and commandments which he had received, takes their consent, and ratifies the covenant between God and them.

EXERCISES.

How long was there between the death of Joseph and the birth of Moses? Did the Israelites increase? How did Pharaoh try to diminish their numbers? How was Moses preserved? By whom was he nursed? Did he receive a good education? How did he act after he had spent forty years at the court of Pharaoh? What was the cause of his going to Midian? How did God manifest himself to Moses at Horeb? Concerning what, did he receive a commission from God? Was his brother

Aaron joined in it? By what means did they convince Israel, as well as Pharaoh, that they had their commission from the Lord? Name the ten plagues in their order? What was the number of the men of Israel when they left Egypt? By whom and what were they guided as they marched towards the Red Sea? How passed they through it? What became of Pharaoh and his army? For the want of what did the Israelites first murmur in the wilderness? Of what did they next complain? How were they supplied in both cases? How long were they out of Egypt when they encamped before Sinai? What took place then and there?

CHAPTER VII.

FROM THE GIVING OF THE LAW AT SINAI TO THE DEATH OF AARON AND MOSES, A.M. 2514-2553.

Moses Forty Days in Mount Sinai-The Israelites Make and Worship a Golden Calf-Moses Breaks the Two Tables of the Law-They are Renewed-The Israelites Remove from Sinai-Murmur for Want of Flesh, and are Punished-Report of the Spies-Rebellion of Korah and his Company-Moses Strikes the Rock and Gives Water-Death of Aaron-Fiery Serpents Sent-Balaam-Death of Moses.

The first act in the mighty drama being ended, Moses receives orders to bring up Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, to worship in the mountain; and they saw the God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. "And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written;

that thou mayest teach them. And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua and Moses went up into the mount of God; and remained there forty days and forty nights.

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.' Then, with the consent and assistance of Aaron, the golden calf was made, and the idolatrous multitude danced around it. It was strange that any of the people should do such a thing. Had they not, as it were, but the other day, in this very place, heard the voice of the Lord God speaking unto them out of the midst of the fire, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image?" Had they not heard the thunder, seen the lightnings, and felt the earthquake, with the dreadful pomp with which this law was given? Thus they were mad upon their idols,―Jer. i. 38. What a contrast was all this to the scene which was passing on the top of the mountain between the LORD and Moses? In the midst of this wild and impious revel, the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, "Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of Egypt have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, bearing in his arms the tables of the law. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said, There is a noise of war in the camp. And Moses said, It is not the voice of those that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came near unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing, that he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." Then turning to Aaron, he demanded an explanation of this strange scene; and having received it, he went and stood in the gate of the camp, and sending his voice like a trumpet call through the host, cried out, "Who is on the LORD's side, let him come unto me!" Then all the sons of Levi separated themselves from the crowd, and gathered around him. "And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp,

and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.' The sword of Divine jus tice is ever awful.

In Exod. xxxiii. 9, we find Moses entering into the tabernacle, and the LORD talking with him face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend. There, Moses having interceded with God on behalf of Israel, was graciously answered. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the LORD descended in the cloud, and passed by before him, and proclaimed his great and glorious name, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel." This was now the second time that Moses was with the Lord in the mount "forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony, he called unto him Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation, and afterward all the children of Israel; and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in mount Sinai." These commands, with

the exception of the two tables of testimony, chiefly relate to the fabric, furniture, arrangement, and setting up of the TABERNACLE, and occupy the book of Exodus from the thirtyfifth chapter to the end.

In all the book of Leviticus there is nothing historical, except the account that it gives us of the consecration of the priesthood, for which see chapters viii. and ix.; in chapter x., the punishment of Nadab and Abihu, by the hand of God, for offering strange fire; and that of Shelomith's son, by the hand of the magistrate, for blasphemy, chap. xxiv. All the rest of

D

the book is taken up with the laws which God gave Israel by Moses concerning their sacrifices and offerings, their meats and their drinks, and divers washings, and the other peculiarities by which God set that people apart for himself, and distinguished them from other nations: all which were shadows of good things to come. "The reality was the Divine 'will' in its ultimate object, namely, 'The offering of the body of Christ,' once for all,' through the eternal Spirit,' 'without spot;' by the which offering we are saved and sanctified :—for it can do that for the heart and conscience which the others only shewed to be necessary by what they did for the purifying of the flesh."

6

THE ISRAELITES REMOVE FROM SINAI.-Numb. x. 11. "And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, after the children of Israel had left Egypt, that they departed from the mount of the LORD three days journey: and the ark of the covenant of the LORD went before them in three days journey, to search out a resting place for them." "The cloud column rose from before the tabernacle, and moved into the desert; the tents were struck; and the host, headed by that mysterious pillar, in one long column disappeared in the wilderness, and that fearful mountain was left once more alone amid the bleak and barren scenery. Turned into sapphire by JEHOVAH's feet, consecrated by His touch, and baptized by the cloud of fire and glory, Mount Sinai stood the third Sacred Mountain_on_the earth." "And the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran." There the people murmur for want of flesh, and Moses for want of help; God gave both, but at the sametime punished them for their murmurings. See Numb. xi. 31.-" Moses called the name of that place Kibroth-hattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted." They journeyed from Kibrothhattaavah unto Hazeroth. Here, by the command of the LORD, Moses sent twelve spies to spy out the land of Canaan, and they returned from searching of the land after forty days. These spies, with the exception of Oshea and Caleb, "brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land which eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature, giants, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." In Numbers, chap. xiv., we have the account of Israel rebelling again against the Most High, and the fruitless endeavour of Moses and Aaron, Caleb and Joshua, to still the tumult; and their utter ruin threatened by God. There, too, we have the humble

and earnest prayer of Moses on their behalf graciously answered. "O LORD, pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word. And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, from twenty years old and upward, save Caleb and Joshua, because they had another spirit, and have followed me fully, them will I bring into the land, with your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and they shall know the land which ye have despised, and they shall possess it. And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly. And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned. And Moses said, Go not up, for the LORD is not among you that ye be not smitten before your enemies. But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, did not go out of the camp. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah." The children of Israel now saw by sad experience, that God had excluded them from the land of promise, and doomed them to wander in the wilderness for forty years. An abstract account of these wanderings and murmurings we have in a few words:" Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest." -Psal. xcv. 10, 11.

In Numbers, chap. xvi., we have the account of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, against the heaven-appointed authority of Moses as the leader, and Aaron as the high-priest, of the people. These men gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD? And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And the earth opened her mouth,