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Class-Book of Old Testament History

<hr class="sect_35" /> <h3> CHAPTER <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> SIGNS AND WONDERS IN EGYPT. <abbr title="Exodus">Exod.</abbr> <abbr title="chapters four through 11">iv.–xi.</abbr>   B.C. 1491.</h3> THE first step Moses took towards fulfilling the trust thus confided to him was to request of his father-in-law permission to revisit his brethren in Egypt. Jethro gave his consent, and then, having received the Divine assurance that all the men were dead which sought his life, accompanied by Zipporah and her two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, Moses commenced his return to Egypt57. He had not proceeded far before he encountered his brother Aaron coming forth to meet him, to whom he explained their commission, and the signs that were to attest it. On arriving in the land of Goshen the Brothers gathered together all the clans of the nation. Aaron, as spokesman, rehearsed the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. His announcement had the desired effect. The Israelites believed that the Lord God of their fathers had indeed interposed in their behalf, and bowed their heads and worshipped. The next step was to procure from Pharaoh the necessary permission for the departure of the people. But now, even as the Almighty had forewarned them, the difficulties of the Brothers commenced. On presenting themselves before Pharaoh, and informing him of the will of Jehovah, the God of Israel, that His people should be permitted to go three days’ journey into the wilderness, there to offer sacrifice unto Him (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 5">v.</abbr> 3), the monarch haughtily asked, Who is Jehovah, that I should obey His Voice to let Israel go? Conceiving the God of Israel to be merely a national god, it seemed to him inexplicable that One who had suffered His worshippers to endure a lengthened and degrading bondage, could demand of him, the mightiest monarch of the earth, to let His people depart. Concluding, therefore, that it was only an expedient to excite aspirations for freedom among the bondslaves, in contemptuous mockery of them and their God, he ordered that the severity of their toil should be doubled. Hitherto straw had been found them, wherewith to make bricks for the treasure-cities and other gigantic works then in progress; but now it was ordered that they must go and gather straw for themselves, and yet the tale of bricks must not be diminished; what it was before, that it was to remain, and to be completed also. To comply with this tyrannical command was impossible, and the Israelitish officers, who had been set over the people by the Egyptians were beaten, and their complaints to Pharaoh were utterly disregarded. This produced a great change of feeling towards Moses and Aaron, at whose announcement of speedy deliverance the people had so lately bowed the head and worshipped. They heaped reproaches upon them, and openly charged them with being the cause of their now accumulated miseries, of having made their savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 5">v.</abbr> 1<abbr title="through">–</abbr>21). Thus the first attempt of Moses to execute his commission ended in complete failure. In deep dejection he laid before Jehovah the ineffectual issue of his efforts, and in reply not only received a second assurance of protection and ultimate triumph, but was told that as Pharaoh had rejected the word of God, God would now speak to him in deeds, and multiply His signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, till the Egyptians knew that He was the Lord. But the contest, in which Moses was now to engage, was not to be fought with carnal weapons. As the accredited servant of Jehovah, he was to contend against the gods of Egypt, against those arts, the very lifeblood of heathenism, in which Egypt deemed itself so strong, its magic and necromancy, its priests and conjurers. Accordingly the Brothers went a second time into Pharaoh’s presence, and renewed their request. The monarch demanded a miracle in attestation of their claim. Thereupon Aaron threw down his rod before the king and his courtiers, and straightway it became a serpent. But snake-charming was an art in which Egypt bore off the palm from every other country of the world. Pharaoh, therefore, summoned his magicians58, who cast down their rods, and they likewise became serpents. But though Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods, the monarch would not acknowledge that his servants had been defeated; he hardened his heart, and refused to recognise in this miracle an authoritative warning to let the people go. The “signs,” therefore, were now to become Plagues (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 7">vii.</abbr> 8<abbr title="through">–</abbr>14). (i) Accordingly, on the morrow, at the command of God, Moses made his appearance before Pharaoh, just as he was going to offer sacrifice to, or perform his religious ablutions in the sacred waters of the Nile, the “Father of Life,” the “Father of the Gods59,” as it was called by the Egyptians. In words few but decisive he announced the reason of his coming, and then the word was given; Aaron lifted up his rod, and in a moment, before the very eyes of the monarch and all his servants, the waters of the sacred, fructifying river, not only in the stream itself, but in the “canals and tanks, in the vessels of wood and vessels of stone, then, as now, used for the filtration of the water from the sediment of the river bed,” were turned into blood. The fish, though similarly objects of religious reverence, died in incredible numbers, and the “Father of Waters,” the source of health and blessing, stank, nor could the Egyptians drink thereof, for there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. But again the magicians were summoned; with their enchantments, they caused other water, probably obtained by digging about the river, to assume the same blood-red appearance, and Pharaoh turned into his house, and hardened his heart, neither would he let the people go (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 7">vii.</abbr> 14<abbr title="through">–</abbr>25). (ii) After an interval, therefore, of seven days, Moses and Aaron again presented themselves before him, and when their request was again denied, inflicted the second plague. From the streams, the rivers, the ponds of Egypt, Frogs60 came up over the whole land, penetrating into the royal palace, the houses of the courtiers and of the people, defiling bed-chamber and bed, oven and kneading-trough, with their loathsome touch. Again the magicians were summoned, and though they were utterly unable to counteract, they succeeded in imitating this plague also. Pharaoh was more deeply moved than before; he not only condescended to beg of Moses and Aaron that they would intreat Jehovah to remove this plague from his people, but undertook to allow the Israelites to depart and do sacrifice to the Lord. But no sooner had the desired deliverance been vouchsafed, than he again hardened his heart and refused to fulfil his word (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 8">viii.</abbr> 1<abbr title="through">–</abbr>15). (iii) For the third time, therefore, Aaron uplifted his rod, and now, not from the “Father of Waters,” but from the fertile soil of Egypt itself, came forth innumerable swarms either of Lice or of Gnats61, which afflicted both man and beast with intolerable discomfort. This plague all the spells and incantations of the court magicians were unable to imitate, and they were fain to confess to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God, but he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 8">viii.</abbr> 16<abbr title="through">–</abbr>19). (iv) On the morning after, as he went forth to the waters of the river, which he had lately seen so grievously dishonoured, he was met by Moses, and refused for the fourth time to relieve the people of their bondage. On this the servant of Jehovah spake the word, and there came innumerable Flies of various kinds62, usually a fearful torment in Egypt, but now attacking with unwonted fury both man and beast, and swarming in every house of the Egyptians, while they touched neither house nor person of the Israelites in Goshen. Such was the intolerable severity of this plague that Pharaoh so far relented as to permit the people to sacrifice to Jehovah in the land itself, but with the proviso that they should not leave it. This Moses would not concede. Therefore the monarch extended his concession to a journey some little way into the wilderness, but on the removal of the judgment revoked it, and retained the nation in bondage (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 8">viii.</abbr> 20<abbr title="through">–</abbr>32). (v) The fifth Plague was now inflicted. A grievous Murrain broke out amongst the horses, the asses, the camels, the oxen, the sheep of the Egyptians, so that all the cattle of Egypt, including not only the useful beasts, but probably “the sacred goat of Mendes, the ram of Ammon, the calf of Heliopolis, the bull Apis63,” died, while in the land of Goshen, as Pharaoh himself ascertained, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. But even this had no effect on his proud heart (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 9">ix.</abbr> 1<abbr title="through">–</abbr>7). (vi) Accordingly Moses and Aaron were commanded to take handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and sprinkle them upwards towards heaven, and on their so doing, Boils and Blisters, and other eruptive disorders, broke forth upon man and upon beast. Even the royal magicians suffered so terribly from this the sixth plague, that they could not stand before Moses, but the heart of their master was still hardened, nor would he yield to the will of God (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 9">ix.</abbr> 8<abbr title="through">–</abbr>12). (vii) With still greater solemnity, therefore, the coming of the Seventh Plague was announced to him, and he was warned to send his servants and gather together such of his cattle as were grazing in the fields, if he would not have them utterly destroyed by a terrible Storm of thunder, lightning, and hail64. By some, who heard the warning, it was heeded in time, by others it was utterly disregarded. But it was too surely fulfilled. Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven, and on the fair garden of Egypt, with its green meadows and fields of corn and barley and maize, the storm burst forth with unwonted fury. The Lord thundered out of heaven, and the Highest gave His thunder (<abbr title="Psalm 18">Ps. xviii.</abbr> 13). The fire ran along upon the ground, the hail rattled, and smote the vines and fig-trees (<abbr title="Psalm 105">Ps. cv.</abbr> 33), and every herb of the field, and every tree of the field, the barley then in the ear, and the flax then bolled or risen in the stalk, as also the cattle and herdmen that had not been removed to any place of shelter. Alarmed beyond measure at this unexampled tempest, Pharaoh begged Moses to intercede for him, owned this time that he had sinned, that the Lord was righteous, that he and his people were wicked, and promised to do all that was required of him. But, as before, when the fury of the elements was hushed he refused to abide by his word (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 9">ix.</abbr> 13<abbr title="through">–</abbr>35). (viii) And now for the eighth time the release of the people was demanded, and the monarch was told that, in the event of refusal, the country, already grievously devastated, should be given up to the awful ravages of the Locusts, which, in numbers, such as neither his fathers nor his fathers’ fathers had seen, should swarm in the palace and the hut, covering the face of the ground, and eating up whatever herb or tree had escaped the fury of the late storm. This announcement filled the Egyptians, already suffering severely, with uttermost alarm. Let the people go, they cried to their king, that they may serve the Lord their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? Even Pharaoh was fain to lend an ear to this remonstrance. Summoning Moses and Aaron, he informed them that he was ready to allow such as were men amongst the Israelites to depart and serve their God, but their wives and children must remain as a guarantee for their return. The servants, however, of Jehovah, were not empowered to make this concession, and the plague began. A strong east wind blew continuously and brought the locusts, which in dense swarms covered the face of the land, so that it was darkened and became a desolate wilderness, without a leaf upon the trees or a blade of grass in the fields65. The obduracy of the monarch now broke down, and was followed by a brief repentance, which lasted no longer than the west wind which swept away the locusts; for once more, in the face of an utterly devastated country and a murmuring people, he refused to hearken to the word of the Lord (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 10">x.</abbr> 1<abbr title="through">–</abbr>20). (ix) Without the pre-announcements, therefore, which had preceded the infliction of the other plagues, the ninth now appeared in the shape of Darkness66 so dense that it might be felt, which for three days enveloped the entire land, save only the favoured country of Goshen. During this period the light of the sun was obscured, an awful and preternatural gloom shrouded the land, so that the Egyptians neither could see one another nor rise from their place. At the end of the three days Pharaoh once more capitulated; all the Israelites, young and old, might depart, the flocks and herds alone must remain. These conditions, however, were rejected by Moses, and he was dismissed from the palace with the warning to take heed that he saw the face of Pharaoh no more, for on the day that he saw his face, he should surely die (<abbr title="Exodus">Ex.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 10">x.</abbr> 21<abbr title="through">–</abbr>29). <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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