PROFESSOR G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—In Exodus, as in the later chapters of Genesis, almost every custom recorded can be confirmed either from the ancient accounts of Egyptian manners which have come down to us, or from the monuments, or from both—Hist. 74.
Oppression of the Hebrews
ARISTOTLE.—One woman in Egypt, at four births, brought forth twenty children; for she had five at a time, and the greater part of them were reared. Hist. Anim., lib. vii., c. 4.
PLINY.—When a greater number of children than three is produced at one birth, it is looked upon as portentous; except, indeed, in Egypt, where the water of the Nile, which is used for drink, is a promoter of fecundity—Hist. Nat., lib. vii., c. 3.
JOHN KENRICK, M. A.—This points to a change of dynasty; and the commencement of the new monarchy, rather than the succession of a sovereign of the same family. Pharaoh, not being a personal name, its recurrence is no proof that one sovereign is intended throughout. After the expulsion of the Hyksos, the Israelites, who, though not the same, were closely connected with them, naturally became an object of alarm, and the kings of the 18th dynasty endeavored first to check their increase and then to break their spirit.—Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, II., 267.
Exod. 1:9-119And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: 10Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. 11Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. (Exodus 1:9‑11).—And he said unto his people, Behold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also to our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them, up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities (cities of store, or depots), Pithom and Raamses.
JOHN KENRICK, M. A.—Besides erecting monuments of stone, this monarch, Thothmes III., appears to have been the author of extensive constructions of bricks. Egypt affords abundant material for this manufacture, and a few days' ,exposure to the sun hardens them sufficiently, unless they are to be subject to the action of water. Bricks bearing his titular shield, the scarabœus, the crenellated parallelogram, and the disk of the sun, are more common than those of any other sovereign. There is a tomb at Thebes, the inscriptions of which show, that its occupant, Roschere, was superintendent of the great buildings, in the reign of Thothmes III.: on its walls the operation of brick-making is represented. Men are employed, some in working up the clay with an instrument resembling the Egyptian hoe, others of them in carrying loads of it on their shoulders, molding it into bricks, and transporting them, by means of a yoke laid across the shoulders, to the place where they are to be laid out for drying in the sun. The physiognomy and color of most of those who are thus engaged show them to be foreigners, and their aquiline nose and yellow complexion suggest the idea that they are Jews. Their labor is evidently compulsory; Egyptian taskmasters stand by with sticks in their hands; and though one or two native Egyptians appear among them, we may easily suppose that they have been condemned to hard labor for their crimes. As the foreigners do not resemble any of the nations with whom Thothmes carried on war, and who are well known from the paintings and reliefs of subsequent monarchs, it is not probable that they are captives taken in war. They can therefore hardly be any other than the Israelites, whom we know from their own history to have been employed in this drudgery. Their oppression began with the accession of the 18th dynasty, and the expulsion of their kindred Hyksos. It was a natural fear, that when any war fell out they should join themselves to the enemies of Egypt, and fight against her. The kings of Egypt, therefore, while they endeavored by a cruel expedient to prevent their increase, and by hard labor to break their spirit, employed that labor to strengthen the frontier on the side of Arabia and Palestine, whence their danger came. The valley of Goshen, which was their place of settlement, was the direct road from Palestine to Memphis. By employing them to build two fortresses, Raamses at the eastern, and Pithom at the western extremity of this valley, the Pharaohs provided at once a barrier against future invasions and the means of keeping the children of Israel in subjection. Both these objects were important to a sovereign like Thothmes, who, during his Mesopotamian expeditions, must have left his country exposed to his neighbors, and whose long absences might tempt revolt.—Egypt under the Pharaohs, II., 194.,
PLINY.—It is asserted by most persons that the only motive for constructing the Pyramids of Egypt was, either a determination on the part of the monarchs not to leave their treasures to their successors, or to rivals that might be plotting to supplant them, or to prevent the lower classes from remaining unoccupied.—His. Nat., lib. 36., c. 16.
ARISTOTLE.—It is the policy of a tyrant to render his subjects poor; that he may be compelled to maintain a guard against them; and that they, being engaged in procuring their daily food, may have no time for plots and conspiracies—Polit., lib. v., c.
PROF. G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—Notwithstanding the great abundance of stone in Egypt, and the fact that most of the grander buildings were constructed of this material, yet there was also an extensive employment of brick in the country. Pyramids, houses, tombs, the walls of towns, fortresses, and the sacred enclosures of temples, were commonly, or, at any rate, frequently, built of brick by the Egyptians. A large portion of the brick-fields belonged to the monarch, for whose edifices bricks were made in them, stamped with his name. Immense masses of bricks are now found at Belbers, the modern capital of Tharkiya, i. e., Goshen, and in the adjoining district—.Hist. Illust. of O. T., p. 71.
Exod. 1:15, 1615And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: 16And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. (Exodus 1:15‑16).—And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, and said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
HENRY HAYMAN, B. D.—That women practiced midwifery among the Egyptians is a fact verified from the sculptures.—Smith's Dict. of the Bible, III., p. 1855.
PROF. G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—A strong confirmation of the Mosaic narrative has been obtained by modern inquiry; the curious expression, when ye see them upon the stools, being in remarkable accordance with the modern Egyptian practice, as stated by Mr. Lane. " Two or three days," he says, " before the expected time of delivery, the layah (midwife) conveys to the house the kursee elwiladeh, a chair of peculiar form, upon which the patient is to be seated during the birth."—In Smith's Dict. of the Bible, III., 1929.
ROBERTS.—The females of the East are not accouched as their sex are in England. Instead of reclining on a couch or a bed, they sit on a stool about sixteen inches high, or on the rice-mortar inverted. —Orient. Illust., p. 61.
Exod. 3.—And when Jochebed could not longer hide the child, she took for him an ark of bulrushes (papyrus), and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
PLINY AND LUCAN.—Pliny speaks of the “naves papyraceas armentaqui Nili"—the boats made of the papyrus, and the equipments of the Nile. And Lucan, the poet, has, “conseritur bibula Memphitis cymba papyro "—the Memphian (or Egyptian) boat is made of the thirsty papyrus.—Prof. Bush, Notes In loco.
PROF. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M. A.—The practice of making boats out of the papyrus is specially Egyptian, and was not in vogue elsewhere. It is distinctly mentioned by Herodotus, Plutarch, and, many other ancient writers, and is thought to be traceable on the monuments. The caulking of these boats with pitch and bitumen, a practice not mentioned anywhere but in Exodus, is highly probable in itself; and is so far in accordance with the Remains, that both pitch and bitumen are found to have been used by the Egyptians—Hist. of the O. T., p. 78.
INSCRIPTION OF SARGON.—I am Sargina, the great King; the King of Agani. I knew not my father: my family were the rulers of the land. My city was the city of Atzu-pirani, which is on the banks of the river Euphrates. My mother conceived me: in a secret place she brought me forth: she placed me in an ark of bulrushes: with bitumen my door she closed up: she threw me into the river, which did not enter into the ark to me. The river carried me: to the dwelling of Akki, the water-carrier, it brought me. Akki, the water-carrier, in his goodness of heart lifted me up from the river. Akki; the water-carrier, brought me up as his own son. Akki, the water-carrier, placed me with a tribe of Foresters. Of this tribe of Foresters Ishtar made me king: and for.... years I reigned over them.—Records of the Past, Vol. V., p. 3 and 56.
PLUTARCH. —Faustulus, pursuant to his orders, hid the children in a small trough cradle, and went down towards the river with a design to cast them in; but seeing it very rough, and running with a strong current, he was afraid to approach it. He therefore laid it down near the bank and departed—Romul., c. 3.
Exod. 5.—And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and the
maidens walked along the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
SIR GEORGE WILKINSON.—The bath is frequently visited by Eastern ladies, and may be reckoned among their principal recreations. Those Egyptians, who lived at the earliest period of which we have any account, were in the habit of bathing in the waters of the Nile. In one of the tombs at Thebes there is found a striking representation of an Egyptian bathing scene—a lady with four female servants, who attend upon her, and perform various offices-forcibly reminding us of the daughter of Pharaoh.—Ancient Egypt., III., 389.
Moses in the Land of Midian
DIODORUS SICULUS.—He that willfully killed a free man, or even a slave, was by the law of Egypt to die—Diod. Sic., lib. i., c. 77.
DR. W. M. THOMSON.—Who that has traveled much in the East has not often arrived at a well in the heat of the day which was surrounded with numerous flocks of sheep waiting to be watered? I once saw such a scene in the burning plains of northern Syria. Half-naked, fierce-looking men were drawing up water in leather buckets; flock after flock was brought up, watered, and sent away; and, after the men had ended their work, then several women and girls brought up their flocks and drew water for them. Thus it was with Jethro's daughters when Moses stood up and aided them; and thus, no doubt, it would have been with Rachel, if Jacob had not rolled away the stone and watered her sheep. I have frequently seen wells closed up with large stones, though in this part of the country it is not commonly done, because water is not so scarce and precious. It is otherwise, however, in the, dreary deserts.—The Land and the Book, II., 399.
WILLIAM LATHAM BEVAN, M. A.—It was a mark of reverence to cast off the shoes in approaching a place or person of eminent sanctity: hence the command to Moses at the bush, and to Joshua in the presence of the angel. In deference to these injunctions the priests are said to have conducted their ministrations in the Temple barefoot; and the Talmudists even forbade any person to pass through the Temple with shoes on. This reverential act was not peculiar to the Jews; in ancient times we have instances of it in the worship of Cybele at Rome; in the worship of Isis as represented in a picture at Herculaneum; and in the practice of the Egyptian priests, according to Sil. Ital. iii., 28. In modern times we may compare the similar practice of the Mohammedans of Palestine before entering a Mosque, and particularly before entering the Kaaba at Mecca; of the Yezidis of Mesopotamia before entering the tomb of their patron Saint; and of the Samaritans as they head the summit of Mount Gerizim.—In Smith's Dict. of Bible, IV., p. 2837.
TACITUS.—The soil of Syria is rich and fruitful. In all those fruits of the earth which are common with us, they abound; and besides this they enjoy the Palm-tree, and that which produces balm. The palms are lofty and beautiful. —Hist., lib. v., c. 6.
PLINY.—The more remarkable quality of the dates of Judea is a rich and unctuous juice; they are of a milky consistency, and have a sort of vinous flavor, with a remarkable sweetness like that of honey.— Hist. Nat., lib. xiii., c. 9.
PROF. H. B. TRISTRAM, M. A., F. L. S., etc.—The visitor to the Wady Kurn, when he sees the busy multitudes of bees about its cliffs, cannot but recall to mind the promise, "With honey out of the stony rock would I have satisfied thee." There is no epithet of the Land of Promise more true to the letter, even to the present day, than this, that it was "A land flowing with milk and honey."—Land of Israel, p. 88.
Exod. 3:14.—And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hash sent me unto you.
PLATO.—We say a thing was, is, or will be, while, according to truth, the term it is is alone suitable, was and will be being expressions only suitable to generation which proceeds through time; whereas what exists eternally the same and immovable, neither becomes at any time older or younger, neither has it been generated in the past, nor will be in the future.— Timœus, c. 10.
PLUTARCH.—We must confess that God Is, and that, not with reference to time, but as being eternal and immutable, whom nothing can be before or after, past or future, younger or older. Being essentially one, his eternity is included in a present existence; the always in the now. And God alone can thus truly be said to be, having neither a past nor a future existence, having neither beginning nor end. By this name then, when worshipping Him, we ought to salute and call upon Him. The Deity is to be addressed by the name Eî,—Thou Art, because in Him there is no variableness or change. The word Eî is an expression of admiration and reverence addressed to God as an eternal Being.—De Ei apud Delph., c. 19, 20, 21.
REV. HENRY HAYMAN, B. D.—One principal feature of leprosy is a bright white spot, but especially a white swelling in the skin, with a change of the hair of the part from the natural black to white or yellow.—In Smith's Dict. of Bible, II., p. 1631.
Exod. iv: to, it.—And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I, the Lord?
THE COMPILER.—Here the organs of speech are affirmed to be the work of God, and the ability to employ them his gift. This is true, and the proof is sufficiently manifest in the marvels of the endowment itself. In order to ready and accurate utterance the mouth itself must be so constituted that its several parts shall be capable of assuming a distinct configuration for every word and every sound. The proper muscles must bring instantaneously the jaws, the teeth, and the lips into their precise position. Each syllable of articulated sound also requires for its utterance a specific action of the tongue; and to qualify this member for its marvelous office, its muscles are required to be, so numerous, and so implicated with one another, that they cannot be traced by the minutest dissection; yet all must be so arranged that neither their number, nor their complexity, nor the entanglement of their fibers, shall in anywise impede its motion, or in any degree render its action uncertain. And nothing is more remarkable in all the living world than the variety, quickness and precision of motion, of which the tongue is capable. How instantaneously are its positions assumed, and how instantaneously dismissed! How numerous are its permutations, yet how infallible! Besides all this, from the back part of the mouth, there must be opened a passage of remarkable construction for the admission of air into and out of the lungs; and connected with this are whole systems of muscles, some in the larynx, and without number in the tongue, for the purpose of modulating that air in its passage with the requisite variations, compass, and precision. And lastly, there must be a specific contrivance for dividing the pneumatic part from the mechanical, and for preventing one set of actions interfering with the other.
Nothing, can exceed the exactness and perfection required, in all these parts, in order to the ready, accurate, and clear utterance of the mind's thoughts. “I am speaking to you this moment," says Prof. Huxley, " but if you were to alter, in the minutest degree, the proportion of the nervous forces now active in the two nerves which supply the muscles of my glottis, I should become suddenly dumb. The voice is produced, only so long as the vocal cords are parallel; and these are parallel only so long as certain muscles contract with exact equality; and that again depends on the equality of action of those two nerves I spoke of, So that a change of the minutest kind in the structure of one of these nerves, or in the structure of the part in which it originates, or of the supply of blood to that part, or of one of the muscles to which it is distributed, might render all of us dumb."
Such is the apparatus of speech—an apparatus the most complicated and yet the most perfect in its structure, the most delicate in its adjustments and yet the most infallible in its operations—an organism of inestimable advantages as well as of unfathomable consequences to man; the organism, indeed, which gives to him his power and pre-eminence over all the living tenants of the globe, and without which he never could attain his high intellectual and moral destiny. In the marvelous organs of speech, then, we have indisputable and convincing evidences that they are, as the Scripture before us affirms, the work of none other khan of Him who possesses infinite knowledge, skill and power. This is the 'instant and instinctive decision of natural reason.—See Present Conflict of Science with Religion, by the Compiler, p. 234-236.
XENOPHON.—From the gods it is that we have received the gift of speech.— Memor., lib. iv., c. 3.
PLUTARCH.—Of all those things that are in man, there is nothing more divine than the gift of speech.—De Isid. et Osirid., c. 68.
QUINTILIAN.—Eloquence is the greatest blessing which the immortal gods have given to mankind.—Quintl., lib. xii., c. II.
PROF. GEORGE BUSH.—The region of Sinai is abundantly strewed with flints, or sharp stones. —Notes In loco.
PROF. HORATIO B. HACKETT, D. D., LL. D.—It is well known that in the Sinaitic Peninsula stone or flint knives have often been discovered on opening ancient places of sepulture. The Abyssinian tribes at the present day use flint knives in performing circumcision. Stone knives in early times were common in Egypt.—In Smith's Dict. of the Bible, II., p. 1573.
The Hebrews' Task Increased
Exod. 5:1, 21And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. 2And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. (Exodus 5:1‑2).—And Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.
EGYPTIAN INSCRIPTIONS.—The spirit and style of language ascribed by Moses to Pharaoh, such as, "Who is the Lord," " I know not the Lord," " I am Pharaoh," etc., are in striking accord with what has been discovered in the ancient Papyri and wall Inscriptions; the same sublime and unconscious egotism appears in both. “I am Ra in the land of the living," says one inscription. “Even from thy birth thou hast been as God," says another. “The king is as God," declares the papyrus of Prisse d'Avennes.—See Faith and Free Thought, p. 220.
PROF. G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—Chopped straw was an ordinary material in the bricks, being employed as hair by modern plasterers, to bind them together, and make them more firm and durable.—Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament, p. 71.
SIR J. G. WILKINSON.—The use of crude brick, baked in the sun, was universal in Upper and Lower Egypt, both for public and private buildings. Enclosures of gardens, granaries, sacred circuits encompassing the courts of temples, walls of fortifications and towers, dwelling-houses and tombs, in short, all but the temples themselves, were of crude brick. So great was the demand for them, that the Egyptian government, observing the profit that would accrue to the revenue from the monopoly of them, undertook to supply the public at a moderate price, thus preventing all unauthorized persons from engaging in their manufacture. And in order to obtain more effectually their end, the seal of the king, or of some privileged person, was stamped upon the bricks at the time that they were made. Now, it is manifest from the sacred narrative, though the fact is not expressly stated there or by any ancient writer, that the bricks were made under the immediate direction of the king through his officers.
And this renders more interesting and important the above incidental corroboration which the study of Egyptian antiquities has recently produced.—Ancient Egyptians, II., p. 26 and 79.
SIR J. G. WILKINSON.—Stubble and straw both existed in ancient Egypt, wheat being occasionally cut with a portion of the stalk; while the remainder, or more commonly, the entire stalk, was left standing in the fields. And both stubble and straw have been found in the bricks.—Ancient Egyptians, IV., 5-83, and I., 50.
ROSELLINI.—The bricks which are now found in Egypt belonging to the same period, always have straw mingled with them, although in some of them that are most carefully made it is found in very small quantities—Monumenti dell 'Egitto, II., 252.
PROF. G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—Captives and foreigners commonly did the work in the royal brickfields; and Egyptian taskmasters, with rods in their hands, watched their labors, and punished the idle with blows at their, discretion. The bastinado was a recognized punishment for minor offenses—Hist. Illust. of O. T., 72.
PROF. GEORGE RAWLINSON.—The hearing of complaints and pronouncing of judgments by the king in person, was very usual throughout the East; and the existence of the custom in Egypt is illustrated by many passages in ancient authors. Herodotus notices this custom in ii., 115, 121, etc.—Hist. Mist. of O. T., p. 76.
Divine Titles
ORPHEUS.—I say that the highest of all the Gods is IAO—Apud Macro& Saturn., lib. i., c. 18.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—Moses asserted that the God who is called by the Jews. IAO, was the author of his Laws—Diod. Sic., I., 94.
The Rod Turned Into a Serpent
W. R. COOPER, Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archœology.—An Egyptian painting in the British Museum represents certain priests carrying serpent-shaped sticks in their hands, for with them the cobra or basilisk was the emblem of eternal life; and hence that reptile was called, " the serpent of immortal years.' To this day, in India, the serpent-charmers possess the art, by pressure on the nape of the neck, of throwing the Naja, or spectacle snake, into a rigid, cataleptic position. Be it granted, then, that the magicians of Pharaoh were acquainted with a similar knack, and the whole mystery of their enchantment becomes apparent, for the act of flinging the serpent on the ground would restore it to its original consciousness and vivacity.—Faith and Free Thought. p. 224.
Plague of Blood
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of the Soci. of Bib. Archœology.—Perhaps on no group of subjects has more information been obtained from the monuments of Egypt than on those terrible calamities which are detailed in the 7th and four following chapters of the book of Exodus, and are popularly called the Ten Plagues. Much trifling criticism has been bestowed by infidel critics upon the trifling character of many of these judgments; but that very circumstance attests the authenticity of the narrative, for things deemed of little consequence in later times held then no unimportant rank in the book of Egyptian Theology. Permit me therefore, very briefly to notice these events in their succession, bearing in mind that the purport of all those inflictions was to show the Egyptians that "I am God," for” against all the gods of the Egyptians I will execute judgment, saith the Lord."
The first judgment was the conversion of the waters of Egypt into an apparently sanguineous fluid, revolting to the sight, nauseous to the taste, and offensive to the smell. To Moses, and to the Egyptians, the purport of this miracle of vengeance was obvious, for the Nile was a deity of the country; and at the annual festival of the Niloa, Pharaoh, attended by all his court, paid, in the name of all his people, divine worship to this river. Popular tradition supposed the bounteous Nile to flow from heaven, and a lustral power was attributed to bathing in its waters. Many even of its fishes were venerated and adored, and the figure of one species was worn around the neck as an amulet and an ornament. At the touch of the rod of Moses the water of that river, famous as being the purest and sweetest in all the world, was rendered loathsome and impure; unable to preserve their sacred lives, the deified fishes died under the shadow of their own temples: the celestial river attested the hand of a celestial messenger, and in its blood-stained waves was contained an omen of the destruction of the people who stood around its banks, and whose fathers in years past had reddened its stream with the carcasses of the Hebrew children.—Faith and Free Thought, p. 228, 229.
HERODOTUS.—To all rivers the Egyptians pay extreme veneration; they will neither spit, wash their hands, nor throw any filth into any of them, and a violation of this custom may not happen with impunity.—Clio, c. 138.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—The Egyptians account their river Nile to be Oceanus, on whose banks the birth of the gods took place—Dia. Sic., lib. i., c. 12.
PLUTARCH.—The Nile, the father and Savior of Egypt—Symp., VIII., 8.
IDEM.—There is nothing so much honored among the Egyptians as the river Nile.—De Lid. et Osirid., c. 5.
REGINALD STUART POOLE.—The plague of blood was doubly humiliating to the religion of the country, as the Nile was held sacred, as well as some kinds of its fish, not to speak of the crocodiles which probably were destroyed. It may have been a marked reproof for the cruel edict that the Israelite children should he drowned, and could scarcely have failed to strike guilty consciences as such, though Pharaoh does not seem to have been alarmed by it.—Smith's Dict. of Bible, III., 2540.
Plague of Frogs
Exod. 8:5, 65And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. 6And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. (Exodus 8:5‑6).—And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod, over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up over the land of Egypt. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
H. B. TRISTRAM, LL. D., F. R. S.—The common, and indeed the only water-frog of Egypt, is the edible frog Rana esculenta. It is larger than our common' frog, and generally of a bright green color, prettily spotted. It is found in myriads in all parts of Egypt where there is marsh or water, and its loud croaking by night is perfectly deafening.—Natural History of the Bible, p. 280.
PLINY. —The inhabitants of a district in Gaul were driven from their country by frogs—Hist. Nat., lib. viii., c. 43.
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of Soci. of Bib. Archœology—The plague of frogs was no less significant than that of blood. Pthah, the creator of animal life, was venerated under the special form of a frog, that creature being supposed to be spontaneously generated from the mud of the Nile, by the vivific rays of the sun. From their immense fecundity, the frog and tadpole were used as the hieroglyphics of a million, and the titles “Lord of Life" and "Lord of the Land" were frequently engraved upon the statuettes of this Batrachian. Hence the people of Lower Egypt venerated the frog, and hence their animal worship was rebuked, and the very creatures they venerated were made a torture to them, so that even Pharaoh himself was compelled to exclaim, " Take away these (gods though they be) out of the land.”—Faith and Free Thought, p. 229.
Plague of Lice
Exod. 8:16, 716And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. (Exodus 8:16)
7And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. (Exodus 8:7).—And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And they did so: and it became lice in man and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
PROF. H. B. TRISTRAM, LL. D., F. R. S.—Vermin of all kinds are notoriously abundant in the East—none more so than these disgusting insects, which are harbored everywhere by the filthy habits of the Bedouin and the Fellahin, or country people. But the Egyptians had by no means the Arab indifference to vermin, and no plague could have been more loathsome than this to that people. So scrupulous were they in their cleanliness that, we are told by Herodotus, the priests shaved their heads and persons every third day, lest they should harbor any lice, and so be polluted when performing their religious rites. This, therefore, was more than merely a loathsome visitation; it rendered the whole of that superstitious people ceremonially polluted.—Natural History of the Bible, p. 305.
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of Soci. of Bib. Archœology.—The plague of lice conveyed a warning no less important than that which preceded it. According to both monumental and historical testimony, the strictest care was taken by the priests to avoid defilement by any unclean insect. For this purpose the whole of the body was scrupulously shaved, vestments of woolen were especially forbidden; linen, or linen and cotton united, often washed, and oftener changed, were alone allowed to be used. Stated and repeated ablutions formed a part of the routine life of the sacerdotal orders, and the touch of an unclean insect rendered them ceremonially impure. That plague, therefore, the magicians could not imitate (and doubtless, secretly, did not wish to imitate), as the act would defile themselves, and thereupon came from their lips the reluctant exclamation, “This is the finger of God!”—Faith and Free Thought, p. 230.
Plague of Flies
Exod. 8:21, 2421Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. (Exodus 8:21)
24And the Lord did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. (Exodus 8:24).—If thou wilt not let my people go, behold I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. And the Lord did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies.
EDITOR OF THE PICTORIAL BIBLE. —The original word here translated “flies “is arob, concerning the true meaning of which there exists some difference of opinion. Upon the whole' we strongly incline to the opinion of Oedman, Kalisch and others, that the Egyptian beetle is here intended. All the circumstances which the Scriptures in different places intimate concerning the arob apply with much accuracy to this species. It devours everything that comes in its way, even clothes, books and plants, and does not hesitate to inflict severe bites on man. This beetle is about the size of the common beetle, and its general color is black. It is chiefly distinguished by having a broad white band upon the anterior margin of its oval corslet. That this beetle occupied a conspicuous place among the sacred creatures of the Egyptians seems to be evinced by the fact that there is scarcely any figure which occurs more frequently in Egyptian sculpture and painting. Visitors to the British Museum may satisfy themselves of this fact; and they will also observe a remarkable colossal figure of a beetle in greenish colored granite. Figures of beetles cut in green-colored stone occur very frequently in the ancient tombs of Egypt. They are generally plain, but some have hieroglyphic figures cut on their backs, and others have been found with human heads. If now we conceive that one object of these plagues was to chastise the Egyptians through their own idols, there is no creature of its class which could be more fitly employed than this insect.—See In loco.
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of Sod. of Bib. Archeology.—In the fourth plague, that of Flies, or, as the word implies, Beetles, the Ateuchis Sacer, or Sacred Scarab of the Egyptians, was selected as the minister of vengeance. This insect was a beautiful little beetle, and very abundant, which from its habit of laying its eggs in a ball of mud, and then rolling it to be hatched by the heat of the sun, was supposed to represent the care of the Creator over the world both in forming and preserving it, and was therefore representatively worshipped as the emblem of Kheper Ra, the formator of the world. The multiplication of figures of this insect in all sizes and all materials, from the huge specimen in basalt, nearly five feet across, in the British Museum, down to another in crystal, scarce a quarter of an inch in diameter, in the same collection, was something almost incredible. Every one wore it—sometimes not only one, but as many as fifty—in chains around the neck. It was wrought in the cheapest as well as the costliest stones, from the tender Stealite to the stubborn Jasper. Figures of the Scarabæus were used interchangeably with rings for currency. The living wore it on their fingers; the priests upon their breasts; and the dead, protected by the sacred amulet, were expressly said by the Egyptian liturgy to “pass through the place of dangers, and to await in safety all their transformations."—But now, at the word of Moses, all this was reversed. Willingly or unwillingly, the people in self-defense were compelled to slay their own divinities, and the 24th verse of the 8th chapter of Exodus shows that Kheper Ra, instead of preserving the land which worshipped the beetle, by the myriads of those dead insects, corrupted it.—Faith and Free Thought, p. 230, 231.
HERODOTUS.—The Egyptians put no cattle to death—Euterpe, c. 41.
TACITUS.—The ox, which the Egyptians worship for the god Apis, the Jews sacrifice.— Hist., lib. v., c. 4.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—He that willfully kills any of the sacred beasts of Egypt is put to death; but if any kill a cat, or the bird Ibis, whether intentionally or not, he is dragged away to death by the multitude without any formal trial or judgment. Of an instance of this, I was an eye-witness at the time of my travels into Egypt.—Diod. Sic., lib. i., c. 83.
Plague of Murrain
Exod. 9:1, 2, 3, 61Then the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still, 3Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain. (Exodus 9:1‑3)
6And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. (Exodus 9:6).—The Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me. For if thou refuse to let them go and wilt hold them still, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain,— And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died.
HERODOTUS.—The Egyptians esteem bulls as sacred to Epaphas, and cows are sacred to Isis.— Euterpe, c. 38-41.
IDEM.—The god Apis is the calf of a cow which can have no more young. The Egyptians say that on this occasion, the cow is struck with lightning, and from which she conceives and brings forth Apis.—Thal., c. 28.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—The priests of Egypt hold bulls in great veneration, and renew their mourning for Osiris over the graves of those beasts.—Diod. Ste., lib. i., c. 21.
STRABO.—At Memphis the ox Apis is kept in a sort of sanctuary, and is held to be a god. In front of the sanctuary is a court, in which there is another sanctuary for the dam of Apis. Into this court Apis is let loose at times for the purpose of exhibiting him to strangers.—Strab., XVII., c. I.
IDEM.—Heliopolis contains a temple of the sun, and the ox Mneyis, which is kept in a sanctuary, and is regarded by the inhabitants as a god, as Apis is regarded by the people of Memphis.—Ibid.
IDEM.—At Hermonthis, both Apollo and Jupiter are worshipped. They also keep an ox there.—Ibid.
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of Sod. of Bib. Archœology.—Still the awful signs proceed, and in the fifth, the plague of Murrain, Apis, the bull-god, suffered, with all his bovine tribe,—that Apis, the first of animal deities, one of the incarnations of Osiris, the god of agriculture, and the most popular deity throughout the land of Egypt,—that Apis which was stalled in a golden manger, and fed to the sound of music, with perfumed oats, and straw from golden plates,—that bovine deity, who bleated oracles, and whose very excrements were holy—who was supposed to be born of a virgin cow by the direct influence of the rays of the moon, and upon whose life depended the welfare of Lower Egypt,—that same Apis then became hopelessly smitten with the same murrain whereby the less sacred domestic cattle of Egypt were destroyed. So important was the birth of the Apis, that his discovery was a triumphant festival,—his death a national mourning. That time of mourning was now come. “I am the LORD; and against all the gods of the Egyptians I will execute judgment."—Faith and Free Thought, p. 232.
Plague of Boils
Exod. 9:8-108And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. 9And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt. 10And they took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast. (Exodus 9:8‑10).—And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handsful of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt. And they took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—The goddess Isis used to reveal herself to the people in Egypt in their sleep, when they labored under any disorder, and afforded them relief. Many who placed their confidence in her influence were wonderfully restored—Diod. Sic., I., 25.
IDEM—Orus, the last of the gods who reigned in Egypt, is reported to have learned the science of physic, as well as of prophecy, from his mother Isis. Diod. Sic., I., 25
HERODOTUS.—In Egypt, one physician is confined to the study and management of one disease. There are of course, therefore, a great many who study this art.—Euterpe, c. 84.
PLINY.—The Egyptians will have it that the medical art was first discovered among them—Hist. Nat., VII., 57.
TACITUS.—Many writers concur in the following account: That when Egypt was overrun by a pestilent disease, contaminating living bodies, and very foul to behold, Bacchoris, the king, applying for a remedy to the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, was ordered to purge his kingdom by removing into another country that generation of men (the Hebrews) so detested by the deities. —Hist., V., 3.
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of the Soci. of Bib. Archœology.—The sixth plague converted the Ashes of blessing into the instruments of curse. The priests, by supernatural power the prescriptive doctors of the people, fled from the infliction, and were powerless to cure or to avert it, and hence they and their gods were shown to be inutile. Three treatises on medicine written in ancient hieroglyphics exist; one of these, published by M. Brugsch, and ascribed to the time of Rameses I., treats of the cure of diseases by the use of amulets, incantations and sympathetic remedies—all superstitious, empirical, and absurd to an extreme degree. When, therefore, in the sixth judgment, both physician and patient were attacked by the plague of boils, neither charm nor prayer availed them, no rank excepted, or amulet protected—all suffered alike.—Faith and Free Thought, p. 233.
Plague of Hail
REGINALD STUART POOLE, British Museum.—Hail is now extremely rare, but not unknown, in Egypt, and it is interesting that the narrative seems to imply that it sometimes falls there. Thunder-storms occur, but though very loud and accompanied by rain and wind, they rarely do serious injury.—In Smith's Dict. of the Bible, III., 2542.
LEPSIUS.—In January, 1843, we were surprised by a storm. Suddenly this storm grew to a tremendous hurricane, such as I have never seen in Europe and hail fell upon us in such masses, as almost to turn day into night.—Letters from Egypt, p. 27.
SIR J. G. WILKINSON.—We see on the monuments that cattle were kept, both in the field, where they were liable to be overtaken by the inundation, and also in stalls or sheds.—Cambridge Essays, 1858.
Exod. 9:2323And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. (Exodus 9:23).—And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground (literally, toward the earth); and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail.
PROF. ELIAS Loomis, LL. D.—Large hail seldom if ever falls except during thunder-storms. Large hail is most common about the hottest part of the day. It falls at the commencement of the storm or during its continuance. It very rarely follows rain. Treatise on Meteorology, p. 129.
PROF. ELIAS Loomis, LL. D.—Within (or near) the tropics hail is of rare occurrence at the level of the sea; but when it does occur the stones are generally of very large size. On the 11Th of May, 1855, about 6 P. M., near the Himalaya Mountains, in India, in latitude 29°, hailstones fell weighing from eight to ten ounces, and one or two weighed more than a pound. On the 22nd of May, 1851, in latitude 13° north, in the southern part of India, many hailstones fell about the size of oranges. The quantity of hail which falls from the sky in a single shower is sometimes enormous. On the 17th of August, 1830, in the streets of Mexico, hail fell to the depth of sixteen inches.—Treatise on Meteorology, p. 230, 131.
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of the Sod. of Bib. Archœology—Thus the 7th act of the drama of the Dies Irœ opened with a fearful storm. Rain, which seldom fell in Egypt, was believed to be under the particular control of the Feminine Deities, Isis queen of heaven, Sate goddess of the material sky, and Neith goddess of wisdom. But in this plague, regardless of, and restrainless by, feminine deities, the hail and lightning descended, and, terrified by the awful judgment, the king, disowning his own divinity, declared that he was wicked, a concession of a nature which only those who well understand the Egyptian theology can duly appreciate.—Faith and Free Thought, p. 234.
Exod. 9:31, 3231And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. 32But the wheat and the rie were not smitten: for they were not grown up. (Exodus 9:31‑32).—And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was boiled. But the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not grown up. SIR J. G. WILKINSON.—The representations made by Moses with respect to Egyptian agriculture, feeding of cattle, etc., are borne out both by the ancient remains and the ancient authorities. The cultivation depicted on the monuments is, especially that of wheat, flax, barley, and rye or spelled.—Ancient Egyptians, Vol. II., p. 398
PROF. H. B. TRISTRAM, LL. D., F. R. S.—However late or early the Barley harvest may be, there is always an interval between it and the Wheat harvest, generally not less than three weeks, more frequently a month. In consequence of the earlier ripening of the Barley, it was destroyed in Egypt by the plague of hail, when the wheat escaped.—Natural History of the Bible, p. 421.
PROF. ELIAS Loomis, LL. D.—Hail-storms usually travel rapidly over the country, and often in straight bands of small breadth as compared with their length. Many notable instances of this kind have been observed. On the 13th of July, 1788, a hail-storm traveled from the southwest part of France to the shores of Holland, at the rate of forty-six miles per hour. There were two distinct bands of hail, the breadth of that in the west being eleven miles, and that in the east six miles, with a space of fourteen miles between them. Each band of hail extended a distance of about five hundred miles.—Treatise on Meteorology, p. 132.
Plague of Locusts
Exod. 10:12, 1312And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. 13And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. (Exodus 10:12‑13).—And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch forth thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and at every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts.
PROF. H. B. TRISTRAM, LL. D., F. R. S.—The statement that the plague of locusts arrived in Egypt with an east wind, is confirmed in an interesting manner by modern observations. They are noticed always to come from the east into Egypt, and from the south and southeast into Syria, being in fact nurtured in the wilds of Arabia, and nothing destroys them until they are driven by the wind into the sea, as was the case when, on the intercession of Moses, the west wind drove them into the sea.—Natural History of the Bible, p. 310.
DR. W. M. THOMSON.—For several days previous to the first of June (1845), we had heard that millions of young locusts were on their march up the valley toward our village, and at length I was told that they had reached the lower parts of it. Summoning all the people I could collect, we went to meet and attack them, hoping to stop their progress altogether, or at least to turn aside the line of their march. Never shall I lose the impression produced by the first view of them. I had often passed through clouds of flying locusts, and they always struck my imagination with a sort of vague terror; but these we now confronted were without wings, and about the size of full-grown grasshoppers, which they closely resembled in appearance and behavior. But their number was astounding; the whole face of the mountain was black with them. On they came like a living deluge. We dug trenches and kindled fires, and beat and burped to death heaps upon heaps, but the effort was utterly useless. Wave after wave rolled up the mountain side, and poured over rocks, walls, ditches and hedges, those behind covering up and bridging over the masses already killed. After a long and fatiguing contest, I descended the mountain to examine the depth of the column, but I could not see to the end of it. Wearied with my hard walk over this living deluge, I returned and gave over the vain effort to stop its progress. I have this dreadful picture indelibly fixed on my mind. For several nights after they came to Abeîh, as soon as I closed my eyes the whole earth seemed to be creeping and jumping, nor could I banish the ugly image from my brain.—The Land and the Book, Vol. II., p. 102, 107.
REGINALD STUART POOLE, British Museum.—The severity of the plague bf locusts can be well understood by those who, like the writer, have been in Egypt in a part of the country where a flight of locusts has alighted. In the present day locusts often appear suddenly in the cultivated land, coming from the desert in a column of great length, and where they alight they devour every green thing, even stripping the trees of their leaves. Mr. Lane, writing of, Nubia, says: “Locusts not infrequently commit dreadful havoc in. this country. In my second voyage up the Nile, when before the village of Boostan, a little above Ibreem, many locusts pitched upon the boat. They were beautifully variegated, yellow and blue. In the following night a southerly wind brought other locusts in immense swarms. Next morning the air was darkened by them, as by a heavy fall of snow, and the surface of the river was thickly scattered over by those which had fallen and were unable to rise again. Great numbers came upon and within the boat, and alighted upon our persons. They were different from those of the preceding day, being of a bright yellow color, with brown marks. The desolation they made was dreadful. In four hours a field of young durah (millet) was cropped to the ground. In another field of durah more advanced only the stalks were left. Nowhere was there a space on the ground to set the foot without treading on many. A field of cotton-plants was quite stripped. Even the acacias along the banks were made bare, and palm trees were stripped of the fruit and leaves."—In Smith's Dict. of Bib., III.,. p, 2543.
REV. F. W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—In vain the Arabs who had charge of the convent gardens beat iron pans, and shouted, and brushed them away from the beds with palm leaves; they swarmed in till every green thing was, eaten. The locusts appear to prefer death to a retreat. They swarm up the trees and strip them of every leaf; olives, and even oaks are not spared by them; but they attack the apricots and mulberries first. Sad it was to see the poor people beaten by the overwhelming flights, and hopelessly wringing their hands over their little gardens overrun by the locusts, which crunched up every green thing.—first journey to the Wilderness of Sinai.
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of the Soci. of Bib. Archœ.—As the seventh act of the drama with Storm, so the eighth with locusts, devastated the land, and the trees, which themselves were sacred, the vegetable gods, despised by Juvenal and ridiculed by Pliny—the Pine, the tree of life; the Tamarisk, the tree of knowledge; the Lotus, sacred to the dead; the Papyrus, sacred to the gods, and many lesser vegetables or lesser deities—all were smitten now—all devoured by the locusts! Horror-stricken and confounded, "then Pharaoh called for Moses' and Aaron in haste, and said, I have sinned against the Lord your 'God, and. against you—forgive, I pray you, my sin only this once, and entreat the Lord for me!” —Faith and Free Thought, p. 234.
PLINY.—There is another mode which the locusts perish: the winds carry them off in vast swarms, upon which they fall into the sea or standing waters. —Hist. Nat., XI., 35.
MR. BARROW.—In the southern district of Africa, which I visited, the surface of nearly 2,000 square miles might be said to be covered with locusts. The water of a wide river was scarcely visible in consequence of the innumerable drowned locusts which floated on its surface. By and by these countless hosts were driven into the sea by a violent wind; and their bodies, being thrown back on the shore, formed a bank about three feet high, and of many miles in length.—Quoted in Science and the Bible, p. 455.
Plague of Darkness
DIODORUS SICULUS.—In Egypt they worship the Sun under the name of Râ. —Diod. Sic., I., II; See Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt, IV., 289.
PLUTARCH.—Horus, the son of Isis, was the first to sacrifice to the, sun. The Egyptians offer three times every day incense and sweet odors to the sun.—De Isid. et Osirid., c. 52.
W R. COOPER, Sec. of Society of Bib. Archœ.—This visitation, as it was the last directly theological, so it was also, in one sense, the most conclusive. At the root of all the Egyptian Theogony lay the great deity, Amun Ra, who was believed to inhabit the heaven of heavens, and was symbolized by “eternal light; " the Sun was his representative. Now, at the word of the God of Israel, that Sun, that Amun Ra, is wrapped in a veil of darkness that utterly hides him from the view of his erring worshippers. Three days' curse to his threefold claims; Amun Ra, father of divine life; Kheper Ra, father of animal life; Kneph Ra, father of human life; he, even he, by the God of Israel, is blotted out for three days.—Faith and Free Thought, 235.
Plague of the First-Born
W. R. COOPER, Sec. of Society of Bib. Archœ.—Last of all, descended the horrors of the tenth plague. The Egyptians having felt, and the Israelites having witnessed, the powerlessness of the gods they had been accustomed to venerate, the long-delayed retribution fell upon the Pharaoh and his servants; and those who had made the Israelites childless were by an invisible and irresistible executioner rendered childless themselves. Fancy cannot imagine, artist cannot paint, nor poet describe, the scene which produced the cry which rang throughout the land of Egypt, when under the very shadow of the gods whom he worshipped, with their amulets upon his heart, and their adorations inscribed in the bracelets upon his hands, the first-born of every Egyptian lay agonized, paralyzed, dead!—Faith and Free Thought, 236.
The Passover
EXOD. 11:1, 21And the Lord said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether. 2Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold. (Exodus 11:1‑2).—And the Lord said unto Moses-Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver and jewels of gold.
PROF. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M. A.—The wide-spread possession, by the Egyptians, of articles in gold and silver, vases, goblets, necklaces, armlets, bracelets, ear-rings, and finger rings, is among the facts most conspicuously attested by the extant remains, and is also illustrated by the ancient writers, who even speak of so strange an article as a golden foot-pan.—Historical Illustrations of the O. T., p. 77.
SIR J. G. WILKINSON.—The ornaments of gold found in Egypt consist of. rings, bracelets, armlets, necklaces, ear-rings, and numerous trinkets belonging to the toilet.—Gold and silver vases, statues, and other objects of gold and silver, of silver inlaid with gold, and of bronze inlaid with the precious metals, were also common at the same time.—Ancient Egyptians, Vol. III., p. 225, and p. 370-377.
PROF. H. B. HACKETT, LL. D.—The Egyptian Museums, in London, Paris and Berlin, contain almost as great a variety of ornaments for personal decoration (ivory, gold, silver) as are known to the fashions of modern life. They have been found in' Egyptian tombs, pyramids, and mummy-pits, and many of them must be as old as the age of the Pharaohs and the pyramids.—Note, in Hist. Illust. of O. T., p. 77.
Exod. 12:3-133Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: 4And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: 6And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. 7And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. 8And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. 10And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. 11And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 13And the blood shall be to you for a token 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. (Exodus 12:3‑13).—Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house, etc.
REV. JOSEPH PARRISH THOMPSON, D. D.—The Passover contains features so unnatural, so remote in themselves from mere imagination or invention, that one cannot conceive of their origin except in some fact of actual occurrence. This is true especially of the time and manner of killing the lamb, and of the sprinkling of the blood on the side-posts and the upper door-posts of the houses. As the observance itself witnesses for the departure out of Egypt, so do these unique features of it witness for the facts which are recorded as having attended its own institution.—Smith's Dict. of the Bible, Vol. III., p. 2546.
THE COMPILER.—Of the actual occurrence of what is related in this chapter, namely, the institution of the Feast of the Passover, we have the unbroken testimony of history and of its perpetual observance down through all the ages to the day in which we live. The deliverance from Egypt was regarded as the starting-point of the Hebrew Nation. The Israelites were then raised from the condition of bondmen under a foreign tyrant to that of a free people owing to no one but Jehovah. Hence, through all their generations, and especially in the, periods of great national reformations and restorations, the Passover was observed in the most solemn and devout manner, to remind the people of their true position, and to mark their renewal of the covenant which their father's had made. It was thus observed by Moses again, in the Desert (Num. 9.) It was celebrated by Joshua at Gilgal, when about to enter and possess the Promised Land (Josh. 5.) It was kept with acts of special devotion by Hezekiah, on the restoration of the National worship to its original purity (2 Chron. 30.) It was similarly observed by Josiah in the 18th year of his reign (2 Chron. 35.) So also by Ezra after the return from Babylon (Ezr. 6.) It was kept with punctilious reverence by the Jews in our Savior's time (John 18:2828Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. (John 18:28).) And it has been yearly held in sacred remembrance by their descendants through, all the centuries that have elapsed since, in all their wanderings dyer the face of the earth; while through the same period, the event has been perpetually celebrated, by all Christian nations under the form of the Lord is, Supper.
Exod. 12:26, 2726And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? 27That ye shall say, 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 Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped. (Exodus 12:26‑27).—And it shall come to pass when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service that ye shall say, 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 Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.
REV. WILLIAM C. BROWNLEE, D. D.—A political skeptic might say, I do not believe, I deny the authenticity and genuineness of your Declaration of Independence., How should we meet this skeptic? Thus: Why, the whole American people had witnessed and experienced the oppression of the British government. Their leading men were engaged in drawing up that Declaration. The whole people at the time read it, or heard it proclaiMed. They celebrated the event with heroic rejoicing; and they have annually celebrated it in like manner ever since. It cannot possibly, therefore, be a forgery or an imposture. It could not have been fabricated in the days of the Old Congress. The people of that day could not have been so imposed on, as to believe it, if they had not seen with their eyes, and heard with their ears, all these revolutionary movements, and this National Document setting them forth. Nor could this Declaration possibly have been fabricated since the death of those patriot fathers. How could any man, or any conspiracy of impostors, persuade the whole American Nation, unanimously to receive and credit the Declaration of our National Independence, and, in memory thereof, to celebrate the 4th of July,—if no such national event had taken place?
Now apply this form of argument to the proof of the authenticity and genuineness of the institution of the Jewish Passover. How close and striking the parallel before us! The Hebrews had long been sorely oppressed, and they were now on the eve of their deliverance. The divine mission of Moses had been established before the nation by the many miracles wrought in Egypt. These facts were such that the people's outward senses could judge of them. They were performed in the most public manner. His divine mission being thus established, he delivered to the officers of the nation the code of laws and the system of worship which they were to observe; a copy of this was put in the hands of the rulers; a copy was publicly deposited in the ark, and this was, by a national law, brought out every seventh year, and read aloud in the ears of the national assemblies. In this public document Moses declares to the nation that God had brought wasting judgments on Egypt, and had slain the first-born in every family; that he had brought them out of that land with a mighty arm; and had made them walk through the Red Sea in a miraculous manner; that they and their fathers had celebrated the national festival of the Passover; and that this was the grand and divinely appointed monument to perpetuate the memory of the miracles of their deliverance from bondage. And to all this are added the solemn words, " Know ye, this day; for I speak not to your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord, his greatness, his mighty hand, his miracles and acts: but your eyes have seen the great acts of the Lord, which he did."
Now Moses could not possibly have persuaded the whole Hebrew nation that these things had actually taken place BEFORE THEIR EYES, if they really had never so happened. He could not have persuaded the whole nation to celebrate the Passover in memory of their grand national deliverance, if they never had been so miraculously delivered. Their national celebration of this festival was an unanimous national declaration of their unshaken faith in all those miracles of Moses, which issued in their final emancipation. Hence the ordinance of the Passover could not possibly have been fabricated by Moses, nor by any in his day, or in the days of those who came out of Egypt. It is equally impossible that it could have been forged in an after age. What man can gravely allege that a whole nation, such as the Hebrews, could have been persuaded by any combination of impostors whatever, to believe, and to receive, as a nation, a code of laws and observances on whose pages it was declared that they had, as a nation, been delivered by the most stupendous miracles out of Egypt, if they had never heard of these miracles before?
How could any impostor persuade a whole nation to receive this as God's law, delivered to their forefathers in Egypt, if they had never heard of that law before? What human power could induce a whole nation unanimously to celebrate annually their Grand National festival, in commemoration of their escape from Egypt, if that event had never happened, and they, as a nation, had never heard of it? Hence it is manifest that the position which infidels assume here is infinitely more difficult to be believed than any position of the Christian. For infidels profess to believe, in the face of reason and common sense, an absurdity the most palpable and ludicrous!—National Preacher, Vol. X., p. 257.
TACITUS. —As a standing proof of the Jews having by robbery supplied themselves with gain, the Jewish bread is still baked without leaven—Hist., lib. v., c. 4.
Israel's Departure Out of Egypt
Exod. 12:3737And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. (Exodus 12:37).—And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them.
PROF. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M. A.—The great fact recorded, which stands out as historically true, and which no petty criticism can shake, is the exit from Egypt of a considerable tribe, the progenitors of the later Hebrew nation and their settlement in Palestine, after a sojourn of some duration in the wilderness. Of this fact the Hebrews and Egyptians were equally well convinced, and as both nations enjoyed a contemporary literature, and had thus the evidence on the point of witnesses living at the time, only an irrational skepticism can entertain a doubt respecting it—Hist. Illust. of the Old Test., p.
MANETHO AND CHEREMON. —There are passages in the writings of Manetho and Cheremon, Egyptian priests of high scholarship, which, though in reference to some things somewhat confused, are yet so specific as to the names of Joseph and Moses, and in some instances, so minute as to facts, that the following conclusions may be held established: 1. That the Egyptians had a tradition of an Exodus from their country of persons whom they regarded as unclean-persons who rejected their customs, refused to worship their gods, and killed for food the animals which they held as sacred. 2. That these authors connected this race and this exodus with the names of Joseph and Moses. 3. That they made southern Syria the country into which the unclean people withdrew; and 4. That they placed the event in the reign of a certain Amenophis, son of Rameses, and father of Sethos, who reigned toward the close of the 18th dynasty, or about 1400 B. C.—See Josephus Contr. Apion, I., 26, 27, 32.
HERODOTUS. —This people (the Hebrews), by their own account, once inhabited the coasts of the Red Sea, but migrated thence to the maritime parts of Syria, all which district, as far as Egypt, is denominated Palestine—Polymnia, c. 89.
DIODORUS SICULUS. —In ancient times there happened a great plague in Egypt, and many ascribed the cause of it to God, who was offended with them because there were many strangers in the land, by whom foreign rites and ceremonies were employed in their worship of the deity. The Egyptians concluded, therefore, that unless all strangers were driven out of the country, they should never be freed from their miseries. Upon this, as some writers tell us, the most eminent and enterprising of those foreigners who were in Egypt, and obliged to leave the country, betook themselves to the coast of Greece, and also to other regions, having put themselves under the command of proper leaders for that purpose. Some of them were conducted by Danaus and Cadmus, who were the most illustrious of the whole. There were besides these a large but less noble body of people, who retired into the province now called Judea, which was not far from Egypt, and in those times uninhabited. These emigrants were led by Moses, who was superior to all in wisdom and prowess. He gave them laws, and ordained that they should have no images of the gods, because there was only one deity, the heaven, which surrounds all things, and is Lord of the whole—Diod. Sic., lib. 1., ap. Phot.
STRABO. —Among many things believed respecting the temple and inhabitants! of Jerusalem, the report most credited is that the Egyptians were the ancestors of the present Jews. An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called lower Egypt, being dissatisfied with the institutions there, left it and came to Judea, with a large body of people who worshipped the Divinity.— Strab., lib. xvi., c. 2.
PROF. G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—It is certain that migrations of tribes, quite as large as that of Israel is said to have been, have from time to time taken place in the East, and indeed in the West also. Such migrations have frequently been sudden; the emigrants have started off with their women and children and all their possessions on a certain day-they have traversed enormous distances, much greater ones than the Israelites traversed, and have finally settled themselves in new abodes. That the Israelites made such a migration there cannot be a doubt. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, all accepted the fact as certain. —Modern Skepticism, p. 280; See Num. 1:2,2Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls; (Numbers 1:2) etc.
M. HOMMAIRE DE HELL.—It was on the 5th of January, 1771, the day appointed by the High Priests, that Oubacha began his march, with seventy thousand families. Most of the hordes were then assembled in the steppes, on the left bank of the Volga, and the whole multitude followed him.—Travels, p. 227.
REV. F. W. HOLLAND.—(The alleged difficulty of subsistence in the case of the Israelites with their numerous flocks, during the forty years in the Wilderness, has been very much exaggerated. The above authority, who has repeatedly traversed that region, says): Large tracts of the northern portion of the plateau of the Tih, which are now desert, were evidently formerly under cultivation. The Gulf of Suez (probably by means of an artificial canal connecting it with the Bitter Lakes) once extended nearly fifty miles further north than it does at present, and the mountains of Palestine were well clothed with trees. Thus there formerly existed rain-making area of considerable extent, which must have added largely to the dews and rains of Sinai. Probably, also, the Peninsula itself was formerly much more thickly wooded.
The amount of vegetation and herbage in the Peninsula, even at the present time, has been very much underrated; and a slight increase in the present rainfall would produce an enormous addition to the amount of pasturage. I have several times seen the whole face of the country, especially the wadies, marvelously changed in appearance by a single shower.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the convent gardens at the foot of Jebel Musa, and those in Wady Feiran, and at Tar, mark the only three spots where any considerable amount of cultivation could exist in the peninsula. Hundreds of old monastic gardens, with copious wells and springs, are scattered over the mountains throughout the granite districts; and I could mention at least twenty streams which are perennial, excepting perhaps in unusually dry seasons.
It has been said that the present physical conditions of the country are such as to render it impossible that the events recorded in the Book of Exodus can ever have occurred there. It is wonderful, however, how apparent difficulties melt away as our acquaintance with the country increases. I see no difficulty myself in the provision of sufficient pasture for the flocks and herds, if, as I have shown, there are good reasons for supposing the rain-fall was in former days larger than it is at present; and with regard to the cattle, I will point out one important fact, which appears to me to have been overlooked, namely, that they were probably used as beasts of burden; and, in addition to other things, carried their own water, sufficient for several days, slung in water-skins by their side, just as Sir Samuel Baker found them doing at the present day in Abyssinia. (The statements of Bishop Colenso, so different from this testimony of experienced travelers, are exaggerated and misleading).—See Recent Explorations in the Peninsula of Sinai—made in 1869.
Exod. 14:1-31And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea. 3For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. (Exodus 14:1‑3).—And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon; before it shall ye encamp by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.
REV. F. W. HOLLAND.—Goshen probably comprised the district called El Wady, the fertile valley on the edge of the desert, through which now flows the fresh-water canal, leading from the Nile to Ismailia. The starting-point of the Israelites cannot have been very far from the latter place. It appears from the history of the Exodus that the Red Sea was only three days' journey from that point—a distance which exactly agrees with that to the head of the Gulf of Suez.
The passage of the Israelites, across the Sea, is generally supposed to have taken place in the immediate neighborhood of Suez, and a careful examination of the Isthmus and head of the Gulf has led me fully to concur in this opinion. On leaving Egypt the Israelites had probably intended to cross over into thy wilderness of Etham, or Shur, by the higher ridge of land which separates the head of the Gulf of Suez from the Bitter Lakes on the north. This was the natural road to have taken on the way to Sinai, but God commanded Moses to alter their intended course: he bade them turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the Sea—that is, probably in the desert which lies between the range of Jebel Attakah and Suez. Pharaoh coming up in pursuit of them, and seeing that they had missed the road leading round the head of the Gulf, would naturally exclaim: “The wilderness hath shut them in!” The sea was on their left, a high range of Desert Mountains on their right, beyond them a narrow road along the shore, leading only to a yet more barren desert. Escape was impossible unless God had opened a way for them through the Sea.—Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 408, 413.
PROF. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M. A.—The practice of the king to lead out his army in person, is abundantly evident, and will scarcely be doubted by any. It was indeed a practice universal at the time among all Oriental sovereigns—Hist. Illust. of O. T., p. 75.
SIR J. G. WILKINSON.—The monuments show that in Ancient Egypt by far the most important arm of the military service was the chariot force. The king, the princes, and all the chiefs of importance fought from chariots.—Ancient Egyptians, I., 335
DIODORUS SICULUS.—It is an ancient report among the Ichtheophagi, who inhabit the shores of the Red Sea, that by a mighty reflux of the sea which happened in former days, the whole gulf became dry land, and appeared green all over; and that the water overflowed the opposite shore, and that all the ground continued bare to the very lowest depth of the gulf, until the water, by an extraordinarily high tide, returned to its former channel—Diod. Sic., lib. iii., c. 40.
Exod. 15:1-251Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. 2The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him. 3The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name. 4Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. 5The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone. 6Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. 7And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. 8And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. 9The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. 10Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters. 11Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? 12Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. 13Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. 14The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. 15Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away. 16Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased. 17Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. 18The Lord shall reign for ever and ever. 19For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea. 20And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. 21And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. 22So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. 23And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. 24And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? 25And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, (Exodus 15:1‑25).—Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing, etc.
PROF. GEORGE BUSH.—The circumstances which called forth this grateful song of praise were indeed unparalleled. We behold an immense congregation just rescued in a marvelous manner from the power of their enemies, standing upon the shore of the sea, which was strewed with the dead bodies of men and horses, with the broken pieces of chariots and weapons of war scattered in all directions, and all the other wrecks of that awful catastrophe.—Notes In loco.
F. W. HOLLAND.—Ayoun Musa—" The Wells of Moses "—formed probably their first halting-place after the passage. Here, about eight miles south of Suez, are at the present day several springs or pools.—Recovery of Jerusalem, p 413.
E. H. PALMER, M. A.—Here tradition places the site of the passage of the Red Sea; and certain it is that, at least, within the range over which the eye can wander, the waters must have closed in upon Pharaoh's struggling hosts. —Desert of the Exodus, p. 42.
WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT, M. A., Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge. Lead was early known to the ancients. The rocks in the neighborhood of Sinai yielded it in large quantities, and it was found in Egypt. The ancient Egyptians used it for fastening stones together in the rough parts of a building, and it was found by Mr. Layard among the ruins of Nimroud—In Smith's Dict. of the Bible, II., p. 1619.
Journey from the Red Sea to Sinai
PROF. E. H. PALMER, M. A.—The word " Shur," in Hebrew, signifies a wall; and as we stand at Ayun Musa and glance over the desert at the Jebels er Rahah and er Tih, which border the gleaming plain, we at once appreciate the fact that these long wall-like escarpments are the chief, if not the only, prominent characteristics of this portion of the wilderness, and we need not wonder that the Israelites should have named this memorable spot after this most salient feature, the wilderness of Shur or the Wall. —Desert of the Exodus, p. 44
PROF. E. H. PALMER, M. A.—From the Wells of Moses we traversed an unvaried desert plain for three days: there is nothing to attract attention but the bleached camel bones that mark the track, and nothing to afford food for reflection but the thought that, like the Israelites, you have gone " three days in the desert and have found no water."—Desert of the Exodus, p. 45
PROF. E. H. PALMER, M. A.—On the third day we reached Ain Hawarah, which most previous travelers have sought to identify with the Marah of Scripture. It is a solitary spring of bitter water, with a stunted palm-tree growing near it, and affording a delicious shade. The quality of the water varies considerable at different times.—Desert of the Exodus, p. 45.
REV. F. W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—The water of Ain Hawarah varies much in bitterness. I have found it at one time so bitter that I could not even hold it in my mouth, at another more pleasant to drink than the water I had brought in water-skins from Suez. The size of the spring is very small, but the mass of calcareous deposit which surrounds it seems to prove that the water supply from it was formerly larger than at the present time.—Appendix to Smith's Dia. of the Bible, p. 3650.
Exod. 15:24, 2524And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? 25And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, (Exodus 15:24‑25).—And the people murmured against Moses, saying. What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
PROF. GEORGE BUSH.—" The Lord showed him a tree; "Greek, showed him a wood. It is clear that the Lord by some special monition or suggestion indicated to Moses a peculiar kind of tree or wood, which when thrown into the water rendered it sweet and fit for use. There is no doubt that certain species of vegetable productions have this corrective property, and that they have often been employed for this purpose. A modern traveler in South America speaks of a shrub called Alumbre, a branch of which put into the muddy stream of the Magdalena, precipitated the mud and earth, leaving the water sweet and clear. The first discoverers of the Floridas are said to have corrected the stagnant and fetid waters they found there, by infusing into it branches of Sassafras; and it is understood that the first use of Tea among the Chinese, was to correct the waters of their ponds and rivers.—Notes In loco.
PROF. JAMES F. JOHNSTON, M. A., F. R. S.—Well-waters sometimes contain vegetable substances of a peculiar kind, which render them unwholesome, even over large tracts of country. When boiled, the organic matter coagulates, and when the water cools separates in flocks, leaving the water wholesome, and nearly free from taste or smell. The same purification takes place when the water is filtered through charcoal, or when chips of oak wood are put into it. Such is the character of the waters in common use in the Landes of the Gironde around Bordeaux, and in many other sandy districts. The waters of rivers, and of marshy and swampy places, often contain a similar coagulable substance. Hence the waters of the Seine at Paris are clarified by introducing a morsel of alum, and the river and marshy waters of India by the use of the nuts of the Strychnos potatorum, of which travelers often carry a supply. One, or two of these nuts, rubbed to powder on the side of the earthen vessel into which the water is to be poured, soon causes the impurities to subside. In Egypt, the muddy water of the Nile is clarified by rubbing bitter almonds on the sides of the water-vessel in the same way. In all these instances the principle of the clarification is the same. The albuminous matter is coagulated by what is added to the water, and in coagulating it embraces the other impurities of the water, and carries them down along with it. These cases, and especially that of the sandy Landes of Bordeaux, and elsewhere, throw an interesting light upon the history of the waters of Marah, as given in the 15th chapter of Exodus. As in our European sandy dunes, the waters of that sandy wilderness may contain an albumen-like substance which an astringent plant will coagulate. The discovery of such a plant among the natural vegetation of the desert would give, therefore, the means of purifying and rendering it wholesome, as cuttings of the oak tree render salubrious the waters of the Landes of La Gironde.—Chemistry of Common Life, vol. i., p. 36.
ROBERTS.—In India, water is often brackish in the neighborhood of salt-pans, or the sea; and the natives correct it by throwing into it the wood called “perru-nelli," Phylanthus emblica. Should the water be very bad, they line the well with planks cut out of this tree. In swampy grounds, or where there has not been rain for a long time, the water is often muddy, and very unwholesome. But providence has again been bountiful by giving to the people the "teata maram," Strychnos potatorum. Those who live in the neighborhood of such water, or who have to travel where it is, always carry a supply of the nuts of this tree. They grind one or two of them on the side of an earthen vessel: the water is then poured in, and the impurities soon subside.—Orient. Illust., p. 73
REV. H. H. MILMAN.—Some water from the fountain called Marah has been brought to England, and has been analyzed by a medical friend of mine. His statement is subjoined: “The water has a slightly astringent bitterish taste. Chemical examination shows that these qualities are derived from the selenite or sulphate of lime which it holds in solution, and which is said to abound in the neighborhood. If, therefore, any vegetable substance containing oxalic acid (of which there are several instances) were thrown into it, the lime would speedily be precipitated, and the beverage rendered agreeable and wholesome."—NOTE in History of the Jews.
EDITOR of Comprehensive Commentary.—The above facts would lead us to suppose that the discovery of this “tree" to Moses, is alone to be considered miraculous: "and the Lord showed him a tree."—In loco.
ten palm-trees: and they encamped there by the waters.
STRABO.—On the Arabian Gulf, contiguous to Poseidium, is a grove of palm-trees, well supplied with water, which is highly valued, because all the district around it is burnt up, and is without water or shade. —Strab, XVI., c. 4.
H. PALMER, M. A.—Here again, our own experience accords with that of the Israelites. Here the eye is again refreshed by the sight of green tamarisks and feathery palms, and just off the customary track is a pleasant stream of running water. This is Wady Gharandel, generally regarded as Elim, and whether or no the grove and stream are the lineal descendants of the twelve springs and seventy palm-trees which the Israelites found there, it is clear that the site of Elim must lie somewhere in the immediate neighborhood.—Desert of the Exodus, p. 46, 226.
W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—On joining the road which leads from 'Ain Howarah, and mounting the southern bank of Wady Gharundel, a raised and undulating plain of considerable extent is reached; this plain is drained by Wady Useit, and contains a few water-holes and scattered palm-trees. The station of Elim is generally thought to have been situated in this plain, and in spite of its present barrenness, it is quite possible that the ancient inhabitants, 'by sinking wells and utilizing the water thus obtained, may have rendered it a pleasant spot for an encampment. The marvelous effect that water has in producing vegetation in the most barren desert is exemplified a few miles further northward, where a small natural basin receives the drainage of the surrounding ground, and produces a luxuriant crop of grass and other herbs. It is called by the Arabs Engi el ful, “the bean fields." It is, therefore, by no means improbable that these few water-holes, and groups, of palm-trees, may mark the site of the “twelve wells of water, and three-score and ten palm-trees," which the children of Israel found at Elim.—Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 416.
H. PALMER, M. A.—After a thorough examination of all the other passes, we are forced to the conclusion that, after leaving Elim, Wady Taiyebeh was the only road down which the children of Israel could have marched. And on the supposition that they did so, the Wilderness of Sin will be the narrow strip of desert which fringes the coast south of Wady Taiyebeh.—Desert of the Exodus, 227.
W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—At the mouth of the Wady Taiyebeh is found a considerable plain, which would afford an admirable position for a temporary camp. To the south the mountains approach nearer to the sea, but sufficient space is left for a road along the shore for several miles until the mountains again recede, and the plain of El Murkhah is reached. There can, I think, be little doubt that this plain marks the site of the Wilderness of Sin, where the children of Israel made a long halt, and where God gave them bread from heaven, and they were fed with manna and quails. This plain extends as far south as Wady Feiran, a distance of about twenty-five miles. Like most of the coast plains, it is somewhat barren now; still, it is not without vegetation, and probably in former days, when the rain-fall was larger, and the drainage from the mountains descended gradually, instead of sweeping everything before it, as at the present time, it would have afforded excellent pasturage.—Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 418.
Exod. 16:11-1311And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 12I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. 13And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. (Exodus 16:11‑13).—And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.
WILLIAM HOUGHTON, M. A., F. L. S.—The quail migrates in immense numbers. See Pliny, H. N. X. 23. Tourneyfort says that all the islands of the Archipelago at certain seasons of the year are covered with these birds. Col. Sykes states that such quantities were once caught in Capri, near Naples, as to have afforded the bishop no small share of his revenue, and that in consequence he has been called “Bishop of Quails." The same writer mentions also that 160,000 quails have been netted in one season on this little island; according to Temminck, 100,000 have been taken near Nettuno in one day. The Israelites would have had little difficulty in capturing large quantities of these birds, as they are known to arrive at places sometimes so completely exhausted by their flight as to be readily taken, not in nets only, but by the hand. Sykes says, They arrive in spring on the shores of Provence so fatigued that for the first few days they allow themselves to be taken by the hand. It is interesting to note the time specified by Moses; “it was at even “that they began to arrive, and they no doubt continued to come all the night. Many observers have recorded that the quail migrates by night.—Smith's Dict. of Bible, p. 2650.
F. W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—On the site of Rephidim, where the battle with the Amalekites was fought, my opinion differs from that of Captain Wilson and Mr. Palmer. They believe the battle to have been fought in the Wady Feiran, near the site of the ancient city of Paran, and that Jebel Tahunah was the hill on which Moses sat, with Aaron and Hur supporting his arms. The road up this bill, and the churches and chapels on its summits and sides, certainly mark this hill as a very sacred spot in the eyes of the old inhabitants of Paran.—I am strongly of opinion, however, that the Israelites marched up the Wady es-Sheikh, and that the narrow defile of el-Watiyeh, about twelve miles from Jebel Musa, marks the site of the battle of Rephidim. All the requirements of the account of the battle are found at this spot. There is a large plain, destitute of water, for the encampment of the Israelites; a conspicuous hill on the north side of the defile, commanding the battle-ground, and presenting a bare cliff, such as we may suppose the rock to have been which Moses struck. There is another plain on the south of the pass for the encampment of the Amalekites, with abundance of water within easy reach; and, curiously enough, at this very spot, at the foot of the hill on which Moses sat, if this be Rephidim, the Arabs point out a rock, which they call “the seat of the prophet Moses. "—Appendix to Smith's Dict. of Bible, p. 3651.
Exod. 18:2121Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: (Exodus 18:21).—Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens; and let them judge the people at all seasons.
REV. W. L. GAGE.—It is a curious fact that the polity which Jethro, priest of Midian, here, imparted to Moses, his son-in-law, is singularly like that which prevails among the Bedouins of the present time. The taking away of that single responsibility which was slowly crushing the strength of the great lawgiver by overtaxing his power, was followed by that delegation of trust to rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, which is a marked feature of Arab polity; and every line in the description of the interview of Moses and Jethro, recorded in the 18th chapter of Exodus, is faithful to the experience of all close observers of the Bedouin character.—Studies in Bible Lands, p. 85.
REV. W. L. GAGE.—From the foot of Serbal, and the luxuriant verdure of Wady Feiran, there runs a broad, curving valley, the largest and most important in the whole peninsula, bearing the name of Wady Sheikh. This doubtless was the one taken by the main body of the Israelites. Emerging from the broad mouth of Wady Sheikh, the traveler stands on the meet of Sinai. A plain is seen, vast in size when one thinks how rare it is to meet any continuous tract in that broken and rocky country, for it embraces no less than a square mile. At one extremity there towers the lofty, craggy pile known as Ras Sasafeh, the northern abutment of Sinai. Its grandeur and precipitousness, taken in connection with the great plain at its base, suggests to the mind, in a moment, that here was the scene of the Delivery of the Law.—Studies in Bible Lands, p. 88.
THE COMPILER.—The mountain peaks, which forth the granitic kernel of this whole region, are divided into three groups; the central cluster is Jebel Musa, or the Mount of Moses. This range is some three miles long, and about one mile in breadth. It is an isolated mass of rugged and precipitous rocks, being cut off from the other mountains on three sides by deep wadys or valleys, and partially on the fourth or south side by two smaller valleys. On it are three prominent points that demand special notice. Near the southern extremity is the Jebel Musa, or Mount of Moses, 7,359 feet high. About the middle is Mount Horeb, of lesser elevation. And at its northern end is Ras Sufsafeh, a bold headland surmounted by two peaks, which abruptly and almost perpendicularly terminates the range. Curving along the foot of this stupendous promontory is the wide valley of Rahah, presenting an open and even space, two miles long, and half a mile wide, gently sloping down to the very base of the mountain. From the southern side of this natural and magnificent amphitheater, the two peaks of Ras Sufsafeh rise precipitously to the height of 2,000 feet, “standing out in lonely grandeur against the sky, like a huge altar." On this plain, and at the foot of this altar, both ancient tradition and modern research have fixed the scene of the thousands of Israel assembled to receive the Law at the mouth of God. The late Ordnance Expedition were unanimous in this conviction.—See Present Conflict of Science with Religion, p. 571.
Exod. 19:11, 12, 1711And be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. 12And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: (Exodus 19:11‑12)
17And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. (Exodus 19:17).—Be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death.—And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the mount.
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D.—No one who has approached the Ras Sasafeh through that noble plain, the Wady Es-Sheykh, or who has looked down upon the plain from that majestic height, will willingly part with the belief that these are the two essential features of the view of the Israelite camp. That such a plain should exist at all in front of such a cliff is so remarkable a coincidence with the sacred narrative, as to furnish a strong internal argument, not merely of its identity with the scene, but of the scene itself having been described by an eyewitness. The awful and lengthened approach, as to some natural sanctuary, would have been the fittest preparation for the coming scene. The low line of alluvial mounds at the foot of the cliff exactly answer to the "bounds" which were to keep the people off from "touching the mount." The plain itself is not broken and uneven and narrowly shut in, like almost all others in the range, but presents a long retiring sweep, against which the people could “remove and stand afar off." The cliff, rising like a huge altar, in front of the whole congregation, and visible against the sky in lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole plain, is the very image of " the mount that might be touched," and from which the voice of God might be heard far and wide over the stillness of the plain below, widened at that point to its utmost extent by the influence of all the contiguous valleys. Here, beyond all other parts of the Peninsula, is the adytum, withdrawn as if in the "end of the world," from all the stir and confusion of earthly things.—Sinai and Palestine, p. 43
F. W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—The account which we have in Scripture of Mount Sinai is but scanty. Still there are certain points in connection with it which appear to be indisputable. First. It must have been a mountain easy of approach, and having before it an open space sufficiently large for the congregation of the children of Israel to have been assembled there to receive the Law. Secondly. It was evidently a prominent mountain, rising up abruptly from the plain before it, for the people are said to have come near, and "stood under the mountain," and it is described as a mountain that could be " touched," and "at the nether part " of which the people stood. It seems also to have been separated by valleys from the surrounding mountains, since bounds were ordered to be placed around it. Thirdly. Its immediate neighborhood must have afforded a plentiful supply of water and pasturage.
Let us now see how far Jebel Musa meets these necessary requirements. Under this name I include the peaks of Ras Sufsafeh, which, in fact, form the northern portion of Jebel Musa. Its two peaks rise up precipitously from the bottom of the plain of Er Rahah to a height of about 2,000 feet, being distinctly visible from every part of that plain. It is also isolated by valleys from the mountains on every side, so that it would be by no means difficult to set bounds round about it; while at the same time, its northern cliffs rise so steeply from the plain beneath that it might well be described as "a mountain that could be touched," and at the nether part of which the people could stand. No place could be conceived more suitable than the plain of Er Rahah for the assembling together of many thousands of people, both to witness the thunders and lightning upon the mount, and to hear the voice of the Lord, when he spake unto them. The plain itself is upward of two miles long, and half a mile broad, and slopes gradually down from the water-shed on the north to the foot of Ras Sufsafeh. About 300 yards from the actual base of the mountain there runs across the plain a low, semicircular mound, which forms a kind of natural theater, while further distant on either side of the plain the slopes of the enclosing mountains would afford seats to an almost unlimited number of spectators. And with regard to the water supply, there is no other spot in the whole Peninsula which is nearly so well supplied as the neighborhood of Jebel Musa. Four streams of running water are found there, besides numerous wells and springs.—For the above reasons the members of our Expedition were unanimous in their conviction that the Law was given from Ras Sufsafeh to the Israelites assembled in the plain of Er Rahah.—Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 408-412.
PROF. E. H. PALMER, M. A.—It is clear from the Biblical account that the place from whence the Law was proclaimed was a prominent if not an absolutely isolated mountain. Such passages as "and ye came near and stood under the mountain," and " they stood at the nether part," point conclusively to the fact that it was what the apostle describes it to be, "A mountain that could be touched." Here, again, the block of Jebel Musa answers in every way to the description; it is so separated from the adjacent mountains by narrow, rugged valleys that it would be easy to "set bounds about the mount;" a cordon across the mouths of the Wadies ed Deir and Sh'reich, and a few men posted upon Jebel Moneijah to keep the pass leading into Wady Sebaiyeh, would be sufficient to accomplish this task. The “nether part of the mount," namely the bluff Ras Sufsafeh, rises so abruptly from the plain that you may literally stand under it and touch its base. Again, it is clear that at the foot of Sinai there was a plain commanding a view of the mountain from every part, and sufficiently large to admit of the people maneuvering upon it—for them, at one time, to "come near and stand under the mountain;" at another, "to remove and stand afar off." It is not necessary to suppose that all the Israelites were actually encamped upon the plain itself, nor do the words of the Bible even imply it; for we are expressly told that “Moses brought the people forth out of the camp to meet God." They would doubtless spread over a considerable area, and occupy many of the neighboring glens, valleys, and mountain sides, especially where there was plenty of water and pasturage for their flocks and herds. All that is required is a plain capable of affording standing-room for the Israelites as spectators, and the plain of Er Rahah more than satisfies this condition. A calculation made by Captain Palmer, from the actual measurements taken on the spot, proves that the space extending from the base of the mountain to the water-shed, or crest of the plain, is large enough to have accommodated the entire host of the Israelites, estimated at two million souls, with an allowance of about a square yard for each individual.—The neighborhood of Jebel Musa is also the best watered in the whole Peninsula, running streams being found in no less than four of the adjacent valleys.—Desert of the Exodus, p. 101, 102.
PROF. E. H. PALMER, M. A.—It is clear from the accounts given in the Bible that there must have been a secluded tract of ground on the Mountain, but independent of the summit; for it was after Moses had gone up into Sinai to meditate apart from the people that "the Lord called him up to the top of the mount." The physical characteristics of the mountain, considered as a whole, satisfy the conditions required. First there is the awful descent of the Lord in thunder and fire upon the mountain in the sight of the assembled host; then Moses is called up to the secluded summit to receive the words of the Law from God's own mouth, and again he is sent down to proclaim them to the people. The sequence of events is perfectly natural, and in strict accordance with the present topography of the place.—Desert of the Exodus., p. 100.
REV. W. L. GAGE. —A person sitting on the summit of Ras Sasafeh, and speaking in ordinary tones, can be understood at the base, for there is not the sound of a bird, or insect, or brook to mingle with his voice. The desert is inhabited by absolute, unbroken silence.—Studies in Bible Lands, p. 94.
DR. ROBINSON. —I know not when I have felt a thrill of stronger emotion, than when in first crossing the plain of Rahah, the dark precipices of Ras Sasafeh rising in solemn grandeur before us, I became aware of the entire adaptedness of the scene to the purpose for which it was chosen.—Bib. Repos., April, 1839.
Exod. 32:15-2015And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. 16And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. 17And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. 18And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. 19And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. 20And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. (Exodus 32:15‑20).—And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two Tables of the Testimony were in his hand.—And when Joshua heard the noise of the people, as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome; but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
PROF. E. H. PALMER, M. A.—It is clear from the account in Exodus that the camp was within hearing of, though not visible from, the path by which Moses and Joshua came down from the mount. If, therefore, the people were encamped in the neighborhood of the plain, this path was probably at that end of the mountain which is nearest to Er Rahah. Now there is a path, called " Jethro's Road," at the northeastern corner of the mountain, close by the mouth of Wady ed Deir, and consequently nearest to the plain. This path emerges into the valley at the foot of the “Hill of the Golden Calf," where our own camp was also situated; it was therefore selected by the members of the Expedition as the most convenient and quickest road. Often in descending this, while the precipitous sides of the ravine hid the tents from my gaze, have I heard the sound of voices from below, and thought how Joshua had said unto Moses as he came down from the mount, “There is a noise of war in the camp."—Desert of the Exodus, p. 101.
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D.—There are some details of the plain of Er Rahah which remarkably coincide with the 'scene of the worship of the Golden Calf, evidently the same as that of the encampment at the time of the Delivery of the Law. In this instance the traditional locality is happily chosen. A small eminence at the entrance of the convent valley is marked by the name of Aaron as being that from which Aaron surveyed the festival on the wide plain below. This tradition, if followed out, would of necessity require the encampment to be in the Wady Er Rahah, as every other circumstance renders probable. But there are two other points which meet here, and nowhere else. First, Moses is described as descending the mountain without seeing the people; the shout strikes the ear of his companion before they ascertain the cause; the view bursts upon him suddenly as he draws nigh to the camp, and he throws down the Tables and dashes them in pieces “beneath the mount." Such a combination might occur in the Wady Er Rahah. Anyone coming down from one of the secluded basins behind Ras Sasafeh, through the oblique gullies which flank it on the north and on the south, would hear the sounds borne through the silence from the plain, but would not see the plain itself till he emerged from the Wady El Deir or the Wady Lejâ; and when he did so, he would be immediately under the precipitous cliff of Sasafeh. Further, we are told that Moses strewed the powder of the fragments of the idol on the “waters “of the "brook that came down out of the mount." This would be perfectly possible in the Wady Er Rahah, into which issues the brook of the Wady Leja, descending, it is true, from Mount St. Catherine, but still in sufficiently close connection with the Gebel Mousa to justify the expression, " coming down out of the mount.''—Sinai and Palestine, p. 43.
Conclusion
F. W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—At last the obscurity which has so long hung over the Peninsula of Sinai, with regard to the possible determination of the route of the Israelites through the desert, has been removed. Almost the whole of the country has now been explored; and that portion of it which possesses the greatest interest for us has been most carefully mapped, by an Expedition sent out under the auspices of the Director-General of our Ordnance Survey. Until lately no one traveler had traversed more than two of the routes of the desert. Hence no just comparison could be instituted between the facilities, or the difficulties, which attended them all. Now, however, we have had gathered up by professional men, the well-known accuracy of whose work places their report and maps beyond suspicion, all the materials that the desert affords for setting at rest the important topographical questions which have, been at issue. It was my privilege to form one of the Exploring Party; having been requested, in consequence of my knowledge of the country, and personal acquaintance with the Arabs, gained during three previous visits in 1861, 1865, and 1867, to accompany the expedition in the capacity of guide.
The Israelites, having crossed the Red Sea somewhere in the neighborhood of Suez, kept down the east coast. They first "went three days in the wilderness, and found no water." They then came to Marah, where "the water was bitter, so that they could not drink it." From there they removed to Elim, and from thence they removed to their encampment "by the sea." Now, the traveler to this day, on his journey to Mount Sinai, after traversing a long, strip of barren desert without water that extends down the coast, comes to a district where the water is brackish and unwholesome; a day's journey next brings him to an elevated plain, where there are wells of water and palm-trees; and then he descends again to the sea-coast, having been forced to pass round the back of a mountain, which reaches out into the sea. Thus, the character of the country, and distances from point to point, exactly agree with the Bible narrative. And this is the case the whole way to Mount Sinai; for next comes a large plain, that answers well to the wilderness of Sin, where the Israelites were first fed with manna; and from the plain one of the principal Wadies affords an easy road to Mount Sinai; a day's journey from which is a spot which tradition marks as the site of the battle of Rephidim, and which agrees well with the short description we have of that battle-field. So mountainous is the country that there is only one other route which could possibly have been followed by the Israelites; and the mention of encampment “by the sea " renders that almost impossible. Thus the features of the country bear out and explain the Bible narrative; and research here, as elsewhere in Bible Lands, confirms our belief in the truth of that history of God's chosen people which has been given us in the Holy Scriptures.—Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 403, and Scenes from Bible Lands (London, 1872).
PROF. E. H. PALMER, M. A.—We have found that the natural route from Egypt to Sinai accords exactly with the simple and concise account given in the Bible of the Exodus of the chosen people of God. In these conclusions all the members of the expedition are agreed. Mr. Holland, it is true, dissents upon "one point, the position of Rephidim. In the main facts of the routes, however, and in the identification of Jebel Musa with Mount Sinai, our investigations have led us to form one unanimous opinion. Me are thus able not only to trace out a route by which the children of Israel could have journeyed, but also to show its identity with that so concisely but graphically laid down in the Pentateuch. We have seen, moreover, that it leads to a mountain answering in every respect to the description of the Mountain of the Law; the chain of topographical evidence is complete, and the maps and sections may henceforth be confidently left to tell their own tAle.—Desert of the Exodus, p. 228.
F. W. HOLLAND, F. R. G. S.—The Ordnance Survey Expedition consisted of Captains Wilson and Palmer, of the Royal Engineers; Mr. E. H. Palmer, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, whose knowledge of Arabic, and rare power of distinguishing between those letters in the language which are so puzzling to European ears, rendered his services of infinite value in many ways, and especially in collecting the traditions and ascertaining the correct nomenclature of the country; Mr. Wyatt, whose occupation was the collection of specimens of natural history; myself; and four non-commissioned officers of the Royal Engineers, all of whom were specially selected for the work from the staff of the Ordnance Survey, one of them, Sergeant-Major MacDonald, being an experienced photographer.—Not a single member of this Party returned home without feeling more firmly convinced than ever of the truth of that sacred history which he found illustrated and confirmed by the natural features of the desert. The mountains and valleys, the very rocks, barren and sun-scorched as they now are, seem to furnish evidences, which none who behold them can gainsay, that this was that " great and terrible wilderness," through which Moses, under God's direction, led his people.—Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 404, 429.
The Ten Commandments
Exod. 20:3-173Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: 10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 12Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 13Thou shalt not kill. 14Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15Thou shalt not steal. 16Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 17Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's. (Exodus 20:3‑17).—Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, etc.
REV. WILLIAM JAY.—The Law of the Lord is perfect. The righteousness and excellency of its requirements claim my implicit obedience. Each of its prohibitions only says, Do thyself no harm. Each of its injunctions is an order to be wise, and rich, and noble, and happy. While following them, my understanding never blushes; my conscience never reproaches me. Their demands are always a reasonable service.—Morning Exercises, Sep. 16.
DR. T. DWIGHT, President of Yale College.—The Law of the Ten Commandments is the product of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. It requires the best possible moral character. It proposes and accomplishes the best possible END—the glory of God, and the happiness of the Intelligent Creation. It is perfectly fitted to the State and Capacity of intelligent creatures; it is so short as to be wholly included in two precepts, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself; and so intelligible as to be understood by every moral being, who is capable of comprehending the meaning of the words, God and Neighbor. In the meantime, these two Precepts, notwithstanding their brevity, are so comprehensive, as to include every possible moral action. The archangel is not raised above their control; nor can any action of his exceed that bound which they prescribe. The child, who has passed the! verge of moral agency, is not placed beneath their regulation; and whatever virtue he may exercise is no other than a fulfillment of their requisitions. All the duties which we immediately owe to God, to our fellow- creatures, and to ourselves, are by these precepts alike comprehended, and required. In a word, endlessly various as moral action may be, it exists in no form, or instance, in which he who perfectly obeys these precepts, will not have done his duty, and will not find himself justified and accepted of God.
These features of the Divine Law will advantageously appear by a comparison of it with the most perfect human laws. I shall select for this purpose those of Great Britain. The Statute Laws of that kingdom are contained, if I mistake not, in about eighteen or twenty folio, or about fifty octavo volumes. The Common, or, as it is sometimes styled, the Unwritten Law, occupies a number of volumes far greater. To understand them is a work of deep science; the employment of the first human talents; and the labor of a life. The great body of them can never be known by the generality of men; and must, therefore, be very imperfect rules of their conduct. In the meantime, multitudes of cases are continually occurring, which they do not reach at all. Those which they actually reach, they affect in many instances injuriously; and in many more, Imperfectly. The system of happiness, which they propose, is extremely defective; a bare state of tolerable convenience; and even that attended with many abatements. They also extend their influence only to a speck of earth, and a moment of time. Yet these laws were devised, reviewed, and amended, by persons of the first human consideration for learning and wisdom.
But the Law, which we have been examining, is comprised in Two Precept: only: is so short; so intelligible; so capable of being remembered, and applied, as to be perfectly fitted to the understanding, and use, of every moral being. At the same time, it is so comprehensive, as to reach, perfectly, every possible moral action; to preclude every wrong, and to secure every right. It is equally fitted to men and angels, to earth and heaven. Its control extends with the same efficacy, and felicity, to all worlds, and to all periods. It governs the Universe; it reaches through Eternity. The system of happiness, proposed and accomplished, by it, is perfect, endless, and forever progressive.—Must not candor, must not prejudice itself, confess, with the Magicians of Egypt, that here is “The Finger of God?"—System of Theology, Serm. XCI.
THOMAS DICK, LL. D.—The Ten Commandments, when properly considered, carry in them an evidence of their divine origin, as striking, and, perhaps, more convincing than any other. Thy unfold to us the moral laws of the universe—they present to us a summary of moral principles and precepts, which is applicable to all the tribes and generations of men, to all the orders of angelic beings, and to all the moral intelligences that people the amplitudes of creation—to man, during his temporary abode on earth, and to man when placed in heaven, so long as eternity endures—precepts, which, if universally observed, would banish misery from the creation, and distribute happiness, without alloy, among all the intellectual beings that exist throughout the empire of God. Can these things be affirmed of any other system of religion or of morals that was ever published to the world? Now, can it be supposed, for a moment, that a Jew, who had been born and brought up in a land of gross idolatry and superstition, and who had spent forty years of his manhood life as a shepherd in a desert country, who lived in a rude age of the world, who had never studied a system of Ethics, and whose mind was altogether incapable of tracing the various relations which subsist between intelligent beings and their Creator, could have investigated those moral principles and laws which form the foundation of the moral universe, and the basis of the divine government in all worlds, unless they had been communicated immediately by Him, who, at one glance, beholds all the physical and moral relations which exist throughout creation, and who can trace the bearings and eternal consequences of every moral law? Surely it must be admitted by all that the unassisted powers of the human mind were inadequate to such a task. The very simplicity which distinguishes these precepts of universal application is characteristic of their Divine Author, who, from the general operation of a few general principles and laws in the system of Nature, produces all the variety we perceive in the material world, and all the harmonies, the contrasts, the beauties, and the sublimities of the universe. If, then, we find in a book which professes to be a revelation from heaven, a system of moral laws which can clearly be shown to be the basis of the moral order of the universe, and which are calculated to secure the eternal happiness of all intellectual beings-it forms a strong presumptive proof, if not an unanswerable argument, that the contents of that book are of celestial origin, and were dictated by Him, who gave birth to the whole system of created beings.—Philosophy of Religion, c. III. See Deut. 5:6-216I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 7Thou shalt have none other gods before me. 8Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: 9Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, 10And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. 11Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 12Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. 13Six days thou shalt labor, and do all thy work: 14But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. 15And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. 16Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 17Thou shalt not kill. 18Neither shalt thou commit adultery. 19Neither shalt thou steal. 20Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbor. 21Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbor's. (Deuteronomy 5:6‑21).
Special Laws
PLAUTUS.—Stalin. Would you prefer to be single and a freeman, or as a married man to pass your life, with your wife and children, in slavery! Whichever condition you prefer, take it—Chalinus. If I am free, I live at my own cost; at present I live at yours—Casin., Act II., sc. 4.
PROF. CHARLES BUSH.—This boring of the ears was in the Eastern countries a badge of servitude.—Notes In loco.
JUVENAL.—Why should I fear or doubt to defend 'the place, though born on the banks of the Euphrates, as the tender perforations in my ear evince Sat. I., 102.
First come, first served, he cries, and I, in spite
Of your great lordships, will maintain my right:
Though born a slave, though my torn ears are bored,
'Tis not the birth, 'tis money makes the lord.
—Sat. I., 102.
Exod. 21:23-2523And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 24Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Exodus 21:23‑25).—And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
DR. ADAM CLARKE.—The lex talionis, or law of like for like, prevailed among both the Greeks and Romans. Among the latter it constituted a part of the “Twelve Tables," so famous in antiquity; but the punishment was afterward changed to a pecuniary fine, to be levied at the discretion of the Praetor.— Com. In loco.
PROF. C. BUSH.—In several countries of the East, we find the law of retaliation obtaining at the present day in regard to the same class of injuries as those which came under its operation in the Hebrew statute book.—Notes In loco.
Exod. 22:66If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution. (Exodus 22:6).—If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith, he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.
HARMER.—It is a common custom in the East, to set the dry herbage on fire before the autumnal rains; which fires, for want of care, often do great damage; and in countries where great drought prevails, and herbage is generally parched, great caution was peculiarly necessary; and a law to guard against such evils, and to punish inattention and neglect, was highly expedient—Obs. viii., p. 310.
REV. W. M. THOMSON, D. D.—When I was crossing the plain of Gennesaret, in 5848, during harvest I stopped to lunch at 'Ain et Tiny, and my servant kindled a very small fire to make a cup of coffee. A man detached from a company of reapers, came immediately and stood patiently by us until we had finished, without saying what he wanted. As soon as we left, however, he carefully extinguished our little fire, and upon inquiry I found he had been sent for that purpose. Burckhardt, while stopping at Tiberias, hired a guide to the caves in Wedy el Hamam, and says that this man was constantly reproving him for the careless manner in which he threw away the ashes from his 'pipe. He then adds, " The Arabs who inhabit the Valley of the Jordan invariably put la death any person who is known to have been even the innocent cause of firing the grass; and they have made it a public law among themselves that, even in the height of intestine warfare, no one shall attempt to set his enemy's harvest on fire." The ordinance of Moses on this subject was a wise regulation, designed to meet a very urgent necessity. To understand the full value of the law, we must remember that the wheat is suffered to become dead ripe, and as dry as tinder, before it is cut; and farther, that the land is tilled in common, and the grain sown in one vast field, without fence, ditch, or hedge to separate the individual portions. A fire catching in any part, and driven by the wind, would consume the whole, and thus the entire population might be stripped of their year's provisions in half an hour.—The Land and the Book, Vol. I., p. 529.
EURIPIDES.—It is impious for a state to reject the suppliant prayer of the strangers—Heracl., v. 107.
PLAUTUS.—You must be a worthless, bad servant, to be laughing at one who is a foreigner and a stranger. —Pœn, Act V., sc. 2.
ÆNEAS.—
Enter, my noble guest! and you shall find,
If not a costly welcome, yet a kind;
For I myself, like you, have been distressed,
Till heaven afforded me this place of rest.
Like you, an alien in a land unknown,
I learn to pity woes so like my own.
—Virgil,. Æn., I., 631.
APOL. RHODIUS.—Jove, the Friend of strangers—Arg., III., 986.
DR. ADAM CLARKE.—From the practice of the Hebrews, in obedience to this law, the heathens borrowed a similar one, founded on the same reason.—Com. In loco.
PLINY.—The Romans never tasted either their new corn or wine, till the priests had offered the first- fruits to the gods—Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., c. 2.
TIBULLUS.—
My grateful fruits, the earliest of the year,
Before the rural god shall daily wait,
From Ceres' gifts I'll cull each browner ear,
And hang a wheaten wreath before her gate.
—Eleg., lib. i., 13.
CENSORINUS.—Our ancestors, who held their food; their country, the light, and all that they possessed, from the bounty of the gods, consecrated to them a part of all their property; rather as a token of their gratitude, than from the conviction that the gods needed anything. Therefore, as soon as the harvest was got in, before they had tasted of the fruits, they appointed libations to be made to the gods. And as they held their fields and cities as gifts from their gods, they consecrated a certain part, in the temples and shrines, where they worshipped.—De Die Natali.
QUINTILIAN.—Both kinds of injustice are to be avoided. A bribe is not to be received from the rich against the poor; nor, on the other hand, is that more plausible habit of supporting the feeble against the powerful to be adopted; for fortune does not in itself make any cause just or unjust—Quint., lib. xii., c. 7.
The Three Great Feasts
Exod. 23:1717Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God. (Exodus 23:17).—Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.—Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God.
PROF. CHARLES BUSH.—It might seem at first view that there was signal impolicy in leaving the land defenseless, while all the adult male population were congregated at a distance from their families and homes. Humanly speaking, it is indeed surprising that the hostile nations on their borders did not take advantage of their exposedness. For the matter was no secret; it was publicly known that at three set times every year they actually attended at Jerusalem. Why, then, were not inroads made at these seasons, to slay the old men, women and children, to burn the cities and carry off the spoil? How shall we account for the enmity of their foes being asleep at these particular times, when the land was defenseless? and perfectly awake at every other season, when they were at home, and ready to oppose them? Unless the Scriptures had given a solution, the matter would have been deemed inexplicable; but from this source we learn that the same Being who appointed those feasts guaranteed the security of the land while they were attending them. Thus runs the promise, “Neither shall any man desire thy land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God, thrice in the year." Thus to remove all apprehensions as to the safety of their property or their families, he pledged himself to protect their frontier, and so overrule the minds of their enemies, that they should not even "desire" to invade their land at any of those seasons. Accordingly we look in vain throughout the whole course of their subsequent history for an instance of foreign aggression made under these circumstances. Can anything afford us a more striking instance of a particular providence? During the whole period between Moses and Christ, we never read of an enemy invading the land at the time of the three festivals; the first that occurs was thirty-three years after they had withdrawn from themselves the divine protection, by embracing their hands in the Savior's blood, when Cestius, the Roman General, slew fifty of the people of Lydda, while all the rest were gone up to the Feast of Tabernacles, A. D. 66.—Notes in locis.
DR. ADAM CLARKE.—What a manifest proof was this of the power and particular providence of God! How easy would it have been for the surrounding nations to have taken possession of the whole Israelitish land, with all their defensed cities, when there were none left to protect them but women and children! Was not this a standing proof of the divine origin of their religion, and a barrier which no deistical mind could possibly surmount? Thrice every year did God work an especial miracle for the protection of his people: controlling even the very "desires" of their enemies, that they might not so much as meditate evil against them.—Comment. In loco.
DR. THOMAS SCOTT.—This remarkable promise would form, while the people continued to observe the solemn feasts, a full demonstration of the divine origin of their religion, and three times in the year they would put this matter to a new proof. No instance is recorded, through the whole history, of the land being invaded on these occasions. No false prophet would ever have inserted such an engagement in his writings, by which his own imposture would always be liable to detection.—Comment. In loco.
ARISTOTLE.—The ancient sacrifices and general meetings seem to have been held after collecting the fruits of the earth as first-fruits.—Eth., lib. viii., c. 10.
OVID.—Thou, O Bacchus, having subdued the Ganges and all the East, didst set apart the first-fruits for the mighty Jove.—Fast., lib. iii., v. 729.
Construction of the Tabernacle
PROF. G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—The state of the arts as represented among the Hebrews when in the wilderness (Exod. 25:2-82Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. 3And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, 4And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, 5And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood, 6Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, 7Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. 8And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:2‑8)) has sometimes been objected to as “unduly advanced; " but all that we read of there is in entire accordance with the condition of art in Egypt at the period. The Egyptian civilization of the 18th and 19th dynasties embraces all the various arts and manufactures necessary for the construction of the tabernacle and its appurtenances, for the elaborate dress of the priests, and for the entire ceremonial described in the later books of the Pentateuch. The employment of writing, the arts of cutting and setting gems, the power of working in metals—and especially in gold, in silver, and in bronze—skill in carving wood, the tanning and dyeing of leather, the manufacture of fine linen, the knowledge of embroidery, the dyeing of textile fabrics, the employment of gold thread, the preparation and use of highly-scented unguents, are parts of the early civilization of Egypt, and were probably at their highest perfection about the time that the exodus took place. Although the Hebrews, while in Egypt, were, for the most part, mere laborers and peasants, still it was natural that some of them, and, even more, that some of the Egyptians who accompanied them (Ex. 13:38), should have been acquainted with the various branches of trade and manufactures established in Egypt at the time. Hence there is nothing improbable in the description given in the Pentateuch of the Ark and its surroundings, since the Egyptian art of the time was quite equal to their production.—Historical Illustrations of the O. T., p. 80.
The Urim and Thummim, and Priestly Robes
Exod. 28:2, 4, 302And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty. (Exodus 28:2)
4And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. (Exodus 28:4)
30And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before the Lord: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually. (Exodus 28:30).—And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty.... And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, etc.... And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before the Lord: and Aaron shall hear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually.
ÆLIAN.—Among the Egyptians those who judged were formerly priests, and of these the eldest was the chief; he pronounced the law to all, and it behooved him to be the justest and most impartial of all men. He wore suspended from his neck an image of sapphire, which was called “Truth"—Var. Hist., lib. xiv., c. 34.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—An adequate stipend was awarded to the judges by the king; the chief judge receiving the largest income. He wore suspended from his neck by a golden chain a small figure which was called “Truth," set with precious stones. As soon as the chief judge had placed this image upon his neck the pleading of a cause began—Diod. Sic., lib. i., c. 75.
PROF. EDWARD HAYES PLUMTREE, M. A.—" Urim and Thummim "—of these words, “Light and Truth " is the translation given in the Vulgate; but " Light and Perfection " would probably be the best English equivalent... Seeing the Urim and Thummim are mentioned with no description or explanation, we must infer that they and their meaning were already known, if not to the other Israelites, at least to Moses. And if we are to look for their origin anywhere, it must be in the customs and symbolism of Egypt. And here we find at once a patent and striking analogy. The priestly judges of Egypt, with whose presence and garb Moses must have been familiar, wore, each of them, hanging on his neck, suspended on a golden chain, a figure which Greek writers describe as an image of Truth, often with closed eyes, made sometimes of sapphire or other precious stones, and, therefore, necessarily small. They were to see in this a symbol of the purity of motive, without which they would be unworthy of their office. With it they touched the lips of the litigant as they bade him speak the truth, the whole truth, the perfect truth. (Diod. Sic., lib. i., 48, 75; Ælian, Var. Hist., xiv., 34.)... This custom was of very ancient origin; it is set forth on the older monuments of Egypt. There round the neck of the judge are seen the two figures of Thmei (Thummim), representative of Truth, Justice. (Wilk., Ancient Egyptians, V., 28.)... On the breast of well-nigh every member of the priestly caste of Egypt there hung a pectoral plate, corresponding in position and in size to the Choshen or Breastplate of the High Priest of Israel. And in many of these we find, in the center of the pectorale, right over the heart of the Priestly Mummy, as the Urim was to be "on the heart" of Aaron, what was a known symbol of Light. In that symbol were united and embodied the highest religious thoughts to which man had then risen. It represented the Sun and the Universe, Light and Life, Creation and Resurrection... Position, size, material, meaning, everything answers the conditions of the problem.... The High Priest, in the use of the Urim and Thummim, fixing his gaze on "the gems oracular " that lay " on his heart," fixed his thoughts on the Light and Perfection which they symbolized, on the Holy Name inscribed on them. The act was itself a prayer, and„ like other prayers, it might be answered... All disturbing elements—selfishness, prejudice, and the fear of man—were eliminated. He received the insight which he craved.—Smith's Dict. of the Bible, p. 3357, etc.
Exod. 28:31, 3331And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue. (Exodus 28:31)
33And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about: (Exodus 28:33).—Thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue.... And beneath, upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about: a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about.
PLUTARCH.—The High Priest of the Jews wears a vesture of deer-skin, wrought with gold, together with a long robe, reaching to the feet, and buskins: and many little bells are suspended from his garments, jingling as he goes—Symp., IV., 6.
PLAUTUS.—I'll fetch two sacrificers with their bells—Pseud., a. I., sc. 3.
HERODOTUS.—The priesthood in Egypt is confined to one particular mode of dress: they have one vest of linen, and their shoes are made of byblus—Euterpe, c. 37.
PLUTARCH.—The Egyptian priests wear no garments of wool, which they esteem to be impure, but surplices and vestments of linen.—De Isid. et Osiris., C. 4.
MARTIAL—The bare-headed priests of Isis, clad in linen vestments.—Mart., lib. xii., epgr. 29.
Sacrifice and Incense
HOMER.—
The limbs they sever from the inclosing hide,
The thighs, selected to the gods, divide.
On these, in double cauls, involved with art,
The choicest morsels lie from every part.
—Iliad, II., 460.
STRABO.—Among the Persians, of the victim slain for sacrifice, they lay only a small piece of the caul upon the fire.—Strab., XV 3.
HOMER.—
The priest himself before his altar stands,
And burns the offering with his holy hands;
Gives the best morsels to the sacred fire,
Pours the black wine and sees the flames aspire.
—Iliad, I., p. 80.
HESIOD.—Propitiate the gods with libations and incense, both when you go to rest, and when the holy light has risen—Oper. et Dies, v. 336.
HOMER.—
Disposed in rank their hecatomb they bring,
With water purify their hands, and take
The sacred offering.
—Iliad, I., 448.
IDEM.—Bring water for the hands, and use words of good omen, that we may beseech Saturnian Jove, etc.—Iliad, IX., 171.
ROBERTS.—In the vestibule of every heathen temple, in India, a large brass laver is kept filled with water. In it the priest washes his hands and feet before he enters into the holy place.—Orient. Iliust., p. 80.
Exod. 30:23-2523Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels, 24And of cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: 25And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil. (Exodus 30:23‑25).—Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels, and of cassia five 'hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil-olive an him: and thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary.
PLUTARCH.—The composition called by the Egyptians cuphi, is a mixture of sixteen ingredients, among which are rosin, myrrh, mastich, cardamomum, and calamus. These are not compounded at a venture, but certain sacred writings are read to the apothecaries while they compound them.—De Isid. et Osirid., c. 81.
PLINY.—Scented calamus, which grows in Arabia, is common to both India and Syria—Hist. Nat., XII., 48.
REV. DANIEL MARCH, D. D.—Moses was commanded to prepare holy oil for the consecration of the tabernacle and all the vessels used in the service of the sanctuary. He was to compound it with sweet spices, after the art of the Egyptian perfumer, as he himself had known it to be done in Egypt. The vases in which these perfumes were kept have been found in the valley of the Nile. In some cases the precious ointment remains in the alabaster box just as it was put up by the Egyptian apothecary, and the spices still exhale their odor. The sweet savor of the costly preparation, 3,000 years old, in the tombs of Egypt, is a testimony that the word of Moses is true.—In Wood's Bible Animals, p. 690.
The Arts
SIR WILLIAM DRUMMOND.—It follows from the numerous facts that have come into our possession, that when the Hebrews quitted Egypt, the knowledge of metallurgy, chemistry, and pharmacy, must have been already well advanced in that country. Origines, II., p. 272-275.
DR. JOHN KITTO.—The artistic genius of Bezaleel and Aholiab was given to them originally by God, and the circumstances of life which gave them an opportunity to exercise and improve that genius in Egypt were determined by Him with a view to its ultimate employment in his special service.... The three metals, gold and silver and copper, were naturally the first which men appropriated to their service; and the scripture exhibits them as in use, and even abundant, in Egypt and Palestine, a few ages after the flood. We know not precisely, when these metals first became known; but at the time now immediately under our notice, the arts of metallurgy had certainly attained considerable perfection; various personal ornaments—various utensils—and even images—of gold and silver, have already been often mentioned in the sacred text. It seems to our mind, that a large mass of evidence in favor of the verity of the Pentateuch remains yet untouched—the evidence resulting from the perfect conformity of all its allusions, to the state of the arts and the materials on which the arts operate, as well as the agreement of its statements concerning the condition of men, with the natural progress of men, and of the arts they cultivate, and with the condition of things at the most early 'times of which profane history exhibits any knowledge. Even the silence of the Pentateuch, as to particulars which a writer later than Moses could scarcely have failed to notice, is not the least valuable of the internal evidences which the book bears of its own antiquity and truth. In the present instance, all history and all experience corroborate the statements of Moses with regard to the early and prior use of gold, silver, and copper. These are the metals which are the most easily found, which are found in the purest state, and which are the most easily wrought when they are found. —Pict. Bib. In loco.
The Molten Calf
Exod. 32:44And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 32:4).—And Aaron received the ear-rings at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
DR. JOHN KITTO.—It is expressly said that the Hebrews had, while in Egypt, served the gods of that country; and had this information been wanting, the fact of their predilection for the idolatry of Egypt would be sufficiently apparent from their conduct on the present and various other occasions. It is not at all questioned that the idol to which they turned aside at this time was an Egyptian god; and it is also very generally agreed that this god was no other than Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, under whose form Osiris was worshipped; or, perhaps, Mnevis, the sacred ox of Heliopolis, which was also dedicated to Osiris, and honored with a reverence next to that paid to Apis. These animals, as representatives of Osiris, were worshipped as gods throughout the land of Egypt. Thus as the Israelites were tainted with the idolatry of Egypt, and as Apis was one of the most conspicuous objects in the idolatrous system, a sufficient explanation seems to be given of the direction taken by the first apostasy of the Israelites from Him who had recently given them such large and manifest evidence of his mercy and regard—Pict. Bib. In loco.
Exod. 32:6, 196And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. (Exodus 32:6)
19And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. (Exodus 32:19).—And the people sat, down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. And it came to pass, as soon as Moses came nigh unto the camp that he saw the calf, and the dancing.
LUCIAN.—Of all the ancient mysteries no one is discoverable at which dancing was not in practice.—De Saltat., c. 15.
ARRIAN.—Dances are led up, and paeans sung in honor of the gods—Exped. Alex. IV., II.
XENOPHON.—And when they had performed the sacrifices, and sung their pæans, the Thracians rose up, and armed men danced to the sound of the pipe; and they sprang up nimbly and used their swords in the dance—Cyrop., V., 9.
DR. JOHN KITTO.—It would appear that the first and earliest purpose to which the art of writing was applied was to transmit Laws, and the memory of great events, to future times. And all our existing information points to stone as the substance on which writing was first executed; and men continued to engrave important documents on stone in times long subsequent to that in which writing was made subservient to the intercourse of life and the service of literature. Ancient inscriptions on the surface of perpendicular rocks are still found in different parts of Asia, many of them of such early date that the knowledge of the characters in which they were written is lost. —Pict. Bib. In loco.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—The inhabitants of Panchæa possess a record, written, as they say, by Jupiter's own hand. They have also a large golden pillar, on which are letters inscribed, called by the Egyptians sacred writing, expressing the famous actions of Uranus, Jupiter, Diana and Apollo, written, as they say, by Mercury himself—Diod. Sic., V., 46.
GOGUET.—There is nothing in all antiquity more famous than the pillars or tables of stone on which Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes, is said to have written his theology, and the history of the first ages. In Crete there existed very ancient columns, charged with inscriptions detailing the ceremonies practiced in the sacrifices of the Corybantes. In the time of Demosthenes there still existed at Athens a law of Theseus inscribed on a stone pillar. Origine des Lois, Vol. I., p. 204.
Work in Gold and Precious Stones
Exod. 35:21-2821And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the holy garments. 22And they came, both men and women, as many as were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold: and every man that offered offered an offering of gold unto the Lord. 23And every man, with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, and red skins of rams, and badgers' skins, brought them. 24Every one that did offer an offering of silver and brass brought the Lord's offering: and every man, with whom was found shittim wood for any work of the service, brought it. 25And all the women that were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. 26And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats' hair. 27And the rulers brought onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate; 28And spice, and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense. (Exodus 35:21‑28).—And they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation and for all his service, and for the holy garments. And they came both men and women, as many as were willing-hearted, and brought bracelets, and ear-rings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold... And every man with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goat's hair, and red skins of rams, and badger skins, brought them... And the rulers brought onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate; and spice, and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense.
REV. DANIEL MARCH, D. D.—Some have wondered how the Hebrews could contribute vast quantities of gold, and silver, and precious stones, as Moses says they did, for the construction of the tabernacle and its furniture in the desert. But they had learned the art of ornamentation from their masters, and they had conformed to the social life around them in the days of their freedom and prosperity; and now necklaces of gold and cornelian, engraved signets, girdles, rings, pendants, bracelets, armlets, amulets, chains, metallic mirrors, costly and elegant ornaments of every description, are found in tombs with mummies, and the forms are engraven and painted on monuments of the age of Moses. The explorer in the valley of the Nile to-day can see the models from which Bezaleel and Aholiab learned the art of setting precious stones, and of making wreathen chain-work in gold, and of carving in wood, and of devising all manner of tasteful forms in gold, and silver, and brass. The children of Israel also brought an offering of red skins of rams, and badger skins, for the service of the sanctuary: and the monuments show us the forms and device, which they used for the adornment of the sacred tent. In the tombs of Thebes leather has been found stamped with beautiful figures in various colors, with the names of the most ancient kings. Sandals, shields, harps, quivers, are ornamented with green morocco. The stamp of the lotus blossom can still be traced in the leather, and the shop of the workers is pictured on the walls of the tomb. At Beni Hassan the Bible student can see to-day the representation of the whole process of preparing the fine-twined linen which was used in making the curtains of the tabernacle, and the pictures are as old as the days of Moses. Men are beating the yarn with sticks to make it soft. They are boiling it in water to increase its pliability. Women join with men in twining the thread for weaving. The blue, and the purple, and the scarlet thread which the wise-hearted Hebrew women spun for the tabernacle in the desert has been kept 3,300 years in the dry air of Egypt for our eyes to see.—Research and Travel in Bible Lands, in " Wood's Bible Animals," p. 695.
Dyeing and Gilding
Exod. 35:3535Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work. (Exodus 35:35).—Work... in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet.
DR. JOHN KITTO.—As the Hebrews had just come from Egypt, there is no doubt that they employed the same coloring materials that were there in use, and it is therefore interesting to inquire what these were. The cloths in which the mummies are enfolded, is in application to the present subject. The colors of these are various, being pure yellow, brownish yellow, dark red, flesh color, and pale brick, or red color. The selvage of these cloths is sometimes adorned with blue stripes. A small pattern of edging to one of these cloths was composed of a strip of blue, followed by three narrow lines of the same color, alternating with three narrow lines of a fawn color, all apparently formed in the loom with threads previously dyed. A variety of colors may also be seen in the paintings which adorn their ancient tombs—Pict. Bible In loco.
HERODOTUS.—At Paprêmis, the image of the gal is kept in a small wooden shrine covered with plates of gold—Euterpe, c. 63.
IDEM.—Mycerinus conceived the wish to entomb his child in some unusual way. He therefore caused a cow to be made of wood, and after the interior had been hollowed out, he had the whole surface coated with gold; and in this novel tomb laid the dead body of his daughter. The cow was not placed under ground, but continued visible to my times—the head and neck are coated very thickly with gold, and between the horns there is a representation in gold of the orb of the sun—Euterpe, C. 129-132.
PROF. G. RAWLINSON, M. A.—The gold used by the Egyptians for overlaying the faces of the mummies, and ornamental objects, is often remarkable for its thickness.—Rawlinson's Herod, Vol. II., p. 177, n.
Mirrors
SIR G. WILKINSON.—The mirrors of the ancient Egyptians were made of a mixed metal, chiefly copper, wrought with such admirable skill, that they were susceptible of a luster, which has even been partially revived at the present day, in some of those discovered at Thebes, though buried in the earth for many centuries.—Ancient Egypt, III., 384.
EURIPIDES. —Having placed the golden chaplet around her tresses she arranges her hair in the radiant mirror.—Med., v. 1161.
IDEM.—I was binding my braided hair with fillets, looking into the round polished surface of the golden mirror—Hecub. v. 925.
PLINY.—Pure silver was formerly used for the purpose of making mirrors. The best mirrors in the times of our ancestors were those of Brundisium, composed of a mixture of stannum and copper—Hist. Nat., XXXIII., 45.