The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

At length the darkness became so dense, that it seemed a wall, between Egypt and Goshen, from the ground up to the cloud. Over the latter the sun,—oh, what a sublime contrast!—shone with unclouded brightness, the winds slept peacefully, the fields waved with the ripened flax and full-eared barley, the birds sang their songs of gladness, and the children of God dwelt in security, under the protection of His gentle love and terrible power.

Surely Pharaoh must perish if he dare any longer madly to resist the God of the Hebrews, who has now shown that He is God of heaven as well as of the earth, and that He is God alone, and there is none else! If, my dear father, your early instructions had not made known to me the God of Noah, who is the God of the Hebrews, I should, ere this last manifestation of His awful majesty and terror, have prostrated myself before Him and acknowledged Him as my God. Wonderful that He, who dwells in heaven, should stoop to behold things on the earth, and make such displays of His glory, and majesty, and strength, for the sake of a poor, enslaved people like the Hebrews. But, as the holy Moses taught me the other day, when I was humbly sitting at his feet, and hearing him discourse on these mighty events (for which he takes to himself no honor or merit, but only seems the more meek and lowly the more he is intrusted with power by God), these displays of God's majesty have a threefold end: first, to prove to the trembling and heart-crushed Israelites that He who is so terrible in power, doing wonders, is their God, as He was the God of Abraham, and has power to deliver them from Pharaoh; as well as to teach them that if He can so punish the Egyptians, He can punish them also, with equal judgments, if they rebel and do wickedly: secondly, to punish Pharaoh for the oppression of His people, to afflict the land upon which they have groaned so many generations, and to show the Egyptians that He alone is God, that their gods are as stubble in His hand, "that there is none like Him in all the earth;" and thus bring them to acknowledge Him, and to fear and worship Him: and, thirdly, that the word of His mighty deeds and wonders done in Egypt, going abroad to the ears of kings and princes, priests and lords, and people of all nations upon the earth, may give them the knowledge of the true God, prove to them the impotency of their idols, and the supremacy of the God of the Hebrews, in heaven, and on earth, and over kings and people. "Therefore, and for these ends," continued the divine Moses, "that He might not leave Himself without a witness before men, and that He might declare His power to all His creatures, and His care for the oppressed, and His judgment upon kings who reign by cruelty, has He permitted, not only the bondage of our nation, but raised up such a man as Pharaoh, in whom to show forth His power and judgments, as He said to this king, 'And in very deed, for this cause have I raised thee up, to show in thee my power, and that my Name may be declared throughout all the earth.' Therefore did the Lord God say to me in the beginning, when He sent me before Pharaoh, 'I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no not until I stretch out my hand with mighty power, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do; and after that he will let you go!' I did not understand this all at the first," said Moses, "but now I perceive the mind of God, and that He will do His will upon Pharaoh, and send yet more terrible punishments; after which, humbled, and acknowledging God to be the Lord, he will let the people go!"

What a wonderful mystery is passing before us, O my father! How dreadful is this God! How wonderful, how glorious is His majesty! In His presence, and before Him, what is man but dust, breath, vanity? I humble myself before Him, and feel that I am a worm, and no man! Yet Thothmeses, like a madman, stands and defies this living God!

Not all the horror of the plague of hail and fire, of the lightnings and thunderings, moved him to let Israel depart. When the judgment of God was at its height, driven to the interior of his palace,—from the tower upon which he had ascended "to see what Moses and Aaron would do," as he said,—he remained there three days, until, unable longer to bear the terrors of the scene, and the cries of his people, he sent for Moses and Aaron. No messenger could be found to go but Israelisis, your former page, who, since he returned to Egypt, is a servant of the king, greatly devoted to him, and from whom I have obtained much interesting information of the effects of these divine judgments upon him. Three couriers, one after the other, had been struck down by the hail. But the Hebrew walked forth fearlessly and unharmed, and moved through the showers of ice, as if he bore a charmed life. This alone should have proved the power of God to be with the Hebrew servant, and against Pharaoh and his servants.

Moving through the darkness, amid the fire upon the ground, and the hail and scalding rain, the man arrived, and told Moses and Aaron that the king had repented, and prayed them both to hasten to him, for he knew their God would defend them from injury on the way.

The king is represented as having received the Hebrew brothers in his bath-room, with his physicians around him, his face ghastly with fear, and anxiety, and an indefinable dread. It is also said that his manner was servile rather than humble, and that his speech was mingled with lamentations and accusations. When they entered, he said:

"It is enough, O men of God, it is enough! Entreat the Lord your God for me, that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail, and I will let you go, and without any longer delay."

As he spoke, the palace shook to its foundations, and the water in the fountain swayed to and fro with violence, as in an earthquake, while the hail, descending with a great noise into the outer courts, was piled many cubits in height against the columns, the sculptured work of which, struck off in every exposed part, fell to the earth mingled with the hail-stones.

"As soon as I am gone out of the city I will spread abroad my hands unto the Lord," said Moses, "and the thunder shall cease, and the hail, that thou mayest know how that the earth is the Lord's. But, O king, as for thee and thy lords, I know that ye will not yet fear the Lord God. Has He not mocked the power of your pretended goddess, Isis, over the heavens, and seasons, and winds? Who hath known a rain and hail in Egypt in this month? or hath seen the winds blowing clouds from the sea? God is God, and Isis is no god; or if a god, where is her power? Entreat her to remove this chamsin of heaven, such as earth never before felt upon her bosom."

"God is God, and entreat Him for me," answered the king, with a feeble gesture of impatience, doubtless humbled, and yet angry at being compelled to consent to lose six hundred thousand working-men from the mines and great works he is carrying on; for though he fears the number of the Hebrews, he would rather retain them, keeping them under by increased oppression, than release them, and thereby be relieved from the apprehensions to which their unparalleled increase has given rise.