blessing of the God of their fathers was however upon the Israelites in their captivity; for "the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour," ver. 12-14. The determination of Pharaoh and his counsellors to repress the further increase of the children of Israel by means of the horrible expedient of infanticide, endeavouring in the first place to compass their wicked end through fraud, and failing in that, perpetrating it with open violence, is but too characteristic of the manners of these fierce times, and of the treatment of slaves in all ages, ver. 15-22. But that which was designed to remove all hope of the escape of Israel from the house of their bondage, became in God's good time, the means of their deliverance.

There went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of Levi. The son that God gave to them she hid in her house for three months, for she saw that he was a goodly child, and she could not bear the thought that he should be seized by Pharaoh's cruel task-masters, and cast into the river. Moreover, the love of the God of her fathers was in the heart of this woman, and His fear was before her eyes. It was His wisdom that pointed out to her the difficult path of her duty. It was His Spirit that strengthened her with strength in her soul to walk in it. "By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and

they were not afraid of the king's commandment," Heb. xi. 23. "And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes,—and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him," Exod. ii. 1—4.

The daughter of Pharaoh, providentially brought to the spot, had compassion on the forsaken infant whom she found among the flags: she gave wages to his mother to nurse him; she had him taught in all the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians: she brought him to her house, and would have adopted him for her son, ver. 5-10. But "by faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward," Heb. xi. 24-26. The riches, the honours, yea, the crown of Egypt, according to Josephus, were within his grasp. But God is now resolved to punish that guilty country; the cry of the oppression of His people has pierced his ears, and he is girding himself to avenge them. Four hundred years before, the faith of Joseph had lifted him out of the dungeon, and made him ruler over all the land of Egypt; but now, under the influence of the same grace, Moses "forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king;" by faith, he endured a change of circumstances as sudden as that of Joseph, but as disastrous as his had been prosperous: he went forth for ever from the luxuries of the palaces of Egypt, to the hardships and dangers of the sheep-folds of the wilderness.

This discipline, so grievous to flesh and blood, he endured for forty years, "as seeing Him who is invisible," until God visibly present announced to him from the burning bush that the time to deliver His people, yea, the set time, was come; and that he was the prepared and chosen instrument whereby that deliverance was to be accomplished. God sometimes fulfils his purposes by what would seem to be strange contrarieties: it was through the wisdom and energy of Joseph that Israel went down into Egypt, and that Egypt was blessed for his sake; but it shall be by the faith and meekness of Moses that the mighty hand shall be revealed, and the stretchedout arm laid bare, whereby God shall lead his people forth from their prison-house and accomplish vengeance on their enemies, in the day that He heard their cry, and came down to deliver them.

God delights in the graces and gifts of his own Spirit in His people, and they are the means whereby the greatest of his works are often accomplished. But even in the use of them, he still teaches us that our God is a jealous God, who will not give his glory to another; and he will save through the energy of Joseph, and avenge through the meekness of Moses, in order that all men may perceive and understand, and know that He and He alone, is the Saviour and the Avenger.

Hitherto God hath taught us by the history of Egypt that blessed shall he be that blesseth his people, Numb. xxiv. 9; now shall all mankind know, by the history of the same country, that cursed is he that curseth them, and that whoso toucheth them "toucheth the apple of His eye," Zech. ii. 8.

It is not improbable that the Pharaoh, whose daughter had

brought up Moses, and would have adopted him, may have relaxed in some degree the severe laws of his ancestors against the Israelites. This may possibly be implied in the inspired narrative, which proceeds thus: "And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage,” Exod. ii. 23. The cruel laws were probably again enforced by his successor in all their stringency.

But be this as it may, God's time for the performance of his works of providence and grace is always the right time. Forty years before, Israel was not ready for deliverance from Egypt. When Moses first "went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens," ver. 11, they were not disposed to hear the message which God, even then, was ready to declare to them by his lips, nor to fulfil the purpose that the faith, which is of the operation of God, was even then forming in his heart. He saw one of his brethren suffer wrong, and "he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: for he supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not," Acts vii. 24, 25. But if his brethren were not yet ready to go forth out of Egypt, neither was Moses yet prepared to be their leader. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God," James i. 20, even though that man be Moses, and even though the purpose in his heart be the deliverance of Israel. It is by the staff of Moses, not by his sword; it is by the meekness of Moses, not by his wrath, that God will work this great work on the earth. The Israelites themselves shall betray the rash act of Moses to their oppressors, and thus drive him forth into the

wilderness of Midian, and bind upon their own shoulders for forty years longer the heavy yoke of Egyptian bondage," Exod. ii. 11–22. But we shall find, that though He thus cast both into the furnace of affliction, yet, nevertheless, it was therein that he had chosen them, Isa. xlviii. 10.

The children of Israel" cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them," Exod. ii. 23— 25. God also appeared unto Moses in the wilderness; and having made him willing to undertake the arduous office for which he had appointed him, he said unto him," Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life. And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand," Exod. iv. 19, 20. Thus commanded of God, all his way was prepared before him. Aaron, his brother, is sent forth to meet him; he tells him all the words of the Lord who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him. In fulfilment of the office of spokesman for his brother, which God had assigned to him, "Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses," and did the signs in the sight of the assembled elders of the children of Israel, "and the people believed," ver. 30, 31.

Before, the Israelites had slighted the message, and persecuted the messenger; before, Moses appears to have gone down in his own strength, probably supposing that he could save his brethren by his own sword, and by the strength of his own hand. But now he comes forth from the wilderness