of Moses.

But we must return to the original circumstances under which the Revelation was first made. The return It is characteristic of the Biblical history that this new name, though itself penetrating into the most abstract metaphysical idea of God, yet in its effect was the very opposite of a mere abstraction. Moses is a Prophet, the first of the Prophets,— but he is also a Deliverer. Israel, indeed, through hin becomes "a chosen people," "a holy congregation,"in one word, a Church. But it also through him bebecomes a nation: it passes, by his means, from a pas toral, subject, servile tribe, into a civilized, free, independent commonwealth. It is in this aspect that the more human and historical side of his appearance presents itself. It is true that even here we see him very imperfectly. In him, as in the Apostles afterwards, the man is swallowed up in the cause, the messenger in the message and mission with which he is charged. Yet from time to time, and here in this opening of his career more than elsewhere, his outward and domestic relations are brought before us. He returns to Egypt from his exile. In the advice of his fatherin-law to make war upon Egypt,' in his meeting with his brother in the desert of Sinai, may be indications of a mutual understanding and general rising of the Arabian tribes against the Egyptian monarchy. But in the Sacred narrative our attention is fixed only on the personal relations of the two brothers, now first mentioned together, never henceforth to His perbe parted. From that meeting and coöpera- pearance tion we have the first indications of his indi- character. vidual character and appearance. We are accustomed to invest him with all the external grandeur which 1 Artapanus.

2 Ewald, ii. 59, 60.

sonal ap

and

would naturally correspond to the greatness of his mission. The statue of Michael Angelo rises before us in its commanding sternness, as the figure before which Pharaoh trembled. Something, indeed, of this is justified by the traditions respecting him. The long shaggy hair and beard,' which infold in their vast tresses that wild form, appear in the heathen representations of him. The beauty of the child is, by the same traditions, continued into his manhood. "He

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was," says the historian Justin2 (with the confusion so common in Gentile representations), "both as wise "and as beautiful as his father Joseph." But the only point described in the Sacred narrative is one of singular and unlooked-for infirmity. "O my Lord, I am "not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast "spoken to thy servant; but I am slow of speech, "and of a slow tongue; how shall Pharaoh hear

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me, which am of uncircumcised lips?". - that is, slow and without words, "stammering and hesitating" (so the Septuagint strongly expresses it), like Demosthenes in his earlier youth, slow and without words, like the circuitous orations of the English Cromwell,3 -"his speech contemptible," like the Apostle Paul. How often had this been repeated in the history of the world, how truly has the answer been repeated also: "Who hath made man's mouth? . . . Have not "I the Lord? . . . I will be thy mouth, and teach "thee what thou shalt say."

And when the remonstrance went up from the true,

1 An old man, with a long beard, seated on an ass, was the idea of Moses, as given by Diodorus (xxxiv.); or tall and dignified in appearance, and long streaming hair of a reddish

hue, tinged with gray, as given by Artapanus.

2 xxxvi. 2.

3 See Carlyle's Cromwell, ii. 219.

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Moses and

disinterested heart of Moses, "O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou Relations of "wilt send" (" Make any one thine Apostle so Aaron. "that it be not me"), the future relation of the two brothers is brought to light. "Is not Aaron the "Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak "well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee, and when he seeth thee he will be glad in his "heart. And thou shalt speak unto him, and put "words in his mouth. . . . And he shall be thy "spokesman unto the people, and he shall be, even "he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou "shalt be to him instead of God." In all outward appearance, as the Chief of the tribe of Levi, as the head of the family of Amram, as the spokesman and interpreter, as the first who "spake to the people and "to Pharaoh all the words which the LORD had spoken "to Moses," and did the signs in the sight of the people, as the permanent inheritor of the sacred staff or rod, the emblem of rule and power,- Aaron, not Moses, must have been the representative and leader of Israel. But Moses was the inspiring, informing soul within and behind; and, as time rolled on, as the first outward impression passed away and the deep abiding recollection of the whole story remained, Aaron the prince and priest has almost disappeared from the view of history; and Moses, the dumb, backward, disinterested Prophet, continues for all ages the foremost leader of the Chosen People, the witness that something more is needed for the guidance of man than high hereditary office or the gift of fluent speech,

--

a rebuke alike to an age that puts its trust in priests and nobles, and an age that puts its trust in preachers and speakers.

His wife and chil

dren.

As his relations with Aaron give us a glimpse into his personal history, so his advance towards Egypt gives us a glimpse into his domestic history. His wife, whom he had won by his chivalrous attack on the Bedouin shepherds by "the well" of Midian, and her two infant sons, are with him. She is seated with them on the ass, the usual mode of travelling, for Israelites at least, in those parts. He walks by their side with his shepherd's staff. On the journey a mysterious and almost inexplicable incident occurs in the family. The most probable explanation seems to be, that at the caravansary either Moses or his eldest child was struck with what seemed to be a mortal illness. In some way, not apparent to us, this illness was connected by Zipporah with the fact that her son had not been circumcised - whether in the general neglect of that rite amongst the Israelites in Egypt, or in consequence of his birth in Midian. She instantly performed the rite, and threw the sharp instrument, stained with the fresh blood, at the feet of her husband, exclaiming in the agony of a mother's anxiety for the life of her child, "A bloody husband "thou art to cause the death of my son." Then, when the recovery from the illness took place (whether of her son or her husband), she exclaims again: "A "bloody husband still thou art, but not so as to cause "the child's death, but only to bring about his cir"cumcision." 1

It would seem as if in consequence of this event,

1 So Ewald (Alterth. 105), and Bunsen (Bibelwerk, i. 112), taking the sickness to have visited Moses. Rosenmüller makes Gershom the victim (see Ex. iv. 25), and makes Zipporah address Jehovah, the Arabic word

for "marriage" being a synonyme for "circumcision." It is possible that on this story is founded the tradition of Artapanus (Eusebius), that the Ethiopians derived circumcision from Moses.

whatever it was, that the wife and her children were sent back to Jethro, and remained with him till Moses joined them at Rephidim. Unless Zipporah is the Cushite wife who gave such umbrage to Miriam and Aaron, we hear of her no more.

The two sons also sink into obscurity. Their names, though of Levitical origin, relate to their foreign birthplace. Gershom, the "stranger," and Eli-ezer, "God is my help," commemorated their father's exile and escape. Their posterity lingered in obscurity down to the time of David.

8

From the Deliverer we proceed to the Deliverance. We need not repeat what has been already said of the condition of Egypt at this time, and of the peculiar oppression of the Israelites.

The deliverance, in its essential features, is the likeness of all such deliverances. "When the tale The Deliv"of bricks is doubled then comes Moses." erance. This is the proverb which has sustained the Jewish nation through many a long oppression. The truth contained in it, the imagery of the Exodus, have doubtless been more than the types, they have often been the sustaining causes and consolations, of the many successful struggles which from that day to this the oppressed have waged against the oppressor. But that which is peculiar in the story of the Exodus is the mode by which it was effected. First, it was not a mere case of ordinary insurrection of a slave population against their masters. The Egyptian version of the event represents it as a dread, an aversion.

1 Ex. xviii. 2-6.

2 Num. xii. 1. Compare the juxtaposition of" Cushan" and " Midian" in Hab. iii. 7.

3 Ex. xviii. 3, 4.

4 1 Chr. xxiii. 16, 17; xxiv. 24; xxvi. 25-28. See also Judg. xviii. 30.