The Exodus.—The part of Egypt in which Joseph had settled his family was one of the most fertile parts of the valley of the Nile. Skirted on the south by hills, it sloped off to the northwest toward the Mediterranean Sea, thus affording the most favorable exposure for the purpose of the pastoral life which the Israelites led. For more than a century they pursued their quiet employment, and were treated by the Egyptians with respect and consideration, in memory of Prince Joseph. The prosperity and increase of the Israelites, with their distinctness as a people, alarmed the Egyptian powers, who turned their attention to some means to cripple them and arrest their increase. Oppression was resorted to. Privileges were withheld, and severer tasks imposed, until one tremendous groan went up from the land of Goshen to the God of their fathers. In spite of all the oppression and injustice practiced upon this people, they throve and increased in numbers.
The Lord heard the cry of the outraged Hebrew slave, and permitted his enemies to afflict him, that he might find the country hateful, and feel that he was only a sojourner, who was to seek a promised land, the land promised to his father, Abraham. Their burdens became intolerable. Moses, their leader, applied to Pharaoh to allow them to depart from the country; but the king refused, and God afflicted the Egyptians with dreadful plagues, until they prayed the Israelites to depart. They set out with all their effects, moving toward Arabia, and on reaching the shores of the Red Sea they became aware of the fact that Pharaoh, with his army, was pursuing.
Hemmed in on either side by hills, the sea before them, and their enemies behind, they were overwhelmed with despair. But now the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, their fathers, delivered them with a great deliverance, for, at his command, the sea opened and allowed them to pass over in safety. Pharaoh, pursuing, led his chariots and horsemen into the bed of the sea, and the returning waters engulfed them. All were destroyed, not one escaped; a terrific exhibition of the wrath of the Almighty. The Israelites journeyed on toward Canaan, the land of promise, spending forty years in the desert of Arabia, living in tents, subsisting on manna, which they found on the ground in the morning, and on the flesh of birds, which came to them every evening, making their whole journey a series of miracles and special providences. They finally reached the Jordan, which, like the Red Sea, opened for them, and allowed them to pass over dry-shod. The inhabitants of the land were driven out, and the weary wanderers, who had crossed and recrossed their path in the rocky wilds and desert sands of Arabia, sat down in the land of their fathers, and became dwellers in permanent habitations.
[January 28.]
[THE ISRAELITES AFTER REACHING THE LAND OF PROMISE.]
By W. F. COLLIER, LL. D.
Between the time of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan and the birth of our Savior, a period of 1,451 years elapsed. It is not our object to follow out the history of this wonderful nation, yet it would seem necessary to state briefly their progress.
For several centuries they remained much in the same state as Joshua, their great captain, left them; contending with the surrounding tribes whenever their encroachments were disputed, at other times living friendly with them; not only intermarrying, but allowing themselves to be seduced into idolatry; for which sin the Lord permitted the neighboring nations, in more than one instance, to conquer them, to break up their government, and carry the principal inhabitants into captivity. In each case, however, after long and weary years of captivity, their country was restored to them, and the spoilers themselves were made instruments in the hands of God to reconstruct the nation.
Social and Religious Condition.—During the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, very little opportunity was afforded for the exercise of the arts of life. It is difficult to conjecture the employment of that vast multitude during all those years.