This illustrious legislator of the Israelites was of the tribe of
Levi, in the line of Koath and of Amram, whose son he was, and therefore
in the fourth generation after the settlement of the Israelites in
Egypt. The time of his birth is ascertained by the exode of the
Israelites, when Moses was eighty years old, Exod. vii, 7. By a singular
providence, the infant Moses, when exposed on the river Nile, through
fear of the royal decree, after his mother had hid him three months,
because he was a goodly child, was taken up and adopted by Pharaoh’s
daughter, and nursed by his own mother, whom she hired at the suggestion
of his sister Miriam. Thus did he find an asylum in the very palace of
his intended destroyer; while his intercourse with his own family and
nation was still most naturally, though unexpectedly, maintained: so
mysterious are the ways of Heaven. And while he was instructed in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians,” and bred up in the midst of a luxurious
court, he acquired at home the knowledge of the promised redemption of
Israel; and, by faith” in the Redeemer Christ, “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,” or persecution for Christ’s sake,
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect to the
recompense of reward,” Exodus ii, 1–10; Acts vii, 20–22; Heb. xi, 23–26;
or looked forward to a future state.
When Moses was grown to manhood, and was full forty years old, he was
moved by a divine intimation, as it seems, to undertake the deliverance
of his countrymen; for he supposed that his brethren would have
understood how that God, by his hand, would give them deliverance; but
they understood not.” For when, in the excess of his zeal to redress
their grievances, he had slain an Egyptian, who injured one of them, in
which he probably went beyond his commission, and afterward endeavoured
to reconcile two of them that were at variance, they rejected his
mediation; and the man who had done wrong said, Who made thee a judge
and a ruler over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the
Egyptian yesterday?” So Moses, finding it was known, and that Pharaoh
sought to slay him, fled for his life to the land of Midian, in Arabia
Petræa, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, or Reuel,
prince and priest of Midian; and, as a shepherd, kept his flocks in the
vicinity of Mount Horeb, or Sinai, for forty years, Exodus ii, 11–21;
iii, 1; xviii, 5; Num. x, 29; Acts vii, 23–30. During this long exile
Moses was trained in the school of humble circumstances for that arduous
mission which he had prematurely anticipated; and, instead of the
unthinking zeal which at first actuated him, learned to distrust
himself. His backwardness, afterward, to undertake that mission for
which he was destined from the womb, was no less remarkable than his
forwardness before, Exod. iv, 10–13.
At length, when the oppression of the Israelites was come to the full,
and they cried to God for succour, and the king was dead, and all the
men in Egypt that sought his life, the God of glory” appeared to Moses
in a flame of fire, from the midst of a bush, and announced himself as
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” under the titles of _Jahoh_
and _Æhjeh_, expressive of his unity and sameness; and commissioned him
first to make known to the Israelites the divine will for their
deliverance; and next to go with the elders of Israel to Pharaoh,
requiring him, in the name of “the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, to
suffer the people to go three days’ journey into the wilderness, to
sacrifice unto the Lord their God,” after such sacrifices had been long
intermitted during their bondage; for the Egyptians had sunk into
bestial polytheism, and would have stoned them, had they attempted to
sacrifice to their principal divinities, the apis, or bull, &c, in the
land itself: foretelling, also, the opposition they would meet with from
the king, the mighty signs and wonders that would finally compel his
assent, and their spoiling of the Egyptians, by asking or demanding of
them (not borrowing) jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment,
(by way of wages or compensation for their services,) as originally
declared to Abraham, that they should go out from thence with great
substance,” Gen. xv, 14; Exod. ii, 23–25; iii, 2–22; viii, 25, 26.
To vouch his divine commission to the Israelites, God enabled Moses to
work three signal miracles: 1. Turning his rod into a serpent, and
restoring it again: 2. Making his hand leprous as snow, when he first
drew it out of his bosom, and restoring it sound as before when he next
drew it out: and, 3. Turning the water of the river into blood. And the
people believed the signs, and the promised deliverance, and worshipped.
To assist him, also, in his arduous mission, when Moses had represented
that he was not eloquent, but slow of speech,” and of a slow or
stammering tongue, God inspired Aaron, his elder brother, to go and meet
Moses in the wilderness, to be his spokesman to the people, Exod. iv,
1–31, and his prophet to Pharaoh; while Moses was to be a god to both,
as speaking to them in the name, or by the authority, of God himself,
Exod. vii, 1, 2. At their first, interview with Pharaoh, they declared,
Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may
hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the
Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not,” or
regard not, the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.” In answer to this
haughty tyrant, they styled the Lord by a more ancient title, which the
Egyptians ought to have known and respected, from Abraham’s days, when
he plagued them in the matter of Sarah: “The God of the Hebrews hath met
with us: Let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the desert,
and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with
pestilence or with the sword:” plainly intimating to Pharaoh, also, not
to incur his indignation, by refusing to comply with his desire. But the
king not only refused, but increased the burdens of the people, Exod. v,
1–19; and the people murmured, and hearkened not unto Moses, when he
repeated from the Lord his assurances of deliverance and protection, for
anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage, Exod. v, 20–23; vi, 1–9.
At their second interview with Pharaoh, in obedience to the divine
command, again requiring him to let the children of Israel go out of his
land; Pharaoh, as foretold, demanded of them to show a miracle for
themselves, in proof of their commission, when Aaron cast down his rod,
and it became a serpent before Pharaoh and before his servants, or
officers of his court. The king then called upon his wise men and
magicians, to know if they could do as much by the power of their gods,
“and they did so with their enchantments; for they cast down every man
his rod, and they became serpents; but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their
serpents.” Here the original phrase, ויעשו כן, and they did so,” or in
like manner,” may only indicate the attempt, and not the deed; as
afterward, in the plague of lice, when they did so with their
enchantments, but could not,” Exod. viii, 18. And, indeed, the original
term, להטיהם, rendered their enchantments,” as derived from the root
לאט, or לוט, to _hide_ or _cover_, fitly expresses the secret deceptions
of legerdemain, or sleight-of-hand, to impose on spectators: and the
remark of the magicians, when unable to imitate the production of lice,
which was beyond their skill and dexterity, on account of their
minuteness,--“This is the finger of a God!”--seems to strengthen the
supposition; especially as the Egyptians were famous for legerdemain and
for charming serpents: and the magicians, having had notice of the
miracle they were expected to imitate, might make provision accordingly,
and bring live serpents, which they might have substituted for their
rods. And though Aaron’s serpent swallowed up their serpents, showing
the superiority of the true miracle over the false, 2 Thess. ii, 9, it
might only lead the king to conclude, that Moses and Aaron were more
expert jugglers than Jannes and Jambres, who opposed them, 2 Timothy
iii, 8. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, so that he hearkened not
unto them, as the Lord had said,” or foretold, Exod. vi, 10, 11; vii,
8–13. For the conduct of Moses as the deliverer and lawgiver of the
Israelites, see PLAGUES OF EGYPT, RED SEA, and LAW.
At Mount Sinai the Lord was pleased to make Moses, the redeemer of
Israel, an eminent type of the Redeemer of the world. I will raise them
up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my
words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall
command him: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken
unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of
him:” which Moses communicated to the people. The Lord thy God will
raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren,
like unto me: unto him shall ye hearken,” Deut. xviii, 15–19. This
prophet like unto Moses was our Lord Jesus Christ, who was by birth a
Jew, of the middle class of the people, and resembled his predecessor,
in personal intercourse with God, miracles, and legislation, which no
other prophet did, Deut. xxxiv, 10–12; and to whom God, at his
transfiguration, required the world to hearken, Matt. xvii, 5. Whence
our Lord’s frequent admonition to the Jewish church, He that hath ears
to hear, let him hear,” Matthew xiii, 9, &c; which is addressed, also,
by the Spirit to the Christian churches of Asia Minor, Rev. iii, 22.
In the affair of the _Golden Calf_, (see CALF,) the conduct of Moses
showed the greatest zeal for God’s honour, and a holy indignation
against the sin of Aaron and the people. And when Moses drew nigh, and
saw their proceedings, his anger waxed hot, and he cast away the tables
of the covenant, or stone tablets on which were engraven the ten
commandments by the finger of God himself, and brake them beneath the
mount, in the presence of the people; in token that the covenant between
God and them was now rescinded on his part, in consequence of their
transgression. He then took the golden calf, and burned it in the fire,
and ground it to powder, and mixed it with water, and made the children
of Israel drink of it. After thus destroying their idol, he inflicted
punishment on the idolaters themselves; for he summoned all that were on
the Lord’s side to attend him; and all the Levites having obeyed the
call, he sent them, in the name of the Lord, to slay all the idolaters,
from one end of the camp to the other, without favour or affection
either to their neighbour or to their brother; and they slew about three
thousand men. The Lord also sent a grievous plague among them for their
idolatry, Exodus xxxii, 2–35, on which occasion Moses gave a signal
proof of his love for his people, by interceding for them with the Lord;
and of his own disinterestedness, in refusing the offer of the Almighty
to adopt his family in their room, and make of them a great nation.” He
prayed that God would blot him out of his book, that is, take away his
life, if he would not forgive the great sin of his people;” and
prevailed with God to alter his determination of withdrawing his
presence from them, and sending an inferior angel to conduct them to the
land of promise. So wonderful was the condescension of God to the voice
of a man, and so mighty the power of prayer.
When the Lord had pardoned the people, and taken them again into favour,
he commanded Moses to hew two tablets of stone, like the former which
were broken, and to present them to him on the top of the mount; and on
these the Lord wrote again the ten commandments, for a renewal of the
covenant between him and his people. To reward and strengthen the faith
of Moses, God was pleased, at his request, to grant him a fuller view of
the divine glory, or presence, than he had hitherto done. And, to
confirm his authority with the people on his return, after the second
conference of forty days, he imparted to him a portion of that glory or
light by which his immediate presence was manifested: for the face of
Moses shone so that Aaron and all the people were afraid to come nigh
him, until he had put a veil on his face, to hide its brightness. This
was an honour never vouchsafed to mortal before nor afterward till
Christ, the Prophet like Moses, in his transfiguration also, appeared
arrayed in a larger measure of the same lustre. Then Moses again beheld
the glory of the Word made flesh, and ministered thereto in a glorified
form himself, Exod. xxxiv, 1–35; Matt. xvii, 1–8.
At Kibroth Hataavah, when the people loathed the manna, and longed for
flesh, Moses betrayed great impatience, and wished for death. He was
also reproved for unbelief. At Kadesh-barnea, Moses having encouraged
the people to proceed, saying, Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the
land before thee, go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers
hath said unto you: fear not,” Deut. i, 19–21; they betrayed great
diffidence, and proposed to Moses to send spies to search out the land,
and point out to them the way they should enter, and the course they
should take. And the proposal pleased him well,” and with the consent of
the Lord he sent twelve men, one out of each tribe, to spy out the land,
Deut. i, 22, 23; Num. xiii, 1–20. All these, except Caleb and Joshua,
having brought an evil report,” so discouraged the people, that they
murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Would God
that we had died in the land of Egypt; or would God that we had died in
the wilderness! And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to
fall by the sword, that our wives and our children shall be a prey? Were
it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another,
Let us make a captain, and return into Egypt.” They even went so far as
to propose to stone Joshua and Caleb, because they exhorted the people
not to rebel against the Lord, nor to fear the people of the land, Num.
xiv, 1–10; Deut. i, 26–28. Here again the noble patriotism of Moses was
signally displayed. He again refused the divine offer to disinherit the
Israelites, and make of him and his family a greater and mightier nation
than they.” He urged the most persuasive motives with their offended
God, not to destroy them with the threatened pestilence, lest the
Heathen might say, that the Lord was not able to bring them into the
land which he sware unto them.” He powerfully appealed to the long-tried
mercies and forgivenesses they had experienced ever since their
departure from Egypt; and his energetic supplication prevailed; for the
Lord graciously said, I have pardoned, according to thy word: but
verily, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the
Lord;” or shall adore him for his righteous judgments; for all these men
which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt, and in
the wilderness, and have tempted me these ten times, and have not
hearkened to my voice, surely shall not see the land which I sware unto
their fathers: neither shall any of them that provoked me see it. As ye
have spoken in my ears, so will I do unto you,” by a righteous
retaliation: your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. But your
little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in; and
they shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your
whoredoms, after the number of the days in which ye searched the land,
each day for a year, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.”
And immediately after this sentence, as the earnest of its full
accomplishment, all the spies, except Caleb and Joshua, were cut off,
and died by the plague before the Lord, Num. xiv, 11–37; Deut. i, 34–39.
The people now, to repair their fault, contrary to the advice of Moses,
presumptuously went to invade the Amalekites and Canaanites of Mount
Seir, or Hor; who defeated them, and chased them as bees to Hormah, Num.
xiv, 39–45; Deut. i, 41–44. On the morrow they were ordered to turn away
from the promised land, and to take their journey south-westward, toward
the way of the Red Sea: and they abode in the wilderness of Kadesh many
days, or years, Num. xiv, 25; Deut. i, 40–46. The ill success of the
expedition against the Amalekites, according to Josephus, occasioned the
rebellion of Korah, which broke out shortly after, against Moses and
Aaron, with greater violence than any of the foregoing, under Korah, the
ringleader, who drew into it Dathan and Abiram, the heads of the senior
tribe of Reuben, and two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly,
among whom were even several of the Levites. (See _Korah_.) But although
all Israel round about had fled at the cry of the devoted families of
Dathan and Abiram, for fear that the earth should swallow them up also;”
yet, on the morrow, they returned to their rebellious spirit, and
murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of
the Lord.” On this occasion also, the Lord threatened to consume them as
in a moment; but, on the intercession of Moses, only smote them with a
plague, which was stayed by an atonement made by Aaron, after the
destruction of fourteen thousand seven hundred souls, Num. xvi, 41–50.
On the return of the Israelites, after many years’ wandering, to the
same disastrous station of Kadesh-barnea, even Moses himself was guilty
of an offence, in which his brother Aaron was involved, and for which
both were excluded, as a punishment, from entering the promised land. At
Meribah Kadesh the congregation murmured against Moses, for bringing
them into a barren wilderness without water; when the Lord commanded
Moses to take his rod, which had been laid up before the Lord, and with
Aaron to assemble the congregation together, and to speak to the rock
before their eyes; which should supply water for the congregation and
their cattle. But Moses said unto the congregation, when they were
assembled, Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this
rock? And he smote the rock twice with his rod, and the water came out
abundantly; and the congregation drank, and their cattle also. And the
Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify
me in the eyes of the children of Israel; therefore ye shall not bring
this congregation into the land which I have given them,” Num. xx, 1–13;
and afterward in stronger terms: Because ye rebelled against my
commandment,” &c, Numbers xxvii, 14.
The offence of Moses, as far as may be collected from so concise an
account, seems to have been, 1. He distrusted or disbelieved that water
could be produced from the rock only by speaking to it; which was a
higher miracle than he had performed before at Rephidim, Exod. xvii, 6.
2. He unnecessarily smote the rock twice; thereby betraying an
unwarrantable impatience. 3. He did not, at least in the phrase he used,
ascribe the glory of the miracle wholly to God, but rather to himself
and his brother: Must _we_ fetch you water out of this rock?” And he
denominated them rebels” against his and his brother’s authority, which,
although an implied act of rebellion against God, ought to have been
stated, as on a former occasion, Ye have been rebels against the Lord,
from the day that I knew you,” Deut. ix, 24, which he spake without
blame. For want of more caution on this occasion, he spake unadvisedly
with his lips, because they provoked his spirit,” Psalm cvi, 33. Thus
was God sanctified at the waters of Meribah,” by his impartial justice,
in punishing his greatest favourites when they did amiss, Num. xx, 13.
How severely Moses felt his deprivation, appears from his humble, and it
should seem repeated, supplications to the Lord to reverse the sentence:
O Lord of gods, thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness, and
thy mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or in earth that can do
according to thy works, and according to thy might? I pray thee let me
go over and see the good land beyond Jordan, even that goodly mountain
Lebanon,” or the whole breadth of the land. But the Lord was wroth with
me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and he said unto me, Let it
suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter. Get thee up unto the
top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and
southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt
not go over this Jordan,” Deut. iii, 23–27.
The faculties of this illustrious legislator, both of mind and body,
were not impaired at the age of a hundred and twenty years, when he
died. His eye was not dim, nor his natural strength abated,” Deut.
xxxiv, 7: and the noblest of all his compositions was his Song, or the
Divine Ode, which Bishop Lowth elegantly styles, _Cycnea Oratio_, “the
Dying Swan’s Oration.” His death took place after the Lord had shown
him, from the top of Pisgah, a distant view of the promised land,
throughout its whole extent. He then buried his body in a valley
opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Moab; but no man knoweth his
sepulchre unto this day,” observes the sacred historian, who annexed the
circumstances of his death to the book of Deuteronomy, xxxiv, 6. From an
obscure passage in the New Testament, in which Michael the archangel is
said to have contended with the devil about the body of Moses, Jude 9,
some have thought that he was buried by the ministry of angels, near the
scene of the idolatry of the Israelites; but that the spot was purposely
concealed, lest his tomb might also be converted into an object of
idolatrous worship among the Israelites, like the brazen serpent.
Beth-peor lay in the lot of the Reubenites, Joshua xiii, 20. But on so
obscure a passage nothing can be built. The body of Moses,” may
figuratively mean the Jewish church; or the whole may be an allusion to
a received tradition which, without affirming or denying its truth,
might be made the basis of a moral lesson.
Josephus, who frequently attempts to embellish the simple narrative of
Holy Writ, represents Moses as attended to the top of Pisgah by Joshua,
his successor, Eleazar, the high priest, and the whole senate; and that,
after he had dismissed the senate, while he was conversing with Joshua
and Eleazar, and embracing them, a cloud suddenly came over and
enveloped him; and he vanished from their sight, and he was taken away
to a certain valley. In the sacred books,” says he, it is written, that
he died; fearing to say that on account of his transcendent virtue, he
had departed to the Deity.” The Jewish historian has here, perhaps,
imitated the account of our Lord’s ascension, furnished by the
evangelist, Luke xxiv, 50; Acts i, 9; wishing to raise Moses to a level
with Christ. The preëminence of Moses’s character is briefly described
by the sacred historian, Samuel or Ezra: And there arose not a prophet
since, in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face; in
all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land
of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and all his servants, and all his land; and in all
that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the
sight of all Israel,” Deut. xxxiv, 10–12.
So marked and hallowed is the character of this, the most eminent of
mere men, that it has often been successfully made the basis of an
irresistible argument for the truth of his divine mission. Thus
Cellérier observes, Every imposture has an object in view, and an aim
more or less selfish. Men practise deceit for money, for pleasure, or
for glory. If, by a strange combination, the love of mankind ever
entered into the mind of an impostor, doubtless, even then, he has
contrived to reconcile, at least, his own selfish interests with those
of the human race. If men deceive others, for the sake of causing their
own opinions or their own party to triumph, they may sometimes, perhaps,
forget their own interests during the struggle, but they again remember
them when the victory is achieved. It is a general rule, that no
impostor forgets himself long. But Moses forgot himself, and forgot
himself to the last. Yet there is no middle supposition. If Moses was
not a divinely inspired messenger, he was an impostor in the strongest
sense of the term. It is not, as in the case of Numa, a slight and
single fraud, designed to secure some good end, that we have to charge
him with, but a series of deceits, many of which were gross; a profound,
dishonest, perfidious, sanguinary dissimulation, continued for the space
of forty years. If Moses was not a divinely commissioned prophet, he was
not the saviour of the people, but their tyrant and their murderer.
Still, we repeat, this barbarous impostor always forgot himself; and his
disinterestedness, as regarded himself personally, his family, and his
tribe, is one of the most extraordinary features in his administration.
As to himself personally: He is destined to die in the wilderness; he is
never to taste the tranquillity, the plenty, and the delight, the
possession of which he promises to his countrymen; he shares with them
only their fatigues and privations; he has more anxieties than they, on
their account, in their acts of disobedience, and in their perpetual
murmurings. As to his family: He does not nominate his sons as his
successors; he places them, without any privileges or distinctions,
among the obscure sons of Levi; they are not even admitted into the
sacerdotal authority. Unlike all other fathers, Moses withdraws them
from public view, and deprives them of the means of obtaining glory and
favour. Samuel and Eli assign a part of their paternal authority to
their sons, and permit them even to abuse it; but the sons of Moses, in
the wilderness, are only the simple servants of the tabernacle; like all
the other sons of Kohath, if they even dare to raise the veil which
covers the sacred furniture, the burden of which they carry, death is
denounced against them. Where can we find more complete
disinterestedness than in Moses? Is not his the character of an upright
man, who has the general good, not his own interests, at heart; of a man
who submissively acquiesces in the commands of God, without resistance
and without demur? When we consider these several things; when we
reflect on all the ministry of Moses, on his life, on his death, on his
character, on his abilities, and his success; we are powerfully
convinced that he was the messenger of God. If we consider him only as
an able legislator, as a Lycurgus, as a Numa, his actions are
inexplicable: we find not in him the affections, the interests, the
views which usually belong to the human heart. The simplicity, the
harmony, the verity of his natural character are gone; they give place
to an incoherent union of ardour and imposture; of daring and of
timidity, of incapacity and genius, of cruelty and sensibility. No!
Moses was inspired by God: he received from God the law which he left
his countrymen.
To Moses we owe that important portion of Holy Scripture, the
Pentateuch, which brings us acquainted with the creation of the world,
the entrance of sin and death, the first promises of redemption, the
flood, the peopling of the postdiluvian earth, and the origin of
nations, the call of Abraham, and the giving of the law. We have,
indeed, in it the early history of religion, and a key to all the
subsequent dispensations of God to man. The genuineness and authenticity
of these most venerable and important books have been established by
various writers; but the following remarks upon the veracity of the
writings of Moses have the merit of compressing much argument into few
words:--1. There is a _minuteness_ in the details of the Mosaic
writings, which bespeaks their truth; for it often bespeaks the
eye-witness, as in the adventures of the wilderness; and often seems
intended to supply directions to the artificer, as in the construction
of the tabernacle. 2. There are _touches of nature_ in the narrative
which bespeak its truth, for it is not easy to regard them otherwise
than as strokes from the life; as where the mixed multitude,” whether
half-castes or Egyptians, are the first to sigh for the cucumbers and
melons of Egypt, and to spread discontent through the camp, Num. xi, 4;
as the miserable exculpation of himself, which Aaron attempts, with all
the cowardice of conscious guilt, I cast into the fire, and there came
out this calf:” the fire, to be sure, being in the fault, Exod. xxxii,
24. 3. There are certain little _inconveniences_ represented as turning
up unexpectedly, that bespeak truth in the story; for they are just such
accidents as are characteristic of the working of a new system and
untried machinery. What is to be done with the man who is found
gathering sticks on the Sabbath day? Num. xv, 32. (Could an impostor
have devised such a trifle?) How is the inheritance of the daughters of
Zelophehad to be disposed of, there being no heir male? Num. xxxvi, 2.
Either of them inconsiderable matters in themselves, but both giving
occasion to very important laws; the one touching life, and the other
property. 4. There is a _simplicity_ in the manner of Moses, when
telling his tale, which bespeaks its truth: no parade of language, no
pomp of circumstance even in his miracles, a modesty and dignity
throughout all. Let us but compare him in any trying scene with
Josephus; his description, for instance, of the passage through the Red
Sea, Exod. xiv, of the murmuring of the Israelites and the supply of
quails and manna, with the same as given by the Jewish historian, or
rhetorician we might rather say, and the force of the observation will
be felt. 5. There is a _candour_ in the treatment of his subject by
Moses, which bespeaks his truth; as when he tells of his own want of
eloquence, which unfitted him for a leader, Exod. iv, 10; his own want
of faith, which prevented him from entering the promised land, Num. xx,
12; the idolatry of Aaron his brother, Exod. xxxii, 21; the profaneness
of Nadab and Abihu, his nephews, Lev. x; the disaffection and punishment
of Miriam, his sister, Num. xii, 1. 6. There is a _disinterestedness_ in
his conduct, which bespeaks him to be a man of truth; for though he had
sons, he apparently takes no measures during his life to give them
offices of trust or profit; and at his death he appoints as his
successor one who had no claims upon him, either of alliance, of
clanship, or of blood. 7. There are certain _prophetical_ passages in
the writings of Moses, which bespeak their truth; as, several respecting
the future Messiah, and the very sublime and literal one respecting the
final fall of Jerusalem, Deut. xxviii. 8. There is a _simple key_
supplied by these writings, to the meaning of many ancient traditions
current among the Heathens, though greatly disguised, which is another
circumstance that bespeaks their truth: as, the golden age; the garden
of the Hesperides; the fruit tree in the midst, of the garden which the
dragon guarded; the destruction of mankind by a flood, all except two
persons, and those righteous persons,
_Innocuos ambos, cultores numinis ambos_;
[Both innocent, both worshippers of Deity;]
the rainbow, which Jupiter set in the cloud, a sign to men;” the seventh
day a sacred day; with many others, all conspiring to establish the
reality of the facts which Moses relates, because tending to show that
vestiges of the like present themselves in the traditional history of
the world at large. 9. The concurrence which is found between the
writings of Moses and those of the New Testament bespeaks their truth:
the latter constantly appealing to them, being indeed but the completion
of the system which the others are the first to put forth. Nor is this
an illogical argument; for, though the credibility of the New Testament
itself may certainly be reasoned out from the truth of the Pentateuch
once established, it is still very far from depending on that
circumstance exclusively, or even principally. The New Testament demands
acceptance on its own merits, on merits distinct from those on which the
books of Moses rest, therefore (so far as it does so) it may fairly give
its suffrage for their veracity, _valeat quantum valet_: [it may avail
as far as it goes;] and surely it is a very improbable thing, that two
dispensations, separated by an interval of some fifteen hundred years,
each exhibiting prophecies of its own, since fulfilled; each asserting
miracles of its own, on strong evidence of its own; that two
dispensations, with such individual claims to be believed, should also
be found to stand in the closest relation to one another, and yet both
turn out impostures after all. 10. Above all, there is a comparative
_purity_ in the theology and morality of the Pentateuch, which argues
not only its truth, but its high original; for how else are we to
account for a system like that of Moses, in such an age and among such a
people; that the doctrine of the unity, the self-existence, the
providence, the perfections of the great God of heaven and earth, should
thus have blazed forth (how far more brightly than even in the vaunted
schools of Athens at its most refined era!) from the midst of a nation,
of themselves ever plunging into gross and grovelling idolatry; and that
principles of social duty, of benevolence, and of self-restraint,
extending even to the thoughts of the heart, should have been the
produce of an age which the very provisions of the Levitical law itself
show to have been full of savage and licentious abominations? Exod. iii,
14; xx, 3–17; Lev. xix, 2, 18; Deut. vi, 4; xxx, 6. Such are some of the
internal evidences for the veracity of the books of Moses. 11. Then the
situation in which the Jews actually found themselves placed, as a
matter of fact, is no slight argument for the truth of the Mosaic
accounts; reminded, as they were, by certain memorials observed from
year to year, of the great events of their early history, just as they
are recorded in the writings of Moses, memorials universally recognised
both in their object and in their authority. The passover, for instance,
celebrated by all, no man doubting its meaning, no man in all Israel
assigning to it any other origin than one, viz. that of being a
contemporary monument of a miracle displayed in favour of the people of
Israel; by right of which credentials, and no other, it summoned from
all quarters of the world, at great cost, and inconvenience, and danger,
the dispersed Jews, none disputing the obligation to obey the summons.
12. Then the heroic _devotion_ with which the Israelites continued to
regard the law, even long after they had ceased to cultivate the better
part of it, even when that very law only served to condemn its
worshippers, so that they would offer themselves up by thousands, with
their children and wives, as martyrs to the honour of their temple, in
which no image, even of an emperor, who could scourge them with
scorpions for their disobedience, should be suffered to stand, and they
live: so that rather than violate the sanctity of the Sabbath day, the
bravest men in arms would lay down their lives as tamely as sheep, and
allow themselves to be burned in the holes where they had taken refuge
from their cruel and cowardly pursuers. All this points to their law, as
having been at first promulgated under circumstances too awful to be
forgotten even after the lapse of ages. 13. Then again, the
extraordinary degree of _national pride_ with which the Jews boasted
themselves to be God’s peculiar people, as if no nation ever was or ever
could be so nigh to him; a feeling which the early teachers of
Christianity found an insuperable obstacle to the progress of the Gospel
among them, and which actually did effect its ultimate rejection, this
may well seem to be founded upon a strong traditional sense of uncommon
tokens of the Almighty’s regard for them above all other nations of the
earth, which they had heard with their ears, or their fathers had
declared unto them, even the noble works that he had done in the old
time before them. 14. Then again, the constant craving after a sign,”
which beset them in the latter days of their history, as a lively
certificate of the prophet; and not after a sign only, but after such a
one as they would themselves prescribe: What sign showest thou, that we
may see, and believe? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert,” John vi,
31. This desire, so frequently expressed, and with which they are so
frequently reproached, looks like the relic of an appetite engendered in
other times, when they had enjoyed the privilege of more intimate
communion with God; it seems the wake, as it were, of miracles departed.
15. Lastly, the very _onerous_ nature of the law; so studiously meddling
with all the occupations of life, great and small;--this yoke would
scarcely have been endured, without the strongest assurance, on the part
of those who were galled by it, of the authority by which it was
imposed. For it met them with some restraint or other at every turn.
Would they plough? then it must not be with an ox and an ass. Would they
sow? then must not the seed be mixed. Would they reap? then must they
not reap clean. Would they make bread? then must they set apart dough
enough for the consecrated loaf. Did they find a bird’s nest? then must
they let the old bird fly away. Did they hunt? then they must shed the
blood of their game, and cover it with dust. Did they plant a fruit
tree? for three years was the fruit to be uncircumcised. Did they shave
their beards? they were not to cut the corners. Did they weave a
garment? then must it be only with threads prescribed. Did they build a
house? they must put rails and battlements on the roof. Did they buy an
estate? at the year of jubilee, back it must go to its owner. All these
(and how many more of the same kind might be named!) are enactments
which it must have required extraordinary influence in the lawgiver to
enjoin, and extraordinary reverence for his powers to perpetuate.
Still, after all, says Mr. Blunt, unbelievers may start
difficulties,--this I dispute not; difficulties, too, which we may not
always be able to answer, though I think we may be always able to
neutralize them. It may be a part of our trial, that such difficulties
should exist and be encountered; for there can be no reason why
temptations should not be provided for the natural pride of our
understanding, as well as for the natural lusts of our flesh. To many,
indeed, they would be the more formidable of the two, perhaps to the
angels who kept not their first estate they proved so. With such facts,
however, before me, as these which I have submitted to my readers, I can
come to no conclusion but one,--that when we read the writings of Moses,
we read no cunningly devised fables, but solemn and safe records of
great and marvellous events, which court examination, and sustain it;
records of such apparent veracity and faithfulness, that I can
understand our Lord to have spoken almost without a figure, when he
said, that he who believed not Moses, neither would he be persuaded
though one rose from the dead.
Levi, in the line of Koath and of Amram, whose son he was, and therefore
in the fourth generation after the settlement of the Israelites in
Egypt. The time of his birth is ascertained by the exode of the
Israelites, when Moses was eighty years old, Exod. vii, 7. By a singular
providence, the infant Moses, when exposed on the river Nile, through
fear of the royal decree, after his mother had hid him three months,
because he was a goodly child, was taken up and adopted by Pharaoh’s
daughter, and nursed by his own mother, whom she hired at the suggestion
of his sister Miriam. Thus did he find an asylum in the very palace of
his intended destroyer; while his intercourse with his own family and
nation was still most naturally, though unexpectedly, maintained: so
mysterious are the ways of Heaven. And while he was instructed in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians,” and bred up in the midst of a luxurious
court, he acquired at home the knowledge of the promised redemption of
Israel; and, by faith” in the Redeemer Christ, “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,” or persecution for Christ’s sake,
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect to the
recompense of reward,” Exodus ii, 1–10; Acts vii, 20–22; Heb. xi, 23–26;
or looked forward to a future state.
When Moses was grown to manhood, and was full forty years old, he was
moved by a divine intimation, as it seems, to undertake the deliverance
of his countrymen; for he supposed that his brethren would have
understood how that God, by his hand, would give them deliverance; but
they understood not.” For when, in the excess of his zeal to redress
their grievances, he had slain an Egyptian, who injured one of them, in
which he probably went beyond his commission, and afterward endeavoured
to reconcile two of them that were at variance, they rejected his
mediation; and the man who had done wrong said, Who made thee a judge
and a ruler over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the
Egyptian yesterday?” So Moses, finding it was known, and that Pharaoh
sought to slay him, fled for his life to the land of Midian, in Arabia
Petræa, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, or Reuel,
prince and priest of Midian; and, as a shepherd, kept his flocks in the
vicinity of Mount Horeb, or Sinai, for forty years, Exodus ii, 11–21;
iii, 1; xviii, 5; Num. x, 29; Acts vii, 23–30. During this long exile
Moses was trained in the school of humble circumstances for that arduous
mission which he had prematurely anticipated; and, instead of the
unthinking zeal which at first actuated him, learned to distrust
himself. His backwardness, afterward, to undertake that mission for
which he was destined from the womb, was no less remarkable than his
forwardness before, Exod. iv, 10–13.
At length, when the oppression of the Israelites was come to the full,
and they cried to God for succour, and the king was dead, and all the
men in Egypt that sought his life, the God of glory” appeared to Moses
in a flame of fire, from the midst of a bush, and announced himself as
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” under the titles of _Jahoh_
and _Æhjeh_, expressive of his unity and sameness; and commissioned him
first to make known to the Israelites the divine will for their
deliverance; and next to go with the elders of Israel to Pharaoh,
requiring him, in the name of “the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, to
suffer the people to go three days’ journey into the wilderness, to
sacrifice unto the Lord their God,” after such sacrifices had been long
intermitted during their bondage; for the Egyptians had sunk into
bestial polytheism, and would have stoned them, had they attempted to
sacrifice to their principal divinities, the apis, or bull, &c, in the
land itself: foretelling, also, the opposition they would meet with from
the king, the mighty signs and wonders that would finally compel his
assent, and their spoiling of the Egyptians, by asking or demanding of
them (not borrowing) jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment,
(by way of wages or compensation for their services,) as originally
declared to Abraham, that they should go out from thence with great
substance,” Gen. xv, 14; Exod. ii, 23–25; iii, 2–22; viii, 25, 26.
To vouch his divine commission to the Israelites, God enabled Moses to
work three signal miracles: 1. Turning his rod into a serpent, and
restoring it again: 2. Making his hand leprous as snow, when he first
drew it out of his bosom, and restoring it sound as before when he next
drew it out: and, 3. Turning the water of the river into blood. And the
people believed the signs, and the promised deliverance, and worshipped.
To assist him, also, in his arduous mission, when Moses had represented
that he was not eloquent, but slow of speech,” and of a slow or
stammering tongue, God inspired Aaron, his elder brother, to go and meet
Moses in the wilderness, to be his spokesman to the people, Exod. iv,
1–31, and his prophet to Pharaoh; while Moses was to be a god to both,
as speaking to them in the name, or by the authority, of God himself,
Exod. vii, 1, 2. At their first, interview with Pharaoh, they declared,
Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may
hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the
Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not,” or
regard not, the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.” In answer to this
haughty tyrant, they styled the Lord by a more ancient title, which the
Egyptians ought to have known and respected, from Abraham’s days, when
he plagued them in the matter of Sarah: “The God of the Hebrews hath met
with us: Let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the desert,
and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with
pestilence or with the sword:” plainly intimating to Pharaoh, also, not
to incur his indignation, by refusing to comply with his desire. But the
king not only refused, but increased the burdens of the people, Exod. v,
1–19; and the people murmured, and hearkened not unto Moses, when he
repeated from the Lord his assurances of deliverance and protection, for
anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage, Exod. v, 20–23; vi, 1–9.
At their second interview with Pharaoh, in obedience to the divine
command, again requiring him to let the children of Israel go out of his
land; Pharaoh, as foretold, demanded of them to show a miracle for
themselves, in proof of their commission, when Aaron cast down his rod,
and it became a serpent before Pharaoh and before his servants, or
officers of his court. The king then called upon his wise men and
magicians, to know if they could do as much by the power of their gods,
“and they did so with their enchantments; for they cast down every man
his rod, and they became serpents; but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their
serpents.” Here the original phrase, ויעשו כן, and they did so,” or in
like manner,” may only indicate the attempt, and not the deed; as
afterward, in the plague of lice, when they did so with their
enchantments, but could not,” Exod. viii, 18. And, indeed, the original
term, להטיהם, rendered their enchantments,” as derived from the root
לאט, or לוט, to _hide_ or _cover_, fitly expresses the secret deceptions
of legerdemain, or sleight-of-hand, to impose on spectators: and the
remark of the magicians, when unable to imitate the production of lice,
which was beyond their skill and dexterity, on account of their
minuteness,--“This is the finger of a God!”--seems to strengthen the
supposition; especially as the Egyptians were famous for legerdemain and
for charming serpents: and the magicians, having had notice of the
miracle they were expected to imitate, might make provision accordingly,
and bring live serpents, which they might have substituted for their
rods. And though Aaron’s serpent swallowed up their serpents, showing
the superiority of the true miracle over the false, 2 Thess. ii, 9, it
might only lead the king to conclude, that Moses and Aaron were more
expert jugglers than Jannes and Jambres, who opposed them, 2 Timothy
iii, 8. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, so that he hearkened not
unto them, as the Lord had said,” or foretold, Exod. vi, 10, 11; vii,
8–13. For the conduct of Moses as the deliverer and lawgiver of the
Israelites, see PLAGUES OF EGYPT, RED SEA, and LAW.
At Mount Sinai the Lord was pleased to make Moses, the redeemer of
Israel, an eminent type of the Redeemer of the world. I will raise them
up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my
words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall
command him: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken
unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of
him:” which Moses communicated to the people. The Lord thy God will
raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren,
like unto me: unto him shall ye hearken,” Deut. xviii, 15–19. This
prophet like unto Moses was our Lord Jesus Christ, who was by birth a
Jew, of the middle class of the people, and resembled his predecessor,
in personal intercourse with God, miracles, and legislation, which no
other prophet did, Deut. xxxiv, 10–12; and to whom God, at his
transfiguration, required the world to hearken, Matt. xvii, 5. Whence
our Lord’s frequent admonition to the Jewish church, He that hath ears
to hear, let him hear,” Matthew xiii, 9, &c; which is addressed, also,
by the Spirit to the Christian churches of Asia Minor, Rev. iii, 22.
In the affair of the _Golden Calf_, (see CALF,) the conduct of Moses
showed the greatest zeal for God’s honour, and a holy indignation
against the sin of Aaron and the people. And when Moses drew nigh, and
saw their proceedings, his anger waxed hot, and he cast away the tables
of the covenant, or stone tablets on which were engraven the ten
commandments by the finger of God himself, and brake them beneath the
mount, in the presence of the people; in token that the covenant between
God and them was now rescinded on his part, in consequence of their
transgression. He then took the golden calf, and burned it in the fire,
and ground it to powder, and mixed it with water, and made the children
of Israel drink of it. After thus destroying their idol, he inflicted
punishment on the idolaters themselves; for he summoned all that were on
the Lord’s side to attend him; and all the Levites having obeyed the
call, he sent them, in the name of the Lord, to slay all the idolaters,
from one end of the camp to the other, without favour or affection
either to their neighbour or to their brother; and they slew about three
thousand men. The Lord also sent a grievous plague among them for their
idolatry, Exodus xxxii, 2–35, on which occasion Moses gave a signal
proof of his love for his people, by interceding for them with the Lord;
and of his own disinterestedness, in refusing the offer of the Almighty
to adopt his family in their room, and make of them a great nation.” He
prayed that God would blot him out of his book, that is, take away his
life, if he would not forgive the great sin of his people;” and
prevailed with God to alter his determination of withdrawing his
presence from them, and sending an inferior angel to conduct them to the
land of promise. So wonderful was the condescension of God to the voice
of a man, and so mighty the power of prayer.
When the Lord had pardoned the people, and taken them again into favour,
he commanded Moses to hew two tablets of stone, like the former which
were broken, and to present them to him on the top of the mount; and on
these the Lord wrote again the ten commandments, for a renewal of the
covenant between him and his people. To reward and strengthen the faith
of Moses, God was pleased, at his request, to grant him a fuller view of
the divine glory, or presence, than he had hitherto done. And, to
confirm his authority with the people on his return, after the second
conference of forty days, he imparted to him a portion of that glory or
light by which his immediate presence was manifested: for the face of
Moses shone so that Aaron and all the people were afraid to come nigh
him, until he had put a veil on his face, to hide its brightness. This
was an honour never vouchsafed to mortal before nor afterward till
Christ, the Prophet like Moses, in his transfiguration also, appeared
arrayed in a larger measure of the same lustre. Then Moses again beheld
the glory of the Word made flesh, and ministered thereto in a glorified
form himself, Exod. xxxiv, 1–35; Matt. xvii, 1–8.
At Kibroth Hataavah, when the people loathed the manna, and longed for
flesh, Moses betrayed great impatience, and wished for death. He was
also reproved for unbelief. At Kadesh-barnea, Moses having encouraged
the people to proceed, saying, Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the
land before thee, go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers
hath said unto you: fear not,” Deut. i, 19–21; they betrayed great
diffidence, and proposed to Moses to send spies to search out the land,
and point out to them the way they should enter, and the course they
should take. And the proposal pleased him well,” and with the consent of
the Lord he sent twelve men, one out of each tribe, to spy out the land,
Deut. i, 22, 23; Num. xiii, 1–20. All these, except Caleb and Joshua,
having brought an evil report,” so discouraged the people, that they
murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Would God
that we had died in the land of Egypt; or would God that we had died in
the wilderness! And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to
fall by the sword, that our wives and our children shall be a prey? Were
it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another,
Let us make a captain, and return into Egypt.” They even went so far as
to propose to stone Joshua and Caleb, because they exhorted the people
not to rebel against the Lord, nor to fear the people of the land, Num.
xiv, 1–10; Deut. i, 26–28. Here again the noble patriotism of Moses was
signally displayed. He again refused the divine offer to disinherit the
Israelites, and make of him and his family a greater and mightier nation
than they.” He urged the most persuasive motives with their offended
God, not to destroy them with the threatened pestilence, lest the
Heathen might say, that the Lord was not able to bring them into the
land which he sware unto them.” He powerfully appealed to the long-tried
mercies and forgivenesses they had experienced ever since their
departure from Egypt; and his energetic supplication prevailed; for the
Lord graciously said, I have pardoned, according to thy word: but
verily, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the
Lord;” or shall adore him for his righteous judgments; for all these men
which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt, and in
the wilderness, and have tempted me these ten times, and have not
hearkened to my voice, surely shall not see the land which I sware unto
their fathers: neither shall any of them that provoked me see it. As ye
have spoken in my ears, so will I do unto you,” by a righteous
retaliation: your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. But your
little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in; and
they shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your
whoredoms, after the number of the days in which ye searched the land,
each day for a year, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.”
And immediately after this sentence, as the earnest of its full
accomplishment, all the spies, except Caleb and Joshua, were cut off,
and died by the plague before the Lord, Num. xiv, 11–37; Deut. i, 34–39.
The people now, to repair their fault, contrary to the advice of Moses,
presumptuously went to invade the Amalekites and Canaanites of Mount
Seir, or Hor; who defeated them, and chased them as bees to Hormah, Num.
xiv, 39–45; Deut. i, 41–44. On the morrow they were ordered to turn away
from the promised land, and to take their journey south-westward, toward
the way of the Red Sea: and they abode in the wilderness of Kadesh many
days, or years, Num. xiv, 25; Deut. i, 40–46. The ill success of the
expedition against the Amalekites, according to Josephus, occasioned the
rebellion of Korah, which broke out shortly after, against Moses and
Aaron, with greater violence than any of the foregoing, under Korah, the
ringleader, who drew into it Dathan and Abiram, the heads of the senior
tribe of Reuben, and two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly,
among whom were even several of the Levites. (See _Korah_.) But although
all Israel round about had fled at the cry of the devoted families of
Dathan and Abiram, for fear that the earth should swallow them up also;”
yet, on the morrow, they returned to their rebellious spirit, and
murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of
the Lord.” On this occasion also, the Lord threatened to consume them as
in a moment; but, on the intercession of Moses, only smote them with a
plague, which was stayed by an atonement made by Aaron, after the
destruction of fourteen thousand seven hundred souls, Num. xvi, 41–50.
On the return of the Israelites, after many years’ wandering, to the
same disastrous station of Kadesh-barnea, even Moses himself was guilty
of an offence, in which his brother Aaron was involved, and for which
both were excluded, as a punishment, from entering the promised land. At
Meribah Kadesh the congregation murmured against Moses, for bringing
them into a barren wilderness without water; when the Lord commanded
Moses to take his rod, which had been laid up before the Lord, and with
Aaron to assemble the congregation together, and to speak to the rock
before their eyes; which should supply water for the congregation and
their cattle. But Moses said unto the congregation, when they were
assembled, Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this
rock? And he smote the rock twice with his rod, and the water came out
abundantly; and the congregation drank, and their cattle also. And the
Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify
me in the eyes of the children of Israel; therefore ye shall not bring
this congregation into the land which I have given them,” Num. xx, 1–13;
and afterward in stronger terms: Because ye rebelled against my
commandment,” &c, Numbers xxvii, 14.
The offence of Moses, as far as may be collected from so concise an
account, seems to have been, 1. He distrusted or disbelieved that water
could be produced from the rock only by speaking to it; which was a
higher miracle than he had performed before at Rephidim, Exod. xvii, 6.
2. He unnecessarily smote the rock twice; thereby betraying an
unwarrantable impatience. 3. He did not, at least in the phrase he used,
ascribe the glory of the miracle wholly to God, but rather to himself
and his brother: Must _we_ fetch you water out of this rock?” And he
denominated them rebels” against his and his brother’s authority, which,
although an implied act of rebellion against God, ought to have been
stated, as on a former occasion, Ye have been rebels against the Lord,
from the day that I knew you,” Deut. ix, 24, which he spake without
blame. For want of more caution on this occasion, he spake unadvisedly
with his lips, because they provoked his spirit,” Psalm cvi, 33. Thus
was God sanctified at the waters of Meribah,” by his impartial justice,
in punishing his greatest favourites when they did amiss, Num. xx, 13.
How severely Moses felt his deprivation, appears from his humble, and it
should seem repeated, supplications to the Lord to reverse the sentence:
O Lord of gods, thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness, and
thy mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or in earth that can do
according to thy works, and according to thy might? I pray thee let me
go over and see the good land beyond Jordan, even that goodly mountain
Lebanon,” or the whole breadth of the land. But the Lord was wroth with
me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and he said unto me, Let it
suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter. Get thee up unto the
top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and
southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt
not go over this Jordan,” Deut. iii, 23–27.
The faculties of this illustrious legislator, both of mind and body,
were not impaired at the age of a hundred and twenty years, when he
died. His eye was not dim, nor his natural strength abated,” Deut.
xxxiv, 7: and the noblest of all his compositions was his Song, or the
Divine Ode, which Bishop Lowth elegantly styles, _Cycnea Oratio_, “the
Dying Swan’s Oration.” His death took place after the Lord had shown
him, from the top of Pisgah, a distant view of the promised land,
throughout its whole extent. He then buried his body in a valley
opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Moab; but no man knoweth his
sepulchre unto this day,” observes the sacred historian, who annexed the
circumstances of his death to the book of Deuteronomy, xxxiv, 6. From an
obscure passage in the New Testament, in which Michael the archangel is
said to have contended with the devil about the body of Moses, Jude 9,
some have thought that he was buried by the ministry of angels, near the
scene of the idolatry of the Israelites; but that the spot was purposely
concealed, lest his tomb might also be converted into an object of
idolatrous worship among the Israelites, like the brazen serpent.
Beth-peor lay in the lot of the Reubenites, Joshua xiii, 20. But on so
obscure a passage nothing can be built. The body of Moses,” may
figuratively mean the Jewish church; or the whole may be an allusion to
a received tradition which, without affirming or denying its truth,
might be made the basis of a moral lesson.
Josephus, who frequently attempts to embellish the simple narrative of
Holy Writ, represents Moses as attended to the top of Pisgah by Joshua,
his successor, Eleazar, the high priest, and the whole senate; and that,
after he had dismissed the senate, while he was conversing with Joshua
and Eleazar, and embracing them, a cloud suddenly came over and
enveloped him; and he vanished from their sight, and he was taken away
to a certain valley. In the sacred books,” says he, it is written, that
he died; fearing to say that on account of his transcendent virtue, he
had departed to the Deity.” The Jewish historian has here, perhaps,
imitated the account of our Lord’s ascension, furnished by the
evangelist, Luke xxiv, 50; Acts i, 9; wishing to raise Moses to a level
with Christ. The preëminence of Moses’s character is briefly described
by the sacred historian, Samuel or Ezra: And there arose not a prophet
since, in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face; in
all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land
of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and all his servants, and all his land; and in all
that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the
sight of all Israel,” Deut. xxxiv, 10–12.
So marked and hallowed is the character of this, the most eminent of
mere men, that it has often been successfully made the basis of an
irresistible argument for the truth of his divine mission. Thus
Cellérier observes, Every imposture has an object in view, and an aim
more or less selfish. Men practise deceit for money, for pleasure, or
for glory. If, by a strange combination, the love of mankind ever
entered into the mind of an impostor, doubtless, even then, he has
contrived to reconcile, at least, his own selfish interests with those
of the human race. If men deceive others, for the sake of causing their
own opinions or their own party to triumph, they may sometimes, perhaps,
forget their own interests during the struggle, but they again remember
them when the victory is achieved. It is a general rule, that no
impostor forgets himself long. But Moses forgot himself, and forgot
himself to the last. Yet there is no middle supposition. If Moses was
not a divinely inspired messenger, he was an impostor in the strongest
sense of the term. It is not, as in the case of Numa, a slight and
single fraud, designed to secure some good end, that we have to charge
him with, but a series of deceits, many of which were gross; a profound,
dishonest, perfidious, sanguinary dissimulation, continued for the space
of forty years. If Moses was not a divinely commissioned prophet, he was
not the saviour of the people, but their tyrant and their murderer.
Still, we repeat, this barbarous impostor always forgot himself; and his
disinterestedness, as regarded himself personally, his family, and his
tribe, is one of the most extraordinary features in his administration.
As to himself personally: He is destined to die in the wilderness; he is
never to taste the tranquillity, the plenty, and the delight, the
possession of which he promises to his countrymen; he shares with them
only their fatigues and privations; he has more anxieties than they, on
their account, in their acts of disobedience, and in their perpetual
murmurings. As to his family: He does not nominate his sons as his
successors; he places them, without any privileges or distinctions,
among the obscure sons of Levi; they are not even admitted into the
sacerdotal authority. Unlike all other fathers, Moses withdraws them
from public view, and deprives them of the means of obtaining glory and
favour. Samuel and Eli assign a part of their paternal authority to
their sons, and permit them even to abuse it; but the sons of Moses, in
the wilderness, are only the simple servants of the tabernacle; like all
the other sons of Kohath, if they even dare to raise the veil which
covers the sacred furniture, the burden of which they carry, death is
denounced against them. Where can we find more complete
disinterestedness than in Moses? Is not his the character of an upright
man, who has the general good, not his own interests, at heart; of a man
who submissively acquiesces in the commands of God, without resistance
and without demur? When we consider these several things; when we
reflect on all the ministry of Moses, on his life, on his death, on his
character, on his abilities, and his success; we are powerfully
convinced that he was the messenger of God. If we consider him only as
an able legislator, as a Lycurgus, as a Numa, his actions are
inexplicable: we find not in him the affections, the interests, the
views which usually belong to the human heart. The simplicity, the
harmony, the verity of his natural character are gone; they give place
to an incoherent union of ardour and imposture; of daring and of
timidity, of incapacity and genius, of cruelty and sensibility. No!
Moses was inspired by God: he received from God the law which he left
his countrymen.
To Moses we owe that important portion of Holy Scripture, the
Pentateuch, which brings us acquainted with the creation of the world,
the entrance of sin and death, the first promises of redemption, the
flood, the peopling of the postdiluvian earth, and the origin of
nations, the call of Abraham, and the giving of the law. We have,
indeed, in it the early history of religion, and a key to all the
subsequent dispensations of God to man. The genuineness and authenticity
of these most venerable and important books have been established by
various writers; but the following remarks upon the veracity of the
writings of Moses have the merit of compressing much argument into few
words:--1. There is a _minuteness_ in the details of the Mosaic
writings, which bespeaks their truth; for it often bespeaks the
eye-witness, as in the adventures of the wilderness; and often seems
intended to supply directions to the artificer, as in the construction
of the tabernacle. 2. There are _touches of nature_ in the narrative
which bespeak its truth, for it is not easy to regard them otherwise
than as strokes from the life; as where the mixed multitude,” whether
half-castes or Egyptians, are the first to sigh for the cucumbers and
melons of Egypt, and to spread discontent through the camp, Num. xi, 4;
as the miserable exculpation of himself, which Aaron attempts, with all
the cowardice of conscious guilt, I cast into the fire, and there came
out this calf:” the fire, to be sure, being in the fault, Exod. xxxii,
24. 3. There are certain little _inconveniences_ represented as turning
up unexpectedly, that bespeak truth in the story; for they are just such
accidents as are characteristic of the working of a new system and
untried machinery. What is to be done with the man who is found
gathering sticks on the Sabbath day? Num. xv, 32. (Could an impostor
have devised such a trifle?) How is the inheritance of the daughters of
Zelophehad to be disposed of, there being no heir male? Num. xxxvi, 2.
Either of them inconsiderable matters in themselves, but both giving
occasion to very important laws; the one touching life, and the other
property. 4. There is a _simplicity_ in the manner of Moses, when
telling his tale, which bespeaks its truth: no parade of language, no
pomp of circumstance even in his miracles, a modesty and dignity
throughout all. Let us but compare him in any trying scene with
Josephus; his description, for instance, of the passage through the Red
Sea, Exod. xiv, of the murmuring of the Israelites and the supply of
quails and manna, with the same as given by the Jewish historian, or
rhetorician we might rather say, and the force of the observation will
be felt. 5. There is a _candour_ in the treatment of his subject by
Moses, which bespeaks his truth; as when he tells of his own want of
eloquence, which unfitted him for a leader, Exod. iv, 10; his own want
of faith, which prevented him from entering the promised land, Num. xx,
12; the idolatry of Aaron his brother, Exod. xxxii, 21; the profaneness
of Nadab and Abihu, his nephews, Lev. x; the disaffection and punishment
of Miriam, his sister, Num. xii, 1. 6. There is a _disinterestedness_ in
his conduct, which bespeaks him to be a man of truth; for though he had
sons, he apparently takes no measures during his life to give them
offices of trust or profit; and at his death he appoints as his
successor one who had no claims upon him, either of alliance, of
clanship, or of blood. 7. There are certain _prophetical_ passages in
the writings of Moses, which bespeak their truth; as, several respecting
the future Messiah, and the very sublime and literal one respecting the
final fall of Jerusalem, Deut. xxviii. 8. There is a _simple key_
supplied by these writings, to the meaning of many ancient traditions
current among the Heathens, though greatly disguised, which is another
circumstance that bespeaks their truth: as, the golden age; the garden
of the Hesperides; the fruit tree in the midst, of the garden which the
dragon guarded; the destruction of mankind by a flood, all except two
persons, and those righteous persons,
_Innocuos ambos, cultores numinis ambos_;
[Both innocent, both worshippers of Deity;]
the rainbow, which Jupiter set in the cloud, a sign to men;” the seventh
day a sacred day; with many others, all conspiring to establish the
reality of the facts which Moses relates, because tending to show that
vestiges of the like present themselves in the traditional history of
the world at large. 9. The concurrence which is found between the
writings of Moses and those of the New Testament bespeaks their truth:
the latter constantly appealing to them, being indeed but the completion
of the system which the others are the first to put forth. Nor is this
an illogical argument; for, though the credibility of the New Testament
itself may certainly be reasoned out from the truth of the Pentateuch
once established, it is still very far from depending on that
circumstance exclusively, or even principally. The New Testament demands
acceptance on its own merits, on merits distinct from those on which the
books of Moses rest, therefore (so far as it does so) it may fairly give
its suffrage for their veracity, _valeat quantum valet_: [it may avail
as far as it goes;] and surely it is a very improbable thing, that two
dispensations, separated by an interval of some fifteen hundred years,
each exhibiting prophecies of its own, since fulfilled; each asserting
miracles of its own, on strong evidence of its own; that two
dispensations, with such individual claims to be believed, should also
be found to stand in the closest relation to one another, and yet both
turn out impostures after all. 10. Above all, there is a comparative
_purity_ in the theology and morality of the Pentateuch, which argues
not only its truth, but its high original; for how else are we to
account for a system like that of Moses, in such an age and among such a
people; that the doctrine of the unity, the self-existence, the
providence, the perfections of the great God of heaven and earth, should
thus have blazed forth (how far more brightly than even in the vaunted
schools of Athens at its most refined era!) from the midst of a nation,
of themselves ever plunging into gross and grovelling idolatry; and that
principles of social duty, of benevolence, and of self-restraint,
extending even to the thoughts of the heart, should have been the
produce of an age which the very provisions of the Levitical law itself
show to have been full of savage and licentious abominations? Exod. iii,
14; xx, 3–17; Lev. xix, 2, 18; Deut. vi, 4; xxx, 6. Such are some of the
internal evidences for the veracity of the books of Moses. 11. Then the
situation in which the Jews actually found themselves placed, as a
matter of fact, is no slight argument for the truth of the Mosaic
accounts; reminded, as they were, by certain memorials observed from
year to year, of the great events of their early history, just as they
are recorded in the writings of Moses, memorials universally recognised
both in their object and in their authority. The passover, for instance,
celebrated by all, no man doubting its meaning, no man in all Israel
assigning to it any other origin than one, viz. that of being a
contemporary monument of a miracle displayed in favour of the people of
Israel; by right of which credentials, and no other, it summoned from
all quarters of the world, at great cost, and inconvenience, and danger,
the dispersed Jews, none disputing the obligation to obey the summons.
12. Then the heroic _devotion_ with which the Israelites continued to
regard the law, even long after they had ceased to cultivate the better
part of it, even when that very law only served to condemn its
worshippers, so that they would offer themselves up by thousands, with
their children and wives, as martyrs to the honour of their temple, in
which no image, even of an emperor, who could scourge them with
scorpions for their disobedience, should be suffered to stand, and they
live: so that rather than violate the sanctity of the Sabbath day, the
bravest men in arms would lay down their lives as tamely as sheep, and
allow themselves to be burned in the holes where they had taken refuge
from their cruel and cowardly pursuers. All this points to their law, as
having been at first promulgated under circumstances too awful to be
forgotten even after the lapse of ages. 13. Then again, the
extraordinary degree of _national pride_ with which the Jews boasted
themselves to be God’s peculiar people, as if no nation ever was or ever
could be so nigh to him; a feeling which the early teachers of
Christianity found an insuperable obstacle to the progress of the Gospel
among them, and which actually did effect its ultimate rejection, this
may well seem to be founded upon a strong traditional sense of uncommon
tokens of the Almighty’s regard for them above all other nations of the
earth, which they had heard with their ears, or their fathers had
declared unto them, even the noble works that he had done in the old
time before them. 14. Then again, the constant craving after a sign,”
which beset them in the latter days of their history, as a lively
certificate of the prophet; and not after a sign only, but after such a
one as they would themselves prescribe: What sign showest thou, that we
may see, and believe? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert,” John vi,
31. This desire, so frequently expressed, and with which they are so
frequently reproached, looks like the relic of an appetite engendered in
other times, when they had enjoyed the privilege of more intimate
communion with God; it seems the wake, as it were, of miracles departed.
15. Lastly, the very _onerous_ nature of the law; so studiously meddling
with all the occupations of life, great and small;--this yoke would
scarcely have been endured, without the strongest assurance, on the part
of those who were galled by it, of the authority by which it was
imposed. For it met them with some restraint or other at every turn.
Would they plough? then it must not be with an ox and an ass. Would they
sow? then must not the seed be mixed. Would they reap? then must they
not reap clean. Would they make bread? then must they set apart dough
enough for the consecrated loaf. Did they find a bird’s nest? then must
they let the old bird fly away. Did they hunt? then they must shed the
blood of their game, and cover it with dust. Did they plant a fruit
tree? for three years was the fruit to be uncircumcised. Did they shave
their beards? they were not to cut the corners. Did they weave a
garment? then must it be only with threads prescribed. Did they build a
house? they must put rails and battlements on the roof. Did they buy an
estate? at the year of jubilee, back it must go to its owner. All these
(and how many more of the same kind might be named!) are enactments
which it must have required extraordinary influence in the lawgiver to
enjoin, and extraordinary reverence for his powers to perpetuate.
Still, after all, says Mr. Blunt, unbelievers may start
difficulties,--this I dispute not; difficulties, too, which we may not
always be able to answer, though I think we may be always able to
neutralize them. It may be a part of our trial, that such difficulties
should exist and be encountered; for there can be no reason why
temptations should not be provided for the natural pride of our
understanding, as well as for the natural lusts of our flesh. To many,
indeed, they would be the more formidable of the two, perhaps to the
angels who kept not their first estate they proved so. With such facts,
however, before me, as these which I have submitted to my readers, I can
come to no conclusion but one,--that when we read the writings of Moses,
we read no cunningly devised fables, but solemn and safe records of
great and marvellous events, which court examination, and sustain it;
records of such apparent veracity and faithfulness, that I can
understand our Lord to have spoken almost without a figure, when he
said, that he who believed not Moses, neither would he be persuaded
though one rose from the dead.