that they were coming, met them: to whom Moses declared the signs he had seen; and while they could not believe them, he made them see them. So they took courage at these surprising and unexpected sights, and hoped well of their entire deliverance, as believing now that God took care of their preservation.

2. Since then Moses found that the Hebrews would be obedient to whatsoever he should direct, as they promised to be, and 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 informed him 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.

3. But when the king derided Moses, he made him in earnest see the signs that were done at Mount Sinai. Yet was the king very angry with him, and called him an ill man, who had formerly run away from his Egyptian slavery, and came now 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; as also he 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 do by magic arts and tricks, as divine power exceeds the power of man: but I will demonstrate, that what I do is not done by craft, or counterfeiting what is not really true, but that they appear by the providence and power of God."

And when he had said this, he cast his rod down upon the ground, and commanded it to turn itself into a serpent. It obeyed him, and went all round, and devoured the rods of the Egyptians, which seemed to be dragons, until it had con sumed them all it then returned to its own form, and Mo-ses took it into his haud again.

4. However, the king was no more moved, when this was done, than before; and being very angry, he said, "That he should gain nothing by this his cunning and shrewdness against the Egyptians." And he commanded him that was 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 the making their bricks, he would allow it them no longer; but he made them to work hard at brick-making in the day-time, and to gather chaff in the night. Now when their labour was thus doubled upon them, they laid the blame upon Moses, because their labour and their misery were on his account become more severe to them. 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 own 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 counter-work the designs of God, but to esteem his favour above all things, and to permit them to depart, lest, before he be aware, he lay an obstruction in the way of the divine commands, and so occasion his own suffering such punishments as it was probably any one that counter-worked 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 besides, the Hebrew people should go out of their country without their consent.

CHAP. XIV.

Concerning the ten plagues which came upon the Egyptians.

1. BUT 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 did ever happen 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 men. The Egyptian river ran with bloody water, at the command of God, insomuch that it could not be drunk, and they had no other spring of water neither; for the water was not only of the colour of blood, but it brought upon those that ventured to drink of it great pains, and bitter torment. Such was the river to the Egyptians but it was sweet and fit for drinking to the Hebrews, and no way different from what it naturally used to be. As the king, therefore, knew not what to do in these surprising circumstances, and was in fear for the Egyptians, he gave the Hebrews leave to go away; but when the plague ceased, he changed his mind again, and would not suffer them to go.

2. But when God saw that he was ungrateful, and upon the ceasing of the calamity would not grow wiser, he seut another plague upon the Egyptians: an innumerable multitude of frogs consumed the fruits of the ground; the river also was 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, and as they died: they also spoiled their vessels in their houses which they used, and came in great numbers upon their beds. There was also an ungrateful smell and stink 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 any good consideration.

3. 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, as not able to destroy this sort of vermin, either with washes or with ointments. At which 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 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 had never come into the sight of men. before, by whose 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.

4. But when Pharaoh did not even then yield to the will of God; but while he gave leave to the husbands to take their wives with them, yet insisted that the children should be left behind, God presently resolved to punish his wickedness with several sorts of calamities, and those worse than the foregoing, which yet had so generally afflicted them: for 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 it was, as the climate

*Of this judicial hardening the hearts, and blinding the eyes of wicked men, or infatuating them, as a just punishment for their other wilful sin, to their own destruction, see the note on Antiq, E. vil. ch. ix. 6.

of Egypt had never suffered before, nor was it like to that which falls in other climates in the * 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 broke down their boughs loaden 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.

5. One would think the forementioned calamities might have been sufficient for one that was only foolish without wickedness, to make him wise, and to make him sensible what was for his advantage. But Pharaoh, led not so much by his folly, as by his wickedness, even when he saw the cause of his miseries, he still contested with God, and wilfully deserted the cause of virtue; so he bid Moses take the Hebrews away, with their wives and children, but to leave their cattle behind, since their own cattle was destroyed. But when Moses said, that what he desired was unjust, since they were obliged to offer sacrifice to God of those cattle: and the time being prolonged on this account, a thick darkness, without the least light, spread itself over the Egyptians, whereby their sight being obstructed, and their breathing hindered by the thickness of the air, they died miserably, and under a terror lest they should be swallowed up by the dark cloud. Besides this, when the darkness, after three days, and as many nights, was dissipated, and when Pharaoh did not still repent, and let the Hebrews go, Moses came to him, and said, "How long wilt thou be disobedient to the command of God? for he enjoins thee to let the Hebrews go; nor is there any other way of being freed from the calamities you are under unless you do so." But the king was angry at what he said, and threatened to cut off his head if he came any more to trouble him about these matters. Hereupon Moses said, he would not speak to him any more about them, for 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.

6. But 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 *As to this winter or spring hail near Egypt and Judea, see the like on thunder and lightning there, in the note on Antiq. B. vi, ch. v. 1 6.