All his glory is around thee;
And sitting at thy feet they received thy words.
Moses commanded us the law,
The inheritance of the congregation of Israel.
He was king in Israel,
In the assembly of the heads of the people,
Together with the tribes of Israel.—Deut. xxxiii.
“In this manner, Myron, and by means of such a man, did Israel obtain its treasure and inheritance, the law. And this is the first period of the history of our people.”
“Our best thanks belong to thee, venerable old man,” said Myron, “for the relation of it, and I can readily believe, that the history of thy nation has more in it than is commonly supposed. It was, I must confess, in a very different way that Lycurgus, Solon, Numa Pompilius, and even Pythagoras himself, gave their laws. There is something grand, exalted and divine, in the manner in which Moses speaks and acts. But permit me to remind you, that though you mentioned his being brought up at the court of Pharaoh, and instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, you have given us no hint that he may have learned much from the pillars of Isis, and that an [imitation] of the Egyptian polity is every where conspicuous in your law, especially in the double power of the king and the priest, the institution of a sacerdotal caste, the encouragement given to agriculture, your festivals, and many other particulars.”
“I gave no hint of it,” said Elisama, “because in this sense it does not exist. To say nothing of its being as yet an undetermined point, whether the Jews learned these things from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the Jews; I will suppose that the wisdom of the Egyptians is of that high antiquity which you ascribe to it, and maintain that Jehovah wisely chose institutions for his people not too remote from those to which they were accustomed; that some things, which were for higher reasons essential in the Jewish economy, have an accidental coincidence with circumstances of the Egyptian customs. But disregarding outward and accidental things, let the spirit of the two systems be compared, and you will find that one is the spirit of God, and the other the spirit of the world. In our religion there is no worship of animals or of images, no polytheism, no secret doctrines of the priests. These are essential points, which show that the legislation of Moses must have had a higher origin, and was not learned by him from any other nation. Would it, besides, be surprising if, in giving a divine revelation to his people, Jehovah should have chosen a form for its communication, in which, as being familiar to them, they would more readily adopt it? Though this form was of human invention, it was purified and hallowed by God’s adoption of it.”