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HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL

COMMENTARY

ON

THE OLD TESTAMENT,

WITH

A NEW TRANSLATION

BY

M. KALISCH, PHIL. DOC., M.A.

EXODUS.

I BORE YOU ON EAGLES' WINGS, AND BROUGHT YOU TO MYSELF.—XIX. 4.

English Edition.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMANS.

1855.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. WERTHEIMER AND CO.,
CIRCUS PLACE FINSBURY CIRCUS.

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ALMOST marvellous is the progress which the Biblical sciences have made since the beginning of this century; it amounts to a total regeneration, and comprises nearly all branches of sacred literature. The knowledge of the holy tongue has been materially promoted by the profoundest grammatical and lexicographical researches; the vigorous study of Biblical history has facilitated our insight into the organic connection of the different books; whilst the critical analysis of universal history has disclosed the natural relation of the people of Israel with the other nations of antiquity; a host of eminent travellers have explored the geography of the East; have made us familiar with the customs of the Oriental nations; and have described many usages and institutions, which enable us correctly to understand numerous obscure Biblical passages and allusions.

However, all these efforts have hitherto remained isolated; no attempt has been made to unite them in one focus, and to bring them into immediate application on the exposition of the sacred books; the existing English Commentaries are mostly without the refreshing and animating breath of modern science; they are essentially composed of antiquated materials; they cannot entirely satisfy the educated or the learned reader, for the spirit of our time is that of progress and historical disquisition. It is the aim of the present work to attempt that amalgamation of modern enquiries; in the simplest possible form we have endeavoured to illustrate the sacred text in its various relations, and thus systematically to prepare the way for a more comprehensive penetration into the spirit of the Biblical records.

That such undertaking is really an urgent desideratum, is confirmed by the following remarks of the Rev. S. Davidson (in Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, i. p. 455),

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cultivates other branches than Oriental literature, we should recommend the larger edition, in which he will find the necessary references and a statement of the sources. In this smaller edition everything is omitted which might be deemed superfluous by the general reader.

We have commenced with the publication of the Second Book of the Pentateuch, because it forms the centre of Divine revelation, and because it is best calculated to convey a correct idea of the spirit and tendency of our Commentary; we have treated the explanation of the Mosaic laws with more copiousness than is the case in the existing Commentaries; for it is by its laws that the people of Israel was distinguished from all the other nations; by its theology it became the holy, the chosen people; whilst by its manners and customs it is only a member in the common family of the Oriental nations (see pp. vii. viii). The commentary on Genesis will follow next, and then the other books in due order.

The author, by observing, in conclusion, that he has endeavoured to sum up, as it were, the previous researches, in order to promote, however modestly, the Biblical exegesis, by calm and impartial combinations, has, at the same time established his claim to the indulgent examination of the learned public; he has undertaken the arduous work, strengthened by his love for the sacred and earliest sources of human civilization; and he willingly confides it to the benign protection of Divine grace.

M. KALISCH.

London, June 1st., 1855.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1.—IMPORTANCE, NAME, CONTENTS, DIVISION, AND

UNITY OF EXODUS.

1. THE history of Israel, and the progress of Divine
Revelation to Israel and to mankind, constitute the two
cardinal points of interest in the records of the Old
Testament. Prophecy itself is but a compound of those
two elements, for it is either prospective and anticipative
history, or an exhortative comment on the spirit of the
Divine Law. But in no part of the Sacred Volume are
those two ingredients so obviously and so completely com-
bined as in the Second Book of the Pentateuch. For
whilst Genesis treats of the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs,
Exodus narrates the fates of the Hebrew nation; the
former contains chiefly biographies, the latter history; the
one has more an archaeological, the other a purely historical
interest; the one is the promise, the other the fulfilment.1
Genesis has in every respect the character of an introduc-
tion; it teaches the existence, the omnipotence of God,
but discloses not His essence, defines not His internal
nature in its abstraction; it proclaims, at least indirectly,
the unity of God, but only in so far as He is the Lord
and Ruler of Nature; it implies many principles of
morality and human and divine right, but it does not
comprize them in a system, or consider them from one
common and ideal point of view; it contains the conclu-
sion of a covenant, but its sign and symbol is mysterious
and external; it therefore prepares us for the sublime
notions of sanctity, and religious life, but it does not
develop them in their ennobling consequences, it does not
ensure their practical effect upon the conduct of man by
other and more efficacious institutions; it records revela-
tions, but they are restricted to individuals-they refer to
1 Comp. Gen. xv. 13-16, and Exod. xii. 40.

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