THE Israelites remained at the foot of Mount Sinai eleven months and nineteen days. During this time the necessary laws were given; the tabernacle was set up for the palace of the King, JEHOVAH; the regular service of his court was established; the sanctions of the law were solemnly repeated; the people were numbered and mustered for the approaching war; the order of their encamping, breaking up, and marching, was accurately settled; and the whole constitution of the state was completed.

On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year after their departure from Egypt, the Israelites were ordered to break up their encampment, and proceed on their march, to take possession of the Promised Land.

Under the direction of the miraculous cloud, the ark went on in advance, to determine the line of march, and the places of encampment. When, at any time, the ark, following the movements of the pillared cloud, began to set forward, Moses was wont to exclaim, "Arise, O JEHOVAH, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let those that hate thee flee before thee!" And when, under the same guidance, it rested, "Give rest, O JEHOVAH, to the multitudes of Israel!"

The general and leading command to depart for Sinai, appears to have been orally delivered; but on other removals, consequent on that general direction, it was a sufficient intimation of the command to remove, when the miraculous cloud withdrew from off the tabernacle, and moved forward. Whenever this was noticed, the several tribes struck their tents, and began to pack up their moveables, while the priests and Levites were engaged in taking down the tabernacle, and in disposing its parts on the carriages in which they were to be removed; and others covered up, and otherwise prepared for removal, the ark, the altars, the table of shewbread, and the chandelier, which were to be borne on the shoulders of the Levites. All this would probably occasion but little delay; for the rapidity and ease with which the pastoral nations strike their tents, and get ready for a march, is quite astonishing to those who dwell in towns. When all was ready, the repeated sounding of the silver trumpets notified the time when each of the four camps was to move off the ground, in the order noticed in a preceding page; each tribe under its own banner and chiefs. As the tabernacle and the sacred utensils proceeded in the earlier part of the line, all was set up and properly arranged at the new encampment before the rear arrived on the ground; and, indeed, as the several tribes certainly encamped as they arrived, the greater part of the encampment would be formed by the time that the rearward tribe came up to take its place.

Several serious occurrences took place during the march through the desert to the borders of Canaan; and all tending, more or less, to manifest the intractable and debilitated character which their long-continued, and still recent, servitude had produced in the Hebrews; and which a slavery imposing personal obligations always has produced. The true secret of much of their conduct was that they had no public spirit-none of that spirit which enables men to understand the necessity of making unusual exertions, and of undergoing great privations for the attainment of the high objects set before them. Wanting this, they looked upon their leaders as children look towards their parents-as those who were bound to keep them in all comfort, and to make the paths they trod smooth and easy for them.

For nearly twelve months they had now remained much at their ease in the Sinai valleys, without any other general labour than the care of their flocks. As soon, therefore, as they had passed beyond the pleasant and shady valleys of the peninsula, and were fairly engaged in the stern and naked desert, they began to complain of the hardships and fatigues of the journey, and of the obligation of decamping and encamping so often. At the third stage these murmurs became so strong that their Divine King judged some afflictive mark of his displeasure necessary; wherefore he caused a fire (probably kindled by lightning) to break forth, and rage with great fury among the tents on the outskirts of the camp. In this the people recognised the hand of God, and interceded with Moses, at whose prayer the flames subsided. In memory of this the place received the name of Taberah [the burning].

It will be remembered that there were a considerable number of Egyptian vagabonds and other foreigners (probably runaway slaves) in the Hebrew host. The next affair, which seems to have followed the former very soon, commenced among these dangerous characters, but soon involved the mass of the Israelites. They became discontented with the manna. Pleasant though it were, the sameness of their diet disgusted them, and, heedless of the necessity of their circumstances, they longed for the palatable varieties of food which they had enjoyed in Egypt. The excellent meats of that country, and the abundant fish of its river— the luscious and cooling melons, the onions, the leeks, the garlick, and other fruits and vegetables of that rich soil, they had all been accustomed to eat "freely," so abundant were they, and so cheap. That they should grow tired of one particular kind of food, however delicious, when they had been used to such variety, and that they should look back upon their former enjoyments with some degree of longing and regret, is quite natural, and might not be blameworthy; but nothing can more strikingly show the unmanly character which bondage had produced in the then existing race of Hebrews, than that such merely sensual impulses were able to gain the mastery over them to such a degree as utterly to blind and confound their understanding. With childish weeping and unreasoning clamour they expressed their longing for the lost pleasures of Egypt, and their distaste of the manna, which had for so

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many months formed their principal food. As this clamour broke out so soon after the departure from the Sinai valleys in which they had so long been encamped, it seems very likely that they had secretly entertained the expectation that a change of scene would bring a change of food, and that they were much disappointed to find that the manna, and that only, continued to be supplied wherever they went.

The conduct of the people on this occasion was deeply displeasing to God; and Moses manifested more than usual discouragement and annoyance. His address to God on this occasion shows this, and is not altogether free from fretfulness. He rather murmurs at the heavy task which had been imposed upon him, of managing this unreasoning multitude, and declares himself unequal to it. In answer to this, God proposed to strengthen his authority by a council of seventy elders, to whom a portion of his own spirit should be formally given; and as to the people, a promise was indignantly made them that on the morrow, and for a month to come, they should " eat meat to the full." In reply to some doubts, which Moses ventured to intimate, as to the feasibility of supplying so large a multitude, the emphatic answer was, "Is the Lord's hand waxed short ?"

Accordingly, on the next day the seventy elders were assembled about the door of the tabernacle, when the Lord, as he had promised, "came down in a cloud, and spoke to Moses; and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders;" not that thereby the divine spirit in Moses sustained any diminution, for, as the rabbins aptly illustrate, he was as "a burning and a shining light," from which many other lights might be kindled without its own brilliancy being lessened. And when the Seventy had received this spirit, "they began to prophesy,"—not in the sense of foretelling things to come, but of speaking on Divine things with some of that spontaneous fervour and eloquence which had hitherto been peculiar to Moses.

This council having been appointed for the express purpose of assisting Moses in the discharge of the arduous duties of his peculiar office, died with him. In the history of the succeeding periods, there is not the slightest mention of such a council, not even in those times when it must have acted a most important part, had it been in existence. When there was no chief magistrate, the whole business of the government would have belonged, properly, to this council of state. But we find no trace of such a council in the history of those times. There were also transactions of the deepest interest to the Hebrew commonwealth, in which such a council, if it had existed, could not fail to have been actively engaged; and if so engaged, it is incredible that the several historians should have agreed in that profound silence concerning it which they have observed. The rabbins, therefore, are not entitled to credit, when they assert that the council instituted by Moses continued uninterrupted to the latest times after the captivity, and that the same institution was perpetuated in the Sanhedrim, which existed after the times of the Maccabees.

The same day came the promised supply of meat-given not in kindness but in anger. As on a former occasion it consisted of immense flocks of quails, which, being wearied with their flight across the Red Sea, flew so low and heavily † that vast quantities of them were easily caught by the people. So abundant was the supply that not only were they enabled to glut themselves for the time, but to collect a quantity for future use. We are told that "they spread them abroad for themselves round about the camp." This was, perhaps, to let them dry, or to allow the salt to settle before they potted them away. We are not accustomed to

Not necessarily their sole food. They had flocks and herds, and the ritual system made it sometimes necessary that they should indulge themselves with meat. From the same source they might derive milk, butter, and cheese, in the various preparations which are now in use among the Bedouins. The manna was principally a substitute for corn, which they could not well obtain, even by bartering the produce of their flocks, in the desert regions in which they wandered. Corn, or a substitute for it, was certainly essential to a people who had been brought up in such a corn country as Egypt. To the pure Bedouin it is not quite essential.

This is the interpretation of all the Jewish writers, including Josephus, from whom it has been adopted by many eminent Christian commentators. While it may equally, or more than equally with the other, be deduced from the plain terms of the text, it certainly looks more probable than that the quails lay upon the ground three feet deep for a day's journey around the camp on every side, as the more common interpretation supposes. In that case nearly all of them must have been smothered, and thus, dying otherwise than by the knife, could not be eaten by the Hebrews. There are many other objections to this view, obvious to any one who considers all the circumstances.

hear of birds being preserved in any way, but it is remarkable that Herodotus* describes it as usual among the Egyptians to eat, undressed, quails, ducks, and small birds which they had preserved with salt. This is confirmed by the sculptures, where men are represented as in the act of preserving birds in this manner, and depositing them in jars. No doubt the Hebrews followed the same process, with which they had become acquainted in Egypt.

In the very height of their gormandising, or, as the Scripture expresses it, "while the flesh was yet between their teeth," a grievous plague was sent among them, whereby great numbers were destroyed. It is probable that the very indulgence for which they had longed was made the instrument of their punishment, and that the extraordinary mortality was, under the Divine control, occasioned by the excess of the people in the use of a kind of food so different from that on which they had for so many previous months been principally fed.

From this event the place took the name of Kibroth-hattaavah (the graves of longing), because in that place were buried numbers of the people who had longed for flesh.

The next principal encampment was at a place called Hazeroth. Here "a root of bitterness sprung up, even in the very family of Moses. His sister Miriam, "the prophetess," had naturally taken the place of a chief woman in Israel: but when Moses had been joined by his wife, she began to feel or fear that her influence and station would be undermined. She therefore gave utterance to reflections which had the obvious tendency of throwing disgrace upon him for his connection with one who was not a daughter of Israel, but a Cushite (or Arabian) stranger. This was certainly a disadvantageous connection for the leader of such a people as the Hebrews; and, if brought prominently forward, and dilated upon in the ears of the people, was calculated to impair the influence of Moses, and to create dangerous jealousies, the rather as the brother of the woman, and the clan of which he was the head, were present in the camp, and were treated with distinction and honour. The jealousy of Miriam is less strange than the fact that Aaron encouraged her, and sided with her. This may make us suspect that the cause of discontent may have lain deeper than appears; and that both Aaron and Miriam must have been discontented at, and willing to impair, the superiority of their younger brother. Aaron could not but know that, by the theory of the law, he was by virtue of his office the chief person in the state; and that the political functions of that office remained in abeyance while Moses occupied that high and extraordinary station, which, indeed, the Divine appointment compelled him to fill, but which the law itself did not recognise as involved in the ordinary course of administrative government. It is, however, less probable that Aaron and his sister sought to supersede Moses, than to obtain an equal share with him in the actual government of the people.+ Something of this is involved in their claim to be "prophets " equally with him. We are not told that Moses said or did anything on this occasion; and this appears to have been remarked by some one of a later day, who in the original narrative has introduced the observation, "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth."

Nor needed Moses take any part in the matter, for the Divine Voice, without any previous communication to him, summoned them all three to the door of the tabernacle. There Aaron and Miriam were rebuked from the sacred cloud, and were reminded that, although they had indeed been favoured with divine communications, yet the Lord had made himself known to them only in visions and dreams, whereas to Moses he had spoken "mouth to mouth, openly, and not in dark sayings, that he might clearly perceive the will of Jehovah." When the voice ceased it was found that Miriam had been smitten with leprosy. On this, Aaron, greatly humbled, confessed to Moses the foolishness and presumption of their mutual conduct, and begged him to intercede with God for the recovery of their sister. Moses did so; but as it was proper that the punishment should be as public as the offence, he could only obtain the promise that she should recover after she had been shut out from the camp seven days as a

• Herod. ii. 77.

+ Bishop Hall remarks on this:-"It is a hard thing for a man willingly and gladly to see his equals lifted over his head in worth and opinion. Nothing will more try a man's grace than questions of emulation. That man hath true light who can be content to be a candle before the sun of others."

↑ Num. xii. 3.