fering any thing in his own defence, or by way of comfort to them at that time, he made his application to God, and in the humblest terms expostulated with him upon the ill success of his message. Hereupon God was graciously pleased to give him fresh assurances of his love and compassion for his oppressed people, that he would speedily let all Egypt see that he was their God, and would be their deliverer and conductor into the land which he had promised to their fathers. To this end he enabled Moses to work such miracles, and to bring such a series of terrible plagues upon the obstinate Pharaoh and the land of Egypt, as one would have thought capable of softening the hardest heart, and of humbling the proudest monarch. It was not, however, till all the first-born of the Egyptians were in one night smitten with immediate death, that Pharaoh was induced to let the Israelites depart; urged to it by the cries of his unhappy subjects, who crowded about his palace, upbraiding him with being the cause of all the dire calamities they had suffered.

Leaving therefore the Egyptians to mourn for their dead, the Israelites began their march under the conduct of Moses, to the number of six hundred thousand fighting men, as has been observed above, besides old men, women and children, and a great multitude of strangers. This happened on the same day of the same mouth and week that Jacob first. came into Egypt, two hundred and fifty years before; though Moses makes the sojourning of the Israelites four hundred and thirty years*, computing, as some

Exod. xi. 40.

suppose, from the first coming of Abraham into Canaan.

The infatuated Pharaoh and the Egyptians soon began to repent of their parting with the Israelites, and losing the benefit of their servitude; and accordingly pursued them with a numerous army, to bring them back into their former bondage. Pharaoh, at the head of his host, came up with them near the Red Sea, which threw them into the utmost consternation, seeing themselves hemmed in, as it were, by the sea, by impassable mountains, and by the Egyptian army, without any visible way of escaping. In these circumstances the despairing Israelites could not forbear upbraiding Moses, as if he had brought them out on purpose that they might perish in the wilderness; but the same mighty arm, which which had been already stretched out for them in so eminent a manner, was most signally exerted at this juncture, and wrought for them a complete deliverance. A passage was miraculously opened to them through the midst of the sea, the waters being divided, and standing on each side of them like a wall, as we are informed by the sacred historian*. In a word, the Israelites marched safely to the opposite shore, whilst the Egyptians pursuing them with great eagerness were overwhelmed by the waves, insomuch that neither Pharaoh nor any one of his vast army escaped the common ruin.

The Israelites, beholding this total destruction of their enemies, began to fear the Lord and to believe his servant Moses. They now thought themselves slavery, and upon the brink of *Exod. xiv. 22.

entirely freed from

their complete happiness. A few days march would easily bring them to the borders of the promised land, and the conquest of it could not but appear easy to them, who had God for their protector, and Moscs for their guide. And perhaps Canaan would soon have been in their possession, had it not been for their continual murmurings and rebellions against the leader whom heaven had appointed to conduct them, joined to an invincible fondness for idolatry and superstition, which proved not only a constant obstacle to their hopes, but the great source of their misfortunes, as well as the cause of much grief and vexation to Moses, though a man famed above all others for his meek and gentle disposition.

Scarce had the Israelites travelled three days from the Red Sea, into the wildernes of Shur, before they began to show fresh marks of their untractable and ungrateful temper, on account of their want of water. This dissatifaction was appeased by the sweetening of the bitter waters of Marah*; but in a short time, provisions becoming exceeding scarce, they renewed their murmurs more violently than ever, repining that they had suffered themselves to be decoyed from the flesh-pots of Egypt, into a wilderness where they had nothing but the prospect of dying with hungert. Notwithstanding this provoking behaviour, God was pleased to give them new instances of his favour, by sending them such prodigious flight of quailsį

* Exod. xv. 22—25.

† Exod. xvi. 2, 5.

Here we must remember, that this was done about the middle of April, at which time these birds are known to fly out of Egypt cross the Red Sea in vast quantities; so that the miracle consists not so much in the great numbers of them that fell in the

as quite covered their camp, and raining down bread from heaven.. But they had not advanced many

camp of the Israelites, as in God's directing them thither, and on that very evening too, according to his promise, and the prediction of his servant Moses. The word indeed, which we render quail, is confessedly of uncertain signification, and may denote a locust as well as a quail; but what induces us to prefer the latter acceptation, is that passage of the Psalmist, (xxviii. 27.) where he tells us, that « God rained flesh upon them as thick as dust, " and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea;" which cannot, with any tolerable propriety, be applied to insects.

*This bread was by the islanders called manna; but commentators are very much divided about the etymology of the name. Some derive it from the Hebrew word manah, a gift, to intimate its being a gift from heaven; and others from the Egyptian word ́man, signify what is it? This last etymology seems the more probable, in regard the scripture takes notice of the surprise the Is-raelites were under when they first found this new food upon the ground. Salmasius, however, prefers another: according to him, the Arabs and Chaldeans used the word man to signify a kind of dew or honey that fell on the trees, and was gathered in great abundance on Mount Libanus; whence he supposes, that the Israelites did not use the term manna out of surprise, but because they found this food fall with the dew, in the same manner as the honey so well known to them under the name of man. The same learned writer adds, that the manna of the Israelites was in reality no other than that honey or dew condensed, and that the one and the other were the same with the wild honey wherewith St. John was nourished in the wilderness: so that the miracle did not con. sist in the formation of any new substance in favour of the Israel. ites, but in the punctual manner in which it was dispensed by pro'vidence for the sustenance of so vast a multitude. As to our translation of Exodus xvi. 15. where the Israelites say one to another, "It is manna, for they wist not what it was;" this seems to involve Moses in a contradiction, and the text ought undoubtedly to be rendered, (agreeably to the Septuagint version, and several authors both ancient and modern) "When the children of Israel "saw it, they said one to another, What is this? For they knew not "what it was."

many days journey, till coming to Rephidim, and finding no water there, they fell into their old way of distrusting God's providence, and murmuring a gainst Moses, and that in a tumultuous and threatening manner. To satisfy their clamours, God ordered Moses to smite a certain rock on the side of Mount Horeb with his rod, which he had no sooner done than water gushed out in abundance at several places, and, joining in one common stream, ran down to the camp at Rephidim. This station was so infamous for the mutiny of the people, and their distrust of God, that Moses called the place Massal and Meribah, which signify temptation and contention.

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About this time the Israelites were alarmed by the approach of an army of Amalekites, whom they defeated under the conduct of Joshua, whilst Moses held up his hands to God in prayer, which were supported by Aaron and Hur, when through weariness he could hold them up no longer. This good success in their first martial enterprize gave the Israelites great encouragement, and opened a way for them to Mount Sinai, where their abode proved not only the longest, but the most famous of any other by the wonderful promulgation of the law, and the appointment of the principal ceremonies they were afterwards to observe. They had not been long encamped in the wilderness of Sinai, before God called Moses to come up to him on the Mount, and there charged him to remind the Israelites of the many wonders he had wrought in their favour, and to assure them, that if they proved obedient to his laws, (notwithstanding their past murmurings and distrust