addicted to tears and lamentations as the Egyptians. Hence in the Orphic Argonautics mention is made of

Θρήνες τ' Αιγυπτίων και Οσίριδος ἱερα χύτλα. the mourning of this people, and the sacred libations at the rites of Osiris. The like was observed at their 3 funerals, where they gave themselves up to all the extravagance of grief. They ran about the streets in a most frantic manner, defiling their faces with soil, and filling the air with their cries. The whole was attended with beating of their breasts, and with stripes; and the same process was observed upon the death of any sacred animal. Most of their ceremonies were attended with weeping in memory of the tears of Isis; and there was the same severe discipline observed. Herodotus mentions, that he was witness to thousands, nay, he says, to myriads, at a solemnity, who whipped themselves in this manner.

· V. 32.

2

Παρ' Αιγύπτιοις ισοτιμιαν εχει το θείον της τιμής και δακρυσινο Max. Tyrius. Dissert. viii. p. 85.

3 Diodorus, l. 1. p. 81. C. Herod. 1. 2. c. 85, 86. p. 141. δη μετα την θυσίαν παντές και πασαι, μυριάδες nagta wakas artgwπwv. 1. 2. c. 60. p. 132. See Plutarch

4

Τύπτονται γας

Isis et Osir.

P. 366.

Julius Firmicius, p. 8.-also p. 20, 21.

2

The Sidonians and Syrians used the same lamentations, and accompanied them with the like stripes in honour of Isis and · Adonis ; the latter of which was another name for Osiris. He was the same also as * Thamuz, whose celebrity was always carried on with tears and mourning by the natives of Biblus and Sidon. These rites they borrowed in very early times from the people of Egypt. But the grief of the Egyptians, at the season here foretold, was to exceed every thing, either real or artificial, that had ever preceded. It was not the loss of Osiris, a remote and imaginary misfortune, which they were to lament; but a more intimate and affecting evil. Their first-born, the pride and solace of each house, was to be cut off: so that their sorrow was to be from the heart, real, exuberant, and universal. They were to be indulged in grief to satiety; and glutted with tears and lamentations.

Lucian de Syriâ Deâ, vol. 2. p. 878.

* Daμv?, òrtg igunveverai Adwvis. Chron. Paschale, p. 130. The women of Israel were tainted with this infectious idolatry, as we learn from Ezekiel. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was towards the north, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. c. 8. Και ιδε εκεί γυναίκες καθήμεναι θρηνεσαι τον Θαμμεζ. Ver sio LXX.

v. 14.

Of all this there was a proper warning given, which must have served with many towards anticipating the calamity by a fearful expectation; and must have rendered the people in general more ready to afford the Israelites their dismission; through whose detention they suffered.

But there was a meaning in this judgment, of greater consequence than in any which had preceded. The destroying angel was to pass through the land of Egypt, and to display his power over the people. And the Israelites were also liable to be cut off, unless they observed a particular caution prescribed, the only means of their salvation. In consequence of this it pleased God to institute the Passover, by the observance of which they were to be secured for the present; and a secret intimation given of greater blessings hereafter. Each family was to take a lamb without spot or blemish, upon the tenth day of the first month; and then to kill it upon the fourteenth in the

1

See Exodus xii. 3, 4. to verse 28.

But

evening. They were to dress it by fire with bitter herbs; and to eat it in a posture of standing, with their loins girded, their shoes upon their feet, and their staves in their hands. The whole process was that of persons, who were sojourners and pilgrims; and who were setting out upon their passage through a wilderness to a place of bliss, called Canaan ¿ where their toil and travel were to end. to secure to themselves these advantages, and to save their lives from the destroying angel; they were to take the blood of the blameless lamb, which they sacrificed, and with a bunch of hyssop, dipped in the blood, sprinkle it upon the posts and pillars at the entrance of their houses, and upon the thresholds; and by this token they were to be preserved. They were

likewise to take care that not a bone of it should be broken. At the same time they were to eat nothing leavened. In all In all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.

Exod. ch. xii. ver. 14. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord, throughout your generations: you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. V. 23. For the Lord will pass through to

Exodus xii. 20.

smite the Egyptians: and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side-posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

V. 28. And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.

When the people had thus performed the sacred ordinance, which had been enjoined them; they waited for the great event, which was to bring about their deliverance. At last the cry was up. For (ver. 29.) it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the first-born of cattle.

V. 30. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

It

may

be urged, as each dead person was confined to a particular house, the grief upon the occasion must have been in like manner