34. B.C. 1571 to 1491

B.C. 1571 to 1491

Chapter I

Timeline View:

1. The posterity of Jacob’s sons remained in the land of Goshen, increasing with prodigious rapidity, through the special blessing of Providence, who designed to multiply them soon into a nation. For many years we know little more of them; but it may be observed that Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph, instructed by their father to prefer the lot of God’s chosen people, very early joined the Israelites in Goshen, and followed the same mode of life. All went on very well until the accession of a new dynasty to the throne of Lower Egypt—probably a foreign dynasty from Upper Egypt, which knew little and cared less for the memory and services of Joseph. The new government contemplated with alarm the position occupied by an active, closely united, and rapidly increasing body of foreigners in the land of Goshen. It was considered that, unless means were taken to reduce and keep down their numbers, their power would soon be too great for the Egyptians to control. While the troops were elsewhere employed they might get possession of the country, or might at any time ruin Egypt, by going over to its enemies in time of war.

2. Much of this alarm obviously arose from the fact of their living apart by themselves, in Goshen, so that their aggregate mass was so apparent as to inspire the Egyptians with apprehension, and the Israelites with confidence. Had they been dispersed over Egypt, and intermixed with the native population, nothing of this could have been felt. Knowing how, under ordinary circumstances, a population may be kept in check by oppression and labor, the Egyptian government determined to reduce the free-born Israelites to the condition of serfs, requiring them to “serve with rigor” in the public works—to dig canals, to cultivate the ground, to build towns and granaries, and to make the sun-dried bricks, compacted with straw, of which they were constructed. Task-masters were set over them to exact the full amount of labor; and those who failed were subjected to severe punishments. But although the yoke upon Israel was made very heavy, the population was not checked. The more they were oppressed, the more their numbers increased. Perceiving this, the king determined to resort to more decisive measures, and enjoined the Hebrew midwives to destroy every male infant in the birth. Fearing God more than they feared the king, the midwives disregarded this barbarous order. But, determined not to be balked in his politic design, Pharaoh no longer stooped to indirect and secret measures, but openly commanded that every male child thenceforth born should be thrown into the river Nile.

3. In those days, Jochebed, the wife of Amram, of the tribe of Levi, gave birth to a son. She had already two children, a son named Aaron, and a daughter called Miriam. For three months the mother managed to save her infant from its doom; and then, finding that she could hide him no longer, she placed him among the flags beside the river, in a basket which had been daubed with slime to keep the water out. In the good providence of God, who intended this infant for great deeds, it happened that he had not lain there long before the king’s daughter came to the spot, attended by her maidens, to bathe. Perceiving the basket she sent for it, and was much struck by the extreme beauty of the child, and moved by its infant wail. She knew that it must be a Hebrew child, but resolved to save it; and sent Miriam—who had been watching the result—to find a nurse for him. She brought the mother, who joyfully received the charge of nursing her own infant for the king’s daughter.

4. In due time the boy was taken home to the princess, who became attached to him, regarded him as her son, and gave him the name of Moses (from the water), because she had saved him from the water. He was duly instructed in the learning and science of the Egyptians—who were then, perhaps, the most cultivated people in the world; and it is said that in due time he rose to high employments, and rendered important services to the state.[*] At length, it seems to have been considered necessary that he should, by some legal form or ceremony, be recognized as “the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,” to qualify him for higher distinctions than he had yet attained. But when it came to this point, he refused the proposed adoption, and chose rather to take his part with the oppressed people to whom he by birth belonged. He repaired to the land of Goshen, and became an eye-witness of the misery which they still suffered. One day, seeing an Egyptian task-master beating an Israelite, he fell upon him, slew him, and hid his body in the sand. The next day, in endeavoring to pacify two quarrelling Israelites, he was treated with insult, and jeeringly reminded of what he had done the day before. Alarmed at finding that the deed was known, and fearing the vengeance of the Egyptians, Moses fled from the country without delay; being then forty years of age.

[*] This is not said in the Biblical narrative. But it is probable m itself, is affirmed by Josephus (Antiq. ii. 10), and is more than hinted at by St. Stephen, who, alluding to this period of Moses’ life, says, he was “mighty in word and deed” (Acts 7).

5. Moses travelled eastward, and came to a territory on the eastern arm of the Red Sea, occupied by a branch of the family descended from Midian, one of Abraham’s sons by Keturah. Here, while resting beside a well, he interfered to protect seven young women of the country from some shepherds, and drew for them the water their flocks required. This led to his introduction to the father of these damsels, Jethro, the prince and priest of Midian, who persuaded the stranger from Egypt to take the charge of his flocks, and gave him in marriage Zipporah, one of his daughters. By her he had two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. Forty years Moses fed the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law-at proper seasons leading them for pasture to the well-watered valleys of the Sinai mountains. At the end of that time, when he was in this quarter, hard by the Mount Horeb, he was startled at seeing a bush burning, and yet remaining unconsumed. He advanced to examine this wonder; and as he drew near, the voice of God called to him by name from out of the bush, forbidding him to come nearer, and admonishing him to take the sandals from his feet in reverence of the Divine presence, which rendered holy the ground on which he stood. The Voice then proceeded to announce that the cries of the oppressed Hebrews had entered heaven, and that the time was now come to bring them forth from Egypt, and give them possession of the Promised Land.

6. Moses himself was then required to become the agent for working their deliverance; but he shrunk from the responsibilities and care of this great commission. He excused himself by reason of his wanting that persuasive speech which had power over men. But, to meet this, his eloquent brother Aaron was joined in the commission; and when Moses persisted, on the ground that the Israelites were not likely to listen to him, or to believe that he had been sent by the God of their fathers, he was empowered to work miracles for their conviction. No longer able to refuse, Moses took leave of Jethro, and returned to Egypt; and as he approached the land of Goshen, was met by Aaron, who had in a dream been warned of his coming. The brothers called together the elders of Israel, and Moses opened to them his commission, and confirmed it by the appointed miracles. Having satisfied them, they all repaired to the court of the reigning king, of whom Moses demanded, in the name of Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, that the descendants of Israel should be allowed to quit his dominions. The Egyptians had, however, by this time, found out the value of their forced services, and the king flatly refused to listen to so extraordinary a proposal. Indeed, affecting to consider such vain notions the effect of idleness, he directed their labors to be increased, and their bondage to be made more bitter.

7. Moses was then obliged to resort to “the plagues,” which he was commissioned to inflict, in order to compel Pharaoh to consent to their departure, and at the same time to demonstrate the greatness and power of the God whom the Hebrews worshipped. The heart of Pharaoh was very hard, and it required a succession of the most terrible inflictions to extort his consent. The waters were changed into blood; frogs, lice, and gnats, successively inundated the land; a murrain destroyed the cattle; the people were afflicted with painful and noisome ulcers; a tremendous hail-storm destroyed the fruits of the ground; clouds of locusts consumed all that the hail had left; and this was followed by a thick darkness which overspread all the land except that part which the Israelites occupied. By some cunning sleight, a few o these miracles were imitated by the Egyptian magicians, which much encouraged Pharaoh in his obstinacy. At times he wavered; but as at the end of all these plagues he still remained inexorable, one last and terrible infliction was threatened, and Moses was apprised that it would be effectual. This was no less than the sudden death of all the first-born in Egypt. Accordingly at midnight, the first-born, from the highest to the lowest, were smitten, and there was no house from which came not the wail for the dead. This calamity, like the others, touched not the Israelites, whose door-posts were sprinkled with the blood of a lamb offered up in sacrifice to God, according to his previous appointment. And that the memory of this signal distinction, when the Destroyer passed over the blood-sprinkled doors of the Israelites, and smote the first-born of the Egyptians only, might be preserved to all generations, the Lord instituted the feast of the Passover;[*] and as a further memorial, he directed that the first born should henceforth be set apart for his service. Exodus 7-13.

[*] This feast has been mentioned before, See page 116.

8. Although the king of Egypt had held out so long, his people had before this been anxious that the Israelites should be dismissed; and now they were no longer to be restrained. With their dead around them, and not knowing what might befall them next, they insisted on the instant departure of the Israelites. The king was not able to resist the popular impulse, and perhaps was not at the moment willing, for the first-born of the throne lay also dead. He gave his permission, and the people in every possible way urged and hastened their going forth. The Hebrews, however, took this opportunity of universal consternation to demand[1] the wages of their long and laborious services; and the Egyptians in their eagerness to get them out of the country, were in no humor to contest the matter, but hastened to load them with “jewels of gold and jewels of silver,” together with costly raiment. This, together with their numerous flocks and herds, caused the Israelites to go forth from Egypt a wealthy people. They had also become very numerous; for the men fit to bear arms amounted to six hundred thousand, which implies a total population of about two and a half millions;[2] besides these there was a large “mixed multitude,” which chose rather to take their part with the Israelites Than to remain in Egypt. Very probably a large proportion of these were foreigners who had, like the Israelites, been held in slavery by the Egyptians: the rest may have been Egyptians of the lower and more despised orders. At all events, this “mixed” body appears from the history to have formed the rabble of the immense multitude that quitted Egypt 215 years after Jacob and his family entered that country, and 430 years after the founder of the family went to the land of Canaan.

[1] Incorrectly rendered “borrow” in our version.

[2] Thus, the men fit to bear arms are seldom half the entire male population; and this again must be doubled for the females, who are never less, and generally more numerous than the males.

9. The ends for which that family had been sent into Egypt were now completely answered. Under the protection of the most powerful people in those parts, and in one of the most fertile countries of the world, they had rapidly multiplied into a great nation; so that, notwithstanding the ill feeling which ultimately prevailed, Egypt had been compelled to act as a nursing mother to Israel. During their residence in Egypt, the original character of the Israelites had been somewhat modified by intimacy with Egyptian habits and ideas, and by familiarity with Egyptian modes of life, though to a less degree than might have happened, had they not lived so much apart by themselves in the land of Goshen. Nevertheless, they must have acquired a knowledge of agriculture, and of the arts of settled and social life in which the Egyptians excelled, and so far they had undergone a useful training for their destined condition. And inasmuch as it was the divine intention that they should exchange the comparative inertness of pastoral life for the cares and labors of agriculture, even the bitter bondage in Egypt may, in its real effect, have been a serviceable schooling of the nation into those habits of regular industry which their destined condition would require. On the other hand, the iron of their bondage had entered into their soul; their religion had become tainted with the superstitions of Egypt; and their mind and character had acquired the hue which continued bondage never fails to impart. They had become a timid, selfish, vain, idle, suspicious, unconfiding, mean, and ungenerous people. It soon appeared that the generation which quitted Egypt was utterly unfit to enter Canaan; and several generations passed before the taint of the Egyptian bondage was wholly purged from the blood of Israel.