In most of these books some grains of truth were found. All the nations of the world are but one great family, you know, and even the most ignorant people were not without some knowledge.
The heathen nations of Moses' time therefore remembered dimly some of God's dealings with the world; they were so blinded by their heathen worship, that no atom of fresh light could reach them, and little by little they drifted further into the darkness.
But, though tiny fragments of truth are to be found in their books, not one word is to be traced in any book of the most precious truth of all until God revealed it to His servant Moses.
This makes our Bible so wonderful and different from all other books: it is a revelation—that is, something which comes to us from God and which we could never have known without His help.
From first to last the Bible is written to teach us about Christ. Throughout the whole of the Old Testament Christ is referred to as the coming Saviour, or Messiah, which you know, is the Hebrew word for Christ.
Christ is to bruise the serpent's head. (Genesis iii. 15.) In Him all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. (Genesis xxii. 18.) He is the Star that shall come out of Jacob. (Numbers xxiv. 17.) When the Lamb of the Passover was killed, and the people taught they could only escape from death through the sprinkled blood, this was a type or picture of Salvation through the Blood of Jesus.
When at last the Saviour came, the Jews rejected Him and would not accept Him as the Messiah. Then He said to them: 'Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me.' (John v. 46.)
[[1]] The Egyptians spelt 'Goshen' 'Kosem.' An old writing says, 'The country is not cultivated, but left as a pasture for cattle because of the stranger.'