of all ages across an arm of the sea twelve miles broad and three fathoms deep, he would be little impeded by the minor obstacle of a rough bottom.' But this I say, that they, who deny the supernatural powers of Moses, stand pledged to account rationally and satisfactorily for the passage itself. Admit a Θεος εν μηχανη, call in the aid of a Divinity to untie the knot: and all is perfectly easy. We shall then readily account, both for the retrogradation from Etham, for the march to Pi-Hahiroth, for the transit of the Israelites, and for the

discomfiture of the Egyptians. Moses readily obeyed the voice of Jehovah: the people, assured of his divine legation by the miracles which they had already witnessed, implicitly followed him into a dangerous defile: the sea opened a passage through its waters: and the ruggedness of the bottom lost its power of impeding or of injuring the feet of the heaven-conducted pilgrims.*

V. But, supposing that after some inexplicable manner the Hebrew lawgiver had extricated himself from his perilous situation and had safely escaped into the transmarine wilderness, how is he there to feed the vast multitude which he had led from Egypt? Can the most sagacious statesman furnish

'Pocock's Travels. p. 135, 141. C'est le premier pas qui coûte, observed the Frenchman upon hearing the story of the decapitated St. Denys walking a mile.

2 In this account of the transit, I have followed Mr. Bryant's excellent elucidation of the subject. See his Observ. on the plagues of Egypt. p. 350-412.

a table in the desert? Can he give bread also? Can he provide flesh for his people? No prudent leader would have conducted the Israelites into a land, where, humanly speaking, they must inevitably perish by famine. Yet into such a land Moses did conduct his followers: and, what is still more extraordinary, they did not there perish by famine; for they afterwards emerged from the wilderness, and contrived to make themselves masters of the whole land of Palestine. This fact at least is indisputable, whatever might be the precise time of their abode in the desert. How are we to account for it by natural means? For it is obvious, that natural means alone can be resorted to by him, who denies the divine legation of Moses.

1. If it be doubted, whether the Israelites were at all in the wilderness; and if it be contended, that they marched straight from Egypt into Palestine: we have the testimony of the Pagans themselves to the contrary.

Lysimachus affirms, that they were driven into the desert for the express purpose of perishing there; so surely was destruction viewed as the natural consequence of such a banishment: Justin asserts, that they reached mount Sinai after suffering the pains of hunger for seven days in the Arabian wilderness: and the authors referred to by Tacitus unanimously agree, that they travelled through that same desolate region, where they well nigh perished by thirst and famine.

'Psalm 1xxviii. 19, 20.

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The fact therefore of their having been in the wilderness cannot be disputed without setting aside the testimony of those pagan writers, by which alone the testimony of Moses can be historically confronted. Hence the question still remains to be solved, by what means they were fed in the desert.

2. I see not what can be said on this subject, save that Moses grossly exaggerated, in declaring them to have wandered in that barren region for the space of forty years. To have continued there during such a period, without some miraculous supply of food, is plainly impossible: the necessary alternative therefore is evidently this; either they were so short a time in the wilderness that a miracle was superfluous, or they were so long a time there that a miracle was imperiously necessary. He, who rejects the divine legation of Moses, will of course find himself compelled to adopt the former part of the alternative. Let us consider, with what emolument such a theory can be advanced.

With respect to the fact itself, since it can be shewn (as we shall presently find) that the Pentateuch cannot have been written later than the agc of Moses, we may reasonably begin with asking, how the Israelites could have been persuaded to receive and to hand down to their children, as an undoubted verity, an account of their having sojourned forty years in the desert, when every individual among them knew, that the story was a gross falsehood, and that they had simply marched

across it in their way to Palestine with all possible rapidity? But for the present let us waive this argument: and let us hear, by what expedients the Israelites may best be conducted from Baal-Zephon to the land of Canaan.

I am not able to determine, how long a time it might occupy a well appointed caravan to journey from Baal-Zephon to Palestine through the wilderness of Etham: but a mixed multitude, consisting of men and women and children, plainly could not travel with equal rapidity. So far as food was concerned, they certainly might subsist for a season upon the very much cattle, which they carried out with them and this they evidently did; for, according to the scriptural account, they did not murmur for want of food until a month after they had quitted Goshen.' But the grand difficulty would be to supply such an armament with water, even during the most rapid march which they could accomplish, and even supposing that they encountered no obstacles on the way from the incursions of the active Arabians. This difficulty, according to Scripture, was experienced on the third day after the transit and a miracle is brought in to obviate it. But he, who rejects the divine legation of Moses, must supply this vast multitude with water by natural means. Something of the kind was accordingly attempted by the pagan writers, who could not allow the miracles of Moses without acknowledging the weakness of their own gods whom

2

'Exod. xvi. 1-3.

2 Exod. xv. 25-24.

he directly opposed. This we may collect from those numerous authors, whom Tacitus professes to have consulted that so he might give the better account of the Israelites.

According to the general consent of these persons (the very earliest of whom flourished however, as we have already seen, full twelve centuries after the exodus), when king Bocchoris, by command of the oracle of Hammon, had driven them out into the wilderness; while the rest gave themselves up to tears and to all the torpidity of despair, Moses one of the exiles advised them to expect assistance neither from the gods nor from men but he recommended to them, that they should trust themselves to him as to a celestial leader, by whose assistance they might escape from their present miseries. They assented; and, ignorant of all things, commenced their fortuitous journey. As might naturally be expected in the Arabian desert, they chiefly suffered from want of water: but by great good luck they were conducted by a drove of wild asses to a rock dark with foliage. Moses, conjecturing from the freshness of the grass that water might be found there, soon came to a copious supply by opening the veins of the latent fountains. Thus relieved, they proceeded upon their march which occupied a space of six days: and, on the seventh, they safely arrived in the land where they built their city and temple, the former occupants having been previously expelled by force of arms. This circumstance led to their consecration of the sabbath and, while their numerous fasts served