should carry away. And so it happened: the Egyptians lent the departing people precious vessels and clothes, because (as we are once expressly told) Moses was held in great honour by the Egyptian people as well as by Pharaoh's servants; and as, from the sequel of the story, Israel could not return to Egypt after Pharaoh's treachery and the incidents on the Red Sea, and therefore was not bound to return the borrowed goods, the people kept them and despoiled the Egyptians of them. That this abstraction is no theft in the eyes of the narrator, and that nothing but Pharaoh's subsequent treachery rendered the return of the goods impossible, is a matter of course. And as in this turn of affairs to the advantage of Israel there may be a kind of divine recompense-in so far as, seen from the end, it appears a piece of high retributive justice, far above human inequalities, that those who had long been oppressed in Egypt should now be forced to borrow the necessary vessels from the Egyptians and be obliged by Pharaoh's subsequent treachery to retain them, and thus be indemnified for long oppressionthe Fifth Narrator might imagine this end as necessarily foretold by Jahve at the very beginning, and therefore treat the subject as we now see it. Yet the whole affair contains something so special, and is so loosely connected with the remaining occurrences of the story, that it must have originally had a weightier meaning. Why are only vessels and clothes mentioned? are these in themselves so very important? We learn nothing else of any such apparently trivial things in those times; why then just of these? We are brought nearer to the original significance by the fact that these vessels and clothes 3 were undeniably intended for use in the sacrificial festival which Israel was about to celebrate. This places us at once on a higher level, and we feel that it must so much the less have been an ordinary theft. Israel deprived the Egyptians of the true religion, took from them the proper apparatus of sacrifice, and with them the true sacred rites and victims themselves this must manifestly be the original meaning of this tradition. In every such great crisis of the histories and religions of two peoples, the main point is, which of the contending parties will wrest the good to himself, which suffer it to be wrested from him. For some higher and greater good develops itself in the very struggle, and one of the antagonists ultimately lets the prize be snatched from him. As victor, 1 Ex. xi. 3. : mon x. 17, allude to this passage of history. According to Ex. iii. 12, and other similar passages. Israel had then reason to boast of having acquired the right sacrifice from the Egyptians. This resembles the story of Rachel's purloining Laban's household gods (p. 355 sq.), or the Greek myth of the theft of the Golden Fleece.' Without doubt, then, this is based on some primeval significative story, which the last narrator first brought into its present connection. And when we remember that the sharpness and cunning, or even in a certain sense the justice, of theft was actually admired and praised, and by no nation so early and so generally as by the Egyptians, we cannot fail to recognise in this passage of the great Egyptian-Hebrew tradition a true Egyptian colouring and high antiquity. We have only to regret that the whole story is not preserved entire. 2 In like manner some minute reminiscences of the beginning of the Exodus itself have been preserved from the oldest documents. We are now prepared (from p. 481 sq.) to think that Moses, after Pharaoh had obstinately refused, or only hypocritically granted, the request for free exercise of their religion, was perfectly justified in meditating a complete emigration of the people. In that case he must have known beforehand the country to which he intended to lead it: and all indications tend to show that from the first he thought only of Canaan, and set the people's hearts on that land only. It was his fixed prophetic habitude to direct Israel to the land which Jahve will give thee;' and it was the firm belief that this would assuredly come to pass at length, which nerved and sustained him and through him Israel. This is one of the grand prophetical declarations which impelled and supported all that long period. He might therefore have intended to lead the people to Canaan at once by the shortest road; and that he really did intend this, is to be deduced from the earliest reminiscences which have been preserved. The expedition set out from the town Raamses." This town was indeed regarded (according to p. 434) as the chief city of the land of Goshen; but another reason for its being chosen as the place of rendezvous and departure, evidently was that it lay more to the east than the above (p. 436) men See Josephus, Ant. xviii. 9. 5 for an instance occurring in the first century of the Christian era and in the same region, and similar though sometimes obscure heathen stories in Theoph. ad Autolyc. ii. 52, p. 246 Wolf; Müller's Orchomenos. p. 385; C. Müller Fragm. Hist. Graec. tom. iii. p. 388 sq.; and note also how in the Shahnameh Alexander steals from Darius his cup, by which according to Gen. xliv. 2 sq. more than a common cup tioned Pithom. According to the earliest narrator, however, 'God led the people when they set forth in complete battle array, not by the nearest way, that to the north-east (through the land of the Philistines), to Canaan, but by the south-east, over the desert near the Red Sea; because he feared that the people, terrified or defeated by the powerful enemies which it would inevitably meet, might turn back to Egypt.' This very simple view undoubtedly contains the right key to the understanding of the first marches of the people under Moses. That the nations which they would unavoidably meet on the nearest north-eastern route were no Hyksôs-that is, allies of Israel of ancient date, or at any rate peoples of cognate racewe may gather from other indications also (see p. 242 sqq.). To lead the people in the first movement of its hurried departure, and in its very unprepared state, immediately against such nations, should they strenuously oppose the transit, would have been the last mode of escape that a prudent leader would choose. Nevertheless, we now perceive from the exact indications of the several encampments, as well as from the embarrassment of the immediately succeeding history, that that north-eastern route (probably to the north of Lake Timsah or the Crocodile Lake) was really the one at first adopted, as if Moses himself had not at first thoroughly appreciated the great danger that threatened from that quarter. The people advanced two stations on this route, and there stood on the frontier of the land, at the border of the desert that separates Egypt from Palestine, the land of the Philistines.2 Now at that spot he must have resolved to ''in fives,' Ex. xiii. 17 sq., i. e. divided into centre, right and left wing, van and rear: the simplest arrangement of an army marching in order of battle; see the description of Saladin's army in Freytag's Chrest. Arab. 1834, p. 120, 1. 2, and on Earl Munster's Fihrist. p. 59; and so the army and camp of Israel was arranged in later times also. That the Israelites departed unarmed is a groundless assumption of Philo, Life of Moses, i. 31 (Eus. Præp. Ev. viii. 6, 8); Josephus, Antiquities, ii. 15. 3, 4, 16. 6, and other later writers. 2 According to Num. xxxiii. 5 sq.; Ex. xiii. 20, comp. xiv. 2, 3, 9, they journeyed 'from Rameses to Succoth, and from thence to Etham at the edge of the desert.' Modern inquirers have hitherto discovered neither Succoth nor Etham, and if sought in a southern direction straight towards the Red Sea (as is the case even in Robinson's Travels, vol. i. p. 54 sq.), it is not likely that they will ever be found; for the unusual expression to turn back,' Num. xxxiii. 7, Ex. xiv. 2, so strongly emphasised by the writer in his brief remarks, would then have no meaning. But the entire Arabian desert bordering on Egyptian territory, and extending southwards beyond the point of the Red Sea, is known by the name of Etham, Num. xxxiii. 8. The commonly received opinion of modern writers, that the Israelites took the high road which leads from Heliopolis to the south-east, with which the modern route starting from Qâhira (Cairo) is nearly identical, scarcely deserves refutation, although mentioned by Josephus, Antiquities, ii. 15. 1. And Tischendorf's opinion also (de Israelitarum per Mare Rubrum transitu, Lips. 1847), that they started from Heliopolis and went to the north-east, rests upon the assumption of the identity of Rameses with Heliopolis; an opinion found only in Josephus (Antiquities, ii. 7. 6) and still 492 : strike off into the other route, and first to collect his forces at the sanctuary of Sinai, with his near friend the prince of Midian. Beyond doubt hostile bands threatened from the north-east, if he did not change his route. Thus he led the host halfway back (probably first south-west between the Crocodile Lake and the Bitter Lakes) completely into Egyptian territory, then westward from the Bitter Lakes, in an almost desolate tract, due south, down to the place where he would fall in with that southeastern route and encamped there at Pi-hahiroth, a small place which doubtless lay on the western coast of the Red Sea, above Suez. We are not told how many days were lost in this change of plan and in the return hither; but if Pharaoh was informed of it and then sent an army against Israel, several days must have elapsed, which is indeed intrinsically the most probable. This much at any rate follows naturally from the above, that these cross-marches might easily lead Pharaoh to the belief that the people were 'lost in the land,' that the desert (the north-eastern one towards Palestine) had shut them in '-i.e. had taken them prisoners and made them a prey.2 And as his readiness to consent to the Exodus had never been great, it is easy to understand how he would take advantage of this perplexity of the leader of Israel and still carry off the victory by a sudden coup de main. In this case his plan could not be doubtful: he had to pursue Moses from the north-west on the later writers; but originally not held even by the LXX., as is evident by page 434 sq. (the variation of Codex vii. e kalv for kal v makes no difference), and intrinsically utterly baseless. the exact position of Etham, we could If we knew pretty nearly determine from it that of Rameses, which is to be looked for at two short days' journey to the west of it. See Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft, iv. p. 228-230. 1 'Pi-hahiroth over against Baal-Zephon (the city of Typhon, according to page 435) between Migdol and the sea,' Ex. xiv. 2, 9. See also Num. xxxiii. 7, where as the encampment was not close to Migdol, we are forced to assume that after have פִּי הַחִירוֹת בִּין הַיָּם וּבֵין the words fallen out, as also that in ver. 8 is to be read for D. It was clearly not a large or well-known place; as otherwise it would not have been so fully described. The opinion of Léon de la Borde in his Commentaire géographique sur l'Exode et les Nombres (Paris, 1841), that the present castle 'Agerûd or Agrud ' called by Pococke and Shaw Agerute (see north-west of Suez, is to be identified Hartmann's Edrisii Africa, p. 441) to the with its site and name (in which case pi must be considered as Migdol see above, p. 429; it was probably article), is not without probability. On the Egyptian originally the advanced bulwark of Abari of Pelusium on the north. on the west, as the other Migdol was that On the other hand, Linant in the Mé- back, mentioned p. 491 must have been a Great Red Sea. 2 Ex. xiv. 3. route leading to the Red Sea, in order if possible to overwhelm him before he could attempt to cross the Sea; because Moses had lost all power of moving to the north, the sea seemed to cut off all flight to the east, and an escape to the south was in itself out of the question. When he, driven by revenge in the execution of this resolve, blindly attacked the flying people and there effected his own destruction, quite as unexpectedly as they their escape to Asia, the whole external history of Moses and his time suddenly reaches its culminating point; and incidents which by themselves, out of the nexus of their antecedents and consequences, and apart from the spiritual agencies working in secret, would have had no extraordinary significance, constitute by their connection with the rest a most momentous event, which determined the course of history for many ages. II. THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. For I do not hesitate to assert most emphatically that it is solely in consequence of the immediately preceding and then continuing excitation of noblest efforts and extraordinary spiritual energies that the event by which the history of Moses rapidly attains its culmination-the destruction of the Egyptian host in the Red Sea and the preservation of Israel-has acquired its unparalleled importance; but that otherwise, like a hundred other events resembling it externally, it would have passed away almost traceless in human history, and its very memory have been readily lost. The highest efforts and sublimest energies of the spirit struggling for deliverance must have immediately. preceded it, not merely on the part of Moses, but also on that of the nation gathering around him and courageously following his voice, when it called them to freedom. This is implied in the nature of the case; and what existing narratives relate respecting it can only be regarded as a slight reminiscence of the days which witnessed the rise of a most powerful spiritual movement. It is equally certain that this joyful confidence in the approaching decision at the Red Sea, once aroused, must have remained unweakened; for that even in this moment of pressing danger the great leader at least did not lose clear insight and self-possession, but, unappalled either by the advancing Egyptians or by the faintheartedness and murmurings of the people, led over the host with indomitable courage, this cannot appear a less achievement than anything which the Man of God had already attempted and |