Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

warrants us in assuming, as most commentators have done, that there was the same here — that it was in fact the Chamsin, to which the LXX. evidently allude in their rendering: aKoro^ Koi yv6(f)o^ Kol OveXka. This wind, which generally blows in Egypt before and after the vernal equinox and lasts two or three days, usually rises very suddenly, and fills the air with such a quantity of fine dust and coarse sand, that the sun loses its brightness, the sky is covered with a dense veil, and it becomes so dark that " the obscurity caused by the thickest fog in our autumn and winter days is nothing in comparison" (Schubert). Both men and animals hide themselves from this storm; and the inhabitants of the towns and villages shut themselves up in the innermost rooms and cellars of their houses till it is over, for the dust penetrates even through well-closed windows. For fuller accounts taken from travels, see Hengstenherg (pp. 120 sqq.) and Robinson s Palestine i. pp. 287-289. Seetzen attributes the rising of the dust to a quantity of electrical fluid contained in the air. — The fact that in this case the darkness alone is mentioned, may have arisen from its symbolical importance. "The darkness which covered the Egyptians, and the light which shone upon the Israelites, were types of the wrath and grace of God" (Hengstenberg). This occurrence, in which, according to Arabian chroniclers of the middle ages, the nations discerned a foreboding of the day of judgment or of the resurrection, filled the king with such alarm that he sent for Moses, and told him he would let the people and their children go, but the cattle must be left behind. ^^: sistatur, let it be placed, deposited in certain places under the guard of Egyptians, as a pledge of your return. Maneat in pignus, quod reversuri sitis, as Chaskuni correctly paraphrases it. But Moses insisted upon the cattle being taken for the sake of their sacrifices and burntofferings. " Not a hoof shall be left behind" This was a proverbial expression for "not the smallest fraction." Bochart gives instances of a similar introduction of the "hoof" into proverbial sayings by both Arabians and Romans (Hieroz. i. p. 490). This firmness on the part of Moses he defended by saying, " We know not with what we shall serve the Lord, till we come thither;" i.e. we know not yet what kind of animals or how many we shall require for the sacrifices; our God will not make this known to us till we arrive at the place of sacrifice. *^^ • with a double accusative as in Gen. xxx. 29; to serve any one with a thing. — Vers. 27 sqq. At this demand, Pharaoh, with the hardness suspended over him by God, fell into such wratii, that he sent Moses away, and threatened him with death, if he ever appeared in his presence again. "aS^^ my face^^ as in Gen. xliii. 3. Moses answered, " Thou hast spoken rightly, ^^ For as God had already told him that the last blow would be followed by the immediate release of the people, there was no further necessity for him to appear before Pharaoh.

Chap. xi. Proclamation of the tenth plague; or THE DECISIVE BLOW. — Vers. 1—3. The announcement made by Jehovah to Moses, which is recorded here, occurred before the last interview between Moses and Pharaoh (x. 24—29); but it is introduced by the historian in this place, as serving to explain the confideilce with which Moses answered Pharaoh (x. 29). This is evident from vers. 4-8, where Moses is said to have foretold to the king, before leaving his presence, the last plague and all its consequences, "^^^^l therefore, in ver. 1, is to be taken in a pluperfect sense: " had said; " and may be grammatically accounted for from the old Semitic style of historical writing referred to at p. 87, as vers. 1 and 2 contain the foundation for the announcement in vers. 4-8. So far as the facts are concerned, vers. 1-3 point back to chap. iii. 19-22. One stroke more (V^?) would Jehovah bring upon Pharaoh and Egypt, and then the king would let the Israelites go, or rather drive them out. n73 inp^"3, " when he lets you go altogether (nP3 adverbial as in Gen. xviii. 21), he will even drive you awayT — Vers. 2, 3 In this way Jehovah would overcome thfe resistance of Pharaoh; and even more than that, for Moses was to tell the people to ask the Egyptians for art^'cles of silver and gold, for Jehovah would make them willing to give. The renown acquired by Moses through his miracles in Egypt would also contribute to this. (For the discussion of this subject, see chap. iii. 21, 22.) The communication of these instructions to the people is not expressly mentioned; but it is referred to in chap. xii. 35, 36, as having taken place.

Vers. 4:-8. Moses' address to Pharaoh forms the continuation of his brief answer in chap. x. 29. At midnight Jehovah would go out through the midst of Egypt. This midnight could not be " the one following the day on which Moses was summoned to Pharaoh after the darkness," as Baumgarten supposes; for it was not till after this conversation with the king that Moses received the divine directions as to the Passover, and they must have been communicated to the people at least four days before the feast of the Passover and their departure from Egypt (chap. xii. 3). What midnight is meant, cannot be determined. So much is certain, however, that the last decisive blow did not take place in the night following the cessation of the ninth plague; but the institution of the Passover, the directions of Moses to the people respecting the things which they were to ask for from the Egyptians, and the preparations for the feast of the Passover and the exodus, all came between. The ''going out^^ of Jehovah from His heavenly seat denotes His direct interposition in, and judicial action upon, the world of men. The last blow upon Pharaoh was to be carried out by Jehovah Himself, whereas the other plagues had been brought by Moses and Aaron. D^VP 1^^^ " in (through) the midst of Egypt;" the judgment of God would pass from the centre of the kingdom, the king's throne, over the whole land. '' Every Jirst-hom shall die, from the first-bom of Pharaoh, that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the mxxid that is behind the mill^^ Le, the meanest slave (cf. chap. xii. 29, where the captive in the dungeon is substituted for the maid, prisoners being often employed in this hard labour, Judg. xvi. 21; Isa. xlvii. 2), ''and all the first-horn of cattleJ* This stroke was to fall upon both man ^nd beast as a punishment for Pharaoh's conduct in detaining the Israelites and their cattle; but only upon the first-born, for God did not wish to destroy the Egyptians and their cattle altogether, but simply to show them that He had the power to do this. The first-born represented the whole race, of which it was the strength and bloom (Gen. xlix. 3). But against the whole of the people of Israel " not a dog shall point its tongue " (ver. 7). The dog points its tongue to growl and bite. The thought expressed in this proverb, which occurs again in Josh. x. 21 and Judith xi. 19, was that Israel would not suffer the slightest injury, either in the case of " man or beast." By this complete preservation, whilst Egypt was given up to death, Israel would discover that Jehovah had completed the separation between them and the Egyptians. The effect of this stroke upon the Egyptians would be " a great cry^^ having no parallel before or after (of. x. 14); and the consequence of this cry would be, that the servants of Pharaoh would come to Moses and entreat them to go out with all the people. ^' At thy feet,^^ i.e. in thy train (yid. Deut. xi. 6; Judg. viii. 5). With this announcement Moses departed from Pharaoh in great wrath. Moses* wrath was occasioned by the king's threat (chap. x. 28), and pointed to the wrath of Jehovah, which Pharaoh would soon experience. As the more than human patience which Moses had displayed towards Pharaoh manifested to him the long-suffering and patience of his God, in whose name and by whose authority he acted, so the wrath of the departing servant of God was to show to the hardened king, that the time of grace was at an end, and the wrath of God was about to burst upon him.

In vers. 9 and 10 the account of Moses' negotiations with Pharaoh, which commenced at chap. vii. 8, is brought to a close. What God predicted to His messengers immediately before sending them to Pharaoh (chap. vii. 3), and to Moses before his call (iv. 21), had now come to pass. And this was the pledge that the still further announcement of Jehovah in chap, vii. 4 and iv. 23, which had already been made known to the hardened king (vers. 4 sqq.), would be carried out. As these verses have a terminal character, the vav consecutive in "^^N*l denotes the order of thought and not of time, and the two verses are to be rendered thus: " As Jehovah had said to Moses, Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, that My wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt, Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; and Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land."

HAP. xii. 1-28. Institution of the Passover. — The deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt was at hand; also their adoption as the nation of Jehovah (chap. vi. 6, 7). But for this a divine consecration was necessary, that their outward severance from the land of Egypt might be accompanied by an inward severance from everything of an Egyptian or heathen nature. This consecration was to be imparted by the Passover — a festival which was to lay the foundation for Israel's birth (Hos. ii. 5) into the new life of grace and fellowship with God, and to renew it perpetually in time to come. This festival was therefore instituted and commemorated before the exodus from Egypt. Vers. 1-28 contain the directions for the Passover: viz. vers. 1—14 for the keeping of the feast of the Passover before the departure from Egypt, and vers. 15-20 for the seven days' feast of unleavened bread. In vers. 21-27 Moses communicates to the elders of the nation the leading instructions as to the former feast, and the carrying out of those instructions is mentioned in ver. 28.

Vers. 1 and 2. By the words, " in the land of Egypt^^ the law of the Passover which follows is brought into connection with the giving of the law at Sinai and in the fields of Moab, and is distinguished in relation to the former as the first or foundation law for the congregation of Jehovah. The creation of

Israel as the people of Jehovah (Isa. xliii. 15) commenced with the institution of the Passover. As a proof of this, it was preceded by the appointment of a new era, fixing the commencement of the congregation of Jehovah. " Tliis montli^ (i.e. the present in which ye stand) " he to you the head (ix, the beginning) of the months, the first let it he to you for the months of the year-P i.e let the numbering of the months, and therefore the year also, begin with it. Consequently the Israelites had hitherto had a different beginning to their year, probably only a civil year, commencing with the sowing, and ending with the termination of the harvest (cf. xxiii. 1 6); whereas the Egyptians most likely commenced their year with the overflowing of the Nile at the summer solstice (cf. Lepsius, Chron. 1, pp. 148 sqq.). The month which was henceforth to be the first of the year, and is frequently so designated (chap. xl. 2, 17; Lev. xxiii. 5, etc.), is called Ahih (the ear-month) in chap. xiii. 4, xxiii. 15, xxxiv. 18, Deut. xvi. 1, because the corn was then in ear; after the captivity it was called Nisan (Neh. ii. 1; Esth. iii. 7). It corresponds very nearly to our April.

Vers. 3-14. Arrangements for the Passover. — ''All the congregation of IsraeV^ was the nation represented by its elders (cf. ver. 21, and my bibl. Arch. ii. p. 221). " On the tenth of this (i.e, the first) month, let every one take to himself nb^ (a lamb, lit. a young one, either sheep or goats; ver. 5, and Deut. xiv. 4), according to fathers houses" (vid. vi. 14), i.e. according to the natural distribution of the people into families, so that only the members of one family or family circle should unite, and not an indiscriminate company. In ver. 21 mishpachoth is used instead. " A lamh for the'house,^^ ^]'^, i.e. the family forming a household.— Ver. 4. But if " the house he too small for a lamh" (lit. " sinall from the existence of a lamh" |p comparative: ne^o ni'n is an existence which receives its purpose from the lamb, which answers to that purpose, viz. the consumption of the lamb, i.e. if a family is not numerous enough to consume a lamb), " let him (the house-father) and his Clearest neighhour against his house take (sc. a lamb) according to the calculation of the persons." HDpp computatio (Lev. xxvii. 23), from Dp3 computare; and DDD, the calculated amount or number (Num. xxxi. 28): it only occurs in the Pentateuch. " Every one according to the measure of his eating shall ye reckon for the lamh:" i,e. in deciding whether several families had to unite, in order to consume one lamb, they were to estimate how much each person would be likely to eat. Consequently more than two families might unite for this purpose, when they consisted simply of the father and mother and little children. A later custom fixed ten as the number of persons to each paschal lamb; and Jonathan has interpolated this number into the text of his Targum. — Yer. 5. The kind of lamb: D^pJJ integer, uninjured, without bodily fault, like all the sacrifices (Lev. xxii. 19, 20); a male like the burnt-offerings (Lev. i. 3, 11); '"^J^ I? one year old (ivtavcnof;, LXX). This does not mean " standing in the first year, viz. from the eighth day of its life to the termination of the first year" (Rahh* Cler.y etc.), a rule which applied to the other sacrifices only (chap, xxii. 29; Lev. xxii. 27). The opinion expressed by Ewald and others, that oxen were also admitted at a later period, is quite erroneous, and cannot be proved from Deut. xvi. 2, or 2 Chron. XXX. 24 and xxxv. 7 sqq. As the lamb was intended as a sacrifice (ver. 27), the characteristics were significant. Freedom from blemish and injury not only befitted the sacredness of the purpose to which they were devoted, but was a symbol of the moral integrity of the person represented by the sacrifice. It was to be a male, as taking the place of the male first-born of Israel; and a year old, because it was not till then that it reached the full, fresh vigour of its life. " Ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats:" z.e., as Theodoret explains it, " He who has a sheep, let him slay it; and he who has no sheep, let him take a goat." Later custom restricted the choice to the iamb alone; though even in the time of Josiali kids were still used as well (2 Chron. xxxv. 7).

Ver. 6. " And it shall be to you for preservation (ye shall keep it) until the fourteenth day, and then... slay it at sunset^ Among the reasons commonly assigned for the instruction to choose the lamb on the 10th, and keep it till the 14:th, which Jonathan and Rashi supposed to refer to the Passover in Egypt alone, there is an element of truth in the one given most fully by Fagius, " that the sight of the lamb might furnish an occasion for conversation respecting their deliverance from Egypt,... and the mercy of God, who had so graciously looked upon them;" but this hardly serves to explain the interval of exactly four days. Hofmann supposes it to refer to the four doroth

(Gen. XV. 16), which had elapsed since Israel was brought to Egypt, to grow into a nation. The probability of such an allusion, however, depends upon just what Hofmann denies without sufficient reason, viz. upon the lamb being regarded as a sacrifice, in which Israel consecrated itself to its God. It was to be slain by " the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel:''^ not by the whole assembled people, as though they gathered together for this purpose, for the slaughtering took place in every house (ver. 7); the meaning is simply, that the entire congregation, without any exception, was to slay it at the same time, viz. " between the two evenings^' (Num. ix. 3, 5, 11), or " in the evening at sunset" (Deut. xvi. 6). Different opinions have prevailed among the Jews from a very early date as to the precise time intended. Aben Ezra agrees with the Caraites and Samaritans in taking the first evening to be the time when the sun sinks below the horizon, and the second the time of total darkness; in which case, " between the two evenings" would be from 6 o'clock to 7.20. Kimchi and Rashi^ on the other hand, regard the moment of sunset as the boundary between the two evenings, and Hitzig has lately adopted their opinion. According to the rabbinical idea, the time when the sun began to descend, viz. from 3 to 5 o'clock, was the first evening, and sunset the second; so that " between the two evenings" was from 3 to 6 o'clock..Modern expositors have very properly decided in favour of the view held by Aben Ezra and the custom adopted by the Caraites and Samaritans, from which the explanation given by Kimchi and Rashi does not materially differ. It is true that this argument has been adduced in favour of the rabbinical practice, viz. that " only by supposing the afternoon to have been included, can we understand why the day of Passover is always called the 14th (Lev. xxiii. 5; Num. ix. 3, etc.);" and also, that " if the slaughtering took place after sunset, it fell on the 15th Nisan, and not the 14th." But both arguments are based upon an untenable assumption. For it is obvious from Lev. xxiii. 32, where the fast prescribed for the day of atonement, which fell upon the 10th of the 7th month, is ordered to commence on the evening of the 9th day, " from even to even," that although the Israelites reckoned the day of 24 hours from the evening sunset to sunset, in numbering the days they followed the natural day, and numbered each day according to the period between sunrise and sunset. Nevertheless there is no formal disaiireenient between the law and the rabbinical custom. The expression in Deut. xvi. G, " at (towards) sunset," is sufficient to show that the boundary line between the two evenings is not to be fixed precisely at the moment of sunset, but only somewhere about that time. The daily evening sacrifice and the incense offering were also to be presented " between the two evenings" (chap. xxix. 39, 41, xxx. 8; Num. xxviii. 4). Now as this was not to take place exactly at the same time, but to precede it, they could not both occur at the time of sunset, but the former must have been offered before that. Moreover, in later times, when the paschal lamb was slain and offered at the sanctuary, it must have been slain and offered before sunset, if only to give sufficient time to prepare the paschal meal, which was to be over before midnight. It was from these circumstances that the rabbinical custom grew up in the course of time, and the lax use of the word evening, in Hebrew as well as in every other language, left space enough for this. For just as we do not confine the term morning to the time before sunset, but apply it generally to the early hours of the day, so the term evening is not restricted to the period after sunset. If the sacrifice prescribed for the morning could be offered after sunrise, the one appointed for the evening might in the same manner be offered before sunset.

Yer. 7. Some of the blood was to be put (iriJ as in Lev. iv. 18, where I^^ is distinguished from t^^^^ to sprinkle, in ver. 17) upon the two posts and the lintel of the door of the house in which the lamb was eaten. This blood was to be to them a sign (ver. 13); for when Jehovah passed through Egypt to smite the first-born. He would see the blood, and would spare these houses, and not permit the destroyer to enter them (vers. 13, 23). The two posts with the lintel represented the door (ver. 23), which they surrounded; and the doorway through which the house was entered stood for the house itself, as we may see from Ithe frequent expression "in thy gates," for in thy towns (chap. xx. 10; Deut. v. 14, xii. 17, etc.). The threshold, which belonged to the door quite as much as the lintel, was not to be smeared with blood, in order that the blood might not be trodden under foot. By the smearing of the door-posts and lintel with blood, the house was expiated and consecrated on an altar. That the smearing with blood was to be regarded as an act of expiation, is evident from the simple fact, that a hyssop-bush was used for the purpose (ver. 22); for sprinkling with hyssop is never prescribed in the law, except in connection with purification in the sense of expiation (Lev. xiv. 49 sqq.; Num. xix. 18, 19). In Egypt the Israelites had no common altar; and for this reason, the houses in which they assembled for the Passover were consecrated as altars, and the persons found in them were thereby removed from the stroke of the destroyer. In this way the smearing of the door-posts and lintel became a sign to Israel of their deliverance from the destroyer. Jehovah made it so by His promise, that He would see the blood, and pass over the houses that were smeared with it. Through faith in this promise, Israel acquired in the sign a firm pledge of its deliverance. The smearing of the doorway was relinquished, after Moses (not Josiah, as Vaihinger supposes, cf. Deut. xvi. 5, 6) had transferred the slaying of the lambs to the court of the sanctuary, and the blood had been ordered to be sprinkled upon the altar there.

Vers. 8, 9. With regard to the preparation of the lamb for the meal, the following directions were given: " Thei/ shall eat the lamb in that night " (i.e. the night following the 14th), and none of it t<^ (" underdone'^ or raw), or ^^^ (" hoiledj^ — lit. done, viz. D^Ol b^l'O done in water, i.e. boiled, as p^'^ does not mean to be boiled, but to become ripe or done, Joel iii. 13); " hut roasted with fire^ even its head on (along with) its thighs and entrails;^^ i.e.,, as Rashi coiTectly explains it, " undivided or whole, so that neither head nor thighs were cut off, and not a bone was broken (ver. 46), and the viscera were roasted in the belly along with the entrails," the latter, of course, being first of all cleansed. On D^in? and ^ip see Lev. i. 9. These regulations are all to be regarded from one point of view. The first two, neither underdone nor boiled, were connected with the roasting of the animal whole. As the roasting no doubt took place on a spit, since the Israelites while in Egypt can hardly have possessed such ovens of their own, as are prescribed in the Talmud and are met with in Persia, the lamb would be very likely to be roasted imperfectly, or underdone, especially in the hurry that must have preceded the exodus (ver. 11). By boiling, again, the integrity of the animal would have been destroyed, partly through the fact that it could never have been got into a pot whole, as the Israel- ites had no ])ots or kettles sufficiently large, and still more through the fact that, in boiling, the substance of the flesh is more or less dissolved. For it is very certain that the command to roast was not founded upon the hurry of the whole procedure, as a whole animal could be quite as quickly boiled as roasted, if not even more quickly, and the Israelites must have possessed the requisite cooking utensils. It was to be roasted, in order that it might be placed upon the table undivided and essentially unchanged. " Through the unity and integrity of the lamb given them to eat, the participants were to be joined into an undivided unity and fellowship with the Lord, who had provided them with the meal" (cf. 1 Cor. x. 17).^ They were to eat it with ni2fD (afbyLta, azymipanes; LXX., Vulg.), i.e. (not sweet, or parched, but) pure loaves^ not fermented with leaven; for leaven, which sets the dough in fermentation, and so produces impurity, was a natural symbol of moral corruption, and was excluded from the sacrifices therefore as defiling (Lev. ii. 11). " Over (upon) hitter herbs they shall eat it.^^ ^''I^P, TrcKplSe^; (LXX.), lactucce agrestes (Vulg.), probably refers to various kinds of bitter herbs. TLiKpi^j according to Aristot. Hist. an. 9, 6, and iPlin. h. n. 8, 41, is the same as lactuca silvestris, or wild lettuce; but in Dioscor. 2, 160, it is referred to as the wild aepu^ or KL')((t)pi0Vy i.e. wild endive, the intuhus or intuhum of the Komans. As lettuce and endive are indigenous in Egypt, and endive is also met with in Syria from the beginning of the winter months to the end of March, and lettuce in April and May, it is to these herbs of bitter flavor that the term merorim chiefly applies;

^ See my Archdologie i. p. 386. Baehr (Symb. 2, 635) has given the true explanation: " By avoiding the breaking of the bones, the animal was preserved in complete integrity, undisturbed and entire (Ps. xxxiv. 20). The sacrificial lamb to be eaten was to be thoroughly and perfectly whole, and at the time of eating was to appear as a perfect whole, and therefore as one; for it is not what is dissected, divided, broken in pieces, but only what is whole, that is eo ipso one. There was no other reason for this, than that all who took part in this one whole animal, i.e. all who ate of it, should look upon themselves as one whole, one community, like those who eat the New Testament Passover, the body of Christ (1 Cor. v. 7), of whom the apostle says (1 Cor. x. 17), " There is one bread, and so we, being many, are one body: for we are all partakers of one body." The preservation of Christ, so that not a bone was broken, had the same signification; and God ordained this that He might appear as the true paschal lamb, that was slain for the sins of the world."

though others may also be included, as the Arabs apply the same term to Scorzonera oy^ient.j Picris scahra^ Sonclus oler., Hieracium uniflor.j and others (Forsk. /lor, cxviii. and 143); and in the Mishnahy Pes. 2, 6, five different varieties of bitter herbs are reckoned as merorim, though it is difficult to determine what they are (cf. Bochart, Hieroz, 1, pp. 691 sqq., and Cels, Hierohot, ii. p. 727). By pV (upon) the bitter herbs are represented, both here and in Num. ix. 11, not as an accompaniment to the meat, but as the basis of the meal. ^V does not signify along with, or indicate accompaniment, not even in chap. xxxv. 22; but in this and other similar passages it still retains its primary signification, upon or over. It is only used to signify accompaniment in cases where the ideas of protection, meditation, or addition are prominent. If, then, the bitter herbs are represented in this passage as the basis of the meal, and the unleavened bread also in Num. ix. 11, it is evident that the bitter herbs were not intended to be regarded as a savoury accompaniment, by which more flavour was imparted to the sweeter food, but had a more profound signification. The bitter herbs were to call to mind the bitterness of life experienced by Israel in Egypt (i. 14), and this bitterness was to be overpowered by the sweet flesh of the lamb. In the same way the unleavened loaves are regarded as forming part of the substance of the meal in Num. ix. 11, in accordance with their significance in relation to it {vid, ver. 15). There is no discrepancy between this and Deut. xvi. 3, where the mazzoth are spoken of as an accompaniment to the flesh of the sacrifice; for the allusion there is not to the eating of the paschal lamb, but \''^ sacrificial meals held during the seven days* festival.

Ver. 10. The lamb was to be all eaten wherever this was possible; but if any was left, it was to be burned with fire the following day, — a rule afterwards laid down for all the sacrificial meals, with one solitary exception {yid. Lev. vii. 15). They were to eat it ptsna, " in anxious fligM^ (from TSn trepidare, Ps. xxxi. 23; to flee in terror, Deut. xx. 3, 2 Kings vii. 15); in travelling costume therefore, — with " the loins girded,* that they might not be impeded in their walking by the long flowing dress (2 Kings iv. 29), — wath ^^ shoes (sandals) on their feet,** that they might be ready to walk on hard, rough roads, instead of barefooted, as they generally went (cf. Josh. ix. 5, 13; Bynceus de calceis ii. 1, 7; and Bochartj Iliero:. i. pp. 686 sqq.), and ^^ staff in hand'* (Gen. xxxii. 11). The directions in ver. 11 had reference to the paschal meal in Egypt only, and had no other signification than to prepare the IsraeHtes for their approaching departure. But though " this preparation was intended to give the paschal meal the appearance of a support for the journey, which the Israelites were about to take," this by no means exhausts its siixnification. The divine instructions close with the words, " it is np2 to Jehovah;" i.e. wliat is prescribed is a pesach appointed by Jehovah, and to be kept for Ilim (cf. chap. XX. 10, " Sabbath to Jehovah;" xxxii. 5, " feast to Jehovah"). The word npQ, Aram. ^^npD, Gr. Traaya^ is derived from npB, lit. to leap or hop, from which these two meanings arise: (1) to limp (1 Kings xviii. 21; 2 Sam. iv. 4, etc.); and (2) to pass over, transire (hence Tiphsah, a passage over, 1 Kings iv. 24). It is for the most part used figuratively for vTrep^alvecv, to pass by or spare; as in this case, where the destroying angel passed by the doors and houses of the Israelites that were smeared with blood. From this, pesach (v7r€pl3aqc(;, Aquil. in ver. 11; virepfiaaiaj Joseph. Ant. ii. 14, 6) came afterwards to be used for the lamb, through which, according to divine appointment, the passing by or sparing had been effected (vers. 21, 27; 2 Chron. XXXV. 1, 13, etc.); then for the preparation of the lamb for a meal, in accordance with the divine instructions, or for the celebration of this meal (thus here, ver. 11; Lev. xxiii. 5; Num. ix. 7, etc.); and then, lastly, it was transferred to the whole seven days' observance of the feast of unleavened bread, which began with this meal (Deut. xvi. 1), and also to the sacrifices which were to be offered at that feast (Deut. xvi. 2; 2 Chron. XXXV. 1, 7, etc.). The killing of the lamb appointed for the pesach was a nnTj i.e. a slain-offering, as Moses calls it when making known the command of God to the elders (ver. 27); consequently the eating of it was a sacrificial feast (" the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover," chap, xxxiv. 25). For niT is never applied to slaying alone, as I2n^ is. Even in Prov. xvii. 1 and 1 Sam. xxviii. 24, which Hofmann adduces in support of this meaning, it signifies '' to sacrifice" only in a figurative or transferred sense. At the first Passover in Egypt, it is true, there was no presentation (^"'IP'?), because Israel had no altar there. But the presentation took place at the very first repetition of the festival at Sinai (Num. ix. 7). The omission of this in Egypt, on account of the circumstances in which they were placed, constituted no essential difference between the first ^' sacrifice of the Passover" and the repetitions of it; for the choice of the lamb four days before it was slain, was a substitute for the presentation, and the sprinkUng of the blood, which was essential to every sacrifice, was effected in the smearing of the door-posts and lintel. The other difference upon which Hofmann lays stress, viz. that at all subsequent Passovers the fat of the animal was burned upon the altar, is very questionable. For this custom cannot be proved from the Old Testament, though it is prescribed in the Mishnah} But even if the burning of the fat of the paschal lamb had taken place shortly after the giving of the law, on the ground of the general command in Lev. iii. 17, vii. 23 sqq. (for this is not taken for granted in Ex. xxiii. 18, as we shall afterwards show), this difference could also be accounted for from the want of an altar in Egypt, and would not warrant us in refusing to admit the sacrificial character of the first Passover. For the appointment of the paschal meal by God does not preclude the idea that it was a religious service, nor the want of an altar the idea of sacrifice, as Hofmann supposes. All the sacrifices of the Jewish nation were minutely prescribed by God, so that the presentation of them was the consequence of divine instructions. And even though the Israelites, when holding the first Passover according to the command of God, merely gave expression to their desire to participate in the deliverance from destruction and the redemption from Egypt, and also to their faith in the word and promise of God, we must neither measure the signification of this divine institution by that fact, nor restrict it to

^ In the elaborate account of the Passover under Josiah, in 2 Chron. XXXV., we have, it is true, an allusion to the presentation of the burntoffering and fat (ver. 14); but the boiling of the offerings in pots, caldrons, and pans is also mentioned, along with the roasting of the Passover (ver. 13); from which it is very obvious, that in this account the offering of burnt and slain-offerings is associated with the preparation of the paschal lamb, and the paschal meal is not specially separated from the sacrificial meals of the seven days' feast; just as we find that the king and the princes give the priests and Levites not only lambs and kids, but oxen also, for the sacrifices and sacrificial meals of this festival. (See my Archdologie^ § 81, 8).

til is alone, inasmuch as it is expressly described as a sacrificial meal.

In vers. 12 and 13 the name pesach is explained. In that night Jehovah would pass through Egypt, smite all the first-born of man and beast, execute judgment upon all the gods of Egypt, and pass over (^02) the Israelites. In what the judgment upon all the gods of Egypt consisted, it is hard to determine. The meaning of these words is not exhausted by Calvin's remark: " God declared that lie would be a judge against the false gods, because it was most apparent then, liow little help was to be found in them, and how vain and fallacious was their worship.'* The gods of Egypt were spiritual authorities and powers, Satr- /jLovia, which governed the life and spirit of the Egyptians. Hence the judgment upon them could not consist of the destruction of idols, as Ps. Jonatharis paraphrase supposes: idola fusa colliquescent, lapidea concidentur^ testacea confringentur, lignea in cinerem redigentur. For there is nothing said about this; but in ver. 29 the death of the first-born of men and cattle alone is mentioned as the execution of the divine threat; and in Num. xxxiii. 4 also the judgment upon the gods is connected with the burial of the first-born, without special reference to anything besides. From this it seems to follow pretty certainly, that the judgments upon the gods of Egypt consisted in the slaying of the first-born of man and beast. But the slaying of the firstborn was a judgment upon the gods, not only because the impotence and worthlessness of the fancied gods were displayed in the consternation produced by this stroke, but still more directly in the fact, that in the slaying of the king's son and many of the first-born animals, the gods of Egypt, which were worshipped both in their kings and also in certain sacred animals, such as the bull Apis and the goat Nendes, were actually smitten themselves.— Yer. 13. To the Israelites, on the other hand, the blood upon the houses in which they were assembled would be a sign and pledge that Jehovah would spare them, and no plague should fall upon them to destroy (cf. Ezek. xxi. 36; not " for the destroyer," for there is no article with ri''n^bp). — Yer. 14. That day (the evening of the 14th) Israel was to keep '^ for a commemoration as a feast to Jehovah" consecrated for all time, as an " eternal ordinance^^ uytXTO " in your generations^^ i.e. for all ages, HiM denoting the succession of future generations (vid.

ver. 24). As the divine act of Israel's redemption was of eternal significance, so the commemoration of that act was to be an eternal ordinance, and to be upheld as long as Israel should exist as the redeemed people of the Lord, i.e. to all eternity, just as the new life of the redeemed was to endure for ever. For the Passover, the remembrance of which was to be revived by the constant repetition of the feast, was the celebration of their birth into the new life of fellowship with the Lord. The preservation from the stroke of the destroyer, from which the feast received its name, was the commencement of their redemption from the bondage of Egypt, and their elevation into the nation of Jehovah. The blood of the paschal lamb was atoning blood; for the Passover was a sacrifice, which combined in itself the signification of the future sin-offerings and peace-offerings; in other words, which shadowed forth both expiation and quickening fellowship with God. The smearing of the houses of the Israelites with the atoninfj blood of the sacrifice set forth the reconciliation of Israel and its God, through the forgiveness and expiation of its sins; and in the sacrificial meal which followed, their communion with the Lord, i.e. their adoption as children of God, was typically completed. In the meal the sacrijicium became a sacrarnentum^ the flesh of the sacrifice a means of grace, by which the Lord adopted His spared and redeemed people into the fellowship of His house, and gave them food for the refreshing of their souls.

Vers. 15-20. Judging from the words " / brought out" in ver. 17, Moses did not receive instructions respecting the seven days' feast of Mazzoth till after the exodus from Egypt; but on account of its internal and substantial -connection with the Passover, it is placed here in immediate association with the institution of the paschal meal. " Seven days shall ye eat unleavened hreadj only Q\^) on the first day (i^e. not later than the first day) ye shall cause to cease {i.e. put away) leaven out of your houses." The first day was the 15th of the month (cf. Lev. xxiii. 6; Num. xxviri. 17). On the other hand, when tic^'K"}3 is thus defined in ver. 18, " on the 14th day of the month at even,** this may be accounted for from the close connection between the feast of Mazzoth and the feast of Passover, inasmuch as unleavened bread was to be eaten with the paschal lamb, so that the leaven had to be cleared away before this meal.

The significance of this foast was in the catinfr of the mazzothj i.e. of pure unleavened bread (sec ver. 8). As ])read, wliicli is the principal means of preserving life, might easily be regarded as the symbol of life itself, so far as the latter is set forth in the means employed for its own maintenance and invigoration, so the mazzothj or unleavened loaves, were symbolical of the new life, as cleansed from the leaven of a sinfid nature. Ijut if the eating of mazzoth was to shadow forth the new life into which Israel was transferred, any one who ate leavened bread at the feast would renounce this new life, and was therefore to be cut off from Israel, i.e. " from the congregation of Israel" (ver. 19). — Ver. 10. On tlie first and seventh days, a holy meeting was to be held, and labour to be suspended. tinp"SipD is not indictio sanctiy proclamatio sanctitatis {Vitringa), but a holy assemhh/, i.e. a meeting of the people for the worship of Jehovah (Ezek. xlvi. 3, 9). ^"Ji??; from ^"^p to call, is that which is called, i.e. the assembly (Isa. iv. 5; Neh. viii. 8). No work was to be done upon these days, except what was necessary for the preparation of food; on the Sabbath, even this was prohibited (chap. xxxv. 2, 3). Hence in Lev. xxiii. 7, the " work" is called " servile work," ordinary handicraft. — Yer. 17. " Observe the Mazzoth^^ (i.e. the directions given in vers. 15 and 16 respecting the feast of Mazzoth), ^^ for on this very day I have brought your armies out of the land of EgyptT This was effected in the night of the 14tli-15th, or rather at midnight, and therefore in the early morning: of tlie 15tli Abib. Because Jehovah had brouixht Israel out of Egypt on the 15th Abib, therefore Israel was to keep Mazzoth for seven days. Of course it was not merely a commemoration of this event, but the exodus formed the groundwork of the seven days' feast, because it was by this that Israel had been introduced into a new vital element. For this reason the Israelites were to put away all the leaven of their Egyptian nature, the leaven of malice and wickedness (1 Cor. v. 8), and by eating pure and holy bread, and meeting for the worship of God, to show that they were walking in newness of life. This aspect of the feast will serve to explain the repeated emphasis laid upon the instructions given concerning it, and the repeated threat of extermination against either native or foreifrner, in case the law should be disobeyed (vers. 18-20). To eat leavened bread at this feast, would have been a denial of the divine act, by wliich Israel was introduced into the new life of fellowship with Jehovah. "i3, a stranger, was a non-Israelite who lived for a time, or possibly for his whole life, in the midst of the Israelitish nation, but without being incorporated iijto it by circumcision. P^'7 ^]^, a tree that grows upon the soil in which it was planted; hence indigeiia, the native of a country. This term was applied to the Israelites, " because they had sprung from Isaac and Jacob, who were born in the land of Canaan, and had received it from God as a permanent settlement" (C/^ncw.?). The feast of Mazzoth, the commemoration of Israel's creation as the people of Jehovah (Isa. xliii. 15-17), was fixed for seven days, to stamp upon it in the number seven the seal of the covenant relationship. Tliis heptad of days was made holy through the sanctification of the first and last days by the holding of a holy assembly, and the entire suspension of work. The beginning and the end comprehended the whole. In the eating of unleavened bread Israel laboured for meat for the new life (John vi. 27), whilst the seal of worship was impressed upon this new life in the holy convocation, and the suspension of labour was the symbol of rest in the Lord.

Vers. 21-28. Of the directions given by Moses to the elders of the nation, the leading points only are mentioned here, viz. the slaying of the lamb and the application of the blood (vers. 21, 22). The reason for this is then explained in ver. 23, and the rule laid down in vers. 24-27 for its observance in the future. — Ver. 21. " WiOidraw and take;" "H?^ is intransitive here, to draw away, withdraw, as in Judg. iv. 6, v. 14, xx. 37. JSiTX JTHii^: a buncH or bundle of hyssop: according to Maimonides, " quantum quis comprehendit manu sua^ 2^t5< (ycracoTrof;) was probably not the plant which we call hyssop, the hyssopus officinalis^ for it is uncertain whether this is to be found in Syria and Arabia, but a species of origanum resembling hyssop, the Arabian zdter, either wild marjoram or a kind of thyme, Thymus serpyllum, mentioned in Forsk. flora Aeg, p. 107, which is very common in Syria and Arabia, and is called zdter, or zatureya, the pepper or bean plant. " That is in the bason;" viz. the bason in which the blood had been caught when the animal was killed. D^Van"), " and let it reach to, i.e, strike, the lintel:" in ordinary purifications the blood was sprinkled with the bunch of hyssop (Lev. xiv. 51; Num. xix. 18). The reason for the command not to go out of the door of the house was, that in this night of judgment there woukl be no safety anywhere except behind the blood-stained door. — Ver. 23 (cf.ver.l3). " He will not suffer (|^^) the destroyer to come into your houses:" Jehovah effected the destruction of the first-born throurrh riTi^JTsn, the destroyer, or destroying angel, o oKoOpevwv (Heb. xi. 28), i.e. not a fallen angel, but the angel of Jehovah, in whom Jehovah revealed Himself to the patriarchs and Moses. This is not at variance with Ps. Ixxviii. 49; for the writer of this psalm regards not only the slaying of the first-born, but also the pestilence (Ex. ix. 1-7), as effected through the medium of angels of evil: though, according to the analogy of 1 Sam. xiii. 17, riTiCTSn might certainly be understood collectively as applying to a company of angels. Ver. 24. " This word^'' i,e. the instructions respecting the Passiover, they were to regard as an institution for themselves and their children for ever {ui\T^)i_ in the same sense as D/iV, Gen. xvii. 7, 13); and when dwelling in the promised land, they were to explain the meaning of this service to their sons. The ceremony is called "^"^^5^, " service," inasmuch as it was the fulfilment of a divine command, a performance demanded by God, though it promoted the good of Israel. — Ver. 27. After hearing the divine instructions, the people, represented by their elders, bowed and worshipped; not only to show their faith, but also to manifest their gratitude for the deliverance which they were to receive in the Passover. — Ver. 28. They then proceeded to execute the command, that through the obedience of faith they might appropriate the blessing of this " service."

Vers. 29-36. Death of the First-born, and release OF Israel. — The last blow- announced to Pharaoh took place in " the half of the night," ix. at midnight, when all Egypt was lying in deep sleep (Matt. xxv. 5, 6), to startle the king and his people out of their sleep of sin. As all the previous plagues rested upon a natural basis, it might seem a probable supposition that this was also the case here, whilst the analogy of 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16 might lead us to think of a pestilence as the means employed by the destroying angel. In that case we should find the heightening of the natural occurrence into a miracle in the fact, that the first-born both of man and beast, and they alone, were all suddenly slain, whilst the Israelites remained uninjured in their houses. This view would be favoured, too, by the circumstance, that not only are pestilences of frequent occurrence in Egypt, but they are most fatal in the spring months. On a closer examination, however, the circumstances mentioned tell against rather than in favour of such a supposition. In 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, the pestilence is expressly alluded to; here it is not. The previous plagues were nearly all brought upon Egypt by Moses' staff, and with most of them the natural sources are distinctly mentioned; but the last plague came direct from Jehovah without the intervention of Moses, certainly for no other reason than to make it apparent that it was a purely supernatural punishment inflicted by His own omnipotence. The words, " There was not a Jiouse where there was not one deadj^ are to be taken literally, and not merely " as a general expression;" though, of course, they are to be limited, according to the context, to all the houses in which there were first-born of man or beast. The term " first-born" is not to be extended so far, however, as to include even heads of families who had children of their own, in which case there might be houses, as Lapide and others suppose, where the grandfather, the father, the son, and the wives were all lying dead, provided all of them were first-born. The words, " From the son of Pharaoh, who will sit upon his throne, to the son of the prisoners in the prison*^ (ver. 29 compared with chap. xiii. 15), point unquestionably to those first-born sons alone who were not yet fathers themselves. But even with this limitation the l?low was so terrible, that the effect produced upon Pharaoh and his people is perfectly intelligible.

Yer. 30. Tiie very same night Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and gave them permission to depart with their people, their children, and their cattle. The statement that Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron is not at variance with chap. x. 28, 29; and there is no necessity to resort to Calvin s explanation, " Pharaoh himself is said to have sent for those whom he urged to depart through the medium of messengers from the palace." The command never to appear in his sight again did not preclude his sending for them under totally different circumstances. The permission to depart was given unconditionally, i.e, without involving an obligation to return. This is evident from the words, " Get you forth from among my people," compared with chap. x. 8, 24, " Go ye, serve Jehovali," and viil. 25, " Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." If in addition to this we bear in mind, tliat aUhough at first, and even after the fourth plague (chap. viii. 27), Moses only asked for a three days' journey to hold a festival, yet Pharaoh suspected that they would depart altogether, and even gave utterance to this suspicion, without being contradicted by Moses (chap. viii. 28, and x. 10); the words " Get you forth from among my people" cannot mean anything else than " depart altogether." Moreover, in chap. xi. 1 it was foretold to Moses that the result of the last blow would be, that Pharaoh would let them go, or rather drive them away; so that the effect of this blow, as here described, cannot be understood in any other way. And this is really implied in Pharaoh's last words, " Go, and bless me also;" whereas on former occasions he had only asked them to intercede for the removal of the plagues (chap. viii. 8, 28, ix. 28, x. 17). ■^"^^^ to bless, indicates a final leave-taking, and w^as equivalent to a request that on their departure they would secure or leave behind the blessing of their God, in order that henceforth no such plague might ever befall him and his people. This view of the words of the king is not at variance either with the expression " as ye have said" in ver. 31, which refers to the w^ords " serve the Lord," or with the same words in ver. 32, for there they refer to the flock and herds, or lastly, with the circumstance that Pharaoh pursued the Israelites after they had gone, with the evident intention of bringing them back by force (chap. xiv. 5 sqq.), because this resolution is expressly described as a change of mind consequent upon renewed hardening (chap. xiv. 4, 5).

Ver. 33. " And Egypt urged the people strongly (pV PTH to press hard, Kare/Std^ovTo, LXX.) to make Jiaste, to send them out of the land;^' i.e. the Egyptians urged the Israelites to accelerate their departure, "/or they said (sc. to themselves), We are all deadj^ i.e. exposed to death. So great was their alarm at the death of the first-born. — Yer. 34. This urgency of the Egyptians compelled the Israelites to take the dough, which they were probably about to bake for their journey, before it was leavened, and also their kneading-troughs bound up in their clothes (cloths) upon their shoulders, i^^^^, IfJidTiov, was a large square piece of stuff or cloth, worn above the under-clothes, and could be easily used for tying up different things together. The Israelites had intended to leaven the dough, therefore, as the command to eat unleavened bread for seven days had not been given to them yet. But under the pressure of necessity they were obh'ged to content themselves with unleavened bread, or, as it is called in Deut. xvi. 3, " the bread of affliction," during the first days of their journey. But as the troubles connected with their departure from Egypt were merely the introduction to the new life of liberty and grace, so according to the counsel of God the bread of affliction was to become a holy food to Isrfiel; the days of their exodus being exalted by the Lord into a seven days' feast, in which the people of Jehovah were to commemorate to all ages their deliverance from the oppression of' Egypt. The long-continued eating of unleavened bread, on account of the pressure of circumstances, formed the historical preparation for the seven days' feast of Mazzoth, which was instituted afterwards. Hence this circumstance is mentioned both here and in ver. 39. On vers. 35 and 36, see chap. iii. 21, 22.

Vers. 37—42. Departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt. — The starting-point was Raemses, from which they proceeded to Succoth (ver. 37), thence to EtJiam at the end of the desert (chap, xiii. 20), and from that by a curve to Hachiroth, opposite to the Red Sea, from which point they passed through the sea (chap. xiv. 2, 21 sqq.). Now, if we take these words simply as they stand, Israel touched the border of the desert of Arabia by the second day, and on the third day reached the plain of Suez and the Red Sea. But they could not possibly have gone so far, if Raemses stood upon the site of the modem Belbeis. For though the distance from Belheis to Suez by the direct road past Rejum el Khail is only a little more than 15 geographical miles, and a caravan with camels^ could make the journey in two days, this would be quite impossible for a whole nation travelling with wives, children, cattle, and baggage. Such a procession could never have reached Etham, on the border of the desert, on their second day's march, and then on the third day, by a circuitous course " of about a day's march in extent," have arrived at the plain of Suez between Ajirud and the sea. This is admitted by Kurtz, who therefore follows u. Raumer in making a distinction between a stage and a day's journey, on the gi'ound that VDD signifies the station or place of encampment, and not a day's journey. But the word neither means station nor place of en- campmcnt. It is derived from VDi to tear out (sc. the pegs of the tent), hence to take down tlie tent; and denotes removal from tlie place of encampment, and the subsequent march (cf. Num. x.xxiii. 1). Such a marcli might indeed embrace more than a day's journey; but whenever t]ie Israelites travelled more than a day before pitching their tents, it is expressly mentioned (cf.Num. X. 33, and xxxiii. 8, with Ex. xv. 22). These passages show very clearly that the stages from Raemses to Succoth, tlicnce to Etham, and then again to Ilachirotli, were a day's march each. The only question is, whether they only rested for one night at each of these places. The circumstances under which the Israelites took their departure favour the supposition, that they would get out of the Egyptian territory as quickly as possible, and rest no longer than was absolutely necessary; but the gathering of the whole nation, which was not collected together in one spot, as in a camp, at the time of their departure, and still more the confusion, and interruptions of various kinds, that would inevitably attend the migration of a whole nation, render it probable that they rested longer than one night at each of the places named. This would explain most simply, how Pharaoh was able to overtake them with his army at Hachiroth. But whatever our views on this point may be, so much is certain, that Israel could not have reached the plain of Suez in a three days' march from Belbeis with the circuitous route by Etham, and therefore that their starting-point cannot have been Belbeis, but must have been in the neighbourhood of Heroopolis; and there are other things that favour this conclusion. There is, first, the circumstance that Pharaoh sent for!Moses the very same night after the slaying of the first-born, and told him to depart. Now the Pentateuch does not mention Pharaoh's place of abode, but according to Ps. Ixxviii. 12 it was Zoan, i.e. Tanisj on the eastern bank of the Tanitic arm of the Nile. Ahu Keisliih (or Heroopolis) is only half as far from Tanis as Belbeis, and the possibility of Moses appearing before the king and returning to his own people between midnight and the morning is perfectly conceivable, on the supposition that Moses was not in Heroopolis itself, but was staying in a more northerly place, with the expectation that Pharaoh would send a message to him, or send for him, after the final blow. Again, Ahu Keishib was on the way to Gaza; so that the Israelites might take the road towards the country of the Philistines, and then, as this was not the road they were to take, turn round at God's command by the road to the desert (chap. xiii. 17, 18). Lastly, Etham could be reached in two days from the starting-point named. ^ On the situation of Succoth and Etham, see chap. xiii. 20.

The Israelites departed, " about 600,000 on foot that were men." y^l (as in Num. xi. 21, the infantry of an army) is added, because they went out as an army (ver. 41), and none are numbered but those who could bear arms, from 20 years old and upwards; and C3^"}32n because of H^^ '^r^?, " beside the little ones^^ which follows. ^^ is used here in its broader sense, as in Gen. xlvii. 12, Num. xxxii. 16, 24, and applies to the entire family, including the wife and children, who did not travel on foot, but on beasts of burden and in carriages (Gen. xxxi. 17). The number given is an approximative one. The numbering at Sihai gave 603,550 males of 20 years old and upwards (Num. i. 46), and 22,000 male Levites of a month old and upwards (Num. iii. 39). Now if we add the wives and children, the total number of the people may have been about two million souls. The multiplication of the seventy souls, who went down with Jacob to Egypt, into this vast multitude, is not so disproportionate to the 430 years of their sojourn there, as to render it at all necessary to assume that the numbers given included not only the descendants of the seventy souls who went down with Jacob, but also those of " several thousand man-servants and maid-servants" who accompanied them. For, apart from the fact, that we are not warranted in concluding, that because Abraham had 318 fighting servants, the twelve sons of Jacob had several thousand, and took them with them into Egypt; even if the servants had been received into the religious fellowship of Israel by circumcision, they cannot have reckoned among the 600,000 who went out, for the simple reason that they are not included in the seventy souls who went down to Egypt; and in chap. i. 5 the number of those who came out is placed in unmistakeable connection with the number of those who went in. If we deduct from the 70 souls the patriarch Jacob, his 12 sons, Dinah, Asher's daughter Zerah, the three

^ The different views as to the march of the Israelites from Raemses to their passage through the sea, are to be found in the Studien und Kritiken^ 1850, pp. 328 sqq., and in Kurtz^ ii. pp. 361 sqq.

sons of Levi, tlie four grandsons of Judah and Benjamin, and those grandsons of Jacob wlio probably died without leaving any male posterity, since their descendants are not mentioned among the families of Israel (cf. i. 372), there remain 41 grandsons of Jacob who founded families, in addition to the Levites. Now, if we follow 1 Cliron. vii. 20 sqq., where ten or eleven generations are mentioned between Ephraim and Joshua, and reckon 40 years as a generation, the tenth generation of the 41 grandsons of Jacob would be born about the year 400 of the sojourn in Egypt, and therefore be over 20 years of age at the time of the exodus. Let us assume, that on an averao;e there were three sons and three daughters to every married couple in the first six of these generations, two sons and two daughters in the last four, and we shall find, that in the tenth generation there would be 478,224 sons about the 400th year of the sojourn in Egypt, who would therefore be above 20 years of age at the time of the exodus, whilst 125,326 men of the ninth generation would be still living, so that there would be 478,224 + 125,326, or 603,550 men coming out of Egypt, who were more than 20 years old. But though our calculation is based upon no more than the ordinary number of births, a special blessing from God is to be discerned not only in this fruitfulness, which we suppose to have been uninterrupted, but still more in the fact, that the presumed number of children continued alive, and begot the same number of children themselves; and the divine grace was peculiarly manifest in the fact, that neither pestilence nor other evils, nor even the measures adopted by the Pharaohs for the suppression of Israel, could diminish their numbers or restrain their increase. If the question be asked, how the land of Goshen could sustain so large a number, especially as the Israelites were not the only inhabitants, but lived along with Egyptians there, it is a sufficient reply, that according to both ancient and modern testimony (cf, Robinson^ Pal. i. p. 78), this is the most fertile province in all Egypt, and that we are not so well acquainted with the extent of the territory inhabited by the Israelites, as to be able to estimate the amount of its produce.

Ver. 38. In typical fulfilment of the promise in Gen. xii. 3, and no doubt induced by the sio-ns and wonders of the Lord in Egypt to seek their good among the Israelites, a great crowd of mixed people (^'] n^V) attached themselves to them, whom Israel could not shake off, although they afterwards iDecame a snare to them (Num. xi. 4). ^"IV: lit. a mixture, i'rrLfiLKTO<; sc. X^io? (LXX.), a swarm of foreigners; called f^DQD^t in Num. xi. 4, a medley, or crowd of people of different nations. According to Deut. xxix. 10, they seem to have occupied a very low position amoncT the Israelites, and to have furnished the nation of God with hewers of wood and drawers of water. — On ver. 39, see ver. 34. — Vers. 40, 41. The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt had lasted 430 years. This number is not critically doubtful, nor are the 430 years to be reduced to 215 by an arbitrary interpolation, such as we find in the LXX., rj Be KaroiKijo-c^ TOiv vld)v 'Iapaj]\, i)v KarcoKr^aav {Cod. Alex, avrol koI ol irarepe'; avrwv) ev fyfj AlyvTTTO) koX iu 7/7 Xavaav^ k.t.X. This chronological statement, the genuineness of which is placed beyond all doubt by Onkelos, the Sijriac, Vuhjate, and other versions, is not only in harmony with the prediction in Gen. xv. 13, where the round number 400 is employed in prophetic style, but may be reconciled with the different genealogical lists, if we only bear in mind that the genealogies do not always contain a complete enumeration of all the separate links, but very frequently intermediate links of little historical importance are omitted, as we have already seen in the genealogy of Moses and Aaron (chap. vi. 18-20). For example, the fact that there were more than the four generations mentioned in chap. vi. 16 sqq. between Levi and Moses, is placed beyond all doubt, not only by what has been adduced at chap. vi. 18-20, but by a comparison with other genealogies also. Thus, in Num. xxvi. 29 sqq., xxvii. 1, Josh, xvii. 3, we find six generations from Joseph to Zelophehad; in Ruth iv. 18 sqq., 1 Chron. ii. 5, 6, there are also six from Judah to Nahshon, the tribe prince in the time of Moses; in 1 Chron. ii. 18 there are seven from Judah to Bezaleel, the builder of the tabernacle; and in 1 Chron. vii. 20 sqq., nine or ten are given from Joseph to Joshua. This last genealogy shows most clearly the impossibility of the view founded upon the Alexandrian version, that the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt lasted only 215 years; for ten generations, reckoned at 40 years each, harmonize very well with 430 years, but certainly not with 215.^ The statement in ver. 41, " the self-same day,"

1 The Alexandrian translators have arbitrarily altered the text to suit the genealogy of Moses in chap. vi. 16 sqq., just as in the genealogies of is not to be understood as relating to tlie first day after the lapse of the 430 years, as though the writer supposed that it was on the 14th Abib that Jacob entered Egypt 430 years before, but points back to the day of the exodus, mentioned in ver. 14, as compared with vers. 11 sqq., i.e. the 15th Abib (cf. ver. 51 and chap. xiii. 4). On " the hosts of Jehovah," see chap. vii. 4. — Ver. 42. This day therefore was DnrSK^ 77, " a preservation-night of the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt^ The apax legomenon ^'"'^W does not mean " celebration, from ^p'^ to observe, to honour" (Knobel), but " preservation," from "lOK^ to keep, to preserve; and ^\^''? is the same as in ver. 27. " This same night is (consecrated) to the Lord as a preservation for all children of Israel in their families. ^^ Because Jehovah had preserved the children of Israel that night from the destroyer, it was to be holy to them, i.e. to be kept by them in all future ages to the glory of the Lord, as a preservation.

Vers. 43-50. Regulations concerning the Partici PANTS IN THE Passover. — These regulations, which were supplementary to the law of the Passover in vers. 3-11, were not communicated before the exodus; because it was only by the fact that a crowd of foreigners attached themselves to the Israelites, that Israel was brought into a connection with foreigners, which needed to be clearly defined, especially so far as the Passover was concerned, the festival of Israel's birth as the people of God. If the Passover was still to retain this signification, of course no foreigner could participate in it. This is the first regulation. But as it was by virtue of a divine call, and not through natural descent, that Israel had become the people of Jehovah, and as it was destined in that capacity to be a blessing to all nations, the attitude assumed towards foreigners was not to be an altogether repelling one. Hence the further directions in ver. 44: purchased servants, who had been politically incorporated as Israel's property, were to be entirely incorporated by circumcision, so as even to take part in the the patriarchs in Gen. v. and xi. The view held by the Seventy became traditional in the synagogue, and the Apostle Paul followed it in Gal. iii. 17, where he reckoned the interval between the promise to Abraham and the giving of the law as 430 years, the question of chronological exactness having no bearing upon his subject at the time.

Passover. But settlers, and servants working for wages, were not to eat of it, for they stood in a purely external relation, which might be any day dissolved. 3 ^^^5, lit to eat at anything, to take part in the eating (Lev. xxii. 11). The deeper ground for this was, that in this meal Israel was to preserve and celebrate its unity and fellowship with Jehovah. This was the meaning of the regulations, which were repeated in vers. 46 and 47 from vers. 4, 9, and 10, where they had been already explained. If, therefore, a foreigner living among the Israelites wished to keep the Passover, he was first of all to be spiritually incorporated into the nation of Jehovah by circumcision (ver. 48). 'DD HOT: " And lie has made (i.e. made ready) a passover to Jehovah^ let every male he circumcised to him {i.e. he himself, and the male members of his house), and then he may draw near (sc. to Jehovah) to keep it'* The first nL''y denotes the wish or intention to do it, the second, the actual execution of the wish. The words ')'2r\:i, "13, nrin, and ">''3b', are all indicative of non-Israelites. -iDr|n was applied quite generally to any foreigner springing from another nation; ">3 was a foreigner living for a shorter or longer time in the midst of the Israelites; ^u^^, lit. a dweller, settler, was one who settled permanently among the Israelites, without being received into their religious fellowship; "i^^b^ was the non-Israelite, who worked for an Israelite for wages. — Ver. 49. There was one law with reference to the Passover which was applicable both to the native and the foreigner: no uncircumcised man was to be allowed to eat of it. — Ver. 50 closes the instructions concernin£^ the Passover with the statement-that the Israelites carried them out, viz. in after times {e.g. Num. ix. 5); and in ver. 51 the account of the exodus from Egypt is also brought to a close. All that Jehovah promised to Moses in chap. vi. 6 and 26 had now been fulfilled. But although ver. 51 is a concluding formula, and so belongs to the account just closed, Ahenezra was so far right in wishing to connect this verse with the commencement of the following chapter, that such concluding formulae generally serve to link together the different incidents, and therefore not only wind up what goes before, but introduce what has yet to come.

Chap. xiii. 1-16. Sanctification of the First-born, and Promulgation of the Law for the Feast of Mazzoth.

— Vers. 1, 2. Tlie sanctification of the first-born was closely connected with the Passover. By this the deliverance of the Israelitish first-born was effected, and the object of this deliverance was their sanctification. Because Jehovah had delivered the first-born of Israel, they were to be sanctified to Him. If the Israelites completed their communion with Jehovah in the Passover, and celebrated the commencement of their divine standing in the feast of unleavened bread, they gave uninterrupted effect to their divine sonship in the sanctification of the first-born. For this reason, probably, the sanctification of the first-born was commanded by Jehovah at Succoth, immediately after the exodus, and contemporaneously with the institution of the seven days' feast of Mazzoth (cf. chap. ii. 15), so that the place assigned it in the historical record is the correct one; whereas the divine appointment of the feast of Mazzoth had been mentioned before (chap. xii. 15 sqq.), and the com.munlcation of that appointment to the people was all that remained to be mentioned here. — Yer. 2. Every first-born of man and beast was to be sanctified to Jehovah, i.e. given up to Him for His service. As the expression, " all the first-born," applied to both man and beast, the explanation is added, " everything that opens the womb among the Israelites, of man and heast.^^ ur\'i'?3 *iDQ for ^03*73 on"], (ver. 12):?3 is placed like an adjective after the noun, as in Num. viii. 16, ^'^ "li^^ for '^^3^■p^J BcavoLyov iraaav firjTpav for TTOLV BtavoLjov fjLTjTpav (ver. 12, LXX.). t^^n ""p: " it is Miiie,^ it belongs to Me. This right to the first-born was not founded upon the fact, that " Jehovah was the Lord and Creator of all things, and as every created object owed its life to Him, to Him should its life be entirely devoted," as Kurtz maintains, though without scriptural proof; but in Num. iii. 13 and viii. 17 the ground of the claim is expressly mentioned, viz. that on the day when Jehovah smote all the first-born of Egypt, He sanctified to Himself all the first-born of the Israelites, both of man and beast. Hence the sanctification of the first-born rested not upon the deliverance of the first-born sons from the stroke of the destroyer through the atoning blood of the paschal lamb, but upon the fact that God sanctified them for Himself at that time, and therefore delivered them. But Jehovah sanctified the first-born of Israel to Himself by adopting Israel as His first-born son (chap. iv. 22), or as His possession. Because Israel had been chosen as the nation of Jehovah, its first-born of man and beast were spared, and for that reason they were henceforth to be sanctified to Jehovah. In what wa}^, is more clearly defined in vers. 12 sqq. Vers. 3-10. The directions as to the seven days' feast of unleavened bread (chap. xii. 15-20) were made known by Moses to the people on the day of the exodus, at the first station, namely, Succoth; but in the account of this, only the most important points are repeated, and the yearly commemoration is enjoined. In ver. 3, Egypt is called a " slave-house,^ inasmuch as Israel was employed in slave-labour there, and treated as a slave population (cf. chap. xx. 2; Deut. v. 6, vi. 12, etc.). ^J Pjp '^strength of handy^ in vers. 3, 14, and 16, is more emphatic than the more usual •^i^J'!}. "^J (chap. iii. 19, etc.). — On ver. 5, see chap. iii. 8, and xii. 25. In ver. 6, the term ''feast to Jehovah^* points to the keeping of the seventh day by a holy convocation and the suspension of work (chap. xii. IG). It is only of the seventh day that this is expressly stated, because it was understood as a matter of course that the first was a feast of Jehovah. — Ver. 8. "Because of that ivhich Jehovah did to me^^ (i^T in a relative sense, is qui, for "iC'S, see Ewald, § 331): sc, "I eat unleavened bread," or, " I observe this service." This completion of the imperfect sentence follows readily from the context, and the whole verse may be explained from chap. xii. 26, 27. — Ver. 9. The festival prescribed was to be to Israel "for a sign upon its hand, and for a memorial between the eyes" These words presuppose the custom of wearing mnemonic signs upon the hand and forehead; but they are not to be traced to the heathen custom of branding soldiers and slaves with marks upon the hand and forehead. For the parallel passages in Deut. vi. 8 and xi. 18, "bind them for a sign upon your hand," are proofs that the allusion is neither to brandino; nor writiiifj on the hand. Hence the sim upon the hand probably consisted of a bracelet round the wrist, and the ziccaron between the eyes, of a band worn upon the forehead. The words are then used figuratively, as a proverbial expression employed to give emphasis to the injunction to bear this precept continually in mind, to be always mindful to observe it. This is still more apparent from the reason assigned, " tliat the law of Jehovah may he in thy moitth." For it was not by mnemonic slips upon the hand and forehead that a law was so placed in the mouth as to be talked of continually (Deut. vi. 7, xi. 19), but by the reception of it into the heart and its continual fulfihnent. (See also ver. 16.) As the origin and meaning of the festival were to be talked of in connection with the eatintr of unleavened bread, so conversation about the law of Jehovah was introduced at the same time, and the obligation to keep it renewed and brought vividly to mind. — Ver. 10. This ordinance the Israelites were to keep niyiDp, " at its appointed time'' (i.e. from the 15th to the 21st Abib), — ^^ from days to days^^^ i.e. as often as the days returned, therefore from year to year (cf. Judg. xi. 40, xxl. 19; 1 Sam. i. 3, ii. 19).

In vers. 11-16, Moses communicated to the people the law briefly noticed in ver. 2, respecting the sanctificatlon of the firstborn. This law was to come into force when Israel had taken possession of the promised land. Then everything which opened the womb was to be given up to the Lord, nin^p ^"""^"^J} ' to cause to pass over to Jehovah, to consecrate or give up to Him as a sacrifice (cf. Lev. xviii. 21). In " all that opencth the womb" the first-born of both man and beast are included (ver. 2). This general ex})ression is then particularized in three clauses, commencing with ^3"!: (a) ^'^^^ cattle, i.e. oxen, sheep, and goats, as clean domestic animals, but only the males; (h) asses, as the most common of the unclean domestic animals, instead of the whole of these animals, Num. xviii. 15; (c) the first-born of the children of Israel, The female first-born of man and beast were exempted from consecration. Of the clean animals the firstborn male ("iJps abbreviated from Dni ntDD, and ^}}^ from the Chaldee "i^^ to throw, the dropped young one) was to belong to Jehovah, i.e. to be sacrificed to Illm (ver. 15, and Num. xviii. 17). This law is still further explained in chap. xxli. 29, where it is stated that the sacrificing was not to take place till the eighth day after the birth; and in Deut. xv. 21, 22, it Is still further modified by the command, that an animal which had any fault, and was either blind or lame, was not to be sacrificed, but to be slain and eaten at home, like other edible animals. These two rules sprang out of the general instructions concerning the sacrificial animals. The first-born of the ass was to be redeemed with a male lamb or kid (nc*^ as at chap. xil. 3); and if not redeemed, it was to be killed. KlV: from ^'}V the nape, to break the neck (Deut. xxl. 4, 6). The first-born sons of Israel were also to be consecrated to Jehovah as a sacrifice; not indeed in the manner of the heathen, by slaying and burning upon the altar, but by presenting them to the Lord as living sacrifices, devoting all their powers of body and mind to His service. Inasmuch as the first birth represented all the births, the whole nation was to consecrate itself to Jehovah, and present itself as a priestly nation in the consecration of the first-born. But since this consecration had its foundation, not in nature, but in the grace of its call, the sanctification of the first birth cannot be deduced from the separation of the first-born to the priesthood. This view, which was very prevalent among early writers, has been thoroughly overthrown by Outram (de Sacrif. 1, c. 4) and Vitringa {ohservv. ii. c. 2, pp. 272 sqq.)- As the priestly character of the nation did not give a title in itself to the administration of the priesthood within the theocracy, so the first-born were not eo ipso chosen as priests through their consecration to Jehovah. In what way they were to consecrate their life to the Lord, depended upon the appointment of the Lord, which was, that they were to perform the non-priestly work of the sanctuary, to be servants of the priests in their holy service. Even this work was afterwards transferred to the Levites (Num. iii.). At the same time the obligation was imposed upon the people to redeem their first-born sons from the service which was binding upon them, but was now transferred to the Levites, who were substituted for them; in other words, to pay five shekels of silver per head to the priesthood (Num. iii. 47, xviii. IG). In anticipation of this arrangement, which was to be introduced afterwards, the redemption (niSi) of the male first-born is already established here.— On veryi4, see chap. xii. 26. "^no: to-morrow, for the future generally, as in Gen. xxx. 33. n^rnD: what does tJds mean? quid sibi vult hoc praceptum an primogenitura (Jonathan).

vii. 3) " to let us' go.'' The sanctification of the first-born is enforced in ver. 16 in the same terms as the keeping of the feast of Mazzoth in ver. 9, with this exception, that instead of P"^-t> we have nbDVO^, as in Deut. vi. 8, and xi. 18. The word nbDID signifies neither amulet nor arlyfiara, but " binding" or headbands, as is evident from the Chaldee i^C'fVO armlet (2 Sam. i. 10), sriDDiD tiara (Esth. viii. 15; Ezek. xxlv. 17, 23). Tins command was interpreted literally by the Tahnudists, and the use of tephilUm, phylacteries (Matt, xxiii. 5), founded upon it;^ the Caraitcs, on the contrary, Interpreted it fi^^uratively, as a proverbial expression for constant reflection upon, and fulfilment of, the divine commands. The correctness of the latter is obvious from the words themselves, which do not say that the commands are to be written upon scrolls, but only that they are to be to the Israelites for signs upon the hand, and for bands between the eyes, i.e. they are to be kept in view like memorials upon the forehead and the hand. The expression in Deut. vi. 8, " Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes," does not point at all to the symbolizing of the divine commands by an outward sign to be worn upon the hand, or to bands with passages of the law inscribed upon them, to be worn on the forehead between the eyes; nor does the " advance in Deut. vi. 8 from heart to word, and from word to hand or act," necessarily lead to the peculiar notion of Schidtz, that " the sleeve and turban were to be used as reminders of the divine commands, the former by being fastened to the hand in a peculiar way, the latter by an end being brought down upon the forehead." The line of thought referred to merely expresses the idea, that the Israelites were not only to retain the commands of God in their hearts, and to confess them with the mouth,, but to fulfil them with the hand, or in act and deed, and thus to show themselves in their whole bearing as the guardians and observers of the law. As the hand is the medium of action, and carrying in the hand represents handling, so the space between the eyes, or the forehead, is that part of the body which is generally visible, and what is worn there is worn to be seen. This figurative interpretation is confirmed and placed beyond doubt by such parallel passages as Prov. iii. 3, " Bind them (the commandments) about thy neck; write them upon the tables of thine heart" (cf. vers. 21, 22, iv. 21, vi. 21, 22, vii. 3).

^ Possibly these scrolls were originally nothing more than a literal compliance with the figurative expression, or a change of the figure into a symbol, so that the custom did not arise from a pure misunderstanding; though at a later period the symbolical character gave place more and more to the casual misinterpretation. On the phylacteries generally, see my Archao* hgie and Herzog's Cycl.

Succoth, Israel's first place of encampment after their departure, was probably the rendezvous for the whole nation, so that it was from this point that they first proceeded in an orderly march. The shortest and most direct route from Egypt to Canaan would have been by the road to Gaza, in the land of the Philistines; but God did not lead them by this road, lest they should repent of their movement as soon as the Philistines opposed them, and so desire to return to Egypt. jQ: ixrj^ after "IDK to say (to himself), i.e. to think, with the subordinate idea of anxiety. The Philistines were very warlike, and would hardly have failed to resist the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, of which they had taken possession of a very large portion. But the Israelites were not prepared for such a conflict, as is sufficiently evident from their despair, in chap. xiv. 10 sqq. For this reason God made them turn round {p'^\ for ^DJ, see Ges. § 67) by the way of the desert of the Red Sea. Previous to the account of their onward march, it is still further stated in vers. 18, 19, that they went out equipped, and took Joseph's bones with them, according to his last request. U'pm^ from t^*ph lumbus, lit. lumbis accincti, signifies equipped, as a comparison of this word as it is used in Josh. i. 14, iv. 12, with D^^^^n in Num. xxxii. 30, 32, Deut. iii. 18, places beyond all doubt; that is to say, not " armed," KaOcoTrXcafjievoL (Si/m.), but prepared for the march, as contrasted with fleeing in disorder like fugitives. For this reason they were able to fulfil Joseph's request, from which fact Calvin draws the following conclusion: " In the midst of their adversity the people had never lost sight of the promised redemption. For unless the celebrated adjuration of Joseph had been a subject of common conversation amonsj them all, Moses would never have thoufrht of it." — Yer. 20. From Succoth they went to Etham. With regard to the situation of Succoth (from ri2D huts, probably a shepherd encampment), only so much can be determined, that this place was to the south-east of Raemses, on the way to Etham. Etham was " at the end of the desert," which is called the desert of Etham in Num. xxxiii. 8, and the desert of Shur (Jifar, see

Gen. xvl. 7) in Ex. xv. 22; so that it was where Egypt ends and the desert of Arabia begins, in a line which curves from the northern extremity of the Gulf of Arabia up to the Blrket Temseh, or Crocodile Lake, and then on to Lake Menzalet. According to the more precise statements of travellers, this line is formed from the point of the gulf northwards, by a broad sandy tract of land to the east of Ajrud, which never rises more than about three feet above the water-mark (Robinson, Pal. i. p. 80). It takes in the banks of the old canal, which commence about an hour and a half to the north of Suez, and run northwards for a distance which Seetzen accomplished in 4 hours upon camels {Rob. Pal. i. p. 548; Seetzen, R. iii. pp. 151, 152). Then follow the so-called Bitter Lakes, a dry, sometimes swampy basin, or deep white salt plain, the surface of which, according to the measurements of French engineers, is 40 or 50 feet lower than the ordinary water-mark at Suez. On the north this basin is divided from the Birhet Temseh by a still higher tract of land, the so-called Isthmus of Arbek. Hence " Etham at the end of the desert" is to be sought for either on the Isthmus of Arbek, in the neighbourhood of the later Serapeum, or at the southern end of the Bitter Lakes. The distance is a conclusive argument against the former, and in favour of the latter; for although Seetzen travelled from Suez to Arbek in 8 hours, yet according to the accounts of the French savan, du Bois ApnS, who passed through this basin several times, from the northern extremity of the Bitter Lakes to Suez is 60,000 metres (16 hours' journey), — a distance so great, that the children of Israel could not possibly have gone from Etham to UacJdroth in a day's march. Hence we must look for Etham at the southern extremity of the basin of the Bitter Lake,^ which Israel might reach in two days from Abu Keishib, and then on the third day arrive at the plain of Suez, between Ajrud and the sea. Succoth, therefore, must be sought on the

^ There is no force in the objection to this situation, that according to different geognostic indications, the Gulf of Suez formerly stretched much farther north, and covered the basin of the Bitter Lake; for there is no evidence that it reached as far as tliis in the time of Moses; and the statements of early writers as to the position of Heroopolis in the inner corner of the Arabian Gulf, and not far to the north of Klysma^ furnish no clear evidence of this, as Knohel has already observed.

western border of the Bitter Lake.— Vers. 21, 22. From Eiham, at the edge of the desert which separates Egypt from Asia, the Israehtes were to enter the pathless desert, and leave the inhabited country. Jehovah then undertook to direct the march, and give them a safe-conduct, through a miraculous token of His presence. Whilst it is stated in vers. 17, 18, that EloUm led them and determined the direction of their road, to show that they did not take the course, which they pursued, upon their own judgment, but by the direction of God; in vers 21, 22, it is said that " Jehovah went before them by day in a pillar of cloudy to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, to go by day and night,'' i.e. that they might march at all hours.^ To this sign of the divine presence and guidance there was a natural analogon in the caravan fire, which consisted of small iron vessels or grates, with wood fires burning in them, fastened at the end of long poles, and carried as a guide in front of caravans, and, according to Curtius {de gestis Alex. M. V. 2, 7), in trackless countries in the front of armies also, and by which the direction of the road was indicated in the day-time by the smoke, and at night by the light of the fire. There was a still closer analogy in the custom of the ancient Persians, as described by Curtius (iii. 3, 9), of carrying fire, '' which they called sacred and eternal," in silver altars, in front of the army. But the pillar of cloud and fire must not be confounded with any such caravan and army fire, or set down as nothing more than a mythical conception, or a dressing up of this natural custom. The cloud was not produced by an ordinary caravan fire, nor was it " a mere symbol of the presence of God, which derived all its majesty from the belief of the Israelites, that Jehovah was there in the midst of them," according to Rosters attempt to idealize the rationalistic explanation; but it had a miraculous origin and a supernatural character. We are not to regard the phenomenon as consisting of two different pillars, that appeared alternately, one of cloud, and the other of fire.

1 Knohel is quite wrong in affirming, that according to the primary work, the cloud was first instituted after the erection of the tabernacle. For in the passages cited in proof of this (chap. xl. 34 sqq.; Num. ix. 15 sqq., X. 11, 12, of. xvii. 7), the cloud is invariably referred to, with the definite article, as something already known, so that all these passages refer to ver. 21 of the present chapter.

There was but one pillar of both cloud and fire (chap. xlv. 24); for even when shining in the dark, it is still called the pillar of cloud (chap. xiv. 19), or the cloud (Num. ix. 21); so that it was a cloud with a dark side and a bright one, causing darkness and also lighting the night (xiv. 20), or " a cloud, and fire in it bynight" (xl. 38). Consequently we have to imagine the cloud as the covering of the fire, so that by day it appeared as a dark cloud in contrast with the light of the sun, but by night as a fiery splendour, " a fire-look" (::\N:-ns-iD3, Num. ix. 15, 16). When this cloud went before the army of Israel, it assumed the form of a column; so that by day it resembled a dark column of smoke rising up towards heaven, and by night a column of fire, to show the whole army what direction to take. But when it stood still above the tabernacle, or came down upon it, it most probably took the form of a round globe of cloud; and when it separated the Israelites from the Egyptians at the Red Sea, we have to imagine it spread out like a bank of cloud, forming, as it were, a dividing wall. In this cloud Jehovah, or the Angel of God, the visible representative of the invisible God under the Old Testament, was really present with the people of Israel, so that He spoke to Moses and gave him His commandments out of the cloud. In this, too, appeared " the glory of the Lord" (chap. xvi. 10, xl. 34; Num. xvii. 7), the Shechinah of the later Jewish theology. The fire in the pillar of cloud was the same as that in which the Lord revealed Himself to Moses out of the bush, and afterwards descended upon Sinai amidst thunder and lightning in a thick cloud (chap. xix. 16, 18). It was a symbol of the " zeal of the Lord," and therefore was enveloped in a cloud, which protected Israel by day from heat, sunstroke, and pestilence (Isa. iv. 5, 6, xlix. 10; Ps. xci. 5, 6, cxxi. 6), and by night lighted up its path by its luminous splendour, and defended it from the terrors of the night and from all calamity (Ps. xxvii. 1 sqq., xci. 5, 6); but which also threatened sudden destruction to those who murmured against God (Num. xvii. 10), and sent out a devouring fire against the rebels and consumed them (Lev. x. 2; Num. xvi. 35). As Sartorius has aptly said, " We must by no means regard it as a

mere appearance or a poetical figure, and just as little as a mere mechanical clothing of elementary forms, such, for example, as storm-clouds or natural fire. Just as little, too, must we suppose the visible and material part of it to have been an element of the divine nature, which is purely spiritual. We must rather reo-ard it as a dynamic conformation, or a higher corporeal form, composed of the earthly sphere and atmosphere, through the determining influence of the personal and specific (speciem faciens) presence of God upon the eartlily element, which corporeal form God assumed and pervaded, that Ke might mani-

fest Ilis own real presence therein." ^—Ver. 22. This sign of the presence of God did not depart from Israel so long as the people continued in the wilderness.

Chap. xiv. Passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea; destruction of Pharaoh and his Army.— Vers. 1, 2. At Etham God commanded the Israelites to turn (nv^) and encamp by the sea, before Pihachiroth, between Migdot and the sea, before Baalzeplion^ opposite to it. In Num. xxxiii. 7, the march is described thus: on leaving Etham they turned up to (>V) Plhachlroth, which is before 0?.py in the front of) Baahephoii, and encamped before Mlgdol. The only one of these places that can be determined with any certainty is Pihachlroth, or HacJtiroth (Num. xxxiii. 8, pi being simply the Egyptian article), which name has undoubtedly been preserved in^the Ajncd mentioned by Edrisi in the middle of the twelfth century. At present this is simply a fort, with a well 250 feet deep, the water of which is so bitter, however, that camels can hardly drink it. It stands on the pilgrim road from Kahira to Mecca, four hours' journey to the north-west of Suez {vid. Robinson, Pal. i. p. G5). A plain, nearly ten miles long and about as many broad, stretches from Ajrud to the sea to the west of

1 " This is done," Sartorius proceeds to say, " not by His making His own invisible nature visible, nor yet merely figuratively or ideally, but by His rendering it objectively perceptible through the energy it excites, and the glorious effects it produces. The curtain (velum) of the natural which surrounds the Deity is moved and lifted (revelatur) by the word of His will, and the corresponding intention of His presence (per dextram Dei). But this is effected not by His causing the light of His countenance, which is unapproachable, to burst forth unveiled, but by His weaving out of the natural element a holy, transparent veil, which, like the fiery cloud, both shines and throws a shade, veils and unveils, so that it is equally true that God dwells in light and that He dwells in darkness (2 Chron. vi. 1; 1 Tim. vi. 16), as true that He can be found as that He must always be sought."

Suez, and from the foot of Atakali to tlie arm of the sea on the north of Suez {liohinson, Pah i. G5). This ])lain most probably served the Israehtes as a place of encampment, so that they encamped before, i.e. to the east of, Ajrud towards the sea. The other places must also be sought in the neighbourhood of Hacliiroth (Ajrud), though no traces of them have been discovered yet. Migdol cannot be the ^figdol twelve Koman miles to tiie south of Pelusium, which formed the north-eastern boundary of Egypt (Ezek. xxix. 10), for according to Num. xxxiii. 7, Israel encamped before Migdol; nor is it to be sought for in the hill and mountain-pass called Montala by Burckhardt, el Muntala by Robinson (pp. 63, 64), two hours' journey to the northwest of Ajrud, as Knobel supposes, for this hill lies too far to the west, and when looked at from the sea is almost behind Ajrud; so that the expression " encamping before Migdol" does not suit this situation, not to mention the fact that a tower (^''J?'?) does not indicate a watch-tow^er (HQ^'p). Migdol was probably to the south of Ajrud, on one of the heights of the Atakah, and near it, though more to the south-east, Baalzephon (locus Typhonis), which Micliaelis and Forster suppose to be Ileroopolis, whilst Knobel places it on the eastern shore, and others to the south of Hachiroth. If Israel therefore did not go straight into the desert from Etham, on the border of the desert, but went southwards into the plain of Suez, to the west of the head of the Ked Sea, they were obliged to bend round, i.e. " to turn" from the road they had taken first. The distance from Etham to the place of encampment at Hachiroth must be at least a six hours' journey (a tolerable day's journey, therefore, for a whole nation), as the road from Suez to Ajrud takes four hours (Kobinson, i. p. ^^\.

Vers. 3-9. This turn In their route was not out of the way for the passage through the Red Sea; but apart from this, it was not only out of the way, but a very foolish way, according to human judgment. God commanded Moses to take this road, that He might be honoured upon Pharaoh, and show the Egyptians that He was Jehovah (cf. vers. 30, 31). Pharaoh would say of the Israelites, They have lost their rcay; they are wandering about in confusion; the desert has shut them in, as in a prison upon which the door is shut (^V "i^D as in Job xii. 14); and in his obduracy he would resolve to go after them with his army, and bring them under Ins sway again. — Vers. 4 sqq. When it was announced that Israel had fled, " the heart of Pharaoh and his servants turned against the people ^^ and they repented that they had let them go. When and whence the information came, we are not told. The common opinion, that it was brought after tlie Israelites changed their route, has no foundation in tlie text. For tlie chanire in Pharaoh's feelinixs towards the Israelites, and his r^^rrret that he had let them ixo, were caused not bv their supposed mistake, but by their flight. Now the king and his servants regarded the exodus as a flight, as soon as they recovered from the panic caused by the death of the first-born, and began to consider the consequences of the permission given to the people to leave liis service. This may have occurred as early as the second day after the exodus. In that case, Pharaoh would have had time to collect chariots and horsemen, and overtake the Israelites at Ilachiroth, as they could easily perform the same journey in two days, or one day and a half, to which the Israelites had taken more than three, "//e yoked Ms chariot (had it yoked, cf. 1 Kings vi. 14), and took his people (i.e. his warriors) ivith him^^ viz. '•^ six hundred chosen war chariots (ver. 7), and all the chariots of Egi/pt" (.sc. that he could get together in the time), and " roi/al guards upon them allT ^''Vrjr^) TpLcndiaLj tristatae qui et terni statores vocantur, nomen est secundi gradus post regiam dignitatem (Jerome on Ezek. xxiii. 23), not charioteers (see my Com. on 1 Kings ix. 22). According to ver. 9, the army raised by Pharaoh consisted of chariot horses (^3"} D^D)^ riding horses (Q''*^*';?, lit. runners, 1 Kings v. 6), and yj}, the men belonging to them. War chariots and cavalry were always the leading force of the Egyptians (cf. Isa. xxxi. 1, xxxvi. 9). Three times (vers. 4, 8, and 17) it is stated that Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he pursued the Israelites, to show that God had decreed this hardening, to glorify Himself in the judgment and death of the proud king, who would not honour God, the Holy One, in his life. ''And the children of Israel were going out icith a high hand:" ver. 8 is a conditional clause in the sense of, " although they went out" (Ewald, § 341). nnn T, the high hand, is the high hand of Jehovah with the might which it displayed (Isa. xxvi. 11), not the armed hand of the Israelites. This is the meaninij also in Num. xxxiii. 3; it is different in Num. XV. 30. The very fact that Phara' ^i did not discern the lifting up of Jehovah's hand in the exodus of Israel displayed the hardening of his heart. " Beside FiliacliirotJi;" see ver. 2.

Vers. 10-14. When the Israelites saw the advancin^jj army of tlie Egyptians, they were greatly alarmed; for their situation to human eyes was a very unfortunate one. Sliut in on the east by the sea, on the south and west by high mountains, and with the army of the Egyptians behind them, destruction seemed inevitable, since they were neither outwardly armed nor inwardly prepared for a successful battle. Although they cried unto the Lord, they had no confidence in His help, notwithstanding all the previous manifestations of the fidelity of the true God; they therefore gave vent to the despair of their natural heart in complaints against Moses, who had brought them out of the servitude of Egypt to give them up to die in the desert. " Hast thou, because there were no graves at all {T^ 7?^, a double negation to give emphasis) in Egypt, fetched us to die in the desertV^ Their further words in ver. 12 exafrcerated the true state of the case from cowardly despair. For it was only when the oppression increased, after Moses' first interview with Pharaoh, that they complained of what Moses had done (chap. v. 21), whereas at first they accepted his proposals most thankfully (chap. iv. 31), and even afterwards implicitly obeyed his directions. — Ver. 13. Moses met their unbelief and fear with the energy of strong faith, and promised them such help from the Lord, that they would never see again the Egyptians, whom they had seen that day. Cn^i<"} "ll^•^? does not mean ov rpoirov eccpaKare (LXX.), quemadmodum vidistis {Ros., Kn.); but the sentence is inverted: " The Eg3'ptians, wdiom ye have seen to-day, ye will never see again." — Ver. 14. ''Jehovah will fight for you (i^r^j dat comm.), hut you will he silent" i.e. keep quiet, and not complain any more (cf. Gen. xxxiv. 5).