18. § 7. From the Breaking Up on Sinai to the Death of Moses: Numbers 10 to the End of ...

§ 7. From the Breaking Up on Sinai to the Death of Moses: Numbers 10 to the End of the Pentateuch

First, a general survey. About the beginning of May the children of Israel left the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai, and went to Kadesh under the guidance of Hobab the Midianite, who was acquainted with the region. Kadesh lay on the southern border of Canaan, at the foot of the high southern mountain chain of Palestine, and on the west border of Edoin, at the north end of the valley already described, extending down from the Dead Sea to the Aelanitic Gulf, in the wilderness of Sin, the most northern part of the desert of Paran, whose limits, according to the researches of Tuch, correspond nearly with those of the present wilderness et-Tih. Rowlands thinks that he discovers Kadesh in the year 1842: comp. Ritter, p. 1088. The name, he maintains, still continues. “I was amazed,” says Rowlands, “at the stream from the rock which Moses struck, and at the lovely little water-falls with which it plunges down into the lower bed of the brook.” But the correctness of this discovery is still open to great doubt, which Fries, Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1854, i., has by no means completely invalidated. Rowlands’ Kadesh seems to lie too far west. Not long after the arrival of the Israelites, at the time of the first ripe grapes, or perhaps in the beginning of August, spies were sent into every part of the cultivated land; and after their return, the people sinned so grievously that they were condemned to a long wandering through the wilderness, though already so near to the promised land. Of this wandering our source gives no complete account, but contents itself with recording the names of a few stations where the Israelites sojourned for a time; a circumstance which has been very superficially made use of as an argument by those who deny the forty years’ duration of the march through the wilderness, although it has been attested not only by Moses, but also by Amos, Amos 2:10, Amos 5:25. During this whole period the Israelites had their principal camp constantly in the neighbourhood of Mount Seir, in the Arabah, and never returned to the district of Sinai: comp. Balaam, p. 287 ff. Yet they probably made use of all the resources of the country by their straggling parties; and not only of that, but also of the surrounding countries far and wide. In the Arabah, in the neighbourhood of Edom, it was easier for them to provide for many of their wants by trade than in any other part of the wilderness. In the first month of the fortieth year they returned to Kadesh. Their plan was to penetrate into Canaan through the country of the Edomites. Mount Seir in Edom, which, under the later names Djebal, Sherah, and Hiomeh, forms a ridge of mountains extending from the southern side of the Dead Sea to the ridge of Akabah, rises precipitately from the vallies el-Ghor and el-Arabah, and is only intersected by a pair of narrow wadis from west to east, of which the Wadi Ghuweir alone presents an entrance not quite inaccessible to a hostile power: comp. the preface of the English editor of Burckhardt’s Travels, part i. p. 22 of the German translation. Probably Moses asked the Edomites for a passage through this valley on condition of leaving the fields and vineyards untouched, and of buying the necessaries of life. But the Edomites refused to allow Israel to pass through their territories, and Israel was forbidden to use power against them, because they were connected by race: comp. Deuteronomy 2. Again deceived in their hopes, nothing remained for the Israelites but to follow the vale of the Arabah in a southerly direction towards the point of the Red Sea. On Mount Hor, which rises precipitately from the valley, “by the coast of the land of Edom,” as we read in Numbers 20, Aaron died, and was buried in a place visible far and wide, which even now passes in tradition for the place of his burial, and is unanimously regarded as such by Josephus, Eusebius, and Jerome. Israel then withdrew from Mount Hor to the Red Sea by the way of the fields from Elath and Eziongeber, Numbers 21:4, till they turned and came to the wilderness of Moab and to the brook Zered, Deuteronomy 2:9, Deuteronomy 2:13. The Israelites did not go quite so far as Elath and Eziongeber on the Aelanitic Gulf, but followed the route which is still taken by the caravans, “These pass to the south of Mount Hor in the Wadi Arabah. A few hours northwards from Akabah and from ancient Eziongeber a valley, Getum, opens out from the east to the Wadi Arabah; first accurately described by Laborde. Through this valley the caravans proceed upwards to Ameima, and on to Maan, and so come to the high desert of Arabia Deserta, which lies 1000 feet higher than the wilderness et-Tih.”—Raumer. When the Israelites had passed through the valley Getum, Moses received the command: “Ye have compassed this mountain long enough; turn you northward. Ye are to pass through this coast of your brethren the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir; and they shall be afraid of you.” Deuteronomy 2:3 ff. At first it seems incomprehensible how the same Edomites, formerly so insolent, should now be afraid; it is hard to understand why Israel took such a circuit, instead of entering the country of the Edomites at once, if they wished to spoil their territory. But the geography explains all this. On the strongly-fortified western boundary the Israelites were dependent on the favours of Edom. But now, when they had gone round, they had come to the weak side of the countiy. Here they had no opposition to expect on the part of the Edomites; the less so, since the way did not lead through the middle of the cultivated land, but only through the wilderness, which formed the boundary. Passing over the brook Zered, Israel then came to the land of the Moabites. Like the present caravans they journeyed to a place called Rain, which formed the eastern boundary of the land, not touching the land of the Moabites itself. Then they crossed the brook Arnon, which separated the territory of the Amorites from that of the Moabites, close to its source in the wilderness, and came finally into the country belonging to that people whose territory was allotted to them. They began their work with the victory over Sihon of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon. So much for the geographical survey. We now pass to a nearer consideration of the separate events of this period. It falls naturally into two halves. One great section is formed by the determination to reject the generation then alive—all those who had been more than twenty years old on the exodus from Egypt, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb; and the carrying out of this determination, which lasted for thirty-eight years, must be regarded as supplementary. The second half begins with the forty years of the march through the wilderness, when, after the time of punishment had expired, the theocracy, which had remained partially inactive during a whole series of years, again came into full vigour. In the former half the following events are to be noted.

1. The revolt of Israel at the first station, Taberah—i.e. the first station where anything remarkable occurred after the breaking up from Sinai. According to Numbers 10:33, Numbers 11:1 ff., Taberah was three days’ journey from Sinai. The revolt was occasioned by the hardships of the journey; and in the judgment it called forth, with its speedy accomplishment, we see already a beginning of that severity which gradually increased from this time.

2. The revolt of the Israelites at the second important station, called “the graves of lust,” on account of the divine judgment which befell them. The revolt was stirred up by the number of strange people who had joined themselves to Israel on the exodus, doubtless in the hope of escaping from their oppressed condition in Egypt, and of accompanying them without trouble into the possession of a land flowing with milk and honey. We first read of them in Exodus 12:38 : “And a mixed multitude went up also with them.” Then they meet us again in Deuteronomy 29:11, where these Egyptian strangers are represented as being very poor, and performing the most menial services. From the Egyptian system of caste we must expect to find such people already in Egypt. We certainly find them on the monuments, especially in that picture, already mentioned, which represents the Israelites making bricks. There we find Egyptians who exactly correspond with the hated and despised foreigners: comp. The Books of Moses and Egypt. These men have a typical meaning: they are the representatives of those who separate themselves from the world without internal grounds—of those who run along with others in the kingdom of God, and see themselves deceived in their hope. The manna seemed too uniform a food for them. They hankered after Egypt, and soon infected Israel also with their discontent. Doubt, first of Moses’ divine mission, then of God’s omnipotence, who, they thought, was unable to make a better provision for His people, formed the kernel of the revolt. The twofold doubt is first virtually refuted, then punished. The first doubt was removed in the following manner: Moses was to choose from the elders of the people seventy men, and to bring them to the tabernacle of the covenant. To these the Lord imparted the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, which had before been possessed only by Moses in great measure; “and it came to pass, that, when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease,” Numbers 11:25. There is no reason for supposing that these people predicted future things. This did not at all belong to the nature of the thing. The idea of prophecy is a wide one. It denotes a raising above the standpoint of the lower consciousness, effected by the immediate influence of divine power. The men made known to the nation in prophetic language that it was Moses whom the Lord had destined to be His servant and mediator, and reproached them in an impressive manner for their sin. The divine Spirit which impelled them, manifested itself in all their words and actions; and the phenomenon must have made the greater impression, since in all probability the majority of them had formerly themselves taken part in the insurrection. This idea finds special confirmation in a circumstance mentioned in Numbers 11:26, according to which two of those who were called had refused to appear, but were obliged to serve as witnesses to the truth, even against their will. For the rest, it is easy to refute such as maintain that these seventy elders formed a college which continued till the death of Moses, as J. D. Michaelis does in his Mos. Recht. and Bertheau (p. 253), who confounds them with the judges established by Moses, Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1; or, again, those who see here the origin of the post-exile council of seventy elders or the Sanhedrim. For, apart from the fact that iii all subsequent history until the time of the Babylonish captivity there is no trace of such a council, it is expressly stated in the narrative, Numbers 11:25, that the elders no longer possessed the gift of prophecy, imparted to them for a momentary object: “And it came to pass that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied,” but did not continue: וְלֹ֥איָסָֽפוּ,—correctly rendered καὶ οὐκ ἔτι προσέθεντο by the LXX.; falsely by the Vulgate and Luther: “they ceased not.” This also we must expect beforehand. Permanent possession of the extraordinary divine gifts of grace presupposes full possession of the ordinary; and we have already seen that the majority of the seventy elders possessed these in an inferior degree. Even a Balaam may serve as God’s instrument in isolated cases; but a Balaam can never be a prophet by office. The second doubt was refuted by the sending of quails—not to be confounded with those mentioned in Exodus 16 (which were sent only for one day, not so much to satisfy the want of the Israelites as to show that God could satisfy it)—which continued for a month. The circumstance that Moses is at a loss to know where God will procure food for such a multitude of men, instead of remembering that earlier food, has its analogy in the conduct of the disciples, who, when the Lord wished to feed the multitude, answered, “Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? “Matthew 15:33; forgetting the feeding of the 5000, which had already taken place. Comp. also Matthew 16:9-10, where the Saviour reproaches His disciples because they had again forgotten both these miracles. But he who has attained to some knowledge of his own heart requires no such analogy. That which appears improbable on a superficial consideration, is quite natural to him. We have already pointed out that the sending of the quails, as well as the manna, had a natural basis. In their wanderings by the sea, towards Egypt and Arabia, they meet with incredibly large flocks. Josephus says that Arabia has a greater abundance of quails than of any other kind of bird (Antt. 3, chap. i.). Diod. Sic. i. 60 narrates that whole flocks of quails fly over the Red Sea, so that the people living there can get as many as they wish from the birds which have fallen down on the shore: comp. Oedmann’s Vermischte Sammlungen, part iii. sec. 6. In the same district Schubert saw whole clouds of birds of passage pass over in the distance, of such extent and density as no traveller has seen elsewhere. They came from their southern winter abode, and hastened to their home on the sea-coast. Comp. Ritter, p. 268. Even now the Bedouins capture those quails which are weary with flight, not with nets, but with their hands. After the virtual refutation of the doubt, the punishment follows; and the fact that it should have taken place just at this time, shows that mercy is associated with severity. For only now were the people in a position where punishment could exercise a salutary influence: their proud spirit was broken, they felt that they had sinned. The instrument of punishment was a ravaging disease, caused by satiety. In granting the wish, the punishment was prepared; comp. Numbers 11:20; Numbers 11:33 with Psalms 78:29-31.

3. The dispute between Moses and his relatives, Aaron and Miriam, besides being a symptom of the prevailing disposition, is important as a station on the way of trial in which Moses is led, as well as Israel; but still more important as the occasion of a divine declaration of the dignity of Moses, who, as founder of the Old Testament economy, stands in a closer and more intimate relation to God than any other servant under the Old Testament; to whom, therefore, every other must be subordinate. This declaration, Numbers 12:6-8, already determines the whole relation of the prophethood to Moses. No prophet dare place himself on a level with Moses. The whole subsequent prophethood must rest upon the Pentateuch. The divine illumination of ordinary prophets is partial, intermittent, and characterized by want of clearness; on the other hand, that of Moses is continuous, and associated with the most perfect clearness. His relation to the Lord is much more intimate. The dispute was occasioned by Moses’ marriage with a foreigner, Zipporah. The pride of Miriam, who wished to place herself on a level with Moses, on account of the prophetic gift (already in Exodus 15:20 ff. she is called נְבִיאָה, prophetess, by no means synonymous with poetess), which misled Aaron also, took this occasion to depreciate Moses. Hazeroth is said to be the place where the event occurred. It has been recently supposed to have been discovered in the fountain Hadhra, in whose neighbourhood are date trees and the remains of walls which enclosed former plantations—Chazeroth loca septo circumdata. In favour of this view we have not only the agreement of name, but also the suitableness of situation. Hadhra lies just in the direction taken by the Israelites; and by Robinson’s account (i. p. 249), is about eighteen hours distant from Sinai. The spring is the only one in the district which gives good water through the whole year, and was therefore a very important locality for such a land.

4. Now follows the sending of the spies. This itself was due, if not to want of faith, yet to its weakness. What need had they for information concerning the fruitfulness of the land, if they would only trust in the Lord, who had pledged His word for it? The strength or weakness of the inhabitants might have been a matter of indifference to them. The Lord, who had conquered the Egyptians for them, had said that He would drive out the inhabitants. Yet even here the Lord had forbearance toward their weakness. He granted their desire, because the sending of the spies was calculated to strengthen the weak faith of the well-disposed. On the one hand, the word of God would receive visible confirmation—the spies must bear witness that the land is exactly as God described it—and it would thus be easier for them to trust the mere word with reference to the other great promise, the conquest of the enemy. The forbearance ceased when, after the return of the spies, unbelief broke out into open revolt with greater strength and universality than had ever before happened. By the divine decree the period of trial now ceased for all those who had been fully capable of forming an independent judgment at the time of the exodus from Egypt; although it still continued for the younger generation. Those who are irrevocably given over to judgment, who have fallen from grace, are no longer tried.

It is remarkable that the temptation which has rejection for its consequence is the tenth. The circumstance that the period of trial should have concluded with it, can scarcely be regarded as accidental, since it is expressly made prominent in the narrative itself. Numbers 14:22. The ten temptations are the following: Exodus 5:20-21; Exodus 14:11-12; Exodus 15:22-27; Exodus 16:2-3; Ex 16:20; 17:1-7; Exodus 22; Numbers 11:1-4, Numbers 11:5-34; Numbers 14. They stand in manifest relation to the ten plagues—ten great proofs of God’s power and mercy, and ten great proofs of the nation’s hard-heartedness and ingratitude: the end of the ten plagues, deliverance; the end of the temptations, rejection. With the last and greatest temptation, the nation return to that state from which God had delivered them by the last and greatest plague. The similarity of number here serves only to point to the internal relation, as is often the case in Scripture. The two fundamental ideas are these: God’s requirements are always in proportion to the measure of His gifts; when He has given He also proves how the gift has been employed. Every gift becomes injurious to him who is not led by it to the giver. This is the nucleus of the ten events considered as temptations. The second fundamental idea is this: Great as God’s mercy is, so great is man’s hard-heartedness. “Watch, therefore, and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” This is the essence of the ten events considered as temptations of God on the part of the Israelites. We have no information relative to the condition of the children of Israel during the years of their exile except what is contained in Amos 5:25-26 : “Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel”? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun, your images, the star of your God, which ye made to yourselves.” The forty years are a round number, instead of the more accurate thirty-eight; so also in Numbers 14:33-34, Joshua 5:6. Amos tells us that the great mass of the people neglected to honour the Lord by sacrifices during the larger part of the march through the wilderness; and in the place of Jehovah, the God of armies, substituted a borrowed god of heaven, whom they worshipped, together with the remaining host of heaven, with a borrowed worship. What the Lord had denied to His faithless people, they sought from their idols, without, however, being able to forsake the Lord entirely. In harmony with this is Ezekiel 20:25-26, where, with reference to Israel in the wilderness, we read: “Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; and I polluted them in their own gifts.” The fact that the melancholy errors of Israel are here traced back to God, and that He appears as the original cause of their blinded syncretism, is explained by Romans 1:24, Acts 7:42, 2 Thessalonians 2:11 Thess. 2:11.

5. It is certain that there were many other revolts during this long period, up to the fortieth year. But these have no more to do with the plan of the history, which occupied itself only with the people of God, than the iniquities of the Israelites and Jews who were led away in the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles, and which are not copiously narrated. That the shortness and meagreness in describing this period can be attributed only to design, appears from the great accuracy with which, before and afterwards, the year and month and day of the events are given. A vague tradition would have wavered from this side to that, and have been indefinite: comp. Exodus 16:1, Exodus 19:1, Exodus 40:2, Exodus 40:17; Numbers 20:1, Numbers 33:8. We cannot maintain, with Kurtz, that the rejection had reference merely to exclusion from the land of Canaan, from the simple fact that the administration of the two sacraments of the Old Testament, of circumcision and the passover, was suspended. But, on the other hand, the rejection must not be regarded as absolute. There still remained many tokens of grace, notwithstanding the banishment, which was intended not only to terrify but also to allure. But, on the whole, there was a suspension of the relations of grace, which necessarily occasions an interruption of the historical narrative. We hear only of one revolt—the Korahitic, Numbers 16:17—because the double divine confirmation of the priesthood to which it gave rise was of the greatest importance for subsequent time. From the special object of the revolt, it is apparent also that divine retribution once more appeared in a visible form. In other cases, retribution took place in an ordinary way, as a natural consequence of the rejection of the people, because Israel had now entered more into the relation of the heathen nations. Amid the difficulties of the march through the wilderness, where even now, Rüppell observes, there are few aged people, and amid the gnawing pangs of conscience, death slowly and imperceptibly snatched away all its victims. The pretended accusation which Korah and his company bring against Moses is noteworthy: “All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them; wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? “It is a symptom of deep degradation when authorities are no longer recognised. The cry for equality is the harbinger of judgment. It is plain that there was a reference to the opening speech of the Sinaitic lawgiver: “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation,” Exodus 19:6. From the dignity conferred, upon the whole nation, they think themselves at liberty to conclude that there can be no degrees of dignity, when the very contrary was the true inference; for, by the same free grace by which God raised up Israel out of the midst of the heathen, He could again raise up a single man, or a single class, from among the rest. They cannot apprehend the reasons for this proceeding, this election among the elect, because they do not know themselves, nor the state of the people, and are therefore unable to estimate the significance of an institution which presupposes the weakness of the nation. They lay claim to the possession of the full rights prepared, as they imagine, for the people of God, without considering the great contrast between idea and reality in the fulfilment of their duties. Instead of making it their first business to fulfil these, they immediately stretch out their hand for the rights. The revolt consisted of a double element: first Korah and his Levitical company; then the Reubenites, Dathan and Abiram. The true originator was Korah. Hence the Reubenites are called the people of Korah, Numbers 16:32. The punishment was twofold, appropriate to the two distinct elements. The Reubenites are swallowed up by the earth; while Korah and his Levites are punished by fire, because they had sinned by fire. They stood with their vessels of incense before the tent of assembly, in the performance of the priestly dignity which they had claimed. Then went out fire from the Lord, and consumed them—an awful example for all those who would use the exalted privileges of the people of God in the interest of their own selfishness and darkness! The miracle of the green, budding rod had a symbolical meaning. It pointed to the fact, that the priesthood among Israel would flourish and bud; a promise which, according to Zechariah, received its final fulfilment in Christ. So much for the first half of our period. In the second, which begins with the fortieth year of the march, the following events are to be noticed:—

1. The water from the rock.—The older generation had almost died out. Now begin the temptations of the new generation; and what is remarkable, their beginning is exactly similar to that of the former. The people murmured when they wanted water, and longed for Egypt again. The Lord now shows them that He is again in their midst. But Moses and Aaron are excluded from the land of Canaan by reason of the weakness of their faith, which finds expression in the circumstance, that Moses, who had never till then forgotten himself before the people, now addresses them in irritable despondency: “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” and then strikes twice in haste and disquietude, not sure of his cause. This weakness of faith, which shows plainly that the covenant of which Moses was the mediator was only preliminary, and virtually points to a perfect, sinless Mediator, who could not come forth from among men conceived and born in sin, is much more intelligible, if we regard the temptation as a new beginning. Moses and Aaron had already suffered so much from the earlier generation, in the hope that the new generation would prove itself better; and now, all at once, they saw that the beginning was like the end. Their faith wavered. Pain and sorrow kept them from rising to joyful trust. It was not God’s power, but His mercy, that they doubted, for they regarded the sinfulness of the nation as too great to allow any expression of mercy. This tendency to despond is a temptation which we find in the life of all true servants of God. Luther had to contend very strongly against it, especially in the later years of his life, when he was so often surrounded by all that was dreary. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the punishment of Moses and Aaron was really aimed at the people through them. Apart from this design, God would certainly have pardoned the leaders their transgression, which was comparatively small. This appears from the simple reason, that the relations of grace were continued to Moses and Aaron. Their punishment was designed to call the nation to repentance. The weak faith of their leader was only an echo of their unbelief. They were to hate the sin which had shut out their leaders from the land of promise. We only remark further, that the place, which had till then been called Barnea, first received the name of Kadesh from this event; as is shown in the third volume of the Beiträge. Ewald’s opinion, that the place had been a sanctuary and an oracle in an oasis in the desert long before Moses, is erroneous, as the name Kadesh already shows. It was called Kadesh, because Jehovah had sanctified and glorified Himself there.

2. The plague of serpents.—This was occasioned by the renewed murmuring of the people, called forth by a new temptation from the Lord, who disposed the hearts of the Idumaeans to refuse them a passage when they were again on the borders of the promised land, at Kadesh, so that they were once more obliged to undertake a difficult march. According to Numbers 21:4 this incident occurred on the western side of the Edomite mountains, probably not far from the northern point of the Aelanitic Gulf. From Burckhardt’s Sketches, part ii. p. 814, we learn that the plague had a natural substratum in the district through which they then journeyed. In the region about the Aelanitic Gulf he saw many traces of serpents in the sand, and was told by the Arabs that serpents were very common in that district, and that the fishermen were very much afraid of them, and in the evening, before going to sleep, extinguished their fire, because it was known that fire attracted them. Herodotus, ii. 75, already mentions that winged serpents come to Egypt from the Arabian desert in great numbers, and are there destroyed by the ibis: comp. Bähr, p. 652. In Schubert’s Account of the Journey in the Arabah to Hor, part ii. p. 406, he says: “At noon a large serpent was brought to us, very variegated, marked with fiery red spots and spiral stripes; and from the structure of its teeth, we saw that it was of a poisonous kind.” According to the Bedouins, who are very much afraid of this serpent, it is very common in the district; comp. Ritter, p. 330, who mentions it as a remarkable thing, that serpents are still common in the very place where the Israelites were visited by the plague of serpents, while in other parts of the peninsula they are but rarely met with. The subsequent healing shows, however, that the plague was nevertheless to be regarded as a punishment. It would have been just as easy for God to have kept the Israelites free from sin as to have healed them after they had repented. The genuine repentance which followed the infliction of the punishment showed that there was a better basis in the new generation than in the old. The healing was attached to an outward sign—the looking at the brazen serpent—in order to bring its divine origin more vividly to the consciousness. According to the usual acceptation, the serpent is to be regarded as a symbol of the healing power of God. Under the image of a serpent, it is said, the Egyptians honoured the Divine Being, whom they called Ich-nuphi, the good Spirit, and whom they regarded as the originator of all good and happy events; comp. Jablonsky, panth. i. chap. 4. Among the Greeks the serpent was an attribute of Esculapius. But this hypothesis is overthrown by the one circumstance that in Numbers 21:8 it is said: “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole.” The meaning of שרף  cannot be misunderstood. The serpent means burning, because its poison resembles consuming fire. For similar reasons, certain serpents were called πρηστῆρες; and καύσωνες in Greek. The Vulgate renders שרף by serpens flatu adurens. According to this, the poison in the serpent must be the special point under consideration; a property which must be excluded, if it be regarded as a symbol of the healing power of God. There is only one way in which we can do justice to the fiery serpent here, in its connection with Numbers 21:6—“And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people”—viz., by assuming that the brazen serpent, no less than the living one, denotes the power of evil: the distinction consisting only in this, that the brazen serpent is the evil power overcome by God’s power. It is noteworthy that Moses does not take a living serpent, but a dead image of it, as a sign of its subjugation by the healing power of the law. If the meaning of the serpent be here rightly determined, then its typical character, which our Lord teaches in John 3:14-15, also appears in its true light. Christ is the antitype of the serpent, in so far as He took upon Himself the most injurious of all injurious powers, sin, and atoned for it by substitution. What here happened with regard to the lower hostile power, was a guarantee that similar effectual assistance would be granted in the future against this worst enemy; what here happened for the preservation of corporeal life, was an actual prophecy of that future event which was to effect the preservation of eternal life. And those who are inclined summarily to reject the healing of the Israelites, by looking at the brazen serpent as mythical, may learn modesty from the fact, that the Egyptian serpent-charmers are able to protect themselves and others from the bite even of the most poisonous serpents in a way that has never yet been satisfactorily explained. The scholars of the French expedition, notwithstanding their tendency to deride everything as superstition and charlatanry, are yet obliged to concede this. Jollois in the Descript., t. 18, p. o33 ff., says; “We confess that, though far removed from all credulity, we have ourselves been witnesses of an event so remarkable, that we are not able to regard the art of the serpent-tamers as altogether chimerical.” If we are here obliged to acknowledge a mystery even in the province of nature, how much less can we make the intelligible a criterion of the true!

3. The victory over the kings Sihon and Og.—The English edition of Burckhardt still maintains that the Israelites passed through the middle of the land of Moab, after the Edomites had allowed them a free passage. But this is manifestly at variance with the narrative, comp. Numbers 21:11 ff. The Israelites first journeyed eastwards through the wilderness, round the southern part of the land of Moab, with whose inhabitants they were forbidden to commence warfare. Then they crossed over the Upper Sared, which is probably the Wadi Kerek. And here the punishment came to an end, comp. Deuteronomy 2:14-16. Without touching the inhabited land of the Moabites, they now kept closer to the eastern boundary, crossed the Arnon near its sources in the wilderness; so that after the passage they were not yet in the territory of the Amorites, but to the east of it. This is in harmony with Deuteronomy, which does not refer to a passing through the actual territory of the Moabites, and according to which the Israelites, after having passed over the Arnon, sent ambassadors from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon, Deuteronomy 2:24 ff. If they had gone through the middle of the Moabite country, they would have crossed the Arnon at the place where they entered the land of the Amorites. Compare also the explicit statement in Judges 11:18 : “Then they went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, but came not within the border of Moab.” The Canaanitish population of the Amorites had their proper seat in the cis-Jordanic country, in what was afterwards the mountainous district of Judah, comp. Numbers 13:30. But not long before the occupation of Canaan by the Israelites, the Amorites had undertaken a war against the Moabites, and had taken the greater part of their territory from them, so that they retained only the land from the Arnon to the southern portion of the Dead Sea, or the border of the Idumaeans. The Amorites had made Heshbon their capital. We learn from Numbers 21:29 that the Sihon conquered by the Israelites had previously taken this town from the Moabites. The land then in possession of the Amorites was promised to the Israelites; for, according to the promise, all that country belonged to them which was in the possession of Canaanitish nationalities. But we have already proved that these districts were not only a temporary, but also an original, possession of Canaan. We have shown that the Amorites only reconquered under the visible guidance of divine providence what had formerly belonged to them. Only in this way could the land come into the possession of the Israelites, for they were not allowed to take away anything from the Moabites. At first, however, they only asked a free passage from Sihon; and it was not until this had been refused, and an attack had been made upon them by Sihon himself, who marched against them in the wilderness, that they conquered him and took possession of his territory. It has been a frequent matter of perplexity that the Israelites at the divine command should have sent an embassy to Sihon while his territory belonged to them irrevocably. But contradiction falls away if we only consider that Sihon’s rejection of the proposal was foreseen by God. The object of the embassy was not to move him to grant that which was requested, but only to show him how those whom God intends to punish must run blindly to their own destruction. The deliverance is put into his own hand, but he must cast it away from him, comp. Deuteronomy 2:30. The customary opinion is, that the Israelites journeyed northwards into the country of the king of Bashan, who was also a Canaanite, and in whose territory the Canaanitish supremacy had continued without interruption. After he also had been conquered, they returned to that district which was best calculated to afford them an entrance into the cis-Jordanic country, viz. the west, that part of the land of the Amorites which lay along the river Jordan, opposite Jericho, still called ערבותמואב from its earlier inhabitants, i.e. the Moabitic part of the Arabah, or the valley which extends from the sea of Gennesareth to the Aelanitic Gulf: comp. Balaam, p. 227. But the correct view is this: After the power of Sihon had been broken in battle, the main camp of the Israelites, leaving the wilderness, moved towards the west, across Mattana, Nahaliel, and Bamoth, to the valley before the Nebo, which, according to the argument in the work on Balaam, lies about an hour west of Heshbon; a view which has also been recognised as the correct one by Ritter, Erdkunde, 15 (1851), p. 1177. By separate detachments sent out from these stations the whole land of Sihon was conquered. Then, making this place their headquarters, the Israelites undertook a march against Og: comp. Balaam, p. 25 ff., for proof that all Israel did not take part in the march against upper Gilead and Bashan. After the return of the expedition, the Israelites left their headquarters and encamped in the plains of Moab, immediately facing the land of promise, and only separated from it by the Jordan. Here a series of remarkable events took place: Balaam’s blessing, Israel’s sin by participation in the worship of Baal, the conquest of Midian, the conclusion of a new covenant, the death of Moses.

4. Balaam.—The centre of this whole narrative. Numbers 22-24, which Gesenius on Is., p. 504, called “a truly epic representation, worthy the greatest poet of all times,” is the blessing which a strange prophet, summoned with hostile intent, with a disposition to curse, is constrained by Jehovah’s power to pronounce upon His people. The object was, to show Israel for all times the height of their calling, and, in a living picture of God, to place them in a relation towards His church which should continue through all time. Balak, the king of the Moabites, had, it is true, nothing to fear from the Israelites. They had assured him that his people were safe from them. But he had no faith in the assurance. He believed that, when the Israelites had done with the other nations, his turn would come. He therefore allied himself on mutual terms with the neighbouring Midianites dwelling in that part of Arabia which lay nearest to Moab. The Israelites themselves ascribed their victory, not to their own power, but to the help of their God. He therefore thought that he could effect nothing against them until he had deprived them of the protection of this God. For this purpose he washed to make use of means which were held to be effectual among almost all heathen nations. They had a distortion of the true religion doctrine of the power of intercession, in the opinion that men who stand in close relation to a deity exercise a sort of constraint upon him, and by uttered imprecations can plunge individual men and whole nations into inevitable misfortune. Plutarch, for example, in his Life of Crassus, relates how a tribune of the people who did not wish Crassus to conquer the Parthians ran to the gate, there set down a burning censer, strewed incense upon it, and gave utterance to awful and terrible curses, calling upon fearful deities. Plutarch adds, that the Romans attribute such power to these mysterious and ancient formulas of cursing, that the person against whom they are directed is overtaken by inevitable misfortune. Macrobius, iii. 9, has preserved a formula of this kind for us. Balak believed that no one was better adapted for the carrying out of his wish than Balaam, a far-famed soothsayer, prophet, and sorcerer who dwelt at Pethor Mesopotamia; particularly since he performed his acts in the name of the same God whose protection was to be withdrawn from Israel. The name is composed of בֶּלַע, devouring, and עָם, people. Balaam bore it as a dreaded sorcerer and enchanter. John follows this interpretation in the Apocalypse, translating the name of Balaam by Νικόλαος. The judgments on Balaam’s personality are directly at variance with one another. Many, after the example of Ambrose, Cyril, and Augustine, regard him as a hardened villain, an enchanter who, by the help of evil spirits, was able to prophesy and perform wonders. Others, following Tertullian and Jerome, maintain that he was a true prophet and a thoroughly upright man, who afterwards fell grievously. So, for example, Buddeus, who calls him horrendumἀποστασίαςexemplum. But, as is often the case, both views are incorrect, for both rest on the false presupposition of the tertiumnon datur, while this tertium is in reality much more frequent than the primum and secondum. Before setting forth the correct view we must answer the question, whence had Balaam that knowledge of Jehovah which he undeniably possessed, and without which Balak would not have sent for him? The general opinion is, that a certain knowledge of Jehovah had been retained in that region from primitive times. Buddeus remarks: “Vixerat in eo tractu Laban, Jacobus filios omnes excepto Benjamine ibi genuerat.” But much cannot be accounted for in this way, and a single circumstance may suffice to demonstrate it. The allusions in Balaam’s prophecies to earlier utterances of God, which had been given to Israel, are unmistakeable. Thus the form in which Israel’s great increase is foretold in the first speech, points to the promises in Genesis 13:16, Genesis 28:14. The picture of the reposing lion which none dare awaken, in the third speech, reminds us of Jacob’s blessing on Judah, Genesis 49:9; and the same speech concludes with the words, “Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee,” Genesis 27:29. Moreover, the knowledge displayed by Balaam of the nature and will of Jehovah the God of Israel, is too exact and definite to have been derived from isolated, faint tones which had reached him from that primitive revelation which itself knew little of the God of Israel. If we assume that Balaam drew only from it, we must maintain, what has no analogy in its favour, that in his prophecies he was a mere passive tool, that he gave utterance to conceptions for which there was no rapport in his nature. This is certainly the way in which the thing must be looked at. In the song, after the passage through the Red Sea, it is already stated that the fame of God’s mighty deeds towards Israel would spread fear and wonder far and wide, Exodus 15:14; comp. also Exodus 9:16. That this was the case is shown by Joshua 5:1 : “And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel; “and other passages. The great multitude now remained in simple wonder and simple fear, without going any deeper into the matter; but a few—those who had previously possessed a lively, religious interest—sought to investigate the thing more closely. They made use of every opportunity to learn more of Jehovah, of His relation to Israel, of Ηis promises and of His acts. We have an example of this in Jethro, of whom we read in Exodus 18:1 ff.: “Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel His people, that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, whom He had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.” He had not yet attained to the knowledge that Jehovah was the only God; but he never questions His supremacy over all other gods. We have a second example in Rahab, who, in Joshua 2:9 ff., herself relates how she had come to the knowledge that the God of Israel was God in heaven above and in the earth beneath, by the noble acts of Jehovah, the passage through the Red Sea, etc. And this is the category in which we must place Balaam. Hitherto he had followed the trade of an astrologer and enchanter, in the interest of those passions by which he was swayed, viz. avarice and ambition. He now heard of the God of Israel, and by connection with so mighty a God he hoped to be able to do great deeds. He was thus His professed adherent. Just as many in the time of Christ cast out devils in His name, so Balaam now came forward in the name of Jehovah, calling Him his God: comp. Numbers 22:8. But he did not therefore at once become a true prophet, any more than his New Testament antitype Simon Magus. The same divided purpose was common to both; and what Peter and John say to Simon is perfectly applicable to Balaam, Acts 8:21 : “οὐκ ἔστιν σοι μερὶς οὐδὲ κλῆρος ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τούτῳ, ἡ γὰρ καρδία σου οὐκ ἔστιν εὐθεῖα ἔναντι τοῦ Θεοῦ^”. He certainly was not a complete hypocrite. Nor was Simon. For if his heart had been wholly untouched, how could the apostle have baptized him? Without assuming a basis of true fear of God, it is impossible to explain Balaam’s conduct on receiving the offer of the Moabites, his subsequent behaviour, and the fact that he afterwards blessed instead of cursing. But he had not turned to the truth with his whole heart, otherwise he would at once have rejected the proposal of the Moabites with horror; nor could he have hoped that God would alter His will after He had once revealed it to him. It is therefore not quite correct to characterize his subsequent conduct as horrendumἀποστασίαςexemplum. Apostasy presupposes perfect union before. But in his case this had not existed; the pure and the impure elements had been present in him in troubled confusion. After God, in fulfilment of His design, had entered into the former element without whose existence the whole appearance of the prophet is incomprehensible, he was swayed by the latter alone, and this by his own fault, because he loved the wages of unrighteousness, 2 Peter 2:15. The same confusion which prevailed in his heart is also apparent in his judgment. In spite of all his religious insight he follows auguries, Numbers 23:3 and Numbers 29:1; thus showing how faint and indistinct the voice of God was within him. If his union with the Lord had been perfectly true and intimate, he would not have sought Him in nature, but only in the word. In Joshua 13:22 he is called קוֹסֵם, “the soothsayer.” Only by virtue of preconceived theory has it been maintained that נחשׁים, which always means auguries, such as were strictly repudiated among Israel, and קוסם may also be used in a good sense.

We shall now occupy ourselves with the occurrence by the way. Balaam is so far led astray by covetousness and avarice that he does not at once reject the proposal of the king, as he ought to have done; but still retains so much fear of God that he does reject it after the Lord has expressly forbidden him to comply with it. He met a second embassy of the king with the distinct declaration that he would speak only what the Lord commanded him; yet his passion leads him to ask the Lord a second time whether he may not comply with the desire of the king. And this time he receives permission to undertake the journey, but under a condition which made it utterly aimless and impracticable, as any one not blinded by passion would at once have seen. But Balaam grasps the permission in both hands, without examination, and sets out with the princes of Moab. The nearer he came to the end of his journey, the more he was influenced by the possessions and honours which there awaited him, in event of his compliance with the desire of the king. If he were left to himself, it was to be expected that he would curse Israel. In itself this curse would have had no weight; for an unworthy servant can exercise no constraint upon the God of Israel. But for the consciousness of Israel and of their enemies it had great significance. If, on the other hand, he were to pronounce a blessing instead of the desired curse, the effect produced would be the more marked, since he would here be acting contrary to his own advantage. An influence of God interrupting the influence of nature was here sufficiently indicated. The way in which Balaam at first acted towards this divine manifestation shows how low he had fallen; and how necessary this influence was if the curse were to be hindered. The appearance of the Lord, which inspires even the ass with terror, is invisible to his sin-darkened eye. The resistance of the ass, caused by the threatening aspect of the Angel of the Lord, causes him to look inward; the power of sin is broken, and, thus prepared, God is able to open his eyes to see the angel standing before him in the way with a drawn sword. The earnest warning and threat addressed to him by the angel finds access to his mind; he confesses that he has sinned, and offers to turn back. But since it was God’s design not only that he should refrain from cursing, but also that he should bless, he is directed to continue his journey; but he is not to say anything except what God tells him. It is a question of very minor importance whether the speaking of the ass is to be regarded as an internal or an external event; whether God suffered the animal to speak to Balaam subjectively or objectively. The principal argument for the acceptance of an external occurence, viz. that it is arbitrary to assume the interiority of an event when it is not expressly stated, has been set aside by what has already been said. When Kurtz, in his desire to maintain the externality of the occurrence, states that there is nothing in the vision of which this is not expressly predicated in the narrative, we have only to call to mind the Mosaic account of the burning bush, which, according to Acts, was a vision. The following are some of the arguments which speak for the subjective nature of the occurrence: 1. In Numbers 12:6 visions and dreams are characterized as the ordinary methods of God’s revelation to the prophets. 2. In the introduction to his third and fourth prophecies, Balaam calls himself a seer by profession; and in Numbers 22:8 and Numbers 22:19 he invites the Moabitish ambassadors to remain with him over night, the time of prophetic visions, that he might receive divine revelations. The appearance of the angel, which preceded the speaking of the ass, had an internal character; but here we must strictly separate between interiority and identity with fancy, a confusion into which Kurtz has recently fallen. The objectivity of the appearance cannot be doubted. The only question is in what way that which was objectively present was apprehended and recognised. The interiority of the occurrence is proved by one argument alone, viz. that God is obliged to open Balaam’s eyes before he can see the angel. Such an operation is unnecessary in that which falls within the sphere of the five senses. For these two reasons we gain a distinct advantage in favour of the interiority of the event. 3. Not only is there no mention of surprise on the part of Balaam, but its existence is quite excluded by Numbers 22:29. The speaking of the ass, in itself, makes no impression on him, but he is led to reflection by what it says. 4. In the company of Balaam were the two servants and the Moabitish ambassadors; but they guessed nothing whatever of all that passed. Jehovah opened the mouth of the ass; He caused the ass to speak to Balaam in the vision; He gave it words corresponding to its whole appearance and expression. He made the ass to speak for Balaam, while for all the rest of the world the beast of burden remained dumb.

There can be no doubt that the prophecies of Balaam must be attributed to divine revelation; and it is scarcely conceivable how Steudel can deny it, as he does in his treatise “die Geschichte Bileam’s und seine Weissagungen,” in the Tübingen Periodical, 1831. Only in this way can we explain the acceptance of the whole narrative by the author. It is not his object simply to give a short history. Moreover, the later prophets employed these utterances of God as such. Samuel brings the utterance in Numbers 23:19 to bear upon Saul, 1 Samuel 15:29. David’s last words in 2 Samuel 23:1 rest upon Balaam’s words. Habakkuk in Habakkuk 1:3, Habakkuk 1:13 brings before God the words which He has spoken through Balaam. The prophecy of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 48:45, against Moab, is a repetition of that of Balaam, Numbers 24:17. The narrative itself expressly says, “The Spirit of God came upon Balaam,” Numbers 24:2; “The Lord pat a word in Balaam’s mouth,” Numbers 23:5; and one argument alone is sufficient to refute Steudel’s strange view, that the narrative originated with Balaam himself, and was taken unaltered by Moses into the Pentateuch, viz. the use of the divine names. When Balaam himself is introduced speaking, he employs the name Jehovah, with a few exceptions which may all be reduced to one ground. Where He is spoken of, on the other hand, we generally find אלהים, to indicate that Balaam stands in relation only to the Godhead, not to the living and holy God of Israel. So, for example, throughout the narrative of his dealings with the ambassadors of the Moabitish king, in Numbers 22:8-20. This Elohim points to the fact that it was presumption in Balaam to boast of a nearer relation. The author places Jehovah in relation to Balaam only in that one prophecy, upon whose Jehovistic origin the whole meaning; of the event rested. Regarding Balaam as the author, this use of the name of God is quite unintelligible. And God is elsewhere expressly declared to be the author of the prophecies of Balaam. So, for example, in Deuteronomy 23:5 : “Nevertheless the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee.” But even in the absence of these external arguments, the prophecies themselves would bear evidence, not only because they reveal circumstances lying beyond the range of human knowledge, but still more by the living and deep conception of the idea, which places them on a level with the most lofty productions of prophethood, to which they are not inferior even in form. The theme lying at the basis of all the four discourses is the blessing of the people of God, and especially the prediction of their supremacy over the world. The last of these discourses is again divided into four sections, distinguished by the וַיִּשָּׂאמְשָׁלוֹ, and he took up his parable, which occurs altogether seven times, in harmony with the number of the altars erected by Balaam; cutting away beforehand all attempts to assume late interpolations, such as have been made by Bertholdt and Bleek. The double four and the seven are destroyed by these attempts. Only with the last discourse can we occupy ourselves at greater length. In the first three the idea appeared in a much purer form; in the last it had a special application. We have here a sketch of the whole fate of the people of God. They conquer all their enemies: Moab (the Moabites are named first because their attempt to subjugate Israel first called forth Balaam’s prediction of the supremacy of the Israelites over their enemies), Edom, Amalek, and the Kenites—a Canaanitish people who are here named as the representatives of all the Canaanites because they lived nearer than any other to the place of the prophecy. Rapt by the spirit into the distant future, Balaam sees how a star rises from Jacob, a sceptre from Israel—both symbols of the kingdom which should emerge from Israel; and how this supremacy proceeding from Israel proves itself destructive to all that opposes it. This victory is followed by temporary humiliation. Asshur, including the Chaldean and Persian powers, which were developed out of the Assyrian, leads Israel into captivity. But the oppressors of the people of God are humbled by means of ships which come from the region of Kittim, from near Cyprus, an indefinite name for that power which arose out of Europe to destroy the former Asiatic dominion, and was applied first to the Greeks and afterwards to the Romans. God arms the far West against the sinful East. He oppresses Asshur, the oppressor of Israel; oppresses also the land beyond the Euphrates, whose rulers (this is presupposed) resemble Asshur in their enmity against Israel. Destruction overtakes these enemies of the future as well as those of the present. The history of Balaam now concludes with the words: “And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way.” A detailed account of the further course of his fate did not belong to the plan of the author, for whom Balaam has significance only in one aspect. He began by telling how Balak sent for Balaam to destroy Israel: he concludes with the way in which Balaam separates from Balak, without the latter having attained his wish. Yet we are able to fill out the story from isolated hints. Balaam prepared to return home after having uttered the prophecy. But his covetousness and vanity moved him to still further digression—to an attempt to gain that satisfaction which had been denied him on the part of the Moabites, by God’s intervention, among the Israelites. We conclude that he went to the Israelites from the fact that there is no other way in which we can explain how Moses had such accurate knowledge of all that had befallen him. Moses probably treated him just as Peter and John treated Simon Magus. Angry, and deceived in his hope, he repaired to the enemies of Israel, the Midianites; for he did not venture to go back to the king of the Moabites, who had left him so wrathfully. The counsel which he gave the Midianites to destroy the Israelites, by seducing them to idolatry through sensuality, attests the depth of his earlier religious insight. Without this he would certainly not have been able to discover the only spot in which the covenant-nation was vulnerable. The counsel had apparently the highest success. A great number of the Israelites were led away. But God raised up Phinehas to be zealous for His honour; and just as the crime was checked in the midst of its course, so also was the punishment which had already begun. From the midst of the people there arose a powerful reaction against the depravity—a prelude of that which has taken place among the people of God in every century; and after punishment has snatched away the guilty, the favour of the Lord returns to His church. The advice now recoiled upon the head of the seducers; and in the war of extermination undertaken against the Midianites, Balaam also met his death, for he still remained among them: Numbers 31:8; Numbers 31:16; Joshua 13:22. If the former event made Israel fully conscious that, if God be with us, no man can be against us, this one loudly exhorted them to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling: from without the election cannot in any way be nullified, but it may be so by the apostasy of the nation. Foolish is he who despairs of the mercy of God: foolish is he who attributes it to caprice. The act of Phinehas, in Numbers 25:7 ff., has frequently been falsely apprehended, and in this false conception has exercised an injurious influence. The zealots in the time of the war against the Romans appealed to his example. The judgment on the faithless was pronounced by Moses, the legal authority, Numbers 25:5. The lawful rulers of the people, to whom the executive power belonged, had the best intention to perform their duty, but they lacked the requisite energy,—they wept before the door of the tabernacle of assembling, Numbers 25:6. Then Phinehas stepped forward, who possessed what they lacked, and acted in their stead, as their servant and instrument. His act is rightly characterized in Psalms 106:30 as one of judgment; and those who would resist crime by crime have no pattern in him. The fact that the Israelites should have suffered almost no loss in the battle against Midian has given rise to suspicion. But it has been shown, in my treatise on Moses and Colenso, that the warlike men of the Midianites, in so far as they had not already fallen in the campaign against Sihon, sought safety in flight, so that it was not really a battle, but rather an execution. The second giving of the law, and the renewal of the covenant on Sinai, form a worthy conclusion to the events in the plains of Moab; appended to which are earnest exhortations, warnings, threats, and promises, which at last culminate in the song of Moses and his blessing. The theme of the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 is given in Deuteronomy 32:4-5 : the love and truth of God, the faithlessness and apostasy of the nation. Moses foresees that the nation will fall into heavy sorrow and affliction in consequence of their apostasy. His aim is to take care that they are not led astray by their conception of God, but are led by it to repentance. He first describes the glorious deeds of God, then the shameful ingratitude of the people, then the affliction, which appeared now as a deserved punishment; and, finally, to protect the people against despair, the dangerous enemy of repentance, he points to God’s saving mercy, which infallibly returns to His people after punishment. This song forms the key to the whole history of Israel, the text on which all the prophets comment, and to which they frequently refer even verbally; for example, Isaiah opens his first discourse with a reference to the piece. The blessing of Moses, in Deuteronomy 33, begins and concludes in Deuteronomy 33:2-6 and Deuteronomy 33:26-29 with an allusion to the basis and source of the blessing, the covenant relation in which Israel stands to the Lord since that exalted moment on Sinai. Then follow blessings on the separate tribes, which refer to particulars far less than is generally supposed. In general they are only individual applications of the blessing to be given to the whole nation, especially by the distribution of the land of Canaan, which here appears clothed with the enchantment of a hoped-for possession. The series begins with those tribes which were in any way distinguished: Reuben as the first-born; Judah, because in the blessing of Jacob he is destined to be the bearer of the sceptre; Levi, as the servant of the sanctuary; finally Joseph, on account of the distinction of his ancestor in Egypt.

Moses dies after he has surveyed the land of promise from Mount Nebo. No man knew his grave. According to Deuteronomy 34:6, he was not to be honoured in a useless way, in his bones; but in a real way, in the keeping of the law which had been given through him. When we read, “And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab,” from what goes before we can only supply Jehovah as the subject. God’s care for the corpse of Moses forms a counterpart to the condemnatory judgment by which he was shut out from the land of promise; and was at the same time a comforting pledge of His grace for the whole nation. But only the burial of Moses is spoken of; there is not a word to indicate that he was raised up before the resurrection; nor does this follow from Matthew 17:3, for even Samuel appears without having been raised up. The idea of a raising up is rather opposed to the words, “The Lord buried him.” In Jude 1:9 of the Epistle of Jude mention is made of a dispute between Michael the archangel and Satan for the body of Moses, in which Michael says, “The Lord rebuke thee.” There we have little more than a commentary on the words of the Pentateuch. What Jehovah does for His people, He does, according to the Pentateuch, always by His angel or Michael; and when Jehovah wishes to do anything for His people, or for His saints, in the view of the Pentateuch, as given in Leviticus 16, Satan is always busy to prevent it. The means employed by Satan for this object, were the sins of the people and of their leader, as we learn from this chapter and from Zechariah 3, to which there is a reference in the words, “The Lord rebuke thee.” But the Lord does not desist on account of Satan’s protest. He shows this by the fact that He is merciful and gracious, and of great mercy toward His own people.

There are still a few words to be said with reference to the chronology of this period. Respecting the duration of the residence of the Israelites in Egypt, we have two principal sources. In the former, Genesis 15:13, in accordance with its prophetic character, the length of time is only determined in general, and is fixed at 400 years. We have a more exact determination in the properly historic passage, Exodus 12:40 : “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was 430 years; and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.” This passage says so plainly that 430 years elapsed from the coming in of the Israelites to their exodus, that it is scarcely conceivable how some chronologists have imagined that they could limit the time to 215 years without contradicting it. They have recourse to an interpolation, “first Canaan, and then;” but they gain nothing even by this forced treatment, since they are still opposed by “the children of Israel,” which cannot refer to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Genesis 15 is also against them, where the whole residence in the strange land is expressly fixed at 400 years; for the passage does not refer to the whole period from Abraham to the return to Palestine, as Baumgarten thinks. Nor is anything proved by Galatians 3:17, which is appealed to as the foundation for these operations, and according to which 430 years intervened between the promise and the law; for we are not justified in accepting the first giving of the promise as the starting-point, but might much more reasonably believe that Paul regards the entrance into Egypt as the terminus a quo, the conclusion of the period of the promise. There is just as little definite meaning in the circumstance that in the genealogy of Moses and Aaron, in Exodus 6, only four generations are given from Levi to Moses. It must be assumed that some subordinate members in the genealogy are left out, according to a usage which is almost universal. The passage, Numbers 26:59, has been employed against such an abbreviation, where the words, “Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt,” are understood of an immediate daughter of Levi. But this is arguing from our use of language to that of the Old Testament, which is essentially distinct. According to the latter, the words only imply that Jochebed was of Levitical descent. Amram, the head of one of the families of the Kohathites, which in the time of Moses already consisted of thousands of members. Numbers 3:27-28, took Jochebed to wife, not in his own person but in one of his descendants, whose nearest name we do not know. She was not an actual daughter of Levi, but only belonged to his posterity; was a Levite whose origin went back to Levi only through a series of intervening members. When it is asserted that the ages assigned to Levi, Kohath, and Amram make it impossible to extend the sojourn in Egypt to 430 years, the fact is overlooked that it is not stated in what year each one begat his first-born; as is always done in the books of Moses when the genealogies are intended to carry on the chronological thread. The statement of age has therefore a purely individual meaning, and a chronological calculation cannot be based upon it. The age of the principal persons is given in a purely personal interest. We may remark in passing, that it is evident how little Egyptologists are to be depended on in Old Testament chronology, from the circumstance that Bunsen declares the 430 years to be far too short; while Lepsius, on the other hand, tries to reduce them to 90. This is evidently a sphere which admits only of hypothesis. We must adhere, therefore, to 430 years for the residence in Egypt; and, if we add the 40 years of the march through the wilderness, we get 470 years. The ordinary chronology makes the entry into Egypt to have happened in the year of the world 2298; but this gives 60 years too many, falsely assuming that Abraham’s departure from Haran only took place after Sarah’s death, and overlooking the fact that this is narrated per prolepsin. The death of Moses is therefore placed in 2768.