thing of frequent occurrence in Egypt. But in this instance, where the natural side of the event completely disappeared, he goes so far, in his anxiety to introduce a natural element into the miracle, that we must decidedly decline accompanying him. With greater moderation Hävernick says (p. 182): "The last plague is the one, which brings us most decidedly into the sphere of the purely miraculous." The word pestilence, however, is so indefinite and general a term, that it conveys but little information after all. If by pestilence we are to understand any disease which carries men off in a sudden and unsparing way, we can offer no objection to the application of the word to the tenth plague; for if the hand of Jehovah smote a large number of the Egyptians in one night with sudden death, the stroke itself must undoubtedly have resembled a mortal disease. But if the word be used in a more restricted sense, as denoting a disease that causes sudden death and overspreads whole districts by contagion, we protest with all our might against the designation. It was not by contagion, striking here and there like the electric fluid without previous warning, that so many victims were struck down by this plague, nor was it by any physical predisposition to a disease produced by some mysterious pestilential vapour, that those who fell were predestinated to die; but the hand of Jehovah, or of the destroyer whom he sent, was the immediate cause, and not only the number of the victims, but the particular individuals, were determined beforehand by a rule, which had not the slightest connexion with the laws of contagion. We cannot but be surprised, that Hengstenberg should ever have gone so far, as to assert that "the expression all the first-born' is not to be taken literally, any more than the other statement that there was no house in which there was not one dead,' which could not be strictly correct, since there were not first-born in every house." In his opinion we cannot infer from this that there were none of the first-born left alive, or that none but first-born were killed. Again, with regard to the exemption of the Israelites, he says that natural analogies may be adduced, for at the present day the Bedouins have very little predisposition to pestilence, and seldom suffer in the same way from its devastations. Even if we admit that the expression "all the cattle" in chap. ix. 6 (like chap. ix. 25) is not to be taken too literally, it is very different with chap. xii. 29. In the former case the reference is to the destruction

of cattle by a general murrain, without any particular description of the individuals smitten, and therefore the bistorian might naturally express himself in general terms. But here, where he is speaking of particular, well-defined individuals, such a mode of expression would have been altogether out of place. The scriptural account says, "Jehovah smote all the first-born," and proceeds to give the greater emphasis to the word "all" by adding: "From the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on the throne, to the first-born of the maid-servant that was behind the mill, and unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon" (xi. 5, xii. 29). This was the last, decisive plague. Whereas all the previous plagues had been so arranged, that it was still possible for unbelief to resort to the subterfuge, that they had been the result of nature and chance alone; this last was of such a kind, that even hardness and unbelief could not refuse to admit the interposition of the personal, living, supreme, and Almighty God. But the design of Jehovah would have been entirely frustrated by such exceptions as Hengstenberg refers to. There is no force in his assertion, that there cannot have been first-born in every house. For if, here and there, a couple may possibly have been found, where the husband was not himself a first-born, without children, and living in a house by themselves, the cases must have been extremely rare, in which these three circumstances were all combined, and therefore the writer cannot be blamed for saying "every house." It was not

the design of the plague, that corpses should be found in every house without exception; but it was intended that all the firstborn without exception should be slain, and if anything be pressed it must be this. Moreover the reference is to the male first-born on the mother's side (as chap. xiii. 2 clearly shows, cf. No. 5 below), so that there would sometimes be several first-born in the same family.

Again Hengstenberg is equally wrong, when he speaks of the supposed pestilence as being connected with the Chamsin (i.e., the three days' darkness). He brings forward the evidence of travellers to the effect that, "when the Chamsin lasts, pestilence prevails to a fearful extent, and those who are affected die very quickly," and states immediately afterwards that "for this reason the Arabs, as soon as the Chamsin ceases, congratulate each other on having survived." But according to the

biblical account, the pestilence did not go before the " Chamsin," or even accompany it; on the contrary, it did not occur for several days, perhaps some weeks afterwards, and therefore long after the Egyptians had congratulated each other on having survived the dangerous period.

(2). The infliction of the tenth plague is sometimes ascribed to Jehovah himself; at other times to a destroyer sent by Him and distinct from Him (chap. xii. 23). There are some, it is true, who regard as an abstract term, meaning destruction; but ver. 13, which is adduced in support of this, does not say: "the plague will not be among you for destruction," but "there shall be no plague among you for the destroyer" (ie., no plague to inflict, no occasion for bringing a plague). So far as we have hitherto traced the operations of God in Israel and on behalf of Israel, there is everything to lead to the conclusion, that the destroyer, who was sent by Jehovah, and in whom and through whom Jehovah personally appeared and worked, was no other than the angel, whom we have already met with in the patriarchal history as the representative of Jehovah (vol. i. § 50. 2); before whom Moses drew off his shoes and covered his face, when he appeared to him in the burning bush (chap. iii. 2, 5, 6); and who manifested himself to Moses in the inn, when Jehovah appeared to slay him (chap. iv. 24). So far as the judgment was one of wrath and brought destruction upon the sinner, the judge was also a destroyer. But as we read in Ps. lxxviii. 49, of an army of angels of evil (up

who were actively engaged in the Egyptian ,(מַלְאֲכֵי רָעִים רעים plagues (for

like life, is an abstract noun meaning evil, wickedness; and angels, that work evil, are not therefore wicked angels), the question may be asked whether does not indicate a plurality of angels engaged in the plagues.

, as Hofmann correctly observes (Schriftbeweis i. 310), denotes an instrument of destruction, of which there may be either one or many; and even in the latter case the many may be conceived of and described as one, on account of the unity of the principle which sets them in motion. Thus, for example, in 1 Sam. xiii. 7, an entire division of the army, which set out to devastate the land, is called, and, on the other hand, in 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, the angel of the Lord, which smote Jerusa

lem with pestilence during the reign of David, is called n'nuen. But when we observe, that in the passage quoted from the Psalms, the work of the "angels of evil" is not restricted to the slaying of the first-born, but applies to the whole of the Egyptian plagues, and also that in the book of Exodus such emphasis is laid upon the destroyer's passing over (i.e., from one door to another); it must be acknowledged, that the passage in the Psalms does not compel us to suppose that there was a plurality of destroying angels employed in connexion with the tenth plague, and that it is much more natural to understand the description, contained in the twelfth chapter of Exodus, as relating to a single destroyer.

(3). Different answers have been given to the question, whether Pharaoh gave the Israelites a conditional or an unconditional permission to depart, that is, whether they left with or without any obligation to return. It appears to me that the permission must be regarded as unconditional. It is true that at first Moses merely requested, that they might be allowed to go for a three days' journey into the desert, and thus the prospect of return was still left open (§ 20. 4); and even at the fourth plague he still presented his request in this limited form, but he never did so afterwards. It is in the nature of a war, however, that the conqueror raises the conditions of peace with every victory that he gains, whilst the vanquished are obliged to give up all their claims. The latter is just what Pharaoh did, as the scriptural record expressly declares. And we may justly assume that the former was the case with Moses, especially as a regard to Pharaoh led him to commence with a request of so limited a character, that it could not possibly have sufficed even if it had been granted, and therefore in the event of Pharaoh's compliance he would have been obliged to extend it. How much easier, then, was it to do this, when Pharaoh was obstinate and repeatedly broke his word! All the promises, that Moses had previously made, were annulled by Pharaoh's continued breach of faith; and when at length, after the ninth plague, the king turned the messenger of Jehovah out of doors, threatening him with death if he should ever venture to appear in his presence again, and Moses departed "with burning anger" saying: "As thou hast said, I will see thy face again no more"

(x. 29; xi. 8), all negotiations upon the former basis were for ever broken off. Henceforth Moses would never again request permission to go into the desert, but Pharaoh and his people would beg and entreat of Israel to depart from Egypt, as an act of kindness and mercy. If, then, the departure of the Israelites was regarded at the time as an act of kindness to Egypt, we may be sure that the Egyptians not only did not demand, but did not even desire that the Israelites should return; for they would surely fear, or rather foresee with certainty that, if they did, the former evils would sooner or later be endured again. Pharaoh's subsequent change of mind, which led him to pursue the Israelites with an army, for the purpose of bringing them back by force, is no proof to the contrary; for it was the result of his own obduracy and the hardening of his heart by God, and merely led to the full execution of judgment upon himself. The fact that Pharaoh had not the remotest idea that the Israelites would return, but on the contrary regarded it as certain that they would not, is clearly proved by his astonishment when he heard that they had not gone straight into Asia, but were still within the borders of Egypt on this side of the Red Sea (§ 22. 5). "They have missed their way," he said, "the (Egyptian) desert hath shut them in." The whole affair is so described, that we cannot possibly infer from Pharaoh's pursuit, that he had merely given the Israelites permission to take a three days' journey, and did not intend them to depart altogether. For his reason for pursuing them was not that they had passed the Egyptian frontier (in opposition to the supposed permission), but that they were still within the limits of the Egyptian territory. They had not acted, therefore, in violation of Pharaoh's permission, but merely contrary to his expectation. If the Israelites had taken the direct road to Canaan, or even if they had gone by the regular route to Sinai round the head of the gulf, the opposite view might possibly have been sustained. But as they had not left the soil of Egypt, and therefore cannot in any case have gone beyond the permission, which they are supposed to have received, we cannot see why Pharaoh should have hurried to enforce their return. On the contrary, as this was the actual state of the case, it would have been more natural for Pharaoh to conclude that the Israelites seriously intended to return after they had offered their sacrifices; and if so, why