THE LESSONS OF THE PLAGUES
OF EGYPT.

HE author of "The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation" has in very striking and forcible language shown "the design and adaptedness of the miracles, not only to distinguish the power of the true God, but to destroy the confidence placed in the protection and power of the idols."

The first miracle, while it authenticated the mission of Moses, destroyed the serpents which among the Egyptians were objects of worship, thus evincing in the outset that their gods could neither help the people nor save themselves.

The second miracle was directed against the river Nile, another object which they regarded with religious reverence. This river they held sacred, as the Hindoos do the Ganges; and even the fish in its waters they revered as objects of worship. They drank the water with reverence and delight, and supposed that a divine efficacy dwelt in its waves to heal diseases of the body. The water of this their cherished object of idolatrous homage was transmuted to blood, and its finny idols became a mass of putridity.

The third miracle was directed to the accomplishment of the same end-the destruction of faith in the river as an object of worship. The waters of the Nile were caused to send forth legions of frogs, which infested the whole land, and became a nuisance and a torment to the people. Thus their idol, by the power of the true God, was polluted, and turned into a source of pollution to its worshippers.

By the fourth miracle of a series constantly increasing in power and severity, lice came upon man and beast throughout the land. "Now if it be remembered," says Glieg, "that no one could approach the altars of Egypt upon whom so impure an insect harboured; and that the priests, to guard against the slightest risk of contamination, wore only linen garments, and shaved their heads and bodies every day, the severity of this miracle, as a judgment upon Egyptian idolatry, may be imagined. Whilst it lasted no act of worship could be performed; and so keenly was this felt, that the very magicians exclaimed, 'This is the finger of God!'"

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THE LESSONS OF THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

The fifth miracle was designed to destroy the trust of the people in Beelzebub, or the fly-god, who was reverenced as their protector from visitations of swarms of ravenous flies which infested the land generally about the time of the dog days, and removed only, as they supposed, at the will of this idol. The miracle now wrought by Moses evinced the impotence of Beelzebub, and caused the people to look elsewhere for relief from the fearful visitation under which they were suffering.

The sixth miracle, which destroyed the cattle, excepting those of the Israelites, was aimed at the destruction of the entire system of brute worship. This system, degrading and bestial as it was, had become a monster of many heads in Egypt. They had their sacred bull, and ram, and heifer, and goat, and many others, all of which were destroyed by the agency of the God of Moses. Thus by one act of power Jehovah manifested His own supremacy, and destroyed the very existence of their brute idols.

Of the peculiar fitness of the sixth plague (the seventh miracle), says the writer before quoted, the reader will receive a better impression when he is reminded that in Egypt there were several altars upon which human sacrifices were occasionally offered, when they desired to propitiate Typhon, or the Evil Principle. These victims being burned alive, their ashes were gathered together by the officiating priests, and thrown up into the air, in order that evil might be averted from every place to which an atom of the ashes was wafted. By the direction of Jehovah, Moses took a handful of ashes from the furnace (which, very probably, the Egyptians at this time had frequently used to turn aside the plagues with which they were smitten), and he cast it into the air, as they were accustomed to do; and instead of averting evil, boils and blains fell upon all the people of the land. Neither king, nor priest, nor people escaped. Thus the bloody rites of Typhon became a curse to the idolaters, the supremacy of Jehovah was affirmed, and the delivery of the Israelites insisted upon.

The ninth miracle was directed against the worship of Serapis, whose peculiar office was supposed to be to protect the country from locusts. At periods these destructive insects came in clouds upon the land, and, like an overshadowing curse, they blighted the fruits of the field and the verdure of the forest. At the command of Moses these terrible insects came-and they retired only at his bidding. Thus was the impotence of Serapis made manifest, and the idolaters taught the folly of trusting in any other protection than that of Jehovah, the God of Israel.

The eighth and tenth miracles were directed against the

THE LESSONS OF THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

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worship of Isis and Osiris, to whom and the river Nile they awarded the first place in the long catalogue of their idolatry. These idols were originally the representatives of the sun and moon; they were believed to control the light and the elements; and their worship prevailed in some form among all the early nations. The miracles directed against the worship of Isis and Osiris must have made a deep impression on the minds both of the Israelites and the Egyptians. In a country where rain seldom falls—where the atmosphere is always calm, and the light of the heavenly bodies always continued, what was the horror pervading all minds during the elemental war described in the Hebrew record!-during the long period of three days and three nights, while the gloom of thick darkness settled, like the outspread pall of death, over the whole land! Jehovah of hosts summoned nature to proclaim Him the true God-the God of Israel asserted His supremacy, and exerted His power to degrade the idols-destroy idolatry, and liberate the descendants of Abraham from the land of their bondage.

The Egyptians had, for a long time, cruelly oppressed the Israelites, and to put the finishing horror to their atrocities, they had finally slain at their birth the offspring of their victims; and now God, in the exercise of infinite justice, visited them with righteous retribution. In the mid watches of the night the "angel of the pestilence" was sent to the dwellings of Egypt, and he "breathed in the face" of all the firstborn in the land. In the morning the hope of every family, from the palace to the cottage, was a corpse! What mind can imagine the awful consternation of that scene, when an agonizing wail rose from the stricken hearts of all the parents in the nation! The cruel taskmasters were taught, by means which entered their souls, that the true God was a God not only of power but of judgment, and, as such, to be feared by evil-doers, and reverenced by those that do well.

The demonstration, therefore, is conclusive, that in view of the idolatrous state of the world, and especially of the character and circumstances of the Israelites, the true God could have made a revelation of Himself in no other way than by the means and in the manner of the miracles of Egypt; and none but the true God could have revealed Himself in this way.

Biblical Criticism.

THE EGYPTIANS LENDING TO THE ISRAELITES.

EXODUS xii. 36.-" And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. they spoiled the Egyptians."

And

The

"LENT," or gave. The word here used in the Hebrew means simply "granted their requests." Whether the grant is made as a loan, or as a gift, depends in every instance upon the context. In this case the question is whether the Israelites asked for the jewels and the Egyptians granted them as a loan with reference to the festival in the wilderness; or whether this was regarded on both sides as a moderate remuneration for long service, and a compensation for cruel wrongs. The word "spoiling" (3,22). ought to be regarded as conclusive for the latter sense. Arabic translator Saadia uses the word "gave." The Syriac and the Targum Onk have the exact equivalent of the Hebrew. Rosenmuller says truly, in Hebrew the word means simply "to give," often with the idea of willingness or readiness. Thus, too, Knobel, who altogether rejects the notion of lending; and Kalisch, even if the word were taken, as it is by some distinguished scholars, in the sense "lent," it must be remembered that the actual cause which prevented the Egyptians from recovering their property was that the return of the Israelites was cut off by the treachery of Pharaoh.-Speaker's Commentary.

THE PILLAR OF CLOUD AND OF FIRE.

EXODUS xiii. 21.-" And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night."

THE Lord himself did for the Israelites by preternatural means that which armies were obliged to do for themselves by natural agents. Passages are quoted from classical writers which show that the Persians and Greeks used fire and smoke as signals in their marches. Curtius describes the practice of Alexander, who gave the signal for departure by a fire on a tall pole over his tent and says, Observabatur ignis noctu fumus interdiu. Vegetius and Frontius mention it as a general custom, especially among the Arabians. The success of some important expeditions, as of Thrasybulus and Timoleon, was

attributed by popular superstition to a divine light guiding the leaders. To these well-known instances may be added two of peculiar interest, as bearing witness to a custom known to all the contemporaries of Moses. In an inscription of the ancient Empire an Egyptian general is compared to "a flame streaming in advance of an army." Thus, too, in a well known papyrus, the commander of an expedition is called "a flame in the darkness at the head of his soldiers." By this sign, then, of the pillar of cloud, the Lord showed Himself as their leader and general. "The Lord is a man of war. Thy right hand, O Lord,

hath dashed in pieces the enemy.-Ibid.

THE EGYPTIAN MAGICIANS AND THEIR ENCHANTMENTS.

EXODUS vii. 11,-"Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments."

THE derivation of the original expression (" enchantments ") is ambiguous. It may come from a word meaning "flame," or from another meaning "conceal," in either case it implies a deceptive appearance, an illusion, a juggler's trick, not an actual putting forth of magic power. It bears a very near resemblance to an Egyptian term for a magic formula. Moses describes the act of the sorcerers as it appeared to Pharaoh and the spectators; living serpents may have been thrown down by the jugglers, a feat not transcending the well-known skill of their modern representatives, with whom it is a common trick to handle venomous serpents, and benumb them so that they are motionless and stiff as rods. Pharaoh may or may not have believed in a real transformation; probably he did, for the jugglers have always formed a separate caste, and have kept their arts secret; but in either case he would naturally consider that if the portent wrought by Aaron differed from theirs, it was a difference of degree only, implying merely superiority in a common art. The miracle which followed was sufficient to convince him, had he been open to conviction. The accounts in the Koran are curious. They represent the magicians as deceiving the spectators by acting upon their imagination.-Ibid.

UNIVERSAL HOMAGE TO JESUS..

PHILIPPIANS ii. 10.-"That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth."

SOME read this "in the name of Jesus," &c., and hence the text is quoted as a proof that all prayers, to gain acceptance, must be presented in the name of the One Mediator. The im