upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.-And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever(e)." "And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass when your children shall say, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the houses of the Egyptians, and delivered our houses (f)." Thus did God institute the feast of the Passover, and command that it should be kept every year by the Israelites, in memorial of his having passed over the houses of the Israelites when he destroyed the first-born of all the Egyptians. And the lamb sacrificed at this feast, is to be considered as typical of the sacrifice of Christ, our great deliverer from more than Egyptian bondage. say, The Children of Israel were also directed by Moses "to borrow (or, as it should have been translated, (e) Ex. c. 12. v. 13 and 14. translated, to ask (g) of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment. And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent (or gave) unto them such things as they required; and they spoiled the Egyptians (h)." The spoil which the Israelites were to carry away from the Egyptians, may be considered as some compensation for their labour, and for the hardships they had suffered in their land, or as a tribute they received from a conquered (g) Vide Shuckford, book 9, and Josephus, Ant. lib. 2. c. 14, and Whiston's note in loc. (h) Ex. c. 12. v. 35 and 36. Harmer's Observations upon the customs which have existed in the East from remote antiquity, and are still generally prevalent, respecting the giving, receiving, and asking for presents, will throw great light upon this passage: "King Solomon, it is said, 1 Kings, c. 10. v. 13, gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, besides that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. This appears strange to us, but it is agreeable to modern eastern usages, which are allowed to to have been derived from remote antiquity.... The practice is very common to this day in the East; it is not there looked upon as any degradation to dignity, or any mark of rapacious meanness." Obs. 203. vol. 4.-The gifts of the Egyptians, therefore, might be both an acknowledgment of superiority, and a mark of kindness; but unless the enslaved Israelites had received an express command to ask for gifts, their situation must have precluded all ideas of friendly intercourse between them and the Egyptians. conquered nation; for, it should be remembered, they had an express command, to take this spoil with them, from the Sovereign of the Universe, whose authority Pharaoh had so long disputed. At the time appointed, "it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born of the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle(i);" but not a single Israelite was destroyed. Pharaoh, terrified by this instance of divine vengeance, hastily sent for Moses and Aaron, and commanded that they and all the Israelites should immediately depart from Egypt. Accordingly, the children of Israel, who were already prepared, by the word of the Lord, for their departure, assembled, "and journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about 600,000 on foot, that were men, beside children (k). And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle (1)." The children of Israel departed from Egypt 430 years after Abraham's first (i) Ex. c. 12. v. 29. (k) If we include women and children, the Israelites could not be less than 1,500,000, which was a vast increase from seventy persons in about two hundred years. (1) Ex. c. 12. v. 37 and 38. first arrival in the land of Canaan, 215 of which were passed by him and his descendants in Canaan, and the other 215 in Egypt. God was pleased to direct the journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness of the Red Sea (m). " And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light (n)." When Pharaoh heard that the children of Israel had fled, he pursued them with his army, and overtook them the sixth day as they were encamped near the Red Sea. Alarmed at the appearance of danger, they murmured against Moses. Then Moses, by the command of God, stretched forth his hand towards the Red Sea, and the waters were divided, and a part of the sea became dry land: "The children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left (o)," until they had all passed over. Pharaoh and his host pursued them into the sea, and when they were in the midst of it, Moses, by the command of God, again stretched forth (m) The Red Sea was so called, because it joined the land of Edom, or of Esau, which in Hebrew signifies red. (n) Ex. ch. 13. v. 21. (0) Ex. ch. 14. v. 22. forth his hand, and the sea returned to its natural state, and drowned all the Egyptians. This miracle, although at the time it greatly impressed the minds of the Israelites, and caused them to join in a song of thanksgiving (p) to God for their deliverance, did not produce permanent gratitude, or any settled confidence in the mercy of God (q). The land of the Philistines was the nearest way from Egypt to Canaan; but it pleased God to conduct the Israelites through the wilderness (r) or desert of Arabia, which lay between the river Jordan, the mountains of Gilead, and the river (p) This is the most antient hymn now extant. (q) Had we been left ignorant of the corruption of human nature, the conduct of the Israelites, during the long course of their history, would have been inexplicable, if not incredible. (r) We are not to imagine that every part of the wilderness was uninhabited. As we mention the country in contradistinction to cities or chief towns, so the deserts and wildernesses seem to have been mentioned in antient times. We are told, 1 Sam. ch. 25. that Nabal and his family dwelt in the wilderness of Paran. Different parts of the wilderness took their names from adjacent places. See Psalm 74. v. 14. Jeremiah, c. 9. v. 10. Joel, ch. 1. v. 20. and thus the difficulty of understanding how the multitudes, which followed John the Baptist into the wilderness from the cities, could subsist, will immediately vanish. |