One would think the aforementioned calamities || the Macedonians call it Xanthicus. And that he might have been sufficient for one that was only should carry away the Hebrews, with all they had. foolish, without wickedness, to make him sensible Accordingly Moses having got the Hebrews ready what was for his advantage. But Pharaoh, led for their departure, and having gathered the peonot so much by his folly, as by his wickedness, ple into tribes, kept them together in one place. even when he saw the cause of his miseries, still But when the fourteenth day was come, and all contested with God, and wilfully deserted the were ready to depart, they offered sacrifice, and cause of virtue. So he bid Moses to take the purified their houses with the blood; using bunches Hebrews away, with their wives and children; of hyssop for that purpose: and when they had but to leave their cattle behind, since their own supped, they burnt the remainder of the flesh as cattle were destroyed. But when Moses said, just ready to depart. Whence it is, that we do that what he desired was unjust, since they were still offer this sacrifice in like manner, and call this obliged to offer sacrifice to God of those cattle, festival Pasch; which signifies the feast of the Passand the time being prolonged on this account, a over: because on that day God passed us over, thick_darkness,*_without the least light, spread and sent the plague upon the Egyptians. For itself over the Egyptians; whereby their sight the destruction of the first-born came upon the being obstructed, and their breathing hindered by Egyptians that night; so that many of the Egypthe thickness of the air, they died miserably; and tians who lived near the king's palace, persuaded under a terror lest they should be swallowed up Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. Accordingly he by the dark cloud. Besides this, when the dark- called for Moses, and bid them begone: as supponess, after three days, and as many nights, was sing that if once the Hebrews were gone out of dispatched; and when Pharaoh did not still repent, the country, Egypt should be freed from its miseand let the Hebrews go, Moses came to him, and ries. They also honoured the Hebrews with gifts, said, "How long wilt thou be disobedient to the some in order to get them to depart quickly, and command of God? for he enjoins thee to let the others on account of their neighbourhood, and Hebrews go; nor is there any other way of being the friendship they had with them. freed from the calamities you are under, unless you do so." But the king was angry at what he said, and threatened to strike off his head, if he came any more to trouble him about these matters. Hereupon Moses said, he would not speak to him about them;† but that he himself, together with the principal men among the Egyptians, should desire the Hebrews to go away. So when Moses had said this, he went his way. When God had signified, that with one more plague he would compel the Egyptians to let the Hebrews go, he commanded Moses to tell the people, that they should have a sacrifice ready; and that they should prepare themselves on the tenth day of the month Xanthicus, against the fourteenth; which month is called by the Egyptians Pharmuthi, and Nisan by the Hebrews; but locust (as Aristotle and Pliny have described it) was an animal so fierce and formidable, that one single one would kill a serpent, by taking it fast by the jaws, and biting it to death. Arist. Hist. Animal. 1. 5, c. 23. Pliny's Nat. Hist. 1. 11, c. 9, and Le Clerc's Commentary. B. *The Septuagint, and most translations, render it a darkness which might be felt, i. e. consisting of black vapours and exhalations, so condensed, that they might be perceived by the organs of touch. But some commentators think, that this is carrying the sense too far; since, in such a medium as this, mankind could not live an hour, much less for the space of three days, as the Egyptians are said to have done: and therefore they imagine, that instead of a darkness that may be felt, the Hebrew phrase may signify a darkness wherein men were groping and feeling about for every thing they wanted. B. CHAP. XV. OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE HEBREWS FROM EGYPT, UNDER THE THUS the Hebrews went out of Egypt, while the Egyptians wept, and repented they had treated them so hardly. Now they took their journey by Letopolis, a place at that time deserted, but where Babylon was built afterward, when Cambyses ravaged Egypt. But as they went away hastily, on the third day they came to a place called Baalzephon, on the Red Sea; and when they had no food out of the land, because it was a desert, they eat of loaves kneaded of flour, only warmed by a gentle heat; and this food they made use of thirty days: for what they brought with them out of Egypt, would not suffice them + Exod. viii. 7. These large presents made to the Israelites, of vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, were, as Josephus truly calls them, gifts, really given them; not lent them, as our English falsely renders them. They were spoils required, not borrowed of them; Gen. xv. 14, Exod. iii. 29, xi. 2, Ps. cv. 37, as the same version falsely renders the Hebrew word here used. Exod. xii. 35, 36. God had ordered the Jews to demand these as their pay and reward, during their long and bitter slavery in Egypt; as atonements for the lives of the Egyptians; and as the condition of the Jews' departure, and the Egyptian deliverance from these terrible judgments; which, had they not now ceased, they had soon been all dead men, as they themselves confess, xii. 23. Nor was there any sense in borrowing or lending, when the Israelites were finally departing out of the land. any longer time; and this only while they dispensed it to each person to use so much only as would serve for necessity, but not for satiety. Whence it is, that in memory of the want we were then in, we keep a feast for eight days, which is called the feast of Unleavened-bread. Now the entire multitude of those that went out, including the women and children, was not easy to be numbered; but those that were of an age fit for war, were six hundred thousand. They left Egypt in the month of Xanthicus, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month: four hundred and thirty years after our forefather Abraham came into Canaan. But two hundred and fifteen years* only after Jacob removed into Egypt; it was the eightieth year of the age of Moses, and of that of Aaron three more. They also carried out the bones of Joseph with them, as he charged his sons to do. The Egyptians, however, soon repented that the Hebrews were gone ;† and the king also was greatly concerned that this had been procured by the magical arts of Moses; so they resolved to go after them. Accordingly they took their weapons, and other warlike furniture, and pursued after them, in order to bring them back, if once they overtook them; because they would have no pretence to pray to God against them, since they had already been permitted to go out. And they thought they should easily overcome them, as they had no armour, and would be weary with their journey. So they made haste in their pursuit, and inquired of every one they met, which way they were gone? And indeed that land was difficult to be travelled over, not only by armies, but single persons. Now Moses led the Hebrews this way, that in case the Egyptians should repent, and be desirous to pursue after them, they might undergo the punish * Why our Mazorete copy so groundlessly abridges this account in Exod. xii. 40, as to ascribe four hundred and thirty years to the sole peregrination of the Israelites in Egypt; when it is clear, even by that Mazorete chronology elsewhere; as well as from the express text itself in the Samaritan, Septuagint, and Josephus, that they sojourned in Egypt but half that time, and that by consequence the other half of their peregrination was in the land of Canaan, before they came into Egypt, is hard to say. † Exod. xiv. 5. Take the main part of Reland's excellent note here, which greatly illustrates Josephus and the Scriptures in this history, with the small map thereunto belonging, as follows:-" A traveller," says Reland, "whose name was Eneman, when he returned out of Egypt, told me, that he went the same way from Egypt to mount Sinai, which he supposed the Israelites of old travelled, and that he found several mountainous tracts that ran down towards the Red Sea, as he delineated them to me. See A, B, C. He thought the Israelites had proceeded as far as the desert of Etham, (see Exod. xiii. 20,) when they were com ment of their wickedness, and of the breach of those promises they had made to them: he also chose this route on account of the Philistines, who had quarrelled with them, and hated them of old; that by all means they might not know of their departure, for their country is near that of Egypt: and thence it was that Moses led them not along the road that tended to the land of the Philistines, but he was desirous that they should go through the desert; and so, after a long journey, and after many afflictions, they might enter upon the land of Canaan. Another reason was, that God had commanded him to bring the people to mount Sinai; that there they might offer him sacrifices. Now, when the Egyptians had overtaken the Hebrews, they prepared to fight them, and by their multitude they drove them into a narrow place: for the number that pursued after them was six hundred chariots, with fifty thousand horsemen, and two hundred thousand footmen, all armed. They also seized on the passages, by which they imagined the Hebrews might fly, shutting them‡ up between inaccessible mountains and the sea, for there was on each side a ridge of mountains that terminated at the sea, which was impassable by reason of their roughness, and obstructed their flight; wherefore they there pressed upon the Hebrews, with their army, where the ridges of the mountains were close with the sea, which army they placed at the defiles of the mountains, that so they might deprive them of any passage into the plain. When the Hebrews, therefore, were neither able to bear up, being thus, as it were, besieged, because they wanted provisions, nor saw any possible way of escaping; and if they should have thought of fighting, they had no weapons; they expected an universal destruction, unless they demanded by God to return back, (see Exod. xiv. 2,) and to pitch their camp between Migdol and the sea; and that when they were not able to fly, unless by sea, they were in the place here denoted by the letter B, where they were shut in on each side by mountains, and that on the part where stands D was the army of Pharaoh. He also thought we might evidently learn hence how it might be said that the Israelites were in Etham before they crossed the sea, and yet might be said to have come into Etham, after they had passed over the sea. Besides, he gave me an account how he passed over the river in a boat near the city Suez, which he said must needs be the Heroopolis of the ancients, since that city could not be situated anywhere else in that neighbourhood." As to the famous passage produced here by Dr. Bernard, out of Herodotus, as the most ancient heathen testimony of the Israelites coming from the Red Sea into Palestine, Bishop Curnberland has shown that it belongs to the old Canaanite or Phoenician shepherds, and their retiring out of Egypt into Canaan, or Phoenicia, long before the days of Moses. ** livered themselves up voluntarily to the Egyptians: so they laid the blame on Moses, and forgot all the signs that had been wrought by God for the recovery of their freedom, and this so far, that their incredulity prompted them to throw stones at the prophet, while he encouraged them, and promised them deliverance, and they resolved that they would deliver themselves up to the Egyptians; so there was sorrow and lamentation among the women and children, who had nothing but destruction before their eyes, while they were encompassed with mountains, the sea, and the enemies, and discerned no way of flying from them. But Moses, though the multitude looked fiercely at him, did not relinquish the care of them, but despised all dangers, out of his trust in God, who, as he had afforded them the several steps already taken for the recovery of their liberty, which he had foretold, he would not now suffer them to be subdued by their enemies; to be either made slaves, or be slain by them; and standing in the midst of them, he said, "It is not just for us to distrust even men, when they have hitherto well managed our affairs, as if they would not be the same men hereafter; but it is no better than madness, at this time, to despair of the providence of God, by whose power all has been performed which he promised, when you expected no such things: I mean all that I have been concerned in for your deliverance, and escape from slavery. Nay, when we are in the utmost distress, as you see we now are, we ought the rather to hope that God will succour us, by whose operation it is, that we are now encompassed within that narrow place, that he may deliver us out of such difficulties as are otherwise insurmountable, and out of which neither you nor your enemies expect you can be delivered, and may at once demonstrate his own power, and his providence over us; nor does God use to give his help in small difficulties to those whom he favours, but in such cases where no one can see how any hope in man can better their condition. Depend, therefore, upon such a Protector *Exod. xiv. 11. †This speech is very short in our copies. Exod. xiv. 13, 14. The Red Sea, called by the ancients Sinus Arabicus, and now Gulfo de Mecca, is that part or branch of the southern sea which interposes itself between Egypt on the west; ArabiaFelix, and some parts of Petræa, on the east; while the northern bounds of it touch upon Idumea, or the coast of Edom. Edom, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies Red, and was the nickname given Esau for selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. The country which his posterity possessed was called after his name, and so was the sea which adjoined to it; but the Greeks, not understanding the reason of the appellation, translated it into their tongue, and called it sguga Saharsa, thence the Latin, as is able to make small things great, and to show that this mighty force against you is nothing but weakness; and be not affrighted at the Egyptian army; nor do you despair of being preserved, because the sea before, and the mountains behind, afford you no opportunity of flying; for even these mountains, if God so please, may be made plain ground for you, and the sea become dry land.”+ CHAP. XVI. HEBREWS OF THE MIRACULOUS DIVISION OF THE SEA FOR THE WHEN Moses had said this, he led them to the sea, while the Egyptians looked on, for they were within sight. Now these were so distressed by the toil of their pursuit, that they thought proper to put off fighting till the next day: but when Moses was come to the sea-shore, he took his rod, and made the supplications to God, and called upon him to be their helper and assistant: and said, "Thou art not ignorant, O Lord, that it is beyond human strength, and human contrivance, to avoid the difficulties we are now under; but it must be thy work altogether to procure deliverance to this army, which has left Egypt at thy appointment. We despair of any other assistance or contrivance, and have recourse only to that hope we have in thee: and if there be any method that can promise us an escape by thy providence, we look up to thee for it; and let it come quickly, and manifest thy power to us, and do thou raise up this people unto good courage, and hope of deliverance, who are deeply sunk into a disconsolate state of mind. We are in a helpless place; but still it is a place that thou possessest, for the sea is thine, and the mountains that inclose us are thine: so that these mountains will open themselves if thou commandest them; and the sea also, if thou commandest it, will become dry land: nay, we might escape by a flight through the air, if thou shouldest determine we should have that way of salvation." When Moses had thus addressed himself to God, he smote with his rod upon the sea, which parted asunder at the stroke, and, receiving those waters Mare Rubrum, and we, the Red Sea. The Hebrews call it the Sea of Suph, or Flags, by reason of the great abundance of that kind of weed, which grows at the bottom of it; and the Arabs at this day name it Bubr el Chaisem, i. e. the sea of Clysona, from a town situate on its western coast, much about that place where the Israelites passed over from the Egyptian to the Ara bian shore. But as the word Clysona may denote a drowning or overflowing with water, it is not improbable that the town built in this place, as well as this part of the sea, might have such a name given it, in memory of the fate of the Egyptians, who were drowned herein. Well's Geography of the Old Tes tament, vol. ii. B. into itself, left the ground dry as a road,* and a | place of flight for the Hebrews.† Now when Moses saw this appearance of God, and that the sea went out of its own place, and left dry land, he went first of all into it, and bid the Hebrews follow him along that divine road, and to rejoice at the danger their enemies, that followed them, were in; and gave thanks to God for this surprising deliverance which appeared from him. as the whole Egyptian army was within it, the sea flowed to its own place, and came down with a torrent raised by storms of wind, and encompassed the Egyptians. Showers of rain also came down from the sky, and dreadful thunder and lightning, with flashes of fire. Thunderbolts also were darted upon them: nor was there any thing which God sends upon men as indications of his wrath, which did not happen at this time; for a dark and dismal night oppressed them, and thus did all these men perish, so that there was not one man left to be a messenger of this calamity to the rest of the Egyptians.§ Now while the Hebrews made no stay, but went on earnestly, as led by God's presence, the Egyptians supposed, at first, that they were distracted, and were going rashly upon manifest destruction; but when they saw that they were gone a great way The Hebrews were not able to contain themselves without any harm, and that no obstacle or difficulty for joy at their wonderful deliverance, and destrucfell in their journey, they made haste to pursue them; tion of their enemies: now indeed, supposing themand, hoping that the sea would be calm for them also, selves firmly delivered, when those that would have they put their cavalry foremost, and went down into forced them into slavery were destroyed, and when the sea. Now the Hebrews, while these were put- they found they had God so evidently for their proting on their armour, were beforehand with them, tector: and how having escaped the danger they and got first over to the land on the other side, with- were in, after this manner, and seeing their enemies out any hurt, whence the others were encouraged, punished in such a way as is never recorded of any and more courageously pursued them, as hoping no other men, they were all the night employed in singharm would come to them neither: but the Egyp-ing of hymns, and in mirth. Moses also composed tians were not aware that they went into a road made for the Hebrews, and not for others; that this road was made for the deliverance of those in danger, but not for those that were earnest to make use of it for the others' destruction. As soon, therefore, *Exod. xiv. 29. "The waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left." Diodorus Siculus relates that the Ichthyophagi, who live near the Red Sea, had a tradition handed down to them through a long line of ancestors, that the whole bay was once laid bare to the very bottom, the waters retiring to the opposite shore, and that they afterwards returned to their accustomed channel with a most tremendous revulsion. (Bib. Hist. lib. iii. p. 174.) Even to this day the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Corondel preserve the remembrance of a mighty army having been once drowned in the bay, which Ptolemy calls Clysma. (Shaw's Travels, p. 349.) The very The very country where the event is said to have happened, in some degree bears testimony to the accuracy of the Mosaical narrative. The scriptural Etham is still called Etti; the wilderness of Shur, the mountain of Sinai, and the country of Paran, are still known by the same names. (Niebuhr's Travels, vol. i. p. 189, 191.) Marah's Elath, and Midian, are still familiar to the ears of the Arabs. The grove of Elim yet remains, and its twelve fountains have neither increased nor diminished in number since the days of Moses. B. † Exod. xiv. 21. These storms of wind, thunder, and lightning, at this drowning of Pharaoh's army, are almost wanting in our copies of Exodus, but fully extant in that of David, Ps. lxxvii. 16, 17, 18. Exod. xiv. 28. What some have here objected against this passage of the Israelites over the Red Sea, in this one night, from the common maps, viz. that this sea being here about thirty miles broad, so great an army could not pass over it in so short a time, is a great mistake. Mons. Thevenot, an eyewitness, informs us, that this sea, for about five days' journey, is nowhere more than eight or nine miles across; and in one place but four or five miles, a song unto God, containing his praises, and a thanksgiving for his kindness, in hexameter verse. As for myself, I have delivered every part of this history as I found it in the sacred books; nor let any one T wonder at the strangeness of the narration, according to De Lisle's map, which is made from the best authorities. What has been farther objected against this passage of the Israelites, and drowning of the Egyptians, being miraculous also, viz. That Moses might carry the Israelites over at a low tide, without any miracle; while yet the Egyptians, not knowing the tide so well as he, might be drowned upon the return of the tide, is truly absurd. Yet does Artapanus, an ancient heathen historian, inform us, that this was what the more ignorant Memphites, who lived at a great distance, pretended, though he confesses, that the more learned Heliopolitans, who lived much nearer, owned the destruction of the Egyptians, and the deliverance of the Israelites, to have been miraculous. And De Castro, a mathematician, who surveyed this sea with great exactness, informs us, that there is no great flux or reflux in this part of the Red Sea, to give a colour to the hypothesis; nay, that the elevation of the tide there is little above half the height of a So vain and groundless are these and the like evasions and subterfuges of our modern sceptics and unbelievers! and so certainly do thorough inquiries, and authentic evidence, disprove and confute such evasions and subterfuges upon all occasions! man. ¶ Take here the original passages of the four old authors that still remain, as to the transit of Alexander the Great over the Pamphylian Sea, (for most of the oldest authors, seen by Jose. phus, are entirely lost,) I mean of Callisthenes, Strabo, Arrian, and Appian. As to Callisthenes, who himself accompanied Alexander in this expedition, Eustatius, in his notes upon the third Iliad of Homer, tells us, that "this Callisthenes wrote how the Pamphylian Sea did not only open a passage for Alexander, but by rising and elevating its waters did pay him homage as its king." Strabo's account is this, Geog. XIV. page 666, "Now if a way were discovered to those men of old time, || to these events let every one determine as he pleases. who were free from the wickedness of the modern ages, whether it happened by the will of God, or whether it happened of its own accord; while, for the sake of those that accompanied Alexander, king of Macedonia, who yet lived comparatively but a little while ago, the Pamphylian Sea retired, and afforded them a passage through itself, when they had no other way to go; I mean, when it was the will of God to destroy the monarchy of the Persians; and this is confessed to be true by all that have written about the actions of Alexander; but as about Phaselis is that narrow passage by the sea-side, through which Alexander led his army. There is a mountain called Climax, which adjoins to the sea of Pamphylia, leaving a narrow passage on the shore; which in calm weather is bare, so as to be passable by travellers; but when the sea overflows, it is covered to a great degree by the waves. Now the ascent by the mountains being round about, and steep, in still weather they make use of the road along the coast. But Alexander fell into the winter season, and committing himself chiefly to fortune, he marched on before the waves retired; and so it happened that they were a whole day journeying over it, and were under water up to the navel." Arrian's account is this, I. page 72, 73: "When Alexander removed from Phaselis, he sent some part of his army over the mountains to Perga, which road the Thracians showed him. A difficult way it was, but short. However, he himself conducted those that were with him by the sea-shore. The road is impassable at any other time than when the north wind blows; but if the south wind prevail, there is no passing by the shore. Now at this time, after strong south winds, a north wind blew, and that not without the divine providence, as both he and they that were with him supposed, and - afforded him an easy and quick passage." Appian, when he compares Cæsar and Alexander together, (De Bell. Civil. II. page 522,) says, "That they both depended on their boldness and fortune, as much as on their skill in war. As an instance of which, Alexander journeyed over a country without water, On the next day Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians, which were brought to the camp of the Hebrews by the current of the sea, and the force of the winds assisting it; and he conjectured that this also happened by divine providence, that so they might not be destitute of weapons. So when he had ordered the Hebrews to arm themselves with them, he led them to Mount Sinai, in order to offer sacrifice to God, and to render oblations for the salvation of the multitude, as he had been previously commanded. in the heat of summer, to the Oracle of Jupiter Ammon; and quickly passed over the bay of Pamphylia, when by divine providence the sea was cut off; this providence restraining the sea on his account, as it had sent him rain when he travelled over the desert." N. B. Since, in the days of Josephus, as he here assures us, all the more numerous original historians of Alexander gave the account he has here set down, as to the providential going back of the waters of the Pamphylian Sea, when he was going with his army to destroy the Persian monarchy, which the afore. named authors now remaining fully confirm; it is without any foundation that Josephus is here blamed, by some late writers, for quoting those ancient authors upon the present occasion. Nor can the reflections of Plutarch, or any other author later than Josephus, be in the least here alleged to contradict him. Josephus went by all the evidence he then had, and that evidence of the most authentic sort. So that whatever the moderns may think of the thing itself, there is hence not the least colour for finding fault with Josephus. He had rather been to blame had he omitted these quotations. However, since the pretended epistles of Alexander omitted what all the ancient historians asserted about this matter, and which I know no sufficient grounds to contradict, as Plutarch informs us, De Vit. Alexand. page 674; there will be reason to question those Epistles, whether they were genuine, or at least to think they were an imperfect collection of them. |