CHAPTERXV.THE EVENTS NEAR AND AT SINAI.

CHAPTERXV.THE EVENTS NEAR AND AT SINAI.The Manna.THEdivine plan of leading Israel to Canaan by the way of the great desert involved the question ofsubsistence—bread and water for such a host through so long a journey. It was perfectly obvious that the ordinary resources of this desert were entirely inadequate, so that the alternative was simply, miracle, or starvation. In the choice of miracle God had in view not only physical subsistence but moral culture—the perpetual impression upon the millions of Israel that their covenant-keeping God was feeding them every day with bread immediately from his own hand.This bread took the name “manna” from the question asked by the people when they found it upon the ground in the morning—Whatis this? Their Hebrew words were—Man-hu; what this? All the ancient versions and most ancient authorities concur in deriving the name “manna” from this original question as put inEx.16: 15. [Our English version has the only correct rendering in the margin.]The manna fell by night as the dew falls, and it would seem, fell with and in the dew so that when the dew evaporated under the morning sun, there remained this very fine deposit—“a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost upon the ground.” “It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Ex.16: 13–15, 31). A subsequent description (Num.11: 7–9) adds—“The manna was as coriander seed and the color thereof as the color of bdellium. And the people went about and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.”——The gathering, the preparation of it for cooking, and the cooking itself, cost labor, yet obviously none too much for the health and morals of the million. The physiological facts to be noticed are that it was sufficiently palatable for all practical purposes and had the necessary elements for the real bread—the staff of life—for a whole nation during forty years of wilderness life, with its alternations of marchings and encampments; of labor and of rest.The points which evinced the miraculous hand of God were—that it came from no known or possible source of supply in the kingdom of nature; that it fell in the full amount needed for the thousands of Israel; fell on each of six mornings but not at all on the seventh, the Sabbath; that the average amount on five of these mornings was a supply for one day, while on the morning next preceding the Sabbath, a double quantity fell, being a supply for two days; that the gathering for the first five days of the week could be kept only one day, but the double supply of the sixth day remained sweet and pure for two days; and moreover, a quantity laid up by God’s command in the sacred arkremained unchanged for many generations.Thus wonderfully did the Almighty impress his hand upon every feature of this bread fromheaven!37The allusions to manna in the Scriptures take note of the fact that “Godsuffered them to hunger” before he sent them this supply (Deut.8: 3, 16). The record (Ex.16: 1) states that it was already the fifteenth day of the second month since they came out of Egypt when the whole congregation murmured for bread and seemed to themselves about to perish of hunger in the wilderness. One month and a half must have quite exhausted the hasty and scanty supplies which they brought from Egypt. The marvel is how they could have subsisted upon this so long, even though coupled with all the supplies possible in that desert. That “God suffered them to hunger” is however only in harmony with his usual method of dealing with his people—subjecting them to a certain pressure of want for purposes of moral trial—the object being to test their faith in himself; to draw out their soul in prayer for help and in trust under darkness and in straits; and to make the blessing when given doubly precious. What Christian has ever lived long under any circumstances of this earthly life without some discipline under this great law of the Christian life—“He suffered thee to hunger” and then “fed thee with angels’ food”?Moses (Deut.8: 16) makes a special point of the fact that this bread was such as neither they nor their fathers had ever known before. The Psalmist (Ps.78: 24, 25) takes the lofty poetic view of this great gift of God: “He commanded the clouds from above and opened the doors of heaven and rained down manna upon them to eat and gave them of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full.”——Josh.5: 12 shows that the manna ceased as abruptly as it began, precisely when it was needed no longer. The people having arrived in Canaan and supplies being within reach from the old corn of the land, the manna ceased and fell no more.An article of commerce known under the name of“manna,” produced in the Arabian desert and in other Oriental regions, has scarcely any points in common with the manna of Scripture save the name. It exudes from shrubs; does not fall from the lower heavens in and with the dew; it is obtained at the utmost only about four months of the year; is most abundant in wet seasons—fails in the dry; is somewhat useful as a condiment and a medicine, but can never take the place of bread; and never has been known in such quantities as would supply bread for the hosts of Israel.How long the pot of manna was preserved in the ark of the covenant can not be known definitely. We have the fact that the Lord directed its preservation there (Ex.16: 32–34); and the further fact that when the ark was placed in the new temple of Solomon there was nothing in it save the two tables of stone (1Kings 8: 9). It was doubtless kept long enough to subserve all the valuable purposes of a memorial to the generations of Israel. It has been embalmed in the Christian consciousness of the Christian age by its symbolical use in the teachings of our Lord in which it represents his flesh which he gave for the life of the world—the far more real bread of life from heaven (John 6: 31–35, 47–58).Water Supplied by Miracle.The subsistence of the Israelites during forty years in the desert of Arabia involved not only a supply of bread but ofwateralso. On two distinct occasions—the first at Rephidim, close to Horeb, during the last half of the second month from Egypt; and the second at Kadesh, in the northern border of the great desert,and during the first month of the fortieth year fromEgypt,38water was supplied them by miracle.So great a multitude of people, including their animals, must have required a large supply of water.Nothing therefore is more probable than that the supply should often be short, and sometimes utterly fail. At Rephidim the people most unreasonably chode with Moses as if he alone was responsible for bringing them out of Egypt and for the lack of water, and as if their sufferings were so great as altogether to eclipse all the blessings of that great deliverance. Moses had no help but in the Lord his God. In answer to prayer the Lord provided for a miracle, to be well attested by the presence of a body of the elders of the people. “Take them with thee,” saith the Lord, “and take also thy rod wherewith thou smitest the river” (the Nile) “and go. I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink.”——The names given were significant—“Massah” of theirtemptingthe Lord by their unbelief; Meribah, of theirchidingandstrifeas to Moses.The scenes at Kadesh (Num.20) were almost forty years subsequent, and consequently involved another generation. The spirit of their complaint was quite the same however—chiding Moses most unreasonably, petulantly wishing they had died before the Lord as so many of their brethren who had fallen under God’s judgments in the wilderness since the unbelieving report of the spies and the consequent wrath of God upon the people. Sadly we must note here that this unreasonable and even cruel reflection upon Moses stirred his indignation, excited him unduly, and found expression in ill-advised words from his lips. The Lord had told him to take Aaron his brother, to gather the people together before the rock, and thenspeakto the rock before their eyes and it should give forth water. When the eventful moment came, Moses, instead of saying—Ye have sinned against the Lord your God, yet in his mercy he will give you rivers of water from this rock upon the word of command from his servant—said as in the record—“Hear now, ye rebels, mustwefetch you water out of this rock”? In circumstances where man should be nothing and God all in all—man only a consciously unworthy instrument, and God the Supreme and ever to be honored Power, it was one of the sad infirmities of the best of men to put himself so prominently forward and thrust the Great God so ungratefullyinto the back-ground. Then, moved by the same excited passion, instead of speaking to the rock, he smote it with his rod, not once only but twice. Yet the Lord did not rebuke him with failure, but despite of his bad spirit, gave forth water abundantly. The rebuke upon both Moses and Aaron came shortly after in the form of an absolute prohibition upon their entering the land of promise. They hadsodishonored the Lord in this case at Kadesh that he must needs express his disapprobation by denying to both of them the long-desired consummation of entering the goodly land.——If the Lord’s rebuke of Moses seem severe, let it be considered that his sin was very great because he had been admitted into so near communion with God—such communion as had never been granted to any other man. If the guilt of sin be as the light sinned against, we are not likely to overestimate the guilt of his. The Lord speaks of it as rebellion (Num.27: 14). And manifestly his sin was so public as well as so flagrant that it became vital to the honor of God’s name and government to rebuke it unmistakably.The exclusion from Canaan fell sorely upon the heart of Moses. He prayed earnestly that God would reverse this decree, but in vain. The Lord shut off all hope, saying, “Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter” (Deut.3: 23–27). Sorrowful are the words of Moses: “I must die in this land; I must not go over Jordan” (Deut.4: 21).The question arises naturally: Were these two cases—at Rephidim and at Kadesh—the only supplies by miracle during those forty years? One of them occurred during the first year of the forty; the other, during the last: was the whole intervening period barren of all miraculous supply? Or were these two cases put on record rather as specimens than as exhaustive history?——Yet another question comes up: How long did the supply in each of these two cases continue? Rephidim was adjacent to Sinai, and the hosts of Israel remained before and near that mountain many days. Did the supply from the Rephidim rock hold good during this entire period? Did it follow them along their journey in the wilderness still further?To these questions the first answer is—that the history is silent as to the duration of the supply in eithercase. Moses might have told us definitely, but he has not.——Beyond this it only remains to take note of the allusions to this supply, made elsewhere in the Scriptures, and to suggest the probabilities of the case.——The writer ofPs.78 sings: “He clave the rock in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers” (vs.15, 16). InPs.114: 8, we read—“Who turned the rock into a standing water; the flint, into a fountain of water.” These words imply a great abundance for the time and seem to assume an ample supply so long as the hosts of Israel remained in those places. They do not necessarily imply that the waters followed them as a river in their journey onward from Rephidim or from Kadesh.——The allusions inIsa.43: 19, 20, and 48: 21 are decisive as to the temporary supply but indefinite as to its duration.——The words of Paul (1 Cor.10: 4) should be noted. “Our fathers all drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank of that spiritual Rock thatfollowedthem and that Rock was Christ).”——In this passage, drinking of the Rock can be nothing else than drinkingof the watersthat issued from the rock. The only question of importance exegetically is—whether the words “followed them” refer to the waters or to the presence of Christ as in the pillar of cloud and of fire. The former seems the more obvious and natural reference, and, in so far, favors the view that these waters, furnished miraculously, did follow them to some extent on their journey—perhaps in the way of fresh supplies provided for them in a similar manner. It can not be doubted that the hosts of Israelhad waterthrough all their journeyings; they could not have subsisted long without it. The natural supply must have been vastly greater in that age than in this if it sufficed for this great host at all other points of their journey save at Rephidim and at Kadesh. The fact of a constant supply of bread by miracle favors the assumption of water miraculously provided whenever the supply from natural sources failed to meet their necessities. This is perhaps the utmost we can say in the way of probabilities.The Battle With Amalek.While Israel was on the march near Rephidim, the Amalekites fell savagely upon their rear in a dastardly, unprovoked assault, described by Moses (Deut.25: 17, 18): “Remember what Amalek did to thee by the way when ye were come forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee when thou was faint and weary; and he feared not God.” The day following, Moses summoned Joshua to choose men for war and go out against Amalek, proposing for himself to take his stand upon a hill adjacent with the rod of God in his hand. His uplifted hand and rod became the symbol or rather the visible manifestation of prayer. While held up aloft, Israel prevailed; let down, Amalek prevailed. To achieve victory despite of the weariness of Moses, a stone was placed for him to sit upon; then Aaron and Hur on either side held up his hands until the going down of the sun. Thus victory was achieved; Amalek was defeated, and what is specially to be noted, a signal illustration was afforded of the power of prayer and a sublime testimony placed on record before all Israel that in God they were mighty against their foes and could have nothing to fear. So important were these great moral lessons that the Lord directed Moses to “write this for a memorial inthebook” [not merelyabook]—the well-known public record in which the wonderful works of God for Israel were to be permanently preserved.——Another reason for the record was that Amalek was doomed for this outrage, and the future kings and warriors of Israel received from time to time their divine commission to execute this sentence of extermination. (SeeDeut.25: 19, and1 Sam.15,etc.,etc.)There are some differences of opinion as to the history and geographical location of these Amalekites. The name “Amalek” appears (Gen.36: 12) as the grandson of Esau; whence some have found the origin, genealogically, of this people there; but they appear much earlier (Gen.14: 7).——As to theirhomegeographically, their nomadic habits require a somewhat wide range of territory within which they may be found. The passages1 Sam.15: 7, and 27: 8, locate them in the district lying between the Philistines and Egypt, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean in Arabia Petrea. We find them repeatedly associated with the Midianites, Moabites, and Ammonites in raids upon the children of Israel during the time of the Judges and onward to the reign of David (Judg.3: 12, 13, and 6: 3, and1 Sam.30: 1). They come to view in the visions of Balaam (Num.24: 20), spoken of there as “the first of the nations”—a phrase which can scarcely refer to their high antiquity (though this construction is barely possible); more probably it refers to the fact that they were the first to make war upon Israel after the latter assumed her distinctly national character. So understood, the description of Amalek looked historically back to the facts before usEx.17. Balaam foresaw their early destruction—their case being in this respect solemnly admonitory to the king of Moab.Let us not pass this historic fragment without a passing allusion to its admirable fitness as the opening scene in Israel’s relation to hostile foreign powers. She had and was destined to have national enemies. It was clearly in the policy of the Lord her God that she should fight these enemies with arms in deadly combat. Hence it was vital that she should be taught in the outset where her strength for victory actually lay. This onslaught of Amalek upon her rear and the ensuing battle, terminating in victory through prayer without ceasing—the uplifted arms of their Moses sustained till the sun set upon the victorious arms of Joshua—became their standard lesson—the first and the permanent example to show them the fountain of their strength—the ground of assured victory while they lived in obedience to God and trusted his arm alone.——It scarcely need be said that all the spiritual conflicts of God’s people with sin and Satan fall under the same general law—victory through prayer sustained and unfaltering—victory in the strength of Israel’s God alone.Jethro.InEx.18, Moses narrates a visit from his father-in-law who brought to him his wife and children, left inhis care ever since the scenes of which we readEx.4: 18–26. Jethro is before us here as both a good and a wise man—goodin that his heart is shown to be with God and with God’s people, “rejoicing for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians” (18: 9); andwisein that he saw at a glance that the burdens then borne by Moses in the administration of justice among the people would soon break him down; and in his admirable suggestions of a better method which from that day became established among the Hebrew people. For both reasons such a visit deserved a permanent record. It refreshes us to think of that good man who had known Moses forty years as his worthy son-in-law, yet moving only in the humble sphere of a shepherd’s wilderness life; but now meeting him God’s recognized Leader of the thousands of Israel and hearing from his lips the wonders God had wrought on Egypt and on Pharaoh; the deliverance from national bondage; the passage of the Red Sea and the entrance upon a wilderness march underneath the cloudy pillar; subsisting on the “corn of heaven” and on rivers of water from the rock of Rephidim; and withal having just then achieved their first victory over the first foreign power that dared assail them:—all this recital from the lips of such a son must have moved the aged father’s heart with unwonted emotions. We are not surprised that he should exclaim: “Blessed be the Lord” [your nation’s own Jehovah] “who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them” (18: 10, 11).——Then, being a priest, [“priest of Midian”Ex.2: 16 and 18: 1], he proceeded to offer sacrifices in the manner which had come down traditionally from the earliest fathers. “He took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came and all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God” (v.12). The term “burnt offering” is usually applied to a sacrifice which is burnt entire upon the altar. The phrase “sacrifice for God,” refers here to a peace-offering upon portions of which the worshipers partook in the manner of a religiousfeast—an act at once religious toward God and social toward man.The next day Moses resumed his accustomed routine of labor, sitting for the administration of justice to the people from morning till evening. The spirit which we see in Moses where he appears first in active life (Ex.2: 11–13) would naturally put him to this service. His prestige as the recognized Leader of Israel under God would turn the eyes of all the people to him as their Judge. Hence naturally this overwhelming burden, from which relief came through the wise suggestion of Jethro. This was that a gradation of subordinate courts be instituted so that cases of lesser magnitude and difficulty might be administered by others, and only the more difficult be brought before Moses. The guiding principle in the classification was at first both tribal and numerical—following their division into tribes and their numbers. After their location in Canaan the numerical element gave place to the geographical. Judges had their province and their responsibility limited, not by thousands and hundreds directly but by cities and localities. With this modification the system passed into established usage among the Hebrews.——In a parallel passage (Deut.1: 9–18) Moses recites the same transaction, omitting all allusion to his father-in-law, and giving prominence to the qualities requisite in judges, and to the principles of justice and righteousness by which they were to be governed.——At the close of this brief interview Jethro returned to his home and people. His son Hobab, brother-in-law of Moses, appears in the history somewhat later (Num.10: 29–32), and seems to have consented to act as guide to Moses and Israel in their march from Sinai to Kadesh, and not improbably until they reached the Jordan. The home of the family had been on the East and South of Horeb. In the period of the Judges and onward they are in the Northern border of the great Arabian desert. (SeeJudg.1: 16 and 4: 11 and1 Sam.15: 6).THESCENES ATSINAI.The National Covenant and the Giving of the Law.Events of most vital bearing upon the national life of the Hebrew people are now before us. No longer onefamily as in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; no longer a mere tribe, clustering several families under one or more patriarchs, but a group of many tribes, enlarging fast toward the proportions of a great nation;—and what is more, a people no longer under the emasculating incubus of bondage, but emancipated, and free to rise and assume the duties of self-government with all its possibilities of growth and improvement, personal and national—this great people, were at this point summoned of God to enter into solemn national covenant with himself. In its spirit and significance this covenant differed in no essential point from that which God made with Abraham more than six hundred years before. In that earlier covenant Abraham spake for himself, and so far as it was naturally possible, for his posterity as well; and God on his part promised to be a God not to him only but to his seed after him; yet when this seed of Abraham became a great people, there was special fitness in summoning them to renew this covenantfor themselves. Precisely this was done before Sinai.The Lord reminded them most appropriately of what he had so recently done for them. “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle’s wings and brought you unto myself.” It was as if he had lifted them up from earth toward heaven and borne them forth and out from their national bondage—as the eagle might take up her young and bear them aloft beyond the reach of whatsoever hostile power were tied down upon the earth’s surface. God had done this for the definite purpose ofbringing them to himself. “Now, therefore, (he proceeds) if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex.19: 4–6). In this divine proposal the central word, translated here “peculiar treasure,” appears inPs.135: 4 translated in the same way; but inDeut.7: 6 with a different translation—“Aspecial peopleunto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” The sense is—a special property—a people by the choice of God and by their own voluntary consecration, made peculiarly his own. Moses in Deuteronomy (as above) labors to impress upon the people the thought and purpose of God in this covenantrelation: “The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because ye were more in number than any [other] people; for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and hath redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” Of kindred significance are the other phrases used to express their new proposed relation to God—“A kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This strong language—“a kingdom of priests”—gives us the thought of awhole people—every man in all the nation, personally consecrated to God, as if the nation were made up of priests and of such only. God would have them understand that the holiness he required of them was not the professional service of a chosen few, but the free-will offering of every man’s own heart and life. The whole people—every individual man—was summoned to come into this national covenant. Would they come?Moses called for the elders—who acted as the representatives of the whole people and “laid before their faces all these words from the Lord.” At once all the people answered together and said—“All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.”——Let us hope that a fair proportion, including at least many of the representative men of the nation, were thoroughly sincere in this profession. It would be grateful to our feelings to believe that they all both understood and meant what they said. But, alas! subsequent developments forbid this belief. It was however the formal consent of the nation. As a whole people they gave their voice to this definite proposal from the Lord their God—that he would be their God and that they would be his people.The next thing in order, is thegiving of the law. A people who propose to be the Lord’s and to obey his voice, should be made acquainted with his will in the form oflaw. They must be informed what he would have themdo. Rules of heart and life, precepts defining the reverent homage and worship due to God, and the acts required or forbidden as toward their fellow-men should be made unmistakably plain. Preparationsare accordingly made for the formal and solemn promulgation of this great moral law. It is noticeable that in these preparations nothing seems to be omitted that might conduce to a deep and solemn impression. The people are specially enjoined to sanctify themselves, and two full days are set apart for this purpose. They were commanded to “wash their clothes”—significant of the personal purity of heart which God required.——Then the surroundings were of the most imposing and impressive character. The whole people were gathered in an open plain which lay at the foot of Sinai. The most stringent precautions forbade all curious, irreverent approach. Not a man or beast might touch the mountain on pain of death. Definite bounds were set for the people over which no one might pass. There before them full in view stood the awful mount—rugged, grand, cleft with fissures, broken with deep ravines, towering in sublime height and all enwrapped in thick clouds out of which lightnings flashed—the whole mountain rocking under the footsteps of the Almighty and reverberating with his awful thunder, and the voice of trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people in the camp trembled. The written description of this scene gives us a sense of its ineffable grandeur and sublimity. “Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. When the voice of the trumpet sounded long and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake and the God answered him by a voice.”——Essentially the same descriptive points are repeated after the record of the law as promulged from Sinai (Ex.20: 18–21). “All the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off, and said to Moses: Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us lest we die.”See also the renewed mention of this scene inDeut.4:10–12.39The Moral Law as given from Sinai.Passing from the natural surroundings and scenes of Sinai to the law itself, let it be observed carefully that this law of ten commandments (Ex.20: 1–17 andDeut.5: 6–21) is to be somewhat broadly distinguished from the other “statutes and judgments,” whether civil orreligious, which the Lord gave to Israel by the hand of Moses;—this distinction being apparent in the following points and for the reasons which they suggest:1. It was proclaimed by God himself in a most public and solemn manner in the hearing not of Moses alone, but of the elders of the people at least, if not of the people en masse, assembled before and around the glorious mount.2. It was given under circumstances of most appalling majesty and sublimity—the mountain being enveloped with clouds and thick darkness, yet at some moments all ablaze with the lightning’s flash and rocking beneath Jehovah’s feet.3. It was written by the finger of God on two tables of stone (Deut.5: 22).4. It differed from any and all other laws given to Israel in that it was comprehensive and general rather than specific and particular.5. It was complete, being one finished whole to which nothing was to be added—from which nothing was ever taken away. (“And he added no more”Deut.5: 22. See alsoMat.5: 18). The other statutes, as we shall see, were subjected to future modification.6. The law of the ten commandments was honored by Jesus Christ as embodying the substance of the law of God enjoined upon man. With a master’s hand he grasped and brought out its two great principles, underlying all the precepts: Love supreme to God: love equal and unselfish toward fellow-men. “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Mat.22: 36–40, and 19: 18, 19 andMk.12: 28–34).7. It can scarcely be doubted that Jesus had his eye specially if not exclusively on this law (Mat.5: 18) asone never to be repealed—from which not one jot or tittle should ever pass away.To this great moral law of ten commandments we now give special attention and note—That its introduction (Ex.20: 2), “I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt—out of the house of bondage”—is special—not general and universal; is adapted to the circumstances of Israel, and gives a special reason whytheyshould honor this law as coming from the God of their national covenant, the Redeemer and Savior of their nation. On the one handthis special reason why Israel should render supreme homage to Jehovah as their Deliverer from Egyptian bondage neither applies specifically to all mankind, nor does it imply that this law is not binding on other people than Israel. It was pertinent that as given originally to them it should be preceded and introduced by this special consideration, so pertinent to their case. Yet it should be thoughtfully considered—God might have said most truly to every child of his great human family—I am He who gave thee thy being and every good; and therefore I claim thy supreme love and homage.——I see no reason to question that this clause was put on the two tables of stone—its special introduction as given to the children of Israel.I.In the first precept, the words “before me” are construed variously. The most usual and obvious translation of the Hebrew words is—before my face. In some connections the preposition might meanuponorabove. “My face” is thought by some to be merely equivalent tomyself. Keil translates—“literallybeyond me, or in addition to me, equivalent to except me, or by the side of me.” He rejects the construction, “before me” (in my presence) as incorrect, and also condemnsagainst me—in opposition to me. Fuerst has it “abovei. e.except me.” Murphy says—“before me” is literally “upon my face.” It supposes those other gods to be set upbeforethe true God as antagonists in the eye of God and as casting a shade over his eternal being and incommunicable glory in the eye of worshipers.——The two constructions—beyondme andaboveme—are open to the objection that they seem tacitly to admit other gods provided they are inferior and that God is supreme. I prefer as the more obvious and natural construction—before my face. Thus the precept forbids homage to any other god in the presence of the supreme and omniscient Jehovah; and by consequence, forbids divine honor to any other being or thing whatsoever. “Thou shalt have no other godsbefore my face” seems to imply that the least acknowledgment of other gods is in its very nature an insult to Jehovah, as if it thrust those gods into his very face—held them up before his eye as more worthy of homage than he. Moreover, as no possible worship of other gods can escape his eye, or be otherwise than thrust up before his face, the prohibitionnecessarily shuts off all such worship. You may never worship other gods than the One Supreme Being, for it is simply impossible that any such worship can elude his eye, and you must not put it before his face.II.The second command prohibits the making and worshiping of images designed to represent idol gods—imaginary powers, supposed to have more or less control over human welfare. It equally prohibits images designed to represent the true God. All such sensuous conceptions of God are necessarily debasing. They rest on false views of God; tend to fearful and fatal degeneracy; and must therefore be forbidden under most stringent penalties. The whole history of our race witnesses to the infinite mischief wrought by such sensuous conceptions of God, as well as by the notion of subordinate powers, lower than the one supreme yet more than human. This has been one of Satan’s devices to rule God out of his universe and transfer to other objects the worship due to God alone.This prohibition as it stands here is not enforced by specific penalties, but in a way far more impressive it bears us back to the very heart of God, revealing his holyjealousyof any rival to his throne who would wrest and steal away from him the supreme love and homage of his creatures, and give it to supposed gods that are no Gods at all. “For I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”——By the very law of the family relation, the great sins of the father send their curse down upon his children. He makes them heirs to an inheritance of shame and sorrow. He entails calamity upon his offspring. Godless and idolatrous himself, he makes his family also godless and idolatrous. The influence of his sin will naturally and almost inevitably blight the morals and the souls of his children after him, and of his children’s children. Let this fact throw its shield like a wall of fire around him and his family, so that, if not for his own sake, at least for the sake of his unborn offspring, he will most sacredly obey this command and abstain from the least infringement of it in spirit or in letter.“Visiting iniquity” and “showing mercy” are set over against each other—the penal visitations of judgment for this sin warning men against it; and the greatpromises of mercy to the obedient alluring them to its most diligent observance. Judgment is God’s strange work, while mercy is his delight. Therefore we have here the forceful antithesis—the visiting of the iniquities of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation, but the showing of mercy unto thousands of generations of them that love and obey. To a Hebrew mind this last clause of the second command would naturally suggest God’s mercies to Abraham, the well-known friend of God, upon whose posterity God was shedding forth his blessings to thousands of generations. So richly does the loving God reward his dutiful and trustful children! So much more grateful to his heart it is to bless even to the thousandth generation than to visit iniquity even so far as to the third and fourth!It should be carefully noted that the visiting of the iniquities of fathers upon sons falls onlyupon those who hate him. If sons in any future generation turn from their sinning to the love of God, his merciful loving-kindness to them is sure. The curse visits only those who persist in the sin of their fathers despite of all the warning judgments that should admonish them to fear God. (SeeEzek.18).——This injunction against image-making and worship would naturally suggest to the men of Israel the idolatrous Egyptians. Their early fathers received from Noah the knowledge of the one only true God. But they did not love this knowledge, nor the God whom it revealed; therefore, not liking to retain these views of the pure and holy God, they chose to think of him as being like some of his works and began to worship such imaginary gods; or they put in his place some lower beings or powers as objects of worship. Hence the terrible judgments which the children of Israel had seen falling upon Egypt and her idols.“Upon those that love me” is delightfully suggestive of the great truth that the essence of all acceptable worship is love. God looks complacently on his human children when they delight in his glory, love his character, rejoice in his blessedness, and make it the best joy of their souls to please him by doing all his will. Such love legitimately flows out in reverent worship and adoring homage. Over against this the worship of idols in place of God is congenial only to the souls that hate God. This command assumes that those who worshipother gods really hate the one Supreme Jehovah. Therefore it is that his jealousy burns against them. They withhold from him the love and the homage of their hearts.III.In the third command the exegetical question is whether it refers primarily and properly to perjury,or to profanity,i. e.whether the Hebrew word for“in vain”40is precisely falsehood, or emptiness, a nothing, a thing of no worth. The current of critical opinion (Gesenius, Fuerst,etc.) goes for the former, falsehood; and makes the precept in its strict sense condemn perjury. Thou shalt not take up the name of Jehovah to a falsehood—shalt not use it to affirm the more solemnly what is false. Yet as what is false has no foundation in fact, and in point of truth is nothing—is only an emptiness—it comes to pass that this Hebrew word takes not infrequently this secondary sense; what isempty,vain. Hence some able critics [e. g.Keil] construe this precept to prohibit “all employment of the name of God for vain and unworthy objects so as to include not only false swearing, but trivial swearing in the ordinary intercourse of life and every use of the name of God in the service of untruth and lying—for imprecations, witchcraft, or conjuring.”——The construction of Keil, being the more broad and comprehensive, and withal being clearly within the established usage of the original word, is to be preferred. The doctrine of inspiration is—“Thy commandment is exceeding broad” (Ps.119: 96).——Thenameof God is associated closely with the idea and thought of God. Hence all irreverent use of this name naturally begets irreverence of spirit toward God, and must be fearfully pernicious. Using God’s sacred name to affirm the more solemnly a falsehood is more than mere irreverence, and must incur his highest displeasure.The fourth command—the law of the Sabbath—has been already treated somewhat fully in connection with the original institution of the Sabbath in Eden. I must dissent entirely from those critics who deny the existence of any Sabbath law prior to Sinai. To “bless the seventh day and sanctify it” (as said inGen.2: 3) has no meaning if it do not mean that God required the day to be one of rest from labor—a day of holytime, devoted to other than ordinary uses.——Fully in harmony with this construction of these words is the allusion to the Sabbath in the history of the manna (Ex.16: 22–30), and also theformof the precept here (Ex.20: 8), which is not precisely—Thou shalt do all thy work during six days, but none on the seventh;—but it is this: “Rememberthe Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” The implied injunction of the words spoken in Eden was—make it a holy day. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy: now, therefore,rememberthat original injunction. To remember a previous day made holy, must surely imply a precept setting it apart as holy time.As given here the law of the Sabbath is expanded into its legitimate details. The prohibition of labor is applied to children, to servants, to cattle and to strangers. Then the reason for the command, essentially as given in Eden, is reiterated; “For in six days the Lord made heaven, earth, sea, and all creatures; but rested on the seventh day; therefore he blessed and hallowed this Sabbath-day.” Noticeably, the statement following “therefore,” uses the same Hebrew verbs—“bless,” and “sanctify” [or “hallow”] which are usedGen.2: 3.——It seems plainly implied that God places before men his own example of creative work during six day-periods and of rest from this work on the seventh as a reason or motive for their observance of the Sabbath—one day of rest after six of toil. A secondary consideration is doubtless that by this arrangement the Sabbath would be perpetually suggestive of man’s relation to God as his Infinite Creator and Father. The linking of the Sabbath to God’s creative work and rest would naturally make that work a fact ever present to human thought—blending its influence with the sacredness and with all the employments of this holy day. Man desists from labor. Why? Because God did. After what labor? That of making the heavens and the earth and man. Therefore let man remember God as his Creator and render him the homage of obedience and the homage of adoration, gratitude and praise. Thus the historic origin of the precept became suggestive of the thoughts, the words, and the divine worship appropriate to this holy day.It is scarcely in place here to discuss the Christianchange from the seventh to the first day of the week, further than to remark that a similar suggestive influence came in as the purpose and object—the choice of the day suggesting the resurrection of Christ. The original reference to God as Creator need not be practically lost: but we may practically gain a second group of suggestive and most vital truths—those which cluster round the resurrection of our Lord.V.The fifth command consecrates its strength to the family relation. Addressed to children it requires them to honor their father and their mother, and makes obedience the condition of long life and prosperity in the land of their promised inheritance. As read inEx.20: 12 the command specifies only long life, but as repeated inDeut.5: 16, “that it may go well with thee”—is added. General prosperity is however involved and implied in length of days.——Obviously this honor carries with it obedience as well as due respect. Such honor is vital to the happiness and the value of the family relation. Without it no foundation can ever be laid for a useful and worthy after-life. It should not be overlooked that the earliest training of the infant mind Godward should begin with cultivating the honor and obedience due to father and mother. Through all the earliest developments of the infant and youthful mind, the parent is to the child in the place of God. The same qualities of character, the same obedience, respect, and deference, which God requires toward himself are to be first implanted and developed in the mind toward the human parent. Failing of their due development in this antecedent relation, they are almost certain never to be developed toward God: a fatal defect in character is fastened upon the child; a cast of mind is determined which but too surely ends in hopeless ruin.——It is noticeable that this very association of ideas, uniting the homage due to parentage and years with the honor due to God appears in the Mosaic law (Lev.19: 32); “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man; andfear thy God: I am the Lord.”VI.The next four precepts are a series beginning with the most vital, designed to protect the rights of person and life; of chastity; of property; and of reputation. The precepts forbid murder, adultery, theft,false witness, or defamation. The prohibition of murder must be construed broadly enough to forbid personal injuries on the one hand; and on the other all those passions—hate, malice prepense—which naturally lead on toward violence and murder.——The prohibition of adultery in like manner forbids not only all illicit sexual connection, but even unchaste desire (Matt.5: 27, 28). So the prohibition of theft devolves the duty of caring for our neighbor’s property so far as the law of loving our neighbor as ourself would require. It is not enough that we do not take his property and appropriate it to our own use. We must protect his right to his property as he should ours. In like manner the law forbidding the bearing of false witness against our neighbor involves the duty of protecting and cherishing his reputation. We may never forget that our neighbor’s good name is a treasure to him which we not only must not steal away, but must so far as in us lies guard and defend as if his good were worth as much as our own. The one comprehensive principle which embraces all these points of law toward our neighbor and determines their true interpretation is given in the law of Moses as well as in the law of Christ—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev.19: 34 andMatt.22: 39 and 19: 19). As to this passage from Moses it should be noted thatin termsit speaks not precisely of one’s neighbor but of thestranger—one toward whom you are wont to think your obligations less than toward any other human being; for he is not a brother born of the same father—not a relative of the same tribe—not a citizen of the same commonwealth or nationality; but an alien, a foreigner, a stranger toward whom you recognize no other relation than that of a fellow-being of human kind. Of such an one the law holds—“The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, andthou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God”—and I enjoin upon you this all-embracing love for the lowest of human kind.It should be carefully noted that although this group of four commands (6–9) in each case specifies the extreme form of the sin, the law by no means limits its prohibition to this extreme form. Killing is the extremeof personal violence; adultery (strictly the crime of the married) is the most aggravated form of unchastity; theft is more than simply being reckless of your neighbor’s property; and false witness naturally contemplates a case in court—public, formal, and of most grave and momentous consequences;—yet in each and every one of these prohibitions it behooves us to remember that God looks at the heart; that the spirit is more than the letter; that the law which specifies the extreme form of a special sin forbids with its full force all the lower grades and all the less flagrant and revolting forms of the same sin. We wrong ourselves most fearfully when we labor to ease our conscience by limiting the prohibitions of God’s law to the extreme forms of sin which may be named in the statute. It is always our highest wisdom to deal very honestly with our own conscience as before God in the construction and application of his law.The tenth and last commandment is peculiar, as compared with all others of the second table, in this point—that it specifies no external act whatever but lays its prohibition directlyupon the heart. “Thou shalt not covet”—shalt not allow thyself todesirein such a way as might tempt thee to try to obtain—thy neighbor’s house, wife, servants, cattle, or any thing that he has. This law aims to forestall temptation. It strikes at the root of such sins as theft and adultery by forbidding any such desire as might move you toward the sin. It may be regarded as shielding both of the two parties; the one who might commit the sin, and the one against whom the sin might be committed. It throws its shield over him who might otherwise be tempted, and it also becomes in so far a safeguard around him who holds treasures which lustful eyes might covet.Let us not omit to notice that it was this precept which opened the spiritual eye of Paul and gave him a new view of the breadth and true significance of God’s law. “I had not known sin, (said he) but by the law; for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Rom.7: 7). His Pharisaic training (we may suppose) had been scrupulous over the tenth part of the mint and anise and cummin—had taken even ostentatious care of the external matters of the law; but, alas! hadleft the heart out. Here at the closeof the law of Sinai—last among the precepts that treat of duty to our neighbor—stands one which puts its finger squarely upon theheart. It says—“Thou shalt notcovet.” It not only suggests that God looks within the soul of man for sin, but it demands that every man shall look there too and put his own restraining hand directly upon those rising desires which, indulged, would push him into overt sin. Moreover, this one precept may be supposed to have suggested to the mind of Paul that the whole law of God must be construed on this heart-principle—that every precept it contains goes beyond the letter to the spirit—pushes its demand deeper than the outward act, even to the inner thought, passion, and purpose of the soul. This view put the law of God in a new light—we might even say—revealed a new law to his soul. It gave him a new field for self-examination; brought up new sins never seen or dreamed of before, and at once demolished hopes of favor before God and of salvation on which he had perilously leaned through all his Pharisaic life.——“Thy commandment” (said one of the Psalmists) “is exceeding broad” (Ps.119: 96). We are not to think of all the Old Testament saints as Pharisees. Let us rather hope that many of them read in the law of Sinai the law of love, and adjusted to it, not the outward life only but the very heart as well.Progress in the Revelation of God to Man.The first twenty chapters of Exodus cover a period eminently rich in point ofprogressin revealing God to the race.——More fully than ever before God manifested those special elements of his character which are unfolded in the new name Jehovah—I am that I Am (Ex.3: 14). He had given promises before; then he came forth tofulfillthem. He had talked with the patriarchs about faith, and had sought to inspire it in their souls. In these great deeds for his people he gave them demonstrations of his eternal faithfulness—a basis on which their faith might rest, and also the faith of every child of his through all the future ages. God came exceedingly near to his afflicted people in Egypt, and never missed any opportunity of suggesting and impressing the idea that these tender testimonies of his love werein proof of hisfidelity to promise—were the very acts which his covenant with Abraham involved and called for—called for of their covenant God not in vain.Again, we see here thepossibility of very great intimacy of communion between God and man. As bearing on this point the reader will review the scene between Moses and the Lord at the burning bush; in his mission to Pharaoh; in the special directions given him in regard to the sending of each several plague, and usually as to its removal as well. Did ever earthly Potentate stand on more intimate terms with his prime minister? Or military chieftain with his subordinate officer? If Moses was at any point reluctant, under a conscious sense of capacities unequal to the work and of difficulties he could not surmount, did he not bring the matter before the Lord with at least as much freedom as the case could justify?——Especially when we think of Moses coming so near to Jehovah in his majesty wielding the terrific agencies of flood and storm and fire, of darkness and lightning and the voice of trumpet exceeding loud—Mt.Sinai rocking beneath his feet, and Moses alone drawing near the Awful Presence and talking with God face to face there—what shall we say of the possibilities of communion between man and his Maker? Whatever speculations we may have as to the means and methods by which the thought of God was borne to the mind of Moses and the thought of Moses to the mind of God, the great fact ofcommunionof mind with mind—thought meeting thought—of command from the superior party, received and obeyed by the inferior—is on the outer face of the whole history and admits of no question. God can speak to man so that man shall know the voice to be his and comprehend perfectly its significance. Relations of obedience, confidence, and love on the part of man toward his Maker are established, and God meets them with appropriate manifestations of his favor.This great fact is one of telling significance in the whole province of Christian experience. Its significance can not terminate with the present life but must pass on to be unfolded far more gloriously in the revelations of the eternal world. “It doth not yet appear” [in all points] “what we shall be”—but it does appear that God has made us capable of exceedingly intimate relationsto himself—as we shall know more perfectly when we shall see as we are seen and know as also we are known.Yet again; This portion of historic revelationabounds with testimonies to the power of prayerand to its place in the relations of God to man and of man to God. We see these revelations in the history of the plagues on Egypt. So palpably manifest was the power of Moses with God in prayer that even proud Pharaoh saw and recognized it. Over and over again the king besought the prayers of the man of God—apparently with unlimited confidence that God would grant whatever he should ask. Though he never had seen such power in prayer before, the force of the facts was too great to be resisted. For once he became so far a believer in the communion of man with God, and also in the power of God to work wonders which man’s power alone could never reach.The war scenes with Amalek and the prayer which turned the victory to Israel’s side will be readily recalled. As already suggested, this specimen case, brought out so perfectly in the first national conflict of arms, was well adapted to send down to future ages the great secret of success against their national enemies. How happy for Israel if it had never been forgotten! How well for the Christian world if the lessons of that scene were faithfully transferred and applied in all spiritual conflicts against foes within and foes without which pertain to this ever militant state!It is scarcely necessary to speak in fuller detail of the revelations of God to manthrough miracle. Every page of this history teems with miracles. Take the miracles away, and truly there would be nothing left. The revelations of God’s will to Moses; the judgments on Egypt; the redemption of his people from bondage there; the scenes at the Red Sea; the bread and the water for his needy people; the pillar of cloud and of fire; the glories of Sinai and the giving of his law in voice of majesty:—what are all these but miracles—the Great God over-stepping the ordinary course of nature to impress himself, the power of his arm, the mandates of his will—upon human minds? No other such chapter on miracles appears in the Old Testament. Nowhere else do they cluster so grandly; not elsewhere do they so muchsupersede the common laws of nature and give character to the entire course of the divine administration. Most abundantly do they testify that the arm of the Lord is equal to any result which his wisdom may devise. If he has purposes to accomplish he can not lack the means or the power necessary. The age of miracles can be brought round again if so he wills it. But more to our purpose is the inference to the adequacy of his resources in general, whether with or without miracle.——Yet let us not miss the more vital truth that this cluster of miracles aimed to witness to God’s present hand working with Moses, endorsing his mission and accrediting his words from the most High. God was then specially active in “making history” (shall we say?)—making history to put into his Bible. The Bible was growing; the great crisis which developed into the birth of the Hebrew nation was then transpiring; God’s plans for training a people who should be holy to himself—the repository of his truth—the church of the living God—were then rapidly unfolding; and no vital step in this process could spare the agency of miracle.Yet again; In this portion of sacred history much new light has been thrown uponGod’s management of great sinners. Pharaoh was a standard case of this sort. As already suggested, there are many aspects of this management. On one side we see the strong arm, putting his hook into the jaws of Leviathan—curbing his spirit, breaking down his power; burying him and his hosts in the sea. On another side are unfolded the nice relations of even this resistless power to the free moral activities of the great sinner; the wonderful blending of mercies with judgments; the patient waiting—if possibly these manifestations of God’s hand may bring the proud king to real submission; and coupled with this, the steady purpose on God’s part to turn all Pharaoh’s pride and guilt and moral obduracy to best possible account—setting forth his mode of dealing with wicked men in making known his power to save his people and to crush their foes, and his unfailing wisdom in making the wrath of the proudest of mortals evolve his own glory and praise.The scenes of Sinaiwere a long and magnificent stepof progress in the revelations of God to men. We may think here not so much of the external surroundings—the bringing into service of all the grandest agencies of nature to impress men with reverence and fear and awe, and so to plant the more deeply in their souls the idea of law as emanating unmistakably from the Infinite One; but we may consider thegreat fact itself of a revealed law. It is surely a point in the progress of God’s revelations of himself second to nothing that has gone before—second to nothing in all the ages save the greater mission of his Son for the purposes of redemption. God revealing to man a rule of duty; expressing it in terms at once so simple and so comprehensive; including the duties we owe to God on the one hand and to fellow-beings on the other; putting it on permanent record; accompanying it with demonstrations of majesty and glory, endorsing it so surely and so sublimely; adjusting it so nicely in harmony with the intelligent convictions of rational minds, and so commending it to every man’s conscience as intrinsically and eternally right:—truly the promulgation of such a law through such agencies is surpassingly grand and glorious; and, in the line of our present thought, is one of the great epochs in the march of God’s revelations of himself to mortals. We pause before it to take in the value of this revealed law; the new relations into which the race are brought thereby toward their Great Father; and the bearings of this law upon the whole plan of God’s moral administration toward our fallen race.

The Manna.

THEdivine plan of leading Israel to Canaan by the way of the great desert involved the question ofsubsistence—bread and water for such a host through so long a journey. It was perfectly obvious that the ordinary resources of this desert were entirely inadequate, so that the alternative was simply, miracle, or starvation. In the choice of miracle God had in view not only physical subsistence but moral culture—the perpetual impression upon the millions of Israel that their covenant-keeping God was feeding them every day with bread immediately from his own hand.

This bread took the name “manna” from the question asked by the people when they found it upon the ground in the morning—Whatis this? Their Hebrew words were—Man-hu; what this? All the ancient versions and most ancient authorities concur in deriving the name “manna” from this original question as put inEx.16: 15. [Our English version has the only correct rendering in the margin.]

The manna fell by night as the dew falls, and it would seem, fell with and in the dew so that when the dew evaporated under the morning sun, there remained this very fine deposit—“a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost upon the ground.” “It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Ex.16: 13–15, 31). A subsequent description (Num.11: 7–9) adds—“The manna was as coriander seed and the color thereof as the color of bdellium. And the people went about and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.”——The gathering, the preparation of it for cooking, and the cooking itself, cost labor, yet obviously none too much for the health and morals of the million. The physiological facts to be noticed are that it was sufficiently palatable for all practical purposes and had the necessary elements for the real bread—the staff of life—for a whole nation during forty years of wilderness life, with its alternations of marchings and encampments; of labor and of rest.

The points which evinced the miraculous hand of God were—that it came from no known or possible source of supply in the kingdom of nature; that it fell in the full amount needed for the thousands of Israel; fell on each of six mornings but not at all on the seventh, the Sabbath; that the average amount on five of these mornings was a supply for one day, while on the morning next preceding the Sabbath, a double quantity fell, being a supply for two days; that the gathering for the first five days of the week could be kept only one day, but the double supply of the sixth day remained sweet and pure for two days; and moreover, a quantity laid up by God’s command in the sacred arkremained unchanged for many generations.Thus wonderfully did the Almighty impress his hand upon every feature of this bread fromheaven!37

The allusions to manna in the Scriptures take note of the fact that “Godsuffered them to hunger” before he sent them this supply (Deut.8: 3, 16). The record (Ex.16: 1) states that it was already the fifteenth day of the second month since they came out of Egypt when the whole congregation murmured for bread and seemed to themselves about to perish of hunger in the wilderness. One month and a half must have quite exhausted the hasty and scanty supplies which they brought from Egypt. The marvel is how they could have subsisted upon this so long, even though coupled with all the supplies possible in that desert. That “God suffered them to hunger” is however only in harmony with his usual method of dealing with his people—subjecting them to a certain pressure of want for purposes of moral trial—the object being to test their faith in himself; to draw out their soul in prayer for help and in trust under darkness and in straits; and to make the blessing when given doubly precious. What Christian has ever lived long under any circumstances of this earthly life without some discipline under this great law of the Christian life—“He suffered thee to hunger” and then “fed thee with angels’ food”?

Moses (Deut.8: 16) makes a special point of the fact that this bread was such as neither they nor their fathers had ever known before. The Psalmist (Ps.78: 24, 25) takes the lofty poetic view of this great gift of God: “He commanded the clouds from above and opened the doors of heaven and rained down manna upon them to eat and gave them of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full.”——Josh.5: 12 shows that the manna ceased as abruptly as it began, precisely when it was needed no longer. The people having arrived in Canaan and supplies being within reach from the old corn of the land, the manna ceased and fell no more.

An article of commerce known under the name of“manna,” produced in the Arabian desert and in other Oriental regions, has scarcely any points in common with the manna of Scripture save the name. It exudes from shrubs; does not fall from the lower heavens in and with the dew; it is obtained at the utmost only about four months of the year; is most abundant in wet seasons—fails in the dry; is somewhat useful as a condiment and a medicine, but can never take the place of bread; and never has been known in such quantities as would supply bread for the hosts of Israel.

How long the pot of manna was preserved in the ark of the covenant can not be known definitely. We have the fact that the Lord directed its preservation there (Ex.16: 32–34); and the further fact that when the ark was placed in the new temple of Solomon there was nothing in it save the two tables of stone (1Kings 8: 9). It was doubtless kept long enough to subserve all the valuable purposes of a memorial to the generations of Israel. It has been embalmed in the Christian consciousness of the Christian age by its symbolical use in the teachings of our Lord in which it represents his flesh which he gave for the life of the world—the far more real bread of life from heaven (John 6: 31–35, 47–58).

Water Supplied by Miracle.

The subsistence of the Israelites during forty years in the desert of Arabia involved not only a supply of bread but ofwateralso. On two distinct occasions—the first at Rephidim, close to Horeb, during the last half of the second month from Egypt; and the second at Kadesh, in the northern border of the great desert,and during the first month of the fortieth year fromEgypt,38water was supplied them by miracle.

So great a multitude of people, including their animals, must have required a large supply of water.Nothing therefore is more probable than that the supply should often be short, and sometimes utterly fail. At Rephidim the people most unreasonably chode with Moses as if he alone was responsible for bringing them out of Egypt and for the lack of water, and as if their sufferings were so great as altogether to eclipse all the blessings of that great deliverance. Moses had no help but in the Lord his God. In answer to prayer the Lord provided for a miracle, to be well attested by the presence of a body of the elders of the people. “Take them with thee,” saith the Lord, “and take also thy rod wherewith thou smitest the river” (the Nile) “and go. I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink.”——The names given were significant—“Massah” of theirtemptingthe Lord by their unbelief; Meribah, of theirchidingandstrifeas to Moses.

The scenes at Kadesh (Num.20) were almost forty years subsequent, and consequently involved another generation. The spirit of their complaint was quite the same however—chiding Moses most unreasonably, petulantly wishing they had died before the Lord as so many of their brethren who had fallen under God’s judgments in the wilderness since the unbelieving report of the spies and the consequent wrath of God upon the people. Sadly we must note here that this unreasonable and even cruel reflection upon Moses stirred his indignation, excited him unduly, and found expression in ill-advised words from his lips. The Lord had told him to take Aaron his brother, to gather the people together before the rock, and thenspeakto the rock before their eyes and it should give forth water. When the eventful moment came, Moses, instead of saying—Ye have sinned against the Lord your God, yet in his mercy he will give you rivers of water from this rock upon the word of command from his servant—said as in the record—“Hear now, ye rebels, mustwefetch you water out of this rock”? In circumstances where man should be nothing and God all in all—man only a consciously unworthy instrument, and God the Supreme and ever to be honored Power, it was one of the sad infirmities of the best of men to put himself so prominently forward and thrust the Great God so ungratefullyinto the back-ground. Then, moved by the same excited passion, instead of speaking to the rock, he smote it with his rod, not once only but twice. Yet the Lord did not rebuke him with failure, but despite of his bad spirit, gave forth water abundantly. The rebuke upon both Moses and Aaron came shortly after in the form of an absolute prohibition upon their entering the land of promise. They hadsodishonored the Lord in this case at Kadesh that he must needs express his disapprobation by denying to both of them the long-desired consummation of entering the goodly land.——If the Lord’s rebuke of Moses seem severe, let it be considered that his sin was very great because he had been admitted into so near communion with God—such communion as had never been granted to any other man. If the guilt of sin be as the light sinned against, we are not likely to overestimate the guilt of his. The Lord speaks of it as rebellion (Num.27: 14). And manifestly his sin was so public as well as so flagrant that it became vital to the honor of God’s name and government to rebuke it unmistakably.

The exclusion from Canaan fell sorely upon the heart of Moses. He prayed earnestly that God would reverse this decree, but in vain. The Lord shut off all hope, saying, “Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter” (Deut.3: 23–27). Sorrowful are the words of Moses: “I must die in this land; I must not go over Jordan” (Deut.4: 21).

The question arises naturally: Were these two cases—at Rephidim and at Kadesh—the only supplies by miracle during those forty years? One of them occurred during the first year of the forty; the other, during the last: was the whole intervening period barren of all miraculous supply? Or were these two cases put on record rather as specimens than as exhaustive history?——Yet another question comes up: How long did the supply in each of these two cases continue? Rephidim was adjacent to Sinai, and the hosts of Israel remained before and near that mountain many days. Did the supply from the Rephidim rock hold good during this entire period? Did it follow them along their journey in the wilderness still further?

To these questions the first answer is—that the history is silent as to the duration of the supply in eithercase. Moses might have told us definitely, but he has not.——Beyond this it only remains to take note of the allusions to this supply, made elsewhere in the Scriptures, and to suggest the probabilities of the case.——The writer ofPs.78 sings: “He clave the rock in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers” (vs.15, 16). InPs.114: 8, we read—“Who turned the rock into a standing water; the flint, into a fountain of water.” These words imply a great abundance for the time and seem to assume an ample supply so long as the hosts of Israel remained in those places. They do not necessarily imply that the waters followed them as a river in their journey onward from Rephidim or from Kadesh.——The allusions inIsa.43: 19, 20, and 48: 21 are decisive as to the temporary supply but indefinite as to its duration.——The words of Paul (1 Cor.10: 4) should be noted. “Our fathers all drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank of that spiritual Rock thatfollowedthem and that Rock was Christ).”——In this passage, drinking of the Rock can be nothing else than drinkingof the watersthat issued from the rock. The only question of importance exegetically is—whether the words “followed them” refer to the waters or to the presence of Christ as in the pillar of cloud and of fire. The former seems the more obvious and natural reference, and, in so far, favors the view that these waters, furnished miraculously, did follow them to some extent on their journey—perhaps in the way of fresh supplies provided for them in a similar manner. It can not be doubted that the hosts of Israelhad waterthrough all their journeyings; they could not have subsisted long without it. The natural supply must have been vastly greater in that age than in this if it sufficed for this great host at all other points of their journey save at Rephidim and at Kadesh. The fact of a constant supply of bread by miracle favors the assumption of water miraculously provided whenever the supply from natural sources failed to meet their necessities. This is perhaps the utmost we can say in the way of probabilities.

The Battle With Amalek.

While Israel was on the march near Rephidim, the Amalekites fell savagely upon their rear in a dastardly, unprovoked assault, described by Moses (Deut.25: 17, 18): “Remember what Amalek did to thee by the way when ye were come forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee when thou was faint and weary; and he feared not God.” The day following, Moses summoned Joshua to choose men for war and go out against Amalek, proposing for himself to take his stand upon a hill adjacent with the rod of God in his hand. His uplifted hand and rod became the symbol or rather the visible manifestation of prayer. While held up aloft, Israel prevailed; let down, Amalek prevailed. To achieve victory despite of the weariness of Moses, a stone was placed for him to sit upon; then Aaron and Hur on either side held up his hands until the going down of the sun. Thus victory was achieved; Amalek was defeated, and what is specially to be noted, a signal illustration was afforded of the power of prayer and a sublime testimony placed on record before all Israel that in God they were mighty against their foes and could have nothing to fear. So important were these great moral lessons that the Lord directed Moses to “write this for a memorial inthebook” [not merelyabook]—the well-known public record in which the wonderful works of God for Israel were to be permanently preserved.——Another reason for the record was that Amalek was doomed for this outrage, and the future kings and warriors of Israel received from time to time their divine commission to execute this sentence of extermination. (SeeDeut.25: 19, and1 Sam.15,etc.,etc.)

There are some differences of opinion as to the history and geographical location of these Amalekites. The name “Amalek” appears (Gen.36: 12) as the grandson of Esau; whence some have found the origin, genealogically, of this people there; but they appear much earlier (Gen.14: 7).——As to theirhomegeographically, their nomadic habits require a somewhat wide range of territory within which they may be found. The passages1 Sam.15: 7, and 27: 8, locate them in the district lying between the Philistines and Egypt, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean in Arabia Petrea. We find them repeatedly associated with the Midianites, Moabites, and Ammonites in raids upon the children of Israel during the time of the Judges and onward to the reign of David (Judg.3: 12, 13, and 6: 3, and1 Sam.30: 1). They come to view in the visions of Balaam (Num.24: 20), spoken of there as “the first of the nations”—a phrase which can scarcely refer to their high antiquity (though this construction is barely possible); more probably it refers to the fact that they were the first to make war upon Israel after the latter assumed her distinctly national character. So understood, the description of Amalek looked historically back to the facts before usEx.17. Balaam foresaw their early destruction—their case being in this respect solemnly admonitory to the king of Moab.

Let us not pass this historic fragment without a passing allusion to its admirable fitness as the opening scene in Israel’s relation to hostile foreign powers. She had and was destined to have national enemies. It was clearly in the policy of the Lord her God that she should fight these enemies with arms in deadly combat. Hence it was vital that she should be taught in the outset where her strength for victory actually lay. This onslaught of Amalek upon her rear and the ensuing battle, terminating in victory through prayer without ceasing—the uplifted arms of their Moses sustained till the sun set upon the victorious arms of Joshua—became their standard lesson—the first and the permanent example to show them the fountain of their strength—the ground of assured victory while they lived in obedience to God and trusted his arm alone.——It scarcely need be said that all the spiritual conflicts of God’s people with sin and Satan fall under the same general law—victory through prayer sustained and unfaltering—victory in the strength of Israel’s God alone.

Jethro.

InEx.18, Moses narrates a visit from his father-in-law who brought to him his wife and children, left inhis care ever since the scenes of which we readEx.4: 18–26. Jethro is before us here as both a good and a wise man—goodin that his heart is shown to be with God and with God’s people, “rejoicing for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians” (18: 9); andwisein that he saw at a glance that the burdens then borne by Moses in the administration of justice among the people would soon break him down; and in his admirable suggestions of a better method which from that day became established among the Hebrew people. For both reasons such a visit deserved a permanent record. It refreshes us to think of that good man who had known Moses forty years as his worthy son-in-law, yet moving only in the humble sphere of a shepherd’s wilderness life; but now meeting him God’s recognized Leader of the thousands of Israel and hearing from his lips the wonders God had wrought on Egypt and on Pharaoh; the deliverance from national bondage; the passage of the Red Sea and the entrance upon a wilderness march underneath the cloudy pillar; subsisting on the “corn of heaven” and on rivers of water from the rock of Rephidim; and withal having just then achieved their first victory over the first foreign power that dared assail them:—all this recital from the lips of such a son must have moved the aged father’s heart with unwonted emotions. We are not surprised that he should exclaim: “Blessed be the Lord” [your nation’s own Jehovah] “who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them” (18: 10, 11).——Then, being a priest, [“priest of Midian”Ex.2: 16 and 18: 1], he proceeded to offer sacrifices in the manner which had come down traditionally from the earliest fathers. “He took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came and all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God” (v.12). The term “burnt offering” is usually applied to a sacrifice which is burnt entire upon the altar. The phrase “sacrifice for God,” refers here to a peace-offering upon portions of which the worshipers partook in the manner of a religiousfeast—an act at once religious toward God and social toward man.

The next day Moses resumed his accustomed routine of labor, sitting for the administration of justice to the people from morning till evening. The spirit which we see in Moses where he appears first in active life (Ex.2: 11–13) would naturally put him to this service. His prestige as the recognized Leader of Israel under God would turn the eyes of all the people to him as their Judge. Hence naturally this overwhelming burden, from which relief came through the wise suggestion of Jethro. This was that a gradation of subordinate courts be instituted so that cases of lesser magnitude and difficulty might be administered by others, and only the more difficult be brought before Moses. The guiding principle in the classification was at first both tribal and numerical—following their division into tribes and their numbers. After their location in Canaan the numerical element gave place to the geographical. Judges had their province and their responsibility limited, not by thousands and hundreds directly but by cities and localities. With this modification the system passed into established usage among the Hebrews.——In a parallel passage (Deut.1: 9–18) Moses recites the same transaction, omitting all allusion to his father-in-law, and giving prominence to the qualities requisite in judges, and to the principles of justice and righteousness by which they were to be governed.——At the close of this brief interview Jethro returned to his home and people. His son Hobab, brother-in-law of Moses, appears in the history somewhat later (Num.10: 29–32), and seems to have consented to act as guide to Moses and Israel in their march from Sinai to Kadesh, and not improbably until they reached the Jordan. The home of the family had been on the East and South of Horeb. In the period of the Judges and onward they are in the Northern border of the great Arabian desert. (SeeJudg.1: 16 and 4: 11 and1 Sam.15: 6).

THESCENES ATSINAI.

The National Covenant and the Giving of the Law.

Events of most vital bearing upon the national life of the Hebrew people are now before us. No longer onefamily as in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; no longer a mere tribe, clustering several families under one or more patriarchs, but a group of many tribes, enlarging fast toward the proportions of a great nation;—and what is more, a people no longer under the emasculating incubus of bondage, but emancipated, and free to rise and assume the duties of self-government with all its possibilities of growth and improvement, personal and national—this great people, were at this point summoned of God to enter into solemn national covenant with himself. In its spirit and significance this covenant differed in no essential point from that which God made with Abraham more than six hundred years before. In that earlier covenant Abraham spake for himself, and so far as it was naturally possible, for his posterity as well; and God on his part promised to be a God not to him only but to his seed after him; yet when this seed of Abraham became a great people, there was special fitness in summoning them to renew this covenantfor themselves. Precisely this was done before Sinai.

The Lord reminded them most appropriately of what he had so recently done for them. “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle’s wings and brought you unto myself.” It was as if he had lifted them up from earth toward heaven and borne them forth and out from their national bondage—as the eagle might take up her young and bear them aloft beyond the reach of whatsoever hostile power were tied down upon the earth’s surface. God had done this for the definite purpose ofbringing them to himself. “Now, therefore, (he proceeds) if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex.19: 4–6). In this divine proposal the central word, translated here “peculiar treasure,” appears inPs.135: 4 translated in the same way; but inDeut.7: 6 with a different translation—“Aspecial peopleunto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” The sense is—a special property—a people by the choice of God and by their own voluntary consecration, made peculiarly his own. Moses in Deuteronomy (as above) labors to impress upon the people the thought and purpose of God in this covenantrelation: “The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because ye were more in number than any [other] people; for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and hath redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” Of kindred significance are the other phrases used to express their new proposed relation to God—“A kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This strong language—“a kingdom of priests”—gives us the thought of awhole people—every man in all the nation, personally consecrated to God, as if the nation were made up of priests and of such only. God would have them understand that the holiness he required of them was not the professional service of a chosen few, but the free-will offering of every man’s own heart and life. The whole people—every individual man—was summoned to come into this national covenant. Would they come?

Moses called for the elders—who acted as the representatives of the whole people and “laid before their faces all these words from the Lord.” At once all the people answered together and said—“All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.”——Let us hope that a fair proportion, including at least many of the representative men of the nation, were thoroughly sincere in this profession. It would be grateful to our feelings to believe that they all both understood and meant what they said. But, alas! subsequent developments forbid this belief. It was however the formal consent of the nation. As a whole people they gave their voice to this definite proposal from the Lord their God—that he would be their God and that they would be his people.

The next thing in order, is thegiving of the law. A people who propose to be the Lord’s and to obey his voice, should be made acquainted with his will in the form oflaw. They must be informed what he would have themdo. Rules of heart and life, precepts defining the reverent homage and worship due to God, and the acts required or forbidden as toward their fellow-men should be made unmistakably plain. Preparationsare accordingly made for the formal and solemn promulgation of this great moral law. It is noticeable that in these preparations nothing seems to be omitted that might conduce to a deep and solemn impression. The people are specially enjoined to sanctify themselves, and two full days are set apart for this purpose. They were commanded to “wash their clothes”—significant of the personal purity of heart which God required.——Then the surroundings were of the most imposing and impressive character. The whole people were gathered in an open plain which lay at the foot of Sinai. The most stringent precautions forbade all curious, irreverent approach. Not a man or beast might touch the mountain on pain of death. Definite bounds were set for the people over which no one might pass. There before them full in view stood the awful mount—rugged, grand, cleft with fissures, broken with deep ravines, towering in sublime height and all enwrapped in thick clouds out of which lightnings flashed—the whole mountain rocking under the footsteps of the Almighty and reverberating with his awful thunder, and the voice of trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people in the camp trembled. The written description of this scene gives us a sense of its ineffable grandeur and sublimity. “Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. When the voice of the trumpet sounded long and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake and the God answered him by a voice.”——Essentially the same descriptive points are repeated after the record of the law as promulged from Sinai (Ex.20: 18–21). “All the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off, and said to Moses: Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us lest we die.”See also the renewed mention of this scene inDeut.4:10–12.39

The Moral Law as given from Sinai.

Passing from the natural surroundings and scenes of Sinai to the law itself, let it be observed carefully that this law of ten commandments (Ex.20: 1–17 andDeut.5: 6–21) is to be somewhat broadly distinguished from the other “statutes and judgments,” whether civil orreligious, which the Lord gave to Israel by the hand of Moses;—this distinction being apparent in the following points and for the reasons which they suggest:

1. It was proclaimed by God himself in a most public and solemn manner in the hearing not of Moses alone, but of the elders of the people at least, if not of the people en masse, assembled before and around the glorious mount.

2. It was given under circumstances of most appalling majesty and sublimity—the mountain being enveloped with clouds and thick darkness, yet at some moments all ablaze with the lightning’s flash and rocking beneath Jehovah’s feet.

3. It was written by the finger of God on two tables of stone (Deut.5: 22).

4. It differed from any and all other laws given to Israel in that it was comprehensive and general rather than specific and particular.

5. It was complete, being one finished whole to which nothing was to be added—from which nothing was ever taken away. (“And he added no more”Deut.5: 22. See alsoMat.5: 18). The other statutes, as we shall see, were subjected to future modification.

6. The law of the ten commandments was honored by Jesus Christ as embodying the substance of the law of God enjoined upon man. With a master’s hand he grasped and brought out its two great principles, underlying all the precepts: Love supreme to God: love equal and unselfish toward fellow-men. “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Mat.22: 36–40, and 19: 18, 19 andMk.12: 28–34).

7. It can scarcely be doubted that Jesus had his eye specially if not exclusively on this law (Mat.5: 18) asone never to be repealed—from which not one jot or tittle should ever pass away.

To this great moral law of ten commandments we now give special attention and note—That its introduction (Ex.20: 2), “I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt—out of the house of bondage”—is special—not general and universal; is adapted to the circumstances of Israel, and gives a special reason whytheyshould honor this law as coming from the God of their national covenant, the Redeemer and Savior of their nation. On the one handthis special reason why Israel should render supreme homage to Jehovah as their Deliverer from Egyptian bondage neither applies specifically to all mankind, nor does it imply that this law is not binding on other people than Israel. It was pertinent that as given originally to them it should be preceded and introduced by this special consideration, so pertinent to their case. Yet it should be thoughtfully considered—God might have said most truly to every child of his great human family—I am He who gave thee thy being and every good; and therefore I claim thy supreme love and homage.——I see no reason to question that this clause was put on the two tables of stone—its special introduction as given to the children of Israel.

I.In the first precept, the words “before me” are construed variously. The most usual and obvious translation of the Hebrew words is—before my face. In some connections the preposition might meanuponorabove. “My face” is thought by some to be merely equivalent tomyself. Keil translates—“literallybeyond me, or in addition to me, equivalent to except me, or by the side of me.” He rejects the construction, “before me” (in my presence) as incorrect, and also condemnsagainst me—in opposition to me. Fuerst has it “abovei. e.except me.” Murphy says—“before me” is literally “upon my face.” It supposes those other gods to be set upbeforethe true God as antagonists in the eye of God and as casting a shade over his eternal being and incommunicable glory in the eye of worshipers.——The two constructions—beyondme andaboveme—are open to the objection that they seem tacitly to admit other gods provided they are inferior and that God is supreme. I prefer as the more obvious and natural construction—before my face. Thus the precept forbids homage to any other god in the presence of the supreme and omniscient Jehovah; and by consequence, forbids divine honor to any other being or thing whatsoever. “Thou shalt have no other godsbefore my face” seems to imply that the least acknowledgment of other gods is in its very nature an insult to Jehovah, as if it thrust those gods into his very face—held them up before his eye as more worthy of homage than he. Moreover, as no possible worship of other gods can escape his eye, or be otherwise than thrust up before his face, the prohibitionnecessarily shuts off all such worship. You may never worship other gods than the One Supreme Being, for it is simply impossible that any such worship can elude his eye, and you must not put it before his face.

II.The second command prohibits the making and worshiping of images designed to represent idol gods—imaginary powers, supposed to have more or less control over human welfare. It equally prohibits images designed to represent the true God. All such sensuous conceptions of God are necessarily debasing. They rest on false views of God; tend to fearful and fatal degeneracy; and must therefore be forbidden under most stringent penalties. The whole history of our race witnesses to the infinite mischief wrought by such sensuous conceptions of God, as well as by the notion of subordinate powers, lower than the one supreme yet more than human. This has been one of Satan’s devices to rule God out of his universe and transfer to other objects the worship due to God alone.

This prohibition as it stands here is not enforced by specific penalties, but in a way far more impressive it bears us back to the very heart of God, revealing his holyjealousyof any rival to his throne who would wrest and steal away from him the supreme love and homage of his creatures, and give it to supposed gods that are no Gods at all. “For I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”——By the very law of the family relation, the great sins of the father send their curse down upon his children. He makes them heirs to an inheritance of shame and sorrow. He entails calamity upon his offspring. Godless and idolatrous himself, he makes his family also godless and idolatrous. The influence of his sin will naturally and almost inevitably blight the morals and the souls of his children after him, and of his children’s children. Let this fact throw its shield like a wall of fire around him and his family, so that, if not for his own sake, at least for the sake of his unborn offspring, he will most sacredly obey this command and abstain from the least infringement of it in spirit or in letter.

“Visiting iniquity” and “showing mercy” are set over against each other—the penal visitations of judgment for this sin warning men against it; and the greatpromises of mercy to the obedient alluring them to its most diligent observance. Judgment is God’s strange work, while mercy is his delight. Therefore we have here the forceful antithesis—the visiting of the iniquities of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation, but the showing of mercy unto thousands of generations of them that love and obey. To a Hebrew mind this last clause of the second command would naturally suggest God’s mercies to Abraham, the well-known friend of God, upon whose posterity God was shedding forth his blessings to thousands of generations. So richly does the loving God reward his dutiful and trustful children! So much more grateful to his heart it is to bless even to the thousandth generation than to visit iniquity even so far as to the third and fourth!

It should be carefully noted that the visiting of the iniquities of fathers upon sons falls onlyupon those who hate him. If sons in any future generation turn from their sinning to the love of God, his merciful loving-kindness to them is sure. The curse visits only those who persist in the sin of their fathers despite of all the warning judgments that should admonish them to fear God. (SeeEzek.18).——This injunction against image-making and worship would naturally suggest to the men of Israel the idolatrous Egyptians. Their early fathers received from Noah the knowledge of the one only true God. But they did not love this knowledge, nor the God whom it revealed; therefore, not liking to retain these views of the pure and holy God, they chose to think of him as being like some of his works and began to worship such imaginary gods; or they put in his place some lower beings or powers as objects of worship. Hence the terrible judgments which the children of Israel had seen falling upon Egypt and her idols.

“Upon those that love me” is delightfully suggestive of the great truth that the essence of all acceptable worship is love. God looks complacently on his human children when they delight in his glory, love his character, rejoice in his blessedness, and make it the best joy of their souls to please him by doing all his will. Such love legitimately flows out in reverent worship and adoring homage. Over against this the worship of idols in place of God is congenial only to the souls that hate God. This command assumes that those who worshipother gods really hate the one Supreme Jehovah. Therefore it is that his jealousy burns against them. They withhold from him the love and the homage of their hearts.

III.In the third command the exegetical question is whether it refers primarily and properly to perjury,or to profanity,i. e.whether the Hebrew word for“in vain”40is precisely falsehood, or emptiness, a nothing, a thing of no worth. The current of critical opinion (Gesenius, Fuerst,etc.) goes for the former, falsehood; and makes the precept in its strict sense condemn perjury. Thou shalt not take up the name of Jehovah to a falsehood—shalt not use it to affirm the more solemnly what is false. Yet as what is false has no foundation in fact, and in point of truth is nothing—is only an emptiness—it comes to pass that this Hebrew word takes not infrequently this secondary sense; what isempty,vain. Hence some able critics [e. g.Keil] construe this precept to prohibit “all employment of the name of God for vain and unworthy objects so as to include not only false swearing, but trivial swearing in the ordinary intercourse of life and every use of the name of God in the service of untruth and lying—for imprecations, witchcraft, or conjuring.”——The construction of Keil, being the more broad and comprehensive, and withal being clearly within the established usage of the original word, is to be preferred. The doctrine of inspiration is—“Thy commandment is exceeding broad” (Ps.119: 96).——Thenameof God is associated closely with the idea and thought of God. Hence all irreverent use of this name naturally begets irreverence of spirit toward God, and must be fearfully pernicious. Using God’s sacred name to affirm the more solemnly a falsehood is more than mere irreverence, and must incur his highest displeasure.

The fourth command—the law of the Sabbath—has been already treated somewhat fully in connection with the original institution of the Sabbath in Eden. I must dissent entirely from those critics who deny the existence of any Sabbath law prior to Sinai. To “bless the seventh day and sanctify it” (as said inGen.2: 3) has no meaning if it do not mean that God required the day to be one of rest from labor—a day of holytime, devoted to other than ordinary uses.——Fully in harmony with this construction of these words is the allusion to the Sabbath in the history of the manna (Ex.16: 22–30), and also theformof the precept here (Ex.20: 8), which is not precisely—Thou shalt do all thy work during six days, but none on the seventh;—but it is this: “Rememberthe Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” The implied injunction of the words spoken in Eden was—make it a holy day. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy: now, therefore,rememberthat original injunction. To remember a previous day made holy, must surely imply a precept setting it apart as holy time.

As given here the law of the Sabbath is expanded into its legitimate details. The prohibition of labor is applied to children, to servants, to cattle and to strangers. Then the reason for the command, essentially as given in Eden, is reiterated; “For in six days the Lord made heaven, earth, sea, and all creatures; but rested on the seventh day; therefore he blessed and hallowed this Sabbath-day.” Noticeably, the statement following “therefore,” uses the same Hebrew verbs—“bless,” and “sanctify” [or “hallow”] which are usedGen.2: 3.——It seems plainly implied that God places before men his own example of creative work during six day-periods and of rest from this work on the seventh as a reason or motive for their observance of the Sabbath—one day of rest after six of toil. A secondary consideration is doubtless that by this arrangement the Sabbath would be perpetually suggestive of man’s relation to God as his Infinite Creator and Father. The linking of the Sabbath to God’s creative work and rest would naturally make that work a fact ever present to human thought—blending its influence with the sacredness and with all the employments of this holy day. Man desists from labor. Why? Because God did. After what labor? That of making the heavens and the earth and man. Therefore let man remember God as his Creator and render him the homage of obedience and the homage of adoration, gratitude and praise. Thus the historic origin of the precept became suggestive of the thoughts, the words, and the divine worship appropriate to this holy day.

It is scarcely in place here to discuss the Christianchange from the seventh to the first day of the week, further than to remark that a similar suggestive influence came in as the purpose and object—the choice of the day suggesting the resurrection of Christ. The original reference to God as Creator need not be practically lost: but we may practically gain a second group of suggestive and most vital truths—those which cluster round the resurrection of our Lord.

V.The fifth command consecrates its strength to the family relation. Addressed to children it requires them to honor their father and their mother, and makes obedience the condition of long life and prosperity in the land of their promised inheritance. As read inEx.20: 12 the command specifies only long life, but as repeated inDeut.5: 16, “that it may go well with thee”—is added. General prosperity is however involved and implied in length of days.——Obviously this honor carries with it obedience as well as due respect. Such honor is vital to the happiness and the value of the family relation. Without it no foundation can ever be laid for a useful and worthy after-life. It should not be overlooked that the earliest training of the infant mind Godward should begin with cultivating the honor and obedience due to father and mother. Through all the earliest developments of the infant and youthful mind, the parent is to the child in the place of God. The same qualities of character, the same obedience, respect, and deference, which God requires toward himself are to be first implanted and developed in the mind toward the human parent. Failing of their due development in this antecedent relation, they are almost certain never to be developed toward God: a fatal defect in character is fastened upon the child; a cast of mind is determined which but too surely ends in hopeless ruin.——It is noticeable that this very association of ideas, uniting the homage due to parentage and years with the honor due to God appears in the Mosaic law (Lev.19: 32); “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man; andfear thy God: I am the Lord.”

VI.The next four precepts are a series beginning with the most vital, designed to protect the rights of person and life; of chastity; of property; and of reputation. The precepts forbid murder, adultery, theft,false witness, or defamation. The prohibition of murder must be construed broadly enough to forbid personal injuries on the one hand; and on the other all those passions—hate, malice prepense—which naturally lead on toward violence and murder.——The prohibition of adultery in like manner forbids not only all illicit sexual connection, but even unchaste desire (Matt.5: 27, 28). So the prohibition of theft devolves the duty of caring for our neighbor’s property so far as the law of loving our neighbor as ourself would require. It is not enough that we do not take his property and appropriate it to our own use. We must protect his right to his property as he should ours. In like manner the law forbidding the bearing of false witness against our neighbor involves the duty of protecting and cherishing his reputation. We may never forget that our neighbor’s good name is a treasure to him which we not only must not steal away, but must so far as in us lies guard and defend as if his good were worth as much as our own. The one comprehensive principle which embraces all these points of law toward our neighbor and determines their true interpretation is given in the law of Moses as well as in the law of Christ—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev.19: 34 andMatt.22: 39 and 19: 19). As to this passage from Moses it should be noted thatin termsit speaks not precisely of one’s neighbor but of thestranger—one toward whom you are wont to think your obligations less than toward any other human being; for he is not a brother born of the same father—not a relative of the same tribe—not a citizen of the same commonwealth or nationality; but an alien, a foreigner, a stranger toward whom you recognize no other relation than that of a fellow-being of human kind. Of such an one the law holds—“The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, andthou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God”—and I enjoin upon you this all-embracing love for the lowest of human kind.

It should be carefully noted that although this group of four commands (6–9) in each case specifies the extreme form of the sin, the law by no means limits its prohibition to this extreme form. Killing is the extremeof personal violence; adultery (strictly the crime of the married) is the most aggravated form of unchastity; theft is more than simply being reckless of your neighbor’s property; and false witness naturally contemplates a case in court—public, formal, and of most grave and momentous consequences;—yet in each and every one of these prohibitions it behooves us to remember that God looks at the heart; that the spirit is more than the letter; that the law which specifies the extreme form of a special sin forbids with its full force all the lower grades and all the less flagrant and revolting forms of the same sin. We wrong ourselves most fearfully when we labor to ease our conscience by limiting the prohibitions of God’s law to the extreme forms of sin which may be named in the statute. It is always our highest wisdom to deal very honestly with our own conscience as before God in the construction and application of his law.

The tenth and last commandment is peculiar, as compared with all others of the second table, in this point—that it specifies no external act whatever but lays its prohibition directlyupon the heart. “Thou shalt not covet”—shalt not allow thyself todesirein such a way as might tempt thee to try to obtain—thy neighbor’s house, wife, servants, cattle, or any thing that he has. This law aims to forestall temptation. It strikes at the root of such sins as theft and adultery by forbidding any such desire as might move you toward the sin. It may be regarded as shielding both of the two parties; the one who might commit the sin, and the one against whom the sin might be committed. It throws its shield over him who might otherwise be tempted, and it also becomes in so far a safeguard around him who holds treasures which lustful eyes might covet.

Let us not omit to notice that it was this precept which opened the spiritual eye of Paul and gave him a new view of the breadth and true significance of God’s law. “I had not known sin, (said he) but by the law; for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Rom.7: 7). His Pharisaic training (we may suppose) had been scrupulous over the tenth part of the mint and anise and cummin—had taken even ostentatious care of the external matters of the law; but, alas! hadleft the heart out. Here at the closeof the law of Sinai—last among the precepts that treat of duty to our neighbor—stands one which puts its finger squarely upon theheart. It says—“Thou shalt notcovet.” It not only suggests that God looks within the soul of man for sin, but it demands that every man shall look there too and put his own restraining hand directly upon those rising desires which, indulged, would push him into overt sin. Moreover, this one precept may be supposed to have suggested to the mind of Paul that the whole law of God must be construed on this heart-principle—that every precept it contains goes beyond the letter to the spirit—pushes its demand deeper than the outward act, even to the inner thought, passion, and purpose of the soul. This view put the law of God in a new light—we might even say—revealed a new law to his soul. It gave him a new field for self-examination; brought up new sins never seen or dreamed of before, and at once demolished hopes of favor before God and of salvation on which he had perilously leaned through all his Pharisaic life.——“Thy commandment” (said one of the Psalmists) “is exceeding broad” (Ps.119: 96). We are not to think of all the Old Testament saints as Pharisees. Let us rather hope that many of them read in the law of Sinai the law of love, and adjusted to it, not the outward life only but the very heart as well.

Progress in the Revelation of God to Man.

The first twenty chapters of Exodus cover a period eminently rich in point ofprogressin revealing God to the race.——More fully than ever before God manifested those special elements of his character which are unfolded in the new name Jehovah—I am that I Am (Ex.3: 14). He had given promises before; then he came forth tofulfillthem. He had talked with the patriarchs about faith, and had sought to inspire it in their souls. In these great deeds for his people he gave them demonstrations of his eternal faithfulness—a basis on which their faith might rest, and also the faith of every child of his through all the future ages. God came exceedingly near to his afflicted people in Egypt, and never missed any opportunity of suggesting and impressing the idea that these tender testimonies of his love werein proof of hisfidelity to promise—were the very acts which his covenant with Abraham involved and called for—called for of their covenant God not in vain.

Again, we see here thepossibility of very great intimacy of communion between God and man. As bearing on this point the reader will review the scene between Moses and the Lord at the burning bush; in his mission to Pharaoh; in the special directions given him in regard to the sending of each several plague, and usually as to its removal as well. Did ever earthly Potentate stand on more intimate terms with his prime minister? Or military chieftain with his subordinate officer? If Moses was at any point reluctant, under a conscious sense of capacities unequal to the work and of difficulties he could not surmount, did he not bring the matter before the Lord with at least as much freedom as the case could justify?——Especially when we think of Moses coming so near to Jehovah in his majesty wielding the terrific agencies of flood and storm and fire, of darkness and lightning and the voice of trumpet exceeding loud—Mt.Sinai rocking beneath his feet, and Moses alone drawing near the Awful Presence and talking with God face to face there—what shall we say of the possibilities of communion between man and his Maker? Whatever speculations we may have as to the means and methods by which the thought of God was borne to the mind of Moses and the thought of Moses to the mind of God, the great fact ofcommunionof mind with mind—thought meeting thought—of command from the superior party, received and obeyed by the inferior—is on the outer face of the whole history and admits of no question. God can speak to man so that man shall know the voice to be his and comprehend perfectly its significance. Relations of obedience, confidence, and love on the part of man toward his Maker are established, and God meets them with appropriate manifestations of his favor.

This great fact is one of telling significance in the whole province of Christian experience. Its significance can not terminate with the present life but must pass on to be unfolded far more gloriously in the revelations of the eternal world. “It doth not yet appear” [in all points] “what we shall be”—but it does appear that God has made us capable of exceedingly intimate relationsto himself—as we shall know more perfectly when we shall see as we are seen and know as also we are known.

Yet again; This portion of historic revelationabounds with testimonies to the power of prayerand to its place in the relations of God to man and of man to God. We see these revelations in the history of the plagues on Egypt. So palpably manifest was the power of Moses with God in prayer that even proud Pharaoh saw and recognized it. Over and over again the king besought the prayers of the man of God—apparently with unlimited confidence that God would grant whatever he should ask. Though he never had seen such power in prayer before, the force of the facts was too great to be resisted. For once he became so far a believer in the communion of man with God, and also in the power of God to work wonders which man’s power alone could never reach.

The war scenes with Amalek and the prayer which turned the victory to Israel’s side will be readily recalled. As already suggested, this specimen case, brought out so perfectly in the first national conflict of arms, was well adapted to send down to future ages the great secret of success against their national enemies. How happy for Israel if it had never been forgotten! How well for the Christian world if the lessons of that scene were faithfully transferred and applied in all spiritual conflicts against foes within and foes without which pertain to this ever militant state!

It is scarcely necessary to speak in fuller detail of the revelations of God to manthrough miracle. Every page of this history teems with miracles. Take the miracles away, and truly there would be nothing left. The revelations of God’s will to Moses; the judgments on Egypt; the redemption of his people from bondage there; the scenes at the Red Sea; the bread and the water for his needy people; the pillar of cloud and of fire; the glories of Sinai and the giving of his law in voice of majesty:—what are all these but miracles—the Great God over-stepping the ordinary course of nature to impress himself, the power of his arm, the mandates of his will—upon human minds? No other such chapter on miracles appears in the Old Testament. Nowhere else do they cluster so grandly; not elsewhere do they so muchsupersede the common laws of nature and give character to the entire course of the divine administration. Most abundantly do they testify that the arm of the Lord is equal to any result which his wisdom may devise. If he has purposes to accomplish he can not lack the means or the power necessary. The age of miracles can be brought round again if so he wills it. But more to our purpose is the inference to the adequacy of his resources in general, whether with or without miracle.——Yet let us not miss the more vital truth that this cluster of miracles aimed to witness to God’s present hand working with Moses, endorsing his mission and accrediting his words from the most High. God was then specially active in “making history” (shall we say?)—making history to put into his Bible. The Bible was growing; the great crisis which developed into the birth of the Hebrew nation was then transpiring; God’s plans for training a people who should be holy to himself—the repository of his truth—the church of the living God—were then rapidly unfolding; and no vital step in this process could spare the agency of miracle.

Yet again; In this portion of sacred history much new light has been thrown uponGod’s management of great sinners. Pharaoh was a standard case of this sort. As already suggested, there are many aspects of this management. On one side we see the strong arm, putting his hook into the jaws of Leviathan—curbing his spirit, breaking down his power; burying him and his hosts in the sea. On another side are unfolded the nice relations of even this resistless power to the free moral activities of the great sinner; the wonderful blending of mercies with judgments; the patient waiting—if possibly these manifestations of God’s hand may bring the proud king to real submission; and coupled with this, the steady purpose on God’s part to turn all Pharaoh’s pride and guilt and moral obduracy to best possible account—setting forth his mode of dealing with wicked men in making known his power to save his people and to crush their foes, and his unfailing wisdom in making the wrath of the proudest of mortals evolve his own glory and praise.

The scenes of Sinaiwere a long and magnificent stepof progress in the revelations of God to men. We may think here not so much of the external surroundings—the bringing into service of all the grandest agencies of nature to impress men with reverence and fear and awe, and so to plant the more deeply in their souls the idea of law as emanating unmistakably from the Infinite One; but we may consider thegreat fact itself of a revealed law. It is surely a point in the progress of God’s revelations of himself second to nothing that has gone before—second to nothing in all the ages save the greater mission of his Son for the purposes of redemption. God revealing to man a rule of duty; expressing it in terms at once so simple and so comprehensive; including the duties we owe to God on the one hand and to fellow-beings on the other; putting it on permanent record; accompanying it with demonstrations of majesty and glory, endorsing it so surely and so sublimely; adjusting it so nicely in harmony with the intelligent convictions of rational minds, and so commending it to every man’s conscience as intrinsically and eternally right:—truly the promulgation of such a law through such agencies is surpassingly grand and glorious; and, in the line of our present thought, is one of the great epochs in the march of God’s revelations of himself to mortals. We pause before it to take in the value of this revealed law; the new relations into which the race are brought thereby toward their Great Father; and the bearings of this law upon the whole plan of God’s moral administration toward our fallen race.

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