have proposed to do by public organisation, with the force of law,
what natural instinct teaches us to leave to domestic influences. It
is therefore worthy of notice that, as the chosen nation is
carefully traced by revelation back to a holy family, so the
national festival did not ignore the family tie, but consecrated it.
The feast was to be eaten "according to their fathers' houses"; if a
family were too small, it was to the "neighbour next unto his house"
that each should turn for co-operation; and the patriotic
celebration was to live on from age to age by the instruction which
parents should carefully give their children (Exo 12:3, Exo 12:26,
Exo 13:8).
The first ordinance of the Jewish religion was a domestic
service. And this arrangement is divinely wise. Never was a nation
truly prosperous or permanently strong which did not cherish the
sanctities of home. Ancient Rome failed to resist the barbarians,
not because her discipline had degenerated, but because evil habits
in the home had ruined her population. The same is notoriously true
of at least one great nation today. History is the sieve of God, in
which He continually severs the chaff from the grain of nations,
preserving what is temperate and pure and calm, and therefore
valorous and wise.
In studying the institution of the Passover, with its profound
typical analogies, we must not overlook the simple and obvious fact
that God built His nation upon families, and bade their great
national institution draw the members of each home together.
The national character of the feast is shown further because no
Egyptian family escaped the blow. Opportunities had been given to
them to evade some of the previous plagues. When the hail was
announced, "he that feared the word of the Lord among the servants
of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the house";
and this renders the national solidarity, the partnership even of
the innocent in the penalties of a people's guilt, the 'community'
of a nation, more apparent now. There was not a house where there
was not one dead. The mixed multitude which came up with Israel came
not because they had shared his exemptions, but because they dared
not stay. It was an object-lesson given to Israel, which might have
warned all his generations.
And if there is hideous vice in our own land today, or if the
contrasts of poverty and wealth are so extreme that humanity is
shocked by so much luxury insulting so much squalor,--if in any
respect we feel that our own land, considering its supreme
advantages, merits the wrath of God for its unworthiness,--then we
have to fear and strive, not through public spirit alone, but as
knowing that the chastisement of nations falls upon the corporate
whole, upon us and upon our children.
But if the feast of the Passover was a commemoration, it also
claims to be a sacrifice, and the first sacrifice which was Divinely
founded and directed.
This brings us face to face with the great question, What is the
doctrine which lies at the heart of the great institution of
sacrifice?
We are not free to confine its meaning altogether to that which
was visible at the time. This would contradict the whole doctrine of
development, the intention of God that Christianity should blossom
from the bud of Judaism, and the explicit assertion that the
prophets were made aware that the full meaning and the date of what
they uttered was reserved for the instruction of a later period (1Pe
1:12).
But neither may we overlook the first palpable significance of
any institution. Sacrifices never could have been devised to be a
blind and empty pantomime to whole generations, for the benefit of
their successors. Still less can one who believes in a genuine
revelation to Moses suppose that their primary meaning was a false
one, given in order that some truth might afterwards develop out of
it.
What, then, might a pious and well-instructed Israelite discern
beneath the surface of this institution?
To this question there have been many discordant answers, and the
variance is by no means confined to unbelieving critics. Thus, a
distinguished living expositor says in connection with the Paschal
institution, "We speak not of blood as it is commonly understood,
but of blood as the life, the love, the heart,--the whole quality of
Deity." But it must be answered that Deity is the last suggestion
which blood would convey to a Jewish mind: distinctly it is
creature-life that it expresses; and the New Testament commentators
make it plain that no other notion had even then evolved itself:
they think of the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ, not of His
Deity.[20] Neither of this
feast, nor of that which the gospel of Jesus has evolved from it,
can we find the solution by forgetting that the elements of the
problem are, not deity, but a Body and Blood.
But when we approach the theories of rationalistic thinkers, we
find a perfect chaos of rival speculations.
We are told that the Hebrew feasts were really
agricultural--"Harvest festivals," and that the epithet Passover had
its origin in the passage of the sun into Aries. But this great
festival had a very secondary and subordinate connection with
harvest (only the waving of a sheaf upon the second day) while the
older calendar which was displaced to do it honour was truly
agricultural, as may still be seen by the phrase, "The feast of
ingathering at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in
thy labours out of the field" (Exo 23:16).
In dealing with unbelief we must look at things from the
unbelieving angle of vision. No sceptical theory has any right to
invoke for its help a special and differentiating quality in Hebrew
thought. Reject the supernatural, and the Jewish religion is only
one among a number of similar creations of the mind of man "moving
about in worlds unrecognised." And therefore we must ask, What
notions of sacrifice were entertained, all around, when the Hebrew
creed was forming itself?
Now, we read that "in the early days ... a sacrifice was a
meal.... Year after year, the return of vintage, corn-harvest, and
sheep-shearing brought together the members of the household to eat
and drink in the presence of Jehovah.... When an honoured guest
arrives there is slaughtered for him a calf, not without an offering
of the blood and fat to the Deity" (Wellhausen, Israel, p.
76). Of the sense of sin and propitiation "the ancient sacrifices
present few traces.... An underlying reference of sacrifice to sin,
speaking generally, was entirely absent. The ancient sacrifices were
wholly of a joyous nature--a merry-making before Jehovah with music"
(ibid., p. 81).
We are at once confronted by the question, Where did the Jewish
nation come by such a friendly conception of their deity? They had
come out of Egypt, where human sacrifices were not rare. They had
settled in Palestine, where such idyllic notions must have been as
strange as in modern Ashantee. And we are told that human sacrifices
(such as that of Isaac and of Jephthah's daughter) belong to this
older period (p. 69). Are they joyous and festive? are they
not an endeavour, by the offering up of something precious, to
reconcile a Being Who is estranged? With our knowledge of what
existed in Israel in the period confessed to be historical, and of
the meaning of sacrifices all around in the period supposed to be
mythical, and with the admission that human sacrifices must be taken
into account, it is startling to be asked to believe that Hebrew
sacrifices, with all their solemn import and all their freight of
Christian symbolism, were originally no more than a gift to the
Deity of a part of some happy banquet.
It is quite plain that no such theory can be reconciled with the
story of the first passover. And accordingly this is declared to be
non-historical, and to have originated in the time of the later
kings. The offering of the firstborn is only "the expression of
thankfulness to the Deity for fruitful flocks and herds. If claim is
also laid to the human firstborn, this is merely a later
generalisation" (Wellhausen, p. 88).[21]
But this claim is by no means the only stumbling-block in the way
of the theory, serious a stumbling-block though it be. How came the
bright festival to be spoiled by bitter herbs and "bread of
affliction"? Is it natural that a merry feast should grow more
austere as time elapses? Do we not find it hard enough to prevent
the most sacred festivals from reversing the supposed process, and
degenerating into revels? And is not this the universal experience,
from San Francisco to Bombay? Why was the mandate given to sprinkle
the door of every house with blood, if the story originated after
the feast had been centralised in Jerusalem, when, in fact, this
precept had to be set aside as impracticable, their homes being at a
distance? Why, again, were they bidden to slaughter the lamb
"between the two evenings" (Exo 12:6)--that is to say, between
sunset and the fading out of the light--unless the story was written
long before such numbers had to be dealt with that the priests began
to slaughter early in the afternoon, and continued until night? Why
did the narrative set forth that every man might slaughter for his
own house (a custom which still existed in the time of Hezekiah,
when the Levites only slaughtered "the passovers" for those who were
not ceremonially clean, 2Ch 30:17), if there were no stout and
strong historical foundation for the older method?
Stranger still, why was the original command invented, that the
lamb should be chosen and separated four days before the feast?
There is no trace of any intention that this precept should apply to
the first passover alone. It is somewhat unexpected there,
interrupting the hurry and movement of the narrative with an
interval of quiet expectation, not otherwise hinted at, which we
comprehend and value when discovered, rather than anticipate in
advance. It is the very last circumstance which the Priestly Code
would have invented, when the time which could be conveniently spent
upon a pilgrimage was too brief to suffer the custom to be
perpetuated. The selection of the lamb upon the tenth day, the
slaying of it at home, the striking of the blood upon the door, and
the use of hyssop, as in other sacrifices, with which to sprinkle
it, whether upon door or altar; the eating of the feast standing,
with staff in hand and girded loins; the application only to one day
of the precept to eat no leavened bread, and the sharing in the
feast by all, without regard to ceremonial defilement,--all these
are cardinal differences between the first passover and later ones.
Can we be blind to their significance? Even a drastic revision of
the story, such as some have fancied, would certainly have expunged
every divergence upon points so capital as these. Nor could any
evidence of the antiquity of the institution be clearer than its
existence in a form, the details of which have had to be so boldly
modified under the pressure of the exigencies of the later time.
Taking, then, the narrative as it stands, we place ourselves by
an effort of the historical imagination among those to whom Moses
gave his instructions, and ask what emotions are excited as we
listen.
Certainly no light and joyous feeling that we are going to
celebrate a feast, and share our good things with our deity. Nay,
but an alarmed surprise. Hitherto, among the admonitory and
preliminary plagues of Egypt, Israel had enjoyed a painless and
unbought exemption. The murrain had not slain their cattle, nor the
locusts devoured their land, nor the darkness obscured their
dwellings. Such admonitions they needed not. But now the judgment
itself is impending, and they learn that they, like the Egyptians
whom they have begun to despise, are in danger from the destroying
angel. The first paschal feast was eaten by no man with a light
heart. Each listened for the rustling of awful wings, and grew cold,
as under the eyes of the death which was, even then, scrutinising
his lintels and his doorposts.
And this would set him thinking that even a gracious God, Who had
"come down" to save him from his tyrants, discerned in him grave
reasons for displeasure, since his acceptance, while others died,
was not of course. His own conscience would then quickly tell him
what some at least of those reasons were.
But he would also learn that the exemption which he did not
possess by right (although a son of Abraham) he might obtain through
grace. The goodness of God did not pronounce him safe, but it
pointed out to him a way of salvation. He would scarcely observe, so
entirely was it a matter of course, that this way must be of God's
appointment and not of his own invention--that if he devised much
more costly, elaborate and imposing ceremonies to replace those
which Moses taught him, he would perish like any Egyptian who
devised nothing, but simply cowered under the shadow of the
impending doom.
Nor was the salvation without price. It was not a prayer nor a
fast which bought it, but a life. The conviction that a redemption
was necessary if God should be at once just and a justifier of the
ungodly sprang neither from a later hairsplitting logic, nor from a
methodising theological science; it really lay upon the very surface
of this and every offering for sin, as distinguished from those
offerings which expressed the gratitude of the accepted.
We have not far to search for evidence that the lamb was really
regarded as a substitute and ransom. The assertion is part and
parcel of the narrative itself. For, in commemoration of this
deliverance, every firstborn of Israel, whether of man or beast, was
set apart unto the Lord. The words are, "Thou shall cause to PASS
OVER unto the Lord all that openeth the womb, and every firstling
which thou hast that cometh of a beast; the males shall be the
Lord's" (Exo 13:12). What, then, should be done with the firstborn
of a creature unfit for sacrifice? It should be replaced by a clean
offering, and then it was said to be redeemed. Substitution or death
was the inexorable rule. "Every firstborn of an ass thou shalt
redeem with a lamb, and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt
break its neck." The meaning of this injunction is unmistakable. But
it applies also to man: "All thy firstborn of man among thy sons
thou shalt redeem." And when their sons should ask "What meaneth
this?" they were to explain that when Pharaoh hardened himself
against letting them go from Egypt, "the Lord slew all the firstborn
in the land; ... therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth
the womb being males; but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem" (Exo
13:12-15).
Words could not more plainly assert that the lives of the
firstborn of Israel were forfeited, that they were bought back by
the substitution of another creature, which died instead, and that
the transaction answered to the Passover ("thou shalt cause to pass
over unto the Lord"). Presently the tribe of Levi was taken "instead
of all the firstborn of the children of Israel." But since there
were two hundred and seventy-three of such firstborn children over
and above the number of the Levites, it became necessary to "redeem"
these; and this was actually done by a cash payment of five shekels
apiece. Of this payment the same phrase is used: it is
"redemption-money"--the money wherewith the odd number of them is
redeemed (Num 3:44-51).
The question at present is not whether modern taste approves of
all this, or resents it: we are simply inquiring whether an ancient
Jew was taught to think of the lamb as offered in his stead.
And now let it be observed that this idea has sunk deep into all
the literature of Palestine. The Jews are not so much the beloved of
Jehovah as His redeemed--"Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed" (1Ch
17:21). In fresh troubles the prayer is, "Redeem Israel, O Lord" (Psa
25:22), and the same word is often used where we have ignored the
allusion and rendered it "Deliver me because of mine enemies
... deliver me from the oppression of men" (Psa 69:18, Psa
119:134). And the future troubles are to end in a deliverance of the
same kind: "The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come
with singing unto Zion" (Isa 35:10, Isa 51:11); and at the last "I
will ransom them from the power of the grave" (Hos 13:14). In
all these places, the word is the same as in this narrative.
It is not too much to say that if modern theology were not
affected by this ancient problem, if we regarded the creed of the
Hebrews simply as we look at the mythologies of other peoples, there
would be no more doubt that the early Jews believed in propitiatory
sacrifice than that Phoenicians did. We should simply admire the
purity, the absence of cruel and degrading accessories, with which
this most perilous and yet humbling and admonitory doctrine was held
in Israel.
The Christian applications of this doctrine must be considered
along with the whole question of the typical character of the
history. But it is not now premature to add, that even in the Old
Testament there is abundant evidence that the types were
semi-transparent, and behind them something greater was discerned,
so that after it was written "Bring no more vain oblations," Isaiah
could exclaim, "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He
was led as a lamb to the slaughter. When Thou shalt make His soul a
trespass-offering He shall see His seed" (Isa 1:13, Isa 53:6-7, Isa
53:10). And the full power of this last verse will only be felt when
we remember the statement made elsewhere of the principle which
underlay the sacrifices: "the life (or soul) of the flesh is
in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make
atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh atonement
by reason of the life" (or "soul"-- Lev 17:11, R.V.) It is
even startling to read the two verses together: "Thou shalt make His
soul a trespass-offering;" "The blood maketh atonement by reason of
the soul ... the soul of the flesh is in the blood."[22]
It is still more impressive to remember that a Servant of Jehovah
has actually arisen in Whom this doctrine has assumed a form
acceptable to the best and holiest intellects and consciences of
ages and civilisations widely remote from that in which it was
conceived.
Another doctrine preached by the passover to every Jew was that
he must be a worker together with God, must himself use what the
Lord pointed out, and his own lintels and doorposts must openly
exhibit the fact that he laid claim to the benefit of the
institution of the Lord Jehovah's passover. With what strange
feelings, upon the morrow, did the orphaned people of Egypt discover
the stain of blood on the forsaken houses of all their emancipated
slaves!
The lamb having been offered up to God, a new stage in the
symbolism is entered upon. The body of the sacrifice, as well as the
blood, is His: "Ye shall eat it in haste, it is the Lord's passover"
(Exo 12:11). Instead of being a feast of theirs, which they share
with Him, it is an offering of which, when the blood has been
sprinkled on the doors, He permits His people, now accepted and
favoured, to partake. They are His guests; and therefore He
prescribes all the manner of their eating, the attitude so
expressive of haste, and the unleavened "bread of affliction" and
bitter herbs, which told that the object of this feast was not the
indulgence of the flesh but the edification of the spirit, "a feast
unto the Lord."
And in the strength of this meat they are launched upon their new
career, freemen, pilgrims of God, from Egyptian bondage to a
Promised Land.
It is now time to examine the chapter in more detail, and gather
up such points as the preceding discussion has not reached.
(Exo 12:1.) The opening words, "Jehovah spake unto Moses and
Aaron in the land of Egypt," have all the appearance of opening a
separate document, and suggest, with certain other evidence, the
notion of a fragment written very shortly after the event, and
afterwards incorporated into the present narrative. And they are, in
the same degree, favourable to the authenticity of the book.
(Exo 12:2.) The commandment to link their emancipation with a
festival, and with the calendar, is the earliest example and the
sufficient vindication of sacred festivals, which, even yet, some
persons consider to be superstitious and judaical. But it is a
strange doctrine that the Passover deserved honour better than
Easter does, or that there is anything more servile and unchristian
in celebrating the birth of all the hopes of all mankind than in
commemorating one's own birth.
(Exo 12:5.) The selection of a lamb for a sacrifice so quickly
became universal, that there is no trace anywhere of the use of a
kid in place of it. The alternative is therefore an indication of
antiquity, while the qualities required--innocent youth and the
absence of blemish, were sure to suggest a typical significance.
For, if they were merely to enhance its value, why not choose a
costlier animal?
Various meanings have been discovered in the four days during
which it was reserved; but perhaps the true object was to give time
for deliberation, for the solemnity and import of the institution to
fill the minds of the people; time also for preparation, since the
night itself was one of extreme haste, and prompt action can only be
obtained by leisurely anticipation. We have Scriptural authority for
applying it to the Antitype, Who also was foredoomed, "the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13:8).
But now it has to be observed that throughout the poetic
literature the people is taught to think of itself as a flock of
sheep. "Thou leddest Thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses
and Aaron" (Psa 77:20); "We are Thy people and the sheep of Thy
pasture" (Psa 79:13); "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isa
53:6); "Ye, O My sheep, the sheep of My pasture, are men" (Eze
34:31); "The Lord of hosts hath visited His flock" (Zec 10:3). All
such language would make more easy the conception that what replaced
the forfeited life was in some sense, figuratively, in the religious
idea, a kindred victim. One who offered a lamb as his substitute
sang "The Lord is my shepherd." "I have gone astray like a lost
sheep" (Psa 23:1; Psa 119:176).
(Exo 12:3, Exo 12:6.) Very instructive it is that this first
sacrifice of Judaism could be offered by all the heads of houses. We
have seen that the Levites were presently put into the place of the
eldest son, but also that this function was exercised down to the
time of Hezekiah by all who were ceremonially clean, whereas the
opposite holds good, immediately afterwards, in the great passover
of Josiah (2Ch 30:17, 2Ch 35:11).
It is impossible that this incongruity could be devised, for the
sake of plausibility, in a narrative which rested on no solid basis.
It goes far to establish what has been so anxiously denied--the
reality of the centralised worship in the time of Hezekiah. And it
also establishes the great doctrine that priesthood was held not by
a superior caste, but on behalf of the whole nation, in whom it was
theoretically vested, and for whom the priest acted, so that they
were "a nation of priests."
(Exo 12:8.) The use of unleavened bread is distinctly said to be
in commemoration of their haste--"for thou camest out of Egypt in
haste" (Deu 16:3)--but it does not follow that they were forced by
haste to eat their bread unleavened at the first. It was quite as
easy to prepare leavened bread as to provide the paschal lamb four
days previously.
We may therefore seek for some further explanation, and this we
find in the same verse in Deuteronomy, in the expression "bread of
affliction." They were to receive the meat of passover with a
reproachful sense of their unworthiness: humbly, with bread of
affliction and with bitter herbs.
Moreover, we learn from St. Paul that unleavened bread represents
simplicity and truth; and our Lord spoke of the leaven of the
Pharisees and of Herod (Mar 8:15). And this is not only because
leaven was supposed to be of the same nature as corruption. We
ourselves always mean something unworthy when we speak of mixed
motives, possible though it be to act from two motives, both of them
high-minded. Now, leaven represents mixture in its most subtle and
penetrating form.
The paschal feast did not express any such luxurious and
sentimental religionism as finds in the story of the cross an easy
joy, or even a delicate and pleasing stimulus for the softer
emotions, "a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and
playeth well on an instrument." No, it has vigour and nourishment
for those who truly hunger, but its bread is unfermented, and it
must be eaten with bitter herbs.
(Exo 12:9.) Many Jewish sacrifices were "sodden," but this had to
be roast with fire. It may have been to represent suffering that
this was enjoined. But it comes to us along with a command to
consume all the flesh, reserving none and rejecting none. Now,
though boiling does not mutilate, it dissipates; a certain amount of
tissue is lost, more is relaxed, and its cohesion rendered feeble;
and so the duty of its complete reception is accentuated by the
words "not sodden at all with water." Nor should it be a barbarous
feast, such as many idolatries encouraged: true religion civilises;
"eat not of it at all raw."
(Exo 12:10.) Nor should any of it be left until the morning. At
the first celebration, with a hasty exodus impending, this would
have involved exposure to profanation. In later times it might have
involved superstitious abuses. And therefore the same rule is laid
down which the Church of England has carried on for the same reasons
into the Communion feast--that all must be consumed. Nor can we fail
to see an ideal fitness in the precept. Of the gift of God we may
not select what gratifies our taste or commends itself to our
desires; all is good; all must be accepted; a partial reception of
His grace is no valid reception at all.
(Exo 12:12.) In describing the coming wrath, we understand the
inclusion equally of innocent and guilty men, because it is thus
that all national vengeance operates; and we receive the benefits of
corporate life at the cost, often heavy, of its penalties. The
animal world also has to suffer with us; the whole creation groaneth
together now, and all expects together the benefit of our adoption
hereafter. But what were the judgments against the idols of Egypt,
which this verse predicts, and another (Num 33:4) declares to be
accomplished? They doubtless consisted chiefly in the destruction of
sacred animals, from the beetle and the frog to the holy ox of Apis--from
the cat, the monkey, and the dog, to the lion, the hippopotamus, and
the crocodile. In their overthrow a blow was dealt which shook the
whole system to its foundation; for how could the same confidence be
felt in sacred images when all the sacred beasts had once been slain
by a rival invisible Spiritual Being! And more is implied than that
they should share the common desolation: the text says plainly, of
men and beasts the firstborn must die, but all of these. The
difference in the phrase is obvious and indisputable; and in its
fulfilment all Egypt saw the act of a hostile and victorious deity.
(Exo 12:13.) "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the
houses where ye are." That it was a token to the destroying angel we
see plainly; but why to them? Is it enough to explain the
assertion, with some, as meaning, upon their behalf? Rather let us
say that the publicity, the exhibition upon their doorposts of the
sacrifice offered within, was not to inform and guide the angel, but
to edify the people. They should perform an open act of faith. Their
houses should be visibly set apart. "With the mouth confession" (of
faith) "is made unto salvation," unto that deliverance from a
hundred evasions and equivocations, and as many inward doubts and
hesitations, which comes when any decisive act is done, when the die
is cast and the Rubicon crossed. A similar effect upon the mind,
calming and steadying it, was produced when the Israelite carried
out the blood of the lamb, and by sprinkling it upon the doorpost
formally claimed his exemption, and returned with the consciousness
that between him and the imminent death a visible barrier interposed
itself.
Will any one deny that a similar help is offered to us of the
later Church in our many opportunities of avowing a fixed and
personal belief? Whoever refuses to comply with an unholy custom
because he belongs to Christ, whoever joins heartily in worship at
the cost of making himself remarkable, whoever nerves himself to
kneel at the Holy Table although he feels himself unworthy, that man
has broken through many snares; he has gained assurance that his
choice of God is a reality: he has shown his flag; and this public
avowal is not only a sign to others, but also a token to himself.
But this is only half the doctrine of this action. What he should
thus openly avow was his trust (as we have shown) in atoning blood.
And in the day of our peril what shall be our reliance? That our
doors are trodden by orthodox visitants only? that the lintels are
clean, and the inhabitants temperate and pure? or that the Blood of
Christ has cleansed our conscience?
Therefore (Exo 12:22) the blood was sprinkled with hyssop, of
which the light and elastic sprays were admirably suited for such
use, but which was reserved in the Law for those sacrifices which
expiated sin (Lev 14:49; Num 19:18-19). And therefore also none
should go forth out of his house until the morning, for we are not
to content ourselves with having once invoked the shelter of God: we
are to abide under its protection while danger lasts.
And (Exo 12:23) upon the condition of this marking of their
doorposts the Lord should pass over their houses. The phrase
is noteworthy, because it recurs throughout the narrative, being
employed nine times in this chapter; and because the same word is
found in Isaiah, again in contrast with the ruin of others, and with
an interesting and beautiful expansion of the hovering poised notion
which belongs to the word.[23]
Repeated commandments are given to parents to teach the meaning
of this institution to their children, (Exo 12:26, Exo 13:8). And
there is something almost cynical in the notion of a later
mythologist devising this appeal to a tradition which had no
existence at all; enrolling, in support of his new institutions, the
testimony (which had never been borne) of fathers who had never
taught any story of the kind.
On the other hand, there is something idyllic and beautiful in
the minute instruction given to the heads of families to teach their
children, and in the simple words put into their mouths, "It is
because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of
Egypt." It carries us forward to these weary days when children
scarcely see the face of one who goes out to labour before they are
awake, and returns exhausted when their day is over, and who himself
too often needs the most elementary instruction, these heartless
days when the teaching of religion devolves, in thousands of
families, upon the stranger who instructs, for one hour in the week,
a class in Sunday-school. The contrast is not reassuring.
When all these instructions were given to Israel, the people
bowed their heads and worshipped. The bones of most of them were
doomed to whiten in the wilderness. They perished by serpents and by
"the destroyer"; they fell in one day three-and-twenty thousand,
because they were discontented and rebellious and unholy. And yet
they could adore the gracious Giver of promises and Slayer of foes.
They would not obey, but they were quite ready to accept benefits,
to experience deliverance, to become the favourites of heaven, to
march to Palestine. So are too many fain to be made happy, to find
peace, to taste the good word of God and the powers of the age to
come, to go to heaven. But they will not take up a cross. They will
murmur if the well is bitter, if they have no flesh but only angels'
food, if the goodly land is defended by powerful enemies.
On these terms, they cannot be Christ's disciples.
It is apparently the mention of a mixed multitude, who came with
Israel out of Egypt, which suggests the insertion, in a separate and
dislocated paragraph, of the law of the passover concerning
strangers (Exo 12:38, Exo 12:43-49).
An alien was not to eat thereof: it belonged especially to the
covenant people. But who was a stranger? A slave should be
circumcised and eat thereof; for it was one of the benignant
provisions of the law that there should not be added, to the many
severities of his condition, any religious disabilities. The time
would come when all nations should be blessed in the seed of
Abraham. In that day the poor would receive a special beatitude; and
in the meantime, as the first indication of catholicity beneath the
surface of an exclusive ritual, it was announced, foremost among
those who should be welcomed within the fold, that a slave should be
circumcised and eat the passover.
And if a sojourner desired to eat thereof, he should be mindful
of his domestic obligations: all his males should be circumcised
along with him, and then his disabilities were at an end. Surely we
can see in these provisions the germ of the broader and more
generous welcome which Christ offers to the world. Let it be added
that this admission of strangers had been already implied at Exo
12:19; while every form of coercion was prohibited by the words "a
sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat of it," in Exo 12:45.
THE TENTH PLAGUE.
Exo 12:29-36.
And now the blow fell. Infants grew cold in their mothers' arms;
ripe statesmen and crafty priests lost breath as they reposed: the
wisest, the strongest and the most hopeful of the nation were
blotted out at once, for the firstborn of a population is its
flower.
Pharaoh Menephtah had only reached the throne by the death of two
elder brethren, and therefore history confirms the assertion that he
"rose up," when the firstborn were dead; but it also justifies the
statement that his firstborn died, for the gallant and promising
youth who had reconquered for him his lost territories, and who
actually shared his rule and "sat upon the throne," Menephtah Seti,
is now shown to have died early, and never to have held an
independent sceptre.
We can imagine the scene. Suspense and terror must have been wide
spread; for the former plagues had given authority to the more
dreadful threat, the fulfilment of which was now to be expected,
since all negotiations between Moses and Pharaoh had been formally
broken off.
Strange and confident movements and doubtless menacing
expressions among the Hebrews would also make this night a fearful
one, and there was little rest for "those who feared the Lord among
the servants of Pharaoh." These, knowing where the danger lay, would
watch their firstborn well, and when the ashy change came suddenly
upon a blooming face, and they raised the wild cry of Eastern
bereavement, then others awoke to the same misery. From remote
villages and lonely hamlets the clamour of great populations was
echoed back; and when, under midnight skies in which the strong wind
of the morrow was already moaning, the awestruck people rushed into
their temples, there the corpses of their animal deities glared at
them with glassy eyes.
Thus the cup which they had made their slaves to drink was put in
larger measure to their own lips at last, and not infants only were
snatched away, but sons around whom years of tenderness had woven
stronger ties; and the loss of their bondsmen, from which they
feared so much national weakness, had to be endured along with a far
deadlier drain of their own life-blood. The universal wail was
bitter, and hopeless, and full of terror even more than woe; for
they said, "We be all dead men." Without the consolation of
ministering by sick beds, or the romance and gallant excitement of
war, "there was not a house where there was not one dead," and this
is said to give sharpness to the statement that there was a great
cry in Egypt.
Then came such a moment as the Hebrew temperament keenly enjoyed,
when "the sons of them that oppressed them came bending unto them,
and all they that despised them bowed themselves down at the soles
of their feet." Pharaoh sent at midnight to surrender everything
that could possibly be demanded, and in his abject fear added, "and
bless me also"; and the Egyptians were urgent on them to begone, and
when they demanded the portable wealth of the land,--a poor ransom
from a vanquished enemy, and a still poorer payment for generations
of forced labour,--"the Lord gave them favour" (is there not a
saturnine irony in the phrase?) "in the sight of the Egyptians, so
that they let them have what they asked. And they spoiled the
Egyptians."
By this analogy St. Augustine defended the use of heathen
learning in defence of Christian truth. Clogged by superstitions, he
said, it contained also liberal instruction, and truths even
concerning God--"gold and silver which they did not themselves
create, but dug out of the mines of God's providence, and
misapplied. These we should reclaim, and apply to Christian use" (De
Doct. Chr., 60, 61).
And the main lesson of the story lies so plainly upon the surface
that one scarcely needs to state it. What God requires must
ultimately be done; and human resistance, however stubborn and
protracted, will only make the result more painful and more signal
at the last.
Now, every concern of our obscure daily lives comes under this
law as surely as the actions of a Pharaoh.
THE EXODUS.
Exo 12:37-42.
The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth.
Already, at the outset of their journey, controversy has had much to
say about their route. Much ingenuity has been expended upon the
theory which brought their early journey along the Mediterranean
coast, and made the overthrow of the Egyptians take place in "that
Serbonian bog where armies whole have sunk." But it may fairly be
assumed that this view was refuted even before the recent
identification of the sites of Rameses and Pi-hahiroth rendered it
untenable.
How came these trampled slaves, who could not call their lives
their own, to possess the cattle which we read of as having escaped
the murrain, and the number of which is here said to have been very
great?
Just before Moses returned, and when the Pharaoh of the Exodus
appears upon the scene, we are told that "their cry came up unto
God, ... and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His
covenant ... and God saw the children of Israel, and God took
knowledge of them" (Exo 2:23).
May not this verse point to something unrecorded, some event
before their final deliverance? The conjecture is a happy one that
it refers to their share in the revolt of subject races which drove
Menephtah for twelve years out of his northern territories. If so,
there was time for a considerable return of prosperity; and the
retention or forfeiture of their chattels when they were reconquered
would depend very greatly upon circumstances unknown to us. At all
events, this revolt is evidence, which is amply corroborated by
history and the inscriptions, of the existence of just such a
discontented and servile element in the population as the "mixed
multitude" which came out with them repeatedly proved itself to be.
But here we come upon a problem of another kind. How long was
Israel in the house of bondage? Can we rely upon the present Hebrew
text, which says that "their sojourning which they sojourned in
Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the
end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it
came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord came out of the land of
Egypt" (Exo 12:40-41).
Certain ancient versions have departed from this text. The
Septuagint reads, "The sojourning of the children of Israel which
they sojourned in Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was four
hundred and thirty years"; and the Samaritan agrees with this,
except that it has "the sojourning of the children of Israel and
of their fathers." The question is, which reading is correct?
Must we date the four hundred and thirty years from Abraham's
arrival in Canaan, or from Jacob's descent into Egypt?
For the shorter period there are two strong arguments. The
genealogies in the Pentateuch range from four persons to six between
Jacob and the Exodus, which number is quite unable to reach over
four centuries. And St. Paul says of the covenant with Abraham that
"the law which came four hundred and thirty years after" (i.e.
after the time of Abraham) "could not disannul it" (Gal 3:17).
This reference by St. Paul is not so decisive as it may appear,
because he habitually quotes the Septuagint, even where he must have
known that it deviates from the Hebrew, provided that the deviation
does not compromise the matter in hand. Here, he was in nowise
concerned with the chronology, and had no reason to perplex a
Gentile church by correcting it. But it was a different matter with
St. Stephen, arguing his case before the Hebrew council. And he
quotes plainly and confidently the prediction that the seed of
Abraham should be four hundred years in bondage, and that one nation
should entreat them evil four hundred years (Act 7:6). Again, this
is the clear intention of the words in Genesis (Gen 15:13). And as
to the genealogies, we know them to have been cut down, so that
seven names are omitted from that of Ezra, and three at least from
that of our Lord Himself. Certainly when we consider the great
population implied in an army of six hundred thousand adult men, we
must admit that the longer period is inherently the more probable of
the two. But we can only assert with confidence that just when their
deliverance was due it was accomplished, and they who had come down
a handful, and whom cruel oppression had striven to decimate, came
forth, no undisciplined mob, but armies moving in organised and
regulated detachments: "the Lord did bring the children of Israel
forth by their hosts" (Exo 12:51). "And the children of Israel went
up armed out of the land of Egypt" (Exo 13:18).
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Though of course the Person
Whose Body was thus offered is Divine (Act 20:28), and this gives
inestimable value to the offering.
[21] Here the sceptical theorists
are widely divided among themselves. Kuenen has discussed this whole
theory, and rejected it as "irreconcilable with what the Old
Testament itself asserts in justification of this sacrifice." And he
is driven to connect it with the notion of atonement. "Jahveh
appears as a severe being who must be propitiated with sacrifices."
He has therefore to introduce the notion of human sacrifice, in
order to get rid of the connection with the penal death of the
Egyptians, and of the miraculous, which this example would
establish. (Religion of Israel, Eng. Trans., i., 239, 240.)
[22] The astonishing significance
of this declaration would only be deepened if we accepted the
theories now so fashionable, and believed that the later passage in
Isaiah was the fruit of a period when the full-blown Priestly Code
was in process of development out of "the small body of legislation
contained in Leviticus 17--26." What a strange time for such a
spiritual application of sacrificial language!
[23] So that it is used equally of
the slow action of the lame, and of the lingering movements of the
false prophets when there was none to answer (2Sa 4:4; 1Ki 18:26).
"The Lord of Hosts shall come down to fight upon Mount Zion.... As
birds flying, so will the Lord of Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will
PASS OVER and preserve it" (Isa 31:4-5).