EXODUS: CHAPTER I. ISRAEL IN EGYPT. EXODUS i. THE grand subject of the book of Exodus is that of redemption. In Genesis we have creation, and then, after the fall, and the announcement of a Deliverer in the seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head (Gen. iii. 15)-the revelation, in fact, of the second Man, of whom Adam was a figure (Rom. v. 14), and in whom all God's counsels should be established-"all the great elementary principles which find their development in the history of the relationships of God with man, which is recorded in the following books." The book of Genesis has therefore been aptly termed the seed-plot of the Bible. But in Exodus the subject is one-redemption with its consequences, consequences in grace, and when the people, showing their insensibility to grace, as well as ignorance of their own condition, had put themselves under law, consequences of government. Still the grand result of redemption, the establishment of a people before God, in relationship with Him, is achieved; and this it is B that lends such an interest to the book, and makes it so instructive for the Christian reader. The first five verses contain a brief statement of the names of Jacob's sons who came into Egypt with their father-they and their households, numbering, together with Joseph and his house already in Egypt, seventy souls. The particulars, of which this is a brief summary, are found in Genesis xlvi. The immediate occasion of their going down to Egypt was the famine; but by the famine, as by the wickedness of Jacob's sons in selling their brother to the Ishmeelites (Gen. xxxvii. 28), God was but accomplishing the fulfilment of His own purposes. Long ere this He had said unto Abram, "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge and afterward shall they come out with great substance." (Gen. xv. 13, 14.) This is the history of the first twelve chapters in Exodus; and it fills us with admiration to reflect that, whatever the actings of men even in wickedness and high-handed rebellion, they are made subservient to the establishment of the divine counsels of grace and love. As Peter indeed said, on the day of Pentecost, concerning Christ, "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." (Acts ii. 23.) Thus even the wrath of man is yoked to the chariot wheels of God's decrees. There is undoubtedly a reason for the children of Israel being shown to us, at the opening of the book, in Egypt. In Scripture Egypt is a type of the world, and hence Israel in Egypt becomes a figure of man's natural condition. Thus, after the statement that "Joseph died, and |