losophy of religion than to a Biblical commentary, we refer to our "Lecture on Predestination and Free Will," in which we have endeavoured to elucidate this difficult subject. In general, we observe:

1. The difference between the omniscience of God and His predestination if always properly regarded, will remove, in a great measure, the obscurity of such passages, so that they amount to the sense of the words (iii. 19): "And I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, even not by a mighty hand"in which words no critic will find any objectionable idea.

2. As the external, often accidental, occasion of an event is mostly more obvious, even to the reflecting mind, than its primary cause or its true (often hidden) originator, it has become a linguistic peculiarity in most ancient, especially the Semitic, languages, to use indiscriminately the former instead of the latter, so that the phrase, "I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh" means: I know that I shall be the cause of Pharaoh's obstinacy; my commandments and wonders will be an occasion, an inducement to an increasing obduration of his heart. And the compassionate leniency of God, who, instead of crushing the haughtiness of the refractory king with one powerful blow, first tried to reform him by various less awful punishments, and who generally announced the time of the occurrence of the plagues by the words, "Behold I shall afflict to-morrow," in order to grant him time for reflection and repentance; this clemency on the part of God increased Pharaoh's refractoriness; it was to him a cause of prolonged and renewed resistance.

3. The opinion of Luther and his followers, that God allows the sin of man, without causing it, not only not removes the difficulty, but adds new objections to our problem. If God sees the wicked man medi

tate pernicious scnemes, which He might by His mere will destroy, and yet permits the nefarious deeds to be executed, even the pious heart might doubt of the divine interference in the affairs of man, and lose the firm belief in the strict justice of God. Thus the world would in reality become a prey to chance, or to the arbitrariness of the impious, who are allowed to carry out without check or control their mischievous plan. But nothing except the unshaken confidence in the direction and sole government of God, who reigns supreme over mankind and their fates, can satisfy the religious mind in its reflections on the destinies of individuals and of nations. Every deed, whether good or evil, is a means in the hand of God; however, the evil deed is not converted into a blessing because it happens to have been performed, but because God designed it from the beginning as an instrument of His will and His higher decrees; just as Joseph replied to his brothers: "You intended it as an evil against me, but GOD intended it as a blessing." The deed of man, and the will of God, go hand in hand; they are contemporary, they are, in fact, identical.

4. The whole spirit of the Pentateuch utterly excludes the idea, that God infatuated Pharaoh, merely in order to punish him; that He first compels man to wickedness, and then calls him to account for it. The origin of sin, as related in the third chapter of Genesis, is alone sufficient to impress upon us the conviction, that free choice and unfettered will are granted to man, to pursue virtue and to shun crime (see Deut. ii. 26). The Mosaic legislation is entirely and exclusively based on the doctrine of retaliation; and the exclamation of Isaiah (iii. 10,11): " Say ye to the righteous that they shall be blessed, for they shall enjoy the fruits of their actions. Woe to the wicked; for the reward of their hands they shall reap;" this idea

forms the leading principle of the whole Old Testament. Misfortune is the consequence of sin, as virtue is the necessary cause of happiness; and both bliss and misery stand again under the higher supervision of Providence. Therefore, admitting even that phrases like that of our text are obscure, they cannot possibly be used to overthrow a clear fundamental doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, which would, without it, be deprived of their most divine principle.

22. Israel is my son, even my firstborn, that is, Israel is that nation which knew and adored me the first among all generations of men, and which I have, therefore, more especially taken under the wings of my protection, loving them as a father loves his first-born son, on whom he places his entire hope and pride. It is less appropriate to take, with Rashi, the word first-born here in the signification of greatness, as in Ps. lxxxix. 28, where David is called so, and where it is explained in the second part of the verse by: "the highest among the kings of the earth.”—It may be mentioned, that Moses never, in addressing Pharaoh, either before or after a plague, uses the words here commanded to him, Israel is my first-born son, but only, send my people (v. 1; vi. 16; vii. 26, etc).

23. I shall slay thy son, even thy first-born. Although this menace was pronounced to Pharaoh only before the last plague, God mentions it already here, because it contained the severest and most fearful punishment, and stood in exact correspondence with the obduracy of Pharaoh, who should lose his first-born son because he oppressed the first-born son of God. But Rashi believes that Moses addressed these words to Pharaoh already at his first appearance before him, in order to show, from the beginning, the dreadful judgment of the Almighty which awaited his obstinacy; for "the

loving-kindness of God warns man, in due season, to return from his wickedness."

24. And it came to pass by the way, in the resting-place for the night. At present there are, in the East, instead of our inns or hotels, in suitable intervals, in towns, villages, and on the open road, houses which offer shelter during the night, for travellers and their animals, mostly gratuitously; sometimes, also, provisions are sold there for moderate prices (such buildings are called in Arabic, Mansils, Chans, or Caravansaries. But such houses were unknown to the Israelites in the earlier periods; they had a malon, which is either a moveable tent temporarily pitched up for the night, or a cavern adapted for the purpose of pernoctation; and it is known that, even at present, travellers use such tents for resting-places during the night in the very vicinity of towns. We have, therefore, rejected the rendering of malon by inn, as it is given by the English Version; besides, inns were, in the East where the virtue of hospitality is practised with the conscientiousness and cheerfulness of a religious duty, almost superfluous, although there were a few in less populous regions (see Niebuhr, Travels, 46; Robinson, iii. 480, 575; Wellsted, ii. 218).-The Lord met him, and sought to kill him. Instead of God, Onkelos, the Septuagint, and the Arabic Version, have here the angel of God.-Although this, and the two following verses (which belong together) are obscure, and not without difficulties, they are not nearly so unintelligible as the critical zeal of many interpreters has represented them.—1st. The context shows clearly, that the pronouns belonging to the two verbs, the Lord met him, and sought to kill him, refer, necessarily, to Moses, and not to the child, which has never been mentioned before (the poetical diction in passages

like Psalm lxxxvii. 1, can decide nothing for the prosaical connections), and which was too innocent to have deserved death. 2nd. It is further clear (from ver. 26), that the reason why the Lord sought to kill Moses, was, his neglect in circumcising his (no doubt new-born) second son, Eliezer (see on ver. 20), a neglect the more culpable in Moses, as circumcision was, hitherto, the only sign of the covenant between God and Israel; and as he, who had been sent to renew that alliance, was, above all others, bound to perform and respect that symbol. Therefore are the opinions of those who find the guilt of Moses in his having taken his family with him into the land of idolatry, or in having occupied himself too much with the worldly comforts for the night, gratuitous conjectures rather than genuine explanations of our text. Even the interpretation of Abarbanel, who observes, that the spirit of prophecy descended upon Moses at the resting-place, but, absorbed as he was, by temporal anxieties, he was unable to receive and apply it, is more specious than real; for it would be difficult to comprehend how the spirit of prophecy "sought to kill Moses." More plausible is the supposition of Ebn Ezra, that Moses fell suddenly into a serious illness, which reminded him of his transgression, and convinced him that he was in danger of death, unless he corrected it without delay. It is unnecessary to mention the various artificial conjectures which this verse has been doomed to call forth.

25. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, or stone knife. In Joshua v. 2, 3, we read that the circumcision of the people was, in the land of Canaan, performed with knives of sharp stones, evidently coinciding with the instrument named in our text. The use of stones for similar purposes, was prevalent in the East, even in times when the application of metal in

struments of all kinds was long known and universally adopted. According to Ludolf (Descript. of Ethiopia, iii. 1. § 21), the Alnaji, an Ethiopian tribe, used sharpened flints for the circumcision of their children; and they continue this practice most probably to this day. According to Herodotus (ii. 86), the Egyptians opened the bodies, which were to be embalmed, with flint-knives. Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv. 12) informs us, that the priests of Cybele used similar instruments for their castration. According to Josephus (Antiq. XIV. iv. 1), the rind of trees which contained balm, was opened with stone knives. Diodorus Siculus (iii. 15) mentions that the Ichthyophagi, on the Arabian Sea, open their fish with sharp flints. The American tribes made battle-axes, knives and daggers, of stone before they knew the application of the metals. And even now those Jewish male children who die before the eighth day from their birth, are circumcised with stone knives. -And she cut off the foreskin of her son, and put it at his feet, and said, Thou art indeed a bridegroom of blood to me. We explain these obscure words in the simplest manner, thus: Zipporah circumcised (cut off the foreskin of) her son-for Moses was unable to perform the ceremony on account of his illness, and laid it before the feet of this son, exclaiming, with a mixed feeling of indignation and tenderness," Although all Hebrew children, from the blood of circumcision, (by which alone they are received into the covenant of the Lord), might justly be called bridegrooms, or sons of blood, thou, Eliezer, deservest indeed (in reality) this name much more, because the neglect of that circumcision had almost caused the death of my husband." It appears to us impossible to refer the pronouns "at his feet," and "thou art indeed," to any other substantive but the son, the only masculine noun in the whole sentence; they cannot apply

3 Let him go. to Moses (as many suppose), nor, much less, to the destroying angel, as the Targumim render. The Hebrew word, which appears here to be used designedly, includes, most happily, the two significations of relative or bridegroom, and circumcision (compare, in Arabic,

any relative on the part of the wife, and

circumcision); and, since the cir

cumcision was considered as a symbol of the covenant between God and the child, it might, poetically, be compared with a matrimonial alliance. Ebn Ezra observes, that 66 women call their circumcised children bridegrooms," and the child is, even at present, on the day of his circumcision, named among the Israelites "bridegroom of the covenant." We have, therefore, translated, "bridegroom of blood," instead of "bloody husband," which the English Version offers. Targ. Onkelos and Targ. Jonathan express the sense almost correctly; the former renders, " by the blood of circumcision of this one, my husband has been restored to me;" the latter, "and Zipporah said: 'My husband wished to circumcise the child, but his father-in-law prevented him; but now the blood of circumcision will expiate the guilt of my husband.'” The Septuagint

offers a remarkable deviation from our text: "the blood of circumcision of my son has ceased," which seems to be based on a quite different reading of the Hebrew text. Gesenius explains the words put it at his feet thus: " and she touched the feet of Moses with the blood of the child, which is the rite of expiation." But, 1st. the word blood is not before mentioned; and 2nd. as bridegroom of blood is referred to

66

(Simi

the child, we should have a very singular change in the application of the pronouns (similar are the interpretations of Abulwalid, Kimchi, Spencer, Pococke, Mendelssohn, and others). Of the numberless other explanations, we give only that of Rosenmüller, which is not without some appearance of probability: Zipporah threw, with a certain indignation, the foreskin before the feet of Moses, and said to him: 'I am compelled to redeem and preserve you by blood, namely, that of my son; for unless I had circumcised him, and thus shed his blood, thy life would have been forfeited."' larly Glaire). But to this interpretation also applies the objection, that the pronoun in "his feet" cannot refer to Moses, who is mentioned neither in this nor in the preceding verse.--The reason why Moses neglected such an important duty as that of the circumcision of his son, has been sought in the supposition that Eliezer was, perhaps, born only a few days before the departure of Moses from Midian; and, not wishing to delay the mission which God had entrusted to him, he took the child with him, intending to perform in Egypt the circumcision, which he feared might be dangerous during the journey. But it is more probable, that Zipporah, adhering to the custom of the Arabians, who, considering the operation perilous and improper in such young infants,circumcise their children only at their thirteenth year, had persuaded Moses to postpone that sacred ceremony.

26. And He desisted from him, namely, God desisted from Moses, or, in other words, the illness of the latter ceased; thus Zipporah became perfectly convinced that the danger into which her husband

had fallen was occasioned by the neglected circumcision of their child, and she, therefore, exclaimed again in the words: a bridegroom of blood thou art, because of the circumcision; which words can grammatically only signify, "thou art a bridegroom of blood, but not so far as to cause the death of my husband, but only as regards the blood of circumcision." Targum Onkelos renders incorrectly: "but for the blood of circumcision of this child, my husband would have incurred a crime of death." Targum Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase freely: “Then began Zipporah hymns of praise, saying: 'How dear is this blood of circumcision, which has rescued my husband from the hand of the destroying angel!"” — We believe that, after the explanation given on this passage (ver. 24-26), its meaning and connection will be intelligible; however, if it should be asked why this event is related in such obscure phraseology, we may advert to the great art of composition displayed in this point also. The whole occurrence is a mysterious act of divine warning and retribution; Moses' illness was a "rod of correction" in the hand of God; he felt and understood the divine chastisement, and was delivered from his imminent danger. Over this event a transparent veil is spread, not to conceal the guilt of Moses, but to allow a larger scope to imagination to represent it to itself in its whole extent.

27. And he went, and met him in the mountain of God, that is, Mount Horeb (see our note on iii. 1). Targum Onkelos and Jonathan render here also: mountain on which the Lord was re

"the

vealed." If we compare the relative geographical position of the nomadic

part of Midian (see our note on ii. 15), and of Lower Egypt, of which Goshen was a province, we cannot but see that Moses must, for some purpose not related in our text, have gone again so much southwards as Mount Horeb, perhaps because this was the most appropriate place to meet Aaron, whom he would have missed in the extended pathless desert. And he (Aaron) kissed him (Moses). Ebn Ezra observes on this verse: "Aaron was not gifted with prophecy, nor was there any occasion for it; for Moses was the messenger despatched to Pharaoh, and he sent Aaron to the Israelites, and Miriam to their wives." Abarbanel, however, finds in the expression, that Moses and Aaron "met at the mountain of God," an allegorical allusion, that the spirit of prophecy had descended on both brothers.

28. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord which He had charged him. The usual translation, who had sent him, is languid in the extreme; and makes these words a superfluous addition. But the Hebrew word here applied signifies often: to; and is sometimes construed with a double accusative in the signification of charge somebody with some commission, for instance, quite similar to our passage in 2 Sam. xi. 22: "and he told David all things which Joab had charged him;" see also Isaiah lv. 11. Similarly already the Septuagint and Vulgate.

29. About the elders of the children of Israel, see note on iii. 16.

30. And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses; in harmony with the command of God, who appointed Aaron as the interpreter