there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there had been none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

"And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail." Ver. 17-26.

It is here again our painful duty to have to notice another of the mistakes into which the Christian commentators upon this history have fallen. Between the months of November and February, rain and hail are not uncommon in the Delta and Middle Egypt. They are most frequently accompanied by thunder and lightning; and the storms are very violent, though not of long continuance. Here again then, God created no new thing in the earth, as has been assumed in ignorance of the facts. He merely displayed his mastery over the occurring phenomena of the season.

The preface to the narrative of this plague implies, as we have explained, a longer interval of time between it and the plague that preceded it, than had been interposed between the previous plagues: so that the entire visitation seems here to separate into two sections.

An interval, then, has evidently elapsed. We

will endeavour very shortly to estimate this interval more precisely. The overflow had attained its height and gradually subsided, leaving throughout Egypt successive flats of intense fertility, ready for the labours of the husbandman. In the earlier days of this interval, the prevalence of the waters would prevent the progress of all great works of construction in Egypt. Afterwards, all Egypt would be abroad in the field and at work; so that there would be neither time nor men for building temples, and the forced labours of Israel would at this season cease of necessity in good measure.

Sethos appears to have left the Delta for some other part of his dominions at this time. Israel, in his absence, had collected in Goshen around the princes of the several tribes, and withdrawn themselves from their previous intermixture with the Egyptians. This appears in the progress of the narrative. Doubtless these movements took place at the command of Jehovah, and under the direction of Moses and Aaron.

The labours of the field being now ended, Sethos has returned to the Delta. Probably enough, in doing so, it had been in his heart and purpose, if not in his counsels, to reimpose the burdens upon Israel.

"And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this

time. Jehovah is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. It is enough. Intreat Jehovah that there be no more voices of the gods (thunder) and hail and I will send you forth, and ye shall stay no longer.

"And Moses said unto him, As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands unto Jehovah, and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail that thou mayest know that the land [of Egypt] is Jehovah's. But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will not yet fear the Lord Jehovah.

:

"And the flax and the barley was smitten for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled; but the wheat and the spelt* were not smitten, för they were not grown up.

"And Moses went out of the city (Ramses) from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands unto Jehovah and the thunders and the hail ceased, and the rain was not poured upon the earth.

Yea

"And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart, he and his servants. the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let the children of Israel go, as Jehovah had spoken by Moses." Exod. ix. 27-35.

It is quite clear from this passage that Pharaoh

* "short awmed or beardless wheat."

and his councillors had from the first well understood the strictly religious nature of the conflict in which they were engaged, and betaken themselves to the gods of Egypt for aid against the God of Israel. They had deemed (according to the doctrine of local gods which prevailed universally in the ancient world) that it was a war between the divine protectors of the two races; that the powers of the combatants were at the least evenly balanced, and that they had only to persevere, and the victory might yet be with the gods of Egypt. It was to expose the utter futility of these vain imaginations that Jehovah was pleased to effect his own purpose through the agencies of the several phenomena of the Egyptian year in the cycle of their ordinary occurrence, converting each in succession into a fearful plague. For these were the divine attributes with which the fables of their mythology had invested the dead men and women whom they worshipped as gods. In the instance now before us the ritual of the gods of fire (the Eumenides, or avenging gods) had been exhausted. Earnest

prayers, gorgeous processions, and costly sacrifices had been offered in vain. The voice of a greater than the idols still pealed through the heavens. The lightnings of a mightier than they still flashed in the eyes of their votaries, and ran along the ground diffusing blight and ruin, and the hail and

rain continued hour after hour, yea, for successive days, breaking the trees, beating down the growing herbs into the mud, and destroying the hopes of the gardens and the fields of Egypt. "Only in Goshen where were the children of Israel was there no hail." The God of Israel then is contending with the gods of Egypt, and the latter are utterly impotent before him to help either themselves or their votaries. No fabling of the priests, no enchantments of the magicians can veil the truth from the eyes of all Egypt. It was in this dilemma that Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and enacted a brief scene of penitence before them. Most vain mockery! Moses was prescient of Pharaoh's hypocrisy, but he was the minister of the God that delighteth in mercy. For the sake, not of Pharaoh, but of his subjects, the plague passes away and the scene changes. Pharaoh and his councillors once more defy the God of Israel.

The barley is in the ear, and the flax bolled in Egypt at the present day, about the end of December and the beginning of January. This makes the interval between the plague of boils and the plague of hail about five months. Such a period would seem to be implied by the tenor of the narrative. All the varieties of wheat now cultivated in Egypt are sown after the barley, when the land is much drier, and are not carried until late in April.