His stratagem to preserve the Egyptian army from serpents by filling baskets with ibises, who devour and destroy serpents, is an instance of his foresight, leading his army safely through the swamps without damage, during the war with the Ethiopians.
The great feature of Moses’s Mount Sinai expedition, and his absence for forty days, and the production of the Ten Commandments, keeps the theological world in a constant stew of wonder and admiration. From the point of reason, common sense, and the light we have now, there is nothing remarkable or wonderful about the forty days’ absence or the Ten Commandments. Moses was provided with all the food he needed, and all the assistance he needed, during his stay in the mountain. His own family, as well as his wife’s relatives, knew all about the mountain, while the masses were kept at a respectful distance, on penalty of death.
What are these Ten Commandments?
| 1. | One God (the concentrated essence of the Chaldean gods), worship him only. | ||
| 2. | Have no other God, image, etc. |  | |
| 3. | Don’t swear by God. | ||
| 4. | Rest on the seventh day (economy of muscular forces). | ||
| 5. | Honor thy parents. |  | Natural laws of self-preservation and self-protection. |
| 6. | Do not commit murder. | ||
| 7. | Do not commit adultery. | ||
| 8. | Do not steal. | ||
| 9. | Do not bear false witness. | ||
| 10. | Do not desire another man’s property. | ||
All these laws had been in existence centuries before the coming of Moses. Nations had already adopted them, as a matter of necessity. Crimes of murder and robbery, etc., were familiar among the Chaldeans and other nations. When Isaac sent messengers to Nahor in order to secure Rebeka for his wife, they had to pass through Mesopotamia, “in which it was tedious traveling, both in winter, for a depth of clay, and in summer for a want of water; and besides this, for the robberies there committed” (Jos.).
It must be remembered that society had reached a degree of organization and civilization; that these fundamental principles, these natural laws, are observed to a considerable extent even among the lower animals, and that they were strictly enforced in every barbarian as well as more civilized community. In the codification of these laws by Moses there is nothing wonderful, nothing miraculous, supernatural. The whole matter consisted in the adoption of these fundamental principles, these common-law usages, and the proclaiming of them as the laws to govern this newly organized nation, as all other nations had done centuries before them.
The laws incorporated in the book of Leviticus, etc., consisting in the regulation or government of the nation, appointing communities or families, dealing with food, dress, sacrifice, crime and its punishment, trade, commerce, domestic affairs, marriage, and above all church affairs, were mostly adoptions from other nations with certain modifications, written up in the manner we find them.
The supernatural phenomena recited in the Bible in the books of Moses—what descended from heaven, clouds, pillars, earthquakes, thunder, lightning, rain, deluge, fire, etc., on and about Mount Sinai—and that God performed these wonders to oblige Moses, because he exercised his influence in prayer upon Jehova—form the greatest piece of nonsense that ever was written.
Clouds belong to the earth, are composed of earthly elements, are taken from the surface of the earth by a natural process and return to the earth by a natural process. Neither God nor man can influence them. The same may be said of all other phenomena. Water cannot be composed from any other elements than oxygen and hydrogen, and the silly theological twaddle cannot change it. What we ought to know is, at least something of the natural. The more we know of the natural the less we believe of the supernatural—in fact, the latter has largely disappeared. In time, let us hope, these childish delusions will be regarded as some of the remnants of the past and infantile ages of humanity.
In all ages and at all times, men of great merit have been admired and honored by mankind. But the mythology and theology that enshrouds ancient heroes, the deification, the supernaturalism, the sanctity, the holiness, and the delusions that accompany and surround their actions, are entirely superfluous. We have outgrown these fables. And truly, these imaginary attributions, these visionary productions, have outlived their usefulness. Whether it be Moses, David, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Cromwell, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, or Washington, they were men, nothing but men, and their actions, as also the great good resulting from their actions, that benefited humanity, were natural, not influenced in any way or shape by the smallest particle of supernaturalism.