I will divide the spoil; my desire shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the mighty ones? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, To be praised with reverence, doing wonders? Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou, in thy mercy, hast led forth the people whom thou hast redeemed! The people shall hear, and be afraid; Sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina, Then 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. Fear 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, whom thou hast purchased. Thou 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. The LORD shall reign forever and ever." Thus sang Moses and the emancipated Hebrews, when they breathed the sweet air of heaven as freemen, on the banks of the Red Sea, and saw their proud and cruel oppressors lying dead on the shore; while Miriam and her female associates joined in the chorus:— "Sing ye to the LORD; for he hath triumphed gloriously: The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." The glorious issue of this contest is worthy of very serious attention, not only as a fulfillment of divine promise, but also as a wonderful accomplishment of Scripture prophecy. When Abraham was an old and childless man, the Lord had said unto him, "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance." Gen. xv, 13, 14. How strange and contradictory to the usual course of events does all this appear! Yet how strictly and literally was all fulfilled! Abraham and his sons were strangers in a land that was not theirs: this fact is indubitably attested by the purchase of a single field in which to bury their dead. For generations such was their condition. But, beyond this, the seed of Abraham were to serve a strange nation. It has been seen how fully this was fulfilled. They did, indeed, serve with rigor, and were made to drink deep of the cup of affliction. But God had said, "That nation I will judge;" and what judgments of God surpassed those wrought in the field of Zoan and at the Red Sea? What a glorious commentary on this prophecy is the history of the exodus! Jehovah did indeed pour his judgments upon Egypt, and Israel left that land with "great substance." What a strange anomaly is this whole case! An afflicted and enslaved people leaving the land of their oppression, in defiance of their oppressors, yet without war or violence, and enriching themselves, and spoiling their tyrant masters by the act! All this the prediction seemed to require, and all this the history amply details. As if to set forth this remarkable fact with the greatest prominence, full information is given respecting the wealth of the Israelites immediately after the exodus; and this, after two centuries of vassalage, accompanied by an unexampled increase of population, both of which might be expected to diminish individual property. The object of this introductory chapter has been thus completed. It has been shown, that Jehovah called Abraham and his seed into special covenant with himself; that to this patriarch he gave explicit promises that his descendants should be a great and favored nation. The development of this purpose has passed under our review; and, on closing the investigation, the most signal impression arising from the whole is a deep sense of the magnitude of the interpositions of God in the affairs of man. The checkered career of Abraham,-the quiet life of Isaac,—the various and complicated circumstances in the history of Jacob,-the still more varied and painful vicissitudes of his descendants, important and interesting in themselves,—are rendered a thousand-fold more so, by their uniform relation to the great purpose of God, and their certain (although sometimes imperceptible) co-operation in the evolution of his grand design. Nor are these purposes always effected by the ordinary operation of his providence: they give a glorious exhibition of Jehovah. The perfect goodness, eternal truth, infinite love, boundless compassion, unsearchable wisdom, and almighty power of God are not portrayed, but seen in action; not described, but heard speaking in the ordinary actions of men, and directing the ways of private life and family circumstance, or assuming more than angel power,-controlling elements, working prodigies, and displaying the full power of the divine arm. By these wondrous means, the Hebrew people rose up into being. The manifestations of infinite prescience and infinite power fostered the embryo creation of the Hebrew commonwealth. From the vocation of Abraham, to the morning when the emancipated Israelites stood on the banks of the Red Sea a free people, the purposes of God were in continual operation, to raise up the seed of Abraham, in numbers and knowledge, faith and freedom, worthy of the high position to which they had been predestinated. They stand before us, therefore, as a people prepared of the Lord, and a people whose history and religion were destined to exercise a commanding influence on the whole world of mankind. THE HISTORY AND RELIGION OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE. CHAPTER I. THE HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS IN THE WILDERNESS. PECULIARITIES of Hebrew Nationality at the Exodus-State of the People-Their rational Expression of Joy-Their Journeying-Marah-Elim-Wilderness of Sin-The Quails and Manna-Miraculous Supply of Water-Amalekites-The Hebrews arrive at Sinai— Glorious Revelation of God-He delivers his Law to the People-Moses called up into the Mount-The golden Calf-The People punished and pardoned-Moses again called into the Mount-The Levitical ecclesiastical Economy promulged-The Tabernacle and its Furniture prepared-Its sacred Service began and divinely accepted-Sin and Punishment of Nadab and Abihu-The People numbered and organized-Their Order of March-The People murmur for Flesh-Quails sent-And seventy Prophets appointedRebellion and Punishment of Miriam-The Israelites arrive at Kadesh-Barnea-The Purpose of God in their Wandering-Spies sent out-The Object and Results of their Mission-The existing Generation doomed to perish in the Wilderness-They wander thirty-eight Years-The Return of the Israelites to Kadesh-The Rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram-Their miraculous Punishment-The Sin and Doom of Moses and Aaron-The Edomites refuse Israel a Passage through their Country-Death of AaronPlague of fiery Serpents-Conquest of two Kings of the Amorites-Balaam-Sin and Punishment of Baal-peor-Second Census-Joshua appointed the Leader-Conquest of the Midianites-The Death of Moses-Order of Encampment. Notes. Song of Moses -The Healing of the Waters-Laws given at Marah-Quails-The Manna a Miracle -The smitten Rock-Amalek-Jethro's Visit to Moses-The Meekness of Moses-Situation of Kadesh-Absurdity of rationalistic Interpretation-Miriam-The Sin of Moses -The brazen Serpent-The Plains of Moab-Numbering of the People. RESCUED from the house of bondage, and delivered from their Egyptian enemies, the Hebrews appear before us, not only as a separate and distinct people, but as an independent nation. With a population of two or three millions, and a body of six hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms; possessing considerable wealth in flocks and herds, and also in jewels and gold; they must be regarded as invested with all the attributes of a political community, independent of every earthly power, and prepared to assert and maintain their nationality. In these circumstances the Israelites are distinguished by two grand peculiarities. Although they possessed numbers, power, and wealth, superior to many of the independent nations of that day, they had no country. Standing on the barren soil of the deserts of Sinai, from whose rocks and sands no sustenance could possibly be elicited, they had yet to obtain a territorial location. A country had, indeed, been promised them by God, and had, for ages previously, been regarded by their forefathers as the divinely appointed inheritance of their posterity; and this people had now left Egypt under the high hope of obtaining it; but all this was to be achieved. In another respect they were unlike every other people,—they had no earthly head, no recognized governor. Moses acted as their chief magistrate; but he did not assume this office as having any natural title or claim to it, or as being appointed thereto by the suffrages of the people; but as one who exercised authority in the name, and by the special appointment, of Jehovah. Nor did Moses act as one to whom God had delegated the government of this people, but rather as the servant and representative of God, who retained this government in his own hand. The Hebrew commonwealth was, therefore, from the beginning a theocracy. As they passed from the tyrannical yoke of the Egyptians, they were at once regarded as the specially elected people of Jehovah. He led them; he was their protection; he gave them not only their religious economy, but also their civil and political laws. Yet, although the Hebrew people at this time had no human governor, nor any national constitution, and had just emerged from a slavish vassalage, it must not be supposed that they marched as an unconnected, disorderly crowd, or manifested their joy at this great deliverance in unmeaning ebullitions of ecstasy, licentious mirth, or wild and lawless action. They appear to have possessed a simple and perfect bond of union in their family arrangements and connection. The people were divided into tribes, the tribes into families, and these were further subdivided; so that, according to regular family descent, the multitudes of the Hebrew people were arranged in an orderly and systematic manner. This mode of arrangement not only produced order, but created, what was essential to its maintenance, gradations of rank. The hereditary heads of the tribes, according to the well-known usage of patriarchal life, exercised authority as princes; the chiefs of the several families were next in subordinate rank; and so on, for the further subdivisions. Thus throughout this immense host a universally ramified paternal authority was everywhere exercised, producing a unity and order which to a great extent supplied the place both of formal civil polity, and regular military organization. This mode of family arrangement existed among the Hebrews whilst in Egypt, and those he reditary chiefs were the "elders" whom God commissioned Moses to address. Exod. iii, 16. The manner in which this people rejoiced at their deliverance, while it illustrates the orderly state of the multitude, also exhibits their intellectual and moral cultivation. They had escaped from evils as weighty in aggravated affliction, as humiliating and debasing in their effects, as had ever pressed upon any people. This state of abject woe had continued so long, that most of the people delivered at the exodus must have been born into it, as their inheritance. Yet how did these men manifest their joy, after having suddenly obtained a great accession of wealth, seen their tyrant foes destroyed, and felt themselves restored to perfect freedom? Much as is implied in the statement, it may be safely answered, that they did so in a manner worthy of the great occasion. Moses composed a thanksgivingode, which the thousands of Israel, both men and women, united in singing, as they exulted in their new-born freedom on the shores of the Red Sea. In this noble piece of poetry, full of sublime thought, breathing deeply pious and grateful feeling, and replete with enlarged views of the consequences which would result from this glorious deliverance, we have an expression of the mind of the Hebrew public on this great occasion. (See Appendix, note 15.) As the ode was adapted for alternate recitation, not only did the men of Israel shout forth their joy in its sacred strains, but the women also, led on by Miriam, and accompanying their voices with instrumental music, swelled the chorus of thanksgiving, and re-echoed to the skies, "Sing to Jehovah; for he is very greatly exalted: Where in all history do we find a great national deliverance so appropriately acknowledged? Let this public action be tested by the highest standard, in regard to elevated religious devotion, sterling intellectual dignity, elegant and cultivated taste; and then let those who speak of these Hebrews as a horde of semi-savages tell us what great public act in the best ages of Greece or Rome will bear a comparison with this grateful conduct of the redeemed Israelites. At first sight, all the dignity and intellectual grandeur of this proceeding may be attributed to the superior learning and mental cultivation of Moses, who, having been bred up in the Egyptian court, may not be regarded as a fair sample of Hebrew cultivation. Yet it must be remembered, that this poetry was not written for the purpose of parading the mental cultivation of the Israelites before the world, but on a great and solemn emergency, to guide the grateful effusion of their individual mind in suitable channels of expression |