The child thus exposed is seen by Pharaoh's daughter, who had gone down to the river to bathe-" The babe wept, and she had compassion on him.” Rescued, he was named "Moses; and she said, Because I drew him out of the water" (ver. 10). Early led to feel that he had been raised up as a deliverer, by one act and another he began to show it until he brought down on himself the wrath of Pharaoh, and was forced to flee into a foreign land. He betook himself to the wild Arabian Desert, made friends of a priest or prince of Midian, and married one of his daughters, by whom he had two sons. The immediate descendants of Levi may be named thus:

Moses spent forty years in Arabia, during which time his brethren in Egypt continued to suffer deeply from the hands of their oppressors. The time of their deliverance came, and Moses was sent back to Egypt to make known to them the will of God.

EXODUS III.

OW Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the back-side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed' (ver. 1, 2). The vision of the burning bush was in Horeb. "He came to the mountain of God, to Horeb." Was Horeb the name of a particular mountain? Two answers have been given to this question. It has been urged by Dr. Robinson and others, that Sinai is used in the Scripture for a particular range of mountains, and Horeb as the name of one of them. Dr. Bonar holds that Horeb is the name of a region in which Sinai stands, and he proposes, "He came to the mountain of God, Horeb-ward," as the literal rendering of the last clauses of verse 1. These opinions have been very fully discussed. The question is of considerable interest, because of the references made to both localities in connection with some of the most momentous circumstances recorded in the Scripture. Dr. Stanley, however, seems to me to have indicated the true import of the special use of Horeb and Sinai in the Old Testament. He says, "It appears to me that this depends rather on a distinction of usage than of place. 1. In Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Judges, Sinai is always used for the scene of the giving of the Law; Horeb being only used twice-for the scene of the Burning Bush and of the Striking of the Rock (Exod. iii. 1, xvii. 6, are doubtful; Exod. xxxiii. 6, is ambiguous). 2. In Deuteronomy Horeb is substituted for Sinai, the former being always used, the latter never, for the Mountain of the Law. 3. In the Psalms the two are used indifferently for the Mountain of the Law. 4. In 1 Kings xix. 8, it is impossible to determine to what part, if to any special part, Horeb is applied." The expression here clearly points to an accessible locality in the Sinaitic range, in the neighbourhood of the spot which afterwards was distinguished by those glorious manifestations of the glory of the Lord which led to the name "Mountain of God." The reference to the same place in verse 12 corroborates this opinion-" When thou hast

brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon, literally in, this mountain."

A description of the Land of Promise and mention of the tribes which inhabited it occur in the address to Moses-"I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites" (ver. 8). See under Numb. xiii. 17. One of the products of the good land, "honey," is noticed under 2 Kings xviii. 32—which see. Moses was assured by the Lord himself, that he would influence the minds of the people in Egypt in such a way, as to make them willing to bestow upon them much which would afterwards be helpful to the Israelites. "And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty but every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians" (ver. 21, 22). Much has been made of this by that class of biblical critics who appear to study under the impression, that they are successful intepreters only in the measure in which they can point out so-called contradictions, or statements inconsistent with their views of the character of God. The incident narrated here, they hold, teaches principles which violate moral obligations of the strongest kind! They refuse to be taught. Though the true rendering has again and again been shown to be "ask," not "borrow," they have as often returned to the charge of dishonesty. If the reader will turn to the following passages he will find the word rendered thus:-Gen. xxxii. 17, asketh thee; Num. xxvii. 21, shall ask; Deut. xviii. 16, thou desiredst; Josh. ix. 14, asked; Judges iv. 20, enquire; 1 Sam. xii. 13, desired; xxv. 5, greet; and so in above one hundred and fifty instances in which the word under different forms occurs.

EXODUS IV.-VII.

HE incident of the Burning Bush gives a distinct intimation that, in the narrative which follows, we may expect to meet with miraculous manifestations of the Lord to man. Several of these occur in chapter iv. The miracles were signs of the divine commission of Moses. In the first he was ordered to cast his rod on the ground, and it became a serpent, nahash. This has been specially noticed under Gen. iii. 2-which see. In the second he was told to put his hand in his bosom, "and when he took it out his hand was leprous as snow." This disease, when it attacked a man in health, was very slow in its progress. Here it was instantaneous. It generally became permanent, and in the rare cases in which a cure was effected the recovery was gradual and often doubtful. Here, too, the restoration was immediate. Such features, even apart from God's previous dealings with Moses, would have commanded his attention at once, as out of the ordinary course of things. The third was threatened. "And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land; and the water, which thou takest out of the river, shall become blood upon the dry land" (ver. 9).-See below.

The repeated messages only aggravated the sufferings of the people. Pharaoh's heart was hardened to his own hurt. An opportunity was given him to repent. He would not, and the first of the ten plagues was sent on Egypt "Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning: lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand. And thou shalt say unto him, the Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness; and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear. Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord; behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the water of the river. And the

VOL. II.

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Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone. And Moses and Aaron did so, as the Lord commanded: and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments; and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the Lord had said. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also. And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river. And seven days were fulfilled, after that the Lord had smitten the river" (vii. 15-25). In a survey of the plagues, even from the point of view of this work, it must be kept in mind that in every case they bear on the false gods of Egypt. Pharaoh and his people were wedded to their worship, and treated with contempt the discovery which Moses had made to them of Jehovah, the living and the true God. This implies the presence of a far deeper conviction regarding the gods of Egypt, than that they were merely the fruit of the depraved imagination of the people. There are many proofs in the Scriptures that the idols of the heathen were representatives to the people of those "spiritual wickednesses," which enslaved their sinful nature and kept them in bondage to the great head of sin himself. There is much truth in the views of Dr. Kurtz on this subject:-"The whole of the ancient church was most fully convinced of the reality of the heathen gods. Idolatry in its esteem was devil-worship in the strict sense of the term. The fathers of the church had no more doubt than the heathen themselves, who still adhered without the least misgiving to the religion they had inherited from their fathers, that the gods and goddesses of mythology were real beings, and had a personal existence, and that the worship with which they were honoured was not only subjectively directed, in the minds of the worshippers, to certain supernatural beings, but actually reached such beings and was accepted by them. The fathers of the church undoubtedly lived in an age, when the original power of heathenism was broken; but even this shattered