marriage, and appointed him to be the guardian and superintendent over his cattle; for of old all the wealth of the barbarians was in their cattle. rious expedition at the head of his army, as out of not insensible of benefits, but where they were both fear at being brought low by him; and being insti- able and willing to return the kindness, and even to gated by the sacred scribes, he was ready to under- exceed the measure of his generosity: so he made take to kill Moses; but when he had learned before-him his son, and gave him one of his daughters in hand what plots there were against him, he went away privately; and because the public roads were watched, he took his flight through the deserts, and where his enemies could not suspect he would travel; and though destitute of food, he went on, and despised that difficulty courageously; and when he came to the city of Midian, which lay upon the Red sea, and was so denominated from one of Abraham's sons by Keturah, he sat upon a certain well, and rested himself there after his laborious journey, and the affliction he had been in. It was not far from the city, and the time of the day was noon, where he had an occasion offered him, by the custom of the country, of doing what recommended his virtue, and afforded him an opportunity of bettering his cir cumstances. For that country having but little water, the shepherds used to seize on the wells before others came, lest their flocks should want water, and lest it should be spent by others before they came. There were now come, therefore, to this well, seven virgin sisters, the daughters of Raguel, a priest, and one thought worthy by the people of the country of great honour these virgins, who took care of their father's flock, which sort of work it was customary and very familiar for women to do in the country of the Troglodytes, came first of all, and drew water out of the well in a quantity sufficient for their flocks into troughs, which were made for the reception of that water: but the shepherds came upon the maidens, and drove them away, that they might have the command of the waters themselves. Moses thought it would be a terrible reproach upon him if he should overlook this unjust oppression, and should suffer the violence of the men to prevail over the right of the maidens; he therefore drove away the men, who had a mind to more than their share, and afforded a proper assistance to the women, who, when they had received such a benefit, came to their father, and told him how they had been affronted by the shepherds, and assisted by a stranger, and entreated that he would not let this generous action go without a reward. Now the father took it well from his daughters that they were so desirous to remunerate their benefactor, and bid them bring Moses into his presence, that he might be rewarded as he deserved. And when Moses came, he told him what testimony his daughters bare to him that he had assisted them; and that, as he admired him for his virtue, he said, that Moses had bestowed such assistance on persons * Jetheglacus, in the Greek of Josephus. CHAP. XII. OF THE BURNING BUSH AND THE ROD OF MOSES. WHEN Moses had obtained this favour of Jethro* (for that was one of the names of Raguel,) he stayed there, and fed his flocks ;† but some time afterward, taking his station at the mountain called Sinai, he drove his flocks thither to feed them. Now this is the highest of all the mountains thereabouts, and the best for pasturage, the herbage being good: and it had not been before fed upon, because of the opinion men had that God dwelt there, the shepherds not daring to ascend up to it: and here it was that a wonderful prodigy appeared to Moses: for a firet fed upon a thorn bush; yet did the green leaves and flowers remain untouched, and the fire did not consume the fruit branches, although the flame was great and fierce. Moses was affrighted at this strange sight; but he was still more astonished when the fire uttered a voice, and called to him by name, and spake words to him; by which it signified how bold he had been in venturing to come into a place whither no man had ever come before, because the place was divine; and advised him to remove a great way from the flame, and to be contented with what he had seen; for, though he were himself a good man, and the offspring of great men, he should not pry any farther; and he foretold to him that he should have glory and honour among men, by the blessing of God upon him. He also commanded him to go with confidence to Egypt, in order to his being the commander and conductor of the body of the Hebrews, and to his delivering his own people from the injuries they suffered there. "For," said God, 66 they shall inhabit this happy land, which your forefather Abraham inhabited, and shall have the enjoyment of all sorts of good things; and thou, by thy prudence, shalt guide them to those good things." But he still enjoined him, when he had brought the Hebrews out of the land of Egypt, to come to that place, and offer sacrifice of thanksgiving there. Such were the divine oracles which were delivered out of the fire. Moses was astonished at what he saw, and † Exod. iii. 1. + An. 1532. Accordingly he was enjoined to make no more delays, but to hasten to Egypt, and to travel night and day, and not to draw out the time; and so make the slavery of the Hebrews, and their suffer much more at what he heard; and he said, "I But God persuaded him to be courageous on all occasions, promising to be with him, and to assist him in his words when he was to persuade men, and in his deeds when he was to perform wonders. He bid him also take a signal of the truth of what he said, by throwing his rod* upon the ground; which when he had done, it crept along; and became a serpent,† and rolled itself round in its folds, and erected its head, as ready to revenge itself on such as should assault it, and afterwards it became a rod again, as it was before. After this God bid Moses put his right hand into his bosom; he obeyed, and when he took it out it was white, and in colour like to chalk, but afterward it returned to its wonted colour again. He also, upon God's command, took some of the water that was near him, and poured it upon the ground, and saw the colour was that of blood. Upon the surprise that Moses testified at these signs, God exhorted him to be of good courage, and to be assured that he would be the greatest support to him, and bid him make use of those signs in order to obtain belief among all men, and to demonstrate that he did all things according to the divine commands. * Wonderful are the stories which the Hebrew doctors tell us of this rod, viz. That it originally grew in Paradise, was brought away by Adam, from him passed to Noah, and so through a succession of patriarchs, till it came to be transplanted into Jethro's garden, and there took root again, God knows how; that it was called Zaphir, (whence Ziphorah his daughter had her name) and had the Tetragrammaton written upon it; that when Ziphorah fell in love with Moses, her father consented that she should have him if he could pluck up this Zaphir-rod, at the same time publishing a proclamation, that whoever did it first should marry his daughter; that hereupon several lusty young men came, and tried their strength in vain; but that Moses, by being acquainted with the true pronunciation of the name of God, in virtue thereof did it with ease, and so not only obtained his daughter, but this rod into the bargain, with which he wrought afterwards all his wonders in Egypt. But how fictitious soever all this may be, it is certain that in Exod. iv. 20, this staff is called the rod of God; and that partly because it was appropriated to God's special service, to be the instrument of all his glorious works; and partly to show that whatever was done by that rod was not done by any Moses, having seen and heard these wonders, that assured him of the truth of God's promises, had no room left him to disbelieve them; so he entreated him to grant him that power when he should be in Egypt, and besought him, since he had heard and seen him, that he would also tell him his name, and when he offered sacrifice he might invoke him by such name in his oblations. Hereupon God declared to him that name which had never been discovered to men before, concerning which it is not lawfult for me to say any more. Now these signs accompanied Moses, not then only, but always when he prayed for them; of all which signs he attributed the firmest assent to the fire in the bush; and believing that God would be a gracious supporter to him, he hoped he should be able to deliver his own nation, and bring calamities on the Egyptians. CHAP. XIII. OF THE RETURN OF MOSES AND AARON INTO EGYPT, TO PHARAON. MOSES having understood that Pharaoh, in whose reign he fled away, was dead, asked leave of Raguel to go to Egypt, for the benefit of his own people; and he took with him Zipporah, the daughter of Raguel, whom he had married, and the children he had by her, Gersom and Eleazar, and hastened into Egypt. Now the former of those names, Gersom, in the Hebrew tongue signifies that he was in a strange land: and Eleazar, that by the assistance of the God of his fathers he had escaped from the Egyptians. virtue in it, or in the hand of Moses, but merely by the power This superstitious fear of discovering the name with four letters, which of late have been used falsely to pronounce Jehovah, but seems to have been originally pronounced Jahoh, or Jao, is never, I think, heard of till this passage of Josephus: and this superstition, in not pronouncing that name, is continued among the Rabbinical Jews to this day; though whether the Samaritans and Caraites observed it so early, does not appear. Josephus also durst not set down the very words of the Ten Commandments, as we shall see hereafter, III. 5; which superstitious silence, I think, has yet not been continued even by the Rabbins. Both these cautious concealments, however, were probably taught Josephus by the Pharisees, a body of men at once very wicked and very superstitious. When they were near the borders, Aaron, his || divine power exceeds the power of man; but I will brother, by the command of God, met him: to whom demonstrate that what I do is not done by craft, or he declared what had befallen him at the mountain, so counterfeiting what is not really true, but that and the commands that God had given him: but as they appear by the providence and power of God." they were going forward, the chief men among the When he had said this, he cast his rod down upon Hebrews having learned that they were coming, the ground, and commanded it to turn itself into a met them; to whom Moses declared the signs he serpent. It obeyed him, and went all round and had seen, and when they could not believe them, he devoured the rods of the Egyptians,† which seemed made them see them; so they took courage at these to be dragons, until it had consumed them all. It surprising and unexpected sights, and conceived then returned to its own form, and Moses took it hopes of their entire deliverance, as believing now into his hand again. that God took care of their preservation. Since then Moses found that the Hebrews would be obedient to whatever he should direct, as they promised, and that they were in love with liberty; he came to the king, who had indeed but lately* received the government, and told him how much he had done for the good of the Egyptians, when they were despised by the Ethiopians, and their country laid waste by them, and how he had been the commander of their forces, and had laboured for them, as if they had been his own people; and he informed him in what danger he had been during that expedition, without having any proper returns made him, as he had deserved. He also stated, distinctly, what things happened to him at Mount Sinai, and what God said to him, and the signs that were done by God in order to assure him of the authority of those commands which he had given him; he also exhorted him not to disbelieve what he told him, nor to oppose the will of God. But when the king derided Moses, he made him see the signs that were done at Mount Sinai; yet was the king very angry, and called him a wicked man, who had formerly run away from his Egyptian slavery, and now come back with deceitful tricks, and wonders, and magical arts, to astonish him. And when he had said this, he commanded the priests to let him see the same wonderful sights; as knowing that the Egyptians were skilful in this kind of learning, and that he was not the only person who knew them, and pretended them to be divine: he also told him, that when he brought such wonderful sights before him, he would only be believed by the unlearned. Now when the priests threw down their rods, they became serpents; but Moses was not daunted at it, and said, "O king, I do not myself despise the wisdom of the Egyptians; but I say, that what I do is so much superior to what these perform by magic arts and tricks, as *Josephus seems here mistaken in his Egyptian chronology, when he says that this Pharaoh, who was then king, had but lately begun his reign; nor is it any wonder, since I have al . However, the king was no more moved when this was done than before; but being very angry, he said, that he should gain nothing by this cunning and shrewdness against the Egyptians; at the same time commanding the chief task-master over the Hebrews to give them no relaxation from their labours, but to compel them to submit to greater oppressions than before; and though he allowed them chaff before for making their bricks, he would allow it no longer, but he made them to work hard at brick-making in the daytime, and to gather chaff in the night. Now when their labour was thus doubled, they laid the blame upon Moses, because their labour and their misery were on his account become more severe. But Moses did not let his courage sink for the king's threatenings; nor did he abate of his zeal on account of the Hebrews' complaints, but he supported himself, and set his soul resolutely against them both, and used his utmost diligence to procure liberty to his countrymen: so he went to the king and persuaded him to let the Hebrews go to Mount Sinai, and there to sacrifice to God, because God had enjoined them so to do. He persuaded him also not to counterwork the designs of God, but to esteem his favour above all things, and to permit them to depart lest he should lay an obstruction in the way of the divine commands, and so occasion his suffering such punishments, as it was probable any one that withstood the divine commands should undergo, since the severest afflictions arise from every object to those that provoke the divine wrath against them; for such as these have neither the earth, nor the air, for their friends: nor are the fruits of the womb according to nature, but every thing is unfriendly and adverse towards them. He said farther, that the Egyptians should know this by sad experience, and that the Hebrew people should go out of their country without permission. ready observed, how greatly he was mistaken in this entire CHAP. XIV. OF THE TEN PLAGUES WHICH CAME UPON THE EGYPTIANS WHEN the king despised the words of Moses, and had no regard at all to them, grievous plagues seized the Egyptians; every one of which I will describe; both because no such plagues ever happened to any other nation as the Egyptians now felt; and because I would demonstrate that Moses did not fail in any one thing that he foretold them; and because it is for the good of mankind, that they may learn this caution, not to do any thing that may displease God, lest he be provoked to wrath, and avenge their iniquities upon them. The Egyptian river ran with bloody water, at the command of God, insomuch, that it could not be drank; and they had no other spring of water. For the water was not only of the colour of blood, but it brought upon those that ventured to drink it great pains, and bitter torment. Such was the river to the Egyptians. But it was sweet and fit to drink to the Hebrews, and noway different from what it naturally used to be. As the king, therefore, knew not what to do in these surprising circumstances, aud was in fear for the Egyptians, he gave the Hebrews leave to go away. But when the plague ceased, he changed his mind, and would not suffer them to go. But when God saw that he was ungrateful, and upon the ceasing of the calamity would not grow wiser, he sent another plague upon the Egyptians: an innumerable multitude of frogst consumed the fruit of the ground. The river was also full of them; insomuch that those who drew water had it spoiled by the blood of these animals, as they died in, and were destroyed by, the water; and the country was full of filthy slime, as they were born, The river Nile naturally produces frogs; but so great an abundance appearing on a sudden, filling the country, and leaving the rivers and fields, to go into the cities and houses, was really miraculous. How they got into the cities and houses is not so hard a matter to conceive: for if expert generals, according to both ancient and modern history, have sometimes surprised an enemy by entering cities through the common sewers, with much less difficulty might the frogs, these armies of the divine vengeance, find a conveyance into the cities, which stood all upon the banks of the river, by aqueducts and subterraneous communications; and being got into the cities, they might find apertures in the walls of the houses, which the inhabitants never perceived before. Bibliotheca Bibl. in locum. B. and as they died; they also spoiled their vessels in their houses which they used, and were found among what they ate and what they drank, and came in great numbers upon their beds. There was also a noisome smell arose from them, as they were born, and as they died therein. Now when the Egyptians were under the oppression of these miseries, the king ordered Moses to take the Hebrews with him, and be gone: upon which the whole multitude of the frogs vanished away; and both the land and the river returned to their former natures. But as soon as Pharaoh saw the land freed from this plague, he forgot the cause of it, and retained the Hebrews; and, as though he had a mind to try the nature of more such judgments, he would not yet suffer Moses and his people to depart; having granted that liberty rather out of fear, than out of good consideration. Accordingly, God punished his falseness with another plague, added to the former. For there arose, out of the bodies of the Egyptians, an innumerable quantity of lice;§ by which, wicked as they were, they miserably perished; being unable to destroy this sort of vermin, either with washes, or with ointments. At this terrible judgment, the king of Egypt was in disorder, upon the fear into which he reasoned himself, lest his people should be destroyed, and that the manner of this death was also reproachful. So that he was forced in part to recover himself from his wicked temper to a sounder mind; for he gave leave for the Hebrews themselves to depart. But when the plague thereupon ceased, he thought it proper to require, that they should leave their children and wives behind them, as pledges of their return; whereby he provoked God to be more vehemently angry at him; as if he thought to impose on his providence; and as if it were only Moses, and not God, who punished the tians. But upon the supposition that they were no worse than common lice, this was plague enough to the Egyptians, who affected neatness to such a degree, that they bathed themselves every day, and some of them frequently shaved their bodies all over, for fear of such vermin. Those who pretended that these lice were a new species, make this a reason why the magicians could not counterfeit this miracle, because, though they could easily provide the serpents, the blood, and the frogs, yet this sort of animal was now nowhere to be had; and therefore, as the organs of sight are more liable to be imposed upon than those of feeling, the magicians might impose upon the king, and the other spectators, with fantastical blood and frogs, but visionary lice could not vex and torment the body; so that now it was time for the enchanters to desist, and to own their inability to mimic Moses any farther. But, supposing that what the magicians did, in the three former miracles, was not illusion and imposition upon the senses, but reality, the true reason why they could proceed no farther was, that God Almighty had laid his restraint and prohibition upon the evil spirits, who had hitherto been subservient to them, that they might not assist them any longer. Le Clerc's Commentary; and Bibliotheca Bibl. in locum. B. Egyptians for the sake of the Hebrews. For he filled that country full of various sorts of pestilential creatures, with their various properties; such, indeed, as never came into the sight of men before. By their means the men perished themselves, and the land was destitute of husbandmen for its cultivation but if any thing escaped destruction from them, it was killed by a distemper, which the men underwent also. Pharaoh did not yet yield to the will of God; but while he gave leave to the husbands to take their wives with them, he insisted that the children should be left behind; God therefore resolved to punish his wickedness with several sorts of calamities, and those worse than the foregoing, which had yet so generally afflicted them; but * The word Arob, which we render fly in general, is by the Septuagint called Kuvoμusa, i. e. dog-fly, from its biting; for it fastens its teeth so deep in the flesh, and sticks so very close, that it oftentimes makes cattle run mad; and the congruity of this plague scems to be greater, because one of the Egyptian deities, which they called Anubis, bore the head of a dog. The Psalmist indeed tells us, that God sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them. Ps. lxxviii. 45. So that according to him, it was not one particular kind, but all sorts of flies mingled together in one prodigious swarm or conflux. Some translate it a mixture of beasts, which they suppose went into Egypt to infest and destroy the country; but this is not so probable a construction, because the punishments hitherto inficted were nauseous and troublesome, rather than mortal; though this plague of infinite numbers of small tormentors is so great a one, that God calls it his army, Joel ii. 25, and the Greeks thought fit (as Pliny, 1. 20, c. 28, tells us) to have a god to deliver them from it, under the style of Myiagros, or Myiodes, even as Belzebub signifies the Lord or God of flies. Bochart, Hier. part 2. B. †The Hebrew word Shechin properly signifies an inflammation, which first makes a tumor or boil, (as we translate it,) and thence turns a grievous ulcer. Dr. Lightfoot indeed observes, that in the book of Job, chap. ii. 7, 8, where the same word occurs, it signifies only a burning itch, or an inflamed scab; an intolerable dry itch, which Job could not scratch off with his nails, and was therefore forced to make use of a potsherd: but then he confesses that this Shechin here spoken of, was more rancorous than that, having blains and ulcers that broke out with it, which Job's had not. So that the Egyptians, according to this, must have been vexed with a triple punishment at once, (a punishment fitly calculated for the mortification of a delicate and a voluptuous people,) aching boils, nauseous ulcers, and a burning itch; and to this that communication of Moses to the people, in case they proved disobedient, does, without all peradventure, allude. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. Deut. xxviii. 27. B. This infection was the more terrible in Egypt, because, according to the account of Herodotus, (l. 3, c. 10,) a very rare thing it was to see any rain, and much more any hail, in that climate and accordingly he mentions it as a kind of prodigy, that in the reign of Psammenitus, there happened to be a shower in Thebes, which was never known before in the memory of man, nor ever after, to the age wherein our author wrote. The Psalmist has given us a very poetic description of this judgment: He destroyed the vines with hail, and the sycamore trees their bodies had terrible boils,† breaking forth with blains; while they were already inwardly consumed; and a great part of the Egyptians perished in this manner. But when the king was not brought to reason by this plague, hail was sent down from heaven; and such hail as the climate of Egypt had never suffered before,§ nor was it like to that which falls in other climates|| in winter time, but larger than that which falls in the middle of spring to those that dwell in the northern and north-western regions. This hail brake down their boughs laden with fruit. After this a tribe of locusts consumed the seed which was not hurt by the hail; so that to the Egyptians all the hopes of future fruits of the ground were entirely lost.T with frost : he gave up the cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. Ps. lxxviii. 47, 48. And from the plain account of Moses, where he mixes thunder, hail, and fire together, Exod. ix. 23, the observation is obvious, that here were no less than three of the elements in confederacy against Pharaoh's obstinacy; the air in the thunder; the water in the hail; and the fire in the lightning, all jointly demonstrating and proclaiming, that the God of Israel was the God of nature. B. § Exod. ix. 24. As to this winter or spring hail near Egypt and Judea, see the like on thunder and lightning there in the note on VI. 5, and Havercamp's note on III. 1. This is the creature which we properly call the grasshopper; and wonderful is the account which several authors give of them. Thevenot, in his travels, tells us, "That in that part of Scythia which the Cossacks now inhabit, there are infinite numbers of them, especially in dry seasons, which the northeast wind brings over from Tartary, Circassia, and Mingrelia, which are seldom or never free from them; that they fly in the air all compact together, like a vast cloud, sometimes 15 or 18 miles long, and about 10 or 12 miles broad; so that they quite darken the sky, and make the brightest day obscure; and that wherever they light, they devour all the corn in less than two hours' time, and frequently make a famine in the country. These insects," says he, "live not above six months; and when they are dead, the stench of them so corrupts and infects the air, that it very often breeds dreadful pestilences." God (as we hinted before) calls the locust, the canker worm, caterpillar, and the palmer worm, his great army which he sends amongst a wicked and rebellious people. Joel, ii. 25. And how proper the expression is, in relation to the locust in particular, will appear from the account which Aldrovandus and Fincelius give us of these animals, viz. “That in the year of our Lord 852, an infinite number of them was seen to fly over twenty miles in Germany in one day, in the manner of a formed army, divided in several squadrons, and having their quarters apart when they rested; that the captains marched a day's journey before the rest, and chose the most opportune places for their camp; that they never removed until sun-rising, at which time they went away in as much order as any army of men could do; that at last having done great mischief wherever they passed, (after prayers made to God,) they were driven by a violent wind into the Belgic ocean, and there drowned; but that, being cast by the sea upon the shore, they covered 140 acres of land, and caused a great pestilence in the country;" which is enough to show how dreadful a punishment this was, especially considering that these locusts were such as were never known before, and yet the ordinary |