest ethical significance. There +is modesty, reverence, purity, innocence typified by whiteness, the +grandeur of the office of intercession displayed in the rich colours and +precious jewels by which that whiteness was relieved,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> sympathy +expressed by the names of the people in the breastplate that heaved with +every throb of his heart, responsibility confessed by the same names +upon the shoulder, where the government was said to press like a load +(Isa. ix. 6); and over all, at once the condition and the explanation of +the rest, upon the seat of intelligence itself, the golden inscription +on the forehead, “Holy to Jehovah.”</p> + +<p>Such was the import of the raiment of the high priest: let us see how it +agrees with the nature of his office.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE PRIESTHOOD.</h3> + +<p>What, then, are the central ideas connected with the institution of a +priesthood?</p> + +<p>Regarding it in the broadest way, and as a purely human institution, we +may trace it back to the eternal conflict in the breast of man between +two mighty tendencies—the thirst for God and the dread of Him, a strong +instinct of approach and a repelling sense of unworthiness.</p> + +<p>In every age and climate, man prays. If any curious inquirer into savage +habits can point to the doubtful exception of a tribe seemingly without +a ritual, he will not really show that religion is one with +superstition; for they who are said to have escaped its grasp are never +the most advanced and civilised among their fellows upon that +account,—they are the most savage and debased, they are to humanity +what the only people which has formally renounced God is fast becoming +among the European races.</p> + +<p>Certainly history cannot exhibit one community, progressive, energetic +and civilised, which did not feel that more was needful and might be had +than its own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> resources could supply, and stretch aloft to a Supreme +Being the hands which were so deft to handle the weapon and the tool. +Certainly all experience proves that the foundations of national +greatness are laid in national piety, so that the practical result of +worship, and of the belief that God responds, has not been to dull the +energies of man, but to inspire him with the self-respect befitting a +confidant of deity, and to brace him for labours worthy of one who +draws, from the sense of Divine favour, the hope of an infinite advance.</p> + +<p>And yet, side by side with this spiritual gravitation, there has always +been recoil and dread, such as was expressed when Moses hid his face +because he was afraid to look upon God.</p> + +<p>Now, it is not this apprehension, taken alone, which proves man to be a +fallen creature: it is the combination of the dread of God with the +desire of Him. Why should we shrink from our supreme Good, except as a +sick man turns away from his natural food? He is in an unnatural and +morbid state of body, and we of soul.</p> + +<p>Thus divided between fear and attraction, man has fallen upon the device +of commissioning some one to represent him before God. The priest on +earth has come by the same road with so many other mediators—angel and +demigod, saint and virgin.</p> + +<p>At first it has been the secular chief of the family, tribe or nation, +who has seemed least unworthy to negotiate as well with heaven as with +centres of interest upon earth. But by degrees the duty has everywhere +been transferred into professional hands, patriarch and king recoiling, +feeling the inconsistency of his earthly duties with these sacred ones, +finding his hands to be too soiled and his heart too heavily weighted +with sin for the tremendous Presence into which the family or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> the tribe +would press him. And yet the union of the two functions might be the +ideal; and the sigh of all truly enlightened hearts might be for a +priest sitting upon his throne, a priest after the order of Melchizedek. +But thus it came to pass that an official, a clique, perhaps a family, +was chosen from among men in things pertaining to God, and the +institution of the priesthood was perfected.</p> + +<p>Now, this is the very process which is recognised in Scripture; for +these two conflicting forces were altogether sound and right. Man ought +to desire God, for Whom he was created, and Whose voice in the garden +was once so welcome: but also he ought to shrink back from Him, afraid +now, because he is conscious of his own nakedness, because he has eaten +of the forbidden fruit.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, as the nation is led out from Egypt, we find that its +intercourse with heaven is at once real and indirect. The leader is +virtually the priest as well, at whose intercession Amalek is vanquished +and the sin of the golden calf is pardoned, who entered the presence of +God and received the law upon their behalf, when they feared to hear His +voice lest they should die, and by whose hand the blood of the covenant +was sprinkled upon the people, when they had sworn to obey all that the +Lord had said (xvii. 11, xxxii. 30, xx. 19, xxiv. 8).</p> + +<p>Soon, however, the express command of God provided for an orthodox and +edifying transfer of the priestly function from Moses to his brother +Aaron. Some such division of duties between the secular chief and the +religious priest would no doubt have come, in Israel as elsewhere, as +soon as Moses disappeared; but it might have come after a very different +fashion, associated with heresy and schism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span> Especially would it have +been demanded why the family of Moses, if the chieftainship must pass +away from it, could not retain the religious leadership. We know how +cogent such a plea would have appeared; for, although the transfer was +made publicly and by his own act, yet no sooner did the nation begin to +split into tribal subdivisions, amid the confused efforts of each to +conquer its own share of the inheritance, than we find the grandson of +Moses securely establishing himself and his posterity in the apostate +and semi-idolatrous worship of Shechem (Judg. xviii. 30, R.V.).</p> + +<p>And why should not this illustrious family have been chosen?</p> + +<p>Perhaps because it was so illustrious. A priesthood of that great line +might seem to have earned its office, and to claim special access to +God, like the heathen priests, by virtue of some special desert. +Therefore the honour was transferred to the far less eminent line of +Aaron, and that in the very hour when he was lending his help to the +first great apostacy, the type of the many idolatries into which Israel +was yet to fall. So, too, the whole tribe of Levi was in some sense +consecrated, not for its merit, but because, through the sin of its +founder, it lacked a place and share among its brethren, being divided +in Jacob and scattered in Israel by reason of the massacre of Shechem +(Gen. xlix. 7).</p> + +<p>Thus the nation, conscious of its failure to enjoy intercourse with +heaven, found an authorised expression for its various and conflicting +emotions. It was not worthy to commune with God, and yet it could not +rest without Him. Therefore a spokesman, a representative, an +ambassador, was given to it. But he was chosen after such a fashion as +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span> shut out any suspicion that the merit of Levi had prevailed where +that of Israel at large had failed. It was not because Levi executed +vengeance on the idolaters that he was chosen, for the choice was +already made, and made in the person of Aaron, who was so far from +blameless in that offence.</p> + +<p>And perhaps this is the distinguishing peculiarity of the Jewish priest +among others: that he was chosen from among his brethren, and simply as +one of them; so that while his office was a proof of their exclusion, it +was also a kind of sacrament of their future admission, because he was +their brother and their envoy, and entered not as outshining but as +representing them, their forerunner for them entering. The almond rod of +Aaron was dry and barren as the rest, until the miraculous power of God +invested it with blossoms and fruit.</p> + +<p>Throughout the ritual, the utmost care was taken to inculcate this +double lesson of the ministry. Into the Holy Place, whence the people +were excluded, a whole family could enter. But there was an inner +shrine, whither only the high priest might penetrate, thus reducing the +family to a level with the nation; “the Holy Ghost this signifying, that +the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been made manifest, while as +the first tabernacle (the outer shrine—ver. 6) was yet standing” (Heb. +ix. 8).</p> + +<p>Thus the people felt a deeper awe, a broader separation. And yet, when +the sole and only representative who was left to them entered that +“shrine, remote, occult, untrod,” they saw that the way was not wholly +barred against human footsteps: the lesson suggested was far from being +that of absolute despair,—it was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews said, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>“Not yet.” The prophet Zechariah foresaw a time when the bells of the +horses should bear the same consecrating legend that shone upon the +forehead of the priest: <span class="smcap">Holy unto the Lord</span> (Zech. xiv. 20).</p> + +<p>It is important to observe that the only book of the New Testament in +which the priesthood is discussed dwells quite as largely upon the +difference as upon the likeness between the Aaronic and the Messianic +priest. The latter offered but one Sacrifice for sins, the former +offered for himself before doing so for the people (Heb. x. 12). The +latter was a royal Priest, and of the order of a Canaanite (Heb. vii. +1–4), thus breaking down all the old system at one long-predicted +blow—for if He were on earth He could not so much as be a priest at all +(Heb. viii. 4)—and with it all the old racial monopolies, all class +distinctions, being Himself of a tribe as to which Moses spake nothing +concerning priests (Heb. vii. 14). Every priest standeth, but this +priest hath for ever sat down, and even at the right hand of God (Heb. +x. 11, 12).</p> + +<p>In one sense this priesthood belongs to Christ alone. In another sense +it belongs to all who are made one with Him, and therefore a kingly +priesthood unto God. But nowhere in the New Testament is the name by +which He is designated bestowed upon any earthly minister by virtue of +his office. The presbyter is never called <i>sacerdos</i>. And perhaps the +heaviest blow ever dealt to popular theology was the misapplying of the +New Testament epithet (elder, presbyter or priest) to designate the +sacerdotal functions of the Old Testament, and those of Christ which +they foreshadowed. It is not the word “priest” that is at fault, but +some other word for the Old Testament official which is lacking, and +cannot now be supplied.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE CONSECRATION SERVICES.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxix.</h3> + +<p>The priest being now selected, and his raiment so provided as that it +shall speak of his office and its glory, there remains his consecration.</p> + +<p>In our day there is a disposition to make light of the formal setting +apart of men and things for sacred uses. If God, we are asked, has +called one to special service, is not that enough? What more can earth +do to commission the chosen of the sky? But the plain answer which we +ought to have the courage to return is that this is not at all enough. +For God Himself had already called Paul and Barnabas when He said to +such folk as Simeon Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen, “Separate Me +Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts xiii. +1–4). And these obscure people not only laid their hands upon the great +apostle, but actually sent him forth. Now, if he was not exempted from +the need of an orderly commission by the marvellous circumstances of his +call, by his apostleship not of man, by the explicit announcement that +he was a chosen vessel to bear the sacred name before kings and peoples, +it is startling to be told of some shallow modern evangelist, who works +for no Church and submits to no discipline, that he can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span> dispense with +the sanction of human ordination because he is so clearly sent of +heaven.</p> + +<p>The example of the Old Testament will no doubt be brushed aside as if +the religion which Jesus learned and honoured were a mere human +superstition. Or else it would be natural to ask, Is it because the +offices and functions of Judaism were more formal, more perfunctory than +ours, that a greater spiritual grace went with their appointments than +with the laying on of hands in the Christian Church, a rite so clearly +sanctioned in the New Testament?</p> + +<p>It is written of Joshua that Moses was to lay his hands upon him, +because already the Spirit was in him; and of Timothy that he had +unfeigned faith, and that prophecies went before concerning him (Num. +xxvii. 18; 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. i. 5). But in neither dispensation did +special grace fail to accompany the official separation to sacred +office: Joshua was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his +hands upon him; and Timothy was bidden to stir into flame that gift of +God which was in him through the laying on of the Apostle’s hands (Deut +xxxiv. 9; 2 Tim. i. 6).</p> + +<p>Accordingly there is great stress laid upon the orderly institution of +the priest. And yet, to make it plain that his authority is only “for +his brethren,” Moses, the chief of the nation, is to officiate +throughout the ceremony of consecration. He it is who shall offer the +sacrifices upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood, not upon the first +day only, but throughout the ceremonies of the week.</p> + +<p>In the first place certain victims must be held in readiness—a bullock +and two rams; and with these must be brought in one basket unleavened +bread, and unleavened cakes made with oil, and unleavened wafers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span> on +which oil is poured. Then, at the door of the tent of the meeting of man +with God, a ceremonial washing must follow, in a laver yet to be +provided. Here the assertion that purity is needed, and that it is not +inherent, is too plain to be dwelt upon.</p> + +<p>But such details as the assuming of the existence of a laver, for which +no directions have yet been given (and presently also of the anointing +oil, the composition of which is still untold), deserve notice. They are +much more in the manner of one who is working out a plan, seen already +by his mental vision, but of which only the salient and essential parts +have been as yet stated, than of any priest of the latter days, who +would first have completed his catalogue of the furniture, and only then +have described the ceremonies in which he was accustomed to see all this +apparatus take its appointed place.</p> + +<p>What we actually find is quite natural to a creative imagination, +striking out the broad design of the work and its uses first, and then +filling in the outlines. It is not natural at a time when freshness and +inspiration have departed, and squared timber, as we are told, has taken +the place of the living tree.</p> + +<p>The priest, when cleansed, was next to be clad in his robes of office, +with the mitre on his head, and upon the mitre the golden plate, with +its inscription, which is here called, as the culminating object in all +his rich array, “the holy crown” (ver. 6).</p> + +<p>And then he was to be anointed. Now, the use of oil, in the ceremony of +investiture to office, is peculiar to revealed religion. And whether we +suppose it to refer to the oil in a lamp, invisible, yet the secret +source of all its illuminating power, or to that refreshment and +renovated strength bestowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span> upon a weary traveller when his head is +anointed with oil, in either case it expresses the grand doctrine of +revealed religion—that no office may be filled in one’s own strength, +but that the inspiring help of God is offered, as surely as +responsibilities are imposed. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, +because He hath anointed Me.”</p> + +<p>With these three ceremonies—ablution, robing and anointing—the first +and most personal section of the ritual ended. And now began a course of +sacrifices to God, advancing from the humblest expression of sin, and +appeal to heaven to overlook the unworthiness of its servant, to that +which best exhibited conscious acceptance, enjoyment of privilege, +admission to a feast with God. The bullock was a sin-offering: the word +is literally <i>sin</i>, and occurs more than once in the double sense: “let +him offer for his <i>sin</i> which he hath <i>sinned</i> a young bullock ... for a +<i>sin(-offering)</i>” (Lev. iv. 3, v. 6, etc.). And this is the explanation +of the verse which has perplexed so many: “He made Him to be sin for us, +Who knew no sin” (2 Cor. v. 21). The doctrine that pardon comes not by a +cheap and painless overlooking of transgression, as a thing indifferent, +but by the transfer of its consequences to a victim divinely chosen, +could not easily find clearer expression than in this word. And it was +surely a sobering experience, and a wholesome one, when Aaron, in his +glorious robes, sparkling with gems, and bearing on his forehead the +legend of his holy calling, laid his hand, beside those of his children +and successors, upon the doomed creature which was made sin for him. The +gesture meant confession, acceptance of the appointed expiation, +submission to be freed from guilt by a method so humiliating and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span> +admonitory. There was no undue exaltation in the mind of any priest +whose heart went with this “remembrance of sins.”</p> + +<p>The bullock was immediately slain at the door of “the tent of meeting”; +and to show that the shedding of his blood was an essential part of the +rite, part of it was put with the finger on the horns of the altar, and +the remainder was poured out at the base. Only then might the fat and +the kidney be burned upon the altar; but it is never said of any +sin-offering, as presently of the burnt-offering and the +peace-offerings, that it is “a sweet savour before Jehovah” (vers. 18, +25)—a phrase which is only once extended to a trespass-offering for a +purely unconscious lapse (Lev. iv. 31). The sin-offering is, at the +best, a deplorable necessity. And therefore the notion of a gift, +welcome to Jehovah, is carefully shut out: no portion of such an +offering may go to maintain the priests: all must be burned “with fire +without the camp; it is a sin-offering” (ver. 14). Rightly does the +Epistle to the Hebrews emphasize this fact: “The bodies of those beasts +whose blood is brought into the Holy Place ... as an offering for sin” +are burned without the camp. The bodies of other sacrifices were not +reckoned unfit for food.<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> And so there is a striking example of +humility, as well as an instructive coincidence, in the fact that Jesus +suffered without the gate, being the true Sin-offering, “that He might +sanctify the people through His own blood” (Heb. xiii. 11, 12).</p> + +<p>Thus, by sacrifice for sin, the priest is rendered fit to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span> offer up to +God the symbol of a devoted life. Again, therefore, the hands of Aaron +and his sons are laid upon the head of the ram, because they come to +offer what represents themselves in another sense than that of +expiation—a sweet savour now, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah +(ver. 18). And to show that it is perfectly acceptable to Him, the whole +ram shall be burnt upon the altar, and not now without the camp: “it is +a burnt-offering unto the Lord.” Such is the appointed way of God with +man—first expiation, then devotion.</p> + +<p>The third animal was a “peace-offering” (ver. 28). This is wrongly +explained to mean an offering by which peace is made, for then there +could be no meaning in what went before. It is the offering of one who +is now in a state of peace with God, and who is therefore himself, in +many cases, allowed to partake of what he brings. But on this occasion +some quite peculiar ceremonies were introduced, and the ram is called by +a strange name—“the ram of consecration.” When Aaron and his sons have +again declared their connection with the animal by laying their hands +upon it, it is slain. And then the blood is applied to the tip of their +right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the great toe of their +right foot, that the ear may hearken, and the best energies obey, and +their life become as that of the consecrated animal, their bodies being +presented, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Then the same +blood, with the oil which spoke of heavenly anointing, was sprinkled +upon them and upon their official robes, and all were hallowed. Then the +fattest and richest parts of the animal were taken, with a loaf, a cake, +and a wafer from the basket, and placed in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span> hands of Aaron and his +sons. This was their formal investiture with official rights; although +not yet performing service, it was as priests that they received these; +and their hands, swayed by those of Moses, solemnly waved them before +the Lord in formal presentation, after which the pieces were consumed by +fire. The breast was likewise waved, and became the perpetual property +of Aaron and his sons—although on this occasion it passed from their +hands to be the portion of Moses, who officiated. The remainder of the +flesh, seethed in a holy place, belonged to Aaron and his sons. No +stranger (of another family) might eat it, and what was left until +morning should be consumed by fire, that is to say, destroyed in a +manner absolutely clean, seeing no corruption.</p> + +<p>For seven days this rite of consecration was repeated; and every day the +altar also was cleansed, rendering it most holy, so that whatever +touched it was holy.</p> + +<p>Thus the people saw their representative and chief purified, accepted +and devoted. Thenceforward, when they too brought their offerings, and +beheld them presented (in person or through his subordinates) by the +high priest with holiness emblazoned upon his brow, they gained hope, +and even assurance, since one so consecrated was bidden to present their +intercession; and sometimes they saw him pass into secret places of +mysterious sanctity, bearing their tribal name on his shoulder and his +bosom, while the chime of golden bells announced his movements, +ministering there for them.</p> + +<p>But the nation as a whole, with which this historical book is chiefly +interested, saw in the high priest the means of continually rendering to +God the service of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span> its loyalty. Every day began and closed with the +burnt-offering of a lamb of the first year, along with a meal-offering +of fine flour and oil, and a drink-offering of wine. This would be a +sweet savour unto God, not after the carnal fashion in which sceptics +have interpreted the words, but in the same sense in which the wicked +are a smoke in His nostrils from a continually burning fire.</p> + +<p>And where this offering was made, the Omnipresent would meet with them. +There He would convey His mind to His priest. There also He would meet +with all the people—not occasionally, as amid the more impressive but +less tolerable splendours of Sinai, but to dwell among them and be their +God. And they should know that all this was true, and also that for this +He led them out of Egypt: “I am Jehovah their God.”</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Neither, it must be added, were the bodies of certain +sin-offerings of the lower grade, and in which the priest was not +personally concerned (Lev. x. 17, etc.).</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">INCENSE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxx. 1–10.</h3> + +<p>The altar of incense was not mentioned when the tent of meeting was +being prepared and furnished. But when, in the Divine idea, this is +done, when all is ready for the intercourse of God and man, and the +priest and the daily victims are provided for, something more than this +formal routine of offerings might yet be sought for. This material +worship of the senses, this round of splendour and of tragedy, this +blaze of gold and gold-encrusted timber, these curtains embroidered in +bright colours, and ministers glowing with gems, this blood and fire +upon the altar, this worldly sanctuary,—was it all? Or should it not do +as nature ever does, which seems to stretch its hands out into the +impalpable, and to grow all but spiritual while we gaze; so that the +mountain folds itself in vapour, and the ocean in mist and foam, and the +rugged stem of the tree is arrayed in fineness of quivering frondage, +and it may be of tinted blossom, and around it breathes a subtle +fragrance, the most impalpable existence known to sense? Fragrance +indeed is matter passing into the immaterial, it is the sigh of the +sensuous for the spiritual state of being, it is an aspiration.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span></p> + +<p>And therefore an altar, smaller than that of burnt-offering, but much +more precious, being plated all around and on the top with gold (a +“golden altar”) (xxxix. 38), is now to be prepared, on which incense of +sweet spices should be burned whenever a burnt-offering spoke of human +devotion, and especially when the daily lamb was offered, every morning +and every night.</p> + +<p>This altar occupied a significant position. Of necessity, it was without +the Most Holy Place, or else it would have been practically +inaccessible; and yet it was spiritually in the closest connection with +the presence of God within. The Epistle to the Hebrews reckons it among +the furniture of the inner shrine<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> (Heb. ix. 4), close to the veil of +which it stood, and within which its burning odours made their sweetness +palpable. In the temple of Solomon it was “the altar that belonged to +the oracle” (1 Kings vi. 22). In Leviticus (xvi. 12) incense was +connected especially with that spot in the Most Holy Place which best +expressed the grace that it appealed to, and “the cloud of incense” was +to “cover the mercy-seat.” Therefore Moses was bidden to put this altar +“before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the +mercy-seat” (ver. 6).</p> + +<p>It can never have been difficult to see the meaning of the rite for +which this altar was provided. When Zacharias burned incense the +multitude stood without,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span> praying. The incense in the vial of the angel +of the Apocalypse was the prayers of the saints (Luke i. 10; Rev. viii. +3). And, long before, when the Psalmist thought of the priest +approaching the veil which concealed the Supreme Presence, and there +kindling precious spices until their aromatic breath became a silent +plea within, it seemed to him that his own heart was even such an altar, +whence the perfumed flame of holy longings might be wafted into the +presence of his God, and he whispered, “Let my prayer be set forth +before Thee as incense” (Ps. cxli. 2).</p> + +<p>Such being the import of the type, we need not wonder that it was a +perpetual ordinance in their generations, nor yet that no strange +perfume might be offered, but only what was prescribed by God. The +admixture with prayer of any human, self-asserting, intrusive element, +is this unlawful fragrance. It is rhetoric in the leader of extempore +prayer; studied inflexions in the conductor of liturgical service; +animal excitement, or sentimental pensiveness, or assent which is merely +vocal, among the worshippers. It is whatever professes to be prayer, and +is not that but a substitute. And formalism is an empty censer.</p> + +<p>But, however earnest and pure may seem to be the breathing of the soul +to God, something unworthy mingles with what is best in man. The very +altar of incense needs to have an atonement made for it once in the year +throughout their generations with the blood of the sin-offering of +atonement. The prayer of every heart which knows its own secret will be +this:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Forgive what seemed my sin in me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What seemed my worth since I began;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For merit lives from man to man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not from man, O Lord, to Thee.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="section">THE CENSUS.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxx. 11–16.</h3> + +<p>Moses by Divine command was soon to number Israel, and thus to lay the +foundation for its organisation upon the march. A census was not, +therefore, supposed to be presumptuous or sinful in itself; it was the +vain-glory of David’s census which was culpable.</p> + +<p>But the honour of being numbered among the people of God should awaken a +sense of unworthiness. Men had reason to fear lest the enrolment of such +as they were in the host of God should produce a pestilence to sweep out +the unclean from among the righteous. At least they must make some +practical admission of their demerit. And therefore every man of twenty +years who passed over unto them that were numbered (it is a picturesque +glimpse that is here given into the method of enrolment) should offer +for his soul a ransom of half a shekel after the shekel of the +sanctuary. And because it was a ransom, the tribute was the same for +all; the poor might not bring less, nor the rich more. Here was a grand +assertion of the equality of all souls in the eyes of God—a seed which +long ages might overlook, but which was sure to fructify in its +appointed time.</p> + +<p>For indeed the madness of modern levelling systems is only their attempt +to level down instead of up, their dream that absolute equality can be +obtained, or being obtained can be made a blessing, by the envious +demolition of all that is lofty, and not by all together claiming the +supreme elevation, the measure of the stature of manhood in Jesus +Christ.</p> + +<p>It is not in any <i>phalanstère</i> of Fourier or Harmony<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span> Hall of Owen, that +mankind will ever learn to break a common bread and drink of a common +cup; it is at the table of a common Lord.</p> + +<p>And so this first assertion of the equality of man was given to those +who all ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink.</p> + +<p>This half-shekel gradually became an annual impost, levied for the great +expenses of the Temple. “Thus Joash made a proclamation throughout Judah +and Jerusalem, to bring in for the Lord the tax that Moses, the servant +of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness” (2 Chron. xxiv. 9).</p> + +<p>And it was the claim for this impost, too rashly conceded by Peter with +regard to his Master, which led Jesus to distinguish clearly between His +own relation to God and that of others, even of the chosen race.</p> + +<p>He paid no ransom for His soul. He was a Son, in a sense in which no +other, even of the Jews, could claim to be so. Now, the kings of the +earth did not levy tribute from their sons; so that, if Christ paid, it +was not to fulfil a duty, but to avoid being an offence. And God Himself +would provide, directly and miraculously, what He did not demand from +Jesus. Therefore it was that, on this one occasion and no other, Christ +Who sought figs when hungry, and when athirst asked water at alien +hands, met His own personal requirement by a miracle, as if to protest +in deed, as in word, against any burden from such an obligation as +Peter’s rashness had conceded.</p> + +<p>And yet, with that marvellous condescension which shone most brightly +when He most asserted His prerogative, He admitted Peter also to a share +in this miraculous redemption-money, as He admits us all to a share in +His glory in the skies. Is it not He only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span> Who can redeem His brother, +and give to God a ransom for him?</p> + +<p>It is the silver thus levied which was used in the construction of the +sanctuary. All the other materials were free-will offerings; but even as +the entire tabernacle was based upon the ponderous sockets into which +the boards were fitted, made of the silver of this tax, so do all our +glad and willing services depend upon this fundamental truth, that we +are unworthy even to be reckoned His, that we owe before we can bestow, +that we are only allowed to offer any gift because He is so merciful in +His demand. Israel gladly brought much more than was needed of all +things precious. But first, as an absolutely imperative ransom, God +demanded from each soul the half of three shillings and sevenpence.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE LAVER.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxx. 17–21.</h3> + +<p>For the cleansing of various sacrifices, but especially for the +ceremonial washing of the priests, a laver of brass was to be made, and +placed upon a separate base, the more easily to be emptied and +replenished.</p> + +<p>We have seen already that although its actual use preceded that of the +altar, yet the other stood in front of it, as if to assert, to the very +eyes of all men, that sacrifice precedes purification. But the use of +the laver was not by the man as man, but by the priest as mediator. In +his office he represented the absolute purity of Christ. And therefore +it was a capital offence to enter the tabernacle or to burn a sacrifice +without first having washed the hands and feet. At his inauguration, the +whole person of the priest was bathed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span> and thenceforth he needed not +save to remove the stains of contact with the world.</p> + +<p>When the laver was actually made, an interesting fact was recorded about +its materials: “He made the laver of brass, and the base of it of brass, +of the mirrors of the serving-women which served at the door of the tent +of meeting” (xxxviii. 8). Thus their instruments of personal adornment +were applied to further a personal preparation of a more solemn kind, +like the ointment with which a penitent woman anointed the feet of +Jesus. There is a fitness which ought to be considered in the direction +of our gifts, not as a matter of duty, but of good taste and charm. And +thus also they continually saw the monument of their self-sacrifice. +There is an innocent satisfaction, far indeed from vanity, when one +looks at his own work for God.</p> + +<h3 class="section">THE ANOINTING OIL AND THE INCENSE.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxx. 22–38.</h3> + +<p>We have already seen the meaning of the anointing oil and of the +incense.</p> + +<p>But we have further to remark that their ingredients were accurately +prescribed, that they were to be the best and rarest of their kind, and +that special skill was demanded in their preparation.</p> + +<p>Such was the natural dictate of reverence in preparing the symbols of +God’s grace to man, and of man’s appeal to God.</p> + +<p>With the type of grace should be anointed the tent and the ark, and the +table of shewbread and the candlestick, with all their implements, and +the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt sacrifice and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span> the laver. +All the import of every portion of the Temple worship could be realized +only by the outpouring of the Spirit of grace.</p> + +<p>It was added that this should be a holy anointing oil, not to be made, +much less used, for common purposes, on pain of death. The same was +enacted of the incense which should burn before Jehovah: “according to +the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves; it shall be +unto thee holy for the Lord: whosoever shall make like unto that, to +smell thereto, he shall be cut off from his people.”</p> + +<p>And this was meant to teach reverence. One might urge that the spices +and frankincense and salt were not in themselves sacred: there was no +consecrating efficacy in their combination, no charm or spell in the +union of these, more than of any other drugs. Why, then, should they be +denied to culture? Why should her resources be thus restricted? Does any +one suppose that such arguments belong peculiarly to the New Testament +spirit, or that the saints of the older dispensation had any +superstitious views about these ingredients? If it was through such +notions that they abstained from vulgarising its use, then they were on +the way to paganism, through a materialised worship.</p> + +<p>But in truth they knew as well as we that gums were only gums, just as +they knew that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands. +And yet they were bidden to reverence both the shrine and the apparatus +of His worship, for their own sakes, for the solemnity and sobriety of +their feelings, not because God would be a loser if they did otherwise. +And we may well ask ourselves, in these latter days, whether the +constant proposal to secularise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span> religious buildings, revenues, +endowments and seasons does really indicate greater religious freedom, +or only greater freedom from religious control.</p> + +<p>And we may be sure that a light treatment of sacred subjects and sacred +words is a very dangerous symptom: it is not the words and subjects +alone that are being secularised, but also our own souls.</p> + +<p>There is in our time a curious tendency among men of letters to use holy +things for a mere perfume, that literature may “smell thereto.”</p> + +<p>A novelist has chosen for the title of a story “Just as I am.” An +innocent and graceful poet has seen a smile,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">“’Twas such a smile,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aaron’s twelve jewels seemed to mix<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the lamps of the golden candlesticks.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Another is bolder, and sings of the war of love,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“In the great battle when the hosts are met<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Armageddon’s plain, with spears beset.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Another thinks of Mazzini as the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Dear lord and leader, at whose hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first days and the last days stand,”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and again as he who</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Said, when all Time’s sea was foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">‘Let there be Rome,’ and there was Rome.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And Victor Hugo did not shrink from describing, and that with a strange +and scandalous ignorance of the original incidents, the crucifixion by +Louis Napoleon of the Christ of nations.</p> + +<p>Now, Scripture is literature, besides being a great deal more; and, as +such, it is absurd to object to all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span> allusions to it in other +literature. Yet the tendency of which these extracts are examples is not +merely toward allusion, but desecration of solemn and sacred thoughts: +it is the conversion of incense into perfumery.</p> + +<p>There is another development of the same tendency, by no means modern, +noted by the prophet when he complains that the message of God has +become as the “very lovely song of one who hath a pleasant voice and +playeth well on an instrument.” Wherever divine service is only +appreciated in so far as it is “well rendered,” as rich music or stately +enunciation charm the ear, and the surroundings are æsthetic,—wherever +the gospel is heard with enjoyment only of the eloquence or +controversial skill of its rendering, wherever religion is reduced by +the cultivated to a thrill or to a solace, or by the Salvationist to a +riot or a romp, wherever Isaiah and the Psalms are only admired as +poetry, and heaven is only thought of as a languid and sentimental +solace amid wearying cares,—there again is a making of the sacred balms +to smell thereto.</p> + +<p>And as often as a minister of God finds in his holy office a mere outlet +for his natural gifts of rhetoric or of administration, he also is +tempted to commit this crime.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> For it is incredible that, in a catalogue of furniture +which included Aaron’s rod and the pot of manna, this altar should be +omitted, and “a golden censer,” elsewhere unheard of, substituted. The +gloss is too evidently an endeavour to get rid of a difficulty. But in +idea and suggestion this altar belonged to the Most Holy. That shrine +“had” it, though it actually stood outside.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxxi. 1–18.</h3> + +<p>Next after this marking off so sharply of the holy from the profane, +this consecration of men to special service, this protection of sacred +unguents and sacred gums from secular use, we come upon a passage +curiously contrasted, yet not really antagonistic to the last, of +marvellous practical wisdom, and well calculated to make a nation wise +and great.</p> + +<p>The Lord announces that He has called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, +and has filled him with the Spirit of God. To what sacred office, then, +is he called? Simply to be a supreme craftsman, the rarest of artisans. +This also is a divine gift. “I have filled him with the Spirit of God in +wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of +workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and +in brass and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, +to work in all manner of workmanship,”—that is to say, of manual +dexterity. With him God had appointed Aholiab; “and in the hearts of all +the wise-hearted I have put wisdom.” Thus should be fitly made the +tabernacle and its furniture, and the finely wrought garments, and the +anointing oil and the incense.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span></p> + +<p>So then it appears that the Holy Spirit of God is to be recognised in +the work of the carpenter and the jeweller, the apothecary and the +tailor. Probably we object to such a statement, so baldly put. But +inspiration does not object. Moses told the children of Israel that +Jehovah had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, and also Aholiab, +for the work “of the engraver ... and of the embroiderer ... and of the +weaver” (xxxv. 31, 35).</p> + +<p>It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as +inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and +beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the +supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left +to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of +the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung”;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures? +Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was “inspired” was a clear +recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp: +now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that +Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this +passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to +claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human +being who is so richly crowned and gifted.</p> + +<p>Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting, +music—things which really compete with nature in their spiritual +suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the +weaver, and the perfumer.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the one is carried with the other. Where shall we draw the +line, for example, in architecture or in ironwork? And there is another +consideration which must not be overlooked. God is assuredly in the +growth of humanity, in the progress of true civilisation—in all, the +recognition of which makes history philosophical. It is not only the +saints who feel themselves to be the instruments of a Greater than they. +Cromwell and Bismarck, Columbus, Raleigh and Drake, William the Silent +and William the Third, felt it. Mr. Stanley has told us how the +consciousness that he was being used grew up in him, not through +fanaticism but by slow experience, groping his way through the gloom of +Central Africa.</p> + +<p>But none will deny that one of the greatest factors in modern history is +its industrial development. Is there, then, no sacredness here?</p> + +<p>The doctrine of Scripture is not that man is a tool, but that he is +responsible for vast gifts, which come directly from heaven—that every +good gift is from above, that it was God Himself Who planted in Paradise +the tree of knowledge.</p> + +<p>Nor would anything do more to restrain the passions, to calm the +impulses and to elevate the self-respect of modern life, to call back +its energies from the base competition for gold, and make our industries +what dreamers persuade themselves that the mediæval industries were, +than a quick and general perception of what is meant when faculty goes +by such names as talent, endowment, gift—of the glory of its use, the +tragedy of its defilement. Many persons, indeed, reject this doctrine +because they cannot believe that man has power to abase so high a thing +so sadly. But what, then, do they think of the human body?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span></p> + +<p>What connection is there between all this and the reiteration of the law +of the Sabbath? Not merely that the moral law is now made a civic +statute as well, for this had been done already (xxiii. 12). But, as our +Lord has taught us that a Jew on the Sabbath was free to perform works +of mercy, it might easily be supposed lawful, and even meritorious, to +hasten forward the construction of the place where God would meet His +people. But He who said “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” said also +that to obey was better than sacrifice. Accordingly this caution closes +the long story of plans and preparations. And when Moses called the +people to the work, his first words were to repeat it (xxxv. 2).</p> + +<p>Finally, there was given to Moses the deposit for which so noble a +shrine was planned—the two tables of the law, miraculously produced.</p> + +<p>If any one, without supposing that they were literally written with a +literal finger, conceives that this was the meaning conveyed to a Hebrew +by the expression “written with the finger of God,” he entirely misses +the Hebrew mode of thought, which habitually connects the Lord with an +arm, with a chariot, with a bow made naked, with a tent and curtains, +without the slightest taint of materialism in its conception. Did not +the magicians, failing to imitate the third plague, say “This is the +finger of a God”? Did not Jesus Himself “cast out devils by the finger +of God”? (Ex. viii. 19; Luke xi. 20).</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE GOLDEN CALF.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxxii.</h3> + +<p>While God was thus providing for Israel, what had Israel done with God? +They had grown weary of waiting: had despaired of and slighted their +heroic leader, (“this Moses, the man that brought us up,”) had demanded +gods, or a god, at the hand of Aaron, and had so far carried him with +them or coerced him that he thought it a stroke of policy to save them +from breaking the first commandment by joining them in a breach of the +second, and by infecting “a feast to Jehovah” with the licentious “play” +of paganism. At the beginning, the only fitness attributed to Aaron was +that “he can speak well.” But the plastic and impressible temperament of +a gifted speaker does not favour tenacity of will in danger. Demosthenes +and Cicero, and Savonarola, the most eloquent of the reformers, +illustrate the tendency of such genius to be daunted by visible perils.</p> + +<p>God now rejects them because the covenant is violated. As Jesus spoke no +longer of “My Father’s house,” but “your house, left unto you desolate,” +so the Lord said to Moses, “thy people which thou broughtest up.”</p> + +<p>But what are we to think of the proposal to destroy them, and to make of +Moses a great nation?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span></p> + +<p>We are to learn from it the solemn reality of intercession, the power of +man with God, Who says not that He will destroy them, but that He will +destroy them if left alone. Who can tell, at any moment, what calamities +the intercession of the Church is averting from the world or from the +nation?</p> + +<p>The first prayer of Moses is brief and intense; there is passionate +appeal, care for the Divine honour, remembrance of the saintly dead for +whose sake the living might yet be spared, and absolute forgetfulness of +self. Already the family of Aaron had been preferred to his, but the +prospect of monopolising the Divine predestination has no charm for this +faithful and patriotic heart. No sooner has the immediate destruction +been arrested than he hastens to check the apostates, makes them exhibit +the madness of their idolatry by drinking the water in which the dust of +their pulverised god was strewn; receives the abject apology of Aaron, +thoroughly spirit-broken and demoralised; and finding the sons of Levi +faithful, sends them to the slaughter of three thousand men. Yet this is +he who said “O Lord, why is Thy wrath hot against Thy people?” He +himself felt it needful to cut deep, in mercy, and doubtless in wrath as +well, for true affection is not limp and nerveless: it is like the ocean +in its depth, and also in its tempests. And the stern action of the +Levites appeared to him almost an omen; it was their “consecration,” the +beginning of their priestly service.</p> + +<p>Again he returns to intercede; and if his prayer must fail, then his own +part in life is over: let him too perish among the rest. For this is +evidently what he means and says: he has not quite anticipated the +spirit of Christ in Paul willing to be anathema for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span> brethren (Rom. +ix. 3), nor has the idea of a vicarious human sacrifice been suggested +to him by the institutions of the sanctuary. Yet how gladly would he +have died for his people, who made request that he might die among them!</p> + +<p>How nobly he foreshadows, not indeed the Christian doctrine, but the +love of Christ Who died for man, Who from the Mount of Transfiguration, +as Moses from Sinai, came down (while Peter would have lingered) to bear +the sins of His brethren! How superior He is to the Christian hymn which +pronounces nothing worth a thought, except how to make my own election +sure.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">PREVAILING INTERCESSION.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxxiii.</h3> + +<p>At this stage the first concession is announced: Moses shall lead the +people to their rest, and God will send an angel with him.</p> + +<p>We have seen that the original promise of a great Angel in whom was the +Divine Presence was full of encouragement and privilege (xxiii. 20). No +unbiassed reader can suppose that it is the sending of this same Angel +of the Presence which now expresses the absence of God, or that He Who +then would not pardon their transgression “because My Name is in Him” is +now sent because God, if He were in the midst of them for a moment, +would consume them. Nor, when Moses passionately pleads against this +degradation, and is heard in this thing also, can the answer “My +Presence shall go with thee” be merely the repetition of those evil +tidings. Yet it was the Angel of His Presence Who saved them. All this +has been already treated, and what we are now to learn is that the +faithful and sublime urgency of Moses did really save Israel from +degradation and a lower covenant.</p> + +<p>It was during the progress of this mediation that Moses distracted by a +double anxiety—afraid to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span> absent himself from his wayward followers, +equally afraid to be so long withdrawn from the presence of God as the +descending of Sinai and returning thither would involve—made a noble +adventure of faith. Inspired by the conception of the tabernacle, he +took a tent, “his tent,” and pitched it outside the camp, to express the +estrangement of the people, and this he called the Tent of the Meeting +(with God), but in the Hebrew it is never called the Tabernacle. And God +did condescend to meet him there. The mystic cloud guarded the door +against presumptuous intrusion, and all the people, who previously wist +not what had become of him, had now to confess the majesty of his +communion, and they worshipped every man at his tent door.</p> + +<p>It would seem that the anxious vigilance of Moses caused him to pass to +and fro between the tent and the camp, “but his minister, Joshua the son +of Nun, departed not out of the tent.”</p> + +<p>The dread crisis in the history of the nation was now almost over. God +had said, “My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee +rest,”—a phrase which the lowly Jesus thought it no presumption to +appropriate, saying, “<i>I</i> will give you rest,” as He also appropriated +the office of the Shepherd, the benevolence of the Physician, the +tenderness of the Bridegroom, and the glory of the King and the Judge, +all of which belonged to God.</p> + +<p>But Moses is not content merely to be secure, for it is natural that he +who best loves man should also best love God. Therefore he pleads +against the least withdrawal of the Presence: he cannot rest until +repeatedly assured that God will indeed go with him; he speaks as if +there were no “grace” but that. There are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span> many people now who think it +a better proof of being religious to feel either anxious or comforted +about their own salvation, their election, and their going to heaven. +And these would do wisely to consider how it comes to pass that the +Bible first taught men to love and to follow God, and afterwards +revealed to them the mysteries of the inner life and of eternity.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE VISION OF GOD.</h3> +<h3 class="ref">xxxiv.</h3> + +<p>It was when God had most graciously assured Moses of His affection, that +he ventured, in so brief a cry that it is almost a gasp of longing, to +ask, “Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory” (xxxiii. 18).</p> + +<p>We have seen how nobly this petition and the answer condemn all +anthropomorphic misunderstandings of what had already been revealed; and +also how it exemplifies the great law, that they who see most of God, +know best how much is still unrevealed. The elders saw the God of Israel +and did eat and drink: Moses was led from the bush to the flaming top of +Sinai, and thence to the tent where the pillar of cloud was as a +sentinel; but the secret remained unseen, the longing unsatisfied, and +the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision reached by him with whom God +spake face to face as with a friend, was to be hidden in a cleft of the +rock, to be aware of an awful Shadow, and to hear the Voice of the +Unseen.</p> + +<p>It was a fit time for the proclamation which was then made. When the +people had been righteously punished and yet graciously forgiven, the +name of the Self-Existent expanded and grew clearer,—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span>“Jehovah, Jehovah, +a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in +mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and +transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, +visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the +children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.” And +as Moses made haste and bowed himself, it is affecting to hear him again +pleading for that beloved Presence which even yet he can scarce believe +to be restored, and instead of claiming any separation through his +fidelity and his honours, praying “Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and +take us for Thine inheritance” (xxxiv. 10).</p> + +<p>Thereupon the covenant is given, as if newly, but without requiring its +actual re-enactment; and certain of the former precepts are rehearsed, +chiefly such as would guard against a relapse into idolatry when they +entered the good land where God would bestow on them prosperity and +conquest.</p> + +<p>As Moses had broken the former tablets, the task was imposed on him of +hewing out the slabs on which God renewed His awful sanction of the +Decalogue, the fundamental statutes of the nation. And they who had +failed to endure his former absence, were required to be patient while +he tarried again upon the mountain, forty days and nights.</p> + +<p>With his return a strange incident is connected. Unknown by himself, the +“skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him,” and Aaron +and the people recoiled until he called to them. And thenceforth he +lived a strange and isolated life. At each new interview the glory of +his countenance was renewed, and when he conveyed his revelation to the +people, they beheld the lofty sanction, the light of God upon his face. +Then he veiled his face until next he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span> approached his God, so that none +might see what changes came there, and whether—as St. Paul seems to +teach us—the lustre gradually waned.</p> + +<p>His revelation, the apostle argues, was like this occasional and fading +gleam, while the moral glory of the Christian system has no +concealments: it uses great frankness; there is nothing withdrawn, no +veil upon the face. Nor is it given to one alone to behold as in a +mirror the glory of the Lord, and to share its lustre. We all, with face +unveiled, share this experience of the deliverer (2 Cor. iii. 12, 18).</p> + +<p>But the incident itself is most instructive. Since he had already spent +an equal time with God, yet no such results had followed, it seems that +we receive what we are adapted to receive, not straitened in Him but in +our own capabilities; and as Moses, after his vehemence of intercession, +his sublimity of self-negation, and his knowledge of the greater name of +God, received new lustre from the unchangeable Fountain of light, so +does all true service and earnest aspiration, while it approaches God, +elevate and glorify humanity.</p> + +<p>We learn also something of the exaltation of which matter is capable. We +who have seen coarse bulb and soil and rain transmuted by the sunshine +into radiance of bloom and subtlety of perfume, who have seen plain +faces illuminated from within until they were almost angelic,—may we +not hope for something great and rare for ourselves, and the beloved who +are gone, as we muse upon the profound word, “It is raised a spiritual +body”?</p> + +<p>And again we learn that the best religious attainment is the least +self-conscious: Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTERS_XXXV_XL" id="CHAPTERS_XXXV_XL"></a>CHAPTERS XXXV-XL.</h2> + +<h3 class="section">THE CONCLUSION.</h3> + +<p>The remainder of the narrative sets forth in terms almost identical with +the directions already given, the manner in which the Divine injunctions +were obeyed. The people, purified in heart by danger, chastisement and +shame, brought much more than was required. A quarter of a million would +poorly represent the value of the shrine in which, at the last, Moses +and Aaron approached their God, while the cloud covered the tent and the +glory filled the tabernacle, and Moses failed to overcome his awe and +enter.</p> + +<p>Thenceforth the cloud was the guide of their halting and their march. +Many a time they grieved their God in the wilderness, yet the cloud was +on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night, +throughout all their journeyings.</p> + +<p>That cloud is seen no longer; but One has said, “Lo, I am with you all +the days.” If the presence is less material, it is because we ought to +be more spiritual.</p> + +<p class="gaptop">Looking back upon the story, we can discern more clearly what was +asserted when we began—the forming and training of a nation.</p> + +<p>They are called from shameful servitude by the devotion of a patriot and +a hero, who has learned in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span> failure and exile the difference between +self-confidence and faith. The new name of God, and His remembrance of +their fathers, inspire them at the same time with awe and hope and +nationality. They see the hollowness of earthly force, and of +superstitious worships, in the abasement and ruin of Egypt. They are +taught by the Paschal sacrifice to confess that the Divine favour is a +gift and not a right, that their lives also are justly forfeited. The +overthrow of Pharaoh’s army and the passage of the Sea brings them into +a new and utterly strange life, in an atmosphere and amid scenes well +calculated to expand and deepen their emotions, to develop their sense +of freedom and self-respect, and yet to oblige them to depend wholly on +their God. Privation at Marah chastens them. The attack of Amalek +introduces them to war, and forbids their dependence to sink into abject +softness. The awful scene of Horeb burns and brands his littleness into +man. The covenant shows them that, however little in themselves, they +may enter into communion with the Eternal. It also crushes out what is +selfish and individualising, by making them feel the superiority of what +they all share over anything that is peculiar to one of them. The +Decalogue reveals a holiness at once simple and profound, and forms a +type of character such as will make any nation great. The sacrificial +system tells them at once of the pardon and the heinousness of sin. +Religion is both exalted above the world and infused into it, so that +all is consecrated. The priesthood and the shrine tell them of sin and +pardon, exclusion and hope; but that hope is a common heritage, which +none may appropriate without his brother.</p> + +<p>The especial sanctity of a sacred calling is balanced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span> by an immediate +assertion of the sacredness of toil, and the Divine Spirit is recognised +even in the gift of handicraft.</p> + +<p>A tragic and shameful failure teaches them, more painfully than any +symbolic system of curtains and secret chambers, how little fitted they +are for the immediate intercourse of heaven. And yet the ever-present +cloud, and the shrine in the heart of their encampment, assure them that +God is with them of a truth.</p> + +<p>Could any better system be imagined by which to convert a slavish and +superstitious multitude into a nation at once humble and pure and +gallant—a nation of brothers and of worshippers, chastened by a genuine +sense of ill desert and of responsibility, and yet braced and fired by +the conviction of an exalted destiny?</p> + +<p>To do this, and also to lead mankind to liberty, to rescue them from +sensuous worship, and prepare them for a system yet more spiritual, to +teach the human race that life is not repose but warfare, pilgrimage and +aspiration, and to sow the seeds of beliefs and expectations which only +an atoning Mediator and an Incarnate God could satisfy, this was the +meaning of the Exodus.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="advert"> + +<h3 class="titlebigger">THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE.</h3> + +<hr class="adrule" /> + +<h4 class="date">1889–90.</h4> +<p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo. 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JOHN.</b> By the Right Rev. <span class="smcap">W. +Alexander</span>, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe.</p> + +<h4 class="date">1887–88.</h4> +<p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each.</i></p> +<p class="hanga"><b>THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS.</b> By <span class="smcap">Alexander +Maclaren</span>, D.D., of Manchester. Fourth Edition.</p> +<p class="hanga"><b>THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK.</b> By the Rev. +Prebendary <span class="smcap">G. A. Chadwick</span>, D.D., Dean of Armagh.</p> +<p class="hanga"><b>THE BOOK OF GENESIS.</b> By the Rev. Professor <span class="smcap">Marcus +Dods</span>, D.D. Fourth Edition.</p> +<p class="hanga"><b>THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL.</b> By the Rev. Professor +<span class="smcap">W. G. Blaikie</span>, D.D., LL.D.</p> +<p class="hanga"><b>THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL.</b> By the same Author.</p> +<p class="hanga"><b>THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.</b> By the Rev. Principal +<span class="smcap">T. C. Edwards</span>, M.A.</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span></p> + +<h3><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</i></h3> + +<hr class="adrule" /> + +<p class="center">Third Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.</p> + +<h3 class="titlebigger"><b>THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK.</b></h3> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Academy.</b>—“Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps close +to his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is +thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and +epigrammatic when he wishes.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Scotsman.</b>—“It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and written +in clear, vigorous English.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Record.</b>—“Dr. Chadwick’s style is characteristic, thoughtful, clear, and +vigorous. He is never commonplace or trivial.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>English Churchman.</b>—“A valuable, interesting, and delightful work, +almost every page of which contains something worthy of quotation.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Christian.</b>—“If the volumes to come be like the one before us they may +be sure of a warm welcome. Dr. Chadwick has caught something of the +vividness of style and onward rush which characterise the writer he +expounds. Sober in judgment, markedly Scriptural in tone, well +acquainted with exegetical lore, and qualified by patient investigations +to give an individual opinion on disputed points, he makes good his +claim to help and instruct students of Mark’s Gospel.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Methodist Recorder.</b>—“We are glad to say that the beginning of a very +promising series is, in our opinion, distinctly good, and that Dean +Chadwick has hit the mark specially aimed at exceedingly well. We have +found ourselves many sparkling and memorable sentences in his pages. We +hope the ‘Expositor’s Bible’ has many other volumes in store as +instructive as the first instalment.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Expositor.</b>—“Dean Chadwick’s readers, even in the first pages, become +aware that they are in the company of a thoroughly original writer, who +repeats nothing, echoes nothing, imitates no one. It is with a feeling +of thankfulness his readers follow him from passage to passage of the +Gospel, finding new truth in familiar words and incidents, and, unable +to confine themselves to the limits they had set for their day’s +reading, are lured on to trespass on to-morrow’s portion. There is every +quality here that is desirable in an expositor—reverence for his text, +sufficient information about it, sympathetic insight, and keen +observation of men and manners. Equally successful in opening up the +significance of the text and in applying it to present conditions of +life, Dean Chadwick has given us an admirable specimen of what an +expositor’s Bible should be.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>London Quarterly Review.</b>—“Dr. Chadwick’s exposition is thoughtful and +penetrating; his sentences are sharp and crisp.... Often bright +aphoristic sayings occur which are likely to print themselves on the +memory of the reader. The expositor would almost seem to resemble his +subject in the practical and condensed, yet graphic, style in which he +has done his expository work.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Rock.</b>—“The style of the commentary is, like its subject, forcible and +terse.”</p></div> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p><b>Church Bells.</b>—“We have never yet read any commentary which we liked so +well. The preacher will find it full of materials for sermons, fresh and +vigorous, and yet calm and well-weighed.”</p></div> + +<hr class="adrule" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row, E.C.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span></p> + +<h3><i>SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.</i></h3> + +<h3 class="titlebigger"><b>THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE.</b></h3> + +<p class="center">Edited by W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.,<br /> +Editor of <i>The Expositor</i>.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>THIRD YEAR’S ISSUE.</b></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Price 7s. 6d. each Volume.</i></p> + +<p class="titlebigger"><i>Judges and Ruth.</i></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. A. 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Monro Gibson</span>, D.D., London, Author of “The Ages +before Moses,” “The Mosaic Era,” etc.</p> + +<p class="titlebigger"><i>The Prophecies of Isaiah, Vol. II.</i></p> + +<p class="center">Completing the work.</p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">George Adam Smith</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="titlebigger"><i>The Acts of the Apostles.</i></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">G. T. Stokes</span>, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History +in the University of Dublin.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="titlebigger">THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE.</h3> + +<p class="center">FIRST SERIES.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Price 7s. 6d. each Volume.</i></p> + +<p class="center">Fourth Edition.</p> + +<p><b>The Book of Genesis.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By Rev. 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Professor <span class="smcap">W. G. Blaikie</span>, D.D., LL.D.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“Of the utmost value to preachers and teachers, being very full of +suggestive thoughts.”—<i>English Churchman.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">Third Edition.</p> + +<p><b>The Gospel according to St. Mark.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Very Rev. <span class="smcap">G. A. Chadwick</span>, D.D., Dean of Armagh.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps close to +his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is +thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and +epigrammatic when he wishes.”—<i>Academy.</i></p> + +<p>“It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and written in +clear, vigorous English.”—<i>Scotsman.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">Fourth Edition.</p> + +<p class="hangb"><b>The Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon.</b></p> + +<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Alexander Maclaren</span>, D.D.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“In nothing Dr. Maclaren has written is there more of beauty, of +spiritual insight, or of brilliant elucidation of Scripture. Indeed, +Dr. Maclaren is here at his best.”—<i>Expositor.</i></p> + +<p>“The book is pre-eminently one for ministers, but there is nothing +in the exposition which may not prove a boon to any diligent student +of the Word of God. It contains a wealth of thought for +preachers.”—<i>Rock.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">Third Edition.</p> + +<p><b>The Epistle to the Hebrews.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By Rev. Principal <span class="smcap">T. C. Edwards</span>, D.D., Author of “A Commentary on the +First Epistle to the Corinthians.”</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“He has entered into the spirit and purport of what truly he calls +‘one of the greatest and most difficult books of the New Testament’ +with a systematic thoroughness and fairness which cannot be too +highly commended. Henceforth English students of this portion of the +New Testament will have only themselves to blame if they cannot +trace the connection of thought and final purport of this +epistle.”—<i>Academy.</i></p></div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="titlebigger">THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE.</h3> + +<p class="center">SECOND SERIES.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Price 7s. 6d, each Volume.</i></p> + +<p class="center">Fifth Edition.</p> + +<p><b>The Book of Isaiah.</b> Vol. I. Chapters I.-XXXIX.</p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">George Adam Smith</span>, M.A., Aberdeen. With Map.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“This is a very attractive book. Mr. George Adam Smith has evidently +such a mastery of the scholarship of his subject that it would be a +sheer impertinence for most scholars, even though tolerable +Hebraists, to criticise his translations; and certainly it is not +the intention of the present reviewer to attempt anything of the +kind, to do which he is absolutely incompetent. All we desire is to +let English readers know how very lucid, impressive, and, indeed, +how vivid a study of Isaiah is within their reach—the fault of the +book, if it has a fault, being rather that it finds too many points +of connection between Isaiah and our modern world, than that it +finds too few. In other words, no one can say that the book is not +full of life.”—<i>Spectator.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">Second Edition.</p> + +<p><b>The First Epistle to the Corinthians.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. Professor <span class="smcap">Marcus Dods</span>, D.D.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“A clear, close, unaffected, unostentatious exposition, not verse by +verse, but thought after thought of this most interesting, perhaps, +and certainly most various, of all the Apostle’s writings.”—<i>London +Quarterly Review.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">Second Edition.</p> + +<p><b>The Epistle to the Galatians.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. Professor <span class="smcap">G. G. Findlay</span>, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“Professor G.G. Findlay discloses a minute acquaintance with his +subject, an earnest desire to penetrate its inmost meaning, and a +marked capacity of illustrating and enforcing the text.”—<i>Record.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">Second Edition.</p> + +<p><b>The Pastoral Epistles.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Alfred Plummer</span>, D.D., Master of University College, Durham.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“It is an admirable example of what popular theology ought to +be—presuming a somewhat high level of education and interest in its +readers, and built throughout upon sound erudition and sensible, +devout, and well-disciplined reflection.”—<i>Saturday Review.</i></p></div> + +<p><b>The Epistles of St. John.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By <span class="smcap">William Alexander</span>, D.D., D.C.L., Brasenose College, Oxford, Lord +Bishop of Derry and Raphoe.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“Full of felicities of exegesis.... Brilliant and +valuable.”—<i>Literary Churchman.</i></p> + +<p>“The discourses are eloquent and impressive, and show a thorough +knowledge of the subject.”—<i>Scotsman.</i></p></div> + +<p><b>The Revelation of St. John.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. Milligan</span>, D.D., of the University of Aberdeen.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“The most delightful work on the Apocalypse that we have read. The +practical and spiritual teaching even of the most recondite and +mysterious passages is made plain.”—<i>Methodist Recorder.</i></p></div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span></p> + +<h3 class="titlebigger">THE THEOLOGICAL EDUCATOR.</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>Price 2s. 6d. each Volume. Fcap. 8vo.</i></p> + +<hr class="adrule" /> + +<p><b>The Language of the New Testament.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By Rev. <span class="smcap">William Henry Simcox</span>, M.A., Rector of Harlaxton.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“The distinctive peculiarities of New Testament Greek are defined +with exactness, the gradations by which one grammatical usage passes +into another are clearly traced, the frontier between grammar and +exegesis marked with unusual sense and discrimination. In a word, +this is the most living grammar of the New Testament we +have.”—<i>Expositor.</i></p></div> + +<p><b>Outlines of Christian Doctrine.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">H. C. G. Moule</span>, M.A., Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. +Fifth Thousand.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“Marked throughout by the most careful and critical knowledge of +Scripture, more particularly of the New Testament, and the most +patient weighing and comparison of parallel texts.... It forms an +admirable introduction to the subject, and seems in intellectual +power to even surpass any other of Mr. Moule’s published +writings.”—<i>Record.</i></p></div> + +<p><b>An Introduction to the New Testament.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By Rev. Professor <span class="smcap">Marcus Dods</span>, D.D. Now Ready. Fourth Edition.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“The authenticity, authorship, history, object, and general +character of each book are discussed with admirable condensation and +lucidity, and with ample critical knowledge.”—<i>Scotsman.</i></p></div> + +<p><b>A Manual of Christian Evidences.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">C. A. Row</span>, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul’s. Fifth Thousand.</p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“A veritable <i>multum in parvo</i>, clear, cogent, and concise, without +being sketchy or superficial.”—<i>Saturday Review.</i></p></div> + +<p><b>An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. Professor <span class="smcap">B. B. Warfield</span>, D.D. Third Thousand.</p> + +<p><b>A Hebrew Grammar.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. H. Lowe</span>, M.A., Joint Author of “A Commentary on the +Psalms,” etc., etc.; Hebrew Lecturer, Christ’s College, Cambridge. +Second Thousand.</p> + +<p><b>An Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">J. E. Yonge</span>, M.A., Late Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, +and Assistant-Master in Eton College.</p> + +<p><b>A Manual of the Book of Common Prayer.</b></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Showing its History and Contents.</i></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Charles Hole</span>, B.A., King’s College, London.</p> + +<p><b>A Manual of Church History.</b></p> + +<p class="hangb">By the Rev. A. C. <span class="smcap">Jennings</span>, M.A. In Two Vols.</p> + +<p class="hangc">Vol. I.—From the First to the Tenth Century.</p> +<p class="hangc">Vol. II.—From the Eleventh to the Nineteenth Century.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span></p> + +<h3><i>COMPLETION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.</i></h3> + +<hr class="adrule" /> + +<h3 class="titlebigger">THE SERMON BIBLE.</h3> + +<p class="center">Each Volume contains upwards of Five Hundred Sermon Outlines and Several +Thousand References. Strongly bound in half buckram.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Price 7s. 6d. each.</i></p> + +<p class="center">VOLUME I.</p> + +<p><b>Genesis to 2 Samuel.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“A very complete guide to the sermon literature of the present +day.”—<i>Scotsman.</i></p> + +<p>“We do not hesitate to pronounce this the most practically useful +work of its kind at present extant. It is not a commentary, but a +<i>Thesaurus</i> of sermons on texts arranged consecutively, chapter +after chapter and book after book.... We are bound to say that the +object announced by the compilers is on the way to be realised, and +here will be given the essence of the best homiletic literature of +this generation.”—<i>Literary Churchman.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">VOLUME II.</p> + +<p><b>1 Kings to Psalm LXXVI.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“Preachers anxious to discover the best books out of which they may +discover golden thoughts on any particular text, for use in their +sermons, will doubtless be glad of the volume before us, which aims +at being a guide-book, pointing out where sermons and articles on +those texts may be found. In addition to this, extracts from sermons +are given in the book itself.”—<i>English Churchman.</i></p> + +<p>“A hearty word of commendation can be said of the selected and +condensed outlines of sermons in this volume, most of which are by +well-known preachers. They will be of considerable +service.”—<i>Nonconformist.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">VOLUME III.</p> + +<p><b>Psalm LXXVII. to The Song of Solomon.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“Like its two predecessors, the third volume is distinguished by the +perfect catholicity of the selections, the admirable condensation of +the sermons and expositions that are quoted, and the fulness of the +references to the best sermon literature on each of the texts. It is +beyond question the richest treasury of modern homiletics which has +ever issued from the press.”—<i>Christian Leader.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center">VOLUME IV.</p> + +<p><b>Isaiah to Malachi.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquotad"><p>“A marvellous amount of information is here presented in compact and +readable form at a very moderate price.”—<i>Methodist Recorder.</i></p> + +<p>“A great number of the best contemporary sermons are here rendered +generally available in a very convenient form, and at a very low +price indeed.”—<i>Literary Churchman.</i></p></div> + +<hr class="adrule" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row.</span></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: The Book of +Exodus, by G. A. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus + +Author: G. A. Chadwick + +Editor: W. Robertson Nicoll + +Release Date: August 13, 2010 [EBook #33420] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: EXODUS *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + [Transcriber's Note: + + This e-text is intended for users whose text readers cannot display + the Unicode (utf-8) version of the file. Greek words have been + transliterated and enclosed in equals signs, e.g. =ho logos=. + + _Italic_ words have been similarly enclosed in underscores. + + A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected. + + The Table of Contents refers to original page numbers. + + All advertising material has been placed at the end of the text.] + + + + + THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + + + EDITED BY THE REV. + W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + + _Editor of "The Expositor."_ + + + THE BOOK OF EXODUS. + + BY THE VERY REV. + G. A. CHADWICK, D.D. + _Dean of Armagh_ + + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON, + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + MDCCCXC. + + + + + THE + BOOK OF EXODUS. + + BY THE VERY REV. + G. A. CHADWICK, D.D. + _Dean of Armagh,_ + + AUTHOR OF "CHRIST BEARING WITNESS TO HIMSELF," + "AS HE THAT SERVETH," "THE GOSPEL OF ST. MARK," ETC. + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON, + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + MDCCCXC. + + + + + Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Much is now denied or doubted, within the Church itself, concerning the +Book of Exodus, which was formerly accepted with confidence by all +Christians. + +But one thing can neither be doubted nor denied. Jesus Christ did +certainly treat this book, taking it as He found it, as possessed of +spiritual authority, a sacred scripture. He taught His disciples to +regard it thus, and they did so. + +Therefore, however widely His followers may differ about its date and +origin, they must admit the right of a Christian teacher to treat this +book, taking it as he finds it, as a sacred scripture and invested with +spiritual authority. It is the legitimate subject of exposition in the +Church. + +Such work this volume strives, however imperfectly, to perform. Its +object is to edify in the first place, and also, but in the second +place, to inform. Nor has the author consciously shrunk from saying what +seemed to him proper to be said because the utterance would be +unwelcome, either to the latest critical theory, or to the last +sensational gospel of an hour. + +But since controversy has not been sought, although exposition has not +been suppressed when it carried weapons, by far the greater part of the +volume appeals to all who accept their Bible as, in any true sense, a +gift from God. + +No task is more difficult than to exhibit the Old Testament in the light +of the New, discovering the permanent in the evanescent, and the +spiritual in the form and type which it inhabited and illuminated. This +book is at least the result of a firm belief that such a connection +between the two Testaments does exist, and of a patient endeavour to +receive the edification offered by each Scripture, rather than to force +into it, and then extort from it, what the expositor desires to find. +Nor has it been supposed that by allowing the imagination to assume, in +sacred things, that rank as a guide which reason holds in all other +practical affairs, any honour would be done to Him Who is called the +Spirit of knowledge and wisdom, but not of fancy and quaint conceits. + +If such an attempt does, in any degree, prove successful and bear fruit, +this fact will be of the nature of a scientific demonstration. + +If this ancient Book of Exodus yields solid results to a sober +devotional exposition in the nineteenth Christian century, if it is not +an idle fancy that its teaching harmonises with the principles and +theology of the New Testament, and even demands the New Testament as the +true commentary upon the Old, what follows? How comes it that the oak is +potentially in the acorn, and the living creature in the egg? No germ is +a manufactured article: it is a part of the system of the universe. + + + + +ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE PROLOGUE, i. 1-6. + +Books linked by conjunction "And:" Scripture history a connected whole, +1.--So is secular history organic: "Philosophy of history." The +Pentateuch being a still closer unity, Exodus rehearses the descent into +Egypt, 2.--Heredity: the family of Jacob, 3.--Death of Joseph. Influence +of Egypt on the shepherd race, 4.--A healthy stock: good breeding. +Goethe's aphorism, 5.--Ourselves and our descendants, 6. + +GOD IN HISTORY, i. 7. + +In Exodus, national history replaces biography, 6.--Contrasted +narratives of Jacob and Moses. Spiritual progress from Genesis to +Exodus, 7.--St. Paul's view: Law prepares for Gospel, especially by our +failures, 8.--This explains other phenomena: failures in various +circumstances, of innocence in Eden; of an elect family; now of a race, +a nation, 9.--Israel, failing with all advantages, needs a Messiah. +Faith justifies, in Old Testament as in New, 10.--Scripture history +reveals God in this life, in all things, 11.--True spirituality owns God +in the secular: this is a gospel for our days, 12-13. + +THE OPPRESSION, i. 7-22. + +Early prosperity: its dangers: political supports vain, 13.--Joseph +forgotten. National responsibilities: despotism, 14.--Nations and their +chiefs. Our subject races, 15.--The Church and her King: imputation. +Pharaoh precipitates what he fears, 16.--Egypt and her aliens: modern +parallels, 17.--Tyranny is tyrannous even when cultured, 18.--Our undue +estrangement from the fallen: Jesus a brother. Toil crushes the spirit, +19.--Israel idolatrous. Religious dependence, 20. --Direct interposition +required. Bitter oppression, 21.--Pharaoh drops the mask. Defeated by +the human heart. The midwives, 22.--Their falsehood. Morality is +progressive, 23.--Culture and humanity, 24.--Religion and the child, 25. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE RESCUE OF MOSES, ii. 1-10. + +Importance of the individual, 26.--A man _versus_ "the Time-spirit," +27.--The parents of Moses, 28.--Their family: their goodly child, +29.--Emotion helps faith, 30.--The ark in the bulrushes, 31.--Pharaoh's +daughter and Miriam, 32.--Guidance for good emotions: the Church for +humanity, 33. + +THE CHOICE OF MOSES, ii. 11-15. + +God employs means, 34.--Value of endowment. Moses and his family. "The +reproach of Christ," 35.--An impulsive act, 36.--Impulses not accidents. +The hopes of Moses, 37.--Moses and his brethren. His flight, 38. + +MOSES IN MIDIAN, ii. 16-22. + +Energy in disaster, 39.--Disinterested bravery. Parallels with a +variation, 40.--The Unseen a refuge. Duty of resisting small wrongs. His +wife, 41.--A lonely heart, 42. + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BURNING BUSH, ii. 23-iii. + +Death of Raamses. Misery continues, 43.--The cry of the oppressed, +44.--Discipline of Moses, 45.--How a crisis comes, 46.--God hitherto +unmentioned. The Angel of the Lord, 47.--An unconsuming fire, +48.--Inquiry: reverence. God finds, not man, 49.--"Take off thy shoe." +"The God of thy father," 50.--Immortality. "My people," not saints only, +51.--The good land. The commission, 52.--God with him. A strange token, +53. + +A NEW NAME, iii. 14; vi. 2, 3. + +Why Moses asked the name of God: idolatry: pantheism, 54.--A progressive +revelation, 55.--Jehovah. The sound corrupted. Similar superstitions +yet, 56.--What it told the Jews. Reality of being, 57.--Jews not saved +by ideas. Streams of tendency. The Self-contained. We live in our past, +58.--And in our future, 59.--Yet Jehovah not the impassive God of +Lucretius, 60.--The Immutable is Love. This is our help, 61.--Human +will is not paralysed, 62.--The teaching of St. Paul. All this is +practical, 63.--This gives stability to all other revelations. Our own +needs, 64. + +THE COMMISSION, iii. 10, 16-22. + +God comes where He sends, 65.--The Providential man. Prudence, +66.--Sincerity of demand for a brief respite, 67.--God has already +visited them. By trouble He transplants, 68.--The "borrowing" of jewels, +69. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MOSES HESITATES, iv. 1-17. + +Scripture is impartial: Josephus, 70.--Hindrance from his own people. +The rod, 71.--The serpent: the leprosy, 72.--"I am not eloquent," +73.--God with us. Aaron the Levite, 74.--Responsibility of _not_ +working. The errors of Moses, 75.--Power of fellowship. Vague fears, +76.--With his brother, Moses will go. The Church, 77.--This craving met +by Christ, 78.--Family affection. Examples, 79. + +MOSES OBEYS, iv. 18-31. + +Fidelity to his employer. Reticence, 80.--Resemblance to story of Jesus. +He is the Antitype of all experiences, 81.--Counterpoint in history. +"Israel is My son," 82.--A neglected duty Zipporah. Was she a helpmeet? +83.--Domestic unhappiness. History _v._ myth, 84.--The failures of the +good, 85.--Men of destiny are not irresponsible, 86.--His first +followers: a joyful reception, 87.--Spiritual joy and reaction, 88. + + +CHAPTER V. + +PHARAOH REFUSES, v. 1-23. + +Moses at court again. Formidable, 89.--Power of convictions but also of +tyranny and pride. Menephtah: his story, 90.--Was the Pharaoh drowned? +The demand of Jehovah, 91.--The refusal, 92.--Is religion idleness? +Hebrews were taskmasters, 93.--Demoralised by slavery. They are beaten, +94.--Murmurs against Moses. He returns to God. His remonstrance, +95.--His disappointment. Not really irreverent, 96.--Use of this +abortive attempt, 97-8. + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MOSES, vi. 1-30. + +The word Jehovah known before: its consolations now, 99.--The new truth +is often implicit in the old, 100.--Discernment more needed than +revelation. "Judgments," 101.--My people: your God, 102.--The tie is of +God's binding, 103,--Fatherhood and sonship, 104.--Faith becomes +knowledge. The body hinders the soul, 105.--We are responsible for +bodies. Israel weighs Moses down, 106.--We may hold back the saints, +107.--The pedigree, 107-8.--Indications of genuine history, 108-9.--"As +a god to Pharaoh," 110.--We also, 111. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH'S HEART, vii. 3-13. + +The assertion offends many, 112.--Was he a free agent? When hardened. +A.V. incorrect, 113.--He resists five plagues spontaneously. The last +five are penal, 114.--Not "hardened" in wickedness, but in nerve. A.V. +confuses three words: His heart is (_a_) "hardened," 115.--(_b_) it is +made "strong" (_c_) "heavy," 116.--Other examples of these words, +117.--The warning implied, 117-19.--Moses returns with the signs, +119.--The functions of miracle, 120. + +THE PLAGUES, vii. 14. + +Their vast range, 121.--Their relation to Pantheism, Idolatry, +Philosophy, 122.--And to the gods of Egypt. Their retributive fitness, +123.--Their arrangement, 124.--Like our Lord's, not creative, 125.--God +in common things, 126.--Some we inflict upon ourselves. Yet +rationalistic analogies fail, 127.--Duration of the conflict, 128. + +THE FIRST PLAGUE, vii, 14-25. + +The probable scene, 129.--Extent of the plague. The magicians. Its +duration, 131.--Was Israel exempt? Contrast with first miracle of Jesus, +132. + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE SECOND PLAGUE, viii. 1-15. + +Submission demanded. Severity of plague, 133.--Pharaoh humbles himself, +134.--"Glory over me." Pharaoh breaks faith, 135. + +THE THIRD PLAGUE, viii. 16-19. + +Various theories. A surprise. Magicians baffled, 136.--What they +confess, 137. + +THE FOURTH PLAGUE, viii. 20-32. + +"Rising up early," 137.--Bodily pain. Beetles or flies? "A mixture," +138--Goshen exempt. Pharaoh suffers. He surrenders, 139.--Respite and +treachery. Would Moses have returned? 140. + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE FIFTH PLAGUE, ix. 1-7. + +First attack on life. Animals share our fortunes, 141. The new summons. +Murrain, 142.--Pharaoh's curiosity, 143. + +THE SIXTH PLAGUE, ix. 8-12. + +No warning, yet Author manifest. Ashes of the furnace, 144.---Suffering +in the flesh. The magicians again. Pharaoh's heart "made strong," +145.--Dares not retaliate, 146. + +THE SEVENTH PLAGUE, ix. 13-35. + +Expostulation not mockery, 146-7.--God is wronged by slavery, +147.--Civil liberty is indebted to religion. "Plagues upon thine heart," +148.--A mis-rendering: why he was not crushed, 149.--An opportunity of +escape. The storm, 150.--Ruskin upon terrors of thunderstorm, +151.--Pharaoh confesses sin, 152.--Moses intercedes. The weather in +history. Job's assertion, 153. + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE EIGHTH PLAGUE, x. 1-20. + +Moses encouraged, 154.--Deliverances should be remembered. A sterner +rebuke. Locusts in Egypt, 155.--Their effect. The court interferes. Yet +"their hearts hardened" also, 156--Infatuation of Pharaoh. Parallel of +Napoleon, 157.--Women and little ones did share in festivals, 158.--A +gentle wind. Locusts. Another surrender, 159.--Relief. Our broken vows, +160. + +THE NINTH PLAGUE, x. 21-29. + +Menephtah's sun-worship, 161.--Suddenness of the plague. Concentrated +narrative, 162.--Darkness represents death, 163.--The Book of Wisdom +upon this plague, 164-5.--Isaiah's allusions. The Pharaoh's character, +165.--Altercation with Moses, 166. + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE LAST PLAGUE ANNOUNCED, xi. 1-10. + +This chapter supplements the last. The blow is known to be impending. +Uses of its delay, 167.--Israel shall claim wages. The menace, +168.--Parallel with St. John, 169-70. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE PASSOVER, xii. 1-28. + +Birthday of a nation. The calendar, 171.--"The congregation." The feast +is social, 172.--The nation is based upon the family. No Egyptian house +escapes, 173.--National interdependence. The Passover a sacrifice, +174.--What does the blood mean? Rationalistic theories. Harvest +festivals, 175.--The unbelieving point of view: what theories of +sacrifice were then current? "A sacrifice was a meal," 176.--Human +sacrifices. The Passover "unhistorical." Kuenen rejects this view, +177.--Phenomena irreconcilable with it, 178-9. What is really expressed? +Danger even to Jews, 179.--Salvation by grace. Not unbought, 180.--The +lamb a ransom. All firstborn are forfeited. Tribe of Levi, 181.--Cash +payment. Effect on Hebrew literature, 182.--Its prophetic import, +183.--The Jew must co-operate with God: must also become His guest, +184.--Sacred festivals. Lamb or kid. Four days reserved, 185.--Men are +sheep. Heads of houses originally sacrifice. Transition to Levites in +progress under Hezekiah, complete under Josiah, 186.--Unleavened bread. +The lamb. Roast, not sodden, 187.--Complete consumption. Judgment upon +gods of Egypt, 188.--The blood a token unto themselves. On their +lintels, 189.--The word "pass-over," 190.--Domestic teaching, 191.--Many +who ate the feast perished. Aliens might share, 192. + +THE TENTH PLAGUE, xii. 29-36. + +The blow falls. Pharaoh was not "firstborn": his son "sat upon his +throne," 193.--The scene, 194.--The demands of Israel. St. Augustine's +inference, 195. + +THE EXODUS, xii. 37-42. + +The route, 195.--Their cattle, a suggested explanation, 196.--"Four +hundred and thirty years," 197-8. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN, xiii, 1. + +The consecration of the firstborn, 199.--The Levite. "They are Mine," +200.--Joy is hopeful. Tradition? 201.--Phylacteries. The ass, 202.--The +Philistines. No spiritual miracle, 203.--Education, 204. + +THE BONES OF JOSEPH, xiii. 19. + +Joseph influenced Moses, 204.--His faith, 205.--Circumstances overcome +by soul. God in the cloud, 206.--Hebrew poetry and modern, 207. + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE RED SEA, xiv. 1-31. + +Stopped on the march, 208.--Pharaoh presumes, 209.--The panic, +210.--Moses. Prayer and action. "Self-assertion"? 211.--The midnight +march, 212.--The lost army, 213. + +ON THE SHORE, xiv. 30, 31. + +Impressions deepened. "They believed in Jehovah." So the faith of the +apostles grew, 214. + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE SONG OF MOSES, xv. 1-22. + +A song remembered in heaven. Its structure, 216-17.--The women join. +Instruments. Dances, 218. God the Deliverer, not Moses. "My salvation," +219.--Gratitude. Anthropomorphism. "Ye are gods." "Jehovah is a Man--of +war," 220-2.--The overthrow, 222.--First mention of Divine holiness, +223.--An inverted holiness, 224.--"Thou shalt bring them in," 225. + +SHUR, xv. 22-27. + +Disillusion. Marah, 226.--A universal danger, 227.--Prayer, and the use +of means, 228.--"A statute and an ordinance." Such compacts often +repeated. The offered privilege, 229.--It is still enjoyed, 230.--"The +Lord for the body." Elim, 231. + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +MURMURING FOR FOOD, xvi. 1-14. + +_We_ too fear, although Divinely guarded, 232.--They would fain die +satiated, 233.--Relief tries them as want does, 234.--The Sabbath. A +rebuke, 235.--Moses is zealous. His "meekness," 236.--The glory appears, +237.--Quails and manna, 238. + +MANNA, xvi. 15-36. + +Their course of life is changed, 238.--A drug resembles manna, 239.--The +supernatural follows nature, 240.--They must gather, prepare, be +moderate, 241.--Nothing over and no lack. Socialistic perversion, +242.--Socialism. Christ in politics, 243-4. + +SPIRITUAL MEAT, xvi. 15-36. + +Manna is a type. When given, 244.--An unearthly sustenance, 245. What is +spirituality? Christ the true Manna, 246.--Universal, daily, abundant, +247.--The Sabbath. The pot of manna, 248. + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +MERIBAH, xvii. 1-7. + +A greater strain. What if Israel had stood it? 249.--They murmured +against Moses. The position of Aaron. An exaggerated outcry, +250.--Witnesses to the miracle. The rock in Horeb, 251.--The rod. +Privilege is not acceptance, 252. + +AMALEK, xvii. 8-16. + +A water-raid, 252.--God's sheep must become His warriors. War, +253-4.--Joshua. The rod of God, 255.--A silent prayer. Aaron and Hur +must join in it, 256.--So now. But the army must fight, 257.--"The Lord +my banner." Unlike a myth, 258. + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +JETHRO, xviii. 1-27. + +Gentiles in new aspect. Church may learn from secular wisdom, +259.--Little is said of Zipporah: Jethro's pleasure, 260.--A Gentile +priest recognised. Religious festivity, 261.--Jethro's advice: its +importance, 262.--Divine help does not supersede human gift, 263. + +THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY. + +Narrative is also allegory. Danger of arbitrary fancies. Example from +Bunyan. Scriptural teaching, 264.--Some resemblances are planned: others +are reappearances of same principle, 265.--So that these are evidential +analogies, like Butler's, 266.--Others appear forced. "I called My Son +out of Egypt" refers to Israel, 267.--But the condescending phrase +promised more, and the subsequent coincidence is significant, 268. +Truths cannot all be proved like Euclid's, 269. + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +AT SINAI, xix. 1-25. + +Sinai and Pentecost. The place. Ras Sufsafeh. God speaks in nature, +270.--Moses is stopped; the people must pledge themselves. Dedication +services, 271.--An appeal to gratitude, and a promise, 272.--"A peculiar +treasure." "A kingdom and priests," 273.--The individual, and Church +order. "On eagles' wings," 274.--Israel consents. The Lord in the cloud. +Manifestations are transient, 275.--Precautions. The trumpet, 276. "The +priests." A plebiscite. Contrast between Law and Gospel: Methodius, +277.--Theophanies, 278.--None like this, 279. + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE LAW, xx. 1-17. + +What the law did. It could not justify. It reveals obligation, 280.--It +convicts, not enables. It is an organic whole. And a challenge, +281.--The Spirit enables: love is fulfilment of law. Luther's paradox, +283.--Law and Gospel contrasted. Its spiritual beauty: two noble +failures, 283.--The Jewish arrangement of the Commandments. St. +Augustine's. The Anglican. An equal division, 284-6. + +THE PROLOGUE, xx. 2. + +Their experience of God, 286.--God and the first table. The true object +of adoration: men must adore. Agnosticism, 287.--God and the second +table, 288.--Law appeals to noble motives, 289. + +THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, xx. 3. + +Monotheism and a real God, 289.--False creeds attractive. Spiritualism. +Science indebted to Monotheism, 290.--Unity of nature a religious truth. +Strength of our experimental argument. 291.--Informal apostacy. Luther's +position. Scripture. The Chaldeans, 292.--Animal pleasure, 293.--The +remedy: "Thou shalt have ... Me," 294. + +THE SECOND COMMANDMENT, xx. 4-6. + +Imagery not all idolatry. The subtler paganisms, 295. Spiritual worship, +like a Gothic building, aspires: images lack expansiveness, 296.--God is +jealous, 297.--The shadow of love, 298. Visiting sins on children, 299, +300.--Part of vast beneficent law, 300-2.--Gospel in law, 302. + +THE THIRD COMMANDMENT, xx. 7. + +Meaning of "in vain," 302.--Jewish superstition. Where swearing is +wholly forbidden, 303.--Fruitful and free use of God's name, 304-5. + +THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 8-11. + +Law of Sabbath unique. Confession of Augsburg. Of Westminster, +305.--Anglican position. St. Paul, 306.--The first positive precept. +Love not the abolition of the law, 307.--Property of our friends. The +word "remember." The story of creation, 305.--The manna. Isaiah, +Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 309.--Christ's freedom was that of a Jew. "Sabbath +for man," 310.--Our help, not our fetter. "My Father worketh," 311. + +THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 12. + +Bridge between duty to God and to neighbour, 312.--Father and child, +313.--"Whosoever hateth not." Christ and His mother. Its sanction, 314. + +THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 13. + +Who is neighbour? Ethics and religion, 315-16.--Science and morals, +317.--A Divine creature. Capital punishment, 318. + +THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 14. + +Justice forbids act: Christ forbids desire. Sacredness of body, +319.--Human body connects material and spiritual worlds. Modifies, while +serves, 320.--Marriage a type, 321. + +THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 15. + +Assailed by communism, by Rome. Various specious pleas, 322.--Laws of +community binding, 323.--None may judge his own case, St. Paul enlarges +the precept, 324. + +THE NINTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 16. + +Importance of words. Various transgressions, 325.--Slander against +nations, against the race. Love, 326-7. + +THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, xx. 17. + +The list of properties, 328.--The heart. The law searches, 329. + + +THE LESSER LAW, xx. 18-xxiii. 33. + +A remarkable code. The circumstances, 331.--Moses fears: yet bids them +fear not, 332-3.--Presumption v. awe. He receives an expanded decalogue, +an abridged code, 334.--Laws should educate a people; should not outrun +their capabilities, 335-6.--Five subdivisions, 337. + +I. THE LAW OF WORSHIP, xx. 22-26. + +Images again forbidden, 337.--Splendour and simplicity. An objection, +338.--Modesty, 339. + + +CHAPTER XXI. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +II. RIGHTS OF THE PERSON, xxi. 1-32. + +The Hebrew slave. The seventh year. Year of jubilee. His family, +340.--The ear pierced. St. Paul's "marks of the Lord." Assaults, +341.--The Gentile slave, 342. The female slave, 342-3.--Murder and +blood-fiends, 343.--Parents. Kidnappers, 344.--Eye for eye. Mitigations +of _lex talionis_, 344-5.--Vicious cattle, 346. + +III. RIGHTS OF PROPERTY, xxi. 33-xxii. 15. + +Negligence: indirect responsibility: various examples, 346-8.--Theft, +348. + + +CHAPTER XXII. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +IV. VARIOUS ENACTMENTS, xxii. 16-xxiii. 19. + +Disconnected precepts. No trace of systematic revision. Certain capital +crimes, 348-9. + +SORCERY, xxii. 18. + +Abuses have recoiled against religion, 349.--Sorcerers are impostors, +but they existed, and do still, 350.--Moses could not leave them to +enlightened opinion. Propagated apostacy, 351.--Traitors in a theocracy, +352.--When shall witchcraft die? 353. + +THE STRANGER, xxii. 21; xxiii. 9. + +"Ye were strangers," 354.--A fruitful principle. Morality not +expediency, 355.--Cruelty often ignorance: Moses educates, 356.--The +widow. The borrower, 357.--Other precepts, 358. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. THE LESSER LAW (_continued_). + +An enemy's cattle. A false report, 359.--Influence of multitude: the +world and the Church, 360-1.--Favour not the poor, 361-2.--Other +precepts. "A kid in his mother's milk," 362. + +LESSER LAW, V. ITS SANCTIONS xxiii. 20-33. + +A bold transition: the Angel in Whom is "My Name," 363.--Not a mere +messenger, 364.--Nor the substitute of chap. xxxiii. 2, 3, +365-6.--Parallel verses, 366-7. + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD, xxiv. + +The code is accepted, written, ratified with blood, 368.--Exclusion and +admittance. The elders see God: Moses goes farther. Theophanies of other +creeds, 369.--How could they see God? 370.--Moses feels not +satisfaction, but desire, 371.--His progress is from vision to shadow +and a Voice, 372.--We see not each other, 373.--St. Augustine, +373-4.--The vision suits the period: not post-Exilian, 374-5.--Contrast +with revelation in Christ, 375. + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE SHRINE AND ITS FURNITURE, xxv. 1-40. + +The God of Sinai will inhabit a tent. His other tabernacles, 376-7.--The +furniture is typical. Altar of incense postponed, 377.--The ark +enshrines His law and its sanctions, 377-8.--The mercy-seat covers it, +378-81.--Man's homage. The table of shewbread, 382-3.--The golden +candlestick (lamp-stand), 383-6. + +THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT, xxv. 9, 40. + +Use in Hebrews. Plato, 386.--Not a model, but an idea. Art, +387.--Provisional institutions, 387-8.---The ideal in creation, 388.--In +life, 389. + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE TABERNACLE. + +"Temple" an ambiguous word, 390.--"Curtains of the Tabernacle," +391.--Other coverings, 392.--The boards and sockets, 392-3.--The bars. +The tent, 393.--Position of veil, 394, and of the front, 395. + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE OUTER COURT. + +The altar, 396.--The quadrangle, 397.--General effect, 398-400. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE HOLY GARMENTS. + +Their import, 401.--The drawers. "Coat." Head-tires. Robe of the ephod. +Ephod. Jewels, 402.--Breastplate. Urim and Thummim. Mitre. Symbolism, +403. + +THE PRIESTHOOD. + +Universal desire and dread of God, 404.--Delegates, 405. Scripture. +First Moses, 406.--His family passed over. The double consciousness +expressed, 407-9.--Messianic priesthood, 409. + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +CONSECRATION SERVICES. + +Why consecrate at all? 410.--Moses officiates. The offerings, +411.--Ablution, robing, anointing, 412-13.--The sin-offering, 413-14. +"Without the camp," 414. The burnt-offering, 415.--The peace-offering +("ram of consecration"), 415.--The wave-offerings, 415-16.--The result, +416-17. + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +INCENSE, xxx. 1-10. + +The impalpable in nature, 418.--"The golden altar," 419.--Represents +prayer. Needs cleansing, 420. + +A CENSUS, xxx. ii-16. + +A census not sinful. David's transgression. The half-shekel. Equality of +man, 421.--Christ paid it, 422.--Its employment, 423. + +THE LAVER, xxx. 17-21. + +Behind the altar. Purity of priests, 423.--Made of the mirrors, 424. + +ANOINTING OIL AND INCENSE, xxx. 22-38. + +Their ingredients. All the vessels anointed, 424.--Forbidden to secular +uses, 425.--Modern analogies, 426-7. + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB, xxxi. 1-18. + +Secular gifts are sacred, 428-30.--The Sabbath. The tables and "the +finger of God," 431. + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +THE GOLDEN CALF. + +Sin of the people; of Aaron. God rejects them, 432.--Intercession. The +Christian antitype, 433-4. + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +PREVAILING INTERCESSION. + +The first concession. The angel, 435.--"The Tent of the Meeting," 436. + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +THE VISION OF GOD. + +To know is to desire to know. A fit season. The greater Name, 438.--The +covenant renewed. The tables. The skin of his face shone, 439.--Lessons, +440. + + +CHAPTERS XXXV.-XL. CONCLUSION. + +The people obey, 441.--The forming of the nation: review, 441-3. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +_THE PROLOGUE._ + +EXODUS i. 1-6. + + "And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into + Egypt." + +Many books of the Old Testament begin with the conjunction And. This +fact, it has been often pointed out, is a silent indication of truth, +that each author was not recording certain isolated incidents, but parts +of one great drama, events which joined hands with the past and future, +looking before and after. + +Thus the Book of the Kings took up the tale from Samuel, Samuel from +Judges, and Judges from Joshua, and all carried the sacred movement +forward towards a goal as yet unreached. Indeed, it was impossible, +remembering the first promise that the seed of the woman should bruise +the head of the serpent, and the later assurance that in the seed of +Abraham should be the universal blessing, for a faithful Jew to forget +that all the history of his race was the evolution of some grand hope, a +pilgrimage towards some goal unseen. Bearing in mind that there is now +revealed to us a world-wide tendency toward the supreme consummation, +the bringing all things under the headship of Christ, it is not to be +denied that this hope of the ancient Jew is given to all mankind. Each +new stage in universal history may be said to open with this same +conjunction. It links the history of England with that of Julius Caesar +and of the Red Indian; nor is the chain composed of accidents: it is +forged by the hand of the God of providence. Thus, in the conjunction +which binds these Old Testament narratives together, is found the germ +of that instinctive and elevating phrase, the Philosophy of History. But +there is nowhere in Scripture the notion which too often degrades and +stiffens that Philosophy--the notion that history is urged forward by +blind forces, amid which the individual man is too puny to assert +himself. Without a Moses the Exodus is inconceivable, and God always +achieves His purpose through the providential man. + + * * * * * + +The Books of the Pentateuch are held together in a yet stronger unity +than the rest, being sections of one and the same narrative, and having +been accredited with a common authorship from the earliest mention of +them. Accordingly, the Book of Exodus not only begins with this +conjunction (which assumes the previous narrative), but also rehearses +the descent into Egypt. "And these are the names of the sons of Israel +which came into Egypt,"--names blotted with many a crime, rarely +suggesting any lovable or great association, yet the names of men with a +marvellous heritage, as being "the sons of Israel," the Prince who +prevailed with God. Moreover they are consecrated: their father's dying +words had conveyed to every one of them some expectation, some +mysterious import which the future should disclose. In the issue would +be revealed the awful influence of the past upon the future, of the +fathers upon the children even beyond the third and fourth +generation--an influence which is nearer to destiny, in its stern, +subtle and far-reaching strength, than any other recognised by religion. +Destiny, however, it is not, or how should the name of Dan have faded +out from the final list of "every tribe of the children of Israel" in +the Apocalypse (Rev. vii. 5-8), where Manasseh is reckoned separately +from Joseph to complete the twelve? + +We read that with the twelve came their posterity, seventy souls in +direct descent from Jacob; but in this number he is himself included, +according to that well-known Orientalism which Milton strove to force +upon our language in the phrase-- + + "The fairest of her daughters Eve." + +Joseph is also reckoned, although he "was in Egypt already." Now, it +must be observed that of these seventy, sixty-eight were males, and +therefore the people of the Exodus must not be reckoned to have sprung +in the interval from seventy, but (remembering polygamy) from more than +twice that number, even if we refuse to make any account of the +household which is mentioned as coming with every man. These households +were probably smaller in each case than that of Abraham, and the famine +in its early stages may have reduced the number of retainers; yet they +account for much of what is pronounced incredible in the rapid expansion +of the clan into a nation.[1] But when all allowance has been made, the +increase continues to be, such as the narrator clearly regards it, +abnormal, well-nigh preternatural, a fitting type of the expansion, amid +fiercer persecutions, of the later Church of God, the true circumcision, +who also sprang from the spiritual parentage of another Seventy and +another Twelve. + +"And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation." Thus +the connection with Canaan became a mere tradition, and the powerful +courtier who had nursed their interests disappeared. When they +remembered him, in the bitter time which lay before them, it was only to +reflect that all mortal help must perish. It is thus in the spiritual +world also. Paul reminds the Philippians that they can obey in his +absence and not in his presence only, working out their own salvation, +as no apostle can work it out on their behalf. And the reason is that +the one real support is ever present. Work out your own salvation, for +it is God (not any teacher) Who worketh in you. The Hebrew race was to +learn its need of Him, and in Him to recover its freedom. Moreover, the +influences which mould all men's characters, their surroundings and +mental atmosphere, were completely changed. These wanderers for pasture +were now in the presence of a compact and impressive social system, vast +cities, gorgeous temples, an imposing ritual. They were infected as well +as educated there, and we find the men of the Exodus not only murmuring +for Egyptian comforts, but demanding visible gods to go before them. + +Yet, with all its drawbacks, the change was a necessary part of their +development. They should return from Egypt relying upon no courtly +patron, no mortal might or wisdom, aware of a name of God more profound +than was spoken in the covenant of their fathers, with their narrow +family interests and rivalries and their family traditions expanded into +national hopes, national aspirations, a national religion. + +Perhaps there is another reason why Scripture has reminded us of the +vigorous and healthy stock whence came the race that multiplied +exceedingly. For no book attaches more weight to the truth, so miserably +perverted that it is discredited by multitudes, but amply vindicated by +modern science, that good breeding, in the strictest sense of the word, +is a powerful factor in the lives of men and nations. To be well born +does not of necessity require aristocratic parentage, nor does such +parentage involve it: but it implies a virtuous, temperate and pious +stock. In extreme cases the doctrine of race is palpable; for who can +doubt that the sins of dissolute parents are visited upon their puny and +short-lived children, and that the posterity of the just inherit not +only honour and a welcome in the world, "an open door," but also +immunity from many a physical blemish and many a perilous craving? If +the Hebrew race, after eighteen centuries of calamity, retains an +unrivalled vigour and tenacity, be it remembered how its iron sinew has +been twisted, from what a sire it sprang, through what ages of more than +"natural selection" the dross was throughly purged out, and (as Isaiah +loves to reiterate) a chosen remnant left. Already, in Egypt, in the +vigorous multiplication of the race, was visible the germ of that +amazing vitality which makes it, even in its overthrow, so powerful an +element in the best modern thought and action. + +It is a well-known saying of Goethe that the quality for which God chose +Israel was probably toughness. Perhaps the saying would better be +inverted: it was among the most remarkable endowments, unto which Israel +was called, and called by virtue of qualities in which Goethe himself +was remarkably deficient. + +Now, this principle is in full operation still, and ought to be solemnly +pondered by the young. Self-indulgence, the sowing of wild oats, the +seeing of life while one is young, the taking one's fling before one +settles down, the having one's day (like "every dog," for it is to be +observed that no person says, "every Christian"), these things seem +natural enough. And their unsuspected issues in the next generation, +dire and subtle and far-reaching, these also are more natural still, +being the operation of the laws of God. + +On the other hand, there is no youth living in obedience alike to the +higher and humbler laws of our complex nature, in purity and gentleness +and healthful occupation, who may not contribute to the stock of +happiness in other lives beyond his own, to the future well-being of his +native land, and to the day when the sadly polluted stream of human +existence shall again flow clear and glad, a pure river of water of +life. + + +_GOD IN HISTORY._ + +i. 7. + +With the seventh verse, the new narrative, the course of events treated +in the main body of this book, begins. + +And we are at once conscious of this vital difference between Exodus and +Genesis,--that we have passed from the story of men and families to the +history of a nation. In the first book the Canaanites and Egyptians +concern us only as they affect Abraham or Joseph. In the second book, +even Moses himself concerns us only for the sake of Israel. He is in +some respects a more imposing and august character than any who preceded +him; but what we are told is no longer the story of a soul, nor are we +pointed so much to the development of his spiritual life as to the work +he did, the tyrant overthrown, the nation moulded, the law and the +ritual imposed on it. + +For Jacob it was a discovery that God was in Bethel as well as in his +father's house. But now the Hebrew nation was to learn that He could +plague the gods of Egypt in their stronghold, that His way was in the +sea, that Horeb in Arabia was the Mount of God, that He could lead them +like a horse through the wilderness. + +When Jacob in Peniel wrestles with God and prevails, he wins for himself +a new name, expressive of the higher moral elevation which he has +attained. But when Moses meets God in the bush, it is to receive a +commission for the public benefit; and there is no new name for Moses, +but a fresh revelation of God for the nation to learn. And in all their +later history we feel that the national life which it unfolds was +nourished and sustained by these glorious early experiences, the most +unique as well as the most inspiriting on record. + +Here, then, a question of great moment is suggested. Beyond the fact +that Abraham was the father of the Jewish race, can we discover any +closer connection between the lives of the patriarchs and the history of +Israel? Is there a truly spiritual coherence between them, or merely a +genealogical sequence? For if the Bible can make good its claim to be +vitalised throughout by the eternal Spirit of God, and leading forward +steadily to His final revelation in Christ, then its parts will be +symmetrical, proportionate and well designed. If it be a universal +book, there must be a better reason for the space devoted to preliminary +and half secular stories, which is a greater bulk than the whole of the +New Testament, than that these histories chance to belong to the nation +whence Christ came. If no such reason can be found, the failure may not +perhaps outweigh the great evidences of the faith, but it will score for +something on the side of infidelity. But if upon examination it becomes +plain that all has its part in one great movement, and that none can be +omitted without marring the design, and if moreover this design has +become visible only since the fulness of the time is come, the discovery +will go far to establish the claim of Scripture to reveal throughout a +purpose truly divine, dealing with man for ages, and consummated in the +gift of Christ. + +Now, it is to St. Paul that we turn for light upon the connection +between the Old Testament and the New. And he distinctly lays down two +great principles. The first is that the Old Testament is meant to +educate men for the New; and especially that the sense of failure, +impressed upon men's consciences by the stern demands of the Law, was +necessary to make them accept the Gospel. + +The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ: it entered that sin +might abound. And it is worth notice that this effect was actually +wrought, not only upon the gross transgressor by the menace of its +broken precepts, but even more perhaps upon the high-minded and pure, by +the creation in their breasts of an ideal, inaccessible in its +loftiness. He who says, All these things have I kept from my youth up, +is the same who feels the torturing misgiving, What good thing must I do +to attain life?... What lack I yet? He who was blameless as touching +the righteousness of the law, feels that such superficial innocence is +worthless, that the law is spiritual and he is carnal, sold under sin. + +Now, this principle need by no means be restricted to the Mosaic +institutions. If this were the object of the law, it would probably +explain much more. And when we return to the Old Testament with this +clue, we find every condition in life examined, every social and +political experiment exhausted, a series of demonstrations made with +scientific precision, to refute the arch-heresy which underlies all +others--that in favourable circumstances man might save himself, that +for the evil of our lives our evil surroundings are more to be blamed +than we. + +Innocence in prosperous circumstances, unwarped by evil habit, untainted +by corruption in the blood, uncompelled by harsh surroundings, simple +innocence had its day in Paradise, a brief day with a shameful close. +God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions, until the flood +swept away the descendants of him who was made after the image of God. + +Next we have a chosen family, called out from all the perilous +associations of its home beyond the river, to begin a new career in a +new land, in special covenant with the Most High, and with every +endowment for the present and every hope for the future which could help +to retain its loyalty. Yet the third generation reveals the thirst of +Esau for his brother's blood, the treachery of Jacob, and the +distraction and guilt of his fierce and sensual family. It is when +individual and family life have thus proved ineffectual amid the +happiest circumstances, that the tribe and the nation essay the task. +Led up from the furnace of affliction, hardened and tempered in the +stern free life of the desert, impressed by every variety of fortune, by +slavery and escape, by the pursuit of an irresistible foe and by a +rescue visibly divine, awed finally by the sublime revelations of Sinai, +the nation is ready for the covenant (which is also a challenge)--The +man that doeth these things shall live by them: if thou diligently +hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God ... He shall set thee on high +above all nations. + +Such is the connection between this narrative and what went before. And +the continuation of the same experiment, and the same failure, can be +traced through all the subsequent history. Whether in so loose an +organisation that every man does what is right in his own eyes, or under +the sceptre of a hero or a sage,--whether so hard pressed that +self-preservation ought to have driven them to their God, or so +marvellously delivered that gratitude should have brought them to their +knees,--whether engulfed a second time in a more hopeless captivity, or +restored and ruled by a hierarchy whose authority is entirely +spiritual,--in every variety of circumstances the same melancholy +process repeats itself; and lawlessness, luxury, idolatry and +self-righteousness combine to stop every mouth, to make every man guilty +before God, to prove that a greater salvation is still needed, and thus +to pave the way for the Messiah. + +The second great principle of St. Paul is that faith in a divine help, +in pardon, blessing and support, was the true spirit of the Old +Testament as well as of the New. The challenge of the law was meant to +produce self-despair, only that men might trust in God. Appeal was made +especially to the cases of Abraham and David, the founder of the race +and of the dynasty, clearly because the justification without works of +the patriarch and of the king were precedents to decide the general +question (Rom. iv. 1-8). Now, this is pre-eminently the distinction +between Jewish history and all others, that in it God is everything and +man is nothing. Every sceptical treatment of the story makes Moses to be +the deliverer from Egypt, and shows us the Jewish nation gradually +finding out God. But the nation itself believed nothing of the kind. It +confessed itself to have been from the beginning vagrant and rebellious +and unthankful: God had always found out Israel, never Israel God. The +history is an expansion of the parable of the good shepherd. And this +perfect harmony of a long record with itself and with abstract +principles is both instructive and reassuring. + +As the history of Israel opens before us, a third principle claims +attention--one which the apostle quietly assumes, but which is forced on +our consideration by the unhappy state of religious thought in these +degenerate days. + +"They are not to be heard," says the Seventh Article rightly, "which +feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises." But +certainly they also would be unworthy of a hearing who would feign that +the early Scriptures do not give a vast, a preponderating weight, to the +concerns of our life on earth. Only very slowly, and as the result of +long training, does the future begin to reveal its supremacy over the +present. It would startle many a devout reader out of his propriety to +discover the small proportion of Old Testament scriptures in which +eternity and its prospects are discussed, to reckon the passages, +habitually applied to spiritual thraldom and emancipation, which were +spoken at first of earthly tyranny and earthly deliverance, and to +observe, even in the pious aspirations of the Psalms, how much of the +gratitude and joy of the righteous comes from the sense that he is made +wiser than the ancient, and need not fear though a host rose up against +him, and can break a bow of steel, and has a table prepared for him, and +an overflowing cup. Especially is this true of the historical books. God +is here seen ruling states, judging in the earth, remembering Israel in +bondage, and setting him free, providing supernatural food and water, +guiding him by the fiery cloud. There is not a word about regeneration, +conversion, hell, or heaven. And yet there is a profound sense of God. +He is real, active, the most potent factor in the daily lives of men. +Now, this may teach us a lesson, highly important to us all, and +especially to those who must teach others. The difference between +spirituality and secularity is not the difference between the future +life and the present, but between a life that is aware of God and a +godless one. Perhaps, when we find our gospel a matter of indifference +and weariness to men who are absorbed in the bitter monotonous and +dreary struggle for existence, we ourselves are most to blame. Perhaps, +if Moses had approached the Hebrew drudges as we approach men equally +weary and oppressed, they would not have bowed their heads and +worshipped. And perhaps we should have better success, if we took care +to speak of God in this world, making life a noble struggle, charging +with new significance the dull and seemingly degraded lot of all who +remember Him, such a God as Jesus revealed when He cleansed the leper, +and gave sight to the blind, using one and the same word for the +"healing" of diseases and the "saving" of souls, and connecting faith +equally with both. Exodus will have little to teach us, unless we +believe in that God who knoweth that we have need of food and clothing. +And the higher spiritual truths which it expresses will only be found +there in dubious and questionable allegory, unless we firmly grasp the +great truth, that God is not the Saviour of souls, or of bodies, but of +living men in their entirety, and treats their higher and lower wants +upon much the same principle, because He is the same God, dealing with +the same men, through both. + +Moreover, He treats us as the men of other ages. Instead of dealing with +Moses upon exceptional and strange lines, He made known His ways unto +Moses, His characteristic and habitual ways. And it is on this account +that whatsoever things were written aforetime are true admonition for us +also, being not violent interruptions but impressive revelations of the +steady silent methods of the judgment and the grace of God. + + +_THE OPPRESSION._ + +i. 7-22. + +At the beginning of the history of Israel we find a prosperous race. It +was indeed their growing importance, and chiefly their vast numerical +increase, which excited the jealousy of their rulers, at the very time +when a change of dynasty removed the sense of obligation. It is a sound +lesson in political as well as personal godliness that prosperity itself +is dangerous, and needs special protection from on high. + +Is it merely by chance again that we find in this first of histories +examples of the folly of relying upon political connections? As the +chief butler remembered not Joseph, nor did he succeed in escaping from +prison by securing influence at court, so is the influence of Joseph +himself now become vain, although he was the father of Pharaoh and lord +of all his house. His romantic history, his fidelity in temptation, and +the services by which he had at once cemented the royal power and saved +the people, could not keep his memory alive. The hollow wraith of dying +fame died wholly. There arose a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph. + +Such is the value of the highest and purest earthly fame, and such the +gratitude of the world to its benefactors. The nation which Joseph +rescued from starvation is passive in Pharaoh's hands, and persecutes +Israel at his bidding. + +And when the actual deliverer arose, his rank and influence were only +entanglements through which he had to break. + +Meanwhile, except among a few women, obedient to the woman's heart, we +find no trace of independent action, no revolt of conscience against the +absolute behest of the sovereign, until selfishness replaces virtue, and +despair wrings the cry from his servants, Knowest thou not yet that +Egypt is destroyed? + +Now, in Genesis we saw the fate of families, blessed in their father +Abraham, or cursed for the offence of Ham. For a family is a real +entity, and its members, like those of one body, rejoice and suffer +together. But the same is true of nations, and here we have reached the +national stage in the education of the world. Here is exhibited to us, +therefore, a nation suffering with its monarch to the uttermost, until +the cry of the maidservant behind the mill is as wild and bitter as the +cry of Pharaoh upon his throne. It is indeed the eternal curse of +despotism that unlimited calamity may be drawn down upon millions by the +caprice of one most unhappy man, himself blinded and half maddened by +adulation, by the absence of restraint, by unlimited sensual indulgence +if his tendencies be low and animal, and by the pride of power if he be +high-spirited and aspiring. + +If we assume, what seems pretty well established, that the Pharaoh from +whom Moses fled was Rameses the Great, his spirit was of the nobler +kind, and he exhibits a terrible example of the unfitness even of +conquering genius for unbridled and irresponsible power. That lesson has +had to be repeated, even down to the days of the Great Napoleon. + +Now, if the justice of plaguing a nation for the offence of its head be +questioned, let us ask first whether the nation accepts his despotism, +honours him, and is content to regard him as its chief and captain. +According to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, whoever thinks a +tyrant enviable, has already himself tyrannised with him in his heart. +Do we ourselves, then, never sympathise with political audacity, bold +and unscrupulous "resource," success that is bought at the price of +strange compliances, and compromises, and wrongs to other men? + +The great national lesson is now to be taught to Israel that the most +splendid imperial force will be brought to an account for its treatment +of the humblest--that there is a God Who judges in the earth. And they +were bidden to apply in their own land this experience of their own, +dealing kindly with the stranger in the midst of them, "for thou wast a +stranger in the land of Egypt." That lesson we have partly learned, who +have broken the chain of our slaves. But how much have we left undone! +The subject races were never given into our hands to supplant them, as +we have supplanted the Red Indian and the New Zealander, nor to +debauch, as men say we are corrupting the African and the Hindoo, but to +raise, instruct and Christianise. And if the subjects of a despotism are +accountable for the actions of rulers whom they tolerate, how much more +are we? What ought we to infer, from this old-world history, of the +profound responsibilities of all free citizens? + +We attain a principle which reaches far into the spiritual world, when +we reflect that if evil deeds of a ruler can justly draw down vengeance +upon his people, the converse also must hold good. Reverse the case +before us. Let the kingdom be that of the noblest and purest virtue. Let +no subject ever be coerced to enter it, nor to remain one hour longer +than while his adoring loyalty consents. And shall not these subjects be +the better for the virtues of the Monarch whom they love? Is it mere +caprice to say that in choosing such a King they do, in a very real +sense, appropriate the goodness they crown? If it be natural that Egypt +be scourged for the sins of Pharaoh, is it palpably incredible that +Christ is made of God unto His people wisdom and righteousness and +sanctification and redemption? The doctrine of imputation can easily be +so stated as to become absurd. But the imputation of which St. Paul +speaks much can only be denied when we are prepared to assail the +principle on which all bodies of men are treated, families and nations +as well as the Church of God. + +It was the jealous cruelty of Pharaoh which drew down upon his country +the very perils he laboured to turn away. There was no ground for his +fear of any league with foreigners against him. Prosperous and +unambitious, the people would have remained well content beside the +flesh-pots of Egypt, for which they sighed even when emancipated from +heavy bondage and eating the bread of heaven. Or else, if they had gone +forth in peace, from a land whose hospitality had not failed, to their +inheritance in Canaan, they would have become an allied nation upon the +side where the heaviest blows were afterwards struck by the Asiatic +powers. Cruelty and cunning could not retain them, but it could decimate +a population and lose an army in the attempt. And this law prevails in +the modern world, England paid twenty millions to set her bondmen free. +Because America would not follow her example, she ultimately paid the +more terrible ransom of civil war. For the same God was in Jamaica and +in Florida as in the field of Zoan. Nor was there ever yet a crooked +policy which did not recoil either upon its author, or upon his +successors when he had passed away. In this case it fulfilled the plans +and the prophecies of God, and the wrath of man was made to praise Him. + +There is independent reason for believing that at this period one-third +at least of the population of Egypt was of alien blood (Brugsch, +_History_, ii. 100). A politician might fairly be alarmed, especially if +this were the time when the Hittites were threatening the eastern +frontier, and had reduced Egypt to stand on the defensive, and erect +barrier fortresses. And the circumstances of the country made it very +easy to enslave the Hebrews. If any stain of Oriental indifference to +the rights of the masses had mingled with the God-given insight of +Joseph, when he made his benefactor the owner of all the soil, the +Egyptian people were fully avenged upon him now. For this arrangement +laid his pastoral race helpless at their oppressor's feet. Forced +labour quickly degenerates into slavery, and men who find the story of +their misery hard to credit should consider the state of France before +the Revolution, and of the Russian serfs before their emancipation. +Their wretchedness was probably as bitter as that of the Hebrews at any +period but the last climax of their oppression. And they owed it to the +same cause--the absolute ownership of the land by others, too remote +from them to be sympathetic, to take due account of their feelings, to +remember that they were their fellow-men. This was enough to slay +compassion, even without the aggravation of dealing with an alien and +suspected race. + +Now, it is instructive to observe these reappearances of wholesale +crime. They warn us that the utmost achievements of human wickedness are +human still; not wild and grotesque importations by a fiend, originated +in the abyss, foreign to the world we live in. Satan finds the material +for his master-strokes in the estrangement of class from class, in the +drying up of the fountains of reciprocal human feeling, in the failure +of real, fresh, natural affection in our bosom for those who differ +widely from us in rank or circumstances. All cruelties are possible when +a man does not seem to us really a man, nor his woes really woeful. For +when the man has sunk into an animal it is only a step to his +vivisection. + +Nor does anything tend to deepen such perilous estrangement, more than +the very education, culture and refinement, in which men seek a +substitute for religion and the sense of brotherhood in Christ. It is +quite conceivable that the tyrant who drowned the Hebrew infants was an +affectionate father, and pitied his nobles when their children died. But +his sympathies could not reach beyond the barriers of a caste. Do _our_ +sympathies really overleap such barriers? Would God that even His Church +believed aright in the reality of a human nature like our own, soiled, +sorrowful, shamed, despairing, drugged into that apathetical +insensibility which lies even below despair, yet aching still, in ten +thousand bosoms, in every great city of Christendom, every day and every +night! Would to God that she understood what Jesus meant, when He called +one lost creature by the tender name which she had not yet forfeited, +saying, "Woman, where are thine accusers?" and when He asked Simon, who +scorned such another, "Seest thou this woman!" Would God that when she +prays for the Holy Spirit of Jesus she would really seek a mind like +His, not only in piety and prayerfulness, but also in tender and +heartfelt brotherhood with all, even the vilest of the weary and +heavy-laden! + +Many great works of ancient architecture, the pyramids among the rest, +were due to the desire of crushing, by abject toil, the spirit of a +subject people. We cannot ascribe to Hebrew labour any of the more +splendid piles of Egyptian masonry, but the store cities or arsenals +which they built can be identified. They are composed of such crude +brick as the narrative describes; and the absence of straw in the later +portion of them can still be verified. Rameses was evidently named after +their oppressor, and this strengthens the conviction that we are reading +of events in the nineteenth dynasty, when the shepherd kings had +recently been driven out, leaving the eastern frontier so weak as to +demand additional fortresses, and so far depopulated as to give colour +to the exaggerated assertion of Pharaoh, "the people are more and +mightier than we." It is by such exaggerations and alarms that all the +worst crimes of statesmen have been justified to consenting peoples. And +we, when we carry what seems to us a rightful object, by inflaming the +prejudice and misleading the judgment of other men, are moving on the +same treacherous and slippery inclines. Probably no evil is committed +without some amount of justification, which the passions exaggerate, +while they ignore the prohibitions of the law. + +How came it to pass that the fierce Hebrew blood, which was yet to boil +in the veins of the Maccabees, and to give battle, not unworthily, to +the Roman conquerors of the world, failed to resent the cruelties of +Pharaoh? + +Partly, of course, because the Jewish people was only now becoming aware +of its national existence; but also because it had forsaken God. Its +religion, if not supplanted, was at least adulterated by the influence +of the mystic pantheism and the stately ritual which surrounded them. + +Joshua bade his victorious followers to "put away the gods whom your +fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord" +(Josh. xxiv. 14). And in Ezekiel the Lord Himself complains, "They +rebelled against Me and would not hearken unto Me; they did not cast +away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols +of Egypt" (Ezek. xx. 8). + +Now, there is nothing which enfeebles the spirit and breaks the courage +like religious dependence. A strong priesthood always means a feeble +people, most of all when they are of different blood. And Israel was now +dependent on Egypt alike for the highest and lowest needs--grass for the +cattle and religion for the soul. And when they had sunk so low, it is +evident that their emancipation had to be wrought for them entirely +without their help. From first to last they were passive, not only for +want of spirit to help themselves, but because the glory of any exploit +of theirs might have illuminated some false deity whom they adored. + +Standing still, they saw the salvation of God, and it was not possible +to give His glory to another. + +For this cause also, judgment had, first of all, to be wrought upon the +gods of Egypt. + +In the meantime, without spirit enough to resist, they saw complete +destruction drawing nearer to them by successive strides. At first +Pharaoh "dealt wisely with them," and they found themselves entrapped +into a hard bondage almost unawares. But a strange power upheld them, +and the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied and spread +abroad. In this they ought to have discerned a divine support, and +remembered the promise to Abraham that God would multiply his seed as +the stars of heaven. It may have helped them presently to "cry unto the +Lord." And the Egyptians were not merely "grieved" because of them: they +felt as the Israelites afterwards felt towards that monotonous diet of +which they used the same word, and said, "our soul loatheth this light +bread." Here it expresses that fierce and contemptuous attitude which +the Californian and Australian are now assuming toward the swarms of +Chinamen whose labour is so indispensable, yet the infusion of whose +blood into the population is so hateful. Then the Egyptians make their +service rigorous, and their lives bitter. + +And at last that happens which is a part of every downward course: the +veil is dropped; what men have done by stealth, and as if they would +deceive themselves, they soon do consciously, avowing to their +conscience what at first they could not face. Thus Pharaoh began by +striving to check a dangerous population; and ended by committing +wholesale murder. Thus men become drunkards through conviviality, +thieves through borrowing what they mean to restore, and hypocrites +through slightly overstating what they really feel. And, since there are +nice gradations in evil, down to the very last, Pharaoh will not yet +avow publicly the atrocity which he commands a few humble women to +perpetrate; decency is with him, as it is often, the last substitute for +a conscience. + +Among the agents of God for the shipwreck of all full-grown wrongs, the +chief is the revolt of human nature, since, fallen though we know +ourselves to be, the image of God is not yet effaced in us. The better +instincts of humanity are irrepressible--most so perhaps among the poor. +It is by refusing to trust its intuitions that men grow vile; and to the +very last that refusal is never absolute, so that no villainy can reckon +upon its agents, and its agents cannot always reckon upon themselves. +Above all, the heart of every woman is in a plot against the wrong; and +as Pharaoh was afterwards defeated by the ingenuity of a mother and the +sympathy of his own daughter, so his first scheme was spoiled by the +disobedience of the midwives, themselves Hebrews, upon whom he reckoned. + +Let us not fear to avow that these women, whom God rewarded, lied to the +king when he reproached them, since their answer, even if it were not +unfounded, was palpably a misrepresentation of the facts. The reward was +not for their falsehood, but for their humanity. They lived when the +notion of martyrdom for an avowal so easy to evade was utterly unknown. +Abraham lied to Abimelech. Both Samuel and David equivocated with Saul. +We have learned better things from the King of truth, Who was born and +came into the world to bear witness to the truth. We know that the +martyr's bold protest against unrighteousness is the highest vocation of +the Church, and is rewarded in the better country. But they knew nothing +of this, and their service was acceptable according as they had, not +according as they had not. As well might we blame the patriarchs for +having been slave-owners, and David for having invoked mischief upon his +enemies, as these women for having fallen short of the Christian ideal +of veracity. Let us beware lest we come short of it ourselves. And let +us remember that the way of the Church through time is the path of the +just, beset with mist and vapour at the dawn, but shining more and more +unto the perfect day. + +In the meantime, God acknowledges, and Holy Scripture celebrates, the +service of these obscure and lowly heroines. Nothing done for Him goes +unrewarded. To slaves it was written that "From the Lord ye shall +receive the reward of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ" (Col. +iii. 24). And what these women saved for others was what was recompensed +to themselves, domestic happiness, family life and its joys. God made +them houses. + +The king is now driven to avow himself in a public command to drown all +the male infants of the Hebrews; and the people become his accomplices +by obeying him. For this they were yet to experience a terrible +retribution, when there was not a house in Egypt that had not one dead. + +The features of the king to whom these atrocities are pretty certainly +brought home are still to be seen in the museum at Boulak. Seti I. is +the most beautiful of all the Egyptian monarchs whose faces lie bare to +the eyes of modern sightseers; and his refined features, intelligent, +high-bred and cheerful, resemble wonderfully, yet surpass, those of +Rameses II., his successor, from whom Moses fled. This is the builder of +the vast and exquisite temple of Amon at Thebes, the grandeur of which +is amazing even in its ruins; and his culture and artistic gifts are +visible, after all these centuries, upon his face. It is a strange +comment upon the modern doctrine that culture is to become a sufficient +substitute for religion. And his own record of his exploits is enough to +show that the sense of beauty is not that of pity: he is the jackal +leaping through the land of his enemies, the grim lion, the powerful +bull with sharpened horns, who has annihilated the peoples. + +There is no greater mistake than to suppose that artistic refinement can +either inspire morality or replace it. Have we quite forgotten Nero, and +Lucretia Borgia, and Catherine de Medici? + +Many civilisations have thought little of infant life. Ancient Rome +would have regarded this atrocity as lightly as modern China, as we may +see by the absolute silence of its literature concerning the murder of +the innocents--an event strangely parallel with this in its nature and +political motives, and in the escape of one mighty Infant. + +Is it conceivable that the same indifference should return, if the +sanctions of religion lose their power? Every one remembers the +callousness of Rousseau. Strange things are being written by pessimistic +unbelief about the bringing of more sufferers into the world. And a +living writer in France has advocated the legalising of infanticide, and +denounced St. Vincent de Paul because, "thanks to his odious +precautions, this man deferred for years the death of creatures without +intelligence," etc.[2] + +It is to the faith of Jesus, not only revealing by the light of eternity +the value of every soul, but also replenishing the fountains of human +tenderness that had well-nigh become exhausted, that we owe our modern +love of children. In the very helplessness which the ancient masters of +the world exposed to destruction without a pang, we see the type of what +we must ourselves become, if we would enter heaven. But we cannot afford +to forget either the source or the sanctions of the lesson. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Professor Curtiss quotes a volume of family memoirs which shows that +5,564 persons are known to be descended from Lieutenant John Hollister, +who emigrated to America in the year 1642 (_Expositor_, Nov. 1887, p. +329). This is probably equal in ratio to the increase of Israel in +Egypt. + +[2] J. K. Huysmans--quoted in _Nineteenth Century_, May 1888, p. 673. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +_THE RESCUE OF MOSES._ + +ii. 1-10. + +We have said that the Old Testament history teems with political wisdom, +lessons of permanent instruction for mankind, on the level of this life, +yet godly, as all true lessons must be, in a world of which Christ is +King. These our religion must learn to recognise and proclaim, if it is +ever to win the respect of men of affairs, and "leaven the whole lump" +of human life with sacred influence. + +Such a lesson is the importance of the individual in the history of +nations. History, as read in Scripture, is indeed a long relation of +heroic resistance or of base compliance in the presence of influences +which are at work to debase modern peoples as well as those of old. The +holiness of Samuel, the gallant faith of David, the splendour and wisdom +of Solomon, the fervid zeal of Elijah, the self-respecting righteousness +of Nehemiah,--ignore these, and the whole course of affairs becomes +vague and unintelligible. Most of all this is true of Moses, whose +appearance is now related. + +In profane history it is the same. Alexander, Mahomet, Luther, William +the Silent, Napoleon,--will any one pretend that Europe uninfluenced by +these personalities would have become the Europe that we know? + +And this truth is not at all a speculative, unpractical theory: it is +vital. For now there is a fashion of speaking about the tendency of the +age, the time-spirit, as an irresistible force which moulds men like +potters' clay, crowning those who discern and help it, but grinding to +powder all who resist its course. In reality there are always a hundred +time-spirits and tendencies competing for the mastery--some of them +violent, selfish, atheistic, or luxurious (as we see with our own eyes +to-day)--and the shrewdest judges are continually at fault as to which +of them is to be victorious, and recognised hereafter as the spirit of +the age. + +This modern pretence that men are nothing, and streams of tendency are +all, is plainly a gospel of capitulations, of falsehood to one's private +convictions, and of servile obedience to the majority and the popular +cry. For, if individual men are nothing, what am I? If we are all +bubbles floating down a stream, it is folly to strive to breast the +current. Much practical baseness and servility is due to this base and +servile creed. And the cure for it is belief in another spirit than that +of the present age, trust in an inspiring God, who rescued a herd of +slaves and their fading convictions from the greatest nation upon earth +by matching one man, shrinking and reluctant yet obedient to his +mission, against Pharaoh and all the tendencies of the age. + +And it is always so. God turns the scale of events by the vast weight of +a man, faithful and true, and sufficiently aware of Him to refuse, to +universal clamour, the surrender of his liberty or his religion. In +small matters, as in great, there is no man, faithful to a lonely duty +or conviction, understanding that to have discerned it is a gift and a +vocation, but makes the world better and stronger, and works out part +of the answer to that great prayer "Thy will be done." + +We have seen already that the religion of the Hebrews in Egypt was +corrupted and in danger of being lost. To this process, however, there +must have been bright exceptions; and the mother of Moses bore witness, +by her very name, to her fathers' God. The first syllable of Jochebed is +proof that the name of God, which became the keynote of the new +revelation, was not entirely new. + +As yet the parents of Moses are not named; nor is there any allusion to +the close relationship which would have forbidden their union at a later +period (chap. vi. 20). And throughout all the story of his youth and +early manhood there is no mention whatever of God or of religion. +Elsewhere it is not so. The Epistle to the Hebrews declares that through +faith the babe was hidden, and through faith the man refused Egyptian +rank. Stephen tells us that he expected his brethren to know that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance. But the narrative in Exodus is +wholly untheological. If Moses were the author, we can see why he +avoided reflections which directly tended to glorify himself. But if the +story were a subsequent invention, why is the tone so cold, the light so +colourless? + +Now, it is well that we are invited to look at all these things from +their human side, observing the play of human affection, innocent +subtlety, and pity. God commonly works through the heart and brain which +He has given us, and we do not glorify Him at all by ignoring these. If +in this case there were visible a desire to suppress the human agents, +in favour of the Divine Preserver, we might suppose that a different +historian would have given a less wonderful account of the plagues, the +crossing of the Sea, and the revelation from Sinai. But since full +weight is allowed to second causes in the early life of Moses, the story +is entitled to the greater credit when it tells of the burning bush and +the flaming mountain. + +Let us, however, put together the various narratives and their lessons. +At the outset we read of a marriage celebrated between kinsfolk, when +the storm of persecution was rising. And hence we infer that courage or +strong affection made the parents worthy of him through whom God should +show mercy unto thousands. The first child was a girl, and therefore +safe; but we may suppose, although silence in Scripture proves little, +that Aaron, three years before the birth of Moses, had not come into +equal peril with him. Moses was therefore born just when the last +atrocity was devised, when trouble was at its height. + +"At this time Moses was born," said Stephen. Edifying inferences have +been drawn from the statement in Exodus that "the woman ... hid him." +Perhaps the stronger man quailed, but the maternal instinct was not at +fault, and it was rewarded abundantly. From which we only learn, in +reality, not to overstrain the words of Scripture; since the Epistle to +the Hebrews distinctly says that he "was hid three months by his +parents"--both of them, while naturally the mother is the active agent. + +All the accounts agree that he was thus hidden, "because they saw that +he was a goodly child" (Heb. xi. 23). It is a pathetic phrase. We see +them, before the crisis, vaguely submitting in theory to an unrealised +atrocity, ignorant how imperiously their nature would forbid the crime, +not planning disobedience in advance, nor led to it by any reasoning +process. All is changed when the little one gazes at them with that +marvellous appeal in its unconscious eyes, which is known to every +parent, and helps him to be a better man. There is a great difference +between one's thought about an infant, and one's feeling towards the +actual baby. He was their child, their beautiful child; and this it was +that turned the scale. For him they would now dare anything, "because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's +commandment." Now, impulse is often a great power for evil, as when +appetite or fear, suddenly taking visible shape, overwhelms the judgment +and plunges men into guilt. But good impulses may be the very voice of +God, stirring whatever is noble and generous within us. Nor are they +accidental: loving and brave emotions belong to warm and courageous +hearts; they come of themselves, like song birds, but they come surely +where sunshine and still groves invite them, not into clamour and foul +air. Thus arose in their bosoms the sublime thought of God as an active +power to be reckoned upon. For as certainly as every bad passion that we +harbour preaches atheism, so does all goodness tend to sustain itself by +the consciousness of a supreme Goodness in reserve. God had sent them +their beautiful child, and who was Pharaoh to forbid the gift? And so +religion and natural pity joined hands, their supreme convictions and +their yearning for their infant. "By faith Moses was hid ... because +they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's +commandment." + +Such, if we desire a real and actual salvation, is always the faith +which saves. Postpone salvation to an indefinite future; make it no more +than the escape from vaguely realised penalties for sins which do not +seem very hateful; and you may suppose that faith in theories can obtain +this indulgence; an opinion may weigh against a misgiving. But feel that +sin is not only likely to entail damnation, but is really and in itself +damnable meanwhile, and then there will be no deliverance possible, but +from the hand of a divine Friend, strong to sustain and willing to guide +the life. We read that Amram lived a hundred and thirty and seven years, +and of all that period we only know that he helped to save the deliverer +of his race, by practical faith which made him not afraid, and did not +paralyse but stimulate his energies. + +When the mother could no longer hide the child, she devised the plan +which has made her for ever famous. She placed him in a covered ark, or +casket,[3] plaited (after what we know to have been the Egyptian +fashion) of the papyrus reed, and rendered watertight with bitumen, and +this she laid among the rushes--a lower vegetation, which would not, +like the tall papyrus, hide her treasure--in the well-known and secluded +place where the daughter of Pharaoh used to bathe. Something in the +known character of the princess may have inspired this ingenious device +to move her pity; but it is more likely that the woman's heart, in her +extremity, prompted a simple appeal to the woman who could help her if +she would. For an Egyptian princess was an important personage, with an +establishment of her own, and often possessed of much political +influence. The most sanguinary agent of a tyrant would be likely to +respect the client of such a patron. + +The heart of every woman was in a plot against the cruelty of Pharaoh. +Once already the midwives had defeated him; and now, when his own +daughter[4] unexpectedly found, in the water at her very feet, a +beautiful child sobbing silently (for she knew not what was there until +the ark was opened), her indignation is audible enough in the words, +"This is one of the Hebrews' children." She means to say "This is only +one specimen of the outrages that are going on." + +This was the chance for his sister, who had been set in ambush, not +prepared with the exquisite device which follows, but simply "to know +what would be done to him." Clearly the mother had reckoned upon his +being found, and neglected nothing, although unable herself to endure +the agony of watching, or less easily hidden in that guarded spot. And +her prudence had a rich reward. Hitherto Miriam's duty had been to +remain passive--that hard task so often imposed upon the affection, +especially of women, by sick-beds, and also in many a more stirring +hazard, and many a spiritual crisis, where none can fight his brother's +battle. It is a trying time, when love can only hold its breath, and +pray. But let not love suppose that to watch is to do nothing. Often +there comes a moment when its word, made wise by the teaching of the +heart, is the all-important consideration in deciding mighty issues. + +This girl sees the princess at once pitiful and embarrassed, for how can +she dispose of her strange charge? Let the moment pass, and the movement +of her heart subside, and all may be lost; but Miriam is prompt and +bold, and asks "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, +that she may nurse the child for thee?" It is a daring stroke, for the +princess must have understood the position thoroughly, the moment the +eager Hebrew girl stepped forward. The disguise was very thin. And at +least the heart which pitied the infant must have known the mother when +she saw her face, pale with longing. It is therefore only as a form, +exacted by circumstances, but well enough though tacitly understood upon +both sides, that she bids her nurse the child for her, and promises +wages. What reward could equal that of clasping her child to her own +agitated bosom in safety, while the destroyers were around? + +This incident teaches us that good is never to be despaired of, since +this kindly woman grew up in the family of the persecutor. + +And the promptitude and success of Miriam suggest a reflection. Men do +pity, when it is brought home to them, the privation, suffering, and +wrong, which lie around. Magnificent sums are contributed yearly for +their relief by the generous instincts of the world. The misfortune is +that sentiment is evoked only by visible and pathetic griefs, and that +it will not labour as readily as it will subscribe. It is a harder task +to investigate, to devise appeals, to invent and work the machinery by +which misery may be relieved. Mere compassion will accomplish little, +unless painstaking affection supplement it. Who supplies that? Who +enables common humanity to relieve itself by simply paying "wages," and +confiding the wretched to a painstaking, laborious, loving guardian? The +streets would never have known Hospital Saturday, but for Hospital +Sunday in the churches. The orphanage is wholly a Christian institution. +And so is the lady nurse. The old-fashioned phrase has almost sunk into +a party cry, but in a large and noble sense it will continue to be true +to nature as long as bereavement, pain or penitence requires a tender +bosom and soothing touch, which speaks of Mother Church. + +Thus did God fulfil His mysterious plans. And according to a sad but +noble law, which operates widely, what was best in Egypt worked with Him +for the punishment of its own evil race. The daughter of Pharaoh adopted +the perilous foundling, and educated him in the wisdom of Egypt. + + +_THE CHOICE OF MOSES._ + +ii. 11-15. + +God works even His miracles by means. As He fed the multitude with +barley-loaves, so He would emancipate Israel by human agency. It was +therefore necessary to educate one of the trampled race "in all the +learning of Egypt," and Moses was planted in the court of Pharaoh, like +the German Arminius in Rome. Wonderful legends may be read in Josephus +of his heroism, his wisdom, and his victories; and these have some +foundation in reality, for Stephen tells us that he was mighty in his +words and works. Might in words need not mean the fluent utterance which +he so earnestly disclaimed (iv. 10), even if forty years' disuse of the +language were not enough to explain his later diffidence. It may have +meant such power of composition as appears in the hymn by the Red Sea, +and in the magnificent valediction to his people. + +The point is that among a nation originally pastoral, and now sinking +fast into the degraded animalism of slaves, which afterwards betrayed +itself in their complaining greed, their sighs for the generous Egyptian +dietary, and their impure carouse under the mountain, one man should +possess the culture and mental grasp needed by a leader and lawgiver. +"Could not the grace of God have supplied the place of endowment and +attainment?" Yes, truly; and it was quite as likely to do this for one +who came down from His immediate presence with his face intolerably +bright, as for the last impudent enthusiast who declaims against the +need of education in sentences which at least prove that for him the +want has by no substitute been completely met. But the grace of God +chose to give the qualification, rather than replace it, alike to Moses +and St. Paul. Nor is there any conspicuous example among the saints of a +man being thrust into a rank for which he was not previously made fit. + +The painful contrast between his own refined tastes and habits, and the +coarser manners of his nation, was no doubt one difficulty of the choice +of Moses, and a lifelong trial to him afterwards. He is an example not +only to those whom wealth and power would entangle, but to any who are +too fastidious and sensitive for the humble company of the people of +God. + +While the intellect of Moses was developing, it is plain that his +connection with his family was not entirely broken. Such a tie as often +binds a foster-child to its nurse may have been permitted to associate +him with his real parents. Some means were evidently found to instruct +him in the history and messianic hopes of Israel, for he knew that their +reproach was that of "the Christ," greater riches than all the treasure +of Egypt, and fraught with a reward for which he looked in faith (Heb. +xi. 26). But what is meant by naming as part of his burden their +"reproach," as distinguished from their sufferings? + +We shall understand, if we reflect, that his open rupture with Egypt was +unlikely to be the work of a moment. Like all the best workers, he was +led forward gradually, at first unconscious of his vocation. Many a +protest he must have made against the cruel and unjust policy that +steeped the land in innocent blood. Many a jealous councillor must have +known how to weaken his dangerous influence by some cautious taunt, some +insinuated "reproach" of his own Hebrew origin. The warnings put by +Josephus into the lips of the priests in his childhood, were likely +enough to have been spoken by some one before he was forty years old. At +last, when driven to make his choice, he "refused to be called the son +of Pharaoh's daughter," a phrase, especially in its reference to the +rejected title as distinguished from "the pleasures of sin," which seems +to imply a more formal rupture than Exodus records. + +We saw that the piety of his parents was not unhelped by their emotions: +they hid him by faith when they saw that he was a goodly child. Such was +also the faith by which Moses broke with rank and fortune. He went out +unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian +smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. Twice the word of kinship is +repeated; and Stephen tells us that Moses himself used it in rebuking +the dissensions of his fellow-countrymen. Filled with yearning and pity +for his trampled brethren, and with the shame of generous natures who +are at ease while others suffer, he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew. +With that blended caution and vehemence which belong to his nation +still, he looked and saw that there was no man, and slew the Egyptian. +Like most acts of passion, this was at once an impulse of the moment, +and an outcome of long gathering forces--just as the lightning flash, +sudden though it seem, has been prepared by the accumulated electricity +of weeks. + +And this is the reason why God allows the issues of a lifetime, perhaps +of an eternity, to be decided by a sudden word, a hasty blow. Men plead +that if time had been given, they would have stifled the impulse which +ruined them. But what gave the impulse such violent and dreadful force +that it overwhelmed them before they could reflect? The explosion in the +coal-mine is not caused by the sudden spark, without the accumulation of +dangerous gases, and the absence of such wholesome ventilation as would +carry them away. It is so in the breast where evil desires or tempers +are harboured, unsubdued by grace, until any accident puts them beyond +control. Thank God that such sudden movements do not belong to evil +only! A high soul is surprised into heroism, as often perhaps as a mean +one into theft or falsehood. In the case of Moses there was nothing +unworthy, but much that was unwarranted and presumptuous. The decision +it involved was on the right side, but the act was self-willed and +unwarranted, and it carried heavy penalties. "The trespass originated +not in inveterate cruelty," says St. Augustine, "but in a hasty zeal +which admitted of correction ... resentment against injury was +accompanied by love for a brother.... Here was evil to be rooted out, +but the heart with such capabilities, like good soil, needed only +cultivation to make it fruitful in virtue." + +Stephen tells us, what is very natural, that Moses expected the people +to accept him as their heaven-born deliverer. From which it appears that +he cherished high expectations for himself, from Israel if not from +Egypt. When he interfered next day between two Hebrews, his question as +given in Exodus is somewhat magisterial: "Wherefore smitest thou thy +fellow?" In Stephen's version it dictates less, but it lectures a good +deal: "Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?" And it +was natural enough that they should dispute his pretensions, for God had +not yet given him the rank he claimed. He still needed a discipline +almost as sharp as that of Joseph, who, by talking too boastfully of his +dreams, postponed their fulfilment until he was chastened by slavery and +a dungeon. Even Saul of Tarsus, when converted, needed three years of +close seclusion for the transformation of his fiery ardour into divine +zeal, as iron to be tempered must be chilled as well as heated. The +precipitate and violent zeal of Moses entailed upon him forty years of +exile. + +And yet his was a noble patriotism. There is a false love of country, +born of pride, which blinds one to her faults; and there is a loftier +passion which will brave estrangement and denunciation to correct them. +Such was the patriotism of Moses, and of all whom God has ever truly +called to lead their fellows. Nevertheless he had to suffer for his +error. + +His first act had been a kind of manifesto, a claim to lead, which he +supposed that they would have understood; and yet, when he found his +deed was known, he feared and fled. His false step told against him. One +cannot but infer also that he was conscious of having already forfeited +court favour--that he had before this not only made his choice, but +announced it, and knew that the blow was ready to fall on him at any +provocation. We read that he dwelt in the land of Midian, a name which +was applied to various tracts according to the nomadic wanderings of the +tribe, but which plainly included, at this time, some part of the +peninsula formed by the tongues of the Red Sea. For, as he fed his +flocks, he came to the Mount of God. + + +_MOSES IN MIDIAN._ + +ii. 16-22 + +The interference of Moses on behalf of the daughters of the priest of +Midian is a pleasant trait, courteous, and expressive of a refined +nature. With this remark, and reflecting that, like many courtesies, it +brought its reward, we are often content to pass it by. And yet it +deserves a closer examination. + +1. For it expresses great energy of character. He might well have been +in a state of collapse. He had smitten the Egyptian for Israel's sake: +he had appealed to his own people to make common cause, like brethren, +against the common foe; and he had offered himself to them as their +destined leader in the struggle. But they had refused him the command, +and he was rudely awakened to the consciousness that his life was in +danger through the garrulous ingratitude of the man he rescued. Now he +was a ruined man and an exile, marked for destruction by the greatest of +earthly monarchs, with the habits and tastes of a great noble, but +homeless among wild races. + +It was no common nature which was alert and energetic at such a time. +The greatest men have known a period of prostration in calamity: it was +enough for honour that they should rally and re-collect their forces. +Thinking of Frederick, after Kunersdorf, resigning the command ("I have +no resources more, and will not survive the destruction of my country"), +and of his subsequent despatch, "I am now recovered from my illness"; +and of Napoleon, trembling and weeping on the road to Elba, one turns +with fresh admiration to the fallen prince, the baffled liberator, +sitting exhausted by the well, but as keen on behalf of liberty as when +Pharaoh trampled Israel, though now the oppressors are a group of rude +herdsmen, and the oppressed are Midianite women, driven from the troughs +which they have toiled to fill. One remembers Another, sitting also +exhausted by the well, defying social usage on behalf of a despised +woman, and thereby inspired and invigorated as with meat to eat which +His followers knew not of. + +2. Moreover there is disinterested bravery in the act, since he hazards +the opposition of the men of the land, among whom he seeks refuge, on +behalf of a group from which he can have expected nothing. And here it +is worth while to notice the characteristic variations in three stories +which have certain points of contact. The servant of Abraham, +servant-like, was well content that Rebekah should draw for all his +camels, while he stood still. The prudent Jacob, anxious to introduce +himself to his cousin, rolled away the stone and watered her camels. +Moses sat by the well, but did not interfere while the troughs were +being filled: it was only the overt wrong which kindled him. But as in +great things, so it is in small: our actions never stand alone; having +once befriended them, he will do it thoroughly, "and moreover he drew +water for us, and watered the flock." Such details could hardly have +been thought out by a fabricator; a legend would not have allowed Moses +to be slower in courtesy than Jacob;[5] but the story fits the case +exactly: his eyes were with his heart, and that was far away, until the +injustice of the shepherds roused him. + +And why was Moses thus energetic, fearless, and chivalrous? Because he +was sustained by the presence of the Unseen: he endured as seeing Him +who is invisible; and having, despite of panic, by faith forsaken Egypt, +he was free from the absorbing anxieties which prevent men from caring +for their fellows, free also from the cynical misgivings which suspect +that violence is more than justice, that to be righteous over-much is to +destroy oneself, and that perhaps, after all, one may see a good deal of +wrong without being called upon to interfere. It would be a different +world to-day, if all who claim to be "the salt of the earth" were as +eager to repress injustice in its smaller and meaner forms as to make +money or influential friends. If all petty and cowardly oppression were +sternly trodden down, we should soon have a state of public opinion in +which gross and large tyranny would be almost impossible. And it is very +doubtful whether the flagrant wrongs, which must be comparatively rare, +cause as much real mental suffering as the frequent small ones. Does +mankind suffer more from wild beasts than from insects? But how few that +aspire to emancipate oppressed nations would be content, in the hour of +their overthrow, to assert the rights of a handful of women against a +trifling fraud, to which indeed they were so well accustomed that its +omission surprised their father! + +Is it only because we are reading a history, and not a biography, that +we find no touch of tenderness, like the love of Jacob for Rachel, in +the domestic relations of Moses? + +Joseph also married in a strange land, yet he called the name of his +first son Manasseh, because God had made him to forget his sorrows: but +Moses remembered his. Neither wife nor child could charm away his home +sickness; he called his firstborn Gershom, because he was a sojourner in +a strange land. In truth, his whole life seems to have been a lonely +one. Miriam is called "the sister of Aaron" even when joining in the +song of Moses (xv. 20), and with Aaron she made common cause against +their greater brother (Num. xii. 1-2). Zipporah endangered his life +rather than obey the covenant of circumcision; she complied at last with +a taunt (iv. 24-6), and did not again join him until his victory over +Amalek raised his position to the utmost height (xviii. 2). + +His children are of no account, and his grandson is the founder of a +dangerous and enduring schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +There is much reason to see here the earliest example of the sad rule +that a prophet is not without honour save in his own house; that the law +of compensations reaches farther into life than men suppose; and high +position and great powers are too often counterbalanced by the isolation +of the heart. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] The same word is used for Noah's ark, but not elsewhere; not, for +example, of the ark in the Temple, the name of which occurs elsewhere in +Scripture only of the "coffin" of Joseph, and the "chest" for the Temple +revenues (Gen. 1. 26; 2 Chron. xxiv. 8, 10, 11.) + +[4] Or his sister, the daughter of a former Pharaoh. + +[5] Nor would it have made the women call their deliverer "an Egyptian," +for the Hebrew cast of features is very dissimilar. But Moses wore +Egyptian dress, and the Egyptians worked mines in the peninsula, so that +he was naturally taken for one of them. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +_THE BURNING BUSH._ + +ii. 23-iii. + +"In process of time the king of Egypt died," probably the great Raamses, +no other of whose dynasty had a reign which extended over the indicated +period of time. If so, he had while living every reason to expect an +immortal fame, as the greatest among Egyptian kings, a hero, a conqueror +on three continents, a builder of magnificent works. But he has only won +an immortal notoriety. "Every stone in his buildings was cemented in +human blood." The cause he persecuted has made deathless the banished +refugee, and has gibbeted the great monarch as a tyrant, whose +misplanned severities wrought the ruin of his successor and his army. +Such are the reversals of popular judgment: and such the vanity of fame. +For all the contemporary fame was his. + +"The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they +cried." Another monarch had come at last, a change after sixty-seven +years, and yet no change for them! It filled up the measure of their +patience, and also of the iniquity of Egypt. We are not told that their +cry was addressed to the Lord; what we read is that it reached Him, Who +still overhears and pities many a sob, many a lament, which ought to +have been addressed to Him, and is not. Indeed, if His compassion were +not to reach men until they had remembered and prayed to Him, who among +us would ever have learned to pray to Him at all? Moreover He remembered +His covenant with their forefathers, for the fulfilment of which the +time had now arrived. "And God saw the children of Israel, and God took +knowledge of them." + +These were not the cries of religious individuals, but of oppressed +masses. It is therefore a solemn question to ask How many such appeals +ascend from Christian England? Behold, the hire of labourers ... held +back by fraud crieth out. The half-paid slaves of our haste to be rich, +and the victims of our drinking institutions, and of hideous vices which +entangle and destroy the innocent and unconscious, what cries to heaven +are theirs! As surely as those which St. James records, these have +entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Of these sufferers every +one is His own by purchase, most of them by a covenant and sacrament +more solemn than bound Him to His ancient Israel. Surely He hears their +groaning. And all whose hearts are touched with compassion, yet who +hesitate whether to bestir themselves or to remain inert while evil is +masterful and cruel, should remember the anger of God when Moses said, +"Send, I pray Thee, by whom Thou wilt send." The Lord is not +indifferent. Much less than other sufferers should those who know God be +terrified by their afflictions. Cyprian encouraged the Church of his +time to endure even unto martyrdom, by the words recorded of ancient +Israel, that the more they afflicted them, so much the more they became +greater and waxed stronger. And he was right. For all these things +happened to them for ensamples, and were written for our admonition. + +It is further to be observed that the people were quite unconscious, +until Moses announced it afterwards, that they were heard by God. Yet +their deliverer had now been prepared by a long process for his work. We +are not to despair because relief does not immediately appear: though He +tarry, we are to wait for Him. + +While this anguish was being endured in Egypt, Moses was maturing for +his destiny. Self-reliance, pride of place, hot and impulsive +aggressiveness, were dying in his bosom. To the education of the +courtier and scholar was now added that of the shepherd in the wilds, +amid the most solemn and awful scenes of nature, in solitude, +humiliation, disappointment, and, as we learn from the Epistle to the +Hebrews, in enduring faith. Wordsworth has a remarkable description of +the effect of a similar discipline upon the good Lord Clifford. He +tells-- + + "How he, long forced in humble paths to go, + Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed. + + "Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, + His daily teachers had been woods and rills, + The silence that is in the starry sky, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + + "In him the savage virtues of the race, + Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead; + Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place + The wisdom which adversity had bred." + +There was also the education of advancing age, which teaches many +lessons, and among them two which are essential to leadership,--the +folly of a hasty blow, and of impulsive reliance upon the support of +mobs. Moses the man-slayer became exceeding meek; and he ceased to rely +upon the perception of his people that God by him would deliver them. +His distrust, indeed, became as excessive as his temerity had been, but +it was an error upon the safer side. "Behold, they will not believe me," +he says, "nor hearken unto my voice." + +It is an important truth that in very few lives the decisive moment +comes just when it is expected. Men allow themselves to be +self-indulgent, extravagant and even wicked, often upon the calculation +that their present attitude matters little, and they will do very +differently when the crisis arrives, the turning-point in their career +to nerve them. And they waken up with a start to find their career +already decided, their character moulded. As a snare shall the day of +the Lord come upon all flesh; and as a snare come all His great +visitations meanwhile. When Herod was drinking among bad companions, +admiring a shameless dancer, and boasting loudly of his generosity, he +was sobered and saddened to discover that he had laughed away the life +of his only honest adviser. Moses, like David, was "following the ewes +great with young," when summoned by God to rule His people Israel. +Neither did the call arrive when he was plunged in moody reverie and +abstraction, sighing over his lost fortunes and his defeated +aspirations, rebelling against his lowly duties. The humblest labour is +a preparation for the brightest revelations, whereas discontent, however +lofty, is a preparation for nothing. Thus, too, the birth of Jesus was +first announced to shepherds keeping watch over their flock. Yet +hundreds of third-rate young persons in every city in this land to-day +neglect their work, and unfit themselves for any insight, or any +leadership whatever, by chafing against the obscurity of their +vocation. + +Who does not perceive that the career of Moses hitherto was divinely +directed? The fact that we feel this, although, until now, God has not +once been mentioned in his personal story, is surely a fine lesson for +those who have only one notion of what edifies--the dragging of the most +sacred names and phrases into even the most unsuitable connections. In +truth, such a phraseology is much less attractive than a certain tone, a +recognition of the unseen, which may at times be more consistent with +reverential silence than with obtrusive utterance. It is enough to be +ready and fearless when the fitting time comes, which is sure to arrive, +for the religious heart as for this narrative--the time for the natural +utterance of the great word, God. + +We read that the angel of the Lord appeared to him--a remarkable phrase, +which was already used in connection with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. +xxii. 11). How much it implies will better be discussed in the +twenty-third chapter, where a fuller statement is made. For the present +it is enough to note, that this is one pre-eminent angel, indicated by +the definite article; that he is clearly the medium of a true divine +appearance, because neither the voice nor form of any lesser being is +supposed to be employed, the appearance being that of fire, and the +words being said to be the direct utterance of the Lord, not of any one +who says, Thus saith the Lord. We shall see hereafter that the story of +the Exodus is unique in this respect, that in training a people tainted +with Egyptian superstitions, no 'similitude' is seen, as when there +wrestled a man with Jacob, or when Ezekiel saw a human form upon the +sapphire pavement. + +Man is the true image of God, and His perfect revelation was in flesh. +But now that expression of Himself was perilous, and perhaps unsuitable +besides; for He was to be known as the Avenger, and presently as the +Giver of Law, with its inflexible conditions and its menaces. Therefore +He appeared as fire, which is intense and terrible, even when "the flame +of the grace of God does not consume, but illuminates." + +There is a notion that religion is languid, repressive, and unmanly. But +such is not the scriptural idea. In His presence is the fulness of joy. +Christ has come that we might have life, and might have it more +abundantly. They who are shut out from His blessedness are said to be +asleep and dead. And so Origen quotes this passage among others, with +the comment that "As God is a fire, and His angels a flame of fire, and +all the saints fervent in spirit, so they who have fallen away from God +are said to have cooled, or to have become cold" (_De Princip._, ii. 8). +A revelation by fire involves intensity. + +There is indeed another explanation of the burning bush, which makes the +flame express only the afflictions that did not consume the people. But +this would be a strange adjunct to a divine appearance for their +deliverance, speaking rather of the continuance of suffering than of its +termination, for which the extinction of such fire would be a more +appropriate symbol. + +Yet there is an element of truth even in this view, since fire is +connected with affliction. In His holiness God is light (with which, in +the Hebrew, the very word for holiness seems to be connected); in His +judgments He is fire. "The Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his +Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his +briers in one day" (Isa. x. 17). But God reveals Himself in this thorn +bush as a fire which does not consume; and such a revelation tells at +once Who has brought the people into affliction, and also that they are +not abandoned to it. + +To Moses at first there was visible only an extraordinary phenomenon; He +turned to see a great sight. It is therefore out of the question to find +here the truth, so easy to discover elsewhere, that God rewards the +religious inquirer--that they who seek after Him shall find Him. Rather +we learn the folly of deeming that the intellect and its inquiries are +at war with religion and its mysteries, that revelation is at strife +with mental insight, that he who most stupidly refuses to "see the great +sights" of nature is best entitled to interpret the voice of God. When +the man of science gives ear to voices not of earth, and the man of God +has eyes and interest for the divine wonders which surround us, many a +discord will be harmonised. With the revival of classical learning came +the Reformation. + +But it often happens that the curiosity of the intellect is in danger of +becoming irreverent, and obtrusive into mysteries not of the brain, and +thus the voice of God must speak in solemn warning: "Moses, Moses, ... +Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place +whereon thou standest is holy ground." + +After as prolonged a silence as from the time of Malachi to the Baptist, +it is God Who reveals Himself once more--not Moses who by searching +finds Him out. And this is the established rule. Tidings of the +Incarnation came from heaven, or man would not have discovered the +Divine Babe. Jesus asked His two first disciples "What seek ye?" and +told Simon "Thou shalt be called Cephas," and pronounced the listening +Nathaniel "an Israelite indeed," and bade Zaccheus "make haste and come +down," in each case before He was addressed by them. + +The first words of Jehovah teach something more than ceremonial +reverence. If the dust of common earth on the shoe of Moses may not +mingle with that sacred soil, how dare we carry into the presence of our +God mean passions and selfish cravings? Observe, too, that while Jacob, +when he awoke from his vision, said, "How dreadful is this place!" (Gen. +xxviii. 17), God Himself taught Moses to think rather of the holiness +than the dread of His abode. Nevertheless Moses also was afraid to look +upon God, and hid the face which was thereafter to be veiled, for a +nobler reason, when it was itself illumined with the divine glory. +Humility before God is thus the path to the highest honour, and +reverence, to the closest intercourse. + +Meantime the Divine Person has announced Himself: "I am the God of thy +father" (father is apparently singular with a collective force), "the +God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It is a +blessing which every Christian parent should bequeath to his child, to +be strengthened and invigorated by thinking of God as his father's God. + +It was with this memorable announcement that Jesus refuted the Sadducees +and established His doctrine of the resurrection. So, then, the bygone +ages are not forgotten: Moses may be sure that a kindly relation exists +between God and himself, because the kindly relation still exists in all +its vital force which once bound Him to those who long since appeared to +die. It was impossible, therefore, our Lord inferred, that they had +really died at all. The argument is a forerunner of that by which St. +Paul concludes, from the resurrection of Christ, that none who are "in +Christ" have perished. Nay, since our Lord was not disputing about +immortality only, but the resurrection of the body, His argument implied +that a vital relationship with God involved the imperishability of the +whole man, since all was His, and in truth the very seal of the covenant +was imprinted upon the flesh. How much stronger is the assurance for us, +who know that our very bodies are His temple! Now, if any suspicion +should arise that the argument, which is really subtle, is over-refined +and untrustworthy, let it be observed that no sooner was this +announcement made, than God added the proclamation of His own +immutability, so that it cannot be said He was, but from age to age His +title is I AM. The inference from the divine permanence to the living +and permanent vitality of all His relationships is not a verbal quibble, +it is drawn from the very central truth of this great scripture. + +And now for the first time God calls Israel My people, adopting a phrase +already twice employed by earthly rulers (Gen. xxiii. 11, xli. 40), and +thus making Himself their king and the champion of their cause. Often +afterwards it was used in pathetic appeal:--"Thou hast showed Thy people +hard things,"--"Thou sellest Thy people for nought,"--"Behold, look, we +beseech Thee; we are all Thy people" (Ps. lx. 3, xliv. 12; Isa. lxiv. +9). And often it expressed the returning favour of their king: "Hear, O +My people, and I will speak"; "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people" (Ps. l. +7; Isa. xl. 1). + +It is used of the nation at large, all of whom were brought into the +covenant, although with many of them God was not well pleased. And since +it does not belong only to saints, but speaks of a grace which might be +received in vain, it is a strong appeal to all Christian people, all who +are within the New Covenant. Them also the Lord claims and pities, and +would gladly emancipate: their sorrows also He knows. "I have surely +seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard +their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and +I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to +bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land +flowing with milk and honey." Thus the ways of God exceed the desires of +men. Their subsequent complaints are evidence that Egypt had become +their country: gladly would they have shaken off the iron yoke, but a +successful rebellion is a revolution, not an Exodus. Their destined home +was very different: with the widest variety of climate, scenery, and +soil, a land which demanded much more regular husbandry, but rewarded +labour with exuberant fertility. Secluded from heathenism by deserts on +the south and east, by a sublime range of mountains on the north, and by +a sea with few havens on the west, yet planted in the very bosom of all +the ancient civilisation which at the last it was to leaven, it was a +land where a faithful people could have dwelt alone and not been +reckoned among the nations, yet where the scourge for disobedience was +never far away. + +Next after the promise of this good land, the commission of Moses is +announced. He is to act, because God is already active: "_I_ am come +down to deliver them ... come now, therefore, and I will send _thee_ +unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people." And let this +truth encourage all who are truly sent of God, to the end of time, that +He does not send us to deliver man, until He is Himself prepared to do +so, that when our fears ask, like Moses, Who am I, that I should go? He +does not answer, Thou art capable, but Certainly I will go with thee. +So, wherever the ministry of the word is sent, there is a true purpose +of grace. There is also the presence of One who claims the right to +bestow upon us the same encouragement which was given to Moses by +Jehovah, saying, "Lo, I am with you alway." In so saying, Jesus made +Himself equal with God. + +And as this ancient revelation of God was to give rest to a weary and +heavy-laden people, so Christ bound together the assertion of a more +perfect revelation, made in Him, with the promise of a grander +emancipation. No man knoweth the Father save by revelation of the Son is +the doctrine which introduces the great offer "Come unto Me, all ye that +labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. xi. 27, +28). The claims of Christ in the New Testament will never be fully +recognised until a careful study is made of His treatment of the +functions which in the Old Testament are regarded as Divine. A curious +expression follows: "This shall be a token unto thee that I have sent +thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall +serve God upon this mountain." It seems but vague encouragement, to +offer Moses, hesitating at the moment, a token which could take effect +only when his task was wrought. And yet we know how much easier it is to +believe what is thrown into distinct shape and particularised. Our trust +in good intentions is helped when their expression is detailed and +circumstantial, as a candidate for office will reckon all general +assurances of support much cheaper than a pledge to canvass certain +electors within a certain time. Such is the constitution of human +nature; and its Maker has often deigned to sustain its weakness by going +thus into particulars. He does the same for us, condescending to embody +the most profound of all mysteries in sacramental emblems, clothing his +promises of our future blessedness in much detail, and in concrete +figures which at least symbolise, if they do not literally describe, the +glories of the Jerusalem which is above. + + +_A NEW NAME._ + +iii. 14. vi. 2, 3. + + "God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou + say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." + +We cannot certainly tell why Moses asked for a new name by which to +announce to his brethren the appearance of God. He may have felt that +the memory of their fathers, and of the dealings of God with them, had +faded so far out of mind that merely to indicate their ancestral God +would not sufficiently distinguish Him from the idols of Egypt, whose +worship had infected them. + +If so, he was fully answered by a name which made this God the one +reality, in a world where all is a phantasm except what derives +stability from Him. + +He may have desired to know, for himself, whether there was any truth in +the dreamy and fascinating pantheism which inspired so much of the +Egyptian superstition. + +In that case, the answer met his question by declaring that God existed, +not as the sum of things or soul of the universe, but in Himself, the +only independent Being. + +Or he may simply have desired some name to express more of the mystery +of deity, remembering how a change of name had accompanied new +discoveries of human character and achievement, as of Abraham and +Israel; and expecting a new name likewise when God would make to His +people new revelations of Himself. + +So natural an expectation was fulfilled not only then, but afterwards. +When Moses prayed "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory," the answer was "I +will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name +of the Lord." The proclamation was again Jehovah, but not this alone. It +was "The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to +anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth" (xxxiii. 18, 19, xxxiv. 6, +R.V.) Thus the life of Moses, like the agelong progress of the Church, +advanced towards an ever-deepening knowledge that God is not only the +Independent but the Good. All sets toward the final knowledge that His +highest name is Love. + +Meanwhile, in the development of events, the exact period was come for +epithets, which were shared with gods many and lords many, to be +supplemented by the formal announcement and authoritative adoption of +His proper name Jehovah. The infant nation was to learn to think of Him, +not only as endowed with attributes of terror and power, by which +enemies would be crushed, but as possessing a certain well-defined +personality, upon which the trust of man could repose. Soon their +experience would enable them to receive the formal announcement that He +was merciful and gracious. But first they were required to trust His +promise amid all discouragements; and to this end, stability was the +attribute first to be insisted upon. + +It is true that the derivation of the word Jehovah is still a problem +for critical acumen. It has been sought in more than one language, and +various shades of meaning have been assigned to it, some untenable in +the abstract, others hardly, or not at all, to be reconciled with the +Scriptural narrative. + +Nay, the corruption of the very sound is so notorious, that it is only +worth mention as illustrating a phase of superstition. + +We smile at the Jews, removing the correct vowels lest so holy a word +should be irreverently spoken, placing the sanctity in the cadence, +hoping that light and flippant allusions may offend God less, so long as +they spare at least the vowels of His name, and thus preserve some +vestige undesecrated, while profaning at once the conception of His +majesty and the consonants of the mystic word. + +A more abject superstition could scarcely have made void the spirit, +while grovelling before the letter of the commandment. + +But this very superstition is alive in other forms to-day. Whenever one +recoils from the sin of coarse blasphemy, yet allows himself the +enjoyment of a polished literature which profanes holy +conceptions,--whenever men feel bound to behave with external propriety +in the house of God, yet bring thither wandering thoughts, vile +appetites, sensuous imaginations, and all the chamber of imagery which +is within the unregenerate heart,--there is the same despicable +superstition which strove to escape at least the extreme of blasphemy by +prudently veiling the Holy Name before profaning it. + +But our present concern is with the practical message conveyed to Israel +when Moses declared that Jehovah, I AM, the God of their fathers, had +appeared unto him. And if we find in it a message suited for the time, +and which is the basis, not the superstructure, both of later messages +and also of the national character, then we shall not fail to observe +the bearing of such facts upon an urgent controversy of this time. + +Some significance must have been in that Name, not too abstract for a +servile and degenerate race to apprehend. Nor was it soon to pass away +and be replaced; it was His memorial throughout all generations; and +therefore it has a message for us to-day, to admonish and humble, to +invigorate and uphold. + +That God would be the same to them as to their fathers was much. But +that it was of the essence of His character to be evermore the same, +immutable in heart and mind and reality of being, however their conduct +might modify His bearing towards them, this indeed would be a steadying +and reclaiming consciousness. + +Accordingly Moses receives the answer for himself, "I AM THAT I AM"; and +he is bidden to tell his people "_I am_ hath sent me unto you," and yet +again "JEHOVAH the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you." The +spirit and tenor of these three names may be said to be virtually +comprehended in the first; and they all speak of the essential and +self-existent Being, unchanging and unchangeable. + +I AM expresses an intense reality of being. No image in the dark +recesses of Egyptian or Syrian temples, grotesque and motionless, can +win the adoration of him who has had communion with such a veritable +existence, or has heard His authentic message. No dreamful pantheism, on +its knees to the beneficent principle expressed in one deity, to the +destructive in another, or to the reproductive in a third, but all of +them dependent upon nature, as the rainbow upon the cataract which it +spans, can ever again satisfy the soul which is athirst for the living +God, the Lord, Who is not personified, but IS. + +This profound sense of a living Person within reach, to be offended, to +pardon, and to bless, was the one force which kept the Hebrew nation +itself alive, with a vitality unprecedented since the world began. They +could crave His pardon, whatever natural retributions they had brought +down upon themselves, whatever tendencies of nature they had provoked, +because He was not a dead law without ears or a heart, but their +merciful and gracious God. + +Not the most exquisite subtleties of innuendo and irony could make good +for a day the monstrous paradox that the Hebrew religion, the worship of +I AM, was really nothing but the adoration of that stream of tendencies +which makes for righteousness. + +Israel did not challenge Pharaoh through having suddenly discovered that +goodness ultimately prevails over evil, nor is it any cold calculation +of the sort which ever inspires a nation or a man with heroic fortitude. +But they were nerved by the announcement that they had been remembered +by a God Who is neither an ideal nor a fancy, but the Reality of +realities, beside Whom Pharaoh and his host were but as phantoms. + +I AM THAT I AM is the style not only of permanence, but of permanence +self-contained, and being a distinctive title, it denies such +self-contained permanence to others. + +Man is as the past has moulded him, a compound of attainments and +failures, discoveries and disillusions, his eyes dim with forgotten +tears, his hair grey with surmounted anxieties, his brow furrowed with +bygone studies, his conscience troubled with old sin. Modern unbelief +is ignobly frank respecting him. He is the sum of his parents and his +wet-nurse. He is what he eats. If he drinks beer, he thinks beer. And it +is the element of truth in these hideous paradoxes which makes them +rankle, like an unkind construction put upon a questionable action. As +the foam is what wind and tide have made of it, so are we the product of +our circumstances, the resultant of a thousand forces, far indeed from +being self-poised or self-contained, too often false to our best self, +insomuch that probably no man is actually what in the depth of +self-consciousness he feels himself to be, what moreover he should prove +to be, if only the leaden weight of constraining circumstance were +lifted off the spring which it flattens down to earth. Moses himself was +at heart a very different person from the keeper of the sheep of Jethro. +Therefore man says, Pity and make allowance for me: this is not my true +self, but only what by compression, by starvation and stripes and +bribery and error, I have become. Only God says, I AM THAT I AM. + +Yet in another sense, and quite as deep a one, man is not the coarse +tissue which past circumstances have woven: he is the seed of the +future, as truly as the fruit of the past. Strange compound that he is +of memory and hope, while half of the present depends on what is over, +the other half is projected into the future; and like a bridge, +sustained on these two banks, life throws its quivering shadow on each +moment that fleets by. It is not attainment, but degradation to live +upon the level of one's mere attainment, no longer uplifted by any +aspiration, fired by any emulation, goaded by any but carnal fears. If +we have been shaped by circumstances, yet we are saved by hope. Do not +judge me, we are all entitled to plead, by anything that I am doing or +have done: He only can appraise a soul a right Who knows what it yearns +to become, what within itself it hates and prays to be delivered from, +what is the earnestness of its self-loathing, what the passion of its +appeal to heaven. As the bloom of next April is the true comment upon +the dry bulb of September, as you do not value the fountain by the pint +of water in its basin, but by its inexhaustible capabilities of +replenishment, so the present and its joyless facts are not the true +man; his possibilities, the fears and hopes that control his destiny and +shall unfold it, these are his real self. + +I am not merely what I am: I am very truly that which I long to be. And +thus, man may plead, I am what I move towards and strive after, my +aspiration is myself. But God says, I AM WHAT I AM. The stream hurries +forward: the rock abides. And this is the Rock of Ages. + +Now, such a conception is at first sight not far removed from that +apathetic and impassive kind of deity which the practical atheism of +ancient materialists could well afford to grant;--"ever in itself +enjoying immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and +withdrawn from our concerns, since it, exempt from every pain, exempt +from all danger, strong in its own resources and wanting nought from us, +is neither gained by favour nor moved by wrath." + +Thus Lucretius conceived of the absolute Being as by the necessity of +its nature entirely outside our system. + +But Moses was taught to trust in Jehovah as intervening, pitying sorrow +and wrong, coming down to assist His creatures in distress. + +How could this be possible? Clearly the movement towards them must be +wholly disinterested, and wholly from within; unbought, since no +external influence can modify His condition, no puny sacrifice can +propitiate Him Who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the +inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: a movement prompted by no +irregular emotional impulse, but an abiding law of His nature, incapable +of change, the movement of a nature, personal indeed, yet as steady, as +surely to be reckoned upon in like circumstances, as the operations of +gravitation are. + +There is no such motive, working in such magnificent regularity for +good, save one. The ultimate doctrine of the New Testament, that God is +Love, is already involved in this early assertion, that being wholly +independent of us and our concerns, He is yet not indifferent to them, +so that Moses could say unto the children of Israel "I AM hath sent me +unto you." + +It is this unchangeable consistency of Divine action which gives the +narrative its intense interest to us. To Moses, and therefore to all who +receive any commission from the skies, this title said, Frail creature, +sport of circumstances and of tyrants, He who commissions thee sits +above the waterfloods, and their rage can as little modify or change His +purpose, now committed to thy charge, as the spray can quench the stars. +Perplexed creature, whose best self lives only in aspiration and desire, +now thou art an instrument in the hand of Him with Whom desire and +attainment, will and fruition, are eternally the same. None truly fails +in fighting for Jehovah, for who hath resisted His will? + +To Israel, and to all the oppressed whose minds are open to receive the +tidings and their faith strong to embrace it, He said, Your life is +blighted, and your future is in the hand of taskmasters, yet be of good +cheer, for now your deliverance is undertaken by Him Whose being and +purpose are one, Who _is_ in perfection of enjoyment all that He _is_ in +contemplation and in will. The rescue of Israel by an immutable and +perfect God is the earnest of the breaking of every yoke. + +And to the proud and godless world which knows Him not, He says, +Resistance to My will can only show forth all its power, which is not at +the mercy of opinion or interest or change: I sit upon the throne, not +only supreme but independent, not only victorious but unassailable; +self-contained, self-poised and self-sufficing, I AM THAT I AM. + +Have we now escaped the inert and self-absorbed deity of Lucretius, only +to fall into the palsying grasp of the tyrannous deity of Calvin? Does +our own human will shrivel up and become powerless under the compulsion +of that immutability with which we are strangely brought into contact? + +Evidently this is not the teaching of the Book of Exodus. For it is +here, in this revelation of the Supreme, that we first hear of a nation +as being His: "I have seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt +... and I have come down to bring them into a good land." They were all +baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Yet their carcases fell +in the wilderness. And these things were written for our learning. The +immutability, which suffers no shock when we enter _into_ the covenant, +remains unshaken also if we depart from the living God. The sun shines +alike when we raise the curtain and when we drop it, when our chamber is +illumined and when it is dark. The immutability of God is not in His +operations, for sometimes He gave His people into the hand of their +enemies, and again He turned and helped them. It is in His nature, His +mind, in the principles which guide His actions. If He had not chastened +David for his sin, then, by acting as before, He would have been other +at heart than when He rejected Saul for disobedience and chose the son +of Jesse to fulfil all His word. The wind has veered, if it continues to +propel the vessel in the same direction, although helm and sails are +shifted. + +Such is the Pauline doctrine of His immutability. "If we endure we shall +also reign with Him: if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us,"--and +such is the necessity of His being, for we cannot sway Him with our +changes: "if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny +Himself." And therefore it is presently added that "the firm foundation +of the Lord standeth sure, having" not only "this seal, that the Lord +knoweth those that are His,"--but also this, "Let every one that nameth +the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness" (2 Tim. ii. 12, 13, +19, R.V.). + +The Lord knew that Israel was His, yet for their unrighteousness He +sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest. + +It follows from all this that the new name of God was no academic +subtlety, no metaphysical refinement of the schools, unfitly revealed to +slaves, but a most practical and inspiring truth, a conviction to warm +their blood, to rouse their courage, to convert their despair into +confidence and their alarms into defiance. + +They had the support of a God worthy of trust. And thenceforth every +answer in righteousness, every new disclosure of fidelity, tenderness, +love, was not an abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of a +capricious despot; no, its import was permanent as an observation of the +stars by an astronomer, ever more to be remembered in calculating the +movements of the universe. + +In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient +days, as being He who "cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon." "I am the +Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." + +And as the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God +was built up slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation +which insured the the stability of all, until the Head Stone of the +Corner gave completeness to the vast design, until men saw and could +believe in the very Incarnation of all Love, unshaken amid anguish and +distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious, while they heard +from human lips the awful words, "Before Abraham was, I AM." Then they +learned to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new +and more pathetic revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake +grew strong as he remembered that the Man of Sorrows was the same +yesterday and to-day and for ever; and the great apostle, prostrate +before the glory of his Master, was restored by the touch of a human +hand, and by the voice of Him upon Whose bosom he had leaned, saying, +Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One. + +And if men are once more fain to rend from humanity that great +assurance, which for ages, amid all shocks, has made the frail creature +of the dust to grow strong and firm and fearless, partaker of the Divine +Nature, what will they give us in its stead? Or do they think us too +strong of will, too firm of purpose? Looking around us, we see nations +heaving with internal agitations, armed to the teeth against each +other, and all things like a ship at sea reeling to and fro, and +staggering like a drunken man. There is no stability for us in +constitutions or old formulae--none anywhere, if it be not in the soul of +man. Well for us, then, that the anchor of the soul is sure and +steadfast! well that unnumbered millions take courage from their +Saviour's word, that the world's worst anguish is the beginning, not of +dissolution, but of the birth-pangs of a new heaven and earth,--that +when the clouds are blackest because the light of sun and moon is +quenched, then, then we shall behold the Immutable unveiled, the Son of +Man, who is brought nigh unto the Ancient of Days, now sitting in the +clouds of heaven, and coming in the glory of His Father! + + +_THE COMMISSION._ + +iii. 10, 16-22. + +We have already learned from the seventh verse that God commissioned +Moses, only when He had Himself descended to deliver Israel. He sends +none, except with the implied or explicit promise that certainly He will +be with them. But the converse is also true. If God sends no man but +when He comes Himself, He never comes without demanding the agency of +man. The overruled reluctance of Moses, and the inflexible urgency of +his commission, may teach us the honour set by God upon humanity. He has +knit men together in the mutual dependence of nations and of families, +that each may be His minister to all; and in every great crisis of +history He has respected His own principle, and has visited the race by +means of the providential man. The gospel was not preached by angels. +Its first agents found themselves like sheep among wolves: they were an +exhibition to the world and to angels and men, yet necessity was laid +upon them, and a woe if they preached it not. + +All the best gifts of heaven come to us by the agency of inventor and +sage, hero and explorer, organiser and philanthropist, patriot, reformer +and saint. And the hope which inspires their grandest effort is never +that of selfish gain, nor even of fame, though fame is a keen spur, +which perhaps God set before Moses in the noble hope that "thou shalt +bring forth the people" (ver. 12). But the truly impelling force is +always the great deed itself, the haunting thought, the importunate +inspiration, the inward fire; and so God promises Moses neither a +sceptre, nor share in the good land: He simply proposes to him the work, +the rescue of the people; and Moses, for his part, simply objects that +he is unable, not that he is solicitous about his reward. Whatever is +done for payment can be valued by its cost: all the priceless services +done for us by our greatest were, in very deed, unpriced. + +Moses, with the new name of God to reveal, and with the assurance that +He is about to rescue Israel, is bidden to go to work advisedly and +wisely. He is not to appeal to the mob, nor yet to confront Pharaoh +without authority from his people to speak for them, nor is he to make +the great demand for emancipation abruptly and at once. The mistake of +forty years ago must not be repeated now. He is to appeal to the elders +of Israel; and with them, and therefore clearly representing the nation, +he is respectfully to crave permission for a three days' journey, to +sacrifice to Jehovah in the wilderness. The blustering assurance with +which certain fanatics of our own time first assume that they possess a +direct commission from the skies, and thereupon that they are freed +from all order, from all recognition of any human authority, and then +that no considerations of prudence or of decency should restrain the +violence and bad taste which they mistake for zeal, is curiously unlike +anything in the Old Testament or the New. Was ever a commission more +direct than those of Moses and of St. Paul? Yet Moses was to obtain the +recognition of the elders of his people; and St. Paul received formal +ordination by the explicit command of God (Acts xiii. 3). + +Strangely enough, it is often assumed that this demand for a furlough of +three days was insincere. But it would only have been so, if consent +were expected, and if the intention were thereupon to abuse the respite +and refuse to return. There is not the slightest hint of any duplicity +of the kind. The real motives for the demand are very plain. The +excursion which they proposed would have taught the people to move and +act together, reviving their national spirit, and filling them with a +desire for the liberty which they tasted. In the very words which they +should speak, "The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us," +there is a distinct proclamation of nationality, and of its surest and +strongest bulwark, a national religion. From such an excursion, +therefore, the people would have returned, already well-nigh +emancipated, and with recognised leaders. Certainly Pharaoh could not +listen to any such proposal, unless he were prepared to reverse the +whole policy of his dynasty toward Israel. + +But the refusal answered two good ends. In the first place it joined +issue on the best conceivable ground, for Israel was exhibited making +the least possible demand with the greatest possible courtesy--"Let us +go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness." Not even so +much would be granted. The tyrant was palpably in the wrong, and +thenceforth it was perfectly reasonable to increase the severity of the +terms after each of his defeats, which proceeding in its turn made +concession more and more galling to his pride. In the second place, the +quarrel was from the first avowedly and undeniably religious: the gods +of Egypt were matched against Jehovah; and in the successive plagues +which desolated his land Pharaoh gradually learnt Who Jehovah was. + +In the message which Moses should convey to the elders there are two +significant phrases. He was to announce in the name of God, "I have +surely visited you, and seen that which is done unto you in Egypt." The +silent observation of God before He interposes is very solemn and +instructive. So in the Revelation, He walks among the golden +candlesticks, and knows the work, the patience, or the unfaithfulness of +each. So He is not far from any one of us. When a heavy blow falls we +speak of it as "a Visitation of Providence," but in reality the +visitation has been long before. Neither Israel nor Egypt was conscious +of the solemn presence. Who knows what soul of man, or what nation, is +thus visited to-day, for future deliverance or rebuke? + +Again it is said, "I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt +into ... a land flowing with milk and honey." Their affliction was the +divine method of uprooting them. And so is our affliction the method by +which our hearts are released from love of earth and life, that in due +time He may "surely bring us in" to a better and an enduring country. +Now, we wonder that the Israelites clung so fondly to the place of their +captivity. But what of our own hearts? Have they a desire to depart? or +do they groan in bondage, and yet recoil from their emancipation? + +The hesitating nation is not plainly told that their affliction will be +intensified and their lives made burdensome with labour. That is perhaps +implied in the certainty that Pharaoh "will not let you go, no, not by a +mighty hand." But it is with Israel as with us: a general knowledge that +in the world we shall have tribulation is enough; the catalogue of our +trials is not spread out before us in advance. They were assured for +their encouragement that all their long captivity should at last receive +its wages, for they should not borrow[6] but ask of the Egyptians jewels +of silver, and gold, and raiment, and they should spoil the Egyptians. +So are we taught to have "respect unto the recompense of the reward." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] So much ignorant capital has been made by sceptics out of this +unfortunate mistranslation, that it is worth while to inquire whether +the word "borrow" would suit the context in other passages. "He +_borrowed_ water and she gave him milk" (Judges v. 25). "The Lord said +unto Solomon, Because thou hast _borrowed_ this thing, and hast not +_borrowed_ long life for thyself, neither hast _borrowed_ riches for +thyself, nor hast _borrowed_ the life of thine enemies" (1 Kings iii. +11). "And Elijah said unto Elisha, Thou hast _borrowed_ a hard thing" (2 +Kings ii. 10). The absurdity of the cavil is self-evident. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +_MOSES HESITATES._ + +iv. 1-17. + +Holy Scripture is impartial, even towards its heroes. The sin of David +is recorded, and the failure of Peter. And so is the reluctance of Moses +to accept his commission, even after a miracle had been vouchsafed to +him for encouragement. The absolute sinlessness of Jesus is the more +significant because it is found in the records of a creed which knows of +no idealised humanity. + +In Josephus, the refusal of Moses is softened down. Even the modest +words, "Lord, I am still in doubt how I, a private man and of no +abilities, should persuade my countrymen or Pharaoh," are not spoken +after the sign is given. Nor is there any mention of the transfer to +Aaron of a part of his commission, nor of their joint offence at +Meribah, nor of its penalty, which in Scripture is bewailed so often. +And Josephus is equally tender about the misdeeds of the nation. We hear +nothing of their murmurs against Moses and Aaron when their burdens are +increased, or of their making the golden calf. Whereas it is remarkable +and natural that the fear of Moses is less anxious about his reception +by the tyrant than by his own people: "Behold, they will not believe me, +nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared +unto thee." This is very unlike the invention of a later period, +glorifying the beginnings of the nation; but it is absolutely true to +life. Great men do not fear the wrath of enemies if they can be secured +against the indifference and contempt of friends; and Moses in +particular was at last persuaded to undertake his mission by the promise +of the support of Aaron. His hesitation is therefore the earliest +example of what has been so often since observed--the discouragement of +heroes, reformers and messengers from God, less by fear of the attacks +of the world than of the contemptuous scepticism of the people of God. +We often sigh for the appearing, in our degenerate days, of + + "A man with heart, head, hand, + Like some of the simple great ones gone." + +Yet who shall say that the want of them is not our own fault? The +critical apathy and incredulity, not of the world but of the Church, is +what freezes the fountains of Christian daring and the warmth of +Christian zeal. + +For the help of the faith of his people, Moses is commissioned to work +two miracles; and he is caused to rehearse them, for his own. + +Strange tales were told among the later Jews about his wonder-working +rod. It was cut by Adam before leaving Paradise, was brought by Noah +into the ark, passed into Egypt with Joseph, and was recovered by Moses +while he enjoyed the favour of the court. These legends arose from +downright moral inability to receive the true lesson of the incident, +which is the confronting of the sceptre of Egypt with the simple staff +of the shepherd, the choosing of the weak things of earth to confound +the strong, the power of God to work His miracles by the most puny and +inadequate means. Anything was more credible than that He who led His +people like sheep did indeed guide them with a common shepherd's crook. +And yet this was precisely the lesson meant for us to learn--the +glorification of poor resources in the grasp of faith. + +Both miracles were of a menacing kind. First the rod became a serpent, +to declare that at God's bidding enemies would rise up against the +oppressor, even where all seemed innocuous, as in truth the waters of +the river and the dust of the furnace and the winds of heaven conspired +against him. Then, in the grasp of Moses, the serpent from which he fled +became a rod again, to intimate that these avenging forces were subject +to the servant of Jehovah. + +Again, his hand became leprous in his bosom, and was presently restored +to health again--a declaration that he carried with him the power of +death, in its most dreadful form; and perhaps a still more solemn +admonition to those who remember what leprosy betokens, and how every +approach of God to man brings first the knowledge of sin, to be followed +by the assurance that He has cleansed it.[7] + +If the people would not hearken to the voice of the first sign, they +should believe the second; but at the worst, and if they were still +unconvinced, they would believe when they saw the water of the Nile, the +pride and glory of their oppressors, turned into blood before their +eyes. That was an omen which needs no interpretation. What follows is +curious. Moses objects that he has not hitherto been eloquent, nor does +he experience any improvement "since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant" +(a graphic touch!), and he seems to suppose that the popular choice +between liberty and slavery would depend less upon the evidence of a +Divine power than upon sleight of tongue, as if he were in modern +England. + +But let it be observed that the self-consciousness which wears the mask +of humility while refusing to submit its judgment to that of God, is a +form of selfishness--self-absorption blinding one to other +considerations beyond himself--as real, though not as hateful, as greed +and avarice and lust. + +How can Moses call himself slow of speech and of a slow tongue, when +Stephen distinctly declares that he was mighty in word as well as deed? +(Acts vii. 22). Perhaps it is enough to answer that many years of +solitude in a strange land had robbed him of his fluency. Perhaps +Stephen had in mind the words of the Book of Wisdom, that "Wisdom +entered into the soul of the servant of the Lord, and withstood dreadful +kings in wonders and signs.... For Wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, +and made the tongues of them that cannot speak eloquent" (Wisdom x. 16, +21). + +To his scruple the answer was returned, "Who hath made man's mouth?... +Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and +teach thee what thou shalt say." The same encouragement belongs to every +one who truly executes a mandate from above: "Lo, I am with you alway." +For surely this encouragement _is_ the same. Surely Jesus did not mean +to offer His own presence as a substitute for that of God, but as being +in very truth Divine, when He bade His disciples, in reliance upon Him, +to go forth and convert the world. + +And this is the true test which divides faith from presumption, and +unbelief from prudence: do we go because God is with us in Christ, or +because we ourselves are strong and wise? Do we hold back because we are +not sure of _His_ commission, or only because we distrust ourselves? +"Humility without faith is too timorous; faith without humility is too +hasty." The phrase explains the conduct of Moses both now and forty +years before. + +Moses, however, still entreats that any one may be chosen rather than +himself: "Send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send." + +And thereupon the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, although at +the moment his only visible punishment was the partial granting of his +prayer--the association with him in his commission of Aaron, who could +speak well, the forfeiting of a certain part of his vocation, and with +it of a certain part of its reward. The words, "Is not Aaron thy brother +the Levite?" have been used to insinuate that the tribal arrangement was +not perfected when they were written, and so to discredit the narrative. +But when so interpreted they yield no adequate sense, they do not +reinforce the argument; while they are perfectly intelligible as +implying that Aaron is already the leader of his tribe, and therefore +sure to obtain the hearing of which Moses despaired. But the arrangement +involved grave consequences sure to be developed in due time: among +others, the reliance of Israel upon a feebler will, which could be +forced by their clamour to make them a calf of gold. Moses was yet to +learn that lesson which our century knows nothing of,--that a speaker +and a leader of nations are not the same. When he cried to Aaron, in the +bitterness of his soul, "What did this people to thee, that thou hast +brought so great a sin upon them?" did he remember by whose +unfaithfulness Aaron had been thrust into the office, the +responsibilities of which he had betrayed? + +Now, it is the duty of every man, to whom a special vocation presents +itself, to set opposite each other two considerations. Dare I undertake +this task? is a solemn question, but so is this: Dare I let this task go +past me? Am I prepared for the responsibility of allowing it to drift +into weaker hands? These are days when the Church of Christ is calling +for the help of every one capable of aiding her, and we ought to hear it +said more often that one is afraid _not_ to teach in Sunday School, and +another dares not refuse a proffered district, and a third fears to +leave charitable tasks undone. To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth +it not, to him it is sin; and we hear too much about the terrible +responsibility of working for God, but too little about the still graver +responsibility of refusing to work for Him when called. + +Moses indeed attained so much that we are scarcely conscious that he +might have been greater still. He had once presumed to go unsent, and +brought upon himself the exile of half a lifetime. Again he presumed +almost to say, I go not, and well-nigh to incur the guilt of Jonah when +sent to Nineveh, and in so doing he forfeited the fulness of his +vocation. But who reaches the level of his possibilities? Who is not +haunted by faces, "each one a murdered self," a nobler self, that might +have been, and is now impossible for ever? Only Jesus could say "I have +finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." And it is notable that +while Jesus deals, in the parable of the labourers, with the problem of +equal faithfulness during longer and shorter periods of employment; and +in the parable of the pounds with that of equal endowment variously +improved; and yet again, in the parable of the talents, with the problem +of various endowments all doubled alike, He always draws a veil over the +treatment of five talents which earn but two or three besides. + +A more cheerful reflection suggested by this narrative is the strange +power of human fellowship. Moses knew and was persuaded that God, Whose +presence was even then miraculously apparent in the bush, and Who had +invested him with superhuman powers, would go with him. There is no +trace of incredulity in his behaviour, but only of failure to rely, to +cast his shrinking and reluctant will upon the truth he recognised and +the God Whose presence he confessed. He held back, as many a one does, +who is honest when he repeats the Creed in church, yet fails to submit +his life to the easy yoke of Jesus. Nor is it from physical peril that +he recoils: at the bidding of God he has just grasped the serpent from +which he fled; and in confronting a tyrant with armies at his back, he +could hope for small assistance from his brother. But highly strung +spirits, in every great crisis, are aware of vague indefinite +apprehensions that are not cowardly but imaginative. Thus Caesar, when +defying the hosts of Pompey, is said to have been disturbed by an +apparition. It is vain to put these apprehensions into logical form, and +argue them down: the slowness of speech of Moses was surely refuted by +the presence of God, Who makes the mouth and inspires the utterance; but +such fears lie deeper than the reasons they assign, and when argument +fails, will yet stubbornly repeat their cry: "Send, I pray Thee, by the +hand of him whom Thou wilt send." Now this shrinking, which is not +craven, is dispelled by nothing so effectually as by the touch of a +human hand. It is like the voice of a friend to one beset by ghostly +terrors: he does not expect his comrade to exorcise a spirit, and yet +his apprehensions are dispelled. Thus Moses cannot summon up courage +from the protection of God, but when assured of the companionship of his +brother he will not only venture to return to Egypt, but will bring with +him his wife and children. Thus, also, He Who knew what was in men's +hearts sent forth His missionaries, both the Twelve and the Seventy (as +we have yet to learn the true economy of sending ours), "by two and two" +(Mark vi. 7; Luke x. 1). + +This is the principle which underlies the institution of the Church of +Christ, and the conception that Christians are brothers, among whom the +strong must help the weak. Such help from their fellow-mortals would +perhaps decide the choice of many hesitating souls, upon the verge of +the divine life, recoiling from its unknown and dread experiences, but +longing for a sympathising comrade. Alas for the unkindly and +unsympathetic religion of men whose faith has never warmed a human +heart, and of congregations in which emotion is a misdemeanour! + +There is no stronger force, among all that make for the abuses of +priestcraft, than this same yearning for human help becomes when robbed +of its proper nourishment, which is the communion of saints, and the +pastoral care of souls. Has it no further nourishment than these? This +instinctive craving for a Brother to help as well as a Father to direct +and govern,--this social instinct, which banished the fears of Moses and +made him set out for Egypt long before Aaron came in sight, content when +assured of Aaron's co-operation,--is there nothing in God Himself to +respond to it? He Who is not ashamed to call us brethren has profoundly +modified the Church's conception of Jehovah, the Eternal, Absolute and +Unconditioned. It is because He can be touched with the feeling of our +infirmities, that we are bidden to draw near with boldness unto the +Throne of Grace. There is no heart so lonely that it cannot commune with +the lofty and kind humanity of Jesus. + +There is a homelier lesson to be learned. Moses was not only solaced by +human fellowship, but nerved and animated by the thought of his brother, +and the mention of his tribe. "Is not Aaron thy brother the Levite?" +They had not met for forty years. Vague rumours of deadly persecution +were doubtless all that had reached the fugitive, whose heart had +burned, in solitary communion with Nature in her sternest forms, as he +brooded over the wrongs of his family, of Aaron, and perhaps of Miriam. + +And now his brother lived. The call which Moses would have put from him +was for the emancipation of his own flesh and blood, and for their +greatness. In that great hour, domestic affection did much to turn the +scale wherein the destinies of humanity were trembling. And his was +affection well returned. It might easily have been otherwise, for Aaron +had seen his younger brother called to a dazzling elevation, living in +enviable magnificence, and earning fame by "word and deed"; and then, +after a momentary fusion of sympathy and of condition, forty years had +poured between them a torrent of cares and joys estranging because +unshared. But it was promised that Aaron, when he saw him, should be +glad at heart; and the words throw a beam of exquisite light into the +depths of the mighty soul which God inspired to emancipate Israel and to +found His Church, by thoughts of his brother's joy on meeting him. + +Let no man dream of attaining real greatness by stifling his affections. +The heart is more important than the intellect; and the brief story of +the Exodus has room for the yearning of Jochebed over her infant "when +she saw him that he was a goodly child," for the bold inspiration of the +young poetess, who "stood afar off to know what should be done to him," +and now for the love of Aaron. So the Virgin, in the dread hour of her +reproach, went in haste to her cousin Elizabeth. So Andrew "findeth +first his own brother Simon." And so the Divine Sufferer, forsaken of +God, did not forsake His mother. + +The Bible is full of domestic life. It is the theme of the greater part +of Genesis, which makes the family the seed-plot of the Church. It is +wisely recognised again at the moment when the larger pulse of the +nation begins to beat. For the life-blood in the heart of a nation must +be the blood in the hearts of men. + + +_MOSES OBEYS._ + +iv. 18-31. + +Moses is now commissioned: he is to go to Egypt, and Aaron is coming +thence to meet him. Yet he first returns to Midian, to Jethro, who is +both his employer and the head of the family, and prays him to sanction +his visit to his own people. + +There are duties which no family resistance can possibly cancel, and the +direct command of God made it plain that this was one of them. But there +are two ways of performing even the most imperative obligation, and +religious people have done irreparable mischief before now, by rudeness, +disregard to natural feeling and the rights of their fellow-men, under +the impression that they showed their allegiance to God by outraging +other ties. It is a theory for which no sanction can be found either in +Holy Scripture or in common sense. + +When he asks permission to visit "his brethren" we cannot say whether he +ever had brothers besides Aaron, or uses the word in the same larger +national sense as when we read that, forty years before, he went out +unto his brethren and saw their burdens. What is to be observed is that +he is reticent with respect to his vast expectations and designs. + +He does not argue that, because a Divine promise must needs be +fulfilled, he need not be discreet, wary and taciturn, any more than St. +Paul supposed, because the lives of his shipmates were promised to him, +that it mattered nothing whether the sailors remained on board. + +The decrees of God have sometimes been used to justify the recklessness +of man, but never by His chosen followers. They have worked out their +own salvation the more earnestly because God worked in them. And every +good cause calls aloud for human energy and wisdom, all the more because +its consummation is the will of God, and sooner or later is assured. +Moses has unlearned his rashness. + +When the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, "Go, return unto Egypt, for all +the men are dead which sought thy life," there is an almost verbal +resemblance to the words in which the infant Jesus is recalled from +exile. We shall have to consider the typical aspect of the whole +narrative, when a convenient stage is reached for pausing to survey it +in its completeness. But resemblances like this have been treated with +so much scorn, they have been so freely perverted into evidence of the +mythical nature of the later story, that some passing allusion appears +desirable. We must beware equally of both extremes. The Old Testament is +tortured, and genuine prophecies are made no better than coincidences, +when coincidences are exalted to all the dignity of express predictions. +One can scarcely venture to speak of the death of Herod when Jesus was +to return from Egypt, as being deliberately typified in the death of +those who sought the life of Moses. But it is quite clear that the words +in St. Matthew do intentionally point the reader back to this narrative. +For, indeed, under both, there are to be recognised the same principles: +that God does not thrust His servants into needless or excessive peril; +and that when the life of a tyrant has really become not only a trial +but a barrier, it will be removed by the King of kings. God is prudent +for His heroes. + +Moreover, we must recognise the lofty fitness of what is very visible in +the Gospels--the coming to a head in Christ of the various experiences +of the people of God; and at the recurrence, in His story, of events +already known elsewhere, we need not be disquieted, as if the suspicion +of a myth were now become difficult to refute; rather should we +recognise the fulness of the supreme life, and its points of contact +with all lives, which are but portions of its vast completeness. Who +does not feel that in the world's greatest events a certain harmony and +correspondence are as charming as they are in music? There is a sort of +counterpoint in history. And to this answering of deep unto deep, this +responsiveness of the story of Jesus to all history, our attention is +silently beckoned by St. Matthew, when, without asserting any closer +link between the incidents, he borrows this phrase so aptly. + +A much deeper meaning underlies the profound expression which God now +commands Moses to employ; and although it must await consideration at a +future time, the progressive education of Moses himself is meantime to +be observed. At first he is taught that the Lord is the God of their +fathers, in whose descendants He is therefore interested. Then the +present Israel is His people, and valued for its own sake. Now he hears, +and is bidden to repeat to Pharaoh, the amazing phrase, "Israel is My +son, even My firstborn: let My son go that he may serve Me; and if thou +refuse to let him go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn." +Thus it is that infant faith is led from height to height. And assuredly +there never was an utterance better fitted than this to prepare human +minds, in the fulness of time, for a still clearer revelation of the +nearness of God to man, and for the possibility of an absolute union +between the Creator and His creature. + +It was on his way into Egypt, with his wife and children, that a +mysterious interposition forced Zipporah reluctantly and tardily to +circumcise her son. + +The meaning of this strange episode lies perhaps below the surface, but +very near it. Danger in some form, probably that of sickness, pressed +Moses hard, and he recognised in it the displeasure of his God. The +form of the narrative leads us to suppose that he had no previous +consciousness of guilt, and had now to infer the nature of his offence +without any explicit announcement, just as we infer it from what +follows. + +If so, he discerned his transgression when trouble awoke his conscience; +and so did his wife Zipporah. Yet her resistance to the circumcision of +their younger son was so tenacious, with such difficulty was it overcome +by her husband's peril or by his command, that her tardy performance of +the rite was accompanied by an insulting action and a bitter taunt. As +she submitted, the Lord "let him go"; but we may perhaps conclude that +the grievance continued to rankle, from the repetition of her gibe, "So +she said, A bridegroom of blood art thou because of the circumcision." +The words mean, "We are betrothed again in blood," and might of +themselves admit a gentler, and even a tender significance; as if, in +the sacrifice of a strong prejudice for her husband's sake, she felt a +revival of "the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals." For +nothing removes the film from the surface of a true affection, and makes +the heart aware how bright it is, so well as a great sacrifice, frankly +offered for the sake of love. + +But such a rendering is excluded by the action which went with her +words, and they must be explained as meaning, This is the kind of +husband I have wedded: these are our espousals. With such an utterance +she fades almost entirely out of the story: it does not even tell how +she drew back to her father; and thenceforth all we know of her is that +she rejoined Moses only when the fame of his victory over Amalek had +gone abroad. + +Their union seems to have been an ill-assorted or at least an +unprosperous one. In the tender hour when their firstborn was to be +named, the bitter sense of loneliness had continued to be nearer to the +heart of Moses than the glad new consciousness of paternity, and he +said, "I am a stranger in a strange land." Different indeed had been the +experience of Joseph, who called his "firstborn Manasseh, for God, said +he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house" (Gen. +xli. 51). The home-life of Moses had not made him forget that he was an +exile. Even the removal of imminent death from her husband could not +hush these selfish complaints of Zipporah, not because he was a father +of blood to her little one, but because he was a bridegroom of blood to +her own shrinking sensibilities. It is Miriam the sister, not Zipporah +the wife, who gives lyrical and passionate voice to his triumph, and is +mourned by the nation when she dies. Both what we read of her and what +we do not read goes far to explain the insignificance of their children +in history, and the more startling fact that the grandson of Moses +became the venal instrument of the Danites in their schismatic worship +(Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +Domestic unhappiness is a palliation, but not a justification, for an +unserviceable life. It is a great advantage to come into action with the +dew and freshness of affection upon the soul. Yet it is not once nor +twice that men have carried the message of God back from the barren +desert and the lonely ways of their unhappiness to the not too happy +race of man. + +Now, who can fail to discern real history in all this? Is it in such a +way that myth or legend would have dealt with the wife of the great +deliverer? Still less conceivable is it that these should have treated +Moses himself as the narrative hitherto has consistently done. At every +step he is made to stumble. His first attempt was homicidal, and brought +upon him forty years of exile. When the Divine commission came he drew +back wilfully, as he had formerly pressed forward unsent. There is not +even any suggestion offered us of Stephen's apology for his violent +deed--namely, that he supposed his brethren understood how that God by +his hand was giving them deliverance (Acts vii. 25). There is nothing +that resembles the eulogium of the Epistle to the Hebrews upon the faith +which glorified his precipitancy, like the rainbow in a torrent, because +that rash blow committed him to share the affliction of the people of +God, and renounced the rank of a grand son of the Pharaoh (Heb. xi. +24-5). All this is very natural, if Moses himself be in any degree +responsible for the narrative. It is incredible, if the narrative were +put together after the Captivity, to claim the sanction of so great a +name for a newly forged hierarchical system. Such a theory could +scarcely be refuted more completely, if the narrative before us were +invented with the deliberate aim to overthrow it. + +But in truth the failures of the good and great are written for our +admonition, teaching us how inconsistent are even the best of mortals, +and how weak the most resolute. Rather than forfeit his own place among +the chosen people, Moses had forsaken a palace and become a proscribed +fugitive; yet he had neglected to claim for his child its rightful share +in the covenant, its recognition among the sons of Abraham. Perhaps +procrastination, perhaps domestic opposition, more potent than a king's +wrath to shake his purpose, perhaps the insidious notion that one who +had sacrificed so much might be at ease about slight negligences,--some +such influence had left the commandment unobserved. And now, when the +dream of his life was being realised at last, and he found himself the +chosen instrument of God for the rebuke of one nation and the making of +another, how pardonable it must have seemed to leave an unpleasant small +domestic duty over until a more convenient season! How natural it still +seems to merge the petty task in the high vocation, to excuse small +lapses in pursuit of lofty aims! But this was the very time when God, +hitherto forbearing, took him sternly to task for his neglect, because +men who are especially honoured should be more obedient and reverential +than their fellows. Let young men who dream of a vast career, and +meanwhile indulge themselves in small obliquities, let all who cast out +demons in the name of Christ, and yet work iniquity, reflect upon this +chosen and long-trained, self-sacrificing and ardent servant of the +Lord, whom Jehovah seeks to kill because he wilfully disobeys even a +purely ceremonial precept. + +Moses was not only religious, but "a man of destiny," one upon whom vast +interests depended. Now, such men have often reckoned themselves exempt +from the ordinary laws of conduct.[8] + +It is not a light thing, therefore, to find God's indignant protest +against the faintest shadow of a doctrine so insidious and so deadly, +set in the forefront of sacred history, at the very point where national +concerns and those of religion begin to touch. If our politics are to be +kept pure and clean, we must learn to exact a higher fidelity, and not a +relaxed morality, from those who propose to sway the destinies of +nations. + +And now the brothers meet, embrace, and exchange confidences. As Andrew, +the first disciple who brought another to Jesus, found first his own +brother Simon, so was Aaron the earliest convert to the mission of +Moses. And that happened which so often puts our faithlessness to shame. +It had seemed very hard to break his strange tidings to the people: it +was in fact very easy to address one whose love had not grown cold +during their severance, who probably retained faith in the Divine +purpose for which the beautiful child of the family had been so +strangely preserved, and who had passed through trial and discipline +unknown to us in the stern intervening years. + +And when they told their marvellous story to the elders of the people, +and displayed the signs, they believed; and when they heard that God had +visited them in their affliction, then they bowed their heads and +worshipped. + +This was their preparation for the wonders that should follow: it +resembled Christ's appeal, "Believest thou that I am able to do this?" +or Peter's word to the impotent man, "Look on us." + +For the moment the announcement had the desired effect, although too +soon the early promise was succeeded by faithlessness and discontent. In +this, again, the teaching of the earliest political movement on record +is as fresh as if it were a tale of yesterday. The offer of emancipation +stirs all hearts; the romance of liberty is beautiful beside the Nile as +in the streets of Paris; but the cost has to be gradually learned; the +losses displace the gains in the popular attention; the labour, the +self-denial and the self-control grow wearisome, and Israel murmurs for +the flesh-pots of Egypt, much as the modern revolution reverts to a +despotism. It is one thing to admire abstract freedom, but a very +different thing to accept the austere conditions of the life of genuine +freemen. And surely the same is true of the soul. The gospel gladdens +the young convert: he bows his head and worships; but he little dreams +of his long discipline, as in the forty desert years, of the solitary +places through which his soul must wander, the drought, the Amalekite, +the absent leader, and the temptations of the flesh. In mercy, the long +future is concealed; it is enough that, like the apostles, we should +consent to follow; gradually we shall obtain the courage to which the +task may be revealed. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Tertullian appealed to the second of these miracles to illustrate +the possibility of the resurrection. "The hand of Moses is changed and +becomes like that of the dead, bloodless, colourless, and stiff with +cold. But on the recovery of heat and restoration of its natural colour, +it is the same flesh and blood.... So will changes, conversions and +reformation be needed to bring about the resurrection, yet the substance +will be preserved safe." (_De Res._, lv.) It is far wiser to be content +with the declaration of St. Paul that the identity of the body does not +depend on that of its corporeal atoms. "Thou sowest not that body that +shall be, but a naked grain.... But God giveth ... to every seed his own +body" (1 Cor. xv. 37-8). + +[8] "I am not an ordinary man," Napoleon used to say, "and the laws of +morals and of custom were never made for me."--_Memoirs of Madame de +Remusat_, i. 91. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +_PHARAOH REFUSES._ + +v. 1-23. + +After forty years of obscurity and silence, Moses re-enters the +magnificent halls where he had formerly turned his back upon so great a +place. The rod of a shepherd is in his hand, and a lowly Hebrew by his +side. Men who recognise him shake their heads, and pity or despise the +fanatic who had thrown away the most dazzling prospects for a dream. But +he has long since made his choice, and whatever misgivings now beset him +have regard to his success with Pharaoh or with his brethren, not to the +wisdom of his decision. + +Nor had he reason to repent of it. The pomp of an obsequious court was a +poor thing in the eyes of an ambassador of God, who entered the palace +to speak such lofty words as never passed the lips of any son of +Pharaoh's daughter. He was presently to become a god unto Pharaoh, with +Aaron for his prophet. + +In itself, his presence there was formidable. The Hebrews had been +feared when he was an infant. Now their cause was espoused by a man of +culture, who had allied himself with their natural leaders, and was +returned, with the deep and steady fire of a zeal which forty years of +silence could not quench, to assert the rights of Israel as an +independent people. + +There is a terrible power in strong convictions, especially when +supported by the sanctions of religion. Luther on one side, Loyola on +the other, were mightier than kings when armed with this tremendous +weapon. Yet there are forces upon which patriotism and fanaticism +together break in vain. Tyranny and pride of race have also strong +impelling ardours, and carry men far. Pharaoh is in earnest as well as +Moses, and can act with perilous energy. And this great narrative begins +the story of a nation's emancipation with a human demand, boldly made, +but defeated by the pride and vigour of a startled tyrant and the +tameness of a downtrodden people. The limitations of human energy are +clearly exhibited before the direct interference of God begins. All that +a brave man can do, when nerved by lifelong aspiration and by a sudden +conviction that the hour of destiny has struck, all therefore upon which +rationalism can draw, to explain the uprising of Israel, is exhibited in +this preliminary attempt, this first demand of Moses. + +Menephtah was no doubt the new Pharaoh whom the brothers accosted so +boldly. What we glean of him elsewhere is highly suggestive of some +grave event left unrecorded, exhibiting to us a man of uncontrollable +temper yet of broken courage, a ruthless, godless, daunted man. There is +a legend that he once hurled his spear at the Nile when its floods rose +too high, and was punished with ten years of blindness. In the Libyan +war, after fixing a time when he should join his vanguard, with the main +army, a celestial vision forbade him to keep his word in person, and the +victory was gained by his lieutenants. In another war, he boasts of +having slaughtered the people and set fire to them, and netted the +entire country as men net birds. Forty years then elapse without war +and without any great buildings; there are seditions and internal +troubles, and the dynasty closes with his son.[9] All this is exactly +what we should expect, if a series of tremendous blows had depopulated a +country, abolished an army, and removed two millions of the working +classes in one mass. + +But it will be understood that this identification, concerning which +there is now a very general consent of competent authorities, implies +that the Pharaoh was not himself engulfed with his army. Nothing is on +the other side except a poetic assertion in Psalm cxxxvi. 15, which is +not that God destroyed, but that He "shook off" Pharaoh and his host in +the Red Sea, because His mercy endureth for ever. + +To this king, then, whose audacious family had usurped the symbols of +deity for its head-dress, and whose father boasted that in battle "he +became like the god Mentu" and "was as Baal," the brothers came as yet +without miracle, with no credentials except from slaves, and said, "Thus +saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a +feast unto Me in the wilderness." The issue was distinctly raised: did +Israel belong to Jehovah or to the king? And Pharaoh answered, with +equal decision, "Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice? I +know not Jehovah, and what is more, I will not let Israel go." + +Now, the ignorance of the king concerning Jehovah was almost or quite +blameless: the fault was in his practical refusal to inquire. Jehovah +was no concern of his: without waiting for information, he at once +decided that his grasp on his captives should not relax. And his second +fault, which led to this, was the same grinding oppression of the +helpless which for eighty years already had brought upon his nation the +guilt of blood. Crowned and national cupidity, the resolution to wring +from their slaves the last effort consistent with existence, such greed +as took offence at even the momentary pause of hope while Moses pleaded, +because "the people of the land are many, and ye make them rest from +their burdens,"--these shut their hearts against reason and religion, +and therefore God presently hardened those same hearts against natural +misgiving and dread and awe-stricken submission to His judgments. + +For it was against religion also that he was unyielding. In his ample +Pantheon there was room at least for the possibility of the entrance of +the Hebrew God, and in refusing to the subject people, without +investigation, leisure for any worship, the king outraged not only +humanity, but Heaven. + +The brothers proceed to declare that they have themselves met with the +deity, and there must have been many in the court who could attest at +least the sincerity of Moses; they ask for liberty to spend a day in +journeying outward and another in returning, with a day between for +their worship, and warn the king of the much greater loss to himself +which may be involved in vengeance upon refusal, either by war or +pestilence. But the contemptuous answer utterly ignores religion: +"Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? Get +ye unto your burdens." + +And his counter-measures are taken without loss of time: "that same day" +the order goes out to exact the regular quantity of brick, but supply no +straw for binding it together. It is a pitiless mandate, and +illustrates the fact, very natural though often forgotten, that men as a +rule cannot lose sight of the religious value of their fellow-men, and +continue to respect or pity them as before. We do not deny that men who +professed religion have perpetrated nameless cruelties, nor that +unbelievers have been humane, sometimes with a pathetic energy, a +tenacious grasp on the virtue still possible to those who have no Heaven +to serve. But it is plain that the average man will despise his brother, +and his brother's rights, just in proportion as the Divine sanctions of +those rights fade away, and nothing remains to be respected but the +culture, power and affluence which the victim lacks. "I know not +Israel's God" is a sure prelude to the refusal to let Israel go, and +even to the cruelty which beats the slave who fails to render impossible +obedience. + +"They be idle, therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to +our God." And still there are men who hold the same opinion, that time +spent in devotion is wasted, as regards the duties of real life. In +truth, religion means freshness, elasticity and hope: a man will be not +slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, if he serves the Lord. But +perhaps immortal hope, and the knowledge that there is One Who shall +break all prison bars and let the oppressed go free, are not the best +narcotics to drug down the soul of a man into the monotonous tameness of +a slave. + +In the tenth verse we read that the Egyptian taskmasters and the +officers combined to urge the people to their aggravated labours. And by +the fourteenth verse we find that the latter officials were Hebrew +officers whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them. + +So that we have here one of the surest and worst effects of +slavery--namely, the demoralisation of the oppressed, the readiness of +average men, who can obtain for themselves a little relief, to do so at +their brethren's cost. These officials were scribes, "writers": their +business was to register the amount of labour due, and actually +rendered. These were doubtless the more comfortable class, of whom we +read afterwards that they possessed property, for their cattle escaped +the murrain and their trees the hail. And they had the means of +acquiring quite sufficient skill to justify whatever is recorded of the +works done in the construction of the tabernacle. The time is long past +when scepticism found support for its incredulity in these details. + +One advantage of the last sharp agony of persecution was that it finally +detached this official class from the Egyptian interest, and welded +Israel into a homogeneous people, with officers already provided. For, +when the supply of bricks came short, these officials were beaten, and, +as if no cause of the failure were palpable, they were asked, with a +malicious chuckle, "Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task both +yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?" And when they explain to Pharaoh, +in words already expressive of their alienation, that the fault is with +"thine own people," they are repulsed with insult, and made to feel +themselves in evil case. For indeed they needed to be chastised for +their forgetfulness of God. How soon would their hearts have turned +back, how much more bitter yet would have been their complaints in the +desert, if it were not for this last experience! But if judgment began +with them, what should presently be the fate of their oppressors? + +Their broken spirit shows itself by murmuring, not against Pharaoh, but +against Moses and Aaron, who at least had striven to help them. Here, as +in the whole story, there is not a trace of either the lofty spirit +which could have evolved the Mosaic law, or the hero-worship of a later +age. + +It is written that Moses, hearing their reproaches, "returned unto the +Lord," although no visible shrine, no consecrated place of worship, can +be thought of. + +What is involved is the consecration which the heart bestows upon any +place of privacy and prayer, where, in shutting out the world, the soul +is aware of the special nearness of its King. In one sense we never +leave Him, never return to Him. In another sense, by direct address of +the attention and the will, we enter into His presence; we find Him in +the midst of us, Who is everywhere. And all ceremonial consecrations do +their office by helping us to realise and act upon the presence of Him +in Whom, even when He is forgotten, we live and move and have our being. +Therefore in the deepest sense each man consecrates or desecrates for +himself his own place of prayer. There is a city where the Divine +presence saturates every consciousness with rapture. And the seer beheld +no temple therein, for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the +temple of it. + +Startling to our notions of reverence are the words in which Moses +addresses God. "Lord, why hast Thou evil entreated this people? Why is +it that Thou hast sent me? for since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy +name, he hath evil entreated this people; neither hast Thou delivered +Thy people at all." It is almost as if his faith had utterly given way, +like that of the Psalmist when he saw the wicked in great prosperity, +while waters of a full cup were wrung out by the people of God (Ps. +lxxiii. 3, 10). And there is always a dangerous moment when the first +glow of enthusiasm burns down, and we realise how long the process, how +bitter the disappointments, by which even a scanty measure of success +must be obtained. Yet God had expressly warned Moses that Pharaoh would +not release them until Egypt had been smitten with all His plagues. But +the warning passed unapprehended, as we let many a truth pass +intellectually accepted it is true, but only as a theorem, a vague and +abstract formula. As we know that we must die, that worldly pleasures +are brief and unreal, and that sin draws evil in its train, yet wonder +when these phrases become solid and practical in our experience, so, in +the first flush and wonder of the promised emancipation, Moses had +forgotten the predicted interval of trial. + +His words would have been profane and irreverent indeed but for one +redeeming quality. They were addressed to God Himself. Whenever the +people murmured, Moses turned for help to Him Who reckons the most +unconventional and daring appeal to Him far better than the most +ceremonious phrases in which men cover their unbelief: "Lord, wherefore +hast Thou evil entreated this people?" is in reality a much more pious +utterance than "I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord." +Wherefore Moses receives large encouragement, although no formal answer +is vouchsafed to his daring question. + +Even so, in our dangers, our torturing illnesses, and many a crisis +which breaks through all the crust of forms and conventionalities, God +may perhaps recognise a true appeal to Him, in words which only +scandalise the orthodoxy of the formal and precise. In the bold +rejoinder of the Syro-Phoenician woman He recognised great faith. His +disciples would simply have sent her away as clamorous. + +Moses had again failed, even though Divinely commissioned, in the work +of emancipating Israel, and thereupon he had cried to the Lord Himself +to undertake the work. This abortive attempt, however, was far from +useless: it taught humility and patience to the leader, and it pressed +the nation together, as in a vice, by the weight of a common burden, now +become intolerable. At the same moment, the iniquity of the tyrant was +filled up. + +But the Lord did not explain this, in answer to the remonstrance of +Moses. Many things happen, for which no distinct verbal explanation is +possible, many things of which the deep spiritual fitness cannot be +expressed in words. Experience is the true commentator upon Providence, +if only because the slow building of character is more to God than +either the hasting forward of deliverance or the clearing away of +intellectual mists. And it is only as we take His yoke upon us that we +truly learn of Him. Yet much is implied, if not spoken out, in the +words, "Now (because the time is ripe) shalt thou see what I will do to +Pharaoh (I, because others have failed); for by a strong hand shall he +let them go, and by a strong hand shall he drive them out of the land." +It is under the weight of the "strong hand" of God Himself that the +tyrant must either bend or break. + +Similar to this is the explanation of many delays in answering our +prayer, of the strange raising up of tyrants and demagogues, and of much +else that perplexes Christians in history and in their own experience. +These events develop human character, for good or evil. And they give +scope for the revealing of the fulness of the power which rescues. We +have no means of measuring the supernatural force which overcomes but by +the amount of the resistance offered. And if all good things came to us +easily and at once, we should not become aware of the horrible pit, our +rescue from which demands gratitude. The Israelites would not have sung +a hymn of such fervent gratitude when the sea was crossed, if they had +not known the weight of slavery and the anguish of suspense. And in +heaven the redeemed who have come out of great tribulation sing the song +of Moses and of the Lamb. + +Fresh air, a balmy wind, a bright blue sky--which of us feels a thrill +of conscious exultation for these cheap delights? The released prisoner, +the restored invalid, feels it: + + "The common earth, the air, the skies, + To him are opening paradise." + +Even so should Israel be taught to value deliverance. And now the +process could begin. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] Robinson, "The Pharaohs of the Bondage." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +_THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MOSES._ + +vi. 1-30. + +We have seen that the name Jehovah expresses not a philosophic +meditation, but the most bracing and reassuring truth--viz., that an +immutable and independent Being sustains His people; and this great +title is therefore reaffirmed with emphasis in the hour of mortal +discouragement. It is added that their fathers knew God by the name of +God Almighty, but by His name Jehovah was He not known, or made known, +unto them. Now, it is quite clear that they were not utterly ignorant of +this title, for no such theory as that it was hitherto mentioned by +anticipation only, can explain the first syllable in the name of the +mother of Moses himself, nor the assertion that in the time of Seth men +began to call upon the name of Jehovah (Gen. iv. 26), nor the name of +the hill of Abraham's sacrifice, Jehovah-jireh (Gen. xxii. 14). Yet the +statement cannot be made available for the purposes of any reasonable +and moderate scepticism, since the sceptical theory demands a belief in +successive redactions of the work in which an error so gross could not +have escaped detection. + +And the true explanation is that this Name was now, for the first time, +to be realised as a sustaining power. The patriarchs had known the name; +how its fitness should be realised: God should be known by it. They had +drawn support and comfort from that simpler view of the Divine +protection which said, "I am the Almighty God: walk before Me and be +thou perfect" (Gen. xvii. 1). But thenceforth all the experience of the +past was to reinforce the energies of the present, and men were to +remember that their promises came from One who cannot change. Others, +like Abraham, had been stronger in faith than Moses. But faith is not +the same as insight, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets (Deut. +xxxiv. 10). To him, therefore, it was given to confirm the courage of +his nation by this exalting thought of God. And the Lord proceeds to +state what His promises to the patriarchs were, and joins together (as +we should do) the assurance of His compassionate heart and of His +inviolable pledges: "I have heard the groaning of the children of +Israel, ... and I have remembered My covenant." + +It has been the same, in turn, with every new revelation of the Divine. +The new was implicit in the old, but when enforced, unfolded, reapplied, +men found it charged with unsuspected meaning and power, and as full of +vitality and development as a handful of dry seeds when thrown into +congenial soil. So it was pre-eminently with the doctrine of the +Messiah. It will be the same hereafter with the doctrine of the kingdom +of peace and the reign of the saints on earth. Some day men will smile +at our crude theories and ignorant controversies about the Millennium. +We, meantime, possess the saving knowledge of Christ amid many +perplexities and obscurities. And so the patriarchs, who knew God +Almighty, but not by His name Jehovah, were not lost for want of the +knowledge of His name, but saved by faith in Him, in the living Being +to Whom all these names belong, and Who shall yet write upon the brows +of His people some new name, hitherto undreamed by the ripest of the +saints and the purest of the Churches. Meantime, let us learn the +lessons of tolerance for other men's ignorance, remembering the +ignorance of the father of the faithful, tolerance for difference of +views, remembering how the unusual and rare name of God was really the +precursor of a brighter revelation, and yet again, when our hearts are +faint with longing for new light, and weary to death of the babbling of +old words, let us learn a sober and cautious reconsideration, lest +perhaps the very truth needed for altered circumstance and changing +problem may lie, unheeded and dormant, among the dusty old phrases from +which we turn away despairingly. Moreover, since the fathers knew the +name Jehovah, yet gained from it no special knowledge of God, such as +they had from His Almightiness, we are taught that discernment is often +more at fault than revelation. To the quick perception and plastic +imagination of the artist, our world reveals what the boor will never +see. And the saint finds, in the homely and familiar words of Scripture, +revelations for His soul that are unknown to common men. Receptivity is +what we need far more than revelation. + +Again is Moses bidden to appeal to the faith of his countrymen, by a +solemn repetition of the Divine promise. If the tyranny is great, they +shall be redeemed with a stretched out arm, that is to say, with a +palpable interposition of the power of God, "and with great judgments." +It is the first appearance in Scripture of this phrase, afterwards so +common. Not mere vengeance upon enemies or vindication of subjects is in +question: the thought is that of a deliberate weighing of merits, and +rendering out of measured penalties. Now, the Egyptian mythology had a +very clear and solemn view of judgment after death. If king and people +had grown cruel, it was because they failed to realise remote +punishments, and did not believe in present judgments, here, in this +life. But there is a God that judgeth in the earth. Not always, for +mercy rejoiceth over judgment. We may still pray, "Enter not into +judgment with Thy servants, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no man living +be justified." But when men resist warnings, then retribution begins +even here. Sometimes it comes in plague and overthrow, sometimes in the +worse form of a heart made fat, the decay of sensibilities abused, the +dying out of spiritual faculty. Pharaoh was to experience both, the +hardening of his heart and the ruin of his fortunes. + +It is added, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you +for a God." This is the language, not of a mere purpose, a will that has +resolved to vindicate the right, but of affection. God is about to adopt +Israel to Himself, and the same favour which belonged to rare +individuals in the old time is now offered to a whole nation. Just as +the heart of each man is gradually educated, learning first to love a +parent and a family, and so led on to national patriotism, and at last +to a world-wide philanthropy, so was the religious conscience of mankind +awakened to believe that Abraham might be the friend of God, and then +that His oath might be confirmed unto the children, and then that He +could take Israel to Himself for a people, and at last that God loved +the world. + +It is not religion to think that God condescends merely to save us. He +cares for us. He takes us to Himself, He gives Himself away to us, in +return, to be our God. + +Such a revelation ought to have been more to Israel than any pledge of +certain specified advantages. It was meant to be a silken tie, a golden +clasp, to draw together the almighty Heart and the hearts of these +downtrodden slaves. Something within Him desires their little human +love; they shall be to Him for a people. So He said again, "My son, give +Me thine heart." And so, when He carried to the uttermost these +unsought, unhoped for, and, alas! unwelcomed overtures of condescension, +and came among us, He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens +under her wings, those who would not. It is not man who conceives, from +definite services received, the wild hope of some spark of real +affection in the bosom of the Eternal and Mysterious One. It is not man, +amid the lavish joys and splendours of creation, who conceives the +notion of a supreme Heart, as the explanation of the universe. It is God +Himself Who says, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to +you a God." + +Nor is it human conversion that begins the process, but a Divine +covenant and pledge, by which God would fain convert us to Himself; even +as the first disciples did not accost Jesus, but He turned and spoke to +them the first question and the first invitation; "What seek ye?... +Come, and ye shall see." + +To-day, the choice of the civilised world has to be made between a +mechanical universe and a revealed love, for no third possibility +survives. + +This promise establishes a relationship, which God never afterwards +cancelled. Human unbelief rejected its benefits, and chilled the mutual +sympathies which it involved; but the fact always remained, and in their +darkest hour they could appeal to God to remember His covenant and the +oath which He sware. + +And this same assurance belongs to us. We are not to become good, or +desirous of goodness, in order that God may requite with affection our +virtues or our wistfulness. Rather we are to arise and come to our +Father, and to call Him Father, although we are not worthy to be called +His sons. We are to remember how Jesus said, "If ye being evil know how +to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly +Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!" and to learn that He +is the Father of those who are evil, and even of those who are still +unpardoned, as He said again, "If ye forgive not ... neither will your +heavenly Father forgive you." + +Much controversy about the universal Fatherhood of God would be assuaged +if men reflected upon the significant distinction which our Saviour drew +between His Fatherhood and our sonship, the one always a reality of the +Divine affection, the other only a possibility, for human enjoyment or +rejection: "Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, +that ye may be sons of your Father Which is in heaven" (Matt. v. 45). +There is no encouragement to presumption in the assertion of the Divine +Fatherhood upon such terms. For it speaks of a love which is real and +deep without being feeble and indiscriminate. It appeals to faith +because there is an absolute fact to lean upon, and to energy because +privilege is conditional. It reminds us that our relationship is like +that of the ancient Israel,--that we are in a covenant, as they were, +but that the carcases of many of them fell in the wilderness; although +God had taken them for a people, and was to them a God, and said, +"Israel is My son, even My firstborn." + +It is added that faith shall develop into knowledge. Moses is to assure +them now that they "shall know" hereafter that the Lord is Jehovah +their God. And this, too, is a universal law, that we shall know if we +follow on to know: that the trial of our faith worketh patience, and +patience experience, and we have so dim and vague an apprehension of +Divine realities, chiefly because we have made but little trial, and +have not tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious. + +In this respect, as in so many more, religion is analogous with nature. +The squalor of the savage could be civilised, and the distorted and +absurd conceptions of mediaeval science could be corrected, only by +experiment, persistently and wisely carried out. + +And it is so in religion: its true evidence is unknown to these who +never bore its yoke; it is open to just such raillery and rejection as +they who will not love can pour upon domestic affection and the sacred +ties of family life; but, like these, it vindicates itself, in the rest +of their souls, to those who will take the yoke and learn. And its best +wisdom is not of the cunning brain but of the open heart, that wisdom +from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be +entreated. + +And thus, while God leads Israel, they shall know that He is Jehovah, +and true to His highest revelations of Himself. + +All this they heard, and also, to define their hope and brighten it, the +promise of Palestine was repeated; but they hearkened not unto Moses for +anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. Thus the body often holds the +spirit down, and kindly allowance is made by Him Who knoweth our frame +and remembereth that we are dust, and Who, in the hour of His own agony, +found the excuse for His unsympathising followers that the spirit was +willing although the flesh was weak. So when Elijah made request for +himself that he might die, in the utter reaction which followed his +triumph on Carmel and his wild race to Jezreel, the good Physician did +not dazzle him with new splendours of revelation until after he had +slept, and eaten miraculous food, and a second time slept and eaten. + +But if the anguish of the body excuses much weakness of the spirit, it +follows, on the other hand, that men are responsible to God for that +heavy weight which is laid upon the spirit by pampered and luxurious +bodies, incapable of self-sacrifice, rebellious against the lightest of +His demands. It is suggestive, that Moses, when sent again to Pharaoh, +objected, as at first: "Behold, the children of Israel have not +hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of +uncircumcised lips?" + +Every new hope, every great inspiration which calls the heroes of God to +a fresh attack upon the powers of Satan, is checked and hindered more by +the coldness of the Church than by the hostility of the world. That +hostility is expected, and can be defied. But the infidelity of the +faithful is appalling indeed. + +We read with wonder the great things which Christ has promised to +believing prayer, and, at the same time, although we know painfully that +we have never claimed and dare not claim these promises, we wonder +equally at the foreboding question, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall +He find the faith (faith in its fulness) on the earth?" (Luke xviii. 8). +But we ought to remember that our own low standard helps to form the +standard of attainment for the Church at large--that when one member +suffers, all the members suffer with it--that many a large sacrifice +would be readily made for Christ, at this hour, if only ease and +pleasure were at stake, which is refused because it is too hard to be +called well-meaning enthusiasts by those who ought to glorify God in +such attainment, as the first brethren did in the zeal and the gifts of +Paul. + +The vast mountains raise their heads above mountain ranges which +encompass them; and it is not when the level of the whole Church is low, +that giants of faith and of attainment may be hoped for. Nay, Christ +stipulates for the agreement of two or three, to kindle and make +effectual the prayers which shall avail. + +For the purification of our cities, for the shaming of our legislation +until it fears God as much as a vested interest, for the reunion of +those who worship the same Lord, for the conversion of the world, and +first of all for the conversion of the Church, heroic forces are +demanded. But all the tendency of our half-hearted, abject, +semi-Christianity is to repress everything that is unconventional, +abnormal, likely to embroil us with our natural enemy, the world; and +who can doubt that, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, we +shall know of many an aspiring soul, in which the sacred fire had begun +to burn, which sank back into lethargy and the commonplace, murmuring in +its despair, "Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; +how then shall Pharaoh hear me?" + +It was the last fear which ever shook the great heart of the emancipator +Moses. + +At the beginning of the grand historical work, of which all this has +been the prelude, there is set the pedigree of Moses and Aaron, +according to "the heads of their fathers' houses,"--- an epithet which +indicates a subdivision of the "family," as the family is a subdivision +of the tribe. Of the sons of Jacob, Reuben and Simeon are mentioned, to +put Levi in his natural third place. And from Levi to Moses only four +generations are mentioned, favouring somewhat the briefer scheme of +chronology which makes four centuries cover all the time from Abraham, +and not the captivity alone. But it is certain that this is a mere +recapitulation of the more important links in the genealogy. In Num. +xxvi. 58, 59, six generations are reckoned instead of four; in 1 Chron. +ii. 3 there are seven generations; and elsewhere in the same book (vi. +22) there are ten. It is well known that similar omissions of obscure or +unworthy links occur in St. Matthew's pedigree of our Lord, although +some stress is there laid upon the recurrent division into fourteens. +And it is absurd to found any argument against the trustworthiness of +the narrative upon a phenomenon so frequent, and so sure to be avoided +by a forger, or to be corrected by an unscrupulous editor. In point of +fact, nothing is less likely to have occurred, if the narrative were a +late invention. + +Neither, in that case, would the birth of the great emancipator be +ascribed to the union of Amram with his father's sister, for such +marriages were distinctly forbidden by the law (Lev. xviii. 14). + +Nor would the names of the children of the founder of the nation be +omitted, while those of Aaron are recorded, unless we were dealing with +genuine history, which knows that the sons of Aaron inherited the lawful +priesthood, while the descendants of Moses were the jealous founders of +a mischievous schism (Judges xviii. 30, R.V.). + +Nor again, if this were a religious romance, designed to animate the +nation in its later struggles, should we read of the hesitation and the +fears of a leader "of uncircumcised lips," instead of the trumpet-like +calls to action of a noble champion. + +Nor does the broken-spirited meanness of Israel at all resemble the +conception, popular in every nation, of a virtuous and heroic antiquity, +a golden age. It is indeed impossible to reconcile the motives and the +date to which this narrative is ascribed by some, with the plain +phenomena, with the narrative itself. + +Nor is it easy to understand why the Lord, Who speaks of bringing out +"My hosts, My people, the children of Israel" (vii. 4, etc.), should +never in the Pentateuch be called the Lord of Hosts, if that title were +in common use when it was written; for no epithet would better suit the +song of Miriam or the poetry of the Fifth Book. + +When Moses complained that he was of uncircumcised lips, the Lord +announced that He had already made His servant as a god unto Pharaoh, +having armed him, even then, with the terrors which are soon to shake +the tyrant's soul. + +It is suggestive and natural that his very education in a court should +render him fastidious, less willing than a rougher man might have been +to appear before the king after forty years of retirement, and feeling +almost physically incapable of speaking what he felt so deeply, in words +that would satisfy his own judgment. Yet God had endowed him, even then, +with a supernatural power far greater than any facility of expression. +In his weakness he would thus be made strong; and the less fit he was to +assert for himself any ascendency over Pharaoh, the more signal would be +the victory of his Lord, when he became "very great in the land of +Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the +people" (xi. 3). + +As a proof of this mastery he was from the first to speak to the haughty +king through his brother, as a god through some prophet, being too great +to reveal himself directly. It is a memorable phrase; and so lofty an +assertion could never, in the myth of a later period, have been ascribed +to an origin so lowly as the reluctance of Moses to expose his +deficiency in elocution. + +Therefore he should henceforth be emboldened by the assurance of +qualification bestowed already: not only by the hope of help and +achievement yet to come, but by the certainty of present endowment. And +so should each of us, in his degree, be bold, who have gifts differing +according to the grace given unto us. + +It is certain that every living soul has at least one talent, and is +bound to improve it. But how many of us remember that this loan implies +a commission from God, as real as that of prophet and deliverer, and +that nothing but our own default can prevent it from being, at the last, +received again with usury? + +The same bravery, the same confidence when standing where his Captain +has planted him, should inspire the prophet, and him that giveth alms, +and him that showeth mercy; for all are members in one body, and +therefore animated by one invincible Spirit from above (Rom. xii. 4-9). + +The endowment thus given to Moses made him "as a god" to Pharaoh. + +We must not take this to mean only that he had a prophet or spokesman, +or that he was made formidable, but that the peculiar nature of his +prowess would be felt. It was not his own strength. The supernatural +would become visible in him. He who boasted "I know not Jehovah" would +come to crouch before Him in His agent, and humble himself to the man +whom once he contemptuously ordered back to his burdens, with the abject +prayer, "Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat +Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only." + +Now, every consecrated power may bear witness to the Lord: it is +possible to do all to the glory of God. Not that every separate action +will be ascribed to a preternatural source, but the sum total of the +effect produced by a holy life will be sacred. He who said, "I have made +thee a god unto Pharaoh," says of all believers, "I in them, and Thou, +Father, in Me, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +_THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH'S HEART._ + +vii. 3-13. + +When Moses received his commission, at the bush, words were spoken which +are now repeated with more emphasis, and which have to be considered +carefully. For probably no statement of Scripture has excited fiercer +criticism, more exultation of enemies and perplexity of friends, than +that the Lord said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he shall not let +the people go," and that in consequence of this Divine act Pharaoh +sinned and suffered. Just because the words are startling, it is unjust +to quote them without careful examination of the context, both in the +prediction and the fulfilment. When all is weighed, compared, and +harmonised, it will at last be possible to draw a just conclusion. And +although it may happen long before then, that the objector will charge +us with special pleading, yet he will be the special pleader himself, if +he seeks to hurry us, by prejudice or passion, to give a verdict which +is based upon less than all the evidence, patiently weighed. + +Let us in the first place find out how soon this dreadful process began; +when was it that God fulfilled His threat, and hardened, in any sense +whatever, the heart of Pharaoh? Did He step in at the beginning, and +render the unhappy king incapable of weighing the remonstrances which He +then performed the cruel mockery of addressing to him? Were these as +insincere and futile as if one bade the avalanche to pause which his own +act had started down the icy slopes? Was Pharaoh as little responsible +for his pursuit of Israel as his horses were--being, like them, the +blind agents of a superior force? We do not find it so. In the fifth +chapter, when a demand is made, without any sustaining miracle, simply +appealing to the conscience of the ruler, there is no mention of any +such process, despite the insults with which Pharaoh then assails both +the messengers and Jehovah Himself, Whom he knows not. In the seventh +chapter there is clear evidence that the process is yet unaccomplished; +for, speaking of an act still future, it declares, "I will harden +Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of +Egypt" (vii. 3). And this terrible act is not connected with the +remonstrances and warnings of God, but entirely with the increasing +pressure of the miracles. + +The exact period is marked when the hand of doom closed upon the tyrant. +It is not where the Authorised Version places it. When the magicians +imitated the earlier signs of Moses, "his heart was strong," but the +original does not bear out the assertion that at this time the Lord made +it so by any judicial act of His (vii. 13). That only comes with the +sixth plague; and the course of events may be traced, fairly well, by +the help of the margin of the Revised Version. + +After the plague of blood "Pharaoh's heart was strong" ("hardened"), and +this is distinctly ascribed to his own action, because "he set his heart +even to this" (vii. 22, 23). + +After the second plague, it was still he himself who "made his heart +heavy" (viii. 15). + +After the third plague the magicians warned him that the very finger of +some god was upon him indeed: their rivalry, which hitherto might have +been somewhat of a palliation for his obstinacy, was now ended; but yet +"his heart was strong" (viii. 19). + +Again, after the fourth plague he "made his heart heavy"; and it "was +heavy" after the fifth plague, (viii. 32, ix. 7). + +Only thenceforward comes the judicial infatuation upon him who has +resolutely infatuated himself hitherto. + +But when five warnings and penalties have spent their force in vain, +when personal agony is inflicted in the plague of boils, and the +magicians in particular cannot stand before him through their pain, +would it have been proof of virtuous contrition if he had yielded then? +If he had needed evidence, it was given to him long before. Submission +now would have meant prudence, not penitence; and it was against +prudence, not penitence, that he was hardened. Because he had resisted +evidence, experience, and even the testimony of his own magicians, he +was therefore stiffened against the grudging and unworthy concessions +which must otherwise have been wrested from him, as a wild beast will +turn and fly from fire. He was henceforth himself to become an evidence +and a portent; and so "The Lord made strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he +hearkened not unto them" (ix. 12). It was an awful doom, but it is not +open to the attacks so often made upon it. It only means that for him +the last five plagues were not disciplinary, but wholly penal. + +Nay, it stops short of asserting even this: they might still have +appealed to his reason; they were only not allowed to crush him by the +agency of terror. Not once is it asserted that God hardened his heart +against any nobler impulse than alarm, and desire to evade danger and +death. We see clearly this meaning in the phrase, when it is applied to +his army entering the Red Sea: "I will make strong the hearts of the +Egyptians, and they shall go in" (xiv. 17). It needed no greater moral +turpitude to pursue the Hebrews over the sands than on the shore, but it +certainly required more hardihood. But the unpursued departure which the +good-will of Egypt refused, their common sense was not allowed to grant. +Callousness was followed by infatuation, as even the pagans felt that +whom God wills to ruin He first drives mad. + +This explanation implies that to harden Pharaoh's heart was to inspire +him, not with wickedness, but with nerve. + +And as far as the original language helps us at all, it decidedly +supports this view. Three different expressions have been unhappily +rendered by the same English word, to harden; but they may be +discriminated throughout the narrative in Exodus, by the margin of the +Revised Version. + +One word, which commonly appears without any marginal explanation, is +the same which is employed elsewhere about "the cause which is too +_hard_ for" minor judges (Deut. i. 17, cf. xv. 18, etc.). Now, this word +is found (vii. 13) in the second threat that "I will harden Pharaoh's +heart," and in the account which was to be given to posterity of how +"Pharaoh hardened himself to let us go" (xiii. 15). And it is said +likewise of Sihon, king of Heshbon, that he "would not let us pass by +him, for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart strong" +(Deut. ii. 30). But since it does not occur anywhere in all the +narrative of what God actually did with Pharaoh, it is only just to +interpret this phrase in the prediction by what we read elsewhere of the +manner of its fulfilment. + +The second word is explained in the margin as meaning _to make strong_. +Already God had employed it when He said "I will _make strong_ his +heart" (iv. 21), and this is the term used of the first fulfilment of +the menace, after the sixth plague (ix. 12). God is not said to +interfere again after the seventh, which had few special terrors for +Pharaoh himself; but from henceforth the expression "to make _strong_" +alternates with the phrase "to make _heavy_." "Go in unto Pharaoh, for I +have made heavy his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might +show these My signs in the midst of them" (x. 1). + +It may be safely assumed that these two expressions cover between them +all that is asserted of the judicial action of God in preventing a +recoil of Pharaoh from his calamities. Now, the strengthening of a +heart, however punitive and disastrous when a man's will is evil (just +as the strengthening of his arm is disastrous then), has in itself no +immorality inherent. It is a thing as often good as bad,--as when Israel +and Joshua are exhorted to "Be _strong_ and of a good courage" (Deut. +xxxi. 6, 7, 23), and when the angel laid his hand upon Daniel and said, +"Be strong, yea, be strong" (Dan. x. 19). In these passages the phrase +is identical with that which describes the process by which Pharaoh was +prevented from cowering under the tremendous blows he had provoked. + +The other expression is to make heavy or dull. Thus "the eyes of Israel +were _heavy_ with age" (Gen. xlviii. 10), and as we speak of a _weight_ +of honour, equally with the heaviness of a dull man, so we are twice +commanded, "Make heavy (honour) thy father and thy mother"; and the Lord +declares, "I will make Myself heavy (get Me honour) upon Pharaoh" (Deut. +v. 16, Exod. xx. 12, xiv. 4, 17, 18). In these latter references it will +be observed that the making "strong" the heart of Pharaoh, and the +making "Myself heavy" are so connected as almost to show a design of +indicating how far is either expression from conveying the notion of +immorality, infused into a human heart by God. For one of the two +phrases which have been thus interpreted is still applied to Pharaoh; +but the other (and the more sinister, as we should think, when thus +applied) is appropriated by God to Himself: He makes Himself heavy. + +It is also a curious and significant coincidence that the same word was +used of the burdens that were made _heavy_ when first they claimed their +freedom, which is now used of the treatment of the heart of their +oppressor (v. 9). + +It appears, then, that the Lord is never said to debauch Pharaoh's +heart, but only to strengthen it against prudence and to make it dull; +that the words used do not express the infusion of evil passion, but the +animation of a resolute courage, and the overclouding of a natural +discernment; and, above all, that every one of the three words, to make +hard, to make strong, and to make heavy, is employed to express +Pharaoh's own treatment of himself, before it is applied to any work of +God, as actually taking place already. + +Nevertheless, there is a solemn warning for all time, in the assertion +that what he at first chose, the vengeance of God afterward chose for +him. For indeed the same process, working more slowly but on identical +lines, is constantly seen in the hardening effect of vicious habit. The +gambler did not mean to stake all his fortune upon one chance, when +first he timidly laid down a paltry stake; nor has he changed his mind +since then as to the imprudence of such a hazard. The drunkard, the +murderer himself, is a man who at first did evil as far as he dared, and +afterwards dared to do evil which he would once have shuddered at. + +Let no man assume that prudence will always save him from ruinous +excess, if respect for righteousness cannot withhold him from those +first compliances which sap the will, destroy the restraint of +self-respect, wear away the horror of great wickedness by familiarity +with the same guilt in its lesser phases, and, above all, forfeit the +enlightenment and calmness of judgment which come from the Holy Spirit +of God, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and of counsel, and makes men to be +of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. + +Let no man think that the fear of damnation will bring him to the +mercy-seat at last, if the burden and gloom of being "condemned already" +cannot now bend his will. "Even as they refused to have God in their +knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind" (Rom. i. 28). "I gave +them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he +shall even live in them.... I gave them statutes that were not good, and +judgments wherein they should not live" (Ezek. xx. 11, 25). + +This is the inevitable law, the law of a confused and darkened judgment, +a heart made heavy and ears shut, a conscience seared, an infatuated +will kicking against the pricks, and heaping to itself wrath against the +day of wrath. Wilful sin is always a challenge to God, and it is avenged +by the obscuring of the lamp of God in the soul. Now, a part of His +guiding light is prudence; and it is possible that men who will not be +warned by the fear of injury to their conscience, such as they suppose +that Pharaoh suffered, may be sobered by the danger of such derangement +of their intellectual efficiency as really befel him. + +In this sense men are, at last, impelled blindly to their fate (and this +is a judicial act of God, although it comes in the course of nature), +but first they launch themselves upon the slope which grows steeper at +every downward step, until arrest is impossible. + +On the other hand, every act of obedience helps to release the will from +its entanglement, and to clear the judgment which has grown dull, +anointing the eyes with eye-salve that they may see. Not in vain is the +assertion of the bondage of the sinner and the glorious liberty of the +children of God. + +A second time, then, Moses presented himself before Pharaoh with his +demands; and, as he had been forewarned, he was now challenged to give a +sign in proof of his commission from a god. + +And the demand was treated as reasonable; a sign was given, and a +menacing one. The peaceable rod of the shepherd, a fit symbol of the +meek man who bore it, became a serpent[10] before the king, as Moses was +to become destructive to his realm. But when the wise men of Egypt and +the enchanters were called, they did likewise; and although a marvel was +added which incontestably declared the superior power of the Deity Whom +Aaron represented, yet their rivalry sufficed to make strong the heart +of Pharaoh, and he would not let the people go. The issue was now knit: +the result would be more signal than if the quarrel were decided at one +blow, and upon all the gods of Egypt the Lord would exercise vengeance. + +What are we to think of the authentification of a religion by a sign? +Beyond doubt, Jesus recognised this aspect of His own miracles, when He +said, "If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, +they had not had sin" (John xv. 24). And yet there is reason in the +objection that no amount of marvel ought to deflect by one hair's +breadth our judgment of right and wrong, and the true appeal of a +religion must be to our moral sense. + +No miracle can prove that immoral teaching is sacred. But it can prove +that it is supernatural. And this is precisely what Scripture always +proclaims. In the New Testament, we are bidden to take heed, because a +day will come, when false prophets shall work great signs and wonders, +to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Mark xiii. 22). In the Old +Testament, a prophet may seduce the people to worship other gods, by +giving them a sign or a wonder which shall come to pass, but they must +surely stone him: they must believe that his sign is only a temptation; +and above whatever power enabled him to work it, they must recognise +Jehovah proving them, and know that the supernatural has come to them in +judgment, not in revelation (Deut. xiii. 1-5). + +Now, this is the true function of the miraculous. At the most, it cannot +coerce the conscience, but only challenge it to consider and to judge. + +A teacher of the purest morality may be only a human teacher still; nor +is the Christian bound to follow into the desert every clamorous +innovator, or to seek in the secret chamber every one who whispers a +private doctrine to a few. We are entitled to expect that one who is +commissioned directly from above will bear special credentials with him; +but when these are exhibited, we must still judge whether the document +they attest is forged. And this may explain to us why the magicians were +allowed for awhile to perplex the judgment of Pharaoh whether by fraud, +as we may well suppose, or by infernal help. It was enough that Moses +should set his claims upon a level with those which Pharaoh reverenced: +the king was then bound to weigh their relative merits in other and +wholly different scales. + + +_THE PLAGUES._ + +vii. 14. + +There are many aspects in which the plagues of Egypt may be +contemplated. + +We may think of them as ranging through all nature, and asserting the +mastery of the Lord alike over the river on which depended the +prosperity of the realm, over the minute pests which can make life more +wretched than larger and more conspicuous ills (the frogs of the water, +the reptiles that disgrace humanity, and the insects that infest the +air), over the bodies of animals stricken with murrain, and those of man +tortured with boils, over hail in the cloud and blight in the crop, over +the breeze that bears the locust and the sun that grows dark at noon, +and at last over the secret springs of human life itself. + +No pantheistic creed (and the Egyptian religion struck its roots deep +into pantheistic speculation) could thus completely exalt God above +nature, as a superior and controlling Power, not one with the mighty +wheels of the universe, of which the height is terrible, but, as Ezekiel +saw Him, enthroned above them in the likeness of fire, and yet in the +likeness of humanity. + +No idolatrous creed, however powerful be its conception of one god of +the hills and another of the valleys, could thus represent a single +deity as wielding all the arrows of adverse fortune, able to assail us +from earth and sky and water, formidable alike in the least things and +in the greatest. And presently the demonstration is completed, when at +His bidding the tempest heaps up the sea, and at His frown the waters +return to their strength again. + +And no philosophic theory condescends to bring the Ideal, the Absolute, +and the Unconditioned, into such close and intimate connection with the +frog-spawn of the ditch and the blain upon the tortured skin. + +We may, with ample warrant from Scripture, make the controversial +application still more simple and direct, and think of the plagues as +wreaking vengeance, for the worship they had usurped and the cruelties +they had sanctioned, upon all the gods of Egypt, which are conceived of +for the moment as realities, and as humbled, if not in fact, yet in the +sympathies of priest and worshipper (xii. 12). + +Then we shall see the domain of each impostor invaded, and every vaunted +power to inflict evil or to remove it triumphantly wielded by Him Who +proves His equal mastery over all, and thus we shall find here the +justification of that still bolder personification which says, "Worship +Him, all ye gods" (Psalm xcvii. 7). + +The Nile had a sacred name, and was adored as "Hapee, or Hapee Mu, the +Abyss, or the Abyss of Waters, or the Hidden," and the king was +frequently portrayed standing between two images of this god, his throne +wreathed with water-lilies. The second plague struck at the goddess +HEKT, whose head was that of a frog. The uncleanness of the third plague +deranged the whole system of Egyptian worship, with its punctilious and +elaborate purifications. In every one there is either a presiding +divinity attacked, or a blow dealt upon the priesthood or the sacrifice, +or a sphere invaded which some deity should have protected, until the +sun himself is darkened, the great god RA, to whom their sacred city was +dedicated, and whose name is incorporated in the title of his earthly +representative, the Pharaoh or PH-RA. Then at last, after all these +premonitions, the deadly blow struck home. + +Or we may think of the plagues as retributive, and then we shall +discover a wonderful suitability in them all. It was a direful omen that +the first should afflict the nation through the river, into which, +eighty years before, the Hebrew babes had been cast to die, which now +rolled bloody, and seemed to disclose its dead. It was fit that the +luxurious homes of the oppressors should become squalid as the huts of +the slaves they trampled; that their flesh should suffer torture worse +than that of the whips they used so unmercifully; that the loss of crops +and cattle should bring home to them the hardships of the poor who +toiled for their magnificence; that physical darkness should appal them +with vague terrors and undefined apprehensions, such as ever haunt the +bosom of the oppressed, whose life is the sport of a caprice; and at +last that the aged should learn by the deathbed of the prop and pride of +their declining feebleness, and the younger feel beside the cradle of +the first blossom and fruit of love, all the agony of such bereavement +as they had wantonly inflicted on the innocent. + +And since the fear of disadvantage in war had prompted the murder of the +Hebrew children, it was right that the retributive blow should destroy +first their children and then their men of war. + +When we come to examine the plagues in detail, we discover that it is no +arbitrary fancy which divides them into three triplets, leading up to +the appalling tenth. Thus the first, fourth, and seventh, each of which +begins a triplet, are introduced by a command to Moses to warn Pharaoh +"in the morning" (vii. 15), or "early in the morning" (viii. 20, ix. +13). The third, sixth and ninth, on the contrary, are inflicted without +any warning whatever. The story of the third plague closes with the +defeat of the magicians, the sixth with their inability to stand before +the king, and the ninth with the final rupture, when Moses declares, +"Thou shalt see my face no more" (viii. 19, ix. 11, x. 29). + +The first three are plagues of loathsomeness--blood-stained waters, +frogs and lice; the next three bring actual pain and loss with +them--stinging flies, murrain which afflicts the beasts, and boils upon +all the Egyptians; and the third triplet are "nature-plagues"--hail, +locusts and darkness. It is only after the first three plagues that the +immunity of Israel is mentioned; and after the next three, when the hail +is threatened, instructions are first given by which those Egyptians who +fear Jehovah may also obtain protection. Thus, in orderly and solemn +procession, marched the avengers of God upon the guilty land. + +It has been observed, concerning the miracles of Jesus, that not one of +them was creative, and that, whenever it was possible, He wrought by the +use of material naturally provided. The waterpots should be filled; the +five barley-loaves should be sought out; the nets should be let down for +a draught; and the blind man should have his eyes anointed, and go wash +in the Pool of Siloam. + +And it is easily seen that such miracles were a more natural expression +of His errand, which was to repair and purify the existing system of +things, and to remove our moral disease and dearth, than any exercise of +creative power would have been, however it might have dazzled the +spectators. + +Now, the same remark applies to the miracles of Moses, to the coming of +God in judgment, as to His revelation of Himself in grace; and therefore +we need not be surprised to hear that natural phenomena are not unknown +which offer a sort of dim hint or foreshadowing of the terrible ten +plagues. Either cryptogamic vegetation or the earth borne down from +upper Africa is still seen to redden the river, usually dark, but not so +as to destroy the fish. Frogs and vermin and stinging insects are the +pest of modern travellers. Cattle plagues make ravage there, and hideous +diseases of the skin are still as common as when the Lord promised to +reward the obedience of Israel to sanitary law by putting upon them none +of "the evil diseases of Egypt" which they knew (Deut. vii. 15).[11] The +locust is still dreaded. But some of the other visitations were more +direful because not only their intensity but even their existence was +almost unprecedented: hail in Egypt was only not quite unknown; and such +veiling of the sun as occurs for a few minutes during the storms of sand +in the desert ought scarcely to be quoted as even a suggestion of the +prolonged horror of the ninth plague. + +Now, this accords exactly with the moral effect which was to be +produced. The rescued people were not to think of God as one who strikes +down into nature from outside, with strange and unwonted powers, +superseding utterly its familiar forces. They were to think of Him as +the Author of all; and of the common troubles of mortality as being +indeed the effects of sin, yet ever controlled and governed by Him, let +loose at His will, and capable of mounting to unimagined heights if His +restraints be removed from them. By the east wind He brought the +locusts, and removed them by the south-west wind. By a storm He divided +the sea. The common things of life are in His hands, often for +tremendous results. And this is one of the chief lessons of the +narrative for us. Let the mind range over the list of the nine which +stop short of absolute destruction, and reflect upon the vital +importance of immunities for which we are scarcely grateful. + +The purity of water is now felt to be among the foremost necessities of +life. It is one which asks nothing from us except to refrain from +polluting what comes from heaven so limpid. And yet we are half +satisfied to go on habitually inflicting on ourselves a plague more foul +and noxious than any occasional turning of our rivers into blood. The +two plagues which dealt with minute forms of life may well remind us of +the vast part which we are now aware that the smallest organisms play in +the economy of life, as the agents of the Creator. Who gives thanks +aright for the cheap blessing of the unstained light of heaven? + +But we are insensible to the every-day teaching of this narrative: we +turn our rivers into fluid poison; we spread all around us deleterious +influences, which breed by minute forms of parasitical life the germs of +cruel disease; we load the atmosphere with fumes which slay our cattle +with periodical distempers, and are deadlier to vegetation than the +hail-storm or the locust; we charge it with carbon so dense that +multitudes have forgotten that the sky is blue, and on our Metropolis +comes down at frequent intervals the darkness of the ninth plague, and +all the time we fail to see that God, Who enacts and enforces every law +of nature, does really plague us whenever these outraged laws avenge +themselves. The miraculous use of nature in special emergencies is such +as to show the Hand which regularly wields its powers. + +At the same time there is no more excuse for the rationalism which would +reduce the calamities of Egypt to a coincidence, than for explaining +away the manna which fed a nation during its wanderings by the drug +which is gathered, in scanty morsels, upon the acacia tree. The awful +severity of the judgments, the series which they formed, their advent +and removal at the menace and the prayer of Moses, are considerations +which make such a theory absurd. The older scepticism, which supposed +Moses to have taken advantage of some epidemic, to have learned in the +wilderness the fords of the Red Sea,[12] to have discovered water, when +the caravan was perishing of thirst, by his knowledge of the habits of +wild beasts, and finally to have dazzled the nation at Horeb with some +kind of fireworks, is itself almost a miracle in its violation of the +laws of mind. The concurrence of countless favourable accidents and +strange resources of leadership is like the chance arrangement of a +printer's type to make a poem. + +There is a common notion that the ten plagues followed each other with +breathless speed, and were completed within a few weeks. But nothing in +the narrative asserts or even hints this, and what we do know is in the +opposite direction. The seventh plague was wrought in February, for the +barley was in the ear and the flax in blossom (ix. 31); and the feast of +passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, so that the +destruction of the firstborn was in the middle of April, and there was +an interval of about two months between the last four plagues. Now, the +same interval throughout would bring back the first plague to September +or October. But the natural discoloration of the river, mentioned above, +is in the middle of the year, when the river begins to rise; and this, +it may possibly be inferred, is the natural period at which to fix the +first plague. They would then range over a period of about nine months. +During the interval between them, the promises and treacheries of the +king excited alternate hope and rage in Israel; the scribes of their own +race (once the vassals of their tyrants, but already estranged by their +own oppression) began to take rank as officers among the Jews, and to +exhibit the rudimentary promise of national order and government; and +the growing fears of their enemies fostered that triumphant sense of +mastery, out of which national hope and pride are born. When the time +came for their departure, it was possible to transmit orders throughout +all their tribes, and they came out of Egypt by their armies, which +would have been utterly impossible a few months before. It was with +them, as it is with every man that breathes: the delay of God's grace +was itself a grace; and the slowly ripening fruit grew mellower than if +it had been forced into a speedier maturity. + + +_THE FIRST PLAGUE._ + +vii. 14-25. + +It was perhaps when the Nile was rising, and Pharaoh was coming to the +bank, in pomp of state, to make official observation of its progress, on +which the welfare of the kingdom depended, and to do homage before its +divinity, that the messenger of another Deity confronted him, with a +formal declaration of war. It was a strange contrast. The wicked was in +great prosperity, neither was he plagued like another man. Upon his +head, if this were Menephtah, was the golden symbol of his own divinity. +Around him was an obsequious court. And yet there was moving in his +heart some unconfessed sense of awe, when confronted once more by the +aged shepherd and his brother, who had claimed a commission from above, +and had certainly met his challenge, and made a short end of the rival +snakes of his own seers. Once he had asked "Who is Jehovah?" and had +sent His ambassadors to their tasks again with insult. But now he needs +to harden his heart, in order not to yield to their strange and +persistent demands. He remembers how they had spoken to him already, +"Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn, and I have said +unto thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to +let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn" (iv. 22, R.V.). +Did this awful warning come back to him, when the worn, solemn and +inflexible face of Moses again met him? Did he divine the connection +between this ultimate penalty and what is now announced--the turning of +the pride and refreshment of Egypt into blood? Or was it partly because +each plague, however dire, seemed to fall short of the tremendous +threat, that he hoped to find the power of Moses more limited than his +warnings? "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed +speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to +do evil." + +And might he, at the last, be hardened to pursue the people because, by +their own showing, the keenest arrow in their quiver was now sped? +Whatever his feelings were, it is certain that the brothers come and go, +and inflict their plagues unrestrained; that no insult or violence is +attempted, and we can see the truth of the words "I have made thee as a +god unto Pharaoh." + +It is in clear allusion to his vaunt, "I know not Jehovah," that Moses +and Aaron now repeat the demand for release, and say, "Hitherto thou +hast not hearkened: behold, in this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah." +What follows, when attentively read, makes it plain that the blow falls +upon "the waters that are in the river," and those that have been drawn +from it into canals for artificial irrigation, into reservoirs like the +lakes Moeris and Mareotis, and even into vessels for immediate use. + +But we are expressly told that it was possible to obtain water by +digging wells. Therefore there is no point whatever in the cavil that +if Moses turned all the water into blood, none was left for the +operations of the magicians. But no comparison whatever existed between +their petty performances and the immense and direful work of vengeance +which rolled down a putrid mass of corrupt waters through the land, +spoiling the great stores of water by which later drought should be +relieved, destroying the fish, that important part of the food of the +nation, for which Israel afterwards lusted, and sowing the seeds of +other plagues, by the pollution of that balmy air in which so many of +our own suffering countrymen still find relief, but which was now +infected and loathsome. Even Pharaoh must have felt that his gods might +do better for him than this, and that it would be much more to the point +just then to undo his plague than to increase it--to turn back the blood +to water than contribute a few drops more. If this was their best +effort, he was already helpless in the hand of his assailant, who, by +the uplifting of his rod, and the bold avowal in advance of +responsibility for so great a calamity, had formally defied him. But +Pharaoh dared not accept the challenge: it was effort enough for him to +"set his heart" against surrender to the portent, and he sullenly turned +back into the palace from the spot where Moses met him. + +Two details remain to be observed. The seven days which were fulfilled +do not measure the interval between this plague and the next, but the +period of its infliction. And this information is not given us +concerning any other, until we come to the three days of darkness.[13] +It is important here, because the natural discoloration lasts for three +weeks, and mythical tendencies would rather exaggerate than shorten the +term. + +Again, it is contended that only with the fourth plague did Israel begin +to enjoy exemption, because then only is their immunity recorded.[14] +But it is strange indeed to suppose that they were involved in +punishments the design of which was their relief; and in fact their +exemption is implied in the statement that the Egyptians (only) had to +dig wells. It is to be understood that large stores of water would +everywhere be laid up, because the Nile water, however delicious, +carries much sediment which must be allowed to settle down. They would +not be forced, therefore, to fall back upon the polluted common sources +for a supply. + +And now let us contrast this miracle with the first of the New +Testament. One spoiled the happiness of the guilty; the other rescued +the overclouded joy of the friends of Jesus, not turning water into +blood but into wine; declaring at one stroke all the difference between +the law which worketh wrath, and the gospel of the grace of God. The +first was impressive and public, as the revelation upon Sinai; the other +appealed far more to the heart than to the imagination, and befitted +well the kingdom that was not with observation, the King who grew up +like a tender plant, and did not strive nor cry, the redeeming influence +which was at first unobtrusive as the least of all seeds, but became a +tree, and the shelter of the fowls of heaven. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[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 _phalanstere_ 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). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] Though of course the Person Whose Body was thus offered is Divine +(Acts xx. 28), and this gives inestimable value to the offering. + +[21] Here the sceptical theorists are widely divided among themselves. +Kuenen has discussed this whole theory, and rejected it as +"irreconcilable with what the Old Testament itself asserts in +justification of this sacrifice." And he is driven to connect it with +the notion of atonement. "Jahveh appears as a severe being who must be +propitiated with sacrifices." He has therefore to introduce the notion +of human sacrifice, in order to get rid of the connection with the penal +death of the Egyptians, and of the miraculous, which this example would +establish. (_Religion of Israel_, Eng. Trans., i., 239, 240.) + +[22] The astonishing significance of this declaration would only be +deepened if we accepted the theories now so fashionable, and believed +that the later passage in Isaiah was the fruit of a period when the +full-blown Priestly Code was in process of development out of "the small +body of legislation contained in Lev. xvii.--xxvi." What a strange time +for such a spiritual application of sacrificial language! + +[23] So that it is used equally of the slow action of the lame, and of +the lingering movements of the false prophets when there was none to +answer (2 Sam. iv. 4; 1 Kings xviii. 26). "The Lord of Hosts shall come +down to fight upon Mount Zion.... As birds flying, so will the Lord of +Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will PASS OVER and preserve it" (Isa. xxxi. +4, 5). + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +_THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN._ + +xiii. 1. + +Much that was said in the twelfth chapter is repeated in the thirteenth. +And this repetition is clearly due to a formal rehearsal, made when all +"their hosts" had mustered in Succoth after their first march; for Moses +says, "Remember this day, in which ye came out" (ver. 3). Already it had +been spoken of as a day much to be remembered, and for its perpetuation +the ordinance of the Passover had been founded. + +But now this charge is given as a fit prologue for the remarkable +institution which follows--the consecration to God of all unblemished +males who are the firstborn of their mothers--for such is the full +statement of what is claimed. + +In speaking to Moses the Lord says, "Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn +... it is Mine." But Moses addressing the people advances gradually, and +almost diplomatically. First he reminds them of their deliverance, and +in so doing he employs a phrase which could only have been used at the +exact stage when they were emancipated and yet upon Egyptian soil: "By +strength of hand the Lord brought you out _from this place_" (ver. 3). +Then he charges them not to forget their rescue, in the dangerous time +of their prosperity, when the Lord shall have brought them into the +land which He swore to give them; and he repeats the ordinance of +unleavened bread. And it is only then that he proceeds to announce the +permanent consecration of all their firstborn--the abiding doctrine that +these, who naturally represent the nation, are for its unworthiness +forfeited, and yet by the grace of God redeemed. + +God, Who gave all and pardons all, demands a return, not as a tax which +is levied for its own sake, but as a confession of dependence, and like +the silk flag presented to the sovereign, on the anniversaries of the +two greatest of English victories, by the descendants of the conquerors, +who hold their estates upon that tenure. The firstborn, thus dedicated, +should have formed a sacred class, a powerful element in Hebrew life +enlisted on the side of God. + +For these, as we have already seen, the Levites were afterwards +substituted (Num. iii. 44), and there is perhaps some allusion to this +change in the direction that "all the firstborn of man thou shalt +redeem" (ver. 13). But yet the demand is stated too broadly and +imperatively to belong to that later modification: it suits exactly the +time to which it is attributed, before the tribe of Levi was substituted +for the firstborn of all. + +"They are Mine," said Jehovah, Who needed not, that night, to remind +them what He had wrought the night before. It is for precisely the same +reason, that St. Paul claims all souls for God: "Ye are not your own, ye +are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies and with +your spirits, which are God's." + +And besides the general claim upon us all, each of us should feel, like +the firstborn, that every special mercy is a call to special gratitude, +to more earnest dedication. "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that +ye present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Rom. xii. 1). + +There is a tone of exultant confidence in the words of Moses, very +interesting and curious. He and his nation are breathing the free air at +last. The deliverance that has been given makes all the promise that +remains secure. As one who feels his pardon will surely not despair of +heaven, so Moses twice over instructs the people what to do when God +shall have kept the oath which He swore, and brought them into Canaan, +into the land flowing with milk and honey. Then they must observe His +passover. Then they must consecrate their firstborn. + +And twice over this emancipator and lawgiver, in the first flush of his +success, impresses upon them the homely duty of teaching their +households what God had done for them (vers. 8, 14; cf. xii. 26). + +This, accordingly, the Psalmist learned, and in his turn transmitted. He +heard with his ears and his fathers told him what God did in their days, +in the days of old. And he told the generation to come the praises of +Jehovah, and His strength, and His wondrous works (Ps. xliv. 1, lxxviii. +4). + +But it is absurd to treat these verses, as Kuenen does, as evidence that +the story is mere legend: "transmitted from mouth to mouth, it gradually +lost its accuracy and precision, and adopted all sorts of foreign +elements." To prove which, we are gravely referred to passages like +this. (_Religion of Israel_, i. 22, Eng. Vers.) The duty of oral +instruction is still acknowledged, but this does not prove that the +narrative is still unwritten. + +From the emphatic language in which Moses urged this double duty, too +much forgotten still, of remembering and showing forth the goodness of +God, sprang the curious custom of the wearing of phylacteries. But the +Jews were not bidden to wear signs and frontlets: they were bidden to +let hallowed memories be unto them in the place of such charms as they +had seen the Egyptians wear, "for a sign unto thee, upon thine hand, and +for a frontlet between thine eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in +thy mouth" (ver. 9). Such language is frequent in the Old Testament, +where mercy and truth should be bound around their necks; their fathers' +commandments should be tied around their necks, bound on their fingers, +written on their hearts; and Sion should clothe herself with her +converts as an ornament, and gird them upon her as a bride doth (Prov. +iii. 3, vi. 21, vii. 3; Isa. xlix. 18). + +But human nature still finds the letter of many a commandment easier +than the spirit, a ceremony than an obedient heart, penance than +penitence, ashes on the forehead than a contrite spirit, and a +phylactery than the gratitude and acknowledgment which ought to be unto +us for a sign on the hand and a frontlet between the eyes. + +We have already observed the connection between the thirteenth verse and +the events of the previous night. But there is an interesting touch of +nature in the words "the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a +lamb." It was afterwards rightly perceived that all unclean animals +should follow the same rule; but why was only the ass mentioned? Plainly +because those humble journeyers had no other beast of burden. Horses +pursued them presently, but even the Egyptians of that period used them +only in war. The trampled Hebrews would not possess camels. And thus +again, in the tenth commandment, when the stateliest of their cattle is +specified, no beast of burden is named with it but the ass: "Thou shalt +not covet ... his ox nor his ass." It is an undesigned coincidence of +real value; a phrase which would never have been devised by legislators +of a later date; a frank and unconscious evidence of the genuineness of +the story. + +Some time before this, a new and fierce race, whose name declared them +to be "emigrants," had thrust itself in among the tribes of Canaan--a +race which was long to wage equal war with Israel, and not seldom to see +his back turned in battle. They now held all the south of Palestine, +from the brook of Egypt to Ekron (Josh. xv. 4, 47). And if Moses in the +flush of his success had pushed on by the straight and easy route into +the promised land, the first shock of combat with them would have been +felt in a few weeks. But "God led them not by the way of the +Philistines, though that was near, for God said, Lest peradventure the +people repent them when they see war, and they return to Egypt" (ver. +17). + +From this we learn two lessons. Why did not He, Who presently made +strong the hearts of the Egyptians to plunge into the bed of the sea, +make the hearts of His own people strong to defy the Philistines? The +answer is a striking and solemn one. Neither God in the Old Testament, +nor God manifested in the flesh, is ever recorded to have wrought any +miracle of spiritual advancement or overthrow. Thus the Egyptians were +but confirmed in their own choice: their decision was carried further. +And even Saul of Tarsus was illuminated, not coerced: he might have +disobeyed the heavenly vision. He was not an insincere man suddenly +coerced into earnestness, nor a coward suddenly made brave. In the moral +world, adequate means are always employed for the securing of desired +effects. Love, gratitude, the sense of danger and of grace, are the +powers which elevate characters. And persons who live in sensuality, +fraud, or falsehood, hoping to be saved some day by a sort of miracle of +grace, ought to ponder this truth, which may not be the gospel now +fashionable, but is unquestionably the statement of a Scriptural fact: +_in the moral sphere, God works by means and not by miracle_. + +A free life, the desert air, the rejection of the unfit by many +visitations, and the growth of a new generation amid thrilling events, +in a soul-stirring region, and under the pure influences of the +law,--these were necessary before Israel could cross steel with the +warlike children of the Philistines; and even then, it was not with them +that he should begin. + +The other lesson we learn is the tender fidelity of God, Who will not +suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. He led them +aside into the desert, whither He still in mercy leads very many who +think it a heavy judgment to be there. + + +_THE BONES OF JOSEPH._ + +xiii. 19. + +It is certain that Moses, in the days of his greatness, must often have +mused by the sepulchre of the one Israelite before himself who held high +rank in Egypt. The knowledge that Joseph's elevation was providential +must have helped him at that time, now many years ago, to think rightly +of his own. And now we read that Moses took the bones of Joseph with +him. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 22) it is recorded as the most +characteristic example of the faith of the patriarch, that instead of +desiring to be carried, like his father, at once to Canaan, he made +mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment +concerning his bones. To him Egypt was no longer an alien land. There +only he had known honour without envy, and happiness without betrayal. +There his bones could rest in quiet; but not for ever. Personal +elevation, which had not rent the cord between him and his unworthy +family, could still less sever the bands between him and the sacred +race. Let him sleep in Egypt while his grave there was honoured: let the +remembrance of him be kept fresh, to protect awhile his kindred; and +when the predicted days of evil came, let his ashes share the neglect +and dishonour of his people, if only they would remember his remains +when the Lord would lead them forth. This confidence in their +emancipation was his faith--which meant, here as always, not a clear +view of truth, but an assuring grasp of it. He had straitly sworn the +children of Israel saying, "God will surely visit you; and ye shall +carry up my bones away hence with you." + +Many a Christian might well envy a confidence so practical, so +thoroughly realised, entering so naturally into the tissue of his +thoughts and calculations. And their actual remembrance of him goes to +show that the tradition of his faith had never completely died out, but +was among the influences which kept alive the nation's hope. + +And as the people bore his honoured ashes through the desert, these +being dead spoke of bygone times, they linked the present and the past +together, they deepened the national consciousness that Israel was a +favoured people, called to no common destiny, sustained by no common +promises, pressing toward no common goal. + +If Israel had been wise, they would have thought of him, the Israelite +in heart, though glittering in the splendours of Egypt; and would have +considered well that as little as men detected his secret life from his +appearance, so little could theirs be judged. To the eye, they were free +from the foreign trammels in which he was seemingly entangled, yet many +of them in heart turned back to all which strove in vain to bind his +affections down. The lesson holds good to-day. Many a modern religionist +looks askance at the "worldliness" of high office and rank and state; +little dreaming that the "world" he censures is strong in his own +ambitious and self-asserting spirit, and is overcome by the gentle and +tranquil spirit of hundreds of those whom he condemns. + +Bearing this hallowed burden, which might easily have become an object +of superstitious regard, the nation moved from Succoth to Etham on the +edge of the wilderness. And with them a Presence moved which rebuked all +others, however venerable. The Lord went before them. It has already +been pointed out that throughout the early history of this nation, just +come out of an idolatrous land, and too ready to lapse back into +superstition, God never reveals Himself except in fire. To Abraham and +to Jacob He appeared in human form, and again to Joshua; but in the +interval, never. So now they see Him by day in a pillar of cloud to +guide them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them +light. The glory of the nation was that manifested Presence, lacking +which, Moses besought Him to carry them up no farther. Nothing in the +Exodus is more impressive, and it sank deep into the national heart. +Many centuries afterwards, the ideal of a golden age was that the Lord +should "create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her +assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire +by night" (Isa. iv. 5). + +But it has been well observed that, amid the various allusions to it in +Hebrew poetry, not one treats it as modern literature has done, with an +eye to its marvellous sublimity and picturesque effects: + + "By day, along the astonished lands + The cloudy pillar glided slow: + By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands + Returned the fiery column's glow." + +The Hebrew poetry is vivid and passionate, but all its concerns are +human or divine--God, and the life of man. It is not artistic, but +inspired. "The modern poet is delighting in the scenic effect; the +ancient chronicler was wholly occupied with the overshadowing power of +God."[24] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] Hutton's _Essays_, Vol. ii., _Literary: The Poetry of the Old +Test._ + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +_THE RED SEA._ + +xiv. 1-31. + +It would seem that the Israelites recoiled before a frontier fortress of +Egypt at Khetam (Etham). This is probable, whatever theory of the route +of the Exodus one may adopt; and it is still open to every reader to +adopt almost any theory he pleases, provided that two facts are borne in +mind: viz., first, that the narrative certainly means to describe a +miraculous interference, not superseding the forces of nature, but +wielding them in a fashion impossible to man; and second, that the +phrase translated "Red Sea"[25] (xiii. 18, xv. 4) is the same which is +confessed by all persons to have that meaning in chap. xxiii. 31, and in +Numbers xxi. 4 and xxxiii. 10. + +Checked, without loss or with it, they were bidden to "turn back," and +encamp at Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. And since Migdol is +simply a watch-tower (there were several in the Holy Land, including +that which gave her name to Mary Magdal-ene), we are to infer that from +thence their inexplicable movements were signalled back to Pharaoh. It +was the natural signal for all the wild passions of a baffled and +half-ruined tyrant to leap into flame. We are scarcely able to imagine +the mental condition of men who conceived that a God Who had dealt out +death and destruction might be far from invincible from another side. +But ages after this, a campaign was planned upon the ingenious theory +that "Jehovah is a god of the hills but He is not a god of the valleys" +(1 Kings xx. 28); and plenty of people who would scorn this simple +notion are still of opinion that He is a God of eternity and can save +them from hell, but a little falsehood and knavery are much better able +to save them from want in the meanwhile. Nay, there are many excellent +persons who are not at all of opinion that the prince of this world has +been dethroned. + +Therefore, when his enemies recoiled from his fortresses and wandered +away into the wilderness of Egypt, entangling themselves hopelessly +between the sea, the mountains, and his own strongholds, it might well +appear to Pharaoh that Jehovah was not a warlike deity, that he himself +had now found out the weak point of his enemies, and could pursue and +overtake and satisfy his lust upon them. There is a significant emphasis +in the song of Miriam's triumph--"Jehovah is a man of war." At all +events, it was through an imperfect sense of the universal and practical +importance of Jehovah as a factor not to be neglected in his +calculations, through exactly the same error which misleads every man +who postpones religion, or limits the range of its influence in his +daily life,--it was thus, and not through any rarer infatuation, that +Pharaoh made ready six hundred chosen chariots and all the chariots of +Egypt, and captains over all of them. And his court was of the same +mind, saying, "What is this that we have done, that we have let Israel +go from serving us?" + +These words are hard to reconcile with the strange notion that until now +a return after three days was expected, despite the torrent of blood +which rolled between them, and the demands by which the Israelitish +women had spoiled the Egyptians. Upon this theory it is not their own +error, but the bad faith of their servants, which they should have cried +out against. + +At the sight of the army, a panic seized the servile hearts of the +fugitives. First they cried out unto the Lord. But how possible it is, +without any real faith, to address to Heaven the mere clamours of our +alarm, and to mistake natural agitation for earnestness in prayer, we +learn by the reproaches with which, after thus crying to the Lord, they +assailed His servant. Were there no graves in that land of superb +sepulchres--that land, now, of universal mourning? Would God that they +had perished with the firstborn! Why had they been treated thus? Had +they not urged Moses to let them alone, that they might serve the +Egyptians? + +And yet these men had lately, for the very promise of so much +emancipation as they now enjoyed, bowed their heads in adoring +thankfulness. As it was their fear which now took the form of +supplication, so then it was their hope which took the form of praise. +And we, how shall we know whether that in us which seems to be religious +gladness and religious grief, is mere emotion, or is truly sacred? By +watching whether worship and love continue, when emotion has spent its +force, or has gone round, like the wind, to another quarter. + +How did Moses feel when this outcry told him of the unworthiness and +cowardice of the nation of his heart? Much as we feel, perhaps, when we +see the frailties and failures of converts in the mission-field, and the +lapse of the intemperate who have seemed to be reclaimed for ever. We +thought that perfection was to be reached at a bound. Now we think that +the whole work was unreal. Both extremes are wrong: we have much to +learn from the failures of that ancient church, in which was the germ of +hero, psalmist, and prophet, which was indeed the church in the +wilderness, and whose many relapses were so tenderly borne with by God +and His messenger. + +The settled faith of Moses, and the assurances which he could give the +agitated people,[26] contrast nobly with their alarm. But his confidence +also had its secret springs in prayer, for the Lord said to him, +"Wherefore criest thou unto Me? speak unto the children of Israel that +they go forward." + +The words are remarkable on two accounts. Can prayer ever be out of +place? Not if we mean a prayerful dependent mental attitude toward God. +But certainly, yes, if God has already revealed that for which we still +importune Him, and we are secretly disquieted lest His promise should +fail. It is misplaced if our own duty has to be done, and we pass the +golden moments in inactivity, however pious. Christ spoke of men who +should leave their gift before the altar, unpresented, because of a +neglected duty which should be discharged. And perhaps there are men who +pray for the conversion of the heathen, or of friends at home, to whom +God says, Wherefore criest thou unto Me? because their money and their +faithful efforts must be given, as Moses must arouse himself to lead the +people forward, and to stretch his wand over the sea. + +And again the forces of nature are on the side of God: the strong wind +makes the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over. History +has no scene more picturesque than this wild night march, in the roar of +tempest, amid the flying foam which "baptized" them unto Moses,[27] +while the glimmering waters stood up like a rampart to protect their +flanks; the full moon of passover above them, shown and hidden as the +swift clouds raced before the storm, while high and steadfast overhead, +unshaken by the fiercest blast, illumined by a mysterious splendour, +"stood" the vast cloud which veiled like a curtain their whole host from +the pursuer. This it was, and the experience of such protection that the +Egyptians, overawed, came not near them, which gave them courage to +enter the bed of the sea; and as they trod the strange road they found +that not only were the waters driven off the surface, but the sands were +left firm to traverse. + +But when the blind fury of Pharaoh, "hardened" against everything but +the sense that his prey was escaping, sent his army along the same +track, and this after long delay, at a crisis when every moment was +priceless, then a new element of terrible sublimity was added. Through +the pillar of cloud and fire Jehovah looked forth on the Egyptian host, +as they pressed on behind, unable to penetrate the supernatural gloom, +cold fear creeping into every heart, while the chariot wheels laboured +heavily in the wet sand. In that direful vision at last the question was +answered, "Who is Jehovah, that I should let His people go?" Now it was +the turn of those who said "Israel is entangled in the land, the +wilderness hath shut them in," themselves to be taken in a worse net. +For at that awful gaze the iron curb of military discipline gave way; +their labouring chariots, the pride and defence of the nation, were +forsaken; and a wild cry broke out, "Let us fly from the face of Israel, +for Jehovah"--He who plagued us--"fighteth for them against the +Egyptians." But their humiliation came too late,--for in the morning +watch, at a natural time for atmospheric changes, but in obedience to +the rod of Moses, the furious wind veered or fell, and the sea returned +to its accustomed limits; and first, as the sands beneath became +saturated, the chariots were overturned and the mail-clad charioteers +went down "like lead," and then the hissing line of foam raced forward +and closed around and over the shrieking mob which was the pride and +strength of Egypt only an hour before. + +But, as the story repeats twice over, with a very natural and glad +reiteration, "the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of +the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and +on their left" (ver. 29, cf. 22). + + +_ON THE SHORE._ + +xiv. 30, 31. + +After the haste and agitation of their marvellous deliverance the +children of Israel seem to have halted for awhile at the only spot in +the neighbourhood where there is water, known as the Ayoun Musa or +springs of Moses to this day. There they doubtless brought into some +permanent shape their rudimentary organisation. There, too, their +impressions were given time to deepen. They "saw the Egyptians dead on +the sea-shore," and realised that their oppression was indeed at an end, +their chains broken, themselves introduced into a new life,--"baptized +unto Moses." They reflected upon the difference between all other +deities and the God of their fathers, Who, in that deadly crisis, had +looked upon them and their tyrants out of the fiery pillar. "They feared +Jehovah, and they believed in Jehovah and in His servant Moses." + +"They believed in Jehovah." This expression is noteworthy, because they +had all believed in Him already. "By faith 'they' forsook Egypt. By +faith 'they' kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood. By faith +'they' passed through the Red Sea." But their former trust was poor and +wavering compared with that which filled their bosoms now. So the +disciples followed Jesus because they believed on Him; yet when His +first miracle manifested forth His glory, "His disciples believed on Him +there." And again they said, "By this we believe that Thou camest forth +from God." And after the resurrection He said, "Because thou hast seen +Me thou hast believed" (John ii. 11, xvi. 30, xx. 29). Faith needs to be +edified by successive experiences, as the enthusiasm of a recruit is +converted into the disciplined valour of the veteran. From each new +crisis of the spiritual life the soul should obtain new powers. And that +is a shallow and unstable religion which is content with the level of +its initial act of faith (however genuine and however important), and +seeks not to go from strength to strength. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] The Sea of Zuph, or reeds, the word being used of the reeds in +which Moses was laid by his mother and found by Pharaoh's daughter (ii. +3, 5), rendered "flags" in the Revised Version. + +[26] But his assurance is, "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall +hold your peace." When Wellhausen would summarise the work of Moses, he +tells us that "he taught them to regard self-assertion against the +Egyptians as an article of religion" (_History_, p. 430). It would be +impossible, within the compass of so many words, more completely to miss +the remarkable characteristic which differentiates this whole narrative +from all other revolutionary movements. Expectancy and dependence here +take the place of "self-assertion." + +[27] Not the adults only; nor yet by immersion, whether in the +rain-cloud or the surf. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +_THE SONG OF MOSES._ + +xv. 1-22. + +During this halt they prepared that great song of triumph which St. John +heard sung by them who had been victorious over the beast, standing by +the sea of glass, having the harps of God. For by that calmer sea, +triumphant over a deadlier persecution, they still found their adoration +and joy expressed in this earliest chant of sacred victory. Because all +holy hearts give like thanks to Him Who sitteth upon the throne, +therefore "deep answers unto deep," and every great crisis in the +history of the Church has legacies for all time and for eternity; and +therefore the triumphant song of Moses the servant of God enriches the +worship of heaven, as the penitence and hope and joy of David enrich the +worship of the Church on earth (Rev. xv. 3). + +Like all great poetry, this song is best enjoyed when it is neither +commented upon nor paraphrased, but carefully read and warmly felt. +There are circumstances and lines of thought which it is desirable to +point out, but only as a preparation, not a substitute, for the +submission of a docile mind to the influence of the inspired poem +itself. It is unquestionably archaic. The parallelism of Hebrew verse is +already here, but the structure is more free and unartificial than that +of later poetry; and many ancient words, and words of Egyptian +derivation, authenticate its origin. So does the description of Miriam, +in the fifteenth verse, as "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron." In +what later time would she not rather have been called the sister of +Moses? But from the lonely youth who found Aaron and Miriam together as +often as he stole from the palace to his real home--the lonely man who +regained both together when he returned from forty years of exile, and +who sometimes found them united in opposition to his authority (Num. +xii. 1, 2)--from Moses alone the epithet is entirely natural. + +It is also noteworthy that Philistia is mentioned first among the foes +who shall be terrified (ver. 14, R.V.), because Moses still expected the +invasion to break first on them. But the unbelieving fears of Israel +changed the route, so that no later poet would have set them in the +forefront of his song. Thus also the terror of the Edomites is +anticipated, although in fact they sturdily refused a passage to Israel +through their land (Num. xx. 20). All this authenticates the song, which +thereupon establishes the miraculous deliverance that inspired it. + +The song is divided into two parts. Up to the end of the twelfth verse +it is historical: the remainder expresses the high hopes inspired by +this great experience. Nothing now seems impossible: the fiercest tribes +of Palestine and the desert may be despised, for their own terror will +suffice to "melt" them; and Israel may already reckon itself to be +guided into the holy habitation (ver. 13). + +The former part is again subdivided, by a noble and instinctive art, +into two very unequal sections. With amplitude of triumphant adoration, +the first ten verses tell the same story which the eleventh and twelfth +compress into epigrammatical vigour and terseness. To appreciate the +power of the composition, one should read the fourth, fifth, and sixth +verses, and turn immediately to the twelfth. + +Each of these three divisions closes in praise, and as in the "Israel in +Egypt," it was probably at these points that the voices of Miriam and +the women broke in, repeating the first verse of the ode as a refrain +(vers. 1 and 21). It is the earliest recognition of the place of women +in public worship. And it leads us to remark that the whole service was +responsive. Moses and the men are answered by Miriam and the women, +bearing timbrels in their hands; for although instrumental music had +been sorely misused in Egypt, that was no reason why it should be +excluded now. Those who condemn the use of instruments in Christian +worship virtually contend that Jesus has, in this respect, narrowed the +liberty of the Church, and that a potent method of expression, known to +man, must not be consecrated to the honour of God. And they make the +present time unlike the past, and also unlike what is revealed of the +future state. + +Moreover there was movement, as in very many ancient religious services, +within and without the pale of revelation.[28] Such dances were +generally slow and graceful; yet the motion and the clang of metal, and +the vast multitudes congregated, must be taken into account, if we would +realise the strange enthusiasm of the emancipated host, looking over the +blue sea to Egypt, defeated and twice bereaved, and forward to the +desert wilds of freedom. + +The poem is steeped in a sense of gratitude. In the great deliverance +man has borne no part. It is Jehovah Who has triumphed gloriously, and +cast the horse and charioteer--there was no "rider"--into the sea. And +this is repeated again and again by the women as their response, in the +deepening passion of the ode. "With the breath of His nostrils the +waters were piled up.... He blew with His wind and the sea covered +them." And such is indeed the only possible explanation of the Exodus, +so that whoever rejects the miracle is beset with countless +difficulties. One of these is the fact that Moses, their immortal +leader, has no martial renown whatever. Hebrew poetry is well able to +combine gratitude to God with honour to the men of Zebulun who +jeopardised their lives unto the death, to Jael who put her hand to the +nail, to Saul and Jonathan who were swifter than eagles and stronger +than lions. Joshua and David can win fame without dishonour to God. Why +is it that here alone no mention is made of human agency, except that, +in fact, at the outset of their national existence, they were shown, +once for all, the direct interposition of their God? + +From gratitude springs trust: the great lesson is learned that man has +an interest in the Divine power. "My strength and song is Jah," says the +second verse, using that abbreviated form of the covenant name Jehovah, +which David also frequently associated with his victories. "And He is +become my salvation." It is the same word as when, a little while ago, +the trembling people were bidden to stand still and see the salvation of +God. They have seen it now. Now they give the word Salvation for the +first time to the Lord as an appellation, and as such it is destined to +endure. The Psalmist learns to call Him so, not only when he reproduces +this verse word for word (Ps. cxviii. 14), but also when he says, "He +only is my rock and my salvation" (lxii. 2), and prays, "Before Ephraim, +Benjamin, and Manasseh, come for salvation to us" (lxxx. 2). + +And the same title is known also to Isaiah, who says, "Behold God is my +salvation," and "Be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in +the time of trouble" (Isa. xii. 2, xxxiii. 2). + +The progress is natural from experience of goodness to appropriation: He +has helped me: He gives Himself to me; and from that again to love and +trust, for He has always been the same: "my father," not my ancestors in +general, but he whom I knew best and remember most tenderly, found Him +the same Helper. And then love prompts to some return. My goodness +extendeth not to Him, yet my voice can honour Him; I will praise Him, I +will exalt His name. Now, this is the very spirit of evangelical +obedience, the life-blood of the new dispensation racing in the veins of +the old. + +Where praise and exaltation are a spontaneous instinct, there is loyal +service and every good work, not rendered by a hireling but a child. Had +He not said, "Israel is My son"? + +From exultant gratitude and trust, what is next to spring? That which is +reproachfully called anthropomorphism, something which indeed easily +degenerates into unworthy notions of a God limited by such restraints or +warped by such passions as our own, yet which is after all a great +advance towards true and holy thoughts of Him Who made man after His +image and in His likeness. + +Human affection cannot go forth to God without believing that like +affection meets and responds to it. If He is indeed the best and purest, +we must think of Him as sharing all that is best and purest in our +souls, all that we owe to His inspiring Spirit. + + "So through the thunder comes a human voice, + Saying 'O heart I made, a heart beats here.'" + +If ever any religion was sternly jealous of the Divine prerogatives, +profoundly conscious of the incommunicable dignity of the Lord our God +Who is one Lord, it was the Jewish religion. Yet when Jesus was charged +with making Himself God, He could appeal to the doctrine of their own +Scripture--that the judges of the people exercised so divine a function, +and could claim such divine support, that God Himself spoke through +them, and found representatives in them. "Is it not written in your law, +I said Ye are gods?" (John x. 34). Not in vain did He appeal to such +scriptures--and there are many such--to vindicate His doctrine. For man +is never lifted above himself, but God in the same degree stoops towards +us, and identifies Himself with us and our concerns. Who then shall +limit His condescension? What ground in reason or revelation can be +taken up for denying that it may be perfect, that it may develop into a +permanent union of God with the creature whom He inspired with His own +breath? It is by such steps that the Old Testament prepared Israel for +the Incarnation. Since the Incarnation we have actually needed help from +the other side, to prevent us from humanising our conceptions over-much. +And this has been provided in the ever-expanding views of His creation +given to us by science, which tell us that if He draws nigh to us it is +from heights formerly undreamed of. Now, such a step as we have been +considering is taken unawares in the bold phrase "Jehovah is a man of +war." For in the original, as in the English, this includes the +assertion "Jehovah is a man." Of course it is only a bold figure. But +such a figure prepares the mind for new light, suggesting more than it +logically asserts. + +The phrase is more striking when we remember that remarkable peculiarity +of the Exodus and its revelations which has been already pointed out. +Elsewhere God appears in human likeness. To Abraham it was so, just +before, and to Manoah soon afterwards. Ezekiel saw upon the likeness of +the throne the likeness of the appearance of a man (Ezek. i. 26). But +Israel saw no similitude, only he heard a voice. This was obviously a +safeguard against idolatry. And it makes the words more noteworthy, +"Jehovah is a man of war," marching with us, our champion, into the +battle. And we know Him as our fathers knew Him not,--"Jehovah is His +name." + + * * * * * + +The poem next describes the overthrow of the enemy: the heavy plunge of +men in armour into the deeps, the arm of the Lord dashing them in +pieces, His "fire" consuming them, while the blast of His nostrils is +the storm which "piles up" the waters, solid as a wall of ice, +"congealed in the heart of the sea." Then the singers exultantly +rehearse the short panting eager phrases, full of greedy expectation, of +the enemy breathless in pursuit--a passage well remembered by Deborah, +when her triumphant song closed by an insulting repetition of the vain +calculations of the mother of Sisera and "her wise ladies." + +The eleventh verse is remarkable as being the first announcement of the +holiness of God. "Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness?" And +what does holiness mean? The Hebrew word is apparently suggestive of +"brightness," and the two ideas are coupled by Isaiah (x. 17): "The +Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame." +There is indeed something in the purity of light, in its absolute +immunity from stain--no passive cleanness, as of the sand upon the +shore, but intense and vital--and in its remoteness from the conditions +of common material substances, that well expresses and typifies the +lofty and awful quality which separates holiness from mere virtue. "God +is called the Holy One because He is altogether pure, the clear and +spotless Light; so that in the idea of the holiness of God there are +embodied the absolute moral purity and perfection of the Divine nature, +and His unclouded glory" (Keil, _Pent._, ii. 99). In this thought there +is already involved separation, a lofty remoteness. + +And when holiness is attributed to man, it never means innocence, nor +even virtue, merely as such. It is always a derived attribute: it is +reflected upon us, like light upon our planet; and like consecration, it +speaks not of man in himself, but in his relation to God. It expresses a +kind of separation to God, and thus it can reach to lifeless things +which bear a true relation to the Divine. The seventh day is thus +"hallowed." It is the very name of the "Holy Place," the "Sanctuary." +And the ground where Moses was to stand unshod beside the burning bush +was pronounced "holy," not by any concession to human weakness, but by +the direct teaching of God. Very inseparable from all true holiness is +separation from what is common and unclean. Holy men may be involved in +the duties of active life; but only on condition that in their bosom +shall be some inner shrine, whither the din of worldliness never +penetrates, and where the lamp of God does not go out. + +It is a solemn truth that a kind of inverted holiness is known to +Scripture. Men "sanctify themselves" (it is this very word), "and purify +themselves to go into the gardens, ... eating swine's flesh and the +abomination and the mouse" (Isa. lxvi. 17). The same word is also used +to declare that the whole fruit of a vineyard sown with two kinds of +fruit shall be _forfeited_ (Deut. xxii. 9), although the notion there is +of something unnatural and therefore interdicted, which notion is +carried to the utmost extreme in another derivative from the same root, +expressing the most depraved of human beings. + +Just so, the Greek word "anathema" means both "consecrated" and "marked +out for wrath" (Luke xxi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 22: the difference in form is +insignificant.) And so again our own tongue calls the saints "devoted," +and speaks of the "devoted" head of the doomed sinner, being aware that +there is a "separation" in sin as really as in purity. The gods of the +heathen, like Jehovah, claimed an appropriate "holiness," sometimes +unspeakably degraded. They too were separated, and it was through long +lines of sphinxes, and many successive chambers, that the Egyptian +worshipper attained the shrine of some contemptible or hateful deity. +The religion which does not elevate depresses. But the holiness of +Jehovah is noble as that of light, incapable of defilement. "Who among +the gods is like Thee ... glorious in holiness?" And Israel soon learned +that the worshipper must become assimilated to his Ideal: "Ye shall be +holy men unto Me" (xxii. 31). It is so with us. Jesus is separated from +sinners. And we are to go forth unto Him out of the camp, bearing His +reproach (Heb. vii. 26, xiii. 13). + +The remainder of the song is remarkable chiefly for the confidence with +which the future is inferred from the past. And the same argument runs +through all Scripture. As Moses sang, "Thou shalt bring them in and +plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance," because "Thou +stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth[29] swallowed" their enemies, +so David was sure that goodness and mercy should follow him all the days +of his life, because God was already leading him in green pastures and +beside still waters. And so St. Paul, knowing in Whom he had believed, +was persuaded that He was able to keep his deposit until that day (2 +Tim. i. 12). + +So should pardon and Scripture and the means of grace reassure every +doubting heart; for "if the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not +have ... showed us all these things" (Judg. xiii. 23). And in theory, +and in good hours, we confess that this is so. But after our song of +triumph, if we come upon bitter waters we murmur; and if our bread fail, +we expect only to die in the wilderness. + + +_SHUR._ + +xv. 22-7. + +From the Red Sea the Israelites marched into the wilderness of Shur--a +general name, of Egyptian origin, for the district between Egypt and +Palestine, of which Etham, given as their route in Numbers (xxxiii. 8), +is a subdivision. The rugged way led over stone and sand, with little +vegetation and no water. And the "three days' journey" to Marah, a +distance of thirty-three miles, was their first experience of absolute +hardship, for not even the curtain of miraculous cloud could prevent +them from suffering keenly by heat and thirst. + +It was a period of disillusion. Fond dreams of ease and triumphant +progress, with every trouble miraculously smoothed away, had naturally +been excited by their late adventure. Their song had exulted in the +prospect that their enemies should melt away, and be as still as a +stone. But their difficulties did not melt away. The road was weary. +They found no water. They were still too much impressed by the miracle +at the Red Sea, and by the mysterious Presence overhead, for open +complaining to be heard along the route; but we may be sure that +reaction had set in, and there was many a sinking heart, as the dreary +route stretched on and on, and they realised that, however romantic the +main plan of their journey, the details might still be prosaic and +exacting. They sang praises unto Him. They soon forgat His works. Aching +with such disappointments, at last they reached the waters of Marah, and +they could not drink, for they were bitter. + +And if Marah be indeed Huwara, as seems to be agreed, the waters are +still the worst in all the district. It was when the relief, so +confidently expected, failed, and the term of their sufferings appeared +to be indefinitely prolonged, that their self-control gave way, and they +"murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?" And we may be +sure that wherever discontent and unbelief are working secret mischief +to the soul, some event, some disappointment or temptation, will find +the weak point, and the favourable moment of attack, just as the seeds +of disease find out the morbid constitution, and assail it. + +Now, all this is profoundly instructive, because it is true to the +universal facts of human nature. When a man is promoted to unexpected +rank, or suddenly becomes rich, or reaches any other unlooked-for +elevation, he is apt to forget that life cannot, in any position, be a +romance throughout, a long thrill, a whole song at the top note of the +voice. Affection itself has a dangerous moment, when two united lives +begin to realise that even their union cannot banish aches and +anxieties, weariness and business cares. Well for them if they are +content with the power of love to sweeten what it cannot remove, as +loyal soldiers gladly sacrifice all things for the cause, and as Israel +should have been proud to endure forced marches under the cloudy banner +of its emancipating God. + +As neither rank nor affection exempts men from the dust and tedium of +life, or from its disappointments, so neither does religion. When one is +"made happy" he expects life to be only a triumphal procession towards +Paradise, and he is startled when "now for a season, if need be, he is +in heaviness through manifold temptations." Yet Christ prayed not that +we should be taken out of the world. We are bidden to endure hardness as +good soldiers, and to run with patience the race which is set before us; +and these phrases indicate our need of the very qualities wherein Israel +failed. As yet the people murmured not ostensibly against God, but only +against Moses. But the estrangement of their hearts is plain, since they +made no appeal to God for relief, but assailed His agent and +representative. Yet they had not because they asked not, and relief was +found when Moses cried unto the Lord. Their leader was "faithful in all +his house"; and instead of upbraiding his followers with their +ingratitude, or bewailing the hard lot of all leaders of the multitude, +whose popularity neither merit nor service can long preserve unclouded, +he was content to look for sympathy and help where we too may find it. + +We read that the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the +waters, the waters were made sweet. In this we discern the same union of +Divine grace with human energy and use of means, as in all medicine, and +indeed all uses of the divinely enlightened intellect of man. It would +have been easy to argue that the waters could only be healed by miracle, +and if God wrought a miracle what need was there of human labour? There +was need of obedience, and of the co-operation of the human will with +the divine. We shall see, in the case of the artificers of the +tabernacle, that God inspires even handicraftsmen as well as +theologians--being indeed the universal Light, the Giver of all good, +not only of Bibles, but of rain and fruitful seasons. But the artisan +must labour, and the farmer improve the soil. + +Shall we say with the fathers that the tree cast into the waters +represents the cross of Christ? At least it is a type of the sweetening +and assuaging influences of religion--a new element, entering life, and +as well fitted to combine with it as medicinal bark with water, making +all wholesome and refreshing to the disappointed wayfarer, who found it +so bitter hitherto. + +The Lord was not content with removing the grievance of the hour; He +drew closer the bonds between His people and Himself, to guard them +against another transgression of the kind: "there He made for them a +statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them." It is pure +assumption to pretend that this refers to another account of the giving +of the Jewish law, inconsistent with that in the twentieth chapter, and +placed at Marah instead of Sinai.[30] It is a transaction which +resembles much rather the promises given (and at various times, although +confusion and repetition cannot be inferred) to Abraham and Jacob (Gen. +xii. 1-3, xv. 1, 18-21, xvii. 1-14, xxii. 15-18, xxviii. 13-15, xxxv. +10-12). He said, "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the +Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His eyes, and wilt give +ear to His commandments, and wilt keep all His statutes, I will put none +of the diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am +the Lord which healeth thee." It is a compact of obedient trust on one +side, and protection on the other. If they felt their own sinfulness, it +asserted that He who had just healed the waters could also heal their +hearts. From the connection between these is perhaps derived the +comparison between human hearts and a fountain of sweet water or bitter +(Jas. iii. 11). + +But certainly the promised protection takes an unexpected shape. What in +their circumstances leads to this specific offer of exemption from +certain foul diseases--"the boil of Egypt, and the emerods, and the +scurvy, and the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed" (Deut. xxviii. +27)? How does this meet the case? Doubtless by reminding them that there +are better exemptions than from hardship, and worse evils than +privations. If they do not realise this at the spiritual level, at least +they can appreciate the threat that "He will bring upon thee again all +the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of" (Deut. xxviii. 60). To +be even a luxurious and imperial race, but infected by repulsive and +hopeless ailments, is not a desirable alternative. Now, such evils, +though certainly not in each individual, yet in a race, are the +punishments of non-natural conditions of life, such as make the blood +run slowly and unhealthily, and charge it with impure deposits. It was +God who put them upon the Egyptians. + +If Israel would follow His guidance, and accept a somewhat austere +destiny, then the desert air and exercise, and even its privations, +would become the efficacious means for their exemption from the scourges +of indulgence. A time arrived when they looked back with remorse upon +crimes which forfeited their immunity, when the Lord said, "I have sent +among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt; your young men have +I slain with the sword" (Amos iv. 10). + +But it is a significant fact that at this day, after eighteen hundred +years of oppression, hardship, and persecution, of the ghetto and the +old-clothes trade, the Hebrew race is proverbially exempt from repulsive +and contagious disease. They also "certainly do enjoy immunity from the +ravages of cholera, fever and smallpox in a remarkable degree. Their +blood seems to be in a different condition from that of other people.... +They seem less receptive of disease caused by blood poisoning than +others" (_Journal of Victoria Institute_, xxi. 307). Imperfect as was +their obedience, this covenant at least has been literally fulfilled to +them. + +It is by such means that God is wont to reward His children. Most +commonly the seal of blessing from the skies is not rich fare, but bread +and fish by the lake side with the blessing of Christ upon them; not +removal from the desert, but a closer sense of the protection and +acceptance of Heaven, the nearness of a loving God, and with this, an +elevation and purification of the life, and of the body as well as of +the soul. Not in vain has St. Paul written "The Lord for the body." Nor +was there ever yet a race of men who accepted the covenant of God, and +lived in soberness, temperance and chastity, without a signal +improvement of the national physique, no longer unduly stimulated by +passion, jaded by indulgence, or relaxed by the satiety which resembles +but is not repose. + +From Marah and its agitations there was a journey of but a few hours to +Elim, with its twelve fountains and seventy palm trees--a fair oasis, by +which they encamped and rested, while their flocks spread far and wide +over a grassy and luxuriant valley. + +The picture is still true to the Christian life, with the Palace +Beautiful just beyond the lions, and the Delectable Mountains next after +Doubting Castle. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] There is no warrant in the use of Scripture for Stanley's assertion +that the word translated "dances" should be rendered "guitars." (Smith's +_Dict. of Bible_, Article _Miriam_.) + +[29] This is to be taken literally; it does not mean the waves, but the +quicksands in which they "drave heavily," and which, when steeped in the +returning waters, engulfed them. + +[30] Wellhausen, _Israel_, p. 439. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +_MURMURING FOR FOOD._ + +xvi. 1-14. + +The Israelites were now led farther away from all the associations of +their accustomed life. From the waters and the palms of Elim they +marched deeper into the savage recesses of the desert, haunted by fierce +and hostile tribes, such as presently hung upon their rear-guard and cut +off their stragglers (Deut. xxv. 18). Nor had they quite emerged from +the shadow of their old oppressions, since Egyptian garrisons were +scattered, though sparsely, through this district, in which gems and +copper were obtained. Here, cut off from all natural modes of +sustenance, the hearts of the people failed them. Such is the frequent +experience of renewed souls, when privilege and joy are followed by +trouble from without or from within, and the peace of God is broken by +the strife of tongues, by mental perplexities, by temptations, by +physical pain. It is quite as wonderful that paltry disturbances should +mar for us the life divine, when once that life has become a realised +experience, as that men who moved under the shadow of the marvellous +cloud could be agitated by fear for their supplies. And of this our +experience, what befel Israel is not a mere type or symbol, it is a case +in point, a parallel example. For it also meant the breaking-in of the +flesh upon the spirit, the refusal of fallen nature to rise above +earthly wants and cravings even in the light of trust and acceptance, +the self-assertion of the baser instincts, and the sacrifice to them of +the higher life. We recognise the herd of slaves, from whence it must +perplex the unbeliever to remember that the seed of immortal heroism and +prophetic insight and apostolic service was yet to ripen, in their poor +desire, if they must perish, to perish well fed rather than emancipated +(ver. 3). Most people, we may fear, would choose to live enslaved rather +than to die free men. But there is a special meanness in their regret, +since die they must, that they had not died satiated, like the firstborn +whom God had slain: "Would that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in +the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots and when we ate bread +to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill +this whole assembly with hunger." And to-day, among those who scorn +them, how many are far less ambitious of dying holy and pure than rich, +famous or powerful, having glutted their vanity if not their appetite. +In the sight of angels this is not a much loftier aim; and the apostle +reckoned among the works of the flesh, emulation as well as drunkenness +(Gal. v. 19-21). + +Tertullian draws a striking contrast between Israel, just now baptized +into Moses, but caring more for appetite than for God, and Christ, after +His baptism, also in the desert, fasting forty days. "The Lord +figuratively retorted upon Israel His reproach" (_Baptism_, xx.) + +We are not to suppose that but for their complaining God would have +suffered them to hunger, although Moses declared that the reason why +flesh should be given to them in the evening, and in the morning bread +to the full, is "for that the Lord heareth your murmurings." But there +would have been some difference in the time of the grant, to ripen their +faith, some more direct manifestation of His grace, to reward their +patience, if unbelief had not precipitated His design. Thus the +disciples, when they awakened Jesus in the storm, received the rescue +for which they clamoured, but forfeited some higher experience which +would have crowned a serener confidence: "Wherefore did ye doubt?" +Israel receives what is best in the circumstances, rather than the ideal +best, now made unsuitable by their impatience and infidelity. But while +the Lord discontinued the test of need and penury, which had proved to +be too severe a discipline, He substituted the test of fulness. For we +read that the removal of their suspense and anxiety by the gift of manna +from heaven was "to prove them whether they will walk in My laws or no" +(ver. 4). And in so doing it was seen that worldly and unthankful +natures are not to be satisfied; that the disloyal at heart will +complain, however favoured. For "the children of Israel wept again and +said, Who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did +eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and +the onions and the garlick: but now our soul is dried away; there is +nothing at all: we have nought save this manna to look to" (Num. xi. +4-6). Onions and garlick were more satisfactory to gross appetites than +angels' food. + +At this point we learn that what is called prosperity may indeed be a +result of spiritual failure; that God may sometimes abstain from strong +measures with a soul because what ought to mould would only crush; and +may grant them their hearts' lust, yet send leanness withal into their +souls. Perhaps we are allowed to be comfortable because we are unfit to +be heroic. + +And we also learn, when prosperous, to remember that plenty, equally +with want, has its moral aspect. The Lord tries fortunate men, whether +they will be grateful and obedient, trusting in Him and not in uncertain +riches, or whether they will forget Him who has done so great things for +them, and so perish in calm weather-- + + "Like ships that have gone down at sea + When heaven was all tranquillity." + +There is an experiment being tried upon the soul, curious, slow, +little-suspected, but incessant, in the giving of daily bread. + +In promising relief, God required of them obedience and self-control. +They were to respect the Sabbath, and make provision in advance for its +requirements. And this direction, given before the Mount of the Lord was +reached, has an important bearing upon the question whether the Fourth +Commandment was the first institution of a holy day--whether, except as +a Church ordinance, the duty of sabbath-keeping has no support beyond +the ceremonial law. "For that the Lord hath (already) given you the +Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days" +(ver. 29). + +While conveying the promise of relief, Moses and Aaron rebuked the +people, whose murmurs against them were in reality murmurs against God, +since they were but His agents, and He had been visibly their Leader. +And the same rebuke applies, for exactly the same reason, to many a +modern complaint against the weather, against what people call their +"luck," against a thousand provoking things in which the only possible +provocation must come directly from heaven. It is because our religion +is so shallow, and our consciousness of God in His world so dim and +rudimentary, that we utter such complaints idly, to relieve our +feelings, and hear them spoken without a shock. + +Such dulness is not to be removed by sounder views of doctrine, but by a +more vivid realisation of God. The Israelites knew by what hand they +should have fallen if they had died in Egypt; yet in fact they forgot +their true Captain, and upbraided their mortal leaders. So do we confess +that afflictions arise not out of the ground, yet lose the impress of +divinity upon our daily lives, while we ought, like Moses, to "endure as +seeing Him who is invisible." + +As our Lord was in the habit of asking for some confession, or demanding +some small co-operation from those He was about to bless, so the smoking +flax of Hebrew faith is tended: it is a promise, and not the actual +relief, which calms them. There is a curious difference in the manner of +the communications now made to the people. First of all the two brothers +unite their energies to hush their outcries: "At evening ye shall know +that Jehovah is your leader from Egypt, and in the morning ye shall +behold His glory; and what are we, that ye murmur against us?" Then +Moses affirms, with all the energy of his chieftainship, that in the +evening they shall eat flesh, and in the morning bread to the full. +Again he asks them "What are we?" and more sternly and directly charges +them with murmuring against Jehovah. And this is a good example of the +true meaning of his "meekness." He is fiery enough, but not for his own +greatness; rather because he feels his littleness, and that the offence +is entirely against God, does he resent their conduct; absence of +self-assertion is his "meekness," and thus we read of it when Miriam and +Aaron spake against him, declaring that they were commissioned as well +as he (Num. xii. 3). Finally, when order was restored, and some +mysterious manifestation was at hand, he resumed the solemn and formal +usage of conveying his orders through his brother, and in cold, compact, +impressive words, said unto Aaron, "Say unto all the congregation of the +children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He hath heard your +murmurings." All this is very dignified and natural. And so is--what +after ages could scarcely have invented--the impressive reticence of +what follows. "They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory +of the Lord appeared in the cloud." + +Were they not then intended to "come near"? and was it as they turned +their faces to draw nigh that the Vision revealed itself and stopped +them? And what was the untold sight which they beheld? The narrative +belongs to a primitive age; it is quite unlike the elaborate symbolisms +of Ezekiel and Daniel, or even of Isaiah, but yet this undescribed, +mystic and solitary glory is not less sublime than the train which +covered the Temple-floor, while, hovering above it, reverent seraphim +veiled their faces and their feet, or the terrible crystal and the +wheels of dreadful height, or the throne of flame whence issued a fiery +stream, and before which thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads +stood (Isa. vi. 2; Ezek. i. 22, 18; Dan. vii. 9, 10). But the point to +observe is that it is different, more primitive, an undefined and lonely +vision of awe well fitted for the desert wilds and for the gaze of men +whose hearts must not be misled by the likeness of anything in heaven or +earth; the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud (most probably, but +not of necessity, the cloud which guided them), and in the direction +whence they were so fain to turn away. + +No later inventor would have known how to say so little, much less to +make that little harmonise so exactly with the lessons meant to be +suggested by the wild and solemn solitudes into which they were now +plunged. + +And now the Lord Himself repeats the promise of relief, but first +solemnly announces that He is not heedless of their ill-behaviour while +He tolerates it. The question is suggested, although not asked, How long +will His forbearance last? + +Well for them if they learn the lesson, and "know that I am Jehovah your +God," mindful of their needs, entitled to their fealty. In the evening, +therefore, came a flight of quails; and in the morning they found a +small round thing, small as the hoar-frost, upon the ground. + + +_MANNA._ + +xvi. 15-36. + +The manna which miraculously supplied the wants of Israel was to them an +utterly strange food, the use of which they had to learn. Thus it was +another means of severing their habitual course of life and association +of ideas from their degraded past. And while we may not press too far +the assertion that it was the "corn of heaven" and "angels' food" +(_i.e._ "the bread of the mighty"--Psalm lxxviii. 24-5, R.V.), yet the +narrative shows, even without help from later scriptures, that it was +calculated to sustain their energies and yet to leave their appetites +unstimulated and unpampered. For they were now called to purer joys +than those of the senses--to liberty, a divine vocation, the presence of +God, the revelation of His law and the unfolding of His purposes. +Failing to rise to these heights, they fell far, murmured again, and +perished by the destroyer, not merely to avenge the petulance of an +hour, but for all that it betrayed, for treason to their vocation and +radical inability to even comprehend its meaning. In the language of +modern science, it answered to Nature's rejection of the unfit. + +Their calling was thus, though under very different forms, that which +the apostles found so hard, yet did not quite refuse: it was to mind the +things of God and not the things of men. + +It is well known that the manna of the Israelites bore some resemblance +to a natural product of the wilderness, still exuded by certain plants +during the coolness of the night, and formerly more plentiful than now, +when all vegetation has been ruthlessly swept away by the Bedouin. But +the differences are much greater than the resemblance. The natural +product is a drug, and not a food; it is gathered only during some weeks +of summer; it is not liable to speedy corruption, nor could there be any +reason for preserving a specimen of this common product in the ark; it +could not have sufficed, however aided by their herds and flocks, to +feed one in a hundred of the Hebrew multitudes, even during the season +of its production; nor could it have ceased on the same day when they +ate the first ripe corn of Canaan. + +And yet the resemblance is suggestive. Unbelievers find, in the links +which connect most of our Scripture miracles with nature, in the +undefined and gradual transition from one to the other, as from a +temperate day to night, an excuse for denying that they are miraculous +at all. But the instructed believer finds a confirmation of his faith. +He reflects that when Fancy begins to toy with the supernatural, she +spurns nature from her: the trammels under which she has long chafed are +hateful to her, and she flies from them to the utmost extreme. + +It could not be thus with Him by whom the system of the world was +framed. He will not wantonly interfere with His own plan. He will regard +nature as an elastic band to stretch, rather than as a chain to break. +If He will multiply food, in the New Testament, that is no reason why +His disciples should fare more delicately than Providence intended for +them: they shall still eat barley loaves and fish. And so the winds help +to overthrow Pharaoh and to bring the quails; and when a new thing has +to be created, it approaches in its general idea to one of the few +natural products of that inhospitable region. + +Now let it be supposed for a moment that the supply of manna had never +ceased, so that until this day men could every morning gather a day's +ration off the ground. Such continuance of the provision would not make +it any the less a gift; but only a more lavish boon. And yet it would +clearly cease to be regarded as miraculous, an exception to the course +of nature, miscalled her "laws," since men do strive to subvert the +miracle by representing that such manna, however scantily, may still be +found. And this may expose the folly of a wish, probably sometimes felt +by all men, that some miracle had actually been perpetuated, so that we +could strengthen our faith at pleasure by looking upon an exhibition of +divine power. In truth, no marvel could excel that which annually +multiplies the corn beneath the clod, and by the process of decay in +springtime feeds the world in autumn. Only its steady recurrence throws +a veil over our eyes; and it is a vain conceit that the same web would +not be woven by use between man and the Worker of any other marvel that +was perpetuated. Already the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord, +for all who have eyes to see. + +It is also to be observed that the manna was not given to teach the +people sloth. They were obliged to gather it early, before the sun was +hot. They had still to endure weary marches, and the care of their +flocks and herds. + +And, in curious harmony with the manner of all the gifts of nature, the +manna sent from heaven had yet to be prepared by man: "bake that which +ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will seethe." Thus God, by +natural means and by the sweat of our brow, gives us our daily bread; +and all knowledge, art and culture are His gifts, although elaborated by +the brain and heart of generations whom He taught. + +Moreover, there was a protest against the grasping, unbelieving temper +which cannot trust God with to-morrow, but longs to have much goods laid +up. That is the temper which forfeits the smile of God, and grinds the +faces of the poor, to make an ignoble "provision" for the future. How +often, since the time of Moses, has the unblessed accumulation become +hateful! How often, since the time of St. James, the rust of such +possession has eaten the flesh like fire! Men would be far more +generous, the difference between wealth and poverty would be less +portentous, and the resources of religion and charity less crippled, if +we lived in the spirit of the Lord's prayer, desirous of the advance of +the kingdom, but not asking to be given to-morrow's bread until +to-morrow. That lesson was taught by the manner of the dispensation of +the manna, but the covetousness of Israel would not learn it. The people +actually strove to be dishonest in their enjoyment of a miracle. It is +no wonder that Moses was wroth with them. + +Among the strange properties of their supernatural food not the least +curious was this: that when they came to measure what they had +collected, and compare it with what Moses had bidden,[31] the most eager +and able-bodied had nothing over, and the feeblest had no lack. Every +real worker was supplied, and none was glutted. This result is +apparently miraculous. St. Paul's use of it does not, as some have +supposed, represent it as a result of Hebrew benevolence, sharing with +the weak the more abundant supplies of the strong: the miracle is not +cited as an example of charity, but of that practical equality, divinely +approved, which Christian charity should reproduce; the Christian Church +is bidden to do voluntarily what was done by miracle in the wilderness: +"your abundance being a supply at this present time for their want, that +their abundance also may become a supply for your want, that there may +be equality; as it is written, He that gathered much had nothing over, +and he that gathered little had no lack" (2 Cor. viii. 15). + +It is quite in vain to appeal to this passage in favour of socialistic +theories. In the first place it applies only to the necessities of +existence; and even granting that the state should enforce the +principle to which it points, the duty would not extend beyond a liberal +poor rate. When contributions were afterwards demanded for the +sanctuary, there is no trace of a dead level in their resources: the +rulers gave the gems and spices and oil, some brought gold, with some +were found blue and linen and skins, and others had acacia-wood to offer +(xxxv. 22-4). + +In the second place, this arrangement was only temporary; and while the +soil of Canaan was distinctly claimed for the Lord, the enjoyment of it +by individuals was secured, and perpetuated in their families, by +stringent legislation. Now, land is the kind of property which +socialists most vehemently assail; but persons who appeal to Exodus must +submit to the authority of Judges. + +Socialism, therefore, and its coercive measures, find no more real +sanction here than in the Church of Jerusalem, where the property of +Ananias was his own, and the price of it in his own power. But yet it is +highly significant that in both Testaments, as the Church of God starts +upon its career, an example should be given of the effacing of +inequalities, in the one case by miracle, in the other by such a +voluntary movement as best becomes the gospel. Is not such a movement, +large and free, the true remedy for our modern social distractions and +calamities? Would it not be wise and Christ-like for the rich to give, +as St. Paul taught the Corinthians to give, what the law could never +wisely exact from them? Would not self-denial, on a scale to imply real +sacrifice, and fulfilling in spirit rather than letter the apostle's +aspiration for "equality," secure in return the enthusiastic adhesion to +the rights of property of all that is best and noblest among the poor? + +When will the world, or even the Church, awaken to the great truth that +our politics also need to be steeped in Christian feeling--that humanity +requires not a revolution but a pentecost--that a millennium cannot be +enacted, but will dawn whenever human bosoms are emptied of selfishness +and lust, and filled with brotherly kindness and compassion? Such, and +no more, was the socialism which St. Paul deduced from the equality in +the supply of manna. + + +_SPIRITUAL MEAT._ + +xvi. 15-36. + +Since the journey of Israel is throughout full of sacred meaning, no one +can fail to discern a mystery in the silent ceaseless daily miracle of +bread-giving. But we are not left to our conjectures. St. Paul calls +manna "spiritual meat," not because it nourished the higher life (for +the eaters of it murmured for flesh, and were not estranged from their +lust), but because it answered to realities of the spiritual world (1 +Cor. x. 3). And Christ Himself said, "It was not Moses that gave you the +bread out of heaven, but My Father giveth you the true Bread from +heaven," making manna the type of sustenance which the soul needs in the +wilderness, and which only God can give (John vi. 32). + +We note the time of its bestowal. The soul has come forth out of its +bondage. Perhaps it imagines that emancipation is enough: all is won +when its chains are broken: there is to be no interval between the Egypt +of sin and the Promised Land of milk and honey and repose. Instead of +this serene attainment, it finds that the soul requires to be fed, and +no food is to be seen, but only a wilderness of scorching heat, dry +sand, vacancy, and hunger. Old things have passed away, but it is not +yet realised that all things have become new. Religion threatens to +become a vast system for the removal of accustomed indulgences and +enjoyments, but where is the recompense for all that it forbids? The +soul cries out for food: well for it if the cry be not faithless, nor +spoken to earthly chiefs alone! + +There is a noteworthy distinction between the gift of manna and every +other recorded miracle of sustenance. In Eden the fruit of immortality +was ripening upon an earthly tree. The widow of Zarephath was fed from +her own stores. The ravens bore to Elijah ordinary bread and flesh; and +if an angel fed him, it was with a cake baken upon coals. Christ Himself +was content to multiply common bread and fish, and even after His +resurrection gave His apostles the fare to which they were accustomed. +Thus they learned that the divine life must be led amid the ordinary +conditions of mortality. Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in +the likeness of sinful flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing +of a new life, a strange and unknown energy, to man. + +And here, almost at the beginning of revelation, is typified, not the +homely conditions of the inner life, but its unearthly nature and +essence. Here is no multiplication of their own stores, no gift, like +the quails, of such meat as they were wont to gather. They asked "What +is it?" And this teaches the Christian that his sustenance is not of +this world. They were fed "with manna which they knew not ... to make +them know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that +proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live" (Deut. viii. 3). The +root of worldliness is not in this indulgence or that, in gay clothing +or an active career; but in the soul's endeavour to draw its nourishment +from things below. And spirituality belongs not to an uncouth +vocabulary, nor to the robes of any confraternity, to rigid rules or +austere deportment; it is the blessedness of a life nourished upon the +bread of heaven, and doomed to starve if that bread be not bestowed. Let +not the wealthy find an insuperable bar to spirituality in his +condition, nor the poor suppose that indigence cannot have its treasure +upon earth; but let each man ask whence come his most real and practical +impulses and energies upon life's journey. If these flow from even the +purest earthly source--love of wife or child, anything else than +communion with the Father of spirits, this is not the bread of life, and +can no more nourish a pilgrim towards eternity than the husks which +swine eat. + +There is no mistaking the doctrine of the New Testament as to what this +bread may be. By prayer and faith, by ordinances and sacraments rightly +used, the manna may be gathered; but Jesus Himself is the Bread of life, +His Flesh is meat indeed and His Blood is drink indeed, and He gives His +Flesh for the life of the world. Christ is the Vine, and we are the +branches, fruitful only by the sap which flows from Him. As there are +diseases which cannot be overcome by powerful drugs, but by a generous +and wholesome dietary, so is it with the diseases of the soul--pride, +anger, selfishness, falsehood, lust. As the curse of sin is removed by +the faith which appropriates pardon, so its power is broken by the +steady personal acceptance of Christ; and our Bread and Wine are His new +humanity, given to us, until He becomes the second Father of the race, +which is begotten again in Him. An easy temper is not Christian +meekness; dislike to witness pain is not Christian love. All our +goodness must strike root deeper than in the sensibilities, must be +nourished by the communication to us of the mind which was in Christ +Jesus. + +And this food is universally given, and universally suitable. The strong +and the weak, the aged chieftain and little children, ate and were +nourished. No stern decree excluded any member of the visible Church in +the wilderness from sharing the bread from heaven: they did eat the same +spiritual meat, provided only that they gathered it. Their part was to +be in earnest in accepting, and so is ours; but if we fail, whom shall +we blame except ourselves? In the mystery of its origin, in the silent +and secret mode of its descent from above, in the constancy of its +bestowal, and in its suitability for all the camp, for Moses and the +youngest child, the manna prefigured Christ. + +Every day a fresh supply had to be laid up, and nothing could be held +over from the largest hoard. So it is with us: we must give ourselves to +Christ for ever, but we must ask Him daily to give Himself to us. The +richest experience, the purest aspiration, the humblest self-abandonment +that was ever felt, could not reach forward to supply the morrow. Past +graces will become loathsome if used instead of present supplies from +heaven. And the secret of many a scandalous fall is that the unhappy +soul grew self-confident: unlike St. Paul, he reckoned that he had +already attained; and thereupon the graces in which he trusted became +corrupt and vile. + +The constant supply was not more needful than it was abundant. The manna +lay all around the camp: the Bread of Life is He who stands at our door +and knocks. Alas for those who murmur for grosser indulgences! Israel +demanded and obtained them; but while the flesh was in their nostrils +the angel of the Lord went forth and smote them. Is there no plague any +longer for the perverse? What are the discords that convulse families, +the uncurbed passions to which nothing is sacred, the jaded appetite and +weary discontent which hates the world even as it hates itself? what but +the judgment of God upon those who despise His provision, and must needs +gratify themselves? Be it our happiness, as it is our duty, to trust Him +to prepare our table before us, while He leads us to His Holy Land. + +The Lord of the Sabbath already taught His people to respect His day. +Upon it no manna fell; and we shall hereafter see the bearing of this +incident upon the question whether the Sabbath is only an ordinance of +Judaism. Meanwhile they who went out to gather had a sharp lesson in the +difference between faith, which expects what God has promised, and +presumption, which hopes not to lose much by disobeying Him. + +Lastly, an omer of manna was to be kept throughout all generations, +before the Testimony. Grateful remembrance of past mercies, temporal as +well as spiritual, was to connect itself with the deepest and most awful +mysteries of religion. So let it be with us. The bitter proverb that +eaten bread is soon forgotten must never be true of the Christian. He is +to remember all the way that the Lord his God hath led him. He is bidden +to "forget not all His benefits, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who +healeth all thy diseases ... Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things." +So foolish is the slander that religion is too transcendental for the +common life of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] The "omer" of this passage is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture: +it is known to have been the one-hundredth part of the homer with which +careless readers sometimes confuse it, and its capacity is variously +estimated, from somewhat under half a gallon to somewhat above +three-quarters. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +_MERIBAH._ + +xvii. 1-7. + +The people, miraculously fed, are therefore called to exhibit more +confidence in God than hitherto, because much is required of him to whom +much is given. They have now to plunge deeper into the wilderness; and +after two stages which Exodus omits (Num. xxxiii. 12, 13), and just as +they approach the mount of God, they find themselves without water. Even +the Son of Man Himself was led into the wilderness next after the +descent of the Spirit, and the avowal by the voice of God; nor is any +true Christian to marvel if his seasons of special privilege are +succeeded by special demands upon his firmness. + +One finds himself conjecturing, very often, what nobler history, what +grander analogies between type and antitype, what more gracious and +lavish interpositions might have instructed us, if only the type had +been less woefully imperfect--if Israel had been trustful as Moses was, +and the crude material had not marred the design. + +It would be more practical and edifying to reflect how often we +ourselves, like Israel, might have learned and exemplified deep things +of the grace of God, when all we really exhibited was the well-worn +lesson of human frailty and divine forbearance. + +In the story of our Lord, it has been observed that before the Pharisees +directly assailed Himself, they found fault with His disciples who +fasted not, or accosted them concerning Him Who ate with sinners. And so +here the people really tempted God, but openly "strove with Moses," and +with Aaron too, for the verb is a plural one: "Give _ye_ water" (ver. +2). + +But as Aaron is merely an agent and spokesman, the chief value of this +tacit allusion to him, besides proving his fidelity, is to refute the +notion that he sinks into comparative obscurity only after the sin of +the golden calf. Already his position is one to be indicated rather than +expressed; and Moses said, "Why do ye quarrel with me? wherefore do ye +try the Lord?" + +But the frenzy rose higher: it was he, and not a higher One, who had +brought them out of Egypt; the upshot of it would only be "to kill us, +and our children, and our cattle, with thirst." + +Look closely at this expression, and a curious significance discloses +itself. Was it mere covetousness, the spirit of the Jew Shylock +lamenting in one breath his daughter and his ducats, which introduced +the cattle along with the children into this complaint of dying men? +Shylock himself, when death actually looked him in the face, readily +sacrificed his fortune. Nor is it credible that a large number of +people, really believing that a horrible death was imminent, would have +spent any complaints upon their property. The language is exactly that +of angry exaggeration. They have come through straits quite as +desperate, and they know it well. It is not the fear of death, but the +painful delay of rescue, the discomfort and misery of their condition in +the meanwhile, the contrast between their sufferings and their own +conception of the rights of the favourites of heaven, which is audible +in this complaint. And thus their "Trial" and "Quarrel" are admirably +epitomised in the phrase "Is Jehovah among us or not?" a phrase which +has often since been in the heart, if not upon the lips, of men who had +supposed the life divine to be one long holiday, the pilgrimage an +excursion, when without are fightings and within fears, when they have +great sorrow and heaviness in their hearts. + +Because God is not a Judge, but a Father, the murmurs of Israel do not +prevent Him from showing mercy. Accordingly, when Moses prays, he is +bidden to go on before the people, bringing certain of their elders +along with him for witnesses of the marvel that was to follow. Such is +the Divine method. As soon as unbelief and discontent estranged the Jews +of the New Testament from Christ, He would not vulgarise His miracles, +nor do many mighty works among the unbelieving. After His resurrection +He appeared not unto all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before. +And as the Jews were chosen to bear witness to Him among the nations, so +were these elders now to bear witness among the Jews, who might without +their testimony have fallen into some such rationalising theory as that +of Tacitus, who says that Moses discovered a fountain by examining a +spot where wild asses lay. + +With these witnesses, he is bidden to go to a rock in Horeb (so nearly +had these murmurers approached the scene of the most awful of all +manifestations of Him whose presence they debated), and there God was to +stand before them upon the rock, making His universal presence a +localised consciousness in their experience. + +A true religion is progressive: every stage of it leans on the past and +sustains the future; and so Moses must bring with him "the rod, +wherewith thou smotest the river." The dullest can see the fitness of +this allusion. Among all the wonders which the shepherd's wand had +wrought, the mastery over the Nile, the plague which inflicted an +unwonted thirst upon the inhabitants of that well-watered field of Zoan, +was most to the purpose now. To kill and to make alive are the functions +of the same Being, and He Who spoiled the Egyptian river will now +refresh His heritage that is weary. At the touch of the prophetic wand +the waters poured forth which thenceforth supplied them through all +their desert wanderings. + +Reserving the symbolic meaning of this event for a future study, we have +to remember meanwhile the warning which the apostle here discovered. All +the people drank of the rock, yet with many of them God was not pleased. +Privilege is one thing--acceptance is quite another; and it shall be +more tolerable at last for Sodom and Gomorrah than for nations, churches +and men, who were content to resemble soil that drinketh in the rain +that cometh upon it oft, and yet to remain unfruitful. Already the +conduct of Israel was such that the place was named from human +worthlessness rather than Divine beneficence. Too often, it is the more +conspicuous part of the story of the relations of God and man. + + +_AMALEK._ + +xvii. 8-16. + +Nothing can be more natural, to those who remember the value of a +fountain in the East, than that Amalek should swoop down from his own +territories upon Israel, as soon as this abundant river tempted his +cupidity. This unprovoked attack of a kindred nation leads to another +advance in the education of the people. + +They had hitherto been the sheep of God: now they must become His +warriors. At the Red Sea it was said to them, "Stand still, and see the +salvation of the Lord ... the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall +hold your peace" (xiv. 13). But it is not so now. Just as the function +of every true miracle is to lead to a state of faith in which miracles +are not required; just as a mother reaches her hand to a tottering +infant, that presently the boy may go alone, so the Lord fought for +Israel, that Israel might learn to fight for the Lord. The herd of +slaves who came out of Egypt could not be trusted to stand fast in +battle; and what a defeat would have done with them we may judge by +their outcries at the very sight of Pharaoh. But now they had experience +of Divine succour, and had drawn the inspiring breath of freedom. And so +it was reasonable to expect that some chosen men of them at least will +be able to endure the shock of battle. And if so, it was a matter of the +last importance to develop and render conscious the national spirit, a +spirit so noble in its unselfish readiness to die, and in its scorn of +such material ills as anguish and mutilation compared with baseness and +dishonour, that the re-kindling of it in seasons of peril and conflict +is more than half a compensation for the horrors of a battle-field. + +We do not now inquire what causes avail to justify the infliction and +endurance of those horrors. Probably they will vary from age to age; and +as the ties grow strong which bind mankind together, the rupture of them +will be regarded with an ever-deepening shudder,--just as England +to-day would certainly refuse to make war upon our American kinsmen for +a provocation which (rightly or wrongly) she would not endure from +Russians. But the point to be observed is that war cannot be inherently +immoral, since God instructed in war the first nation that He ever +trained, not using its experience of His immediate interpositions to +supersede all need of human strife, but to make valiant soldiers, and +adding some of the most precious lessons of all their later experience +on the battle-field and by the sword. Now, it assuredly cannot be shown +that anything in itself immoral is fostered and encouraged by the Old +Testament. Slavery and divorce, which it was not yet possible to +extirpate, were hampered, restricted, and reduced to a minimum, being +"suffered" "because of the hardness of 'their' hearts" (Matt. xix. 8). +The wildest assailant of the Pentateuch will scarcely pretend that it +fosters and incites either divorce or slavery, as, beyond all question, +it encourages the martial ardour of the Jews. + +And yet war, though permissible, and in certain circumstances necessary, +is only necessary as the lesser of two evils; it is not in itself good. +Solomon, not David, could build the temple of the Lord; and Isaiah +sharply contrasts the Messiah with even that providentially appointed +conqueror, the only pagan who is called by God "My anointed," in that +the one comes upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth +clay, but the Other breaks not a bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking +flax (Isa. xli. 25, xlii. 3, xlv. 1). The ideal of humanity is peace, +and also it is happiness, but war may not yet have ceased to be a +necessity of life, sometimes as ruinous to evade as any other form of +suffering. + +Another necessity of national development is the advancement of capable +men. The empire of Napoleon would assuredly have withered, if only +because its chief was as jealous of commanding genius as he was ready to +advance and patronise capacity of the second order. It is a maxim that +true greatness finds worthy colleagues and successors, and rejoices in +them. And while the guidance of Jehovah is to be assumed throughout, it +is significant that the first mention of the splendid commander and +godly judge, during all whose days and the days of his contemporaries +Israel served Jehovah, comes not in any express revelation or +commandment of God; but the narrative relates that Moses said unto +Joshua, "Choose out men for us and go out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow +I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand." +They are the words of one who had noted him already as "a man in whom is +the Spirit" (Num. xxvii. 18), of one also who had unlearned, in the +experience now of eighty years, the desire of glittering achievement and +martial fame, who knew that the deepest fountains of real power are +hidden, and was content that another should lead the headlong and +victorious charge, if only it were his to hold, upon the top of the +hill, the rod of God. + +Once it was his own rod: with it the exiled shepherd controlled the +sheep of his master; that it should be the medium of the miraculous had +appeared to be an additional miracle, but now it was the very rod of +God, nor was any cry to heaven more eloquent and better grounded than +simply the reaching toward the skies, in long, steady, mute appeal, of +that symbol of all His dealings with them--the plaguing of Egypt, the +recession of the tide and its wild return, the bringing of water from +the rock. Was all to be in vain? Should the wild boar waste the vine +just brought out of Egypt before ever it reached the appointed vineyard? +And we also should be able to plead with God the noble works that He +hath done in our time. For us also there ought to be such experience as +worketh hope. As long as the exertion was possible even to the heroic +force which age had not abated, Moses thus prayed for his people; for +the gesture was a prayer, and a grand one, and must not be criticised +otherwise than as the act of a poetic and primitive genius, whose +institutions throughout are full of spiritual import. While he did this, +Israel prevailed; but the slow progress of the victory reminds us of +these dreary centuries during which we are just able to discern some +gradual advance of the kingdom of Christ on earth, but no rout, no +collapse of evil. And why was this? Because the sustaining and permanent +energy was not to flow from the prayers of one, however holy and however +eminent; three men were together in the mountain, and the co-operation +of them all was demanded; so that only when Aaron and Hur supported the +sinking hand of their chief was the decisive victory given. + +Now, the lesson from all this does not concern the High-priestly +intercession of our Lord, for the office of Moses is consistently +distinguished from the priesthood. Nor can the notion be tolerated that +if our Lord requires mortal co-operation before asking and being given +the heathen for His heritage, which is obviously the case, the reason +can be at all expressed by that weakness which needed support. + +No, the Lord our Priest is also Himself the dispenser of victory. To Him +all power is given on earth, and to Him it is our duty to appeal for +the triumph of His own cause. And here and there, doubtless, a +Christian heart is fervent and faithful in its intercessions. To these, +unknown, unsuspected by the combatants in the heat of battle,--to humble +saints, some of them bed-ridden, ignorant, poverty-stricken, despised, +holy souls who have no controversial skill, no missionary calling, but +who possess the grace habitually to convert their wishes into +prayers,--to such, perhaps, it is due that the idols of India and China +are now bowing down. And when they cease to be a minority in so doing, +when those who now criticise learn to sustain their flagging energies, +we shall see a day of the Lord. + +Observe, however, that as the active exertion of the host does not +displace the silence of intercession, neither is it displaced itself: +Joshua really bore his part in the discomfiture of Amalek and his host. +And so it is always. The development of human energy to the uttermost is +a part of the design of Him Who gave a task even to unfallen man. Let +none suppose that to labour is (sufficiently and by itself) to pray; but +also let none idly persuade himself that while energies and +responsibilities are his, to pray is sufficiently to labour. + +Thus it came to pass that Israel won its first victory in battle. +Another step was taken toward the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham +to make of him a great nation; and also toward the gradual transference +of the national faith from a passive reliance in Divine interposition to +an abiding confidence in Divine help. Let it be clearly understood that +this latter is the nobler and the more mature faith. + +With martial ardour, God took care to inculcate the sense of national +responsibility, without which warriors become no more than brigands. So +it was with Amalek: he had not been attacked or even menaced; he had +marched out from his own territories to assail an innocent and kindred +race ("then _came_ Amalek" ver. 8), and his attack had been cruel and +cowardly, he smote the hindmost, all that were feeble and in the rear, +when they were faint and weary, and he feared not God (Deut. xxv. 18). +Against all such tactics the wrath of God was denounced when, because of +them, Amalek was doomed to total extirpation. + +Moses now built an altar, to imprint on the mind of the people this new +lesson. And he called it, "The Lord is my Banner," a title which called +the nation at once to valour and to obedience, which asserted that they +were an army, but a consecrated one. + + * * * * * + +Now let us ask whether this simple story is at all the kind of thing +which legend or myth would have created, for the first martial exploit +of Israel. The obscure part played by Moses is not what we would expect; +nor, even as a mediator, is the position of one whose arms must be held +up a very romantic conception. If the object is to inspire the Jews for +later struggles with more formidable foes, the story is ill-contrived, +for we read of no surprising force of Amalek, and no inspiriting exploit +of Joshua. Everything is as prosaic as the real course of events in this +poor world is wont to be. And on that account it is all the more useful +to us who live prosaic lives, and need the help of God among prosaic +circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +_JETHRO._ + +xviii. 1-27. + +The defeat of Amalek is followed by the visit of Jethro; the opposite +pole of the relation between Israel and the nations, the coming of the +Gentiles to his brightness. And already that is true which repeats +itself all through the history of the Church, that much secular wisdom, +the art of organisation, the structure and discipline of societies, may +be drawn from the experience and wisdom of the world. + +Moses was under the special guidance of God, as really as any modern +enthusiast can claim to be. When he turned for aid or direction to +heaven, he was always answered. And yet he did not think scorn of the +counsel of his kinsman. And although eighty years had not dimmed the +fire of his eyes, nor wasted his strength, he neglected not the warning +which taught him to economise his force; not to waste on every paltry +dispute the attention and wisdom which could govern the new-born state. + +Jethro is the kinsman, and probably the brother-in-law of Moses; for if +he were the father-in-law, and the same as Reuel in the second chapter, +why should a new name be introduced without any mark of identification? +When he hears of the emancipation of Israel from Egypt, he brings back +to Moses his two sons and Zipporah, who had been sent away, after the +angry scene at the circumcision of the younger, and before he entered +Egypt with his life in his hand. Now he was a great personage, the +leader of a new nation, and the conqueror of the proudest monarch in the +world. With what feelings would the wife and husband meet? We are told +nothing of their interview, nor have we any reason to qualify the +unfavourable impression produced by the circumstances of their parting, +by the schismatic worship founded by their grandchildren, and by the +loneliness implied in the very names of Gershom and +Eliezer--"A-stranger-there," and "God-a-Help." + +But the relations between Moses and Jethro are charming, whether we look +at the obeisance rendered to the official minister of God by him whom +God had honoured so specially, by the prosperous man to the friend of +his adversity, or at the interest felt by the priest of Midian in all +the details of the great deliverance of which he had heard already, or +his joy in a Divine manifestation, probably not in all respects +according to the prejudices of his race, or his praise of Jehovah as +"greater than all gods, yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly +against them" (ver. 11, R.V.). The meaning of this phrase is either that +the gods were plagued in their own domains, or that Jehovah had finally +vanquished the Egyptians by the very element in which they were most +oppressive, as when Moses himself had been exposed to drown. + +There is another expression, in the first verse, which deserves to be +remarked. How do the friends of a successful man think of the scenes in +which he has borne a memorable part? They chiefly think of them in +connection with their own hero. And amid all the story of the Exodus, in +which so little honour is given to the human actor, the one trace of +personal exultation is where it is most natural and becoming; it is in +the heart of his relative: "When Jethro ... heard of all that the Lord +had done _for Moses_ and for Israel." + +We are told, with marked emphasis, that this Midianite, a priest, and +accustomed to act as such with Moses in his family, "took a +burnt-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came, and all the +elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God." +Nor can we doubt that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who laid +such stress upon the subordination of Abraham to Melchizedek, would have +discerned in the relative position of Jethro and Aaron another evidence +that the ascendency of the Aaronic priesthood was only temporary. We +shall hereafter see that priesthood is a function of redeemed humanity, +and that all limitations upon it were for a season, and due to human +shortcoming. But for this very reason (if there were no other) the chief +priest could only be He Who represents and embodies all humanity, in +Whom is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, +because He is all and in all. + +In the meantime, here is recognised, in the history of Israel, a Gentile +priesthood. + +And, as at the passover, so now, the sacrifice to God is partaken of by +His people, who are conscious of acceptance by Him. Happy was the union +of innocent festivity with a sacramental recognition of God. It is the +same sentiment which was aimed at by the primitive Christian Church in +her feasts of love, genuine meals in the house of God, until licence and +appetite spoiled them, and the apostle asked "Have ye not houses to eat +and drink in?" (1 Cor. xi. 22). Shall there never come a time when the +victorious and pure Church of the latter days shall regain what we have +forfeited, when the doctrine of the consecration of what is called +"secular life" shall be embodied again in forms like these? It speaks to +us meanwhile in a form which is easily ridiculed (as in Lamb's +well-known essay), and yet singularly touching and edifying if rightly +considered, in the asking for a blessing upon our meals. + +On the morrow, Jethro saw Moses, all day long, deciding the small +matters and great which needed already to be adjudicated for the nation. +He who had striven, without a commission, himself to smite the Egyptian +and lead out Israel, is the same self-reliant, heroic, not too discreet +person still. + +But the true statesman and administrator is he who employs to the utmost +all the capabilities and energies of his subordinates. And Jethro made a +deep mark in history when he taught Moses the distinction between the +lawgiver and the judge, between him who sought from God and proclaimed +to the people the principles of justice and their form, and him who +applied the law to each problem as it arose. + +"It is supposed, and with probability," writes Kalisch (_in loco_), +"that Alfred the Great, who was well versed in the Bible, based his own +Saxon constitution of sheriffs in counties, etc., on the example of the +Mosaic division (comp. _Bacon on English Government_, i. 70)." And thus +it may be that our own nation owes its free institutions almost directly +to the generous interest in the well-being of his relative, felt by an +Arabian priest, who cherished, amid the growth of idolatries all around +him, the primitive belief in God, and who rightly held that the first +qualifications of a capable judge were ability, and the fear of God, +truthfulness and hatred of unjust gain. + +We learn from Deuteronomy (i. 9-15), that Moses allowed the people +themselves to elect these officials, who became not only their judges +but their captains. + +From the whole of this narrative we see clearly that the intervention of +God for Israel is no more to be regarded as superseding the exercise of +human prudence and common-sense, than as dispensing with valour in the +repulse of Amalek, and with patience in journeying through the +wilderness. + + +THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY. + + +We are now about to pass from history to legislation. And this is a +convenient stage at which to pause, and ask how it comes to pass that +all this narrative is also, in some sense, an allegory. It is a +discussion full of pitfalls. Countless volumes of arbitrary and fanciful +interpretation have done their worst to discredit every attempt, however +cautious and sober, at finding more than the primary signification in +any narrative.[32] And whoever considers the reckless, violent and +inconsistent methods of the mystical commentators may be forgiven if he +recoils from occupying the ground which they have wasted, and contents +himself with simply drawing the lessons which the story directly +suggests. + +But the New Testament does not warrant such a surrender. It tells us +that leaven answers to malice, and unleavened bread to sincerity; that +at the Red Sea the people were baptized; that the tabernacle and the +altar, the sacrifice and the priest, the mercy-seat and the manna, were +all types and shadows of abiding Christian realities. + +It is more surprising to find the return of the infant Jesus connected +with the words "When Israel was a child then I loved him, and I called +My son out of Egypt,"--for it is impossible to doubt that the prophet +was here speaking of the Exodus, and had in mind the phrase "Israel is +My son, My firstborn: let My son go, that he may serve Me" (Matt. i. 15; +Hos. xi. 1; Exod. iv. 22). + +How are such passages to be explained? Surely not by finding a +superficial resemblance between two things, and thereupon transferring +to one of them whatever is true of the other. No thought can attain +accuracy except by taking care not to confuse in this way things which +superficially resemble each other. + +But no thought can be fertilising and suggestive which neglects real and +deep resemblances, resemblances of principle as well as incident, +resemblances which are due to the mind of God or the character of man. + +In the structure and furniture of the tabernacle, and the order of its +services, there are analogies deliberately planned, and such as every +one would expect, between religious truth shadowed forth in Judaism, and +the same truth spoken in these latter days unto us in the Son. + +But in the emancipation, the progress, and alas! the sins and +chastisements of Israel, there are analogies of another kind, since here +it is history which resembles theology, and chiefly secular things which +are compared with spiritual. But the analogies are not capricious; they +are based upon the obvious fact that the same God Who pitied Israel in +bondage sees, with the same tender heart, a worse tyranny. For it is not +a figure of speech to say that sin is slavery. Sin does outrage the +will, and degrade and spoil the life. The sinner does obey a hard and +merciless master. If his true home is in the kingdom of God, he is, +like Israel, not only a slave but an exile. Is God the God of the Jew +only? for otherwise He must, being immutable, deal with us and our +tyrant as He dealt with Israel and Pharaoh. If He did not, by an +exertion of omnipotence, transplant them from Egypt to their inheritance +at one stroke, but required of them obedience, co-operation, patient +discipline, and a gradual advance, why should we expect the whole work +and process of grace to be summed up in the one experience which we call +conversion? Yet if He did, promptly and completely, break their chains +and consummate their emancipation, then the fact that grace is a +progressive and gradual experience does not forbid us to reckon +ourselves dead unto sin. If the region through which they were led, +during their time of discipline, was very unlike the land of milk and +honey which awaited the close of their pilgrimage, it is not unlikely +that the same God will educate his later Church by the same means, +leading us also by a way that we know not, to humble and prove us, that +He may do us good at the latter end. + +And if He marks, by a solemn institution, the period when we enter into +covenant relations with Himself, and renounce the kingdom and tyranny of +His foe, is it marvellous that the apostle found an analogy for this in +the great event by which God punctuated the emancipation of Israel, +leading them out of Egypt through the sea depths and beneath the +protecting cloud? + +If privilege, and adoption, and the Divine good-will, did not shelter +them from the consequences of ingratitude and rebellion, if He spared +not the natural branches, we should take heed lest He spare not us. + +Such analogies are really arguments, as solid as those of Bishop +Butler. + +But the same cannot be maintained so easily of some others. When that is +quoted of our Lord upon the cross which was written of the paschal lamb, +"a bone shall not be broken" (Exod. xii. 46, John xix. 36), we feel that +the citation needs to be justified upon different grounds. But such +grounds are available. He was the true Lamb of God. For His sake the +avenger passes over all His followers. His flesh is meat indeed. And +therefore, although no analogy can be absolutely perfect, and the type +has nothing to declare that His blood is drink indeed, yet there is an +admirable fitness, worthy of inspired record, in the consummating and +fulfilment in Him, and in Him alone of three sufferers, of the precept +"A bone of Him shall not be broken." It may not be an express prophecy +which is brought to pass, but it is a beautiful and appropriate +correspondence, wrought out by Providence, not available for the +coercion of sceptics, but good for the edifying of believers. + +And so it is with the calling of the Son out of Egypt. Unquestionably +Hosea spoke of Israel. But unquestionably too the phrase "My Son, My +Firstborn" is a startling one. Here is already a suggestive difference +between the monotheism of the Old Testament and the austere jealous +logical orthodoxy of the Koran, which protests "It is not meet for God +to have any Son, God forbid" (Sura xix. 36). Jesus argued that such a +rigid and lifeless orthodoxy as that of later Judaism, ought to have +been scandalised, long before it came to consider His claims, by the +ancient and recognised inspiration which gave the name of gods to men +who sat in judgment as the representatives of Heaven. He claimed the +right to carry still further the same principle--namely, that deity is +not selfish and incommunicable, but practically gives itself away, in +transferring the exercise of its functions. From such condescension +everything may be expected, for God does not halt in the middle of a +path He has begun to tread. + +But if this argument of Jesus were a valid one (and the more it is +examined the more profound it will be seen to be), how significant will +then appear the term "My Son," as applied to Israel! + +In condescending so far, God almost pledged Himself to the Incarnation, +being no dealer in half measures, nor likely to assume rhetorically a +relation to mankind to which in fact He would not stoop. + +Every Christian feels, moreover, that it is by virtue of the grand and +final condescension that all the preliminary steps are possible. Because +Abraham's seed was one, that is Christ, therefore ye (all) if ye are +Christ's, are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise (Gal. iii. 16, +29). + +But when this great harmony comes to be devoutly recognised, a hundred +minor and incidental points of contact are invested with a sacred +interest. + +No doctrinal injury would have resulted, if the Child Jesus had never +left the Holy Land. No infidel could have served his cause by quoting +the words of Hosea. Nor can we now cite them against infidels as a +prophecy fulfilled. But when He does return from Egypt our devotions, +not our polemics, hail and rejoice in the coincidence. It reminds us, +although it does not demonstrate, that He who is thus called out of +Egypt is indeed the Son. + +The sober historian cannot prove anything, logically and to +demonstration, by the reiterated interventions in history of atmospheric +phenomena. And yet no devout thinker can fail to recognise that God has +reserved the hail against the time of trouble and war. + +In short, it is absurd and hopeless to bid us limit our contemplation, +in a divine narrative, to what can be demonstrated like the propositions +of Euclid. We laugh at the French for trying to make colonies and +constitutions according to abstract principles, and proposing, as they +once did, to reform Europe "after the Chinese manner." Well, religion +also is not a theory: it is the true history of the past of humanity, +and it is the formative principle in the history of the present and the +future. + +And hence it follows that we may dwell with interest and edification +upon analogies, as every great thinker confesses the existence of +truths, "which never can be proved." + +In the meantime it is easy to recognise the much simpler fact, that +these things happened unto them by way of example, and they were written +for our admonition. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[32] Take as an example the assertion of Bunyan that the sea in the +Revelation is a sea of glass, because the laver in the tabernacle was +made of the brazen looking-glasses of the women. (_Solomon's Temple_, +xxxvi. 1.) + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +_AT SINAI._ + +xix. 1-25. + +In the third month from the Exodus, and on the selfsame day (which +addition fixes the date precisely), the people reached the wilderness of +Sinai. This answers fairly to the date of Pentecost, which was +afterwards connected by tradition with the giving of the law. And +therefore Pentecost was the right time for the gift of the Holy Ghost, +bringing with Him the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and +that freedom from servile Jewish obedience which is not attained by +violating law, but by being imbued in its spirit, by the love which is +the fulfilling of the law. + + * * * * * + +There is among the solemn solitudes of Sinai a wide amphitheatre, +reached by two converging valleys, and confronted by an enormous +perpendicular cliff, the Ras Sufsafeh--a "natural altar," before which +the nation had room to congregate, awed by the stern magnificence of the +approach, and by the intense loneliness and desolation of the +surrounding scene, and thus prepared for the unparalleled revelation +which awaited them. + +It is the manner of God to speak through nature and the senses to the +soul. We cannot imagine the youth of the Baptist spent in Nazareth, nor +of Jesus in the desert. Elijah, too, was led into the wilderness to +receive the vision of God, and the agony of Jesus was endured at night, +and secluded by the olives from the paschal moon. It is by another +application of the same principle that the settled Jewish worship was +bright with music and splendid with gold and purple; and the notion that +the sublime and beautiful in nature and art cannot awaken the feelings +to which religion appeals, is as shallow as the notion that when these +feelings are awakened all is won. + +What happens next is a protest against this latter extreme. Awe is one +thing: the submission of the will is another. And therefore Moses was +stopped when about to ascend the mountain, there to keep the solemn +appointment that was made when God said, "This shall be the token unto +thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out +of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (iii. 12). His own +sense of the greatness of the crisis perhaps needed to be deepened. +Certainly the nation had to be pledged, induced to make a deliberate +choice, now first, as often again, under Joshua and Samuel, and when +Elijah invoked Jehovah upon Carmel. (Josh. xxiv. 24; 1 Sam. xii. 14; 1 +Kings xviii. 21, 39.) + +It is easy to speak of pledges and formal declarations lightly, but they +have their warrant in many such Scriptural analogies, nor should we +easily find a church, careful to deal with souls, which has not employed +them in some form, whether after the Anglican and Lutheran fashion, by +confirmation, or in the less formal methods of other Protestant +communions, or even by delaying baptism itself until it becomes, for the +adult in Christian lands, what it is to the convert from false creeds. + +Therefore the Lord called to Moses as he climbed the steep, and offered +through him a formal covenant to the people. + +"Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob,[33] and tell the children of +Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you +on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself." + +The appeal is to their personal experience and their gratitude: will +this be enough? will they accept His yoke, as every convert must, not +knowing what it may involve, not yet having His demands specified and +His commandments before their eyes, content to believe that whatever is +required of them will be good, because the requirement is from God? Thus +did Abraham, who went forth, not knowing whither, but knowing that he +was divinely guided. "Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed +and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from +among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine, and ye shall be unto Me a +kingdom of priests and a holy nation." + +Thus God conveys to them, more explicitly than hitherto, the fact that +He is the universal Lord, not ruling one land or nation only, nor, as +the Pentateuch is charged with teaching, their tutelary deity among many +others. Thus also the seeds are sown in them of a wholesome and rational +self-respect, such as the Psalmist felt, who asked "What is man, that +Thou art mindful of him?" yet realised that such mindfulness gave to +man a real dignity, made him but little lower than the angels, and +crowned him with glory and honour. + +Abolish religion, and mankind will divide into two classes,--one in +which vanity, unchecked by any spiritual superior, will obey no +restraints of law, and another of which the conscious pettiness will +aspire to no dignity of holiness, and shrink from no dishonour of sin. +It is only the presence of a loving God which can unite in us the sense +of humility and greatness, as having nothing and yet possessing all +things, and valued by God as His "peculiar treasure."[34] + +And with a reasonable self-respect should come a noble and yet sober +dignity--"Ye shall be a kingdom of priests," a dynasty (for such is the +meaning) of persons invested with royal and also with priestly rank. +This was spoken just before the law gave the priesthood into the hands +of one tribe; and thus we learn that Levi and Aaron were not to supplant +the nation, but to represent it. + +Now, this double rank is the property of redeemed humanity: we are "a +kingdom and priests unto God." Yet the laity of the Corinthian Church +were rebuked for a self-asserting and mutinous enjoyment of their rank: +"Ye have reigned as kings without us"; and others there were in this +Christian dispensation who "perished in the gainsaying of Korah" (1 Cor. +iv. 8; Jude 11). + +If the words "He hath made us a kingdom and priests" furnish any +argument against the existence of an ordained ministry now, then there +should have been no Jewish priesthood, for the same words are here. And +is it supposed that this assertion only began to be true when the +apostles died? Certainly there is a kind of self-assertion in the +ministry which they condemn. But if they are opposed to its existence, +alas for the Pastoral Epistles! It was because the function belonged to +all, that no man might arrogate it who was not commissioned to act on +behalf of all. + +But while the individual may not assert himself to the unsettling of +church order, the privilege is still common property. All believers have +boldness to enter into the holiest place of all. All are called upon to +rule for God "over a few things," to establish a kingdom of God within, +and thus to receive a crown of life, and to sit with Jesus upon His +throne. The very honours by which Israel was drawn to God are offered to +us all, as it is written, "We are the circumcision," "We are Abraham's +seed and heirs according to the promise" (Phil. iii. 3; Gal. iii. 29). + +To this appeal the nation responded gladly. They could feel that indeed +they had been sustained by God as the eagle bears her young--not +grasping them in her claws, like other birds, but as if enthroned +between her wings, and sheltered by her body, which interposed between +the young and any arrow of the hunter. Thus, say the Rabbinical +interpreters, did the pillar of cloud intervene between Israel and the +Egyptians. If the image were to be pressed so far, we could now find a +much closer analogy for the eagle "preferring itself to be pierced +rather than to witness the death of its young" (Kalisch). But far more +tender, and very touching in its domestic homeliness, is the metaphor +of Him Whose discourses teem with allusions to the Old Testament, yet +Who preferred to compare Himself to a hen gathering her chickens under +her wing. + +With the adhesion of Israel to the covenant, Moses returned to God. And +the Lord said, "Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people +may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee for ever." + +The design was to deepen their reverence for the Lawgiver Whose law they +should now receive; to express by lessons, not more dreadful than the +plagues of Egypt, but more vivid and sublime, the tremendous grandeur of +Him Who was making a covenant with them, Who had borne them on His wings +and called them His firstborn Son, Whom therefore they might be tempted +to approach with undue familiarity, were it not for the mountain that +burned up to heaven, the voice of the trumpet waxing louder and louder, +and the Appearance so fearful that Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and +quake" (=to phantazomenon=--Heb. xii. 21). + +When thus the Deity became terrible, the envoy would be honoured also. + +But it is important to observe that these terrible manifestations were +to cease. Like the impressions produced by sickness, by sudden deaths, +by our own imminent danger, the emotion would subside, but the +conviction should remain: they should believe Moses for ever. Emotions +are like the swellings of the Nile: they subside again; but they ought +to leave a fertilising deposit behind. + +That the impression might not be altogether passive, and therefore +ephemeral, the people were bidden to "sanctify themselves"; all that is +common and secular must be suspended for awhile; and it is worth notice +that, as when the family of Jacob put away their strange gods, so now +the Israelites must wash their clothes (cf. Gen. xxxv. 2). For one's +vestment is a kind of outer self, and has been with the man in the old +occupations from which he desires to purify himself. It was therefore +that when Jehu was made king, and when Jesus entered Jerusalem in +triumph, men put their garments under their chief to express their own +subjection (2 Kings ix. 13; Matt. xxi. 7). Much of the philosophy of +Carlyle is latent in these ancient laws and usages. + +Moreover, the mountain was to be fenced from the risk of profanation by +any sudden impulsive movement of the crowd, and even a beast that +touched it should be slain by such weapons as men could hurl without +themselves pursuing it. Only when the trumpet blew a long summons might +the appointed ones come up to the mount (ver. 13). + +On the third day, after a soul-searching interval, there were thunders +and lightnings, and a cloud, and the trumpet blast; and while all the +people trembled, Moses led them forth to meet with God. Again the +narrative reverts to the terrible phenomena--the fire like the smoke of +a furnace (called by an Egyptian name which only occurs in the +Pentateuch), and the whole mountain quaking. Then, since his commission +was now to be established, Moses spake, and the Lord answered him with a +voice. And when he again climbed the mountain, it became necessary to +send him back with yet another warning, whether his example was in +danger of emboldening others to exercise their newly given priesthood, +or the very excess of terror exercised its well-known fascinating power, +as men in a burning ship have been seen to leap into the flames. + +And the priests also, who come near to God, should sanctify themselves. +It has been asked who these were, since the Levitical institutions were +still non-existent (ver. 22, cf. 24). But it is certain that the heads +of houses exercised priestly functions; and it is not impossible that +the elders of Israel who came to eat before God with Jethro (xviii. 12) +had begun to perform religious functions for the people. Is it supposed +that the nation had gone without religious services for three months? + +It has been remarked by many that the law of Moses appealed for +acceptance to popular and even democratic sanctions. The covenant was +ratified by a plebiscite. The tremendous evidence was offered equally to +all. For, said St. Augustine, "as it was fit that the law which was +given, not to one man or a few enlightened people, but to the whole of a +populous nation, should be accompanied by awe-inspiring signs, great +marvels were wrought ... before the people" (_De Civ. Dei_, x. 13). + +We have also to observe the contrast between the appearance of God on +Sinai and His manifestation in Jesus. And this also was strongly wrought +out by an ancient father, who represented the Virgin Mary, in the act of +giving Jesus into the hands of Simeon, as saying, "The blast of the +trumpet does not now terrify those who approach, nor a second time does +the mountain, all on fire, cause terror to those who come nigh, nor does +the law punish relentlessly those who would boldly touch. What is +present here speaks of love to man; what is apparent, of the Divine +compassion." (Methodius _De Sym. et Anna_, vii.) + +But we must remember that the Epistle to the Hebrews regards the second +manifestation as the more solemn of the two, for this very reason: that +we have not come to a burning mountain, or to mortal penalties for +carnal irreverence, but to the spiritual mountain Zion, to countless +angels, to God the Judge, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and +to Jesus Christ. If they escaped not, when they refused Him Who warned +on earth, much more we, who turn away from Him Who warneth from heaven +(Heb. xii. 18-25). + +There is a question, lying far behind all these, which demands +attention. + +It is said that legends of wonderful appearances of the gods are common +to all religions; that there is no reason for giving credit to this one +and rejecting all the rest; and, more than this, that God absolutely +could not reveal Himself by sensuous appearances, being Himself a +Spirit. In what sense and to what extent God can be said to have really +revealed Himself, we shall examine hereafter. At present it is enough to +ask whether human love and hatred, joy and sorrow, homage and scorn can +manifest themselves by looks and tones, by the open palm and the +clenched fist, by laughter and tears, by a bent neck and by a curled +lip. For if what is most immaterial in our own soul can find sensuous +expression, it is somewhat bold to deny that a majesty and power beyond +anything human may at least be conceived as finding utterance, through a +mountain burning to the summit and reeling to the base, and the blast of +a trumpet which the people could not hear and live. + +But when it is argued that wondrous theophanies are common to all +faiths, two replies present themselves. If all the races of mankind +agree in believing that there is a God, and that He manifests Himself +wonderfully, does that really prove that there is no God, or even that +He never manifested Himself wondrously? We should certainly be derided +if we insisted that such a universal belief proved the truth of the +story of Mount Sinai, and perhaps we should deserve our fate. But it is +more absurd by far to pretend that this instinct, this intuition, this +universal expectation that God would some day, somewhere, rend the veil +which hides Him, does actually refute the narrative. + +We have also to ask for the production of those other narratives, +sublime in their conception and in the vast audience which they +challenged, sublimely pure alike from taint of idolatrous superstition +and of moral evil, profound and far-reaching in their practical effect +upon humanity, which deserve to be so closely associated with the giving +of the Mosaic law that in their collapse it also must be destroyed, as +the fall of one tree sometimes breaks the next. But this narrative +stands out so far in the open, and lifts its head so high, that no other +even touches a bough of it when overturned. + +Is it seriously meant to compare the alleged disappearance of Romulus, +or the secret interviews of Numa with his Egeria, to a history like +this? Surely one similar story should be produced, before it is asserted +that such stories are everywhere. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[33] This phrase is not found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Is it fancy +which detects in it a desire to remind them of their connection with the +least worthy rather than the noblest of the Patriarchs? One would not +expect, for instance, to read, Fear not, thou worm Abraham, or even +Israel; but the name of Jacob at once calls up humble associations. + +[34] This word is the same which occurs in the verse so beautifully but +erroneously rendered "They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in +the day when I make up My jewels" (Mal. iii. 17, A.V.). "They shall be +Mine ... in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure" (R.V.). + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +_THE LAW._ + +xx. 1-17. + +We have now reached that great event, one of the most momentous in all +history, the giving of the Ten Commandments. And it is necessary to +consider what was the meaning of this event, what part were they +designed to play in the religious development of mankind. + +1. St. Paul tells us plainly what they did _not_ effect. By the works of +the law could no flesh be justified: to the father of the Hebrew race +faith was reckoned instead of righteousness; the first of their royal +line coveted the blessedness not of the obedient but of the pardoned; +and Habakkuk declared that the just should live by his faith, while the +law is not of faith, and offers life only to the man that doeth these +things (Rom. iv. 3, 6; Gal. iii. 12). In the doctrinal scheme of St. +Paul there was no room for a compromise between salvation by faith and +reliance upon our own performance of any works, even those simple and +obvious duties which are of world-wide obligation. + +2. But he never meant to teach that a Christian is free from the +obligation of the moral law. If it is not true that we can keep it and +so earn heaven, it is equally false that we may break it without penalty +or remorse. What he insisted upon was this: that obligation is one +thing, and energy is another; the law is good, but it has not the gift +of pardon or of inspiration; by itself it will only reveal the +feebleness of him who endeavours to perform it, only force into direst +contrast the spiritual beauty of the pure ideal and the wretchedness of +the sinner, carnal, sold under sin. In this respect, indeed, the law was +its own witness. For if, among all the millions of its children, one had +lived by obedience, how could he have shared in its elaborate +sacrificial apparatus, in the hallowing of the altar from pollution by +the national uncleanness, in the sprinkling of the blood of the offering +for sin? Take the case of the highest official. A sinless high priest +under the law would have been paralysed by his virtue, for his duty on +the greatest day of all the year was to make atonement first for his own +sins. + +3. The law being an authorised statement of what innocence means, and +therefore of the only terms upon which a man might hope to live by +works, is an organic whole, and we either keep it as a whole or break +it. Such is the meaning of the words, he that offendeth in one point is +guilty of all; because He who gave the seventh commandment gave also the +sixth--so that if one commit no adultery, yet kill, he has become a +transgressor of the law in its integrity (James ii. 11). The challenge +of God to human self-righteousness is not one which can be half met. If +we have not thoroughly kept it, we have thoroughly failed. + +4. But this failure of man does not involve any failure, in the law, to +accomplish its intended work. It is, as has been said, a challenge. The +sense of our inability to meet it is the best introduction to Him Who +came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and thus the +law became a tutor to bring men to Christ. It awoke the conscience, +brought home the sense of guilt, and entered, that sin might abound in +us, whose ignorance had not known sin without it. It was strictly that +which Moses most frequently calls it--the Testimony. + +5. Finally, however, the teaching of Scripture is not that Christians +are condemned to live always in a condition of baffled striving, +hopeless longing, conscious transgression of a code which testifies +against them. The old and carnal nature gravitates downward, to +selfishness and sin, as surely as by a law of the physical universe. But +the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus emancipates us from that +law of sin and death--the higher nature doing, by the very quality of +its life, what the lower nature cannot be driven to do, by dread of hell +or by desire of heaven. The creature of earth becomes a creature of air, +and is at home in a new sphere, poised on its wings upon the breeze. +Love is the fulfilling of the law. And the Christian is free from its +dictation, as affectionate men are free from any control of the laws +which command the maintenance of wife and child, not because they may +defy the statutes, but because their volition and the statutes coincide. +Liberty is not lawlessness--it is the reciprocal harmony of law and the +will. + +And thus the grand paradox of Luther is entirely true: "Unless faith be +without any, even the smallest works, it does not justify, nay, it is +not faith. And yet it is impossible for faith to be without +works--earnest, many and great." We are justified by faith without the +works of the law, and yet we do not make void the law by faith--nay, we +establish the law. + +All this agrees exactly with the contrast, so often urged, between the +giving of the Law and the utterance of the Sermon on the Mount. The +former echoes across wild heights, and through savage ravines; the +latter is heard on the grassy slopes of the hillside which overlooks the +smiling Lake of Galilee. The one is spoken in thunder and graven upon +stone: the other comes from the lips, into which grace is poured, of Him +Who was fairer than the children of men. The former repeats again and +again the stern warning, "Thou shalt not!" The latter crowns a sevenfold +description of a blessedness, which is deeper than joy, though pensive +and even weeping, by adding to these abstract descriptions an eighth, +which applies them, and assumes them to be realised in His +hearers--"Blessed are _ye_." If so much as a beast touched the mountain +it should be stoned. But Simeon took the Divine Infant in his arms. + +And this is not because God has become gentler, or man worthier: it is +because God the Lawgiver upon His throne has come down to be God the +Helper. But the beatitudes could never have been spoken, if the law had +not been imposed: the blessedness of a hunger and thirst for +righteousness was created by the majestic and spiritual beauty of the +unattained commandment. + +Yes, it had a spiritual beauty. For, however formal, external, and even +shallow, the commandments may appear to flippant modern babblers, St. +Paul bewailed the contrast between the law, which was spiritual, and his +own carnal heart. And he, who had kept all the letter from his youth, +was only the more vexed and haunted by the fleeting consciousness of a +higher "good thing" unattained. Did not one table say "Thou shalt not +covet," and the other promise mercy to thousands of those that love? + +This leads us to consider the structure and arrangement of the +Decalogue. Scripture itself tells us that there were "ten words" or +precepts, written upon both sides of two tables. But various answers +have been given at different times, to the question, How shall we divide +the ten? + +The Jews of a later period made a first commandment of the words, "I am +the Lord thy God," which is not a commandment at all. And they restored +the proper number, thus exceeded, by uniting in one the prohibition of +other gods and of idolatry; although the worship of the golden calf, +almost immediately after the law was given, suffices to establish the +distinction. For then, as well as under Gideon, Micah and Jeroboam, the +sin of idolatry fell short of apostasy to a wholly different god (Judg. +viii. 23, 27, xvii. 3, 5; 1 Kings xii. 28). The worship of images +dishonours God, even if it be His semblance that they claim. In this +arrangement, the tables were allotted five commandments each. + +Another curious arrangement was devised, apparently by St. Augustine; +and the weight of his authority imposed it upon Western Christianity +until the Reformation, and upon the Latin and Lutheran churches unto +this day. Like the former, it adds the second commandment to the first, +but it divides the tenth. And it gives to the first table three +commandments, "since the number of commandments which concern God seem +to hint at the Trinity to careful students," while the seven +commandments of the second table suggest the Sabbath. Such mystical +references are no longer weighty arguments. And the proposed division +of the tenth commandment seems quite precluded by the fact that in +Exodus we read, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house nor his +wife," while in Deuteronomy the order is reversed; so that its advocates +are divided among themselves as to whether the coveting of a house or a +wife is to attain the dignity of separate mention. + +The ordinary English arrangement assigns to the tables four commandments +and six respectively. And the noble catechism of the Church of England +appears to sanction this arrangement by including among "my duties to my +neighbour" that of loving, honouring and succouring my father and +mother. There are several objections to this arrangement. It is +unsymmetrical. There seems to be something more sacred and divine about +my relationship with my father and mother than those which connect me +with my neighbour. The first table begins with the gravest offence, and +steadily declines to the lowest; sin against the unique personality of +God being followed by sin against His spirituality of nature, His name, +and His holy day. If now the sin against His earthly representative, the +very fountain and sanction of all law to childhood, be added to the +first table, the same order will pervade those of the second--namely, +sin against my neighbour's life, his family, his property, his +reputation, and lastly, his interest in my inner self, in the wishes +that are unspoken, the thoughts and feelings which + + "I wad nae tell to nae man." + +We thus obtain both the simplest division and the clearest arrangement. +In Romans xiii. 9 the fifth commandment is not enumerated when +rehearsing the actions which transgress the second table. In the Hebrew +text of Deuteronomy all the later commandments are joined with the sixth +by the copulative (represented along with the negative fairly enough in +our English by "Neither"), which seems to indicate that these five were +united together in the author's mind. But the fifth stands alone, like +all those of the first table. Now, it is clear that such an arrangement +gives great sanction and weight to the sacred institution of the family. + +Finally, the comprehensiveness and spirituality of the law may be +observed in this; that the first table forbids sin against God in +thought, word and deed; and the second table forbids sin against man in +deed, word and thought. + + +_THE PROLOGUE._ + +xx. 2. + +The Decalogue is introduced by the words "I am the Lord thy God, which +brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." + +Here, and in the previous chapter, is already a great advance upon the +time when it was said to them "The God of thy fathers, the God of +Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, hath appeared." Now they are expected +to remember what He has done for themselves. For, although religion must +begin with testimony, it ought always to grow up into an experience. +Thus it was that many of the Samaritans believed on Jesus because of the +word of the woman; but presently they said, "Now we believe, not because +of thy speaking, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know." And thus +the disciples who heard John the Baptist speak, and so followed Jesus, +having come and seen where He abode, could say, "We have found the +Messiah." + +This prologue is vitally connected with both tables of the law. In +relation to the first, it recognises the instinct of worship in the +human heart. In vain shall we say Do not worship idols, until the true +object of adoration is supplied, for the heart must and will prostrate +itself at some shrine. A leader of modern science confesses "the +immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of man," adding +that "to yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of +problems at the present hour."[35] It is indeed a problem for the +unbelief which, because it professes to be scientific, cannot shut its +eyes to the fact that men whose faith in Christ has suffered shipwreck +are everywhere seen to be clinging to strange planks--spiritualism, +esoteric Buddhism, and other superstitions,--which prove that man must +and will reverence something more than streams of tendencies, or +beneficial results to the greatest numbers. The Law of Moses abolishes +superstition by no mere negation, but by the proclamation of a true God. + +Moreover, it declares that this God is knowable, which flatly +contradicts the brave assertion of modern agnostics that the notion of a +God is not even "thinkable." That assertion is a bald and barren +platitude in the only sense in which it is not contrary to the +experience of all mankind. As we cannot form a complete and perfect, nor +even an adequate notion of God, so no man ever yet conceived a complete +and adequate notion of his neighbour, nor indeed of himself. But as we +can form a notion of one another, dim and fragmentary indeed, yet more +or less accurate and fit to guide our actions, so has every nation and +every man formed some notion of deity. Nor could even the agnostic +declare that God is unthinkable, unless the word God, of which he makes +this assertion, conveyed to him _some_ idea, some thought, more or less +worthy of the thinking. The ancient Jew never dreamed that he could +search out the Almighty to perfection, yet God was known to him by His +actions (the only means by which we know our fellow-men); and the +combined terror and loving-kindness of these at once warned him against +revolt, and appealed to his loyalty for obedience. + +In relation to the second table, the prologue was both an argument and +an appeal. Why should a man hope to prosper by estranging his best +Friend, his Emancipator and Guide? And even if disobedience could obtain +some paltry advantage, how base would he be who snatched at it, when +forbidden by the God Who broke his chains, and brought him out of the +house of bondage--a Benefactor not ungenial and remote, but One Who +enters into closest relations with him, calling Himself "Thy God"! + +Now, a greater emancipation and a closer personal relationship belong to +the Church of Christ. When a Christian hears that God is unthinkable, he +ought to be able to answer, 'God is my God, and He has brought my soul +out of its house of bondage.' + +Moreover, his emancipation by Christ from many sins and inner slaveries +ought to be a fact plain enough to constitute the sorest of problems to +the observing world. + +It must be observed, besides, that the Law, which was the centre of +Judaism, does not appeal chiefly to the meaner side of human nature. +Hell is not yet known, for the depths of eternity could not be uncovered +before the clouds had rolled away from its heights of love and +condescension; or else the sanity and balance of human nature would have +been overthrown. But even temporal judgments are not set in the foremost +place. As St. Paul, who knew the terrors of the Lord, more commonly and +urgently besought men by the mercies of God, so were the ancient Jews, +under the burning mountain, reminded rather of what God had bestowed +upon them, than of what He might inflict if they provoked Him. And our +gratitude, like theirs, should be excited by His temporal as well as His +spiritual gifts to us. + + +_THE FIRST COMMANDMENT._ + +"Thou shalt have none other gods before Me."--xx. 3. + +When these words fell upon the ears of Israel, they conveyed, as their +primary thought, a prohibition of the formal worship of rival deities, +Egyptian or Sidonian gods. Following immediately upon the proclamation +of Jehovah, their own God, they declared His intolerance of rivalry, and +enjoined a strict and jealous monotheism. For God was a reality. Races +who worshipped idealisations or personifications might easily make room +for other poetic embodiments of human thought and feeling; but Jehovah +would vindicate His rights. He had proved himself very real in Egypt. +Other gods would not displace Him: He would observe them: they would be +"before Me."[36] God does not quit the scene when man forgets Him. + +Now, it is hard for us to realise the charm which the worship of false +gods possessed for ancient Israel. To comprehend it we must reflect upon +the universal ignorance which made every phenomenon of nature a +portentous manifestation of mysterious and varied power, which they +could by no means trace back to a common origin, while the crash and +discord of the results appeared to indicate opposing wills behind. We +must reflect how closely akin is awe to worship, and how blind and +unintelligent was the awe which storm and earthquake and pestilence then +excited. We must remember the pressure upon them of surrounding +superstitions armed with all the civilisation and art of their world. +Above all, we must consider that the gods which seduced them were not of +necessity supreme: homage to them was very fairly consistent with a +reservation of the highest place for another; so that false worship in +its early stages need not have been much more startling than belief in +witchcraft, or in the paltry and unimaginative "spirits" which, in our +own day, are reputed to play the banjo in a dark room, and to untie +knots in a cabinet. Is it for us to deride them? + +To oppose all such tendencies, the Lord appealed not to philosophy and +sound reason. These are not the parents of monotheism: they are the +fruit of it. And so is our modern science. Its fundamental principle is +faith in the unity of nature, and in the extent to which the same laws +which govern our little world reach through the vast universe. And that +faith is directly traceable to the conviction that all the universe is +the work of the same Hand. + +"One God, one law, one element;"--the preaching of the first was sure to +suggest the other two. Nor could any race which believed in a multitude +of gods labour earnestly to reduce various phenomena to one cause. +Monotheism is therefore the parent of correct thinking, and could not +draw its sanctions thence. No: the law appeals to the historical +experience of Israel; it is content to stand and fall by that; if they +acknowledged the claim of God upon their loyalty, all the rest followed. +Their own story made good this claim. And so does the whole story of the +Church, and the whole inner life of every man who knows anything of +himself, bear witness to the religion of Jesus. + +Never let us weary of repeating that while we have ample controversial +resource, while no missile can pierce the chain-armour of the Christian +evidences, connected and interwoven into a great whole, and while the +infidelity which is called scientific is really infidel only so far as +it begs its case (which is an unscientific thing to do), nevertheless +the strength of our position is experimental. If the experience which +testifies to Jesus were historical alone, I might refuse to give it +credit: if it were only personal, I might ascribe it to enthusiasm. But +as long as a great cloud of living witnesses, and all the history of the +Church, declare the reality of His salvation, while I myself feel the +sufficiency of what He offers (or else the bitter need of it), so long +the question is not between conflicting theories, but between theories +and facts. To have another god is to place him beside One Whom we +already have, and Who has wrought for us the great emancipation. It is +not an error in theological science: it is ingratitude and treason. + +But it very soon became evident that men could apostatise from God +otherwise than in formal worship, chant and sacrifice and prostration: +"This people honoureth me with their mouths, but their hearts are far +from Me." God asks for love and trust, and our litanies should express +and cultivate these. Whatever steals away these from the Lord is really +His rival, and another god. "What is it to have a God? or what is God?" +Luther asks. And he answers, "He is God, and is so called, from Whose +goodness and power thou dost confidently promise all good things to +thyself, and to Whom thou dost fly from all adverse affairs and pressing +perils. So that to have a God is nothing else than to trust Him and +believe in Him with all the heart, even as I have often alleged that the +reliance of the heart constitutes alike one's God and one's idol.... In +what thing soever thou hast thy mind's reliance and thine heart fixed, +that is beyond doubt thy God" (_Larger Catechism_). + +And again: "What sort of religion is this, to bow not the knees to +riches and honour, but to offer them the noblest part of you, the heart +and mind? It is to worship the true God outwardly and in the flesh, but +the creature inwardly and in spirit" (_X. Praecepta Witt. Praedicata_). + +It was on this ground that he included charms and spells among the sins +against this commandment, because, though "they seem foolish rather than +wicked, yet do they lead to this too grave result, that men learn to +rely upon the creature in trifles, and so fail in great things to rely +upon God" (_Ibid._) + +This view of false worship is frequent in Scripture itself. The +Chaldeans were idolaters of an elaborate and imposing ritual, but their +true deities were not to be found in temples. They adored what they +really trusted upon, and that was their military prowess--the god of the +modern commander, who said that Providence sided with the big +battalions. The Chaldean is "he whose might is his god," whereas the +sacred warrior has the Lord for his strength and shield and very present +help in battle. Nay, regarding men "as the fishes of the sea," and his +own vast armaments as the fisher's apparatus to sweep them away, the +Chaldean, it is said, "sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense +unto his drag; because by them his portion is fat and his meat +plenteous" (Hab. i. 11, 14-16). Multitudes of humbler people practise a +similar idolatry. They say to God "Give us this day our daily bread"; +but they really ascribe their maintenance to their profession or their +trade; and so this is the true object of their homage. They, too, burn +incense to their drag. + +Others had no thought of a higher blessedness than animal enjoyment. +Their god was their belly. They set the excitement of wine in the place +of the fulness of the Spirit, or preferred some depraved union upon +earth to the honour of being one spirit with the Lord (Phil. iii. 19; +Eph. v. 18; 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17). And some tried to combine the world and +righteousness; not to lose heaven while grasping wealth, and receiving +here not only good things, but the only good things they +acknowledged--_their_ good things (Luke xvi. 25). As the Samaritans +feared the Lord and served graven images, so these were fain to serve +God and mammon (2 Kings xvii. 41; Matt. vi. 24). + +Now, these departures from the true Centre of all love and Source of all +light were really a homage to His great rival, "the god of this world." +Whenever men seek to obtain any prize by departing from God, they do +reverence to him who falsely said of all the kingdoms of the earth, and +their glory, "These things are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I +will I give them." They deny Him to Whom indeed all power is committed +in heaven and earth. + +What is the remedy, then, for all such formal or virtual apostasies? It +is to "have" the true God--which means, not only to know and confess, +but to be in real relationship with Him. + +Despite His so-called self-sufficiency, man is not very self-sufficing, +after all. The vast endowments of Julius Caesar did not prevent him from +chafing because, at the age when he was still obscure, Alexander had +conquered the world. To be Julius Caesar was not enough for him. Nor is +any man able to stand alone. In the Old Testament Joshua said, "If it +seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will +serve,"--implying that they must obey some one and will do better to +choose a service than to drift into one (Josh. xxiv. 15). And in the New +Testament Jesus declared that no man can serve two masters; but added +that he would not break with both and go free, he was sure to love and +cleave to one of them. Now, he only is proof against apostasy, who has +realised the wants of the soul within him, and the powerlessness of all +creatures to satisfy or save, and then, turning to the cross of Christ, +has found his sufficiency in Him. "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast +the words of everlasting life." Marvellous it is to think that +underneath the stern words "Thou shalt have none other," lies all the +condescension of the privilege "Thou shalt have ... Me." + + +_THE SECOND COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, ... thou shalt not + bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them."--xx. 4-6. + +How far does the second of these clauses modify the first? Men there are +who maintain the severe independence of the former, so that it forbids +the presence of any image or likeness in the house of God, even for +innocent purposes of adornment. But the Decalogue is not a liturgical +directory: what it forbids in church it forbids anywhere; and on this +theory the statues in Parliament Square would be idolatrous, as well as +those in Westminster Abbey. And such Christians are more Judaical than +the Jews, who were taught to place in the very Holy of Holies golden +cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat, and to represent them again upon +its curtains. + +It is therefore plain that the precept never forbade imagery, but +idolatry, which is the making of images to satisfy the craving of men's +hearts for a sensuous worship--the making of them "unto thee." The +second clause qualifies and elucidates the first. And what the +commandment prohibits is any attempt to help our worship by representing +the object of adoration to the senses. + +The higher and more subtle idolatries do not conceive that wood or gold +is actually transformed into their deities; but only that the deities +are locally present in the images, which express their attributes--power +in a hundred hands, beneficence in a hundred breasts. But in thus +expressing, they degrade and cramp the conception. + +They may perhaps evade the reproach of Isaiah that they warm themselves +with a portion of timber, and roast meat with another portion, and make +the remainder a god (Isa. xliv. 15-17), by urging that the timber is not +the god, but an abode which he chooses because it expresses his specific +qualities. But they cannot evade the reproach of St. Paul, that being +ourselves the offspring of God, we ought not to compare Him to the +workmanship of our hands, graven with art and man's device (Acts xvii. +29). + +A truly spiritual worship is intellectually as well as morally the most +elevating exercise of the soul, which it leads onward and upward, making +of all that it knows and thinks a vestibule, beyond which lie higher +knowledge and deeper feeling as yet unattained. + +Why is Gothic architecture better adapted for religious buildings than +any Grecian or Oriental style? Because its long aisles, vaulted roofs +and pointed arches, leading the vision up to the unseen, tell of +mystery, and draw the mind away beyond the visible and concrete to +something greater which it hints; while rounded arches and definite +proportions shut in at once the vision and the mind. The difference is +the same as between poetry and logic. + +And so it is with worship. We fetter and cramp our thoughts of deity +when we bind them to even the loftiest conceptions which have ever been +shut up in marble or upon canvas. The best image that ever took shape is +inferior to the poorest spiritual conception of God, in this respect if +in no other--that it has no expansiveness, it cannot grow. And in +connecting our prayers with it, we virtually say, 'This satisfies my +conception of God.' + +It is not to be condemned merely as inadequate, for so are all our +highest thoughts of deity; nor only because average humanity (which is +supposed to stand most in need of the help and suggestion of art) will +never learn the fine distinctions by which subtle intellects withhold +from the image itself the worship which it evokes, and which goes out in +its direction. It is still more mischievous because, even for the +trained theologian, it is the petrifaction of what is meant to develop +and expand, the solidification of the inadequate, the accepting of what +is human as our idea of the divine. + +Nor will it long continue to be merely inadequate. Experience proves +that ideas, like air and water, cannot be confined without stagnating. +Idolatries not only fail to develop, they degenerate; and systems, +however orthodox they may appear at starting, which connect worship with +palpable imagery, are doomed to sink into superstition. + +To this precept there is added a startling and painful caution--"For I +the Lord thy God am a jealous God." That a man should be jealous is no +passport to our friendship: we think of unreasonable estrangements, +exaggerated demands, implacable and cruel resentments. It would not +enter the average mind to doubt that one is highly praised when another +says of him, 'I never traced in his words or actions the slightest stain +of jealousy.' And yet we are to think of God Himself as the jealous God. + +Upon reflection, however, we must admit that a man is not condemned as +jealous-minded because he is capable of jealousy, but because he has an +unjust and unreasonable tendency towards it. It is a narrowing and +suspicious quality when it operates without due cause, a vindictive and +cruel one when it operates in excessive measure. But what should we +think of a parent who felt no jealousy if the heart of his child were +stolen from him by intriguing servants or by frivolous comrades? Now, +God has called Israel His son, even His firstborn. The truth is that +with us jealousy is dangerous and frequently perverted, because we are +bad judges of the measure of our own rights, especially when our +affections are involved. But some measure of jealousy is the necessary +pain of love neglected, love wronged or slighted by those upon whom it +has a claim. Jealousy is the shadow thrown where the sunshine of love is +intercepted, and it is strong in proportion to the strength of the +light. It operates in the heart exactly like the sense of justice in the +reason. Justice expects a recompense where it has given service, and +jealousy asks for love where it has given affection. + +And therefore, when God tells us that He is jealous, He implies that He +condescends to love us, to look for a return, to desire more from us +than outward service. We cannot be jealous concerning things which are +indifferent to us. Even the jealousy of rival competitors for business +or for place may be measured by the desire of each for that which the +other would engross. The politician is not jealous of the millionaire, +nor the capitalist of the prime minister. + +Now, if God is jealous when the enemies of our soul would steal away our +loyalty, it surely follows that we shall not be left to contend with +those enemies alone: He values us; He is upon our side; He will help us +to overcome them. + +And now we begin to see why this attribute is connected with the second +commandment and not the first. The apostate who betakes himself to +another god is almost beyond the reach of this tender and intimate +emotion: he is still loved, for God loves all men; but yet perhaps the +chord is unstrung which trembles responsive to this plaintive note. + +When a man who confesses God begins to weary of spiritual intercourse +with the Lord of spirits, when he can no longer worship One whose actual +presence is realised because His voice is heard within, when the +likeness of man or brute, or brightness of morning, or marvel of life or +its reproductiveness, contents him as a representation of God the +invisible, then his heart is beginning to go after the creature, to +content itself with artistic loveliness or majesty, to let go the grasp +as upon a living hand, by which alone the soul may be sustained when it +stumbles, or guided when it would err. + +To those who are within His covenant--to us, therefore, as to His +ancient Israel--He says, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." Because +I am "thy God." + +The assertion of a Divine jealousy is but one difficulty of this +remarkable verse. The Lord goes on to describe Himself as "visiting the +iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth +generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of +them that love Me and keep My commandments." And is this reasonable? To +punish the child, to be avenged upon the children's children, for sins +which are not their own? We know how often the sceptic has made gain out +of this representation--which is but his own unauthorised gloss, since +in reality God has said nothing about punishing the righteous with the +wicked. It is not true that all sad and disastrous consequences are +penal; many are disciplinary, and even to the people of God some are +surgical, cutting away what would lead to disease and death. Are no +evil consequences probable, if men brought up amid scenes dishonouring +to God were treated exactly like those who have since childhood felt as +it were the hand of a Father upon their head? For themselves it is best +and kindest that so deep a loss could come home to their consciousness +in pain. + +At all events, the assertion so early made in Scripture is confirmed in +all the experience of the race. Insanity, idiocy, scrofula, consumption, +are too often, though not always, the hereditary results of guilt. Sins +of the flesh are visited upon the bodily system. Sins of the temper, +such as pride, cynicism and frivolity, are felt in the mental structure +of the race. And the sins which offend directly against God, do they +bring no results with them? Ask of the investigators of the new science +of heredity and transmitted peculiarities, whether it stops short of the +highest and holiest parts of human nature. Or consider the ravages which +victory and consequent wealth have made, again and again, in the +character of whole nations. + +There is no doctrine impugned in Scripture, which men have less prospect +of shaking off, even if they close their Bibles for ever, than this. If +it were not there, we should be perplexed at a want of conformity +between the ways of God in nature and what is asserted of Him in His +Book. + +But it is either slander or blindness to represent this law, viewed in +its entirety, as other than benevolent. The transmission of the result +of evil is only a part of the vast law which has bound men together in +nations and families, as partners and members with each other. It is +clear that distinctive advantages cannot be bestowed upon the children +of the good, as such, unless the same advantages be withheld from the +evil race beside them. If the prizes of a university are won by +knowledge, the result is that ignorance is "visited," in the withholding +of them. And if, in the vaster university of life, health, affluence, +good repute and a clear intellect are the transmitted results of virtue, +then disease, poverty, neglect and incompetence become the dire bequest +of the unrighteous. + +There is no choice, therefore, except either to carry out this law, or +else to bid every man in the world begin life, not as "the heir of all +the ages," but absolutely destitute of all that has been acquired by his +fellow-men. + +Sometimes a hint is given us of what this would be. There is brought +occasionally into civilised communities, from the depths of forests, a +creature without language or decency or intellect, with low forehead and +brutal appetites, who in his early childhood had wandered away and been +lost,--brought up, men say, by the strange compassion of some lower +creature, and now sunken well-nigh to its level. To this degradation we +should all come, if it were not for the transmitted inheritance of our +fathers. And so vast is the upward force of this grand law, that it is +steadily though slowly upheaving the whole mass; and the lowest of +to-day, visited for ancestral failings by sinking to the bottom, is +higher than if he had been left absolutely alone. + +This over-weight of good is clearly seen by comparing the clauses, for +the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and +fourth generation, but mercy is shown in them that love God upon a +wholly different scale. Even "unto thousands" would enormously +counterbalance three generations. But the Revised Version rightly +suggests "a thousand generations" in the margin, and supports it by one +of its very rare references. It is plainly stated in Deuteronomy vii. 9, +that He "keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His +commandments unto a thousand generations." + +Lastly, it is to be observed that in all this passage the gospel is +shining through the law. It is not a question of just dealing, but of +emotion. God is not a master exacting taskwork, but a Father, jealous if +we refuse our hearts. He visits sin upon the posterity "of them that +hate," not only of them that disobey Him. And when our hearts sink, we +who are responsible for generations yet to be, as we reflect upon our +frailty, our ignorance and our sins, upon the awful consequences which +may result from one heedless act--nay, from a gesture or a look--He +reminds us that He does not requite those who serve Him only with a +measured wage, but shows "mercy" upon those who love Him unto a thousand +generations. + + +_THE THIRD COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."--xx. 7. + +What is the precise force of this prohibition? The word used is +ambiguous: sometimes it must be rendered as here, as in the verses +"_Vain_ is the help of man," and "Except the Lord build the house, their +labour is but _vain_ that build it" (Psalm cviii. 12, cxxvii. 1). But +sometimes it clearly means false, as in the texts "Thou shalt not raise +a _false_ report," and "swearing _falsely_ in making a covenant" (Exod. +xxiii. 1; Hos. x. 4). Yet again, it hangs midway between the two ideas, +as when we read of "_lying_ vanities," and again, "trusting in vanity +and speaking _lies_" (Psalm xxxi. 6; Isa. lix. 4). + +In favour of the rendering "falsely" it is urged that our Lord quotes it +as "said to them of old time 'Thou shalt not forswear thyself'" (Matt. +v. 33). But it is by no means clear that He quotes this text: the +citation is closer to the phraseology of Lev. xix. 12, and it is found +in a section of the Sermon which does not confine its citations to the +Decalogue (cf. ver. 38). + +The Authorised rendering seems the more natural when we remember that +civic duty had not yet come upon the stage. When we have learned to +honour only one God, and not to degrade nor materialise our conception +of Him, the next step is to inculcate, not yet veracity toward men when +God has been invoked, but reverence, in treating the sacred name. + +We have already seen the miserable superstitions by which the Jews +endeavoured to satisfy the letter while outraging the spirit of this +precept. In modern times some have conceived that all invocation of the +Divine Name is unlawful, although St. Paul called God for a witness upon +his soul, and the strong angel shall yet swear "by Him Who liveth for +ever and ever" (2 Cor. i. 23; Rev. x. 6). + +As it is not a temple but a desert which no foot ever treads, so the +sacred name is not honoured by being unspoken, but by being spoken +aright. + +Swearing is indeed forbidden, where it has actually disappeared, namely, +in the mutual intercourse of Christian people, whose affirmation should +suffice their brethren, while the need of stronger sanctions "cometh of +evil," even of the consciousness of a tendency to untruthfulness, which +requires the stronger barrier of an oath. But our Lord Himself, when +adjured by the living God, responded to the solemn authority of that +adjuration, although His death was the result. + +The name of God is not taken in vain when men who are conscious of His +nearness, and act with habitual reference to His will, mention Him more +frequently and familiarly than formalists approve. It is abused when the +insincere and hollow professor joins in the most solemn act of worship, +honours Him with the lips while the heart is far from Him--nay, when one +strives to curb Satan, and reclaim his fellow-sinner, by the use of good +and holy phrases, in which his own belief is merely theoretical; and +fares like the sons of Sceva, who repeated an orthodox adjuration, but +fled away overpowered and wounded. Or if the truth unworthily spoken +assert its inherent power, that will not justify the hollowness of his +profession, and in vain will he plead at last, "Lord, Lord, have we not +in Thy name cast out devils, and in Thy name done many marvellous acts?" + +The only safe rule is to be sure that our conception of God is high and +real and intimate; to be habitually humble and trustful in our attitude +toward Him; and then to speak sincerely and frankly, as then we shall +not fail to do. The words which rise naturally to the lips of men who +think thus cannot fail to do Him honour, for out of the fulness of the +heart the mouth speaketh. + +And the prevalent notion that God should be mentioned seldom and with +bated breath is rather an evidence of men's failure habitually to think +of Him aright, than of filial and loving reverence. There is a large and +powerful school of religion in our own day, whose disciples talk much +more of their own emotions and their own souls than St. Paul did, and +much less about God and Christ. Some day the proportions will be +restored. In the great Church of the future men will not morbidly shrink +from confessing their inner life, but neither will it be the centre of +their contemplation and their discourse: they will be filled with the +fulness of God; out of the abundance of their hearts their mouths will +speak; His name shall be continually in their mouth, and yet they shall +not take the name of the Lord their God in vain. + + +_THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT._ + +xx. 8-11. + +It cannot be denied that the commandment to honour the Sabbath day +occupies a unique place among the ten. It is, at least apparently, a +formal precept embedded in the heart of a moral code, and good men have +thought very differently indeed about its obligation upon the Christian +Church. + +The great Continental reformers, Lutheran and Calvinistic alike, who +subscribed the Confession of Augsburg, there affirmed that "Scripture +hath abolished the Sabbath by teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may be +omitted since the gospel has been revealed" (II. vii. 28). The Scotch +reformers, on the other hand, declared that God "in His Word, by a +positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, +hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept +holy unto Him" (_Westminster Confess._, XXI. vii.). They are even so +bold as to declare that this day "from the beginning of the world to the +resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the +resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week"; but +this proposition would be as hard to prove as the contrary assertion, +still maintained by some obscure religionists, that the change of day, +for however sufficient and sublime a reason, was beyond the capacity of +the Church of Christ to enact. + +Amid these conflicting opinions the doctrinal formularies of the Church +of England are characteristically guarded and prudent; but her +worshippers are bidden to seek mercy from the Lord for past violations +of this law, and an inclination of heart to keep it in the future; and +when the Ten have been recited, they pray that "all these Thy laws" may +be written upon their hearts. There is no doubt, therefore, about the +opinion of our own Reformers concerning the divine obligation of the +commandment. + +In examining the problem thus presented to us, our chief light must be +that of Scripture itself. Is the Sabbath what the Lutheran confession +called it, a mere "Mosaic ceremony," or does it rest upon sanctions +which began earlier and lasted longer than the precept to abstain from +shell-fish, or to sanctify the firstborn of cattle? + +Does its presence in the Decalogue disfigure that great code, as the +intrusion of these other precepts would do? When we find a Gentile +church reminded that the next precept to this "is the first commandment +with promise" (Eph. vi. 2), can we suppose that the tables to which St. +Paul appealed, and the promise which he cited at full length, were both +cancelled; that in so far as a moral element existed in them, that +portion of course survived their repeal, but the code itself was gone? +If so, the temporal promise went with it, and its quotation by St. Paul +is strange. Strange also, upon this supposition, was the stress which +he habitually laid upon the law as a convicting power, and as being only +repealed in the letter so far as it was fulfilled by the spontaneous +instinct of love, which was the fulfilling of the law. + +The position of the commandment among a number of moral and universal +duties cannot but weigh heavily in its favour. It prompts us to ask +whether our duty to God is purely negative, to be fulfilled by a policy +of non-intervention, not worshipping idols, nor blaspheming. Something +more was already intimated in the promise of mercy to them "that love +Me." For love is chiefly the source of active obedience: while fear is +satisfied by the absence of provocation, love wants not only to abstain +from evil but to do good. And how may it satisfy this instinct when its +object is the eternal God, Who, if He were hungry, would not tell us? It +finds the necessary outlet in worship, in adoring communion, in the +exclusion for awhile of worldly cares, in the devotion of time and +thought to Him. Now, the foundation upon which all the institutions of +religion may be securely built, is the day of rest. Call it external, +formal, unspiritual if you will; say that it is a carnal ordinance, and +that he who keeps it in spirit is free from the obligation of the +letter. But then, what about the eighth commandment? Are we absolved +also from the precept "Thou shalt not steal," because it too is +concerned with external actions, because "this ... thou shalt not steal +... and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in +this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"? Do we say, +the spirit has abolished the letter: love is the rescinding of the law? +St. Paul said the very opposite: love is the fulfilling of the law, not +its destruction; and thus he re-echoed the words of Jesus, "I am not +come to destroy the law, but to fulfil." + +All men know that the formal regulations which defend property are +relaxed as the ties of love and mutual understanding are made strong; +that to enter unannounced is not a trespass, that the same action which +will be prosecuted as a theft by a stranger, and resented as a liberty +by an acquaintance, is welcomed as a graceful freedom, almost as an +endearment, by a friend. And yet the commandment and the rights of +property hold good: they are not compromised, but glorified, by being +spiritualised. As it is between man and his brother, so should it be +between us and our Divine Father. We have learned to know Him very +differently from those who shuddered under Sinai: the whole law is not +now written upon tables of stone, but upon fleshly tables of the heart. +But among the precepts which are thus etherialised and yet established, +why should not the fourth commandment retain its place? Why should it be +supposed that it must vanish from the Decalogue, unless the gathering of +sticks deserves stoning? The institution, and the ceremonial application +of it to Jewish life, are entirely different things; just as respect for +property is a fixed obligation, while the laws of succession vary. + +Bearing this distinction in mind, we come to the question, Was the +Sabbath an ordinance born of Mosaism, or not? Grant that the word +"Remember," if it stood alone, might conceivably express the emphasis of +a new precept, and not the recapitulation of an existing one. Grant also +that the mention in Genesis of the Divine rest might be made by +anticipation, to be read with an eye to the institution which would be +mentioned later. But what is to be made of the fact that on the seventh +day manna was withheld from the camp, before they had arrived at Horeb, +and therefore before the commandment had been written by the finger of +God upon the stone? Was this also done by anticipation? Upon any +supposition, it aimed at teaching the nation that the obligation of the +day was not based upon the positive precept, but the precept embodied an +older and more fundamental obligation. + +How is the Sabbath spoken of in those prophecies which set least value +upon the merely ceremonial law? + +Isaiah speaks of mere ritual as slightly as St. Paul. To fast and +afflict one's soul is nothing, if in the day of fasting one smites with +the fist and oppresses his labourers. To loose the bonds of wickedness, +to free the oppressed, to share one's bread with the hungry, this is the +fast which God has chosen, and for him who fasts after this fashion the +light shall break forth like sunrise, and his bones shall be strong, and +he himself like an unfailing water-spring. Now, it is the same chapter +which thus waives aside mere ceremonial in contempt, which lavishes the +most ample promises on him who turns away his foot from the Sabbath, and +calls the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the Lord, honourable, and +honours it (Isa. lviii. 5-11, 13-14). + +There is no such promise in Jeremiah, for the observance of any merely +ceremonial law, as that which bids the people to honour the Sabbath day, +that there may enter into their gates kings and princes riding in +chariots and upon horses, and that the city may remain for ever (Jer. +xvii. 24, 25). + +And Ezekiel declares that in the day when God made Himself known to His +people in the land of Egypt, He gave them statutes and judgments and His +sabbaths (Ezek. xx. 11, 12). Now, this phrase is a clear allusion to +the word of God in Jeremiah, that "I spake not unto their fathers in the +day when I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or +sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto My +voice," etc. (Jer. vii. 23). And it sharply contrasts the sacredness of +God's abiding ordinances with the temporary institutions of the +sanctuary. But it reckons the Sabbath among the former. + +It is objected that our Lord Himself treated the Sabbath lightly, as a +worn-out ordinance. But He was "a minister of the circumcision," and +always discussed the lawfulness of His Sabbath miracles as a Jew with +Jews. Thus He argued that men, admittedly under the law, baked the +shewbread, circumcised children, and even rescued cattle from jeopardy +upon the seventh day. He appealed to the example of David, who met a +sufficiently urgent necessity by eating the consecrated bread, "which +was not lawful for him to eat" (Matt. xii. 4). + +He did not hint that the law of the sabbath had disappeared, but +insisted that it was meant to serve man and not to oppress him: that +"the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark ii. +27). + +Now, there is not in the life of Christ an assertion, so broad and +strong as that the Sabbath was made for the human race, which can be +narrowed down to a discussion of any merely local and temporary +institution. He Who stood highest, and saw the widest horizons, declared +that the Sabbath was intended for humanity, and not for a section or a +sect of it. Not because He was the King of the Jews, but because He was +the Son of Man, the ripe fruit and the leader of the world-wide race +which it was given to bless, therefore He was also its Lord. + +And in Him, so are we. Like all things present and things to come, it is +our help, we are not its slaves. + +There is something abject in the notion of a Christian freeman, who has +been for a long week imprisoned in some gloomy and ill-ventilated +workshop, whose lungs would be purified, and therefore his spirits +uplifted, and therefore his reason and his affections invigorated, and +therefore his worship rendered more fresh, warm and reasonable, by the +breathing of a purer air, yet whose conception of a day of rest is so +slavish that he dares not "rest" from the pollution of an infected +atmosphere, and from the closeness of a London court, because he +conceives it imperative to "rest" only from that bodily exercise, to +enjoy which would be to him the most real and the most delightful repose +of all. + +But there are other things more abject still; and one of them is the +miserable insincerity of the affluent and luxurious, using the +exceptional case of him whose week-days are thus oppressed, to excuse +their own wanton neglect of religious ordinances, accepting at the hands +of Christianity the sacred holiday, but ignoring utterly the fact that +the Lord sanctified and hallowed it, that it is to be called the holy of +the Lord, and to be honoured, and that we are free from the letter of +the precept only in so far as we rise to the spirit of it, in loving and +true communion with the Father of spirits. + +Another utterance of Jesus throws a strong light upon the nature and the +limits of our obligation. "My Father worketh even until now, and I work" +(John v. 17) is an appeal to the fact that in the long sabbath of God +His world is not deserted; creation may be suspended, but the bounties +of Providence go on; and therefore Christ also felt that His day of +rest was not one of torpor, that in healing the impotent man upon the +Sabbath He was but following the example of Him by whose rest the day +was sanctified. All works of beneficent love, all that ministers to +human recovery from anguish, and carries out the Divine purposes of +grace for body or soul, rescue from danger, healing of disease, +reformation of guilt, are sanctioned by this defence of Christ. + +They need not plead that the commandment is abrogated, but that Jesus of +Nazareth, of the seed of David, found nothing in such liberties +inconsistent with the duties of a devout Hebrew. + + +_THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon + the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."--xx. 12. + +This commandment forms a kind of bridge between the first table and the +second. Obedience to parents is not merely a neighbourly virtue; we do +not honour them simply as our fellow-men: they are the vicegerents of +God to our childhood; through them He supplies our necessities, defends +our feebleness, and pours in light and wisdom upon our ignorance; by +them our earliest knowledge of right and wrong is imparted, and upon the +sanction of their voice it long depends. + +It is clear that parental authority cannot be undermined, nor filial +disobedience and irreverence gain ground, without shaking the +foundations of our religious life, even more perhaps than of our social +conduct. + +Accordingly this commandment stands before the sixth, not because +murder is a less offence against society, but because it is more +emphatically against our neighbour, and less directly against God. + +The human infant is dependent and helpless for a longer period, and more +utterly, than the young of any other animal. Its growth, which is to +reach so much higher, is slower, and it is feebler during the process. +And the reason of this is plain to every thoughtful observer. God has +willed that the race of man should be bound together in the closest +relationships, both spiritual and secular; and family affection prepares +the heart for membership alike of the nation and the Church. With this +inner circle the wider ones are concentric. The pathetic dependence of +the child nourishes equally the strong love which protects, and the +grateful love which clings. And from our early knowledge of human +generosity, human care and goodness, there is born the capacity for +belief in the heart of the great Father, from Whom every family in +heaven and earth derived its Greek name of Fatherhood (Eph. iii. 15). + +Woe to the father whose cruelty, selfishness, or evil passions make it +hard for his child to understand the Archetype, because the type is +spoiled! or whose tyranny and self-will suggest rather the stern God of +reprobation, or of servile, slavish subjection, than the tender Father +of freeborn sons, who are no more under tutors and governors, but are +called unto freedom. + +But how much sorer woe to the son who dishonours his earthly parent, and +in so doing slays within himself the very principle of obedience to the +Father of spirits! + +No earthly tie is perfect, and therefore no earthly obedience can be +absolute. Some crisis comes in every life when the most innocent and +praiseworthy affection becomes a snare--when the counsel we most relied +upon would fain mislead our conscience--when a man, to be Christ's +disciple, must "hate father and mother," as Christ Himself heard the +temptation of the evil one speaking through chosen and beloved lips, and +said "Get thee behind Me, Satan." Even then we shall respect them, and +pray as Christ prayed for His failing apostle, and when the storm has +spent itself they shall resume their due place in the loving heart of +their Christian offspring. + +So Jesus, when Mary would interrupt His teaching, said "Who is My +mother?" But imminent death could not prevent Him from pitying her +sorrow, and committing her to His beloved disciple as to a son. + +From the letter of this commandment streams out a loving influence to +sanctify all the rest of our relationships. As the love of God implies +that of our brother also, so does the honour of parents involve the +recognition of all our domestic ties. + +And even unassisted nature will tend to make long the days of the loving +and obedient child; for life and health depend far less upon affluence +and luxury than upon a well-regulated disposition, a loving heart, a +temper which can obey without chafing, and a conscience which respects +law. All these are being learned in disciplined and dutiful households, +which are therefore the nurseries of happy and righteous children, and +so of long-lived families in the next generation also. Exceptions there +must be. But the rule is clear, that violent and curbless lives will +spend themselves faster than the lives of the gentle, the loving, the +law-abiding and the innocent. + + +_THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt do no murder."--xx. 13. + +We have now clearly passed to the consideration of man's duty to his +fellow-man, as a part of his duty to his Maker. It is no longer as +holding a divinely appointed relation to us, but simply as he is a man, +that we are bidden to respect his person, his family, his property, and +his fair fame. + +And the influence of the teaching of our Lord is felt in the very name +which we all give to the second table of the law. We call it "our duty +to our neighbour." But we do not mean to imply that there lives on the +surface of the globe one whom we are free to assault or to pillage. The +obligation is universal, and the name we give it echoes the teaching of +Him who said that no man can enter the sphere of our possible influence, +even as a wounded creature in a swoon whom we may help, but he should +thereupon become our neighbour. Or rather, we should become his; for +while the question asked of Him was "Who is my neighbour?" (whom should +I love?) Jesus reversed the problem when He asked in turn not To whom +was the wounded man a neighbour? but Who was a neighbour unto him? (who +loved him?) + +Social ethics, then, have a religious sanction. It is the constant duty +and effort of the Church of God to saturate the whole life of man, all +his conduct and his thought, with a sense of sacredness; and as the +world is for ever desecrating what is holy, so is religion for ever +consecrating what is secular. + +In these latter days men have thought it a proof of grace to separate +religion from daily life. The Antinomian, who maintains that his +orthodox beliefs or feelings absolve him from the obligations of +morality, joins hands with the Italian brigand who hopes to be forgiven +for cutting throats because he subsidises a priest. The enthusiast who +insists that all sins, past and future, were forgiven him when he +believed, approaches far nearer than he supposes to the fanatic of +another creed, who thinks a formal confession and an external absolution +sufficient to wash away sin. All of them hold the grand heresy that one +may escape the penalties without being freed from the power of evil; +that a life may be saved by grace without being penetrated by religion, +and that it is not exactly accurate to say that Jesus saves His people +from their sins. + +It is scarcely wonderful, when some men thus refuse to morality the +sanctions of religion, that others propose to teach morality how she may +go without them. In spite of the experience of ages, which proves that +human passions are only too ready to defy at once the penalties of both +worlds, it is imagined that the microscope and the scalpel may supersede +the Gospel as teachers of virtue; that the self-interest of a creature +doomed to perish in a few years may prove more effectual to restrain +than eternal hopes and fears; and that a scientific prudence may supply +the place of holiness. It has never been so in the past. Not only Judaea, +but Egypt, Greece, and Rome, were strong as long as they were righteous, +and righteous as long as their morality was bound up in their religion. +When they ceased to worship they ceased to be self-controlled, nor could +the most urgent and manifest self-interest, nor all the resources of +lofty philosophy, withhold them from the ruin which always accompanies +or follows vice. + +Is it certain that modern science will fare any better? So far from +deepening our respect for human nature and for law, she is discovering +vile origins for our most sacred institutions and our deepest instincts, +and whispering strange means by which crime may work without detection +and vice without penalty. Never was there a time when educated thought +was more suggestive of contempt for one's self and for one's fellow-man, +and of a prudent, sturdy, remorseless pursuit of self-interest, which +may be very far indeed from virtuous. The next generation will eat the +fruit of this teaching, as we reap what our fathers sowed. The theorist +may be as pure as Epicurus. But the disciples will be as the Epicureans. + +Is there anything in the modern conception of a man which bids me spare +him, if his existence dooms me to poverty and I can quietly push him +over a precipice? It is quite conceivable that I can prove, and very +likely indeed that I can persuade myself, that the shortening of the +life of one hard and grasping man may brighten the lives of hundreds. +And my passions will simply laugh at the attempt to restrain me by +arguing that great advantages result from the respect for human life +upon the whole. Appetites, greeds, resentments do not regard their +objects in this broad and colourless way; they grant the general +proposition, but add that every rule has its exceptions. Something more +is needed: something which can never be obtained except from a universal +law, from the sanctity of all human lives as bearing eternal issues in +their bosom, and from the certainty that He who gave the mandate will +enforce it. + +It is when we see in our fellow-man a divine creature of the Divine, +made by God in His own image, marred and defaced by sin, but not beyond +recovery, when his actions are regarded as wrought in the sight of a +Judge Whose presence supersedes utterly the slightness, heat and +inadequacy of our judgment and our vengeance, when his pure affections +tell us of the love of God which passeth knowledge, when his errors +affright us as dire and melancholy apostacies from a mighty calling, and +when his death is solemn as the unveiling of unknown and unending +destinies, then it is that we discern the sacredness of life, and the +awful presumption of the deed which quenches it. It is when we realise +that he is our brother, holding his place in the universe by the same +tenure by which we hold our own, and dear to the same Father, that we +understand how stern is the duty of repressing the first resentful +movements within our breast which would even wish to crush him, because +they are a rebellion against the Divine ordinance and against the Divine +benevolence. + +Is it asked, how can all this be reconciled with the lawfulness of +capital punishment? The death penalty is frequent in the Mosaic code. +But Scripture regards the judge as the minister and agent of God. The +stern monotheism of the Old Testament "said, Ye are Gods," to those who +thus pronounced the behest of Heaven; and private vengeance becomes only +more culpable when we reflect upon the high sanction and authority by +which alone public justice presumes to act. + +Now, all these considerations vanish together, when religion ceases to +consecrate morality. The judgment of law differs from my own merely as I +like it better, and as I am a party (perhaps unwillingly) to the general +consent which creates it; he whom I would assail is doomed in any case +to speedy and complete extinction; his longer life is possibly +burdensome to himself and to society; and there exists no higher Being +to resent my interference, or to measure out the existence which I think +too protracted. It is clear that such a view of human life must prove +fatal to its sacredness; and that its results would make themselves +increasingly felt, as the awe wore away which old associations now +inspire. + + +_THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not commit adultery."--xx. 14. + +This commandment follows very obviously from even the rudest principle +of justice to our neighbour. It is among those that St. Paul enumerates +as "briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour +as thyself." + +And therefore nothing need here be said about the open sin by which one +man wrongs another. Wild and evil theories may be abroad, new schemes of +social order may be recklessly invented and discussed; yet, when the +institution of the permanent family is assailed, every thoughtful man +knows full well that all our interests are at stake in its defence, and +the nation could no more survive its overthrow than the Church. + +But when our Lord declared that to excite desire through the eyes is +actually this sin, already ripe, He appealed to some deeper and more +spiritual consideration than that of social order. What He pointed to is +the sacredness of the human body--so holy a thing that impurity, and +even the silent excitement of passion, is a wrong done to our nature, +and a dishonour to the temple of the Holy Ghost. + +Now, this is a subject upon which it is all the more necessary to write, +because it is hard to speak about. + +What is the human body, in the view of the Christian? It is the one +bond, as far as we know in all the universe, between the material and +the spiritual worlds, one of which slopes thence down to inert +molecules, and the other upward to the throne of God. + +Our brain is the engine-room and laboratory whereby thought, aspiration, +worship express themselves and become potent, and even communicate +themselves to others. + +But it is a solemn truth that the body not only interprets passively, +but also influences and modifies the higher nature. The mind is helped +by proper diet and exercise, and hindered by impure air and by excess or +lack of food. The influence of music upon the soul has been observed at +least since the time of Saul. And hereafter the Christian body, redeemed +from the contagion of the fall, and promoted to a spiritual +impressibility and receptiveness which it has never yet known, is meant +to share in the heavenly joys of the immortal spirit before God. This is +the meaning of the assertion that it is sown a natural (= _soulish_) +body, but shall be raised a spiritual body. In the meantime it must +learn its true function. Whatever stimulates and excites the animal at +the cost of the immortal within, will in the same degree cloud and +obscure the perception that a man's life consisteth not in his +pleasures, and will keep up the illusion that the senses are the true +ministers of bliss. The soul is attacked through the appetites at a +point far short of their physical indulgence. And when lawless wishes +are deliberately toyed with, it is clear that lawless acts are not +hated, but only avoided through fear of consequences. The reins which +govern the life are no longer in the hands of the spirit, nor is it the +will which now refuses to sin. How, then, can the soul be alert and +pure? It is drugged and stupified: the offices of religion are a dull +form, and its truths are hollow unrealities, assented to but unfelt, +because unholy impulses have set on fire the course of nature, in what +should have been the temple of the Holy Ghost. + +Moreover, the Christian life is not one of mere submission to authority; +its true law is that of ceaseless upward aspiration. And since the union +of husband and wife is consecrated to be the truest and deepest and most +far-reaching of all types of the mystical union between Christ and His +Church, it demands an ever closer approach to that perfect ideal of +mutual love and service. + +And whatever impairs the sacred, mysterious, all-pervading unity of a +perfect wedlock is either the greatest of misfortunes or of crimes. + +If it be frailty of temper, failure of common sympathies, an +irretrievable error recognised too late, it is a calamity which may yet +strengthen the character by evoking such pity and helpfulness as Christ +the Bridegroom showed for the Church when lost. But if estrangement, +even of heart, come through the secret indulgence of lawless reverie and +desire, it is treason, and criminal although the traitor has not struck +a blow, but only whispered sedition under his breath in a darkened room. + + +_THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not steal."--xx. 15. + +There is no commandment against which human ingenuity has brought more +evasions to bear than this. Property itself is theft, says the +communist. "It is no grave sin," says the Roman text-book, "to steal in +moderation"; and this is defined to be, "from a pauper less than a +franc, from a daily labourer less than two or three, from a person in +comfortable circumstances anything under four or five francs, or from a +very rich man ten or twelve francs. And a servant whom force or +necessity compels to accept an unjust payment, may secretly compensate +himself, because the workman is worthy of his hire."[37] A moment's +reflection discovers this to be the most naked rationalism, choosing +some of the commandments of God for honour, and some for contempt as +"not very grave" and wholly ignoring the principle that whoever attacks +the code at any one point "is guilty of all," because he has despised it +as a code, as an organic system. + +Nothing is easier than to confuse one's conscience about the ethics of +property. For the arrangements of various nations differ: it is a +geographical line which defines the right of the elder son against his +brothers, of sons against daughters, and of children against a wife; and +the demand is still more capricious which the state asserts against them +all, under the name of succession duty, and which it makes upon other +property in the form of a multitude of imposts and taxes. Can all these +different arrangements be alike binding? Add to this variability the +immense national revenues, which are apparently so little affected by +individual contributions, and it is no wonder if men fail to see that +honesty to the public is a duty as immutable and stern as any other duty +to their neighbour. Unfortunately the evil spreads. The same +considerations which make it seem pardonable to rob the nation apply +also to the millionaire; and they tempt many a poor man to ask whether +he need respect the wealth of a usurer, or may not adjust the scales of +Mine and Thine, which law causes to hang unfairly. + +It is forgotten that a nation has at least the same authority as a club +to regulate its own affairs, to fix the relative position and the +subscription of its members. Common honesty teaches me that I must +conform to these rules or leave the club; and this duty is not at all +affected by the fact that other associations have different rules. In +three such societies God Himself has placed us all--the family, the +Church, and the nation; and therefore I am directly responsible to God +for due respect to their laws. It is not true that the statute-book is +inspired, any more than that the regulations of a household are divinely +given. Yet a Divine sanction, such as rests upon the parental rule of +fallible human creatures, hallows also national law. I may advocate a +change in laws of which I disapprove, but I am bound in the meantime to +obey the conditions upon which I receive protection from foreign foes +and domestic fraud, and which cannot be subjected to the judgment of +every individual, except at the cost of a dissolution of society, and a +state of anarchy compared with which the worst of laws would be +desirable. + +This revolt of the individual is especially tempting when selfishness +deems itself wronged, as by the laws of property. And the eighth +commandment is necessary to protect society not merely against the +violence of the burglar and the craft of the impostor, but also against +the deceitfulness of our own hearts, asking What harm is in the evasion +of an impost? What right has a successful speculator to his millions? +Why should I not do justice to myself when law refuses it? + +There is always the simple answer, Who made me a judge in my own case? + +But when we regard the matter thus, it becomes clear that honesty is not +mere abstinence from pillage. The community has larger claims than this +upon us, and is wronged if we fail to discharge them. + +The rich man robs the poor if he does not play his part in the great +organisation by which he is served so well: every one robs the community +who takes its benefits and returns none; and in this sense the bold +saying is true, that every man lives by one of two methods--by labour or +by theft. + +St. Paul does not exhort men to refrain from theft merely in order to be +harmless, but to do good. That is the alternative contemplated when he +says, "Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him labour, working +with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give +to him that hath need" (Eph. iv. 28). + + +_THE NINTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."--xx. 16. + +St. James called the tongue a world of iniquity. And against its +lawlessness, which inflames the whole course of nature, each table of +the law contains a warning. For it is equally ready to profane the name +of God, and to rob our neighbour of his fair fame. + +Jesus Christ regarded verbal professions as a very poor thing, and +asked, "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I command +you?" He aimed a parable at the hollowness of merely saying, "I go, +sir." But, worthless though such phrases be, the act which substitutes +professions for actual service is no trifle; and our Lord felt the +importance of words, empty or sincere, so profoundly as to stake upon +this one test the eternal destinies of His people: "By thy words thou +shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Now, the +tongue is thus important because it is so prompt and willing a servant +of the mind within. We scarcely think of it as a servant at all: our +words do not seem to be more than "expressions," manifestations of what +is within us. + +But a thought, once expressed, is transformed and energetic as a bullet +when the charge is fired; it modifies other minds, and the word which we +took to be far less potent than a deed becomes the mover of the fateful +deeds of many men. And thus, being at once powerful and unsuspected, it +is the most treacherous and subtle of all the forces which we wield. + +And the ninth commandment does not undertake to bridle it by merely +forbidding us in a court of justice to wrong our fellow-man by perjury. + +We transgress it whenever we conceive a strong suspicion and repeat it +as a thing we know; when we allow the temptation of a biting epigram to +betray us into an unkind expression not quite warranted by the facts; +when we vindicate ourselves against a charge by throwing blame where it +probably but not certainly ought to lie; or when we are not content to +vindicate ourselves without bringing a countercharge which it would +perplex us to be asked to prove; when we give way to that most shallow +and meanest of all attempts at cleverness which claims credit for +penetration because it can discover base motives for innocent actions, +so that high-mindedness becomes pride, and charity withers up into love +of patronising, and forbearance shrivels into lack of spirit. The +pattern and ideal of such cleverness is the east wind, which makes all +that is fair and sensitive to shut itself up, forbids the bud to expand +into a blossom, and puts back the coming of the springtime and of the +singing bird. + +There are very gifted persons who have never found out that a kindly and +winning phrase may have as much literary merit as a stinging one, and it +is quite as fine a thing to be like the dew on Hermon on as to shoot out +arrows, even bitter words. + +It is a pity that our harsh judgments always speak more loudly and +confidently than our kindly ones, but the reason is plain: angry passion +prompts the former, and its voice is loud; while the calm reflection +which tones down and sweetens the judgment softens also the expression +of it. + +It has to be remembered, also, that false witness can reach to nations, +organisations, political movements as well as individuals. The habit of +putting the worst construction upon the intentions of foreign powers is +what feeds the mutual jealousies that ultimately blaze out in war. The +habit of thinking of rival politicians as deliberately false and +treasonable is what lowers the standard of the noblest of secular +pursuits, until each party, not to be undone, protests too much, raises +its voice to a falsetto to scream its rival down, and relaxes its +standard of righteousness lest it should be outdone by the +unscrupulousness of its rival. + +And there is yet another neighbour, against whom false witness is +woefully rife, both in the Church and in society. That neighbour is +mankind at large. There is a prevalent theory of human sinfulness which +unconsciously scoffs at the appeals of the gospel, striving indeed to +influence me by love, gratitude, admiration for the Perfect One, and +desire to be like Him, by the hope of holiness and the shame of +vileness, but telling me at the same time that I have no sympathies +whatever except with evil. The observation of every day shows that man's +nature is corrupt, but it also shows that he is not a fiend--that he has +fallen indeed, but remembers yet in what image he was made. But the +world cannot upbraid the Church for these exaggerations, since they are +but the echo of its own. + + "I do believe, + Though I have found them not, that there may be + Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, + And virtues which are merciful, nor weave + Snares for the failing; I would also deem + O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; + That two, or one, are almost what they seem, + That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream." + + _Childe Harold_, III., cxiv. + +Cynicism is false witness; and if it does not greatly wrong any one of +our fellow-men, it injures both society and the cynic. If he is of a +coarse fibre, it excuses him to himself in becoming the hard and +unloving creature which he fancies that all men are. If he is too proud +or too self-respecting to yield to this temptation, it isolates him, it +chills and withers his sympathies for people quite as good as himself, +whom he thinks of as the herd. + +As for the more flagrant sins, so for this, the remedy is love. Love +sympathises, makes allowance for frailty, discovers the germs of good, +hopeth all things, taketh not account of evil. + + +_THE TENTH COMMANDMENT._ + + "Thou shalt not covet ... anything that is his."--xx. 17. + +It will be remembered that the order of the catalogue of objects of +desire is different in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. In the latter "thy +neighbour's wife" is first, as of supreme importance; and therefore it +has been thought possible to convert it into a separate commandment. + +But this the order in Exodus forbids, by placing the house first, and +then the various living possessions which the householder gathers around +him. What is thought of is the gradual process of acquisition, and the +right of him who wins first a house, then a wife, servants, and cattle, +to be secure in the possession of them all. Now, between foes, we saw +that the evil temper is what leads to the evil deed, and the man who +nurses hatred is a murderer at heart. Just so the householder is not +rendered safe, and certainly not happy in the enjoyment of his rights, +by the seventh commandment and the eighth, unless care be taken to +prevent the accumulation of those forces which will some day break +through them both. To secure cities against explosion, we forbid the +storage of gunpowder and dynamite, and not only the firing of magazines. + +But the moral law is not given to any man for his neighbour's sake +chiefly. It is for me: statutes whereby I myself may live. And as the +Psalmist pondered on them, they expanded strangely for his perception. +"I have kept Thy testimonies," he says; but presently asks to be +quickened,--"So shall I _observe_ the testimony of Thy mouth,"--and +prays, "Give me understanding, that I may _know_ Thy testimonies." And +at the last, he confesses that he has "gone astray like a lost sheep" +(Ps. cxix. 22, 88, 125, 176). Starting with a literal innocence, he +comes to feel a deep inward need, need of vitality to obey, and even of +power to understand aright. If the sacrifices of God are a broken +spirit, it follows that they are a spirit, and inward loyalty is the +necessary condition upon which external obedience can be accepted. The +cheers of a traitor, the flattery of one who scorns, the ritual of a +hypocrite, these are quite as valuable, as indications of what is +within, as a reluctant relinquishment to my neighbour of what is his. I +must not covet. Plainly this is the sharpest and most searching precept +of all; and accordingly St. Paul asserts that without this he would not +have suffered the deep internal discontent, the consciousness of +something wrong, which tortured him, even although no mortal could +reproach him, even though, touching the righteousness of the law, he was +blameless. He had not known coveting, except the law had said "Thou +shalt not covet." + +Here, then, we perceive with the utmost clearness what St. Paul so +clearly discerned--the true meaning of the Law, its convicting power, +its design to work not righteousness, but self-despair as the prelude of +self-surrender. For who can, by resolving, govern his desires? Who can +abstain not only from the usurping deed, but from the aggressive +emotion? Who will not despair when he learns that God desireth truth in +the inward parts? But this despair is the way to that better hope which +adds, "In the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me +with hyssop, and I shall be clean." + +And as a strong interest or affection has power to destroy in the soul +many weaker ones, so the love of God and our neighbour is the appointed +way to overcome the desire of taking from our neighbour what God has +given to him, refusing it to us. + + +THE LESSER LAW. + +xx. 18-xxiii. 33. + +With the close of the Decalogue and its universal obligations, we +approach a brief code of laws, purely Hebrew, but of the deepest moral +interest, confessed by hostile criticism to bear every mark of a remote +antiquity, and distinctly severed from what precedes and follows by a +marked difference in the circumstances. + +This is evidently the book of the Covenant to which the nation gave its +formal assent (xxiv. 7), and is therefore the germ and the centre of the +system afterwards so much expanded. + +And since the adhesion of the people was required, and the final +covenant was ratified as soon as it was given, before any of the more +formal details were elaborated, and before the tabernacle and the +priesthood were established, it may fairly claim the highest and most +unique position among the component parts of the Pentateuch, excepting +only the Ten Commandments. + +Before examining it in detail, the impressive circumstances of its +utterance have to be observed. + +It is written that when the law was given, the voice of the trumpet +waxed louder and louder still. And as the multitude became aware that in +this tempestuous and growing crash there was a living centre, and a +voice of intelligible words, their awe became insufferable: and instead +of needing the barriers which excluded them from the mountain, they +recoiled from their appointed place, trembling and standing afar off. +"And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let +not God speak with us lest we die." It is the same instinct that we have +already so often recognised, the dread of holiness in the hearts of the +impure, the sense of unworthiness, which makes a prophet cry, "Woe is +me, for I am undone!" and an apostle, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful +man." + +Now, the New Testament quotes a confession of Moses himself, well-nigh +overwhelmed, "I do exceedingly fear and quake" (Heb. xii. 21). And yet +we read that he "said unto the people, Fear not, for God is come to +prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not" +(xx. 20). Thus we have the double paradox,--that he exceedingly feared, +yet bade them fear not, and yet again declared that the very object of +God was that they might fear Him. + +Like every paradox, which is not a mere contradiction, this is +instructive. + +There is an abject fear, the dread of cowards and of the guilty, which +masters and destroys the will--the fear which shrank away from the mount +and cried out to Moses for relief. Such fear has torment, and none ought +to admit it who understands that God wishes him well and is merciful. + +There is also a natural agitation, at times inevitable though not +unconquerable, and often strongest in the highest natures because they +are the most finely strung. We are sometimes taught that there is sin in +that instinctive recoil from death, and from whatever brings it close, +which indeed is implanted by God to prevent foolhardiness, and to +preserve the race. Our duty, however, does not require the absence of +sensitive nerves, but only their subjugation and control. Marshal Saxe +was truly brave when he looked at his own trembling frame, as the cannon +opened fire, and said, "Aha! tremblest thou? thou wouldest tremble much +more if thou knewest whither I mean to carry thee to-day." Despite his +fever-shaken nerves, he was perfectly entitled to say to any waverer, +"Fear not." + +And so Moses, while he himself quaked, was entitled to encourage his +people, because he could encourage them, because he saw and announced +the kindly meaning of that tremendous scene, because he dared presently +to draw near unto the thick darkness where God was. + +And therefore the day would come when, with his noble heart aflame for a +yet more splendid vision, he would cry, "O Lord, I beseech Thee show me +Thy glory"--some purer and clearer irradiation, which would neither +baffle the moral sense, nor conceal itself in cloud. + +Meanwhile, there was a fear which should endure, and which God desires: +not panic, but awe; not the terror which stood afar off, but the +reverence which dares not to transgress. "Fear not, for God is come to +prove you" (to see whether the nobler emotion or the baser will +survive), "and that His fear may be before your faces" (so as to guide +you, instead of pressing upon you to crush), "that ye sin not." + +How needful was the lesson, may be seen by what followed when they were +taken at their word, and the pressure of physical dread was lifted off +them. "They soon forgat God their Saviour ... they made a calf in +Horeb, and worshipped the work of their own hands." Perhaps other +pressures which we feel and lament to-day, the uncertainties and fears +of modern life, are equally required to prevent us from forgetting God. + +Of the nobler fear, which is a safeguard of the soul and not a danger, +it is a serious question whether enough is alive among us. + +Much sensational teaching, many popular books and hymns, suggest rather +an irreverent use of the Holy Name, which is profanation, than a filial +approach to a Father equally revered and loved. It is true that we are +bidden to come with boldness to the throne of Grace. Yet the same +Epistle teaches us again that our approach is even more solemn and awful +than to the Mount which might be touched, and the profaning of which was +death; and it exhorts us to have grace whereby we may offer service +well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe, "for our God is a consuming +fire" (Heb. iv. 16, xii. 28). That is the very last grace which some +Christians ever seem to seek. + +When the people recoiled, and Moses, trusting in God, was brave and +entered the cloud, they ceased to have direct communion, and he was +brought nearer to Jehovah than before. + +What is now conveyed to Israel through him is an expansion and +application of the Decalogue, and in turn it becomes the nucleus of the +developed law. Its great antiquity is admitted by the severest critics; +and it is a wonderful example of spirituality and searching depth, and +also of such germinal and fruitful principles as cannot rest in +themselves, literally applied, but must lead the obedient student on to +still better things. + +It is not the function of law to inspire men to obey it; this is +precisely what the law could not do, being weak through the flesh. But +it could arrest the attention and educate the conscience. Simple though +it was in the letter, David could meditate upon it day and night. In the +New Testament we know of two persons who had scrupulously respected its +precepts, but they both, far from being satisfied, were filled with a +divine discontent. One had kept all these things from his youth, yet +felt the need of doing some good thing, and anxiously demanded what it +was that he lacked yet. The other, as touching the righteousness of the +law, was blameless, yet when the law entered, sin revived and slew him. +For the law was spiritual, and reached beyond itself, while he was +carnal, and thwarted by the flesh, sold under sin, even while externally +beyond reproach. + +This subtle characteristic of all noble law will be very apparent in +studying the kernel of the law, the code within the code, which now lies +before us. + +Men sometimes judge the Hebrew legislation harshly, thinking that they +are testing it, as a Divine institution, by the light of this century. +They are really doing nothing of the sort. If there are two principles +of legislation dearer than all others to modern Englishmen, they are the +two which these flippant judgments most ignore, and by which they are +most perfectly refuted. + +One is that institutions educate communities. It is not too much to say +that we have staked the future of our nation, and therefore the hopes of +humanity, upon our conviction that men can be elevated by ennobling +institutions,--that the franchise, for example, is an education as well +as a trust. + +The other, which seems to contradict the first, and does actually modify +it, is that legislation must not move too far in advance of public +opinion. Laws may be highly desirable in the abstract, for which +communities are not yet ripe. A constitution like our own would be +simply ruinous in Hindostan. Many good friends of temperance are the +reluctant opponents of legislation which they desire in theory but which +would only be trampled upon in practice, because public opinion would +rebel against the law. Legislation is indeed educational, but the danger +is that the practical outcome of such legislation would be disobedience +and anarchy. + +Now, these principles are the ample justification of all that startles +us in the Pentateuch. + +Slavery and polygamy, for instance, are not abolished. To forbid them +utterly would have substituted far worse evils, as the Jews then were. +But laws were introduced which vastly ameliorated the condition of the +slave, and elevated the status of woman--laws which were far in advance +of the best Gentile culture, and which so educated and softened the +Jewish character, that men soon came to feel the letter of these very +laws too harsh. + +That is a nobler vindication of the Mosaic legislation than if this +century agreed with every letter of it. To be vital and progressive is a +better thing than to be correct. The law waged a far more effectual war +upon certain evils than by formal prohibition, sound in theory but +premature by centuries. Other good things besides liberty are not for +the nursery or the school. And "we also, when we were children, were +held in bondage" (Gal. iv. 3). + +It is pretty well agreed that this code may be divided into five parts. +To the end of the twentieth chapter it deals directly with the worship +of God. Then follow thirty-two verses treating of the personal rights +of man as distinguished from his rights of property. From the +thirty-third verse of the twenty-first chapter to the fifteenth verse of +the twenty-second, the rights of property are protected. Thence to the +nineteenth verse of the twenty-third chapter is a miscellaneous group of +laws, chiefly moral, but deeply connected with the civil organisation of +the state. And thence to the end of the chapter is an earnest +exhortation from God, introduced by a clearer statement than before of +the manner in which He means to lead them, even by that mysterious Angel +in Whom "is My Name." + + +PART I.--THE LAW OF WORSHIP. + +xx. 22-26. + +It is no vain repetition that this code begins by reasserting the +supremacy of the one God. That principle underlies all the law, and must +be carried into every part of it. And it is now enforced by a new +sanction,--"Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from +heaven: ye shall not make _other gods_ with Me; gods of silver or gods +of gold ye shall not make unto you" (vers. 22, 23). The costliest +material of this low world should be utterly contemned in rivalry with +that spiritual Presence revealing Himself out of a wholly different +sphere; and in so far as they remembered Him, and the Voice which had +thrilled their nature to its core, in so far would they be free from the +desire for any carnal and materialised divinity to go before them. + +Impressed with such views of God, their service of Him would be moulded +accordingly (24, 25). It is true that nothing could be too splendid for +His sanctuary, and Bezaleel was presently to be inspired, that the work +of the tabernacle might be worthy of its destination. Spirituality is +not meanness, nor is art without a consecration of its own. But it must +not intrude too closely upon the solemn act wherein the soul seeks the +pardon of the Creator. The altar should not be a proud structure, richly +sculptured and adorned, and offering in itself, if not an object of +adoration, yet a satisfying centre of attention for the worshipper. It +should be simply a heap of sods. And if they must needs go further, and +erect a more durable pile, it must still be of materials crude, +inartistic, such as the earth itself affords, of unhewn stone. A golden +casket is fit to convey the freedom of some historic city to a prince, +but the noblest offering of man to God is too humble to deserve an +ostentatious altar. + +"If thou lift up a tool upon it thou hast polluted it:" it has lost its +virginal simplicity; it no longer suits a spontaneous offering of the +heart, it has become artificial, sophisticated, self-conscious, +polluted. + +It is vehemently urged that these verses sanction a plurality of altars +(so that one might be of earth and another of stone), and recognise the +lawfulness of worship in other places than at a central appointed +shrine. And it is concluded that early Judaism knew nothing of the +exclusive sanctity of the tabernacle and the temple. + +This argument forgets the circumstances. The Jews had been led to Horeb, +the mount of God. They were soon to wander away thence through the +wilderness. Altars had to be set up in many places, and might be of +different materials. It was an important announcement that in every +place where God would record His name He would come unto them and bless +them. But certainly the inference leans rather toward than against the +belief that it was for Him to select every place which should be sacred. + +The last direction given with regard to worship is a homely one. It +commands that the altar must not be approached with steps, lest the +clothes of the priest should be disturbed and his limbs uncovered. +Already we feel that we have to reckon with the temper as well as the +letter of the precept. It is divinely unlike the frantic indecencies of +many pagan rituals. It protests against all infractions of propriety, +even the slightest, such as even now discredit many a zealous movement, +and bear fruit in many a scandal. It rebukes all misdemeanour, all +forgetfulness in look and gesture of the Sacred Presence, in every +worshipper, at every shrine. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] Prof. Tyndall, _Belfast Address_, p. 60. What progress has +scientific unbelief made since 1874 in solving this "question of +questions for the present hour"? It has perfected the phonograph, but it +has not devised a creed. + +[36] "Or _beside Me_" (R.V.) The preposition is so vague that either of +our English words may suggest quite too definite a meaning, as when +"before Me" is made to mean "in My angry eyes," or "beside Me" is taken +to hint at resentment for intrusion upon the same throne. + +[37] Gury, Compend., i., secs. 607, 623. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +PART II.--RIGHTS OF THE PERSON. + +xxi. 1-32. + +The first words of God from Sinai had declared that He was Jehovah Who +brought them out of slavery. And in this remarkable code, the first +person whose rights are dealt with is the slave. We saw that a +denunciation of all slavery would have been premature, and therefore +unwise; but assuredly the germs of emancipation were already planted by +this giving of the foremost place to the rights of the least of all and +the servant of all. + +As regards the Hebrew slave, the effect was to reduce his utmost bondage +to a comparatively mild apprenticeship. At the worst he should go free +in the seventh year; and if the year of jubilee intervened, it brought a +still speedier emancipation. If his debt or misconduct had involved a +family in his disgrace, they should also share his emancipation, but if +while in bondage his master had provided for his marriage with a slave, +then his family must await their own appointed period of release. It +followed that if he had contracted a degrading alliance with a foreign +slave, his freedom would inflict upon him the pang of final severance +from his dear ones. He might, indeed, escape this pain, but only by a +deliberate and humiliating act, by formally renouncing before the judges +his liberty, the birthright of his nation ("they are My servants, whom I +brought forth out of Egypt, they shall not be sold as +bondservants"--Lev. xxv. 42), and submitting to have his ear pierced, at +the doorpost of his master's house, as if, like that, his body were +become his master's property. It is uncertain, after this decisive step, +whether even the year of jubilee brought him release; and the contrary +seems to be implied in his always bearing about in his body an indelible +and degrading mark. It will be remembered that St. Paul rejoiced to +think that his choice of Christ was practically beyond recall, for the +scars on his body marked the tenacity of his decision (Gal. vi. 17). He +wrote this to Gentiles, and used the Gentile phrase for the branding of +a slave. But beyond question this Hebrew of Hebrews remembered, as he +wrote, that one of his race could incur lifelong subjection only by a +voluntary wound, endured because he loved his master, such as he had +received for love of Jesus. + +When the law came to deal with assaults it was impossible to place the +slave upon quite the same level as the freeman. But Moses excelled the +legislators of Greece and Rome, by making an assault or chastisement +which killed him upon the spot as worthy of death as if a freeman had +been slain. It was only the victim who lingered that died comparatively +unavenged (20, 21). After all, chastisement was a natural right of the +master, because he owned him ("he is his money"); and it would be hard +to treat an excess of what was permissible, inflicted perhaps under +provocation which made some punishment necessary, on the same lines with +an assault that was entirely lawless. But there was this grave restraint +upon bad temper,--that the loss of any member, and even of the tooth of +a slave, involved his instant manumission. And this carried with it the +principle of moral responsibility for every hurt (26, 27). + +It was not quite plain that these enactments extended to the Gentile +slave. But in accordance with the assertion that the whole spirit of the +statutes was elevating, the conclusion arrived at by the later +authorities was the generous one. + +When it is added that man-stealing (upon which all our modern systems of +slavery were founded) was a capital offence, without power of +commutation for a fine (xxi. 16), it becomes clear that the advocates of +slavery appeal to Moses against the outraged conscience of humanity +without any shadow of warrant either from the letter or the spirit of +the code. + +There remains to be considered a remarkable and melancholy sub-section +of the law of slavery. + +In every age degraded beings have made gain of the attractions of their +daughters. With them, the law attempted nothing of moral influence. But +it protected their children, and brought pressure to bear upon the +tempter, by a series of firm provisions, as bold as the age could bear, +and much in advance of the conscience of too many among ourselves +to-day. + +The seduction of any unbetrothed maiden involved marriage, or the +payment of a dowry. And thus one door to evil was firmly closed (xxii. +16). + +But when a man purchased a female slave, with the intention of making +her an inferior wife, whether for himself or for his son (such only are +the purchases here dealt with, and an ordinary female slave was treated +upon the same principles as a man), she was far from being the sport of +his caprice. If indeed he repented at once, he might send her back, or +transfer her to another of her countrymen upon the same terms, but when +once they were united she was protected against his fickleness. He might +not treat her as a servant or domestic, but must, even if he married +another and probably a chief wife, continue to her all the rights and +privileges of a wife. Nor was her position a temporary one, to her +damage, as that of an ordinary slave was, to his benefit. + +And if there was any failure to observe these honourable terms, she +could return with unblemished reputation to her father's home, without +forfeiture of the money which had been paid for her (xxi. 7-11). + +Does any one seriously believe that a system like the African slave +trade could have existed in such a humane and genial atmosphere as these +enactments breathed? Does any one who knows the plague spot and disgrace +of our modern civilisation suppose for a moment that more could have +been attempted, in that age, for the great cause of purity? Would to God +that the spirit of these enactments were even now respected! They would +make of us, as they have made of the Hebrew nation unto this day, models +of domestic tenderness, and of the blessings in health and physical +vigour which an untainted life bestows upon communities. + +By such checks upon the degradation of slavery, the Jew began to learn +the great lesson of the sanctity of manhood. The next step was to teach +him the value of life, not only in the avenging of murder, but also in +the mitigation of such revenge. The blood-feud was too old, too natural +a practice to be suppressed at once; but it was so controlled and +regulated as to become little more than a part of the machinery of +justice. + +A premeditated murder was inexpiable, not to be ransomed; the murderer +must surely die. Even if he fled to the altar of God, intending to +escape thence to a city of refuge when the avenger ceased to watch, he +should be torn from that holy place: to shelter him would not be an +honour, but a desecration to the shrine (xxi. 12, 14). According to this +provision Joab and Adonijah suffered. For the slayer by accident or in +hasty quarrel, "a place whither he shall flee" would be provided, and +the vague phrase indicates the antiquity of the edict (ver. 13). This +arrangement at once respected his life, which did not merit forfeiture, +and provided a penalty for his rashness or his passion. + +It is because the question in hand is the sanctity of man, that the +capital punishment of a son who strikes or curses a parent, the +vicegerent of God, and of a kidnapper, is interposed between these +provisions and minor offences against the person (15-17). + +Of these latter, the first is when lingering illness results from a blow +received in a quarrel. This was not a case for the stern rule, eye for +eye and tooth for tooth,--for how could that rule be applied to it?--but +the violent man should pay for his victim's loss of time, and for +medical treatment until he was thoroughly recovered (18, 19). + +But what is to be said to the general law of retribution in kind? Our +Lord has forbidden a Christian, in his own case, to exact it. But it +does not follow that it was unjust, since Christ plainly means to +instruct private persons not to exact their rights, whereas the +magistrate continues to be "a revenger to execute justice." And, as St. +Augustine argued shrewdly, "this command was not given for exciting the +fires of hatred, but to restrain them. For who would easily be satisfied +with repaying as much injury as he received? Do we not see men slightly +hurt athirst for slaughter and blood?... Upon this immoderate and unjust +vengeance, the law imposed a just limit, not that what was quenched +might be kindled, but that what was burning might not spread." (Cont. +Faust, xix. 25.) + +It is also to be observed that by no other precept were the Jews more +clearly led to a morality still higher than it prescribed. Their +attention was first drawn to the fact that a compensation in money was +nowhere forbidden, as in the case of murder (Num. xxxv. 31). Then they +went on to argue that such compensation must have been intended, because +its literal observance teemed with difficulties. If an eye were injured +but not destroyed, who would undertake to inflict an equivalent hurt? +What if a blind man destroyed an eye? Would it be reasonable to quench +utterly the sight of a one-eyed man who had only destroyed one-half of +the vision of his neighbour? Should the right hand of a painter, by +which he maintains his family, be forfeited for that of a singer who +lives by his voice? Would not the cold and premeditated operation +inflict far greater mental and even physical suffering than a sudden +wound received in a moment of excitement? By all these considerations, +drawn from the very principle which underlay the precept, they learned +to relax its pressure in actual life. The law was already their +schoolmaster, to lead them beyond itself (_vide_ Kalisch _in loco_). + +Lastly, there is the question of injury to the person, wrought by +cattle. + +It is clearly to deepen the sense of reverence for human life, that not +only must the ox which kills a man be slain, but his flesh may not be +eaten; thus carrying further the early aphorism "at the hand of every +beast will I require ... your blood" (Gen. ix. 5). This motive, however, +does not betray the lawgiver into injustice: "the owner of the ox shall +be quit"; the loss of his beast is his sufficient penalty. + +But if its evil temper has been previously observed, and he has been +warned, then his recklessness amounts to blood-guiltiness, and he must +die, or else pay whatever ransom is laid upon him. This last clause +recognises the distinction between his guilt and that of a deliberate +man-slayer, for whose crime the law distinctly prohibited a composition +(Num. xxxv. 31). + +And it is expressly provided, according to the honourable position of +woman in the Hebrew state, that the penalty for a daughter's life shall +be the same as for that of a son. + +As a slave was exposed to especial risk, and his position was an ignoble +one, a fixed composition was appointed, and the amount was memorable. +The ransom of a common slave, killed by the horns of the wild oxen, was +thirty pieces of silver, the goodly price that Messiah was prized at of +them (Zech. xi. 13). + + +PART III.--RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. + +xxi. 33-xxii. 15. + +The vital and quickening principle in this section is the stress it lays +upon man's responsibility for negligence, and the indirect consequences +of his deed. All sin is selfish, and all selfishness ignores the right +of others. Am I my brother's keeper? Let him guard his own property or +pay the forfeit. But this sentiment would quickly prove a disintegrating +force in the community, able to overthrow a state. It is the ignoble +negative of public spirit; patriotism, all by which nations prosper. And +this early legislation is well devised to check it in detail. If an ox +fall into a pit or cistern, from which I have removed the cover, I must +pay the value of the beast, and take the carcase for what it may be +worth. I ought to have considered the public interest (xxi. 33). If I +let my cattle stray into my neighbour's field or vineyard, there must be +no wrangling about the quality of what he has consumed: I must forfeit +an equal quantity of the best of my own field or vineyard (xxii. 5). If +a fire of my kindling burn his grain, standing or piled, I must make +restitution: I had no right to kindle it where he was brought into +hazard (xxii. 6). This is the same principle which had already +pronounced it murder to let a vicious ox go loose. And it has to do with +graver things than oxen and fires,--with the teachers of principles +rightly called incendiary, the ingenious theorists who let loose +abstract speculations pernicious when put into practice, the +well-behaved questioners of morality, and the law-abiding assailants of +the foundations which uphold law. + +It is quite in the same spirit that I am accountable for what I borrow +or hire, and even for its accidental death (since for the time being it +was mine, and so should the loss be); but if I hired the owner with his +beast, it clearly continued to be in his charge (14, 15). But again, my +responsibility may not be pressed too far. If I have not borrowed +property, but consented to keep it for the owner, the risk is fairly +his, and if it be stolen, the presumption is not against my integrity, +although I may be required to clear myself on oath before the judges (7, +8). But I am accountable in such a case for cattle, because it was +certainly understood that I should watch them; and if a wild beast have +torn any, I must prove my courage and vigilance by rescuing the carcase +and producing it (10-13). + +But I must not be plunged into litigation without a compensating hazard +on the other side: he whom God shall condemn shall pay double unto his +neighbour (9). + +It only remains to be observed, with regard to theft, that when cattle +was recovered yet alive, the thief restored double, but when his act was +consummated by slaughtering what he had taken, then he restored a sheep +fourfold, and for an ox five oxen, because his villainy was more +high-handed. And we still retain the law which allows the blood of a +robber at night to be shed, but forbids it in the day, when help can +more easily be had. + +All this is reasonable and enlightened law; founded, like all good +legislation, upon clear and satisfactory principles, and well calculated +to elevate the tone of the public feeling, to be not only so many +specific enactments, but also the germinant seeds of good. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +PART IV. + +xxii. 16-xxiii. 19. + +The Fourth section of this law within the law consists of enactments, +curiously disconnected, many of them without a penalty, varying greatly +in importance, but all of a moral nature, and connected with the +well-being of the state. It is hard to conceive how the systematic +revision of which we hear so much could have left them in the condition +in which they stand. + +It is enacted that a seducer must marry the woman he has betrayed, and +if her father refuse to give her to him, then he must pay the same dower +as a bridegroom would have done (xxii. 16, 17). And presently the +sentence of death is launched against a blacker sensual crime (19). But +between the two is interposed the celebrated mandate which doomed the +sorceress to death, remarkable as the first mention of witchcraft in +Scripture, and the only passage in all the Bible where the word is in +the feminine form--a witch, or sorceress; remarkable also for a far +graver reason, which makes it necessary to linger over the subject at +some length. + + +SORCERY. + + "Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live."--xxii. 18. + +The world knows only too well what sad and shameful inferences have been +drawn from these words. Unspeakable terrors, estrangement of natural +sympathy, tortures and cruel deaths, have been inflicted on many +thousands of the most forlorn creatures upon earth (creatures who were +sustained in their sufferings by no high ardour of conviction or +fanaticism, not being martyrs but simply victims), because it was held +that Moses, in declaring that witches should not live, affirmed the +reality of witchcraft. No sooner did the argument cease to be dangerous +to old women than it became formidable to religion; for now it was urged +that, since Moses was in error about the reality of witchcraft, his +legislation could not have been inspired. + +What are we to say to this? + +In the first place it must be observed that the existence of a sorcerer +is one thing, and the reality of his powers is quite another. What was +most sad and shameful in the mediaeval frenzy was the burning to ashes of +multitudes who made no pretensions to traffic with the invisible world, +who frequently held fast their innocence while enduring the agonies of +torture, who were only aged and ugly and alone. Upon any theory, the +prohibition of sorcery by the Pentateuch was no more answerable for +these iniquities than its other prohibitions for the lynch law of the +backwoods. + +On the other hand, there were real professors of the black art: men did +pretend to hold intercourse with spirits, and extorted great sums from +their dupes in return for bringing them also into communion with +superhuman beings. These it is reasonable to call sorcerers, whether we +accept their professions or not, just as we speak of thought-readers and +of mediums without being understood to commit ourselves to the +pretensions of either one or other. In point of fact, the existence, in +this nineteenth century after Christ, of sorcerers calling themselves +mediums, is much more surprising than the existence of other sorcerers +in the time of Moses or of Saul; and it bears startling witness to the +depth in human nature of that craving for traffic with invisible powers +which the law prohibited so sternly, but the roots of which neither +religion nor education nor scepticism has been able wholly to pluck up. + +Again, from the point of view which Moses occupied, it is plain that +such professors should be punished. They are virtually punished still, +whenever they obtain money under pretence of granting interviews with +the departed. If we now rely chiefly upon educated public opinion to +stamp out such impositions, that is because we have decided that a +struggle between truth and falsehood upon equal terms will be +advantageous to the former. It is a subdivision of the debate between +intolerance and free thought. Our theory works well, but not universally +well, even under modern conditions and in Christian lands. And assuredly +Moses could not proclaim freedom of opinion, among uneducated slaves, +amid the pressure of splendid and of seductive idolatries, and before +the Holy Ghost was given. To complain of Moses for proscribing false +religions would be to denounce the use of glass for seedlings because +the full-grown plant flourishes in the open air. + +Now, it would have been preposterous to proscribe false religions and +yet to tolerate the sorcerer and the sorceress. For these were the +active practitioners of another worship than that of God. They might not +profess idolatry; but they offered help and guidance from sources which +Jehovah frowned upon, rival sources of defence or knowledge. + +The holy people was meant to grow up under the most elevating of all +influences, reliance upon a protecting God, Who had bidden His children +to subdue the world as well as to replenish it, and of Whom one of their +own poets sang that He had put all things under the feet of man. Their +true heritage was not bounded by the strip of land which Joshua and his +followers slowly conquered; to them belonged all the resources of nature +which science, ever since, has wrested from the Philistine hands of +barbarism and ignorance. And this nobler conquest depended upon the +depth and sincerity of man's feeling that the world is well-ordered and +stable and the heritage of man, not a chaos of various and capricious +powers, where Pallas inspires Diomed to hunt Venus bleeding off the +field, or where the incantations of Canidia may disturb the orderly +movements of the skies. Who could hope to discover by inductive science +the secrets of such a world as this? + +The devices of magic cut the links between cause and effect, between +studious labour and the fruits which sorcery bade men to steal rather +than to cultivate. What gambling was to commerce, that was witchcraft to +philosophy, and the mischief no more depended on the validity of its +methods than upon the soundness of the last device for breaking the bank +at Monte Carlo. + +If one could actually extort their secrets from the dead, or win for +luxury and sloth a longer life than is bestowed upon temperance and +labour, he would succeed in his revolt against the God of nature. But +the revolt was the endeavour; and the sorcerer, however falsely, +professed to have succeeded; and preached the same revolt to others. In +religion he was therefore an apostate, and in the theocracy a traitor +against the King, one whose life was forfeited if it was prudent to +exact the penalty. + +And when we consider the fascination wielded by such pretensions, even +in ages when the stability of nature is an axiom, the dread which false +religions all around and their terrible rituals must have inspired, the +superstitious tendencies of the people and their readiness to be misled, +we shall see ample reasons for treading out the first sparks of so +dangerous a fire. + +Beyond this it is vain to pretend that the law of Moses goes. It was +right in declaring the sorcerer and the sorceress to be real and +dangerous phenomena. It never declared their pretensions to be valid +though illegitimate. And in one noteworthy passage it proclaims that a +real sign or a wonder could only proceed from God, and when it +accompanied false teaching was still a sign, though an ominous one, +implying that the Lord would prove them (Deut. xiii. 1-3). This does not +look very like an admission of the existence of rival powers, inferior +though they might be, who could interfere with the order of His world. + +Sorcery in all its forms will die when men realise indeed that the world +is His, that there is no short or crooked way to the prizes which He +offers to wisdom and to labour, that these rewards are infinitely richer +and more splendid than the wildest dreams of magic, and that it is +literally true that all power, in earth as well as heaven, is committed +into the Hands which were pierced for us. In such a conception of the +universe, incantations give place to prayers, and prayer does not seek +to disturb, but to carry forward and to consummate, the orderly rule of +Love. + +The denunciation of witchcraft is quite naturally followed, as we now +perceive, by the reiteration of the command that no sacrifice may be +offered to any god except Jehovah (20). Strange and hateful offerings +were an integral part of witchcraft, long before the hags of Macbeth +brewed their charm, or the child in Horace famished to yield a spell. + + +THE STRANGER. + +xxii. 21, xxiii. 9. + +Immediately after this, a ray of sunlight falls upon the sombre page. + +We read an exhortation rather than a statute, which is repeated almost +literally in the next chapter, and in both is supported by a beautiful +and touching reason. "A stranger shalt thou not wrong, neither shall ye +oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." "A stranger +shall ye not oppress, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye +were strangers in the land of Egypt" (xxii. 21, xxiii. 9). + +The "stranger" of these verses is probably the settler among them, as +distinguished from the traveller passing through the land. His want of +friends and ignorance of their social order would place him at a +disadvantage, of which they are forbidden to avail themselves, either by +legal process (for the first passage is connected with jurisprudence), +or in the affairs of common life. But the spirit of the commandment +could not fail to influence their treatment of all foreigners; and +simple and commonplace though it appear to us, it would have startled +many of the wisest and greatest peoples of antiquity, and would have +fallen as strangely upon the ears of the Greeks of Pericles, as of the +modern Bedouin, with whom Israel had kinship. A foreigner, as such, was +a foe: to wrong him was a paradox, because he had no rights: kinship, or +else alliance or treaty was required to entitle the weaker to any better +treatment than it suited the stronger to allow. + +Yet we find a precept reiterated in this Jewish code which involves, in +its inevitable though slow development, the abolition of negro slavery, +the respect by powerful and civilised nations of the rights of +indigenous tribes, the most boundless advance of philanthropy, through +the most generous recognition of the fraternity of man. + +However sternly the sword of Joshua might fall, it struck not at the +foreigner, as such, but at those tribes, guilty and therefore accursed +of God, the cup of whose iniquity was full. And yet there was enough of +carnage to prove that so gracious a commandment as this could not have +risen spontaneously in the heart of early Judaism. Does it seem to be +made more natural, by any proposed shifting of the date? + +The reason of the precept is beautifully human. It rests upon no +abstract basis of common rights, nor prudential consideration of mutual +advantage. + +In our time it is sometimes proposed to build all morality upon such +foundations; and strange consequences have already been deduced in cases +where the proposed sanction has not seemed to apply. But, in fact, no +advance in virtue has ever been traced to self-interest, although, +after the advance took place, self-interest has always found its account +in it. A progressive community is made of good men, and the motive to +which Moses appeals is compassion fed by memory: "For ye were strangers +in the land of Egypt" (xxii. 21); "For ye know the heart of a stranger, +seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (xxiii. 9). + +The point is not that they may again be carried into captivity: it is +that they have felt its bitterness, and ought to recoil from inflicting +what they writhed under. + +Now, this appeal is a master-stroke of wisdom. Much cruelty, and almost +all the cruelty of the young, springs from ignorance, and that slowness +of the imagination which cannot realise that the pains of others are +like our own. Feeling them to be so, the charities of the poor toward +one another frequently rise almost to sublimity. And thus, when +suffering does not ulcerate the heart and make it savage, it is the most +softening of all influences. In one of the most threadbare lines in the +classics, the queen of Carthage boasts that + + "I, not ignorant of woe, + To pity the distressful know." + +And the boldest assertion in Scripture of the natural development of our +Saviour's human powers, is that which declares that "In that He Himself +hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are +tempted" (Heb. ii. 18). + +To this principle, then, Moses appeals, and by the appeal he educates +the heart. He bids the people reflect on their own cruel hardships, on +the hateful character of their tyrants, on their own greater hatefulness +if they follow the vile example, after such bitter experience of its +character. He does not yet rise to the grand level of the New Testament +morality, Do all to thy neighbour which it is not servile and dependent +to will that he should do for thee. But he attains to the level of that +precept of Confucius and Zoroaster which has been so unworthily compared +with it: Do not unto thy neighbour what thou wouldest not that he should +do to thee--a precept which mere indifference obeys. Nay, he excels it; +for the mental and spiritual attitude of one who respects his helpless +neighbour because he so much resembles himself, will surely not be +content without relieving the griefs that have so closely touched him. +Thus again the legislation of Moses looks beyond itself. + +Now, if the Jew should be merciful because he had himself known +calamity, what implicit confidence may we repose upon the Man of sorrows +and acquainted with grief? + +In the same spirit they are warned against afflicting the widow or the +orphan. And the threat which is added joins hand with the exhortation +which preceded. They should not oppress the stranger, because they had +been strangers and oppressed. Now the argument advances. The same God +Who then heard their cry will hear the cry of the forlorn, and avenge +them, according to the judicial fate which He had just announced, in +kind, by bringing their own wives to widowhood and their children to +orphanage (xxii. 22-4). + +To their brethren they should not lend money upon usury; but loans are +no more recommended than afterwards by Solomon: the words are "if thou +lend" (ver. 25). And if the raiment of the borrower were taken for a +pledge, it must be returned for him to use at night, or else God will +hear his cry, because, it is added very significantly and briefly, "I +am gracious" (ver. 27). It is the most exalting of all motives: Be +merciful, for I am merciful: ye shall be the children of your Father. + +Again is to be observed the influence reaching beyond the +prescription--the motive which cannot be felt without many other and +larger consequences than the restoration of pledges at sunset. + +How comes this precept to be followed by the words, "Thou shalt not +curse God nor blaspheme a ruler" (ver. 28)? and is not this again +somewhat strangely followed by the order not to delay to offer the +firstfruits of the soil, to consecrate the firstborn son, and to devote +the firstborn of cattle at the same age when a son ought to be +circumcised? (vers. 29, 30). + +If any link can be discovered, it is in the sense of communion with God, +suggested by the recent appeal to His character as a motive that should +weigh with man. Therefore they must not blaspheme Him, either directly +or through His agents, nor tardily yield Him what He claims. Therefore +it is added, "Ye shall be holy men unto Me," and from the sense of +dignity which religion thus inspires, a homely corollary is deduced--"Ye +shall not eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field" (ver. 31). +The bondmen of Egypt must learn a high-minded self-respect. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +_THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ + + +xxiii. 1-19. + +The twenty-third chapter begins with a series of commands bearing upon +the course of justice; but among these there is interjected very +curiously a command to bring back the stray ox or ass of an enemy, and +to help under a burden the over-weighted ass of him that hateth thee, +even "if thou wouldest forbear to help him." It is just possible that +the lawgiver, urging justice in the bearing of testimony, interrupts +himself to speak of a very different manner in which the action may be +warped by prejudice, but in which (unlike the other) it is lawful to +show not only impartiality but kindness. The help of the cattle of one's +enemy shows that in the bearing of testimony we should not merely +abstain from downright wrong. And it is a fine example of the spirit of +the New Testament, in the Old. + +"Thou shalt not take up a false report" (ver. 1) is a precept which +reaches far. How many heedless whispers, conjectures lightly spoken +because they were amusing, yet influencing the course of lives, and +inferences uncharitably drawn, would have been still-born if this had +been remembered! + +But when the scandal is already abroad, the temptation to aid its +progress is still greater. Therefore it is added, "Put not thine hand +with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness." Whatever be the menace or +the bribe, however the course of opinion seem to be decided, and the +assent of an individual to be harmless because the result is sure, or +blameless because the responsibility lies elsewhere, still each man is a +unit, not an "item," and must act for himself, as hereafter he must give +account. Hence it results inevitably that "Thou shalt not follow a +multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside +after a multitude to wrest judgment" (ver. 2). The blind impulses of a +multitude are often as misleading as the solicitations of the bad, and +to aspiring temperaments much more seductive. There is indeed a strange +magnetism in the voice of the public. Every orator knows that a great +assembly acts upon the speaker as really as he acts upon it: its +emotions are like a rush of waters to sweep him away, beyond his +intentions or his ordinary powers. Yet he is the strongest individual +there; no other has at all the same opportunity for self-assertion, and +therefore its power over others must be more complete than over him. + +This is one reason for the institution of public worship. Men neglect +the house of God because they can pray as well at home, and encourage +wanton subdivisions of the Church because they think there is no very +palpable difference between competing denominations, or even because +competition may be as useful in religion as in trade, as if our +competition with the world and the devil for souls would not +sufficiently animate us, without competing with one another. But in +acting thus they weaken the effect for good of one of the mightiest +influences which work evil among us, the influence of association. Men +are always persuading themselves that they need not be better than their +neighbours, nor ashamed of doing what every one does. And yet no voice +joins in a cry without deepening it: every one who rushes with a crowd +makes its impulse more difficult to stem; his individuality is not lost +by its partnership with a thousand more; and he is accountable for what +he contributes to the result. He has parted with his self-control, but +not with the inner forces which he ought to have controlled. + +Against this dangerous influence of the world, Christ has set the +contagion of godliness within His Church, and every avoidable +subdivision enfeebles this salutary counter-influence. + +Moses warns us, therefore, of the danger of being drawn away by a +multitude to do evil; but he is thinking especially of the peril of +being tempted to "speak" amiss. Who does not know it? From the statesman +who outruns his convictions rather than break with his party, and who +cannot, amid deafening cheers, any longer hear his conscience speak, +down to the humblest who fails to confess Christ before hostile men, and +therefore by-and-by denies Him, there is not one whose speech and +silence have never been in danger of being set to the sympathies of his +own little public like a song to music. + +That Moses was really thinking of this tendency to court popularity, is +plain from the next clause--"Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his +cause" (ver. 3). + +It is an admirable caution. Men there are who would scorn the opposite +injustice, and from whom no rich man could buy a wrongful decision with +gold or favour, but who are habitually unjust, because they load the +other scale. The beam ought to hang straight. When justice is concerned, +the poor man's friend is almost as contemptible as his foe, and he has +taken a bribe, if not in the mean enjoyment of democratic popularity, +yet in his own pride--the fancy that he has done a magnanimous act, the +attitude in which he poses. + +As in law so in literature. There once was a tendency to describe +magnanimous persons of quality, and repulsive clodhoppers and villagers. +Times have changed, and now we think it much more ingenious and +high-toned to be quite as partial and disingenuous, reversing the cases. +Neither is true, and therefore neither is artistic. No class in society +is deficient in noble qualities, or in base ones. Nor is the man of +letters at all more independent, who flatters the democracy in a +democratic age, than he who flattered the aristocracy when they had all +the prizes to bestow. + +Other precepts forbid bribery, command that the soil shall rest in the +seventh year, when its spontaneous produce shall be for the poor, and +further recognise and consecrate relaxation, by instituting (or more +probably adopting into the code) the three feasts of Passover, +Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The section closes with the words "Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk" (ver. 19). Upon this clause +much ingenuity has been expended. It makes occult reference to some +superstitious rite. It is the name for some unduly stimulating compound. +But when we remember that, just before, the sabbatical fruit which the +poor left ungleaned was expressly reserved for the beasts of the field, +that men were bidden to help the overladen ass of their enemies, and +that care is taken elsewhere that the ox should not be muzzled when +treading out grain, that the birdnester should not take the dam with the +young, and that neither cow nor ewe should be slain on the same day with +its young (Deut. xxv. 4, xxii. 6; Lev. xxii. 28), the simplest meaning +seems also the most probable. Men, who have been taught respect for +their fellow-men, are also to learn a fine sensibility even in respect +to the inferior animals. Throughout all this code there is an exquisite +tendency to form a considerate, humane, delicate and high-minded nation. + +It remained, to stamp upon the human conscience a deep sense of +responsibility. + + +PART V.--ITS SANCTIONS. + +xxiii. 20-33. + +This summary of Judaism being now complete, the people have to learn +what mighty issues are at stake upon their obedience. And the transition +is very striking from the simplest duty to the loftiest privilege: "Thou +shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. Behold, I send an Angel +before thee.... Beware of him: for My Name is in him" (19-21). + +We have now to ask how much this mysterious phrase involves; who was the +Angel of whom it speaks? + +The question is not, How much did Israel at that moment comprehend? For +we are distinctly told that prophets were conscious of speaking more +than they understood, and searched diligently but in vain what the +spirit that was in them did signify (1 Peter i. 11). + +It would, in fact, be absurd to seek the New Testament doctrine of the +Logos full-blown in the Pentateuch. But it is mere prejudice, +unphilosophical and presumptuous, to shut one's eyes against any +evidence which may be forthcoming that the earliest books of Scripture +were tending towards the last conclusions of theology; that the slender +overture to the Divine oratorio indicates already the same theme which +thunders from all the chorus at the close. + +It is scarcely necessary to refute the position that a mere "messenger" +is intended, because angels have not yet "appeared as personal agents +separate from God." Kalisch himself has amply refuted his own theory. +For, he says, "we are compelled ... to refer it to Moses and his +successor Joshua" (_in loco_). So then He Who will not forgive their +transgressions is he who prayed that if God would not pardon them, his +own name might be blotted from the book of life. He, to whom afterwards +God said "I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee" (xxxiii. +19), is the same of Whom God said "My name is in Him." This position +needs no examination; but the perplexities of those who reject the +deeper interpretation is a strong confirmation of its soundness. We have +still to choose between the promise of a created angel, and some +manifestation and interposition of God, distinguished from Jehovah and +yet one with Him. This latter view is an evident preparation for clearer +knowledge yet to come. It is enough to stamp the dispensation which puts +it forth as but provisional, and therefore bears witness to that other +dispensation which has the key to it. And it is exactly what a Christian +would expect to find somewhere in this summary of the law. + +What, then, do we read elsewhere about the Angel of Jehovah? What do we +find, especially, in these early books? + +A difficulty has to be met at the very outset. The issue would be +decided offhand, if it could be shown that the Angel of this verse is +the same who is offered, as a poor substitute for their Divine +protector, in the thirty-third chapter. But no contrast can be clearer +than between the encouraging promise before us, and the sharp menace +which then plunged Israel into mourning. Here is an Angel who must not +be provoked, who will not pardon you, because "My Name is in Him." There +is an angel who will be sent because God will not go up, ... lest He +consume them (vers. 2, 3). He is not the Angel of God's presence, but of +His absence. When the intercession of Moses won from God a reversal of +the sentence, He then said "My Presence (My Face) shall go with thee, +and I will give thee rest,"[38] but Moses answers, not yet reassured, +"If Thy Presence (Thy Face) go not up with us, carry us not up hence. +For wherein shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight?... +Is it not that Thou goest with us? And the Lord said, I will do this +thing also that thou hast spoken" (14-17). + +Moreover, Isaiah, speaking of this time, says that "In all their +affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence (His Face) +saved them" (Isa. lxiii. 9). + +Thus we find that some angel is to be sent because God will not go up: +that thereupon the nation mourns, although in this twenty-third chapter +they had received as a gladdening promise, the assurance of an Angel +escort in Whom is the name of God; that in response to prayer God +promises that His Face shall accompany them, so that it may be known +that He Himself goes with them; and finally that His Face in Exodus is +the Angel of His Face in Isaiah. The prophet at least had no doubt +whether the gracious promise in the twenty-third chapter answered, in +the thirty-third chapter, to the third verse or the fourteenth--to the +menace, or to the restored favour. + +This difficulty being now converted into an evidence, we turn back to +examine other passages. + +When the Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar, "she called the name of +Jehovah that spake unto her El Roi" (Gen. xvi. 11, 13). When God tempted +Abraham, "the Angel of Jehovah called unto him out of heaven, and said, +... I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son +... from Me" (Gen. xxii. 11, 12). When a man wrestled with Jacob, he +thereupon claimed to have seen God face to face, and called the place +Peniel, the Face (Presence) of God (Gen. xxxii. 4, 30). But Hosea tells +us that "He had power with God: yea, he had power over the Angel, ... +and there He spake with us, even Jehovah, the God of hosts" (Hos. xii. +3, 5). Even earlier, in his exile, the Angel of the Lord had appeared +unto him and said, "I am the God of Bethel ... where thou vowedst a vow +unto Me." But the vow was distinctly made to God Himself: "I will surely +give the tenth to Thee" (xxxi. 11, 13; xxviii. 20, 22). Is it any wonder +that when this patriarch blessed Joseph, he said, "The God before whom +my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my +life long unto this day, the Angel which hath redeemed me from all +evil, (may He) bless the lads" (xlviii. 15, 16)? + +In Exodus iii. 2 the Angel of the Lord appeared out of the bush. But +presently He changes into Jehovah Himself, and announces Himself to be +Jehovah the God of their fathers (iii. 2, 4, 15). In Exodus xiii. 21 +Jehovah went before Israel, but the next chapter tells how "the Angel of +the Lord which went before Israel removed and went behind" (xiv. 19); +while Numbers (xx. 16) says expressly that "He sent an Angel and brought +us out of Egypt." + +By the comparison of these and many later passages (which is nothing but +the scientific process of induction, leaning not on the weight of any +single verse, but on the drift and tendency of all the phenomena) we +learn that God was already revealing Himself through a Medium, a +distinct personality whom He could send, yet not so distinct but that +His name was in Him, and He Himself was the Author of what He did. + +If Israel obeyed Him, He would bring them into the promised land (ver. +23); and if there they continued unseduced by false worships, He would +bless their provisions, their bodily frame, their children; He would +bring terror and a hornet against their foes; He would clear the land +before them as fast as their population could enjoy it; He would extend +their boundaries yet farther, from the Red Sea, where Solomon held Ezion +Geber (1 Kings ix. 26), to the Mediterranean, and from the desert where +they stood to the Euphrates, where Solomon actually possessed Palmyra +and Thiphsah (2 Chron. viii. 4; 1 Kings iv. 24). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[38] Even if the rendering were accepted, "Must My Presence (My Face) go +with thee?" (Can I not be trusted without a direct Presence?) the +argument would not be affected, because Moses presses for the favour and +obtains it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +_THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD._ + +xxiv. + +The opening words of this chapter ("Come up unto the Lord") imply, +without explicitly asserting, that Moses was first sent down to convey +to Israel the laws which had just been enacted. + +This code they unanimously accepted, and he wrote it down. It is a +memorable statement, recording the origin of the first portion of Holy +Scripture that ever existed as such, whatever earlier writings may now +or afterwards have been incorporated in the Pentateuch. He then built an +altar for God, and twelve pillars for the tribes, and sacrificed +burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the Lord. Sin-offerings, it +will be observed, were not yet instituted; and neither was the +priesthood, so that young men slew the offerings. Half of the blood was +poured upon the altar, because God had perfected His share in the +covenant. The remainder was not used until the law had been read aloud, +and the people had answered with one voice, "All that the Lord hath +commanded will we do, and will be obedient." Thereupon they too were +sprinkled with the blood, and the solemn words were spoken, "Behold the +blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all +these words." The people were now finally bound: no later covenant of +the same kind will be found in the Old Testament. + +And now the principle began to work which was afterwards embodied in the +priesthood. That principle, stated broadly, was exclusion from the +presence of God, relieved and made hopeful by the admission of +representatives. The people were still forbidden to approach, under pain +of death. But Moses and Aaron were no longer the only ones to cross the +appointed boundaries. With them came the two sons of Aaron, (afterwards, +despite their privilege, to meet a dreadful doom,) and also seventy +representatives of all the newly covenanted people. Joshua, too, as the +servant of Moses, was free to come, although unspecified in the summons +(vers. 1, 13). + +"They saw the God of Israel," and under His feet the blueness of the sky +like intense sapphire. And they were secure: they beheld God, and ate +and drank. + +But in privilege itself there are degrees: Moses was called up still +higher, and left Aaron and Hur to govern the people while he communed +with his God. For six days the nation saw the flanks of the mountain +swathed in cloud, and its summit crowned with the glory of Jehovah like +devouring fire. Then Moses entered the cloud, and during forty days they +knew not what had become of him. Was it time lost? Say rather that all +time is wasted except what is spent in communion, direct or indirect, +with the Eternal. + +The narrative is at once simple and sublime. We are sometimes told that +other religions besides our own rely for sanction upon their +supernatural origin. "Zarathustra, Sakya-Mooni and Mahomed pass among +their followers for envoys of the Godhead; and in the estimation of the +Brahmin the Vedas and the laws of Manou are holy, divine books" (Kuenen, +_Religion of Israel_, i. 6). This is true. But there is a wide +difference between nations which assert that God privately appeared to +their teachers, and a nation which asserts that God appeared to the +public. It is not upon the word of Moses that Israel is said to have +believed; and even those who reject the narrative are not entitled to +confound it with narratives utterly dissimilar. There is not to be found +anywhere a parallel for this majestic story. + +But what are we to think of the assertion that God was seen to stand +upon a burning mountain? + +He it is Whom no man hath seen or can see, and in His presence the +seraphim veil their faces. + +It will not suffice to answer that Moses "endured as seeing Him that is +invisible" (Heb. xi. 27), for the paraphrase is many centuries later, +and hostile critics will rule it out of court as an after-thought. At +least, however, it proves that the problem was faced long ago, and tells +us what solution satisfied the early Church. + +With this clue before us, we ask what notion did the narrative really +convey to its ancient readers? If our defence is to be thoroughly +satisfactory, it must show an escape from heretical and carnal notions +of deity, not only for ourselves, but also for careful readers from the +very first. + +Now it is certain that no such reader could for one moment think of a +manifestation thorough, exhaustive, such as the eye receives of colour +and of form. Because the effect produced is not satisfaction, but +desire. Each new vision deepens the sense of the unseen. Thus we read +first that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders, saw +God, from which revelation the people felt and knew themselves to be +excluded. And yet the multitude also had a vision according to its power +to see; and indeed it was more satisfying to them than was the most +profound insight enjoyed by Moses. To see God is to sail to the horizon: +when you arrive, the horizon is as far in front as ever; but you have +gained a new consciousness of infinitude. "The appearance of the glory +of the Lord was seen like devouring fire in the eyes of the children of +Israel" (ver. 17). But Moses was aware of a glory far greater and more +spiritual than any material splendour. When theophanies had done their +utmost, his longing was still unslaked, and he cried out, "Show me, I +pray Thee, Thy glory" (xxxiii. 18). To his consciousness that glory was +still veiled, which the multitude sufficiently beheld in the flaming +mountain. And the answer which he received ought to put the question at +rest for ever, since, along with the promise "All My goodness shall pass +before thee," came the assertion "Thou shalt not see My face, for no man +shall see Me and live." + +So, then, it is not our modern theology, but this noble book of Exodus +itself, which tells us that Moses did not and could not adequately see +God, however great and sacred the vision which he beheld. From this book +we learn that, side by side with the most intimate communion and the +clearest possible unveiling of God, grew up the profound consciousness +that only some attributes and not the essence of deity had been +displayed. + +It is very instructive also to observe the steps by which Moses is led +upward. From the burning bush to the fiery cloud, and thence to the +blazing mountain, there was an ever-deepening lesson of majesty and awe. +But in answer to the prayer that he might really see the very glory of +his Lord, his mind is led away upon entirely another pathway: it is "All +My goodness" which is now to "pass before" him, and the proclamation is +of "a God full of compassion and gracious," yet retaining His moral +firmness, so that He "will by no means clear the guilty." + +What can cloud and fire avail, toward the manifesting of a God Whose +essence is His love? It is from the Old Testament narrative that the New +Testament inferred that Moses endured as seeing indeed, yet as seeing +Him Who is inevitably and for ever invisible to eyes of flesh: he +learned most, not when he beheld some form of awe, standing on a paved +work of sapphire stone and as it were the very heaven for clearness, but +when hidden in a cleft of the rock and covered by the hand of God while +He passed by. + +On one hand the people saw the glory of God: on the other hand it was +the best lesson taught by a far closer access, still to pray and yearn +to see that glory. The seventy beheld the God of Israel: for their +leader was reserved the more exalting knowledge, that beyond all vision +is the mystic overshadowing of the Divine, and a voice which says "No +man shall see Me and live." The difference in heart is well typified in +this difference in their conduct, that they saw God and ate and drank, +but he, for forty days, ate not. Satisfaction and assurance are a poor +ideal compared with rapt aspiration and desire. + +Thus we see that no conflict exists between this declaration and our +belief in the spirituality of God. + +We have still to ask what is the real force of the assertion that God +was in some lesser sense seen of Israel, and again, more especially, of +its leaders. + +What do we mean even by saying that we see each other?--that, observing +keenly, we see upon one face cunning, upon another sorrow, upon a third +the peace of God? Are not these emotions immaterial and invisible as the +essence of God Himself? Nay, so invisible is the reality within each +bosom, that some day all that eye hath seen shall fall away from us, and +yet the true man shall remain intact. + +Man has never seen more than a hint, an outcome, a partial +self-revelation or self-betrayal of his fellow-man. + + "Yes, in the sea of life in-isled, + With echoing straits between us thrown, + Dotting the shoreless watery wild, + We mortal millions live _alone_. + + * * * * * + + God bade betwixt 'our' shores to be + The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea." + +And yet, incredible as the paradox would seem, if it were not too common +to be strange, the play of muscles and rush of blood, visible through +the skin, do reveal the most spiritual and immaterial changes. Even so +the heavens declare that very glory of God which baffled the undimmed +eyes of Moses. So it was, also, that when rended rocks and burning skies +revealed a more immanent action of Him Who moves through all nature +always, when convulsions hitherto undreamed of by those dwellers in +Egyptian plains overwhelmed them with a new sense of their own smallness +and a supreme Presence, God was manifested there. + +Not unlike this is the explanation of St. Augustine, "We need not be +surprised that God, invisible as He is, appeared visibly to the +patriarchs. For, as the sound which communicates the thought conceived +in the silence of the mind is not the thought itself, so the form by +which God, invisible in His own nature, became visible, was not God +Himself. Nevertheless it was He Himself Who was seen under that form, as +the thought itself is heard in the sound of the voice; and the +patriarchs recognised that, although the bodily form was not God, they +saw the invisible God. For, though Moses was conversing with God, yet he +said, 'If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thyself'" (_De Civ. +Dei_, x. 13). And again: "He knew that he saw corporeally, but he sought +the true vision of God spiritually" (_De Trin._, ii. 27). + +It has still to be added that His manifestation is exactly suited to the +stage now reached in the education of Israel. Their fathers had already +"seen God" in the likeness of man: Abraham had entertained Him; Jacob +had wrestled with Him. And so Joshua before Ai, and Manoah by the rock +at Zorah, and Ezekiel by the river Chebar, should see the likeness of a +man. We who believe the doctrine of a real Incarnation can well perceive +that in these passing and mysterious glimpses God was not only revealing +Himself in the way which would best prepare humanity for His future +coming in actual manhood, but also in the way by which, meanwhile, the +truest and deepest light could be thrown upon His nature, a nature which +could hereafter perfectly manifest itself in flesh. Why, then, do not +the records of the Exodus hint at a human likeness? Why did they "behold +no similitude"? Clearly because the masses of Israel were utterly +unprepared to receive rightly such a vision. To them the likeness of +man would have meant no more than the likeness of a flying eagle or a +calf. Idolatry would have followed, but no sense of sympathy, no +consciousness of the grandeur and responsibility of being made in the +likeness of God. Anthropomorphism is a heresy, although the Incarnation +is the crowning doctrine of the faith. + +But it is hard to see why the human likeness of God should exist in +Genesis and Joshua, but not in the history of the Exodus, if that story +be a post-Exilian forgery. + +This is not all. The revelations of God in the desert were connected +with threats and prohibitions: the law was given by Moses; grace and +truth came by Jesus Christ. And with the different tone of the message a +different aspect of the speaker was to be expected. From the blazing +crags of Sinai, fenced around, the voice of a trumpet waxing louder and +louder, said "Thou shalt not!" On the green hill by the Galilaean lake +Jesus sat down, and His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth +and said "Blessed." + +Now, the conscience of every sinner knows that the God of the +commandments is dreadful. It is of Him, not of hell, that Isaiah said +"The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath surprised the godless +ones. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us +shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isa. xxxiii. 14). + +For him who rejects the light yoke of the Lord of Love, the fires of +Sinai are still the truest revelation of deity; and we must not deny +Sinai because we know Bethlehem. We must choose between the two. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +_THE SHRINE AND ITS FURNITURE._ + +xxv. 1-40. + +The first direction given to Moses on the mountain is to prepare for the +making of a tabernacle wherein God may dwell with man. For this he must +invite offerings of various kinds, metals and gems, skins and fabrics, +oil and spices; and the humblest man whose heart is willing may +contribute toward an abode for Him Whom the heaven of heavens cannot +contain. + +Strange indeed is the contrast between the mountain burning up to +heaven, and the lowly structure of the wood of the desert, which was now +to be erected by subscription. + +And yet the change marks not a lower conception of deity, but an +advance, just as the quiet and serene communion of a saint with God is +loftier than the most agitating experience of the convert. + +This is the first announcement of a fixed abiding presence of God in the +midst of men, and it is therefore the precursor of much. St. John +certainly alluded to this earliest dwelling of God on earth when he +wrote, "The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us" (John i. 14). +A little later it was said, "Ye also are builded together for an +habitation of God" (Eph. ii. 22); and again the very words used at first +of the tabernacle are applied to faithful souls: "We are a temple of +the living God, as God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them" (2 +Cor. vi. 16; Lev. xxvi. 11). For God dwelt on earth in the Messiah +hidden by the veil, that is to say His flesh (Heb. x. 20), and also in +the hearts of all the faithful. And a yet fuller communion is to come, +of which the tabernacle in the wilderness was a type, even the descent +of the Holy City, when the true tabernacle of God shall be with men, and +He shall tabernacle with them (Rev. xxi. 3). + +It may seem strange that after the commandment "Let them make Me a +sanctuary" the whole chapter is devoted to instructions, not for the +tabernacle but for its furniture. But indeed the four articles +enumerated in this chapter present a wonderfully graphic picture of the +nature and terms of the intercourse of God with man. On one side is His +revelation of righteousness, but righteousness propitiated and become +gracious, and this is symbolised by the ark of the testimony and the +mercy-seat. On the other side the consecration both of secular and +sacred life is typified by the table with bread and wine, and by the +golden candlestick. Except thus, no tabernacle could have been the +dwelling of the Lord, nor ever shall be. + +And this is the true reason why the altar of incense is not even +mentioned until a later chapter (xxx.). We do homage to God because He +is present: it is rather the consequence than the condition of His abode +with us. + +The first step towards the preparation of a shrine for God on earth is +the enshrining of His will: Moses should therefore make first of all an +ark, wherein to treasure up "the testimony which I shall give thee," the +two tables of the law (xxv. 16). In it were also the pot of manna and +Aaron's rod which budded (Heb. ix. 4), and beside it was laid the whole +book of the law, for a testimony, alas! against them (Deut. xxxi. 26). + +Thus the ark was to treasure up the expression of the will of God, and +the relics which told by what mercies and deliverances He claimed +obedience. It was a precious thing, but not the most precious, as we +shall presently learn; and therefore it was not made of pure gold, but +overlaid with it. That it might be reverently carried, four rings were +cast and fastened to it at the lower corners, and in these four staves, +also overlaid with gold, were permanently inserted. + +The next article mentioned is the most important of all. + +It would be a great mistake to suppose that the mercy-seat was a mere +lid, an ordinary portion of the ark itself. It was made of a different +and more costly material, of pure gold, with which the ark was only +overlaid. There is separate mention that Bezaleel "made the ark, ... and +he made the mercy-seat" (xxxvii. 1, 6), and the special presence of God +in the Most Holy Place is connected much more intimately with the +mercy-seat than with the remainder of the structure. Thus He promises to +"appear in the cloud above the mercy-seat" (Lev. xvi. 2). And when it is +written that "Moses heard the Voice speaking unto him from above the +mercy-seat which is upon the ark of the testimony" (Num. vii. 89), it +would have been more natural to say directly "from above the ark" unless +some stress were to be laid upon the interposing slab of gold. In +reality no distinction could be sharper than between the ark and its +cover, from whence to hear the voice of God. And so thoroughly did all +the symbolism of the Most Holy Place gather around this supreme object, +that in one place it is actually called "the house of the mercy-seat" (1 +Chron. xxviii. 11). + +Let us, then, put ourselves into the place of an ancient worshipper. +Excluded though he is from the Holy Place, and conscious that even the +priests are shut out from the inner shrine, yet the high priest who +enters is his brother: he goes on his behalf: the barrier is a curtain, +not a wall. + +But while the Israelite mused upon what was beyond, the ark, as we have +seen, suggests the depth of his obligation; for there is the rod of his +deliverance and the bread from heaven which fed him; and there also are +the commandments which he ought to have kept. And his conscience tells +him of ingratitude, and a broken covenant; by the law is the knowledge +of sin. + +It is therefore a sinister and menacing thought that immediately above +this ark of the violated covenant burns the visible manifestation of +God, his injured Benefactor. + +And hence arises the golden value of that which interposes, beneath +which the accusing law is buried, by means of which God "hides His face +from our sins." + +The worshipper knows this cover to be provided by a separate ordinance +of God, after the ark and its contents had been arranged for, and finds +in it a vivid concrete representation of the idea "Thou hast cast all my +sins behind Thy back" (Isa. xxxviii. 17). That this was its true +intention becomes more evident when we ascertain exactly the meaning of +the term which we have, not too precisely, rendered "mercy-seat." + +The word "seat" has no part in the original; and we are not to think of +God as reposing on it, but as revealing Himself above. The erroneous +notion has probably transferred itself to the type from the heavenly +antitype, which is "the throne of grace," but it has no countenance +either in the Greek or the Hebrew name of the Mosaic institution. Nor is +the notion expressed that of gratuitous and unbought "mercy." When +Jehovah showeth mercy unto thousands, the word is different. It is true +that the root means "to cover," and is once employed in Scripture in +that sense (Gen. vi. 14); but its ethical use is generally connected +with sacrifice; and when we read of a "sin-offering for _atonement_," of +the half-shekel being an "_atonement_-money," and of "the day of +_atonement_," the word is a simple and very similar development from the +same root with this which we render _mercy-seat_ (Exod. xxx. 10, 16; +Lev. xxiii. 27, etc.). + +The Greek word is found twice in the New Testament: once when the +cherubim of glory overshadow the _mercy-seat_, and again when God hath +set forth Christ to be a _propitiation_ (Heb. ix. 5; Rom. iii. 25). The +mercy-seat is therefore to be thought of in connection with sin, but sin +expiated and thus covered and put away. + +We know mysteries which the Israelite could not guess of the means by +which this was brought to pass. But as he watched the high priest +disappearing into that awful solitude, with God, as he listened to the +chime of bells, swung by his movements, and announcing that still he +lived, two conditions stood out broadly before his mind. One was the +bringing in of incense: "Thou shalt bring a censer full of burning coals +of fire from before the altar, that the cloud of the incense may cover +the mercy-seat" (Lev. xvi. 13). Now, the connection between prayer and +incense was quite familiar to the Jew; and he could not but understand +that the blessing of atonement was to be sought and won by intense and +burning supplication. And the other was that invariable demand, the +offering of a victim's blood. All the sacrifices of Judaism culminated +in the great act when the high priest, standing in the most holy and the +most occult spot in all the world, sprinkled "blood upon the mercy-seat +eastwards, and before the mercy-seat sprinkled of the blood with his +finger seven times" (Lev. xvi. 14). + +Thus the crowning height of the Jewish ritual was attained when the +blood of the great national sacrifice was offered not only before God, +but, with special reference to the covering up of the broken and +accusing law, before the mercy-seat. + +No wonder that on either side of it, and moulded of the same mass of +metal, were the cherubim in an attitude of adoration, their outspread +wings covering it, their faces bent, not only as bowing in reverence +before the Divine presence, but, as we expressly read, "toward the +mercy-seat shall the faces of the cherubim be." For the meaning of this +great symbol was among the things which "the angels desire to look +into." + +We now understand how much was gained when God said "There will I meet +thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat" (ver. 22). +It was an assurance, not only of the love which desires obedience, but +of the mercy which passes over failure.[39] + +Thus far, there has been symbolised the mind of God, His righteousness +and His grace. + +The next articles have to do with man, his homage to God and his witness +for Him. + +There is first the table of the shewbread (vers. 23-30), overlaid with +pure gold, surrounded, like the ark, with "a crown" or moulding of gold, +for ornament and the greater security of the loaves, and strengthened by +a border of pure gold carried around the base, which was also ornamented +with a crown, or moulding. Close to this border were rings for staves, +like those by which the ark was borne. The table was furnished with +dishes upon which, every Sabbath day, new shewbread might be conveyed +into the tabernacle, and the old might be removed for the priests to +eat. There were spoons also, by which to place frankincense upon each +pile of bread; and "flagons and bowls to pour out withal." What was thus +to be poured we do not read, but there is no doubt that it was wine, +second only to bread as a requisite of Jewish life, and forming, like +the frankincense, a link between this weekly presentation and the +meal-offerings. But all these were subordinate to the twelve loaves, one +for each tribe, which were laid in two piles upon the table. It is clear +that their presentation was the essence of the rite, and not their +consumption by the priests, which was possibly little more than a +safeguard against irreverent treatment. For the word shewbread is +literally bread of the face or presence, which word is used of the +presence of God, in the famous prayer "If Thy presence go not with me, +carry us not up hence" (xxxiii. 15). And of whom, other than God, can it +here be reasonably understood? Now Jacob, long before, had vowed "Of all +that Thou givest me, I will surely give the tenth to Thee" (Gen. +xxviii. 22). And it was an edifying ordinance that a regular offering +should be made to God of the staple necessaries of existence, as a +confession that all came from Him, and an appeal, clearly expressed by +covering it with frankincense, which typified prayer (Lev. xxiv. 7) that +He would continue to supply their need. + +Nor is it overstrained to add, that when this bread was given to their +priestly representatives to eat, with all reverence and in a holy place, +God responded, and gave back to His people that which represented the +necessary maintenance of the tribes. Thus it was, "on the behalf of the +children of Israel, an everlasting covenant" (Lev. xxiv. 8). + +The form has perished. But as long as we confess in the Lord's Prayer +that the wealthiest does not possess one day's bread ungiven--as long, +also, as Christian families connect every meal with a due acknowledgment +of dependence and of gratitude--so long will the Church of Christ +continue to make the same confession and appeal which were offered in +the shewbread upon the table. + +The next article of furniture was the golden candlestick (vers. 31-40). +And this presents the curious phenomenon that it is extremely clear in +its typical import, and in its material outline; but the details of the +description are most obscure, and impossible to be gathered from the +Authorised Version. Strictly speaking, it was not a lamp, but only a +gorgeous lamp-stand, with one perpendicular shaft, and six branches, +three springing, one above another, from each side of the shaft, and all +curving up to the same height. Upon these were laid the seven lamps, +which were altogether separate in their construction (ver. 37). It was +of pure gold, the base and the main shaft being of one piece of beaten +metal. Each of the six branches was ornamented with three cups, made +like almond blossoms; above these a "knop," variously compared by Jewish +writers to an apple and a pomegranate, and still higher, a flower or +bud. It is believed that there was a fruit and flower above each of the +cups, making nine ornaments on each branch. The "candlestick" in ver. 34 +can only mean the central shaft, and upon this there were "four cups +with their knops and flowers" instead of three. With the lamp were +tongs, and snuff-dishes in which to remove the charred wick from the +temple. + +As we are told that when the Lord called the child Samuel, "the lamp of +God was not yet gone out" (1 Sam. iii. 3), it follows that the lights +were kept burning only during the night. + +We have now to ascertain the spiritual meaning of this stately symbol. +There are two other passages in Scripture which take up the figure and +carry it forward. In Zechariah (iv. 2-12) we are taught that the +separation of the lamps is a mere incident; they are to be conceived of +as organically one, and moreover as fed by secret ducts with oil from no +limited supply, but from living olive trees, vital, rooted in the system +of the universe. Whatever obscurity may veil those "two sons of oil" +(and this is not the place to discuss the subject), we are distinctly +told that the main lesson is that of lustre derived from supernatural, +invisible sources. Zerubbabel is confronted by a great mountain of +hindrance, but it shall become a plain before him, because the lesson of +the vision of the candlestick is this--"Not by might, nor by power, but +by My Spirit, saith the Lord." A lamp gives light not because the gold +shines, but because the oil burns; and yet the oil is the one thing +which the eye sees not. And so the Church is a witness for her Lord, a +light shining in a dark place, not because of its learning or culture, +its noble ritual, its stately buildings or its ample revenues. All these +things her children, having the power, ought to dedicate. The ancient +symbol put art and preciousness in an honourable place, worthily +upholding the lamp itself; and in the New Testament the seven lamps of +the Apocalypse were still of gold. But the true function of a lamp is to +be luminous, and for this the Church depends wholly upon its supply of +grace from God the Holy Ghost. It is "not by might, nor by power, but by +My Spirit, saith the Lord." + +Again, in the Revelation, we find the New Testament Churches described +as lamps, among which their Lord habitually walks. And no sooner have +the seven churches on earth been warned and cheered, than we are shown +before the throne of God seven torches (burning by their own +incandescence--_vide_ Trench, _N. T. Synonyms_, p. 162), which are the +seven spirits of God, answering to His seven light-bearers upon the +earth (Rev. iv. 5). + +Lastly, the perfect and mystic number, seven, declares that the light of +the Church, shining in a dark place, ought to be full and clear, no +imperfect presentation of the truth: "they shall light the lamps, to +give light over against it." + +Because this lamp shines with the light of the Church, exhibiting the +graces of her Lord, therefore a special command is addressed to the +people, besides the call for contributions to the work in general, that +they shall bring pure olive oil, not obtained by heat and pressure, but +simply beaten, and therefore of the best quality, to feed its flame. + +It is to burn, as the Church ought to shine in all darkness of the +conscience or the heart of man, from evening to morning for ever. And +the care of the ministers of God is to be the continual tending of this +blessed and sacred flame. + + +_THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT._ + +xxv. 9, 40. + +Twice over (vers. 9, 40, and cf. xxvi. 30, xxvii. 8, etc.) Moses was +reminded to be careful to make all things after the pattern shown him in +the mount. And these words have sometimes been so strained as to convey +the meaning that there really exists in heaven a tabernacle and its +furniture, the grand original from which the Mosaic copy was derived. + +That is plainly not what the Epistle to the Hebrews understands (Heb. +viii. 5). For it urges this admonition as a proof that the old +dispensation was a shadow of ours, in which Christ enters into heaven +itself, and our consciences are cleansed from dead works to serve the +living God. The citation is bound indissolubly with all the +demonstration which follows it. + +We are not, then, to think of a heavenly tabernacle, exhibited to the +material senses of Moses, with which all the details of his own work +must be identical. + +Rather we are to conceive of an inspiration, an ideal, a vision of +spiritual truths, to which all this work in gold and acacia-wood should +correspond. It was thus that Socrates told Glaucon, incredulous of his +republic, that in heaven there is laid up a pattern, for him that wishes +to behold it. Nothing short of this would satisfy the inspired +application of the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the +readers, who were Jewish converts, are asked to recognise in this verse +evidence that the light of the new dispensation illuminated the +institutions of the old. + +Without this pervading sentiment, the most elaborate specifications of +weight and measurement, of cup and pomegranate and flower, could never +have produced the required effect. An ideal there was, a divinely +designed suggestiveness, which must be always present to his +superintending vigilance, as once it shone upon his soul in sacred +vision or trance; a suggestiveness which might possibly be lost amid +correct elaborations, like the soul of a poem or a song, evaporating +through a rendering which is correct enough, yet in which the spirit, +even if that alone, has been forgotten. + +It is surely a striking thing to find this need of a pervading sentiment +impressed upon the author of the first piece of religious art that ever +was recognised by heaven. + +For it is the mysterious all-pervading charm of such a dominant +sentiment which marks the impassable difference between the lowliest +work of art, and the highest piece of art-manufacture which is only a +manufactured article. + +And assuredly the recognition of this principle among a people whose +ancient history shows but little interest in art, calls for some +attention from those who regard the tabernacle itself as a fiction, and +its details as elaborated in Babylonia, in the priestly interest. +(Kuenen, _Relig. of Israel_, ii. 148). + +The problem of problems for all who deny the divinity of the Old +Testament is to explain the curious position which its institutions are +consistent in accepting. They rest on the authority of heaven, and yet +they are not definitive, but provisional. They are always looking +forward to another prophet like their founder, a new covenant better +than the present one, a high priest after the order of a Canaanite +enthroned at the right hand of Jehovah, a consecration for every pot in +the city like that of the vessels in the temple (Deut. xviii. 15; Jer. +xxxi. 31; Ps. cx. 1, 4; Zech. xiv. 20). And here, "in the priestly +interest," is an avowal that the Divine habitation which they boast of +is but the likeness and shadow of some Divine reality concealed. And +these strange expectations have proved to be the most fruitful and +energetic principles in their religion. + +This very presence of the ideal is what will for ever make the highest +natures quite certain that the visible universe is no mere resultant of +clashing forces without a soul, but the genuine work of a Creator. The +universe is charged throughout with the most powerful appeals to all +that is artistic and vital within us; so that a cataract is more than +water falling noisily, and the silence of midnight more than the absence +of disturbance, and a snow mountain more than a storehouse to feed the +torrents in summer, being also poems, appeals, revelations, whispers +from a spirit, heard in the depth of ours. + +Does any one, listening to Beethoven's funeral march, doubt the +utterance of a soul, as distinct from clanging metal and vibrating +chords? And the world has in it this mysterious witness to something +more than heat and cold, moisture and drought: something which makes the +difference between a well-filled granary and a field of grain rippling +golden in the breeze. This is not a coercive argument for the hostile +logic-monger: it is an appeal for the open heart. "He that hath ears to +hear, let him hear." + +To fill the tabernacle of Moses with spiritual meaning, the ideal +tabernacle was revealed to him in the Mount of God. + +Let us apply the same principle to human life. There also harmony and +unity, a pervading sense of beauty and of soul, are not to be won by +mere obedience to a mandate here and a prohibition there. Like Moses, it +is not by labour according to specification that we may erect a shrine +for deity. Those parables which tell of obedient toil would be sadly +defective, therefore, without those which speak of love and joy, a +supper, a Shepherd bearing home His sheep, a prodigal whose dull +expectation of hired service is changed for investiture with the best +robe and the gold ring, and welcome of dance and music. + +How shall our lives be made thus harmonious, a spiritual poem and not a +task, a chord vibrating under the musician's hand? How shall thought and +word, desire and deed, become like the blended voices of river and wind +and wood, a witness for the divine? Not by mere elaboration of detail +(though correctness is a condition of all true art), but by a vision +before us of the divine life, the Ideal, the pattern shown to all, and +equally to be imitated (strange though it may seem) by peasant and +prince, by woman and sage and child. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[39] This investigation offers a fine example of the folly of that kind +of interpretation which looks about for some sort of external and +arbitrary resemblance, and fastens upon that as the true meaning. +Nothing is more common among these expounders than to declare that the +wood and gold of the ark are types of the human and Divine natures of +our Lord. If either ark or mercy-seat should be compared to Him, it is +obviously the latter, which speaks of mercy. But this was of pure gold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +_THE TABERNACLE._ + +xxvi. + +We now come to examine the structure of the tabernacle for which the +most essential furniture has been prepared. + +Some confusion of thought exists, even among educated laymen, with +regard to the arrangements of the temple; and this has led to similar +confusion (to a less extent) concerning the corresponding parts of the +tabernacle. "The temple" in which the Child Jesus was found, and into +which Peter and John went up to pray, ought not to be confounded with +that inner shrine, "the temple," in which it was the lot of the priest +Zacharias to burn incense, and into which Judas, forgetful of all its +sacredness in his anguish, hurled his money to the priests (Luke ii. 46; +Acts iii. 3; Luke i. 9; Matt. xxvii. 5). Now, the former of these +corresponded to "the court of the tabernacle," an enclosure open to the +skies, and containing two important articles, the altar of burnt +sacrifices and the laver. This was accessible to the nation, so that the +sinner could lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and the priests +could purify themselves before entering their own sacred place, the +tabernacle proper, the shrine. But when we come to the structure itself, +some attention is still necessary, in order to derive any clear notion +from the description; nor can this easily be done by an English reader +without substituting the Revised Version for the Authorised. He will +then discover that we have a description, first of the "curtains of the +tabernacle" (vers. 1-6), and then of other curtains which are not +considered to belong to the tabernacle proper, but to "the tent over the +tabernacle" (7-13), being no part of the rich ornamental interior, but +only a protection spread above it; and over this again were two further +screens from the weather (14), and finally, inside all, are "the boards +of the tabernacle"--of which boards the two actual apartments were +constructed (15-30)--and the veil which divided the Holy from the Most +Holy Place (31-3). + +"The curtains of the tabernacle" were ten, made of linen, of which every +thread consisted of fine strands twisted together, "and blue and purple +and scarlet," with cherubim not embroidered but woven into the fabric +(1). + +These curtains were sewn together, five and five, so as to make two +great curtains, each slightly larger than forty-two feet by thirty, +being twenty-eight cubits long by five times four cubits broad (2, 3). +Finally these two were linked together, each having fifty loops for that +purpose at corresponding places at the edge, which loops were bound +together by fifty golden clasps (4-6). Thus, when the nation was about +to march, they could easily be divided in the middle and then folded in +the seams. + +This costly fabric was regarded as part of the true tabernacle: why, +then, do we find the outer curtains mentioned before the rest of the +tabernacle proper is described? + +Certainly because these rich curtains lie immediately underneath the +coarser ones, and are to be considered along with "the tent" which +covered all (7). This consisted of curtains of goats' hair, of the same +size, and arranged in all respects like the others, except that their +clasps were only bronze, and that the curtains were eleven in number, +instead of ten, so that half a curtain was available to hang down over +the back, and half was to be doubled back upon itself at the front of +"the tabernacle," that is to say, the richer curtains underneath. The +object of this is obvious: it was to bring the centre of the goatskin +curtains over the edge of the linen ones, as tiles overlap each other, +to shut out the rain at the joints. But this implies, what has been said +already, that the curtains of the tabernacle should lie close to the +curtains of the tent. + +Over these again was an outer covering of rams' skins dyed red, and a +covering of sealskins above all (14). This last, it is generally agreed, +ran only along the top, like a ridge tile, to protect the vulnerable +part of the roof. And now it has to be remembered that we are speaking +of a real tent with sloping sides, not a flat cover laid upon the flat +inner structure of boards, and certain to admit the rain. By calling +attention to this fact, Mr. Fergusson succeeded in solving all the +problems connected with the measurements of the tabernacle, and bringing +order into what was little more than chaos before (_Smith's Bible +Dict._, "Temple"). + +The inner tabernacle was of acacia wood, which was the only timber of +the sanctuary. Each board stood ten cubits high, and was fitted by +tenons into two silver sockets, which probably formed a continuous base. +Each of these contained a talent of silver, and was therefore more than +eighty pounds weight; and they were probably to some extent sunk into +the ground for a foundation (xxxviii. 27). There were twenty boards on +each side; and as they were a cubit and a half broad, the length of the +tabernacle was about forty-five feet (16-18). At the west end there were +six boards (22), which, with the breadth of the two posts or boards for +the corners (23-4) just gives ten cubits, or fifteen feet, for the width +of it. Thus the length of the tabernacle was three times its breadth; +and we know that in the Temple (where all the proportions were the same, +the figures being doubled throughout) the subdividing veil was so hung +as to make the inner shrine a perfect square, leaving the holy place +twice as long as it was broad. + +The posts were held in their places by wooden bars, which were overlaid +with gold (as the boards also were, ver. 29) and fitted into golden +rings. Four such bars, or bolts, ran along a portion of each side, and +there was a fifth great bar which stretched along the whole forty-five +feet from end to end. Thus the edifice was firmly held together; and the +wealth of the material makes it likely that they were fixed on the +inside, and formed a part of the ornament of the edifice (26-9). + +When the two curtains were fastened together with clasps, they gave a +length of sixty feet. But we have seen that the length of the boards +when jointed together was only forty-five feet. This gives a projection +of seven feet and a half (five cubits) for the front and rear of the +tent beyond the tabernacle of boards; and when the great curtains were +drawn tight, sloping from the ridge-pole fourteen cubits on each side, +it has been shown (assuming a right-angle at the top) that they reached +within five cubits of the ground, and extended five cubits beyond the +sides, the same distance as at the front and rear. The next +instructions concern the veil which divided the two chambers of the +sanctuary. This was in all respects like "the curtain of the +tabernacle," and similarly woven with cherubim. It was hung upon four +pillars; and the even number seems to prove that there was no higher one +in the centre, reaching to the roof--which seems to imply that there was +a triangular opening above the veil, between the Holy and the Most Holy +Place (31, 32). + +But here a difficult question arises. There is no specific measurement +of the point at which this subdividing veil was to stretch across the +tent. The analogy of the Temple inclines us to believe that the Most +Holy Place was a perfect cube, and the Holy Place twice as long as it +was broad and high. There is evident allusion to this final shape of the +Most Holy Place in the description of the New Jerusalem, of which the +length and breadth and height were equal. And yet there is strong reason +to suspect that this arrangement was not the primitive one. For Moses +was ordered to stretch the veil underneath the golden clasps which bound +together the two great curtains of the tabernacle (ver. 33). But these +were certainly in the middle. How, then, could the veil make an unequal +division below? Possibly fifteen feet square would have been too mean a +space for the dimensions of the Most Holy Place, although the perfect +cube became desirable, when the size was doubled. + +A screen of the same rich material, but apparently not embroidered with +cherubim, was to stretch across the door of the tent; but this was +supported on five pillars instead of four, clearly that the central one +might support the ridge-bar of the roof. And their sockets were of brass +(vers. 36, 37). + +The tabernacle, like the Temple, had its entrance on the east (ver. 22); +and in the case of the Temple this was the more remarkable, because the +city lay at the other side, and the worshippers had to pass round the +shrine before they reached the front of it. The object was apparently to +catch the warmth of the sun. For a somewhat similar reason, every pagan +temple in the ancient world, with a few well-defined exceptions which +are easily explained, also faced the east; and the worshippers, with +their backs to the dawn, saw the first beams of the sun kindling their +idol's face. The orientation of Christian churches is due to the custom +which made the neophyte, standing at first in his familiar position +westward, renounce the devil and all his works, and then, turning his +back upon his idols, recite the creed with his face eastward. + +What ideas would be suggested by this edifice to the worshipper will +better be examined when we have examined also the external court. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +_THE OUTER COURT._ + +xxvii. + +Before describing the tabernacle, its furniture was specified. And so, +when giving instructions for the court of the tabernacle, the altar has +to be described: "Thou shalt make the altar of acacia wood." The +definite article either implies that an altar was taken for granted, a +thing of course; or else it points back to chap. xx. 24, which said "An +altar of earth shalt thou make." Nor is the acacia wood of this altar at +all inconsistent with that precept, it being really not an altar but an +altar-case, and "hollow" (ver. 8)--an arrangement for holding the earth +together, and preventing the feet of the priests from desecrating it. At +each corner was a horn, of one piece with the framework, typical of the +power which was there invoked, and practically useful, both to bind the +sacrifice with cords, and also for the grasp of the fugitive, seeking +sanctuary (Ps. cxviii. 27; 1 Kings i. 50). This arrangement is said to +have been peculiar to Judaism. And as the altar was outside the +tabernacle, and both symbolism and art prescribed simpler materials, it +was overlaid with brass (vers. 1, 2). Of the same material were the +vessels necessary for the treatment of the fire and blood (ver. 3). A +network of brass protected the lower part of the altar; and at half the +height a ledge projected, supported by this network, and probably wide +enough to allow the priests to stand upon it when they ministered (vers. +4, 5). Hence we read that Aaron "came down from offering" (Lev. ix. 22). +Lastly, there was the same arrangement of rings and staves to carry it +as for the ark and the table (vers. 6, 7). + +It will be noticed that the laver in this court, like the altar of +incense within, is reserved for mention in a later chapter (xxx. 18) as +being a subordinate feature in the arrangements. + +The enclosure was a quadrangle of one hundred cubits by fifty; it was +five cubits high, and each cubit may be taken as a foot and a half. The +linen which enclosed it was upheld by pillars with sockets of brass; and +one of the few additional facts to be gleaned from the detailed +statement that all these directions were accurately carried out is that +the heads of all the pillars were overlaid with silver (xxxviii. 17). +The pillars were connected by rods (fillets) of silver, and a hanging of +fine-twined linen was stretched by means of silver hooks (9-13). The +entrance was twenty cubits wide, corresponding accurately to the width, +not of the tabernacle, but of "the tent" as it has been described +(reaching out five cubits farther on each side than the tabernacle), and +it was closed by an embroidered curtain (14-17). This fence was drawn +firmly into position and held there by brazen tent-pins; and we here +incidentally learn that so was the tent itself (19). + + [FOR VERSES 20, 21, see page 423.] + +We are now in a position to ask what sentiment all these arrangements +would inspire in the mind of the simple and somewhat superstitious +worshippers. + +Approaching it from outside, the linen enclosure (being seven feet and a +half high) would conceal everything but the great roof of the tent, one +uniform red, except for the sealskin covering along the summit. A gloomy +and menacing prospect, broken possibly by some gleams, if the curtain of +the gable were drawn back, from the gold with which every portion of the +shrine within was plated. + +So does the world outside look askance upon the Church, discerning a +mysterious suggestion everywhere of sternness and awe, yet with flashes +of strange splendour and affluence underneath the gloom. + +In this place God is known to be: it is a tent, not really "of the +congregation," but "of meeting" between Jehovah and His people: "the +tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, ... and +there I will meet with the children of Israel" (xxix. 42-3). And so the +Israelite, though troubled by sin and fear, is attracted to the gate, +and enters. Right in front stands the altar: this obtrudes itself before +all else upon his attention: he must learn its lesson first of all. +Especially will he feel that this is so if a sacrifice is now to be +offered, since the official must go farther into the court to wash at +the laver, and then return; so that a loss of graduated arrangement has +been accepted in order to force the altar to the front. And he will soon +learn that not only must every approach to the sacred things within be +heralded by sacrifice upon this altar, but the blood of the victim must +be carried as a passport into the shrine. Surely he remembers how the +blood of the lamb saved his own life when the firstborn of Egypt died: +he knows that it is written "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 (or lives): for it is the blood that maketh atonement by +reason of the life (or soul)" (Lev. xvii. 11). + +No Hebrew could watch his fellow-sinner lay his hand on a victim's head, +and confess his sin before the blow fell on it, without feeling that sin +was being, in some mysterious sense, "borne" for him. The intricacies of +our modern theology would not disturb him, but this is the sentiment by +which the institutions of the tabernacle assuredly ministered comfort +and hope to him. Strong would be his hope as he remembered that the +service and its solace were not of human devising, that God had "given +it to him upon the altar to make atonement for his soul." + +Taking courage, therefore, the worshipper dares to lift up his eyes. And +beyond the altar he sees a vision of dazzling magnificence. The inner +roof, most unlike the sullen red of the exterior, is blazing with +various colours, and embroidered with emblems of the mysterious +creatures of the sky, winged, yet not utterly afar from human in their +suggestiveness. Encompassed and looked down into by these is the +tabernacle, all of gold. If the curtain is raised he sees a chamber +which tells what the earth should be--a place of consecrated energies +and resources, and of sacred illumination, the oil of God burning in the +sevenfold vessel of the Church. Is this blessed place for him, and may +he enter? Ah, no! and surely his heart would grow heavy with +consciousness that reconciliation was not yet made perfect, when he +learned that he must never approach the place where God had promised to +meet with him. + +Much less might he penetrate the awful chamber within, the true home of +deity. There, he knows, is the record of the mind of God, the +concentrated expression of what is comparatively easy to obey in act, +but difficult beyond hope to love, to accept and to be conformed to. +That record is therefore at once the revelation of God and the +condemnation of His creature. Yet over this, he knows well, there is +poised no dead image such as were then adored in Babylonian and Egyptian +fanes, but a spiritual Presence, the glory of the invisible God. Nor was +He to be thought of as in solitude, loveless, or else needing human +love: above Him were the woven seraphim of the curtain, and on either +side a seraph of beaten gold--types, it may be, of all the created life +which He inhabits, or else pictures of His sinless creatures of the +upper world. And yet this pure Being, to Whom the companionship of +sinful man is so little needed, is there to meet with man; and is +pleased not to look upon His violated law, but to command that a slab, +inestimably precious, shall interpose between it and its Avenger. By +whom, then, shall this most holy floor be trodden? By the official +representative of him who gazes, and longs, and is excluded. He enters +not without blood, which he is careful to sprinkle upon all the +furniture, but chiefly and seven times upon the mercy-seat. + +Thus every worshipper carries away a profound consciousness that he is +utterly unworthy, and yet that his unworthiness has been expiated; that +he is excluded, and yet that his priest, his representative, has been +admitted, and therefore that he may hope. The Holy Ghost did not declare +by sign that no way into the Holiest existed, but only that it was not +yet made manifest. Not yet. + +This leads us to think of the priest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +_"THE HOLY GARMENTS."_ + +xxviii. + +The tabernacle being complete, the priesthood has to be provided for. +Its dignity is intimated by the command to Moses to bring his brother +Aaron and his sons near to himself (clearly in rank, because the object +is defined, "that he may minister unto Me"), and also by the direction +to make "holy garments for glory and for beauty." But just as the +furniture is treated before the shrine, and again before the courtyard, +so the vestments are provided before the priesthood is itself discussed. + +The holiness of the raiment implies that separation to office can be +expressed by official robes in the Church as well as in the state; and +their glory and beauty show that God, Who has clothed His creation with +splendour and with loveliness, does not dissever religious feeling from +artistic expression. + +All that are wise-hearted in such work, being inspired by God as really, +though not as profoundly, as if their task were to foretell the advent +of Messiah, are to unite their labours upon these garments. + +The order in the twenty-eighth chapter is perhaps that of their visible +importance. But it will be clearer to describe them in the order in +which they were put on. + +Next the flesh all the priests were clad from the loins to the thighs in +close-fitting linen: the indecency of many pagan rituals must be far +from them, and this was a perpetual ordinance, "that they bear not +iniquity and die" (xxviii. 42-3). + +Over this was a tight-fitting "coat" (a shirt rather) of fine linen, +white, but woven in a chequered pattern, without seam, like the robe of +Jesus, and bound together with a girdle (39-43). + +These garments were common to all the priests; but their "head-tires" +differed from the impressive mitre of the high priest. The rest of the +vestments in this chapter belong to him alone. + +Over the "coat" he wore the flowing "robe of the ephod," all blue, +little seen from the waist up, but uncovered thence to the feet, and +surrounded at the hem with golden pomegranates, the emblem of +fruitfulness, and with bells to enable the worshippers outside to follow +the movements of their representative. He should die if this expression +of his vicarious function were neglected (31-35). + +Above this robe was the ephod itself--a kind of gorgeous jacket, made in +two pieces which were joined at the shoulders, and bound together at the +waist by a cunningly woven band, which was of the same piece. This +ephod, like the curtains of the tabernacle, was of blue and purple and +scarlet and fine-twined linen; but added to these were threads of gold, +and we read, as if this were a novelty which needed to be explained, +that they beat the gold into thin plates and then cut it into threads +(xxxix. 3, xxviii. 6-8). + +Upon the shoulders were two stones, rightly perhaps called onyx, and set +in "ouches"--of filagree work, as the word seems to say. Upon them were +engraven the names of the twelve tribes, the burden of whose sins and +sorrows he should bear into the presence of his God, "for a memorial" +(9-12). + +Upon the ephod was the breastplate, fastened to it by rings and chains +of twisted gold, made to fold over into a square, a span in measurement, +and blazing with twelve gems, upon which were engraved, as upon the +onyxes on the shoulders, the names of the twelve tribes. All attempts to +derive edification from the nature of these jewels must be governed by +the commonplace reflection that we cannot identify them; and many of the +present names are incorrect. It is almost certain that neither topaz, +sapphire nor diamond could have been engraved, as these stones were, +with the name of one of the twelve tribes (13-30). + +"In the breastplate" (that is, evidently, between the folds as it was +doubled), were placed those mysterious means of ascertaining the will of +God, the Urim and the Thummim, the Lights and the Perfections; but of +their nature, or of the manner in which they became significant, nothing +can be said that is not pure conjecture (30). + +Lastly, there was a mitre of white linen, and upon it was laced with +blue cords a gold plate bearing the inscription "HOLY TO JEHOVAH" (36, +37). + +No mention is made of shoes or sandals; and both from the commandment to +Moses at the burning bush, and from history, it is certain that the +priests officiated with their feet bare. + +The picture thus completed has the clearest ethical significance. There +is modesty, reverence, purity, innocence typified by whiteness, the +grandeur of the office of intercession displayed in the rich colours and +precious jewels by which that whiteness was relieved, sympathy +expressed by the names of the people in the breastplate that heaved with +every throb of his heart, responsibility confessed by the same names +upon the shoulder, where the government was said to press like a load +(Isa. ix. 6); and over all, at once the condition and the explanation of +the rest, upon the seat of intelligence itself, the golden inscription +on the forehead, "Holy to Jehovah." + +Such was the import of the raiment of the high priest: let us see how it +agrees with the nature of his office. + + +_THE PRIESTHOOD._ + +What, then, are the central ideas connected with the institution of a +priesthood? + +Regarding it in the broadest way, and as a purely human institution, we +may trace it back to the eternal conflict in the breast of man between +two mighty tendencies--the thirst for God and the dread of Him, a strong +instinct of approach and a repelling sense of unworthiness. + +In every age and climate, man prays. If any curious inquirer into savage +habits can point to the doubtful exception of a tribe seemingly without +a ritual, he will not really show that religion is one with +superstition; for they who are said to have escaped its grasp are never +the most advanced and civilised among their fellows upon that +account,--they are the most savage and debased, they are to humanity +what the only people which has formally renounced God is fast becoming +among the European races. + +Certainly history cannot exhibit one community, progressive, energetic +and civilised, which did not feel that more was needful and might be had +than its own resources could supply, and stretch aloft to a Supreme +Being the hands which were so deft to handle the weapon and the tool. +Certainly all experience proves that the foundations of national +greatness are laid in national piety, so that the practical result of +worship, and of the belief that God responds, has not been to dull the +energies of man, but to inspire him with the self-respect befitting a +confidant of deity, and to brace him for labours worthy of one who +draws, from the sense of Divine favour, the hope of an infinite advance. + +And yet, side by side with this spiritual gravitation, there has always +been recoil and dread, such as was expressed when Moses hid his face +because he was afraid to look upon God. + +Now, it is not this apprehension, taken alone, which proves man to be a +fallen creature: it is the combination of the dread of God with the +desire of Him. Why should we shrink from our supreme Good, except as a +sick man turns away from his natural food? He is in an unnatural and +morbid state of body, and we of soul. + +Thus divided between fear and attraction, man has fallen upon the device +of commissioning some one to represent him before God. The priest on +earth has come by the same road with so many other mediators--angel and +demigod, saint and virgin. + +At first it has been the secular chief of the family, tribe or nation, +who has seemed least unworthy to negotiate as well with heaven as with +centres of interest upon earth. But by degrees the duty has everywhere +been transferred into professional hands, patriarch and king recoiling, +feeling the inconsistency of his earthly duties with these sacred ones, +finding his hands to be too soiled and his heart too heavily weighted +with sin for the tremendous Presence into which the family or the tribe +would press him. And yet the union of the two functions might be the +ideal; and the sigh of all truly enlightened hearts might be for a +priest sitting upon his throne, a priest after the order of Melchizedek. +But thus it came to pass that an official, a clique, perhaps a family, +was chosen from among men in things pertaining to God, and the +institution of the priesthood was perfected. + +Now, this is the very process which is recognised in Scripture; for +these two conflicting forces were altogether sound and right. Man ought +to desire God, for Whom he was created, and Whose voice in the garden +was once so welcome: but also he ought to shrink back from Him, afraid +now, because he is conscious of his own nakedness, because he has eaten +of the forbidden fruit. + +Accordingly, as the nation is led out from Egypt, we find that its +intercourse with heaven is at once real and indirect. The leader is +virtually the priest as well, at whose intercession Amalek is vanquished +and the sin of the golden calf is pardoned, who entered the presence of +God and received the law upon their behalf, when they feared to hear His +voice lest they should die, and by whose hand the blood of the covenant +was sprinkled upon the people, when they had sworn to obey all that the +Lord had said (xvii. 11, xxxii. 30, xx. 19, xxiv. 8). + +Soon, however, the express command of God provided for an orthodox and +edifying transfer of the priestly function from Moses to his brother +Aaron. Some such division of duties between the secular chief and the +religious priest would no doubt have come, in Israel as elsewhere, as +soon as Moses disappeared; but it might have come after a very different +fashion, associated with heresy and schism. Especially would it have +been demanded why the family of Moses, if the chieftainship must pass +away from it, could not retain the religious leadership. We know how +cogent such a plea would have appeared; for, although the transfer was +made publicly and by his own act, yet no sooner did the nation begin to +split into tribal subdivisions, amid the confused efforts of each to +conquer its own share of the inheritance, than we find the grandson of +Moses securely establishing himself and his posterity in the apostate +and semi-idolatrous worship of Shechem (Judg. xviii. 30, R.V.). + +And why should not this illustrious family have been chosen? + +Perhaps because it was so illustrious. A priesthood of that great line +might seem to have earned its office, and to claim special access to +God, like the heathen priests, by virtue of some special desert. +Therefore the honour was transferred to the far less eminent line of +Aaron, and that in the very hour when he was lending his help to the +first great apostacy, the type of the many idolatries into which Israel +was yet to fall. So, too, the whole tribe of Levi was in some sense +consecrated, not for its merit, but because, through the sin of its +founder, it lacked a place and share among its brethren, being divided +in Jacob and scattered in Israel by reason of the massacre of Shechem +(Gen. xlix. 7). + +Thus the nation, conscious of its failure to enjoy intercourse with +heaven, found an authorised expression for its various and conflicting +emotions. It was not worthy to commune with God, and yet it could not +rest without Him. Therefore a spokesman, a representative, an +ambassador, was given to it. But he was chosen after such a fashion as +to shut out any suspicion that the merit of Levi had prevailed where +that of Israel at large had failed. It was not because Levi executed +vengeance on the idolaters that he was chosen, for the choice was +already made, and made in the person of Aaron, who was so far from +blameless in that offence. + +And perhaps this is the distinguishing peculiarity of the Jewish priest +among others: that he was chosen from among his brethren, and simply as +one of them; so that while his office was a proof of their exclusion, it +was also a kind of sacrament of their future admission, because he was +their brother and their envoy, and entered not as outshining but as +representing them, their forerunner for them entering. The almond rod of +Aaron was dry and barren as the rest, until the miraculous power of God +invested it with blossoms and fruit. + +Throughout the ritual, the utmost care was taken to inculcate this +double lesson of the ministry. Into the Holy Place, whence the people +were excluded, a whole family could enter. But there was an inner +shrine, whither only the high priest might penetrate, thus reducing the +family to a level with the nation; "the Holy Ghost this signifying, that +the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been made manifest, while as +the first tabernacle (the outer shrine--ver. 6) was yet standing" (Heb. +ix. 8). + +Thus the people felt a deeper awe, a broader separation. And yet, when +the sole and only representative who was left to them entered that +"shrine, remote, occult, untrod," they saw that the way was not wholly +barred against human footsteps: the lesson suggested was far from being +that of absolute despair,--it was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews said, +"Not yet." The prophet Zechariah foresaw a time when the bells of the +horses should bear the same consecrating legend that shone upon the +forehead of the priest: HOLY UNTO THE LORD (Zech. xiv. 20). + +It is important to observe that the only book of the New Testament in +which the priesthood is discussed dwells quite as largely upon the +difference as upon the likeness between the Aaronic and the Messianic +priest. The latter offered but one Sacrifice for sins, the former +offered for himself before doing so for the people (Heb. x. 12). The +latter was a royal Priest, and of the order of a Canaanite (Heb. vii. +1-4), thus breaking down all the old system at one long-predicted +blow--for if He were on earth He could not so much as be a priest at all +(Heb. viii. 4)--and with it all the old racial monopolies, all class +distinctions, being Himself of a tribe as to which Moses spake nothing +concerning priests (Heb. vii. 14). Every priest standeth, but this +priest hath for ever sat down, and even at the right hand of God (Heb. +x. 11, 12). + +In one sense this priesthood belongs to Christ alone. In another sense +it belongs to all who are made one with Him, and therefore a kingly +priesthood unto God. But nowhere in the New Testament is the name by +which He is designated bestowed upon any earthly minister by virtue of +his office. The presbyter is never called _sacerdos_. And perhaps the +heaviest blow ever dealt to popular theology was the misapplying of the +New Testament epithet (elder, presbyter or priest) to designate the +sacerdotal functions of the Old Testament, and those of Christ which +they foreshadowed. It is not the word "priest" that is at fault, but +some other word for the Old Testament official which is lacking, and +cannot now be supplied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +_THE CONSECRATION SERVICES._ + +xxix. + +The priest being now selected, and his raiment so provided as that it +shall speak of his office and its glory, there remains his consecration. + +In our day there is a disposition to make light of the formal setting +apart of men and things for sacred uses. If God, we are asked, has +called one to special service, is not that enough? What more can earth +do to commission the chosen of the sky? But the plain answer which we +ought to have the courage to return is that this is not at all enough. +For God Himself had already called Paul and Barnabas when He said to +such folk as Simeon Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen, "Separate Me +Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them" (Acts xiii. +1-4). And these obscure people not only laid their hands upon the great +apostle, but actually sent him forth. Now, if he was not exempted from +the need of an orderly commission by the marvellous circumstances of his +call, by his apostleship not of man, by the explicit announcement that +he was a chosen vessel to bear the sacred name before kings and peoples, +it is startling to be told of some shallow modern evangelist, who works +for no Church and submits to no discipline, that he can dispense with +the sanction of human ordination because he is so clearly sent of +heaven. + +The example of the Old Testament will no doubt be brushed aside as if +the religion which Jesus learned and honoured were a mere human +superstition. Or else it would be natural to ask, Is it because the +offices and functions of Judaism were more formal, more perfunctory than +ours, that a greater spiritual grace went with their appointments than +with the laying on of hands in the Christian Church, a rite so clearly +sanctioned in the New Testament? + +It is written of Joshua that Moses was to lay his hands upon him, +because already the Spirit was in him; and of Timothy that he had +unfeigned faith, and that prophecies went before concerning him (Num. +xxvii. 18; 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. i. 5). But in neither dispensation did +special grace fail to accompany the official separation to sacred +office: Joshua was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his +hands upon him; and Timothy was bidden to stir into flame that gift of +God which was in him through the laying on of the Apostle's hands (Deut +xxxiv. 9; 2 Tim. i. 6). + +Accordingly there is great stress laid upon the orderly institution of +the priest. And yet, to make it plain that his authority is only "for +his brethren," Moses, the chief of the nation, is to officiate +throughout the ceremony of consecration. He it is who shall offer the +sacrifices upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood, not upon the first +day only, but throughout the ceremonies of the week. + +In the first place certain victims must be held in readiness--a bullock +and two rams; and with these must be brought in one basket unleavened +bread, and unleavened cakes made with oil, and unleavened wafers on +which oil is poured. Then, at the door of the tent of the meeting of man +with God, a ceremonial washing must follow, in a laver yet to be +provided. Here the assertion that purity is needed, and that it is not +inherent, is too plain to be dwelt upon. + +But such details as the assuming of the existence of a laver, for which +no directions have yet been given (and presently also of the anointing +oil, the composition of which is still untold), deserve notice. They are +much more in the manner of one who is working out a plan, seen already +by his mental vision, but of which only the salient and essential parts +have been as yet stated, than of any priest of the latter days, who +would first have completed his catalogue of the furniture, and only then +have described the ceremonies in which he was accustomed to see all this +apparatus take its appointed place. + +What we actually find is quite natural to a creative imagination, +striking out the broad design of the work and its uses first, and then +filling in the outlines. It is not natural at a time when freshness and +inspiration have departed, and squared timber, as we are told, has taken +the place of the living tree. + +The priest, when cleansed, was next to be clad in his robes of office, +with the mitre on his head, and upon the mitre the golden plate, with +its inscription, which is here called, as the culminating object in all +his rich array, "the holy crown" (ver. 6). + +And then he was to be anointed. Now, the use of oil, in the ceremony of +investiture to office, is peculiar to revealed religion. And whether we +suppose it to refer to the oil in a lamp, invisible, yet the secret +source of all its illuminating power, or to that refreshment and +renovated strength bestowed upon a weary traveller when his head is +anointed with oil, in either case it expresses the grand doctrine of +revealed religion--that no office may be filled in one's own strength, +but that the inspiring help of God is offered, as surely as +responsibilities are imposed. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, +because He hath anointed Me." + +With these three ceremonies--ablution, robing and anointing--the first +and most personal section of the ritual ended. And now began a course of +sacrifices to God, advancing from the humblest expression of sin, and +appeal to heaven to overlook the unworthiness of its servant, to that +which best exhibited conscious acceptance, enjoyment of privilege, +admission to a feast with God. The bullock was a sin-offering: the word +is literally _sin_, and occurs more than once in the double sense: "let +him offer for his _sin_ which he hath _sinned_ a young bullock ... for a +_sin(-offering)_" (Lev. iv. 3, v. 6, etc.). And this is the explanation +of the verse which has perplexed so many: "He made Him to be sin for us, +Who knew no sin" (2 Cor. v. 21). The doctrine that pardon comes not by a +cheap and painless overlooking of transgression, as a thing indifferent, +but by the transfer of its consequences to a victim divinely chosen, +could not easily find clearer expression than in this word. And it was +surely a sobering experience, and a wholesome one, when Aaron, in his +glorious robes, sparkling with gems, and bearing on his forehead the +legend of his holy calling, laid his hand, beside those of his children +and successors, upon the doomed creature which was made sin for him. The +gesture meant confession, acceptance of the appointed expiation, +submission to be freed from guilt by a method so humiliating and +admonitory. There was no undue exaltation in the mind of any priest +whose heart went with this "remembrance of sins." + +The bullock was immediately slain at the door of "the tent of meeting"; +and to show that the shedding of his blood was an essential part of the +rite, part of it was put with the finger on the horns of the altar, and +the remainder was poured out at the base. Only then might the fat and +the kidney be burned upon the altar; but it is never said of any +sin-offering, as presently of the burnt-offering and the +peace-offerings, that it is "a sweet savour before Jehovah" (vers. 18, +25)--a phrase which is only once extended to a trespass-offering for a +purely unconscious lapse (Lev. iv. 31). The sin-offering is, at the +best, a deplorable necessity. And therefore the notion of a gift, +welcome to Jehovah, is carefully shut out: no portion of such an +offering may go to maintain the priests: all must be burned "with fire +without the camp; it is a sin-offering" (ver. 14). Rightly does the +Epistle to the Hebrews emphasize this fact: "The bodies of those beasts +whose blood is brought into the Holy Place ... as an offering for sin" +are burned without the camp. The bodies of other sacrifices were not +reckoned unfit for food.[40] And so there is a striking example of +humility, as well as an instructive coincidence, in the fact that Jesus +suffered without the gate, being the true Sin-offering, "that He might +sanctify the people through His own blood" (Heb. xiii. 11, 12). + +Thus, by sacrifice for sin, the priest is rendered fit to offer up to +God the symbol of a devoted life. Again, therefore, the hands of Aaron +and his sons are laid upon the head of the ram, because they come to +offer what represents themselves in another sense than that of +expiation--a sweet savour now, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah +(ver. 18). And to show that it is perfectly acceptable to Him, the whole +ram shall be burnt upon the altar, and not now without the camp: "it is +a burnt-offering unto the Lord." Such is the appointed way of God with +man--first expiation, then devotion. + +The third animal was a "peace-offering" (ver. 28). This is wrongly +explained to mean an offering by which peace is made, for then there +could be no meaning in what went before. It is the offering of one who +is now in a state of peace with God, and who is therefore himself, in +many cases, allowed to partake of what he brings. But on this occasion +some quite peculiar ceremonies were introduced, and the ram is called by +a strange name--"the ram of consecration." When Aaron and his sons have +again declared their connection with the animal by laying their hands +upon it, it is slain. And then the blood is applied to the tip of their +right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the great toe of their +right foot, that the ear may hearken, and the best energies obey, and +their life become as that of the consecrated animal, their bodies being +presented, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Then the same +blood, with the oil which spoke of heavenly anointing, was sprinkled +upon them and upon their official robes, and all were hallowed. Then the +fattest and richest parts of the animal were taken, with a loaf, a cake, +and a wafer from the basket, and placed in the hands of Aaron and his +sons. This was their formal investiture with official rights; although +not yet performing service, it was as priests that they received these; +and their hands, swayed by those of Moses, solemnly waved them before +the Lord in formal presentation, after which the pieces were consumed by +fire. The breast was likewise waved, and became the perpetual property +of Aaron and his sons--although on this occasion it passed from their +hands to be the portion of Moses, who officiated. The remainder of the +flesh, seethed in a holy place, belonged to Aaron and his sons. No +stranger (of another family) might eat it, and what was left until +morning should be consumed by fire, that is to say, destroyed in a +manner absolutely clean, seeing no corruption. + +For seven days this rite of consecration was repeated; and every day the +altar also was cleansed, rendering it most holy, so that whatever +touched it was holy. + +Thus the people saw their representative and chief purified, accepted +and devoted. Thenceforward, when they too brought their offerings, and +beheld them presented (in person or through his subordinates) by the +high priest with holiness emblazoned upon his brow, they gained hope, +and even assurance, since one so consecrated was bidden to present their +intercession; and sometimes they saw him pass into secret places of +mysterious sanctity, bearing their tribal name on his shoulder and his +bosom, while the chime of golden bells announced his movements, +ministering there for them. + +But the nation as a whole, with which this historical book is chiefly +interested, saw in the high priest the means of continually rendering to +God the service of its loyalty. Every day began and closed with the +burnt-offering of a lamb of the first year, along with a meal-offering +of fine flour and oil, and a drink-offering of wine. This would be a +sweet savour unto God, not after the carnal fashion in which sceptics +have interpreted the words, but in the same sense in which the wicked +are a smoke in His nostrils from a continually burning fire. + +And where this offering was made, the Omnipresent would meet with them. +There He would convey His mind to His priest. There also He would meet +with all the people--not occasionally, as amid the more impressive but +less tolerable splendours of Sinai, but to dwell among them and be their +God. And they should know that all this was true, and also that for this +He led them out of Egypt: "I am Jehovah their God." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[40] Neither, it must be added, were the bodies of certain sin-offerings +of the lower grade, and in which the priest was not personally concerned +(Lev. x. 17, etc.). + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +_INCENSE._ + +xxx. 1-10. + +The altar of incense was not mentioned when the tent of meeting was +being prepared and furnished. But when, in the Divine idea, this is +done, when all is ready for the intercourse of God and man, and the +priest and the daily victims are provided for, something more than this +formal routine of offerings might yet be sought for. This material +worship of the senses, this round of splendour and of tragedy, this +blaze of gold and gold-encrusted timber, these curtains embroidered in +bright colours, and ministers glowing with gems, this blood and fire +upon the altar, this worldly sanctuary,--was it all? Or should it not do +as nature ever does, which seems to stretch its hands out into the +impalpable, and to grow all but spiritual while we gaze; so that the +mountain folds itself in vapour, and the ocean in mist and foam, and the +rugged stem of the tree is arrayed in fineness of quivering frondage, +and it may be of tinted blossom, and around it breathes a subtle +fragrance, the most impalpable existence known to sense? Fragrance +indeed is matter passing into the immaterial, it is the sigh of the +sensuous for the spiritual state of being, it is an aspiration. + +And therefore an altar, smaller than that of burnt-offering, but much +more precious, being plated all around and on the top with gold (a +"golden altar") (xxxix. 38), is now to be prepared, on which incense of +sweet spices should be burned whenever a burnt-offering spoke of human +devotion, and especially when the daily lamb was offered, every morning +and every night. + +This altar occupied a significant position. Of necessity, it was without +the Most Holy Place, or else it would have been practically +inaccessible; and yet it was spiritually in the closest connection with +the presence of God within. The Epistle to the Hebrews reckons it among +the furniture of the inner shrine[41] (Heb. ix. 4), close to the veil of +which it stood, and within which its burning odours made their sweetness +palpable. In the temple of Solomon it was "the altar that belonged to +the oracle" (1 Kings vi. 22). In Leviticus (xvi. 12) incense was +connected especially with that spot in the Most Holy Place which best +expressed the grace that it appealed to, and "the cloud of incense" was +to "cover the mercy-seat." Therefore Moses was bidden to put this altar +"before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the +mercy-seat" (ver. 6). + +It can never have been difficult to see the meaning of the rite for +which this altar was provided. When Zacharias burned incense the +multitude stood without, praying. The incense in the vial of the angel +of the Apocalypse was the prayers of the saints (Luke i. 10; Rev. viii. +3). And, long before, when the Psalmist thought of the priest +approaching the veil which concealed the Supreme Presence, and there +kindling precious spices until their aromatic breath became a silent +plea within, it seemed to him that his own heart was even such an altar, +whence the perfumed flame of holy longings might be wafted into the +presence of his God, and he whispered, "Let my prayer be set forth +before Thee as incense" (Ps. cxli. 2). + +Such being the import of the type, we need not wonder that it was a +perpetual ordinance in their generations, nor yet that no strange +perfume might be offered, but only what was prescribed by God. The +admixture with prayer of any human, self-asserting, intrusive element, +is this unlawful fragrance. It is rhetoric in the leader of extempore +prayer; studied inflexions in the conductor of liturgical service; +animal excitement, or sentimental pensiveness, or assent which is merely +vocal, among the worshippers. It is whatever professes to be prayer, and +is not that but a substitute. And formalism is an empty censer. + +But, however earnest and pure may seem to be the breathing of the soul +to God, something unworthy mingles with what is best in man. The very +altar of incense needs to have an atonement made for it once in the year +throughout their generations with the blood of the sin-offering of +atonement. The prayer of every heart which knows its own secret will be +this: + + "Forgive what seemed my sin in me, + What seemed my worth since I began; + For merit lives from man to man + And not from man, O Lord, to Thee." + + +_THE CENSUS._ + +xxx. 11-16. + +Moses by Divine command was soon to number Israel, and thus to lay the +foundation for its organisation upon the march. A census was not, +therefore, supposed to be presumptuous or sinful in itself; it was the +vain-glory of David's census which was culpable. + +But the honour of being numbered among the people of God should awaken a +sense of unworthiness. Men had reason to fear lest the enrolment of such +as they were in the host of God should produce a pestilence to sweep out +the unclean from among the righteous. At least they must make some +practical admission of their demerit. And therefore every man of twenty +years who passed over unto them that were numbered (it is a picturesque +glimpse that is here given into the method of enrolment) should offer +for his soul a ransom of half a shekel after the shekel of the +sanctuary. And because it was a ransom, the tribute was the same for +all; the poor might not bring less, nor the rich more. Here was a grand +assertion of the equality of all souls in the eyes of God--a seed which +long ages might overlook, but which was sure to fructify in its +appointed time. + +For indeed the madness of modern levelling systems is only their attempt +to level down instead of up, their dream that absolute equality can be +obtained, or being obtained can be made a blessing, by the envious +demolition of all that is lofty, and not by all together claiming the +supreme elevation, the measure of the stature of manhood in Jesus +Christ. + +It is not in any _phalanstere_ of Fourier or Harmony Hall of Owen, that +mankind will ever learn to break a common bread and drink of a common +cup; it is at the table of a common Lord. + +And so this first assertion of the equality of man was given to those +who all ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink. + +This half-shekel gradually became an annual impost, levied for the great +expenses of the Temple. "Thus Joash made a proclamation throughout Judah +and Jerusalem, to bring in for the Lord the tax that Moses, the servant +of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness" (2 Chron. xxiv. 9). + +And it was the claim for this impost, too rashly conceded by Peter with +regard to his Master, which led Jesus to distinguish clearly between His +own relation to God and that of others, even of the chosen race. + +He paid no ransom for His soul. He was a Son, in a sense in which no +other, even of the Jews, could claim to be so. Now, the kings of the +earth did not levy tribute from their sons; so that, if Christ paid, it +was not to fulfil a duty, but to avoid being an offence. And God Himself +would provide, directly and miraculously, what He did not demand from +Jesus. Therefore it was that, on this one occasion and no other, Christ +Who sought figs when hungry, and when athirst asked water at alien +hands, met His own personal requirement by a miracle, as if to protest +in deed, as in word, against any burden from such an obligation as +Peter's rashness had conceded. + +And yet, with that marvellous condescension which shone most brightly +when He most asserted His prerogative, He admitted Peter also to a share +in this miraculous redemption-money, as He admits us all to a share in +His glory in the skies. Is it not He only Who can redeem His brother, +and give to God a ransom for him? + +It is the silver thus levied which was used in the construction of the +sanctuary. All the other materials were free-will offerings; but even as +the entire tabernacle was based upon the ponderous sockets into which +the boards were fitted, made of the silver of this tax, so do all our +glad and willing services depend upon this fundamental truth, that we +are unworthy even to be reckoned His, that we owe before we can bestow, +that we are only allowed to offer any gift because He is so merciful in +His demand. Israel gladly brought much more than was needed of all +things precious. But first, as an absolutely imperative ransom, God +demanded from each soul the half of three shillings and sevenpence. + + +_THE LAVER._ + +xxx. 17-21. + +For the cleansing of various sacrifices, but especially for the +ceremonial washing of the priests, a laver of brass was to be made, and +placed upon a separate base, the more easily to be emptied and +replenished. + +We have seen already that although its actual use preceded that of the +altar, yet the other stood in front of it, as if to assert, to the very +eyes of all men, that sacrifice precedes purification. But the use of +the laver was not by the man as man, but by the priest as mediator. In +his office he represented the absolute purity of Christ. And therefore +it was a capital offence to enter the tabernacle or to burn a sacrifice +without first having washed the hands and feet. At his inauguration, the +whole person of the priest was bathed, and thenceforth he needed not +save to remove the stains of contact with the world. + +When the laver was actually made, an interesting fact was recorded about +its materials: "He made the laver of brass, and the base of it of brass, +of the mirrors of the serving-women which served at the door of the tent +of meeting" (xxxviii. 8). Thus their instruments of personal adornment +were applied to further a personal preparation of a more solemn kind, +like the ointment with which a penitent woman anointed the feet of +Jesus. There is a fitness which ought to be considered in the direction +of our gifts, not as a matter of duty, but of good taste and charm. And +thus also they continually saw the monument of their self-sacrifice. +There is an innocent satisfaction, far indeed from vanity, when one +looks at his own work for God. + + +_THE ANOINTING OIL AND THE INCENSE._ + +xxx. 22-38. + +We have already seen the meaning of the anointing oil and of the +incense. + +But we have further to remark that their ingredients were accurately +prescribed, that they were to be the best and rarest of their kind, and +that special skill was demanded in their preparation. + +Such was the natural dictate of reverence in preparing the symbols of +God's grace to man, and of man's appeal to God. + +With the type of grace should be anointed the tent and the ark, and the +table of shewbread and the candlestick, with all their implements, and +the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt sacrifice and the laver. +All the import of every portion of the Temple worship could be realized +only by the outpouring of the Spirit of grace. + +It was added that this should be a holy anointing oil, not to be made, +much less used, for common purposes, on pain of death. The same was +enacted of the incense which should burn before Jehovah: "according to +the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves; it shall be +unto thee holy for the Lord: whosoever shall make like unto that, to +smell thereto, he shall be cut off from his people." + +And this was meant to teach reverence. One might urge that the spices +and frankincense and salt were not in themselves sacred: there was no +consecrating efficacy in their combination, no charm or spell in the +union of these, more than of any other drugs. Why, then, should they be +denied to culture? Why should her resources be thus restricted? Does any +one suppose that such arguments belong peculiarly to the New Testament +spirit, or that the saints of the older dispensation had any +superstitious views about these ingredients? If it was through such +notions that they abstained from vulgarising its use, then they were on +the way to paganism, through a materialised worship. + +But in truth they knew as well as we that gums were only gums, just as +they knew that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands. +And yet they were bidden to reverence both the shrine and the apparatus +of His worship, for their own sakes, for the solemnity and sobriety of +their feelings, not because God would be a loser if they did otherwise. +And we may well ask ourselves, in these latter days, whether the +constant proposal to secularise religious buildings, revenues, +endowments and seasons does really indicate greater religious freedom, +or only greater freedom from religious control. + +And we may be sure that a light treatment of sacred subjects and sacred +words is a very dangerous symptom: it is not the words and subjects +alone that are being secularised, but also our own souls. + +There is in our time a curious tendency among men of letters to use holy +things for a mere perfume, that literature may "smell thereto." + +A novelist has chosen for the title of a story "Just as I am." An +innocent and graceful poet has seen a smile,-- + + "'Twas such a smile, + Aaron's twelve jewels seemed to mix + With the lamps of the golden candlesticks." + +Another is bolder, and sings of the war of love,-- + + "In the great battle when the hosts are met + On Armageddon's plain, with spears beset." + +Another thinks of Mazzini as the + + "Dear lord and leader, at whose hand + The first days and the last days stand," + +and again as he who + + "Said, when all Time's sea was foam, + 'Let there be Rome,' and there was Rome." + +And Victor Hugo did not shrink from describing, and that with a strange +and scandalous ignorance of the original incidents, the crucifixion by +Louis Napoleon of the Christ of nations. + +Now, Scripture is literature, besides being a great deal more; and, as +such, it is absurd to object to all allusions to it in other +literature. Yet the tendency of which these extracts are examples is not +merely toward allusion, but desecration of solemn and sacred thoughts: +it is the conversion of incense into perfumery. + +There is another development of the same tendency, by no means modern, +noted by the prophet when he complains that the message of God has +become as the "very lovely song of one who hath a pleasant voice and +playeth well on an instrument." Wherever divine service is only +appreciated in so far as it is "well rendered," as rich music or stately +enunciation charm the ear, and the surroundings are aesthetic,--wherever +the gospel is heard with enjoyment only of the eloquence or +controversial skill of its rendering, wherever religion is reduced by +the cultivated to a thrill or to a solace, or by the Salvationist to a +riot or a romp, wherever Isaiah and the Psalms are only admired as +poetry, and heaven is only thought of as a languid and sentimental +solace amid wearying cares,--there again is a making of the sacred balms +to smell thereto. + +And as often as a minister of God finds in his holy office a mere outlet +for his natural gifts of rhetoric or of administration, he also is +tempted to commit this crime. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] For it is incredible that, in a catalogue of furniture which +included Aaron's rod and the pot of manna, this altar should be omitted, +and "a golden censer," elsewhere unheard of, substituted. The gloss is +too evidently an endeavour to get rid of a difficulty. But in idea and +suggestion this altar belonged to the Most Holy. That shrine "had" it, +though it actually stood outside. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +_BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB._ + +xxxi. 1-18. + +Next after this marking off so sharply of the holy from the profane, +this consecration of men to special service, this protection of sacred +unguents and sacred gums from secular use, we come upon a passage +curiously contrasted, yet not really antagonistic to the last, of +marvellous practical wisdom, and well calculated to make a nation wise +and great. + +The Lord announces that He has called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, +and has filled him with the Spirit of God. To what sacred office, then, +is he called? Simply to be a supreme craftsman, the rarest of artisans. +This also is a divine gift. "I have filled him with the Spirit of God in +wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of +workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and +in brass and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, +to work in all manner of workmanship,"--that is to say, of manual +dexterity. With him God had appointed Aholiab; "and in the hearts of all +the wise-hearted I have put wisdom." Thus should be fitly made the +tabernacle and its furniture, and the finely wrought garments, and the +anointing oil and the incense. + +So then it appears that the Holy Spirit of God is to be recognised in +the work of the carpenter and the jeweller, the apothecary and the +tailor. Probably we object to such a statement, so baldly put. But +inspiration does not object. Moses told the children of Israel that +Jehovah had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, and also Aholiab, +for the work "of the engraver ... and of the embroiderer ... and of the +weaver" (xxxv. 31, 35). + +It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as +inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and +beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the +supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left +to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of +the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that + + "On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung"; + +but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures? +Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was "inspired" was a clear +recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp: +now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that +Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this +passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to +claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human +being who is so richly crowned and gifted. + +Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting, +music--things which really compete with nature in their spiritual +suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the +weaver, and the perfumer. + +Nevertheless, the one is carried with the other. Where shall we draw the +line, for example, in architecture or in ironwork? And there is another +consideration which must not be overlooked. God is assuredly in the +growth of humanity, in the progress of true civilisation--in all, the +recognition of which makes history philosophical. It is not only the +saints who feel themselves to be the instruments of a Greater than they. +Cromwell and Bismarck, Columbus, Raleigh and Drake, William the Silent +and William the Third, felt it. Mr. Stanley has told us how the +consciousness that he was being used grew up in him, not through +fanaticism but by slow experience, groping his way through the gloom of +Central Africa. + +But none will deny that one of the greatest factors in modern history is +its industrial development. Is there, then, no sacredness here? + +The doctrine of Scripture is not that man is a tool, but that he is +responsible for vast gifts, which come directly from heaven--that every +good gift is from above, that it was God Himself Who planted in Paradise +the tree of knowledge. + +Nor would anything do more to restrain the passions, to calm the +impulses and to elevate the self-respect of modern life, to call back +its energies from the base competition for gold, and make our industries +what dreamers persuade themselves that the mediaeval industries were, +than a quick and general perception of what is meant when faculty goes +by such names as talent, endowment, gift--of the glory of its use, the +tragedy of its defilement. Many persons, indeed, reject this doctrine +because they cannot believe that man has power to abase so high a thing +so sadly. But what, then, do they think of the human body? + +What connection is there between all this and the reiteration of the law +of the Sabbath? Not merely that the moral law is now made a civic +statute as well, for this had been done already (xxiii. 12). But, as our +Lord has taught us that a Jew on the Sabbath was free to perform works +of mercy, it might easily be supposed lawful, and even meritorious, to +hasten forward the construction of the place where God would meet His +people. But He who said "I will have mercy and not sacrifice" said also +that to obey was better than sacrifice. Accordingly this caution closes +the long story of plans and preparations. And when Moses called the +people to the work, his first words were to repeat it (xxxv. 2). + +Finally, there was given to Moses the deposit for which so noble a +shrine was planned--the two tables of the law, miraculously produced. + +If any one, without supposing that they were literally written with a +literal finger, conceives that this was the meaning conveyed to a Hebrew +by the expression "written with the finger of God," he entirely misses +the Hebrew mode of thought, which habitually connects the Lord with an +arm, with a chariot, with a bow made naked, with a tent and curtains, +without the slightest taint of materialism in its conception. Did not +the magicians, failing to imitate the third plague, say "This is the +finger of a God"? Did not Jesus Himself "cast out devils by the finger +of God"? (Ex. viii. 19; Luke xi. 20). + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +_THE GOLDEN CALF._ + +xxxii. + +While God was thus providing for Israel, what had Israel done with God? +They had grown weary of waiting: had despaired of and slighted their +heroic leader, ("this Moses, the man that brought us up,") had demanded +gods, or a god, at the hand of Aaron, and had so far carried him with +them or coerced him that he thought it a stroke of policy to save them +from breaking the first commandment by joining them in a breach of the +second, and by infecting "a feast to Jehovah" with the licentious "play" +of paganism. At the beginning, the only fitness attributed to Aaron was +that "he can speak well." But the plastic and impressible temperament of +a gifted speaker does not favour tenacity of will in danger. Demosthenes +and Cicero, and Savonarola, the most eloquent of the reformers, +illustrate the tendency of such genius to be daunted by visible perils. + +God now rejects them because the covenant is violated. As Jesus spoke no +longer of "My Father's house," but "your house, left unto you desolate," +so the Lord said to Moses, "thy people which thou broughtest up." + +But what are we to think of the proposal to destroy them, and to make of +Moses a great nation? + +We are to learn from it the solemn reality of intercession, the power of +man with God, Who says not that He will destroy them, but that He will +destroy them if left alone. Who can tell, at any moment, what calamities +the intercession of the Church is averting from the world or from the +nation? + +The first prayer of Moses is brief and intense; there is passionate +appeal, care for the Divine honour, remembrance of the saintly dead for +whose sake the living might yet be spared, and absolute forgetfulness of +self. Already the family of Aaron had been preferred to his, but the +prospect of monopolising the Divine predestination has no charm for this +faithful and patriotic heart. No sooner has the immediate destruction +been arrested than he hastens to check the apostates, makes them exhibit +the madness of their idolatry by drinking the water in which the dust of +their pulverised god was strewn; receives the abject apology of Aaron, +thoroughly spirit-broken and demoralised; and finding the sons of Levi +faithful, sends them to the slaughter of three thousand men. Yet this is +he who said "O Lord, why is Thy wrath hot against Thy people?" He +himself felt it needful to cut deep, in mercy, and doubtless in wrath as +well, for true affection is not limp and nerveless: it is like the ocean +in its depth, and also in its tempests. And the stern action of the +Levites appeared to him almost an omen; it was their "consecration," the +beginning of their priestly service. + +Again he returns to intercede; and if his prayer must fail, then his own +part in life is over: let him too perish among the rest. For this is +evidently what he means and says: he has not quite anticipated the +spirit of Christ in Paul willing to be anathema for his brethren (Rom. +ix. 3), nor has the idea of a vicarious human sacrifice been suggested +to him by the institutions of the sanctuary. Yet how gladly would he +have died for his people, who made request that he might die among them! + +How nobly he foreshadows, not indeed the Christian doctrine, but the +love of Christ Who died for man, Who from the Mount of Transfiguration, +as Moses from Sinai, came down (while Peter would have lingered) to bear +the sins of His brethren! How superior He is to the Christian hymn which +pronounces nothing worth a thought, except how to make my own election +sure. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +_PREVAILING INTERCESSION._ + +xxxiii. + +At this stage the first concession is announced: Moses shall lead the +people to their rest, and God will send an angel with him. + +We have seen that the original promise of a great Angel in whom was the +Divine Presence was full of encouragement and privilege (xxiii. 20). No +unbiassed reader can suppose that it is the sending of this same Angel +of the Presence which now expresses the absence of God, or that He Who +then would not pardon their transgression "because My Name is in Him" is +now sent because God, if He were in the midst of them for a moment, +would consume them. Nor, when Moses passionately pleads against this +degradation, and is heard in this thing also, can the answer "My +Presence shall go with thee" be merely the repetition of those evil +tidings. Yet it was the Angel of His Presence Who saved them. All this +has been already treated, and what we are now to learn is that the +faithful and sublime urgency of Moses did really save Israel from +degradation and a lower covenant. + +It was during the progress of this mediation that Moses distracted by a +double anxiety--afraid to absent himself from his wayward followers, +equally afraid to be so long withdrawn from the presence of God as the +descending of Sinai and returning thither would involve--made a noble +adventure of faith. Inspired by the conception of the tabernacle, he +took a tent, "his tent," and pitched it outside the camp, to express the +estrangement of the people, and this he called the Tent of the Meeting +(with God), but in the Hebrew it is never called the Tabernacle. And God +did condescend to meet him there. The mystic cloud guarded the door +against presumptuous intrusion, and all the people, who previously wist +not what had become of him, had now to confess the majesty of his +communion, and they worshipped every man at his tent door. + +It would seem that the anxious vigilance of Moses caused him to pass to +and fro between the tent and the camp, "but his minister, Joshua the son +of Nun, departed not out of the tent." + +The dread crisis in the history of the nation was now almost over. God +had said, "My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee +rest,"--a phrase which the lowly Jesus thought it no presumption to +appropriate, saying, "_I_ will give you rest," as He also appropriated +the office of the Shepherd, the benevolence of the Physician, the +tenderness of the Bridegroom, and the glory of the King and the Judge, +all of which belonged to God. + +But Moses is not content merely to be secure, for it is natural that he +who best loves man should also best love God. Therefore he pleads +against the least withdrawal of the Presence: he cannot rest until +repeatedly assured that God will indeed go with him; he speaks as if +there were no "grace" but that. There are many people now who think it +a better proof of being religious to feel either anxious or comforted +about their own salvation, their election, and their going to heaven. +And these would do wisely to consider how it comes to pass that the +Bible first taught men to love and to follow God, and afterwards +revealed to them the mysteries of the inner life and of eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +_THE VISION OF GOD._ + +xxxiv. + +It was when God had most graciously assured Moses of His affection, that +he ventured, in so brief a cry that it is almost a gasp of longing, to +ask, "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory" (xxxiii. 18). + +We have seen how nobly this petition and the answer condemn all +anthropomorphic misunderstandings of what had already been revealed; and +also how it exemplifies the great law, that they who see most of God, +know best how much is still unrevealed. The elders saw the God of Israel +and did eat and drink: Moses was led from the bush to the flaming top of +Sinai, and thence to the tent where the pillar of cloud was as a +sentinel; but the secret remained unseen, the longing unsatisfied, and +the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision reached by him with whom God +spake face to face as with a friend, was to be hidden in a cleft of the +rock, to be aware of an awful Shadow, and to hear the Voice of the +Unseen. + +It was a fit time for the proclamation which was then made. When the +people had been righteously punished and yet graciously forgiven, the +name of the Self-Existent expanded and grew clearer,--"Jehovah, Jehovah, +a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in +mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and +transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, +visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the +children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation." And +as Moses made haste and bowed himself, it is affecting to hear him again +pleading for that beloved Presence which even yet he can scarce believe +to be restored, and instead of claiming any separation through his +fidelity and his honours, praying "Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and +take us for Thine inheritance" (xxxiv. 10). + +Thereupon the covenant is given, as if newly, but without requiring its +actual re-enactment; and certain of the former precepts are rehearsed, +chiefly such as would guard against a relapse into idolatry when they +entered the good land where God would bestow on them prosperity and +conquest. + +As Moses had broken the former tablets, the task was imposed on him of +hewing out the slabs on which God renewed His awful sanction of the +Decalogue, the fundamental statutes of the nation. And they who had +failed to endure his former absence, were required to be patient while +he tarried again upon the mountain, forty days and nights. + +With his return a strange incident is connected. Unknown by himself, the +"skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him," and Aaron +and the people recoiled until he called to them. And thenceforth he +lived a strange and isolated life. At each new interview the glory of +his countenance was renewed, and when he conveyed his revelation to the +people, they beheld the lofty sanction, the light of God upon his face. +Then he veiled his face until next he approached his God, so that none +might see what changes came there, and whether--as St. Paul seems to +teach us--the lustre gradually waned. + +His revelation, the apostle argues, was like this occasional and fading +gleam, while the moral glory of the Christian system has no +concealments: it uses great frankness; there is nothing withdrawn, no +veil upon the face. Nor is it given to one alone to behold as in a +mirror the glory of the Lord, and to share its lustre. We all, with face +unveiled, share this experience of the deliverer (2 Cor. iii. 12, 18). + +But the incident itself is most instructive. Since he had already spent +an equal time with God, yet no such results had followed, it seems that +we receive what we are adapted to receive, not straitened in Him but in +our own capabilities; and as Moses, after his vehemence of intercession, +his sublimity of self-negation, and his knowledge of the greater name of +God, received new lustre from the unchangeable Fountain of light, so +does all true service and earnest aspiration, while it approaches God, +elevate and glorify humanity. + +We learn also something of the exaltation of which matter is capable. We +who have seen coarse bulb and soil and rain transmuted by the sunshine +into radiance of bloom and subtlety of perfume, who have seen plain +faces illuminated from within until they were almost angelic,--may we +not hope for something great and rare for ourselves, and the beloved who +are gone, as we muse upon the profound word, "It is raised a spiritual +body"? + +And again we learn that the best religious attainment is the least +self-conscious: Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone. + + + + +CHAPTERS XXXV-XL. + +_THE CONCLUSION._ + + +The remainder of the narrative sets forth in terms almost identical with +the directions already given, the manner in which the Divine injunctions +were obeyed. The people, purified in heart by danger, chastisement and +shame, brought much more than was required. A quarter of a million would +poorly represent the value of the shrine in which, at the last, Moses +and Aaron approached their God, while the cloud covered the tent and the +glory filled the tabernacle, and Moses failed to overcome his awe and +enter. + +Thenceforth the cloud was the guide of their halting and their march. +Many a time they grieved their God in the wilderness, yet the cloud was +on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night, +throughout all their journeyings. + +That cloud is seen no longer; but One has said, "Lo, I am with you all +the days." If the presence is less material, it is because we ought to +be more spiritual. + + * * * * * + +Looking back upon the story, we can discern more clearly what was +asserted when we began--the forming and training of a nation. + +They are called from shameful servitude by the devotion of a patriot and +a hero, who has learned in failure and exile the difference between +self-confidence and faith. The new name of God, and His remembrance of +their fathers, inspire them at the same time with awe and hope and +nationality. They see the hollowness of earthly force, and of +superstitious worships, in the abasement and ruin of Egypt. They are +taught by the Paschal sacrifice to confess that the Divine favour is a +gift and not a right, that their lives also are justly forfeited. The +overthrow of Pharaoh's army and the passage of the Sea brings them into +a new and utterly strange life, in an atmosphere and amid scenes well +calculated to expand and deepen their emotions, to develop their sense +of freedom and self-respect, and yet to oblige them to depend wholly on +their God. Privation at Marah chastens them. The attack of Amalek +introduces them to war, and forbids their dependence to sink into abject +softness. The awful scene of Horeb burns and brands his littleness into +man. The covenant shows them that, however little in themselves, they +may enter into communion with the Eternal. It also crushes out what is +selfish and individualising, by making them feel the superiority of what +they all share over anything that is peculiar to one of them. The +Decalogue reveals a holiness at once simple and profound, and forms a +type of character such as will make any nation great. The sacrificial +system tells them at once of the pardon and the heinousness of sin. +Religion is both exalted above the world and infused into it, so that +all is consecrated. The priesthood and the shrine tell them of sin and +pardon, exclusion and hope; but that hope is a common heritage, which +none may appropriate without his brother. + +The especial sanctity of a sacred calling is balanced by an immediate +assertion of the sacredness of toil, and the Divine Spirit is recognised +even in the gift of handicraft. + +A tragic and shameful failure teaches them, more painfully than any +symbolic system of curtains and secret chambers, how little fitted they +are for the immediate intercourse of heaven. And yet the ever-present +cloud, and the shrine in the heart of their encampment, assure them that +God is with them of a truth. + +Could any better system be imagined by which to convert a slavish and +superstitious multitude into a nation at once humble and pure and +gallant--a nation of brothers and of worshippers, chastened by a genuine +sense of ill desert and of responsibility, and yet braced and fired by +the conviction of an exalted destiny? + +To do this, and also to lead mankind to liberty, to rescue them from +sensuous worship, and prepare them for a system yet more spiritual, to +teach the human race that life is not repose but warfare, pilgrimage and +aspiration, and to sow the seeds of beliefs and expectations which only +an atoning Mediator and an Incarnate God could satisfy, this was the +meaning of the Exodus. + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + + + 1889-90. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + JUDGES AND RUTH. By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A. + + THE PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH. By the Rev. C. J. + BALL, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn. + + THE PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH. Vol. II. Completing the + Work. By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A. + + THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. By the Rev. J. MONRO + GIBSON, D.D., London, Author of "The Mosaic Era," etc. + + THE BOOK OF EXODUS. By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, + D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + THE BOOK OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By the + Rev. G. T. STOKES, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in + the University of Dublin. + + + 1888-89. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. By the Rev. Professor + G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds. + + THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. Chap. I. to XXXIX. By the Rev. + GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A., Aberdeen. + + THE PASTORAL EPISTLES By the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, + D.D., Master of University College, Durham. + + THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. By the + Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. Second Edition. + + THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. By the Rev. Professor + W. MILLIGAN, D.D., of the University of Aberdeen. + + THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. By the Right Rev. W. + ALEXANDER, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. + + + 1887-88. + + _Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._ + + THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. By ALEXANDER + MACLAREN, D.D., of Manchester. Fourth Edition. + + THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. By the Rev. + Prebendary G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + THE BOOK OF GENESIS. By the Rev. Professor MARCUS + DODS, D.D. Fourth Edition. + + THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the Rev. Professor + W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + + THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the same Author. + + THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. By the Rev. Principal + T. C. EDWARDS, M.A. + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + + +Third Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. + +THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. + + Academy.--"Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps + close to his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is + thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and + epigrammatic when he wishes." + + Scotsman.--"It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and + written in clear, vigorous English." + + Record.--"Dr. Chadwick's style is characteristic, thoughtful, clear, + and vigorous. He is never commonplace or trivial." + + English Churchman.--"A valuable, interesting, and delightful work, + almost every page of which contains something worthy of quotation." + + Christian.--"If the volumes to come be like the one before us they + may be sure of a warm welcome. Dr. Chadwick has caught something of + the vividness of style and onward rush which characterise the writer + he expounds. Sober in judgment, markedly Scriptural in tone, well + acquainted with exegetical lore, and qualified by patient + investigations to give an individual opinion on disputed points, he + makes good his claim to help and instruct students of Mark's + Gospel." + + Methodist Recorder.--"We are glad to say that the beginning of a + very promising series is, in our opinion, distinctly good, and that + Dean Chadwick has hit the mark specially aimed at exceedingly well. + We have found ourselves many sparkling and memorable sentences in + his pages. We hope the 'Expositor's Bible' has many other volumes in + store as instructive as the first instalment." + + Expositor.--"Dean Chadwick's readers, even in the first pages, + become aware that they are in the company of a thoroughly original + writer, who repeats nothing, echoes nothing, imitates no one. It is + with a feeling of thankfulness his readers follow him from passage + to passage of the Gospel, finding new truth in familiar words and + incidents, and, unable to confine themselves to the limits they had + set for their day's reading, are lured on to trespass on to-morrow's + portion. There is every quality here that is desirable in an + expositor--reverence for his text, sufficient information about it, + sympathetic insight, and keen observation of men and manners. + Equally successful in opening up the significance of the text and in + applying it to present conditions of life, Dean Chadwick has given + us an admirable specimen of what an expositor's Bible should be." + + London Quarterly Review.--"Dr. Chadwick's exposition is thoughtful + and penetrating; his sentences are sharp and crisp.... Often bright + aphoristic sayings occur which are likely to print themselves on the + memory of the reader. The expositor would almost seem to resemble + his subject in the practical and condensed, yet graphic, style in + which he has done his expository work." + + Rock.--"The style of the commentary is, like its subject, forcible + and terse." + + Church Bells.--"We have never yet read any commentary which we liked + so well. The preacher will find it full of materials for sermons, + fresh and vigorous, and yet calm and well-weighed." + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. + + + + +_SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT._ + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +Edited by W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D., Editor of _The Expositor_. + +THIRD YEAR'S ISSUE. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each Volume._ + +_Judges and Ruth._ + + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., Author of "Gospels of Yesterday." + [_Ready._ + +_The Prophecies of Jeremiah._ + + WITH A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND TIMES. + + By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn; Contributor + to Bishop Ellicott's "Commentary," "The Speaker's Commentary," etc. + [_Ready._ + +_The Book of Exodus._ + + By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh, Author of + "The Gospel of St. Mark," etc. [_Ready._ + +_The Gospel of St. Matthew._ + + By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D., London, Author of "The Ages + before Moses," "The Mosaic Era," etc. + +_The Prophecies of Isaiah, Vol. II._ + + Completing the work. + + By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A. + +_The Acts of the Apostles._ + + By the Rev. G. T. STOKES, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History + in the University of Dublin. + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +FIRST SERIES. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each Volume._ + +Fourth Edition. + +The Book of Genesis. + +By Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + "The style of this book is so simple, the march of the thought so + strong and unencumbered, and there is in the ripe result such a + perfect assimilation of varied erudition, that none but + fellow-craftsmen will realise the amount of study, industry, and + many-sided ability that was requisite to produce it."--_Professor + Elmslie, D.D._ + +Third Edition. + +The First Book of Samuel. + +By the Rev. Professor W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + + "There can be no doubt of the care and thoroughness with which Dr. + Blaikie has executed his task. From his own point of view he has + produced a solid and able piece of work."--_Academy._ + +Third Edition. + +The Second Book of Samuel. + +By the Rev. Professor W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + + "Of the utmost value to preachers and teachers, being very full of + suggestive thoughts."--_English Churchman._ + +Third Edition. + +The Gospel according to St. Mark. + +By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh. + + "Dr. Chadwick has performed his task admirably. He keeps close to + his subject, avoiding irrelevant and lengthy comment. He is + thoughtful and penetrating in his criticism, and yet concise and + epigrammatic when he wishes."--_Academy._ + + "It is at once scholarly, popular, and orthodox, and written in + clear, vigorous English."--_Scotsman._ + +Fourth Edition. + +The Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon. + +By the Rev. ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. + + "In nothing Dr. Maclaren has written is there more of beauty, of + spiritual insight, or of brilliant elucidation of Scripture. Indeed, + Dr. Maclaren is here at his best."--_Expositor._ + + "The book is pre-eminently one for ministers, but there is nothing + in the exposition which may not prove a boon to any diligent student + of the Word of God. It contains a wealth of thought for + preachers."--_Rock._ + +Third Edition. + +The Epistle to the Hebrews. + +By Rev. Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D., Author of "A Commentary on the +First Epistle to the Corinthians." + + "He has entered into the spirit and purport of what truly he calls + 'one of the greatest and most difficult books of the New Testament' + with a systematic thoroughness and fairness which cannot be too + highly commended. Henceforth English students of this portion of the + New Testament will have only themselves to blame if they cannot + trace the connection of thought and final purport of this + epistle."--_Academy._ + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +SECOND SERIES. + +_Price 7s. 6d, each Volume._ + +Fifth Edition. + +The Book of Isaiah. Vol. I. Chapters I.-XXXIX. + +By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A., Aberdeen. With Map. + + "This is a very attractive book. Mr. George Adam Smith has evidently + such a mastery of the scholarship of his subject that it would be a + sheer impertinence for most scholars, even though tolerable + Hebraists, to criticise his translations; and certainly it is not + the intention of the present reviewer to attempt anything of the + kind, to do which he is absolutely incompetent. All we desire is to + let English readers know how very lucid, impressive, and, indeed, + how vivid a study of Isaiah is within their reach--the fault of the + book, if it has a fault, being rather that it finds too many points + of connection between Isaiah and our modern world, than that it + finds too few. In other words, no one can say that the book is not + full of life."--_Spectator._ + +Second Edition. + +The First Epistle to the Corinthians. + +By the Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + "A clear, close, unaffected, unostentatious exposition, not verse by + verse, but thought after thought of this most interesting, perhaps, + and certainly most various, of all the Apostle's writings."--_London + Quarterly Review._ + +Second Edition. + +The Epistle to the Galatians. + +By the Rev. Professor G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds. + + "Professor G.G. Findlay discloses a minute acquaintance with his + subject, an earnest desire to penetrate its inmost meaning, and a + marked capacity of illustrating and enforcing the text."--_Record._ + +Second Edition. + +The Pastoral Epistles. + +By the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, D.D., Master of University College, Durham. + + "It is an admirable example of what popular theology ought to + be--presuming a somewhat high level of education and interest in its + readers, and built throughout upon sound erudition and sensible, + devout, and well-disciplined reflection."--_Saturday Review._ + +The Epistles of St. John. + +By WILLIAM ALEXANDER, D.D., D.C.L., Brasenose College, Oxford, Lord +Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. + + "Full of felicities of exegesis.... Brilliant and + valuable."--_Literary Churchman._ + + "The discourses are eloquent and impressive, and show a thorough + knowledge of the subject."--_Scotsman._ + +The Revelation of St. John. + +By Rev. Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D., of the University of Aberdeen. + + "The most delightful work on the Apocalypse that we have read. The + practical and spiritual teaching even of the most recondite and + mysterious passages is made plain."--_Methodist Recorder._ + + + + +THE THEOLOGICAL EDUCATOR. + +_Price 2s. 6d. each Volume. Fcap. 8vo._ + + +The Language of the New Testament. + +By Rev. WILLIAM HENRY SIMCOX, M.A., Rector of Harlaxton. + + "The distinctive peculiarities of New Testament Greek are defined + with exactness, the gradations by which one grammatical usage passes + into another are clearly traced, the frontier between grammar and + exegesis marked with unusual sense and discrimination. In a word, + this is the most living grammar of the New Testament we + have."--_Expositor._ + +Outlines of Christian Doctrine. + +By the Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, M.A., Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. +Fifth Thousand. + + "Marked throughout by the most careful and critical knowledge of + Scripture, more particularly of the New Testament, and the most + patient weighing and comparison of parallel texts.... It forms an + admirable introduction to the subject, and seems in intellectual + power to even surpass any other of Mr. Moule's published + writings."--_Record._ + +An Introduction to the New Testament. + +By Rev. Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. Now Ready. Fourth Edition. + + "The authenticity, authorship, history, object, and general + character of each book are discussed with admirable condensation and + lucidity, and with ample critical knowledge."--_Scotsman._ + +A Manual of Christian Evidences. + +By the Rev. C. A. ROW, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul's. Fifth Thousand. + + "A veritable _multum in parvo_, clear, cogent, and concise, without + being sketchy or superficial."--_Saturday Review._ + +An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. + +By the Rev. Professor B. B. WARFIELD, D.D. Third Thousand. + +A Hebrew Grammar. + +By the Rev. W. H. LOWE, M.A., Joint Author of "A Commentary on the +Psalms," etc., etc.; Hebrew Lecturer, Christ's College, Cambridge. +Second Thousand. + +An Exposition of the Apostles' Creed. + +By the Rev. J. E. YONGE, M.A., Late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, +and Assistant-Master in Eton College. + +A Manual of the Book of Common Prayer. + +_Showing its History and Contents._ + +By the Rev. CHARLES HOLE, B.A., King's College, London. + +A Manual of Church History. + +By the Rev. A. C. JENNINGS, M.A. In Two Vols. + + Vol. I.--From the First to the Tenth Century. + Vol. II.--From the Eleventh to the Nineteenth Century. + + + + +_COMPLETION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT._ + + +THE SERMON BIBLE. + +Each Volume contains upwards of Five Hundred Sermon Outlines and Several +Thousand References. Strongly bound in half buckram. + +_Price 7s. 6d. each._ + +VOLUME I. + +Genesis to 2 Samuel. + + "A very complete guide to the sermon literature of the present + day."--_Scotsman._ + + "We do not hesitate to pronounce this the most practically useful + work of its kind at present extant. It is not a commentary, but a + _Thesaurus_ of sermons on texts arranged consecutively, chapter + after chapter and book after book.... We are bound to say that the + object announced by the compilers is on the way to be realised, and + here will be given the essence of the best homiletic literature of + this generation."--_Literary Churchman._ + +VOLUME II. + +1 Kings to Psalm LXXVI. + + "Preachers anxious to discover the best books out of which they may + discover golden thoughts on any particular text, for use in their + sermons, will doubtless be glad of the volume before us, which aims + at being a guide-book, pointing out where sermons and articles on + those texts may be found. In addition to this, extracts from sermons + are given in the book itself."--_English Churchman._ + + "A hearty word of commendation can be said of the selected and + condensed outlines of sermons in this volume, most of which are by + well-known preachers. They will be of considerable + service."--_Nonconformist._ + +VOLUME III. + +Psalm LXXVII. to The Song of Solomon. + + "Like its two predecessors, the third volume is distinguished by the + perfect catholicity of the selections, the admirable condensation of + the sermons and expositions that are quoted, and the fulness of the + references to the best sermon literature on each of the texts. It is + beyond question the richest treasury of modern homiletics which has + ever issued from the press."--_Christian Leader._ + +VOLUME IV. + +Isaiah to Malachi. + + "A marvellous amount of information is here presented in compact and + readable form at a very moderate price."--_Methodist Recorder._ + + "A great number of the best contemporary sermons are here rendered + generally available in a very convenient form, and at a very low + price indeed."--_Literary Churchman._ + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: The Book of +Exodus, by G. A. 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