causes, reserving to himself the judgment of weightier matters, especially those concerning religion. Moses acquiesced in this suggestion, and framed a constitution accordingly. (Exod. xviii.) Afterwards he sought the assistance of a senate or council (synedrium) of seventy elders.

ELEMENTARY AND GENERAL QUESTIONS.

219. What part of the Red Sea did the Israelites cross?

220. In what country were they after their passage, and in what particular district?

221. Why were they not conducted directly towards Canaan ? 222. What took place at Marah ?

223. Describe the station called Elim.

224. What took place in the Wilderness of Sin?

225. Describe the miraculous gift of Manna.

226. What truths and lessons are conveyed to us by the history of the Manna?

227. What miracle was wrought while the people were at Rephidim? 228. Describe the significance of this miracle.-Where is it explained? 229. What attack did the Israelites sustain at Rephidim,—and with what result?

230. State some lessons to be derived from what Moses did during the battle with the Amalekites,

231. Relate the incidents connected with the visit of Jethro to the camp of the Israelites.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS.

232. Point out the probable line of the passage through the Red Sea. 233. Describe the boundaries of the Peninsula of Sinai.

234. Trace the probable route of the Israelites, and mention their several stations or encampments between the Red Sea and Horeb. 235. What are the probable localities of Marah,

ness of Sin, and Rephidim?

236. Who were the Amalekites?

Elim,

237. Where is the first mention of Joshua in the Bible?

the Wilder

238. Describe that constitution of the tribes which Moses adopted at the suggestion of Jethro.

239. Give the meanings of — Marah, - Elim, - Manna,— Massah,Meribah,Joshua,- Jehovah-nissi.

CHAPTER XIV.

HOREB AND SINAI. - THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. FURTHER DELIVERY OF THE LAW.

(Exod. xix.-xxiv.)

THE Israelites arrived at Horeb at the expiration of three months after their departure from Egypt, and they remained

at this encampment a little more than eleven months;-a most momentous period of their history, during which it pleased God to make to them a special declaration of His will, confirming His covenant with them as the descendants of Abraham, and solemnly announcing the terms and limitations which He now prescribed to them in their national capacity, and as His peculiar people.

The peninsula of Sinai chiefly consists of four ranges of mountains or lofty rocks, intersected by valleys and deep gorges. The mountain near which the Israelites were now stationed forms one of those ridges, about three miles in length, running nearly from north to south, and distinguished by two heights or peaks at either end; the one, to the north, being called Horeb (proper), and the other, to the south, bearing the name of Sinai (now Jebel Mousa, i. e. Mount of Moses); while the whole region took its denomination either from Horeb alone, or perhaps sometimes from one of these summits, and sometimes from the other. (Compare Exod. xix. 11., &c., with Deut. i. 6., iv. 10. 15., v. 2., xviii. 16.) The southern and more elevated summit has been traditionally regarded as the scene of the delivery of the Law; which is now, however, assigned by Dr. Robinson and others to the northern and lower summit Horeb, and especially to that projecting point of Horeb called Râs Sasafeh, which overlooks a tolerably spacious plain formed by the junction of the two valleys Wady Er-Râhah and Wady Esh-Sheykh, where it is supposed that the people were encamped. Mr. Stanley, who concurs in this view, yet thinks it possible that the spot may have been at the end of the mountain range Fureia, now called Jebel Sena, opposite Horeb, and forming the other (northern) side of the plain; a spot, it may be observed, which might have been nearly surrounded by the people who could have been assembled, for the most part, only in front of Horeb. Some persons, however, still entertain the idea that Moses stood on the southern peak, Sinai, while the people were gathered together in a valley (Wady Sebayeh) in front (viz. to the south) of it. But this valley is small and narrow; and it is difficult to avoid concurring in the views of Dr. Robinson and Mr. Stanley, that the Israelite encampment lay in the valleys to the north of Horeb. Perhaps when Moses was called up into the mount to meet God, and especially during the long periods of forty days, it was to the recesses or height of Sinai that he was summoned; and he probably descended thence to the lower summit (Horeb), and stood on Râs Sasafeh, when he addressed the people; so that the Law was delivered to Moses on Sinai, and to the people from Horeb.

At all events, the Wadys Er-Râhah and Esh-Sheykh, with the plain formed by their confluence, appear to be the only ground in the neighbourhood of Sinai on which a multitude of people can be supposed to have pitched their tents.

Such then was, probably, the spot which the Most High selected as the scene of His great communication on the present occasion. It was somewhere in this region, if not at this very place, that the Lord had formerly appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; He now comes down in fire on the mountain, as a manifestation of His more immediate presence to the assembled people. The following is, in brief, the history of this great event.

In the first place, "Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mount," charging him to remind the people of all the wonderful works which had been wrought in their favour, and announcing His purpose of giving them a law, to which He required their obedience, with the promise of making them a peculiar treasure unto Himself above all people, -a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,-so that they should be taken under His special protection, and distinguished by singular honour.* The people promised obedience; and Moses, having reported this promise to God, was sent back to them with instructions to sanctify themselves, and to wash their clothes, expecting on the third day to witness a glorious manifestation of the Divine presence on the mountain; bounds also were to be set round the base of the mountain, beyond which none should be permitted to pass, under penalty of death. "And it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that

"If Minos, the legislator of the Cretans, pretended to have, every nine years, communion with Jupiter in a cavern; if Lycurgus, the legislator of the Lacedæmonians, raised his influence by an oracle of Apollo; and Numa, Rome's second king, supported his authority by a feigned intercourse with the nymph Egeria, who, he said, instructed him in a grotto near his fountain; if Zamolxis, the lawgiver of the Getæ, ascribed his wisdom to Vesta; and Odin carried constantly with him the embalmed head of Mimer, to whom he imputed oracular inspirations; if Manko-Kapak spread the belief that he descended from the sun in order to enlighten the people of Peru; and Mohammed listened to the wisdom which his dove whispered into his ear, as Sertorius, in Lusitania, followed the secret suggestions of his hind; all these extraordinary men understood well that a certain Divine authority was required to diffuse new systems and new ideas among whole nations, and to make them act in accordance therewith. What those men effected very imperfectly, by more or less gross illusions, was executed by God, whom the whole of nature obeys, in a manifest and awful manner, by perpetually continued wonders, witnessed by a whole nation."-Stollberg's History of Religion (ii. p. 58.) quoted by KALISCH on Exod. xix. 5.

there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And 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. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." (Exod. xix. 16-19.; comp. Heb. xii. 18-26.) This voice summoned Moses to go up to the top of the mount, accompanied by Aaron, while the people remained at the prescribed distance. It appears that Moses alone "drew near unto the thick darkness where God was," or entered the borders of the cloud, which was the more immediate token of the Divine presence.

Under these solemn circumstances, God began to make the promised revelation, by uttering the Ten Commandments; thus proclaiming or recapitulating that moral law which He had already written on the human conscience, together with that institution of the Sabbath, which, having been announced to Adam in Paradise, had thus taken its place among the primitive disclosures of God's will to man. -THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, implying the existence and personality of God, openly proclaims His Unity, and calls for monotheistic worship, to the exclusion of polytheism. -THE SECOND, by prohibiting idolatry, declares the Spirituality of God; and also calls for spiritual worship, by the promise of reward to those who love God, and by the threatening of punishment to those who hate (i. e. who do not love) Him. It says, as it were, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth."-THE THIRD involves a proclamation of the Greatness, Majesty, and Holiness of God. The declaration of the Divine Holiness, which has its foundation in truth, is especially emphatic when the commandment is regarded as a prohibition of perjury.-THE FOURTH provides a great means of that personal spiritual holiness, which has already been required; by setting apart a time for the constant hallowing of that name the glories of which have been proclaimed. In THE FIFTH, we find a call to the first practical development of the fear and love of God, -a prescribed bond of union

* How far more sublime, and more worthy of Deity, are the facts of Scripture, than the fictions of Heathen mythology! The Indian mountain Meru, and the Greek Olympus, were regarded as the thrones of their earthly and fictitious divinities; but the true God, the Most High, manifested Himself by coming down to Mount Sinai.

between the love of God and the love of our neighbour, — a provision for the foundation and maintenance of social order *, and (in those words, " and thy mother ") for the elevation of woman to her true rank in the social state. This commandment, like the first four, has an express reference to the Lord our God; and carries forward that reference to those remaining social laws which, in fact, rest upon it as their foundation. These laws occur in the following order and connection. THE SIXTH makes provision for the security of human life; a security which is the first necessity of social well-being. (Life is the gift of God.) — THE Seventh guards that which is next in importance to life itself, the sacred institution of marriage, which is the foundation of the family, the nursery of the religious principle, the seat of that filial love, or, as it is often called, filial piety, which has already been described as the connecting link between our love to God and our love to man. (Marriage is an ordinance of God.) — THE EIGHTH secures the possession of property, which may be regarded as the next in importance to the family relation. Human legislators ought not to forget that safety to property is a consideration inferior only to security to life, and the sanctity of marriage. (Property, as well as life and the family, have reference to God; each possessor being only God's steward, Lev. xxv. 23.)—THE NINTH is designed as a fence round a man's reputation, or good name; which is, in fact, a valuable kind of property. (Here, also, is reference to God; for calumny and slander are subtle sins; and a conscientious abstinence from these implies a recognition of the presence and authority of the Holy One.) - THE TENTH is directed against the inward source and root of all those sins against our neighbour which have already been forbidden. (Prohibition of spiritual sin, open only to the eye of God.) - Hence it may be perceived that all these commandments are, strictly speaking, moral; they are all concerned with man's relation to God. (See Lev. vi. 1—7.) And it may also be observed that all the civil and ceremonial regulations of the Mosaic institutes have reference to some one or more of these fundamental moral laws. So that the whole Mosaic economy has regard to the duties of a spiritual and holy life.

The next part of the Divine revelation delivered to Moses,

"For the family is the basis of society; and the parents are the centre of the family. The disorganisation of family life in a state is the surest and most melancholy symptom of its decay; the disobedient son will be a faithless husband, as he will undoubtedly prove an unpatriotic citizen, an untrustworthy friend, and an undutiful man."-KALISCH.