The seventy palm-trees signify the church, which is compared

to a palm-tree, Cant. vii. 7,8. Deborah, the type of the church, dwells under the palm tree. Believers are compared to palm trees, 1 Kings, vi. 29. "And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims, and palmtrees, and open flowers, within and without;" which represented saints and angels; the number seventy answers to the seventy elders which were representatives of the whole congregation of Israel, and are called the congregation; Numb. xxxii. 12, Josh. xx. 6; or church, which is a word of the same signification.

It is probable the palm-trees grew so about these twelve fountains, that their roots were watered and received nourishment from them.

[59] Exod xvi. 19, 20. "Let no man leave of it till the morning," &c. Hereby perhaps we are designed to be taught our absolute dependence every day upon God, for the supplies of his grace and spiritual food. We not only depend on him for the first conversion of the soul, but daily depend on him for grace afterwards. This manna must be given us every day, or we should be without food. We are taught not to rest in and live upon past attainments, but to be continually looking to God, and by faith fetching from him fresh supplies. We must not lay up in store the grace of this day for to-morrow, to save us the trouble of seeking and gathering more. We never have any to spare; hereby we shall make a righteousness of what we receive and do; and when we make that use of it, it is like manna that breeds worms and stinks.

[473] Exod. xvii. 9. "I will stand on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand." Moses's rod, as has elsewhere been observed, signifies three things, each of which it signifies in this case. 1. It signifies Faith, by which God's people overcome their enemies: "for this is the victory that overcomes even our faith."

Mr. Henry says this rod was held up to God by way of ap. peal to him. Is not the battle the Lord's? Is not he able to help, and engaged to help? Witness this rod, the voice of which thus held up was that of Isaiah li. 9, 10. Put on thy strength, O arm of the Lord; Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab?

2. It represents the word of God, the rod of his strength, which is the weapon by which Christ, the antitype of Moses, overcomes his church's enemies. This is the sword which proceeds out of his mouth.

3. Christ himself lifted up as the banner of his militant church. Christ is prophecied of in Isai. xi. as a Rod, "a rod out of the stem of Jesse ;" and in the same place it is said, "He shall stand for an ensign of the people, and their ensign as an army brought out of Egypt, and fighting and conquering their enemies; the children of Edom, in particular, are mentioned, ver. 1—10, 11, 12. 14, 15, 16. This ensign and banner is Jehovah-Nissi, Jehovah our banner, agreeable to the name of the altar Moses built on this occasion, ver. 15. Moses stood on the top of an hill, and there lift up this ensign, the wonderworking rod, which had brought such plagues on their enemies, and such marvellous deliverance for them before, that the people at the sight of it might be animated in the battle. Christ himself, when he was lifted up on the cross, that he might draw all men to him, was lifted up on an hill. He stood and cried on the top of an hill, even the mountain of the temple at the feast of tabernacles. God hath exalted him to heaven, set him on his holy hill of Zion; hath caused him to ascend an high hill, as the hill of Bashan; hath set this rod in the mountain of the height of Israel, and from thence his glory is manifested to gather men to him, and to animate his church to fight his battles. From thence his glory was manifested on the day of Pentecost after his ascension, and from thence it will be manifested to his church, when they shall go forth to their victory over Antichrist and all their enemies. He will shine forth on that mountain of the house of the Lord, from behind the veil, from between the cherubim; and all flesh shall behold it, and so all nations shall flow together to the mountain of the Lord-shall be gathered to this ensign; and then shall that be fulfilled in Isai. xi. 10. "At that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek"; ver. 12; "And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth."

[205] Exod. xvii. 15. "And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-Nissi," (i. e. The Lord my banner.) Altars were types of Christ, and therefore were sometimes called by the name of God, as Jacob called the altar he built in Bethel, El Bethel, or the God of Bethel. The special reason of Moses's calling this altar, that he built on occasion of their victory over Amalek, the Lord my Banner, was that Christ in that battle was in a special type represented as the banner of his people, under which they fought against their enemies, to which they should look, and by which they should be conducted

as an army were by their banner or ensign, viz. in Moses holding up the rod of God in his hand on the top of the hill, as verses 9, 10, 11, 12. That rod was a type of Christ, as has been shown, No. 195. Moses, while the people were fighting with Amalek, held up this rod as the banner under which the people should fight; while Moses held up this rod, Israel prevailed, and when he let it down, Amalek prevailed.

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This is agreeable to what God commanded when the children of Israel were bitten with fiery serpents. Num. xxi. 8. "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole;" in the original it is, it for a banner," or "ensign," or "upon an ensign." likelihood, the brazen serpent was set up on one of the poles of the standards or ensigns of the camp, and probably on the standard of the tribe of Judah, which was a lion, and was a type of Christ, who is the lion of the tribe of Judah: so it is prophecied that Christ should stand for an ensign. Isai. xi. 10. 12, " And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek-And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel."

[474] Exod. xx. 24, 25, 26. "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me -And if thou wilt make an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it; neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar." These rules have respect to what was to be done now immediately, the altars they were to erect, and the sacrifices that were to be offered in the wilderness before the building of the tabernacle. God's altar was to be very plain and very low, so that they might have no occasion to go up to it by steps. The heathen greatly adorned their altars with the curious works of their own hands, and worshipped in high places, and built their altars very high, thinking hereby to put great honours on their gods, and made their services very acceptable to them. But God lets his people know that their seeming adorning, by their own art and handy work, will be but polluting, and their recommending themselves by their high altars will be dishonouring themselves, and showing their own nakedness: perhaps typifying this, that whenever men ascend high and exalt themselves in ther own works or righteousness in God's service, they show their own nakedness, and pollute his worship, and render the services they offer abominable to God. Mr. Henry has this note on this rule for plain affairs: "This rule being prescribed before the ceremonial law was given, which appointed altars much more costly, intimates that after the period of that law, plainness should be accepted as the best ornament of the external services of religion, and that gos

pel worship should not be performed with external pomp and gayety."

[63] Exod. xxiii. 20. “Behold, I send an angel before thee," &c. This does not seem to be the same angel spoken of in the xxxiii. chap., which was a created angel, but the Son of God; for what was spoken here before was in the name of the Father.

[112] Exod. xxiv. 18. "And Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights." Moses being so long in the mount with God when he received his mind and will to reveal to Israel, represents Christ's being in heaven with his Father to receive his mind and will to reveal to his church-his being from all eternity in the bosom of the Father; and it may be particularly forty days, because Christ came down from heaven, signified by this mount; it was four thousand years from the beginning of time, and from the creation and fall of man, and since the covenant of grace first took place, and Christ actually became the Mediator between God and man; which, putting ten for a thousand, and every age or century for a day, answers to forty days. That mount, when Moses was in it with God, typified heaven, as the apostle teaches, Heb. viii. 5.

[285] Exod. xxv. 10, &c. "And they shall make an ark of Shittim-wood," &c. The ark was upon many accounts a lively type of Jesus Christ. The ark was united to the Godhead, it had the cloud of glory over it and upon it, which was the symbol of God's immediate presence. The ark was the throne of God; Jer. iii. 17; i. e. it was that that was his immediate seat, and where he was present in an higher manner than he was in any other place, or to which his presence was united in a more immediate manner than to any thing else. God was present in the land of Canaan, or the holy land, more than in any other part of the face of the earth. God was present in Jerusalem, the holy city, or city of God, above all other places of the land of Canaan, and he was present in his temple above all other places in that city, as a king is more immediately present in his own house than in any other part of the royal city. But God was present with the ark, which was his throne more than in any other part of his house. So the human nature of Christ is as it were the throne of God, where God is present, more than in any other part of the whole universe. It is of all created things the highest and most immediate seat of the divine presence; that in which God resides in a higher and more eminent manner than in any other part of the highest heaven itself, that is his temple. The ark, in itself, was in some respects a mean thing for the throne of God and for the symbol of

God's most immediate presence. It was only a wooden chest ; it appeared without that form and pomp which the heathen images had, on which account the heathens despised it, and the children of Israel were often ashamed of it, and had a mind to have images in the stead of it, as the heathen had. So the human nature of Christ is in itself a mean thing; man is but a worm; the human nature has no glory in itself; it is but a vessel that must receive its fullness from something else. As this chest in itself was empty, its fullness was what was put into it. Christ, when he was on the earth, appeared without form or comeliness, without external pomp and glory. The Jews, when they saw him, saw no beauty wherefore they should desire him, and he was despised by the Gentiles; he was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. Though the ark was in some respect mean, yet it was exceeding precious; though it was made of wood, yet it was overlaid with gold. So the man Jesus Christ was exceeding excellent; though he was a man, one of the mean race of mankind, yet he was an holy man, perfectly holy, endowed with excellent graces and virtues. Christ God man, Mediator, is wonderful; his name is secret, his person and offices are full of unfathomable mysteries. Hence Christ's name is called Wonderful, as the prophet Isaiah says, and the angel that wrestled with Jacob says, "Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is secret, or wonderful?" and Isai. chap. liii. says, "Who shall declare his generation?" and again, in Prov. xxx. "What is his Son's name, if thou canst tell?" As an ark is a thing shut up, what is in it is secret; hence secret things are called arcana. The mercy-seat was upon the ark, and never was separated from it, which shows that God's mercy is only in and through Jesus Christ. The ark was God's chest, or cabiMen's cabinets contain their most precious treasure, which denotes the infinite dignity and preciousness of Christ in the sight of God the Father, and the infinite love the Father hath to him, and delight he hath in him. The beloved Son of God is his most precious treasure, in which God's infinite riches and infinite happiness and joy, from eternity to eternity, does consist. Cabinets are made to contain a treasure, so the ark contained the precious treasure of the law of God, and the pot of manna: the one signifying divine holiness, of which the law of God is an emanation and expression; and the other signifying divine happiness, for manna was spiritual and heavenly bread, or food; but food is the common figure in scripture to represent happiness, delight, and satisfaction; or in one word, those two things that were contained in this cabinet, signified the Holy Spirit, which is the same with the divine good or fullness of God, his infinite holiness and joy. Christ is the person in whom is the Spirit of God, and therefore he is called the Anointed. In him dwells this fullness of the

net.