LECTURE XIII. THE DELIVERANCE OF THE ISRAELITES FROM THEIR EGYPTIAN BONDAGE. The Architect supreme, by pity mov'd, Beam'd light through darkness on the race he loved, By wonders, signs, and tokens, he revealed In types, from all but Masons' eyes concealed. "In the most ancient and best historians we do not find it recorded that any place was set apart for worshipping the true God, till after the happy deliverance of the children of Israel from their Egyptian bondage; when the time was at hand that the Almighty revealed himself amongst men, in so wonderful a manner as made his name glorious throughout all nations."—ASHE. THE circumstances attending the history of the Israelites are so remarkable, that they have constituted a perpetual wonder in all ages of the world. The visible interference of the Deity in their affairs; their obstinacy and disobedience in the face of all his mercies, and despite of his personal superintendence; his longsuffering towards them; his repeated deliverances ;' and finally rejecting and scattering them amongst all nations; where they still live without fixed possessions in any, enjoying their own customs, practising their own religion, and using their own language, as a primitive people; all these things are so extraordinary, and so much at variance with the history of other nations, that they cannot fail to excite the serious consideration of every pious and well-instructed Brother.2 1 His injunctions against idolatry, though so frequently repeated, were entirely disregarded, although introduced with the greatest possible solemnity. "And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, 'what mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you?' that thou shalt say unto thy son, we were Pharoah's bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; and the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon Egypt, upon Pharoah, and upon all his household, before our eyes; and he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers."" (Deut. vi. 20—23.) 2 Their history displays the attributes and perfections of the Deity in all their mildness, and all their sublimity and terror. Gracious and merciful when they obeyed him and kept his statutes-just in his resentment when they offended him by their idolatries—all his dispensations were directed to their eventual benefit. They were, in a peculiar sense, his people. He guided them by the cloud and fire through the barren wilderness of Arabia for forty years, feeding them with bread from heaven-he established them in a land flowing with milk and honey--he delivered them from their enemies on every side -he gave them kings to rule over them, and priests and prophets to pray for and instruct them, and to guide them into the paths of One of the most remarkable amidst their numerous deliverances, was the redemption from Egyptian bondage; whether we consider the causes that led to itthe preservation of Moses, and his princely education in the king's household, along with the royal family, in all the learning of Egypt-the visible interposition of Jehovah in favour of his people-the signs and tokens of his power—the hardness of Pharoah's heart -the passage of the Red Sea, and the total overthrow of the Egyptians3 —all exhibit such manifest instances of the divine majesty of God, as must prove an effectual antidote to atheism, if they fail to inspire a pure spirit of piety and devotion.* It had been predicted that the Israelites should be strangers in a foreign land four hundred years. Their purity and peace. If he suffered them to be led into captivity by their enemies, as a seasonable reproof for their repeated sins, he delivered them in his own good time, and restored them to their ancient possessions. Speaking of the miraculous passage over the Red Sea, Diodorus Siculus has this remarkable observation-" The Troglodytes, the indigenous inhabitants of this very spot had a tradition, from father to son from the very earliest times, that this division of the Red Sea did once happen there, and that, after leaving its bottom some time dry, the sea again came back with great fury, and covered the land." Throughout the whole of his dealings with this obdurate people, his forbearance and long suffering are particularly remarkable. This would be calculated from the time of Abraham; for from the period when Jacob went down into Egypt to the deliverance, was only about 215 years. The Marquis of Spineto, in his Lectures on the Egyptian Antiquities (p. 440), says "God said to that patriarch, that his seed should be a stranger in a land that is not theirs; and surely the Israelites were as much strangers in the land of Canaan as they were in Egypt. In confirmation of this interpretation, the reading of the Septuagint version of the passage of Exodus increase had created great alarm amongst the native inhabitants, and they adopted a variety of expedients to reduce their numbers. They were cruelly treated, employed in servile works," compelled to carry heavy burdens beyond their strength, degraded in the eyes of the Egyptians, and deprived of their own self-esteem by the imposition of a peculiar dress, that their spirits might be broken, and the population checked. But may be adduced, in which Moses says, 'And the sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt and in the land of Canaan, they and their fathers, was four hundred and thirty years.' The same thing may be collected from the third chapter of St. Paul to the Galatians, in which the Apostle computes the four hundred and thirty years from the promise made to Abraham to the publication of the law by Moses. In fact, by casting up all the intermediate periods from this first visit of Abraham, to the departure of the Israelites under Moses, we shall find that four hundred and thirty years had elapsed, for the account will run thus From the promise of God to Abraham to the birth of Isaac, we In the buildings executed by them, or supposed to be so executed, vaulted chambers exist. 'At Thebes one of these vaulted chambers still remains. It is about 30 feet by 12, ornamented with sculptures which throw great light on the names of the Thotmos family. Here Thotmos I. and his queen Ames, accompanied by their young daughter, but all deceased at the time of its construction, received the adoration and offerings of Amunneitgori, and of Thotmos III., followed by his daughter Reninofre. The niche and inner door also present the name of the former. To this succeeds a smaller apartment, which, like the two lateral rooms with which it communicates, has a vaulted roof." (Wilkinson's Thebes, p. 95.) all these expedients failed; and at length, as a final measure of extermination, an order of state was promulgated for the destruction of all the male children. But even this scheme only produced a temporary effect, and the increase of population amongst the Hebrews remained unrestrained. Numbers of male children were preserved by the management of the midwives; and amongst the rest, Moses, the son of Amram, who was the grandson of Levi, and a prince of his tribe. By the providence of God this child was miraculously saved, and educated to rule the commonwealth of Israel, now that the time had arrived for their deliverance from bondage.' After the people of the Lord had been dismissed by 'The expulsion of this people from Egypt, and their successful invasion of the land of Canaan, were circumstances of such publicity, that the heathen historians were obliged to notice them, and to invent fictions for the purpose of excluding the divine agency, Thus Manetho, according to Josephus, in his Annals, feigned that after a long war between the Hebrews and the Egyptians, Themosis, King of Egypt, besieged them with an army of 80,000 men, and after a long and unsuccessful struggle, being unable to subdue them, compounded for their evacuation of the country. From the same source we further learn, that Lysimachus assigned a different reason for this removal. He said that the Hebrews being afflicted with leprosy, which contaminated the whole land, King Baccharis was directed by the oracle to drive them away, and to drown all those that were imfected amongst themselves. Accordingly, the Hebrews were dismissed under the direction of Moses, and proceeded to the land of Judea. To this account Tacitus and Justin add, that the Egyptians, attempting to follow them, were driven back by a violent storm. These accounts all confirm the Scripture history; for though the details vary, the facts remain the same-the Israelites were driven out of Egypt, and took refuge in the land of Judea. |