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6 standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

7 And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by 3 reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and

manifestation is departed!). 6. Moreover: lit. and (see under i. 1). Fathers: the correct reading is father,--meaning, collectively, paternity, the (patriarchal) fatherhood: expanded in, of Abraham-Jacob: ("God of our fathers"). Hid his face: so Elijah, on the same "Mount of God" (Ex. xxxiii. 20; 1 Ki. xix. 13, cp. 8). Even among heathens, it was a saying, that none could see God and live. Their panic terror was originally, fright occasioned by perceiving Pan, the universal being (of deity), cp. Lu. v. 8, and Jn. xiii. 6, 12. By reason of lit. from the face of,- —as if the cry were uttered in the terror of a descending lash. Taskmasters: oppressors, the word is not that in i. II (see note there). It points to the subordinates, who were in personal contact with Israel: God sees what so moved Moses forty years ago! 8. A good land : the description is expanded in De. viii. 7-10, where it is said to be an exact description of the Middle Island of New Zealand. Canaan has withered under "the unspeakable Turk." To Israel in the wilderness, the description must have appeared as of a heaven on earth (cp. I Pe. i. 4). Milk and honey: grass and flowers: Palestine was famous for both. The two-meaning wealth and beauty-are found in Pagan descriptions of a good land-e.g. a native Egyptian poet's description of Goshen before the time of Moses. The Redeemer gave to Israel the Creator's best. Honey, however, may be produced by the grape-bee, as well as by the flower-bee. Large (comparatively): wide or spacious. Egypt, for a world-empire," was astonishingly contracted. The main original "Egypt" (Upper Egypt, above the Delta) was only an oasis in the desert, seldom ten miles broad, and on the average about half of that, an extremely narrow green ribbon stretched across a surface of sand and rock, with a silver thread (of Nile) running along the middle of its length. That, in a boundless desert! In fertile Goshen the great population must have been close packed. Palestine, though not much larger than Wales, was in David's time capable of accommodating some five millions, in great happiness of plenty (1 Ki. iv. 20, 25). The ideal Canaan, the land of promise (Ge. xv. 18-20), appears to have extended (Ps. lxxii.) far beyond, to the Euphrates. And in Israel's realization, the failure was in respect of moral conditions on their part. It was ungodliness that made Canaan, not too narrow for them, but too hot. Unto Jebusites. The peoples may have been well known in Egypt, the land of statistical accounts. Of those which were named to Abraham (Ge. xv. 18-20), some, in the intervening lapse of time, may have fallen out of conspicuousness. As to those mentioned here we note―(1) Canaanites may be a general description,

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the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the 9 Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression IO wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

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as we would say "Palestinians: ' specifically, the "Canaanites" situated in the low lands of the Jordan valley and the Mediterranean coast. (2) Hittites (of "Heth"), toward the north. In the monumental history of Egypt, there appears before this time (see Introd.) a strong Hittite power (empire or confederation), in that North Syria, with which Pharaoh goes to war. (3) Amorites, mountaineers on both sides of the Jordan. Perizzites, scattered up and down, in little detached settlements, perhaps more or less "nomadic " (such is the condition of Maoris in the Middle Island of New Zealand). Hivites, to the north-east, wealthy and unwarlike. Jebusites retained their stronghold (which became "Jerusalem ") till it was taken by storm in David's time: as long after the exodus as we are from Bannockburn! That first wrestling (cp. Eph. vi. 10, etc.) with heathenism for the good land was thus arduously protracted. 9. I have seen: overt action of the oppression (on overt action see under ii. 23-25). 10. To Pharaoh. Israel's departure is not to be by stealth (cp. Act. xvi. 37), but in a manner becoming the honour of Jehovah (thus in Ex. iv. 22, xiii. 18, xiv. 8). I will send thee: thee will I send. Perhaps Moses is asking himself, What is to be done for their deliverance, who is to go? (Mat. ix. 37).

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NOTE on the expression, "the people" of God.-This description, already employed, is henceforward appropriated through all the revelation of grace (cp. 1 Pe. ii. 9, where "a peculiar people" means a people that is distinctively God's own, like the home-farm of a great landowner, or the Prussian kingdom of the North German emperor). This distinction, as represented by the Bible use of words, is better marked in the Revised Version than in the Authorized. On the one hand, the Heb. am, Gr. laos, which in itself means simply a people, is so employed as to have the distinctive significance of the people, Jehovah's, the 'holy" nation (Ex. xix. 6). On the other hand, words whose native significance is not more vague than that of am or laos, come to mean (by contrast), not a nation in the sense of a constituted people, but only a population (if not, a populace, cp. Ps. ii. 1); as if the communities in view, having no true principle of living collective unity, were a mere débris of human-kind, like the sand in which Moses buried the Egyptian. The Gipsies in Britain, in so far as they are not of the nation, represent that "heathen" (die Heiden, "the heathfolk") into which our translators have rendered ethné, Gr. for "peoples" or "races; our "Gentiles" (gentes), though natively it means simply "races or peoples," in our mind has that meaning of "heathen.' (In Homer, it is infamous not to be of a people.)

Exercise 8.

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1. Write a hymn entitled-"Song of the Bush." 2. "The beginning of philosophy is wonder. (1) Show what precisely was the "wonder" in the bush. (2) Show where and why the "philosophy there had to become "theology.' (3) What had the wonder and the terror to do with religion in life?

3. By what right (1) are the Palestinian peoples to be expelled from their land? and (2) the Hebrews to expel them, and take possession of it?

II

And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of 12 Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, 4. For the conquest of Canaan, what military advantage will there be in entering it by the way of the Jordan, instead of from the wilderness in the south?

NOTE on the tenure and occupation of Canaan. - Israel held of Jehovah under a sort of Covenant of works. This occasions confusion, to those who will not distinguish it from the Abrahamic Covenant of grace ;-the veil on the face of Moses, from the shining face behind the veil. It does not appear that Israel was ever straitened in Canaan through overcrowd of population. The difference, in respect of capacity for population, that may arise from difference in modes of Occupancy, may appear incredible. Under the "Peasant Proprietor" system in France it is found that seven acres are sufficient to occupy a man and support his family, so that he does not need to go out as a hired labourer (Letters on Land Tenure, by the late Mr. Joseph Kaye Shuttleworth). In a British colony, with a climate and soil at least as good as France, a settler who has a freehold of an hundred acres will enslave himself with mortgage in order to double or treble his holding. Before the American Civil War, in discussions about the Nebraska territory, it was stated that with free labour it would support a population four times as large as could live there with slave labour. Palestine at present is to some extent a desert through mere neglect, especially want of plantation, which is natural irrigation.

The Message from the Bush (iii. 11-22). On the part of Moses there appears, what might be only modesty or diffidence, but what in the next action of his (chap. iv.) becomes disclosed as a languor of faith, amounting to lack of confidence in God. It is with immediate reference to this condition of mind that there is given to Moses, for communication to Israel, and also to Pharaoh, the great NAME of Jehovah. There is an obvious parallel to this in the Transfiguration of Jesus, when Moses and Elias were present, and in the declaration out of the excellent glory, of His being the Beloved Son of God, in anticipation of His exodus ("decease," Lu. ix. 31) which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (See note at close of Chap. I. of Introd.) The disciples, of whom the leading three were present, were no doubt terribly shaken by the Lord's foretelling His approaching shameful death; precisely when they had come to the point of Peter's great confession of Him, as being "the Christ, the Son of the Living God." This is the ROCK on which the "Church" is built (Mat. xvi. 18, where the word church"-ecclesia-first occurs). That "Rock" (1 Co. x. 5) was in Sinai at the exodus time. And the name of Jehovah is thus historically the analogue of the name of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

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11. Who-Egypt? Egypt was at this time probably the greatest power on earth, and the only great worldly power of which Moses had real knowledge. It was not only to "beard the lion in his den;" it was as if the infant from among the bulrushes had been sent against an enemy. Pharaoh was the incarnation of earthly power gigantic: Moses, the aged, broken fugitive exile, was impotency. Coming to the rescue of " things which are not.' Certainly-thee. Into the Heb. the great name, I AM, is seen entering: cp. "I am with you" in Mat. xxviii. 20; and the Tour vina-" By this, conquer"-which appeared to Constantine the Great, along with the Christian cross, to encourage him to dethrone the Paganism of the Roman empire. The

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13 ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? 14 what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM; And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

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And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and 16 this is my memorial unto all generations. Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, 17 and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: and I have

said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto

word here for I will be (ehyeh) is that from which the great Name in ver. 14 is formed. Token the customary for "sign" (under iv. 6-8), as in Ge. i. 14 and ix. 12. (See on external evidence of miracle, Introd.) (1) At the outset, the fixing of that future meeting-place would serve to give confidence to Moses, by showing a resolute clear purpose on the part of God, His trumpet blowing no uncertain sound. (2) And especially, in the end, the actual meeting as predicted, evincing a miracle of foresight (cp. Jn. ii. 6), would be a definitive evidence of the divinity of this revelation. So that here we see rhetorical "demonstration" passing into logical. 13. What is His name? to be spoken, say, to the Egyptians? they, having "gods many," may look for an aspect of deity in keeping with the greatness of the assumption involved in this mission:-a sun-god, thunder-god, war-god, Fury, Fate. But no-. 14. (On the same see Introd. pp. 67-69.) It is simply, Israel's God; and to the King of Egypt (ver. 18), "the God of the Hebrews." He claims to be the only God living and true. So, under the New Testament, at Athens (Act. xvii.), in hearing of the philosophers, as at Lystra (Act. xiv.) among the "barbarians," the claim on behalf of this Redeemer is, that He alone is God Living and True. The Old Testament says, "Jehovah is God;" and the New, "God was in Christ." All goes back to that Name. 15. Of your fathers: this is not Natural theology, but covenant revelation. Name for ever. sun of salvation, which now is rising into view, is never to set: what is folded in the name of the Living God and Redeemer, is to be manifested eternally, as the true light of life. Memorial-generations (see in Introd. on the monuments of the Revelation). Probably no one ever used the word Jehovah, when thinking only of a first cause, and not thinking of redemption, Covenant, Israel's God, the Father of Christ. The name cannot be forgotten, and where it is remembered, the thought cannot be merely deistical. Memory corresponds to "name," as sunflower to sun. 16, 17. The almost verbatim repetition here, of what is so solemnly recorded, has a certain sacramental impressiveness. Elders (first appearance of "presbytery"): lit. the old men

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the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the 18 Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.

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And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, (Senatores, "aldermen," etc.). A natural term of dignity. Among the Israelites, with their tribal organization, the natural representation, of the community in heads of families, was probably complete all through the period of sojourning; and it remained in Israel until the final dissolution of the nation. The constitution, being natural, is found rising spontaneously among communities wholesomely expanding. Visited: Come to see and consider-a form which (advantageously) dispenses with seen in the last clause. I have said: - my word is passed (cp. Is. lv. 10, 11, and Pilate's "I have written!"). 18. And the elders. In the following narrative they are nowhere expressly mentioned as accompanying Moses into the king's presence: perhaps the historian assumes that it does not need to be specified. THE LORD God of: this formula has here its full effect of, Jehovah, who is the God of. That by implication really remains in the effect of the formula "the Lord God" through all generations, as the formula "Jesus Christ," though there be distinctly present to the mind only a proper name of the prophet of Nazareth, really has always in it the implication that the Son of Mary is the Christ of God. The Hebrews means, "the Crossers "-with reference, presumably, to Abraham's having come across the Jordan into Canaan (he had also "crossed Euphrates from Mesopotamia). As in ii. 6, it may here be simply the name by which the "strangers and pilgrims" were known by native Egyptians. It is the God of these Crossers, whose proper name seems not worth knowing, who is to summon Pharaoh to do His bidding. For sacrifice (xxvii. 1-8, initial note) the word here (zebech) is that appropriate to bleeding sacrifice-for sin; like Noah's. Here we see that it makes the covenant religion (Ps. 1. 5). Three days' journey (note under vi. 11). This might mean only, a day for going and a day for returning, along with one clear day for the festival. That would leave the worshippers within reach of the Egyptians, while free from alien intrusion upon their solemnity of worship. Otherwise (note under iii. 1) the proposal of a religious pilgrimage might not have appeared strange to the king. Was the proposal on their part fraudulently deceptive? (1) They did wish to make that pilgrimage for the purpose specified. (2) Perhaps they themselves did not know that they were destined never to return. Do we know what would have happened if Pharaoh had complied with their request? In any case, Pharaoh had no right to know everything (De. xxix. 29). And I am sure; or, but I know: the I, emphatic; and the know ("foreknowledge absolute") reposing or abutting on foreordination-predixit qui prædestinavit (what He foretells, He has decreed). Let you go lit. give you (leave) to go. Even at last, the permission was not given by the tyrant's will, but extorted from his terror. 20. Wonders. See on

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