EXPOSITION XIII.

EXODUS V. 1-8.

1. And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

2. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.

3. And they said, 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.

4. And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens.

5. And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.

6 And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying,

7. Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves.

8. And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God.

It is this

We have here the account of the first interview between Moses and Pharaoh, which must have been a very severe trial to the faith of the former. However, he has grace plainly and boldly to state his commission, and as a faithful ambassador to deliver it in the name of the Lord his God; for Moses went in and told Pharaoh, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel." which gives all the power and all the efficiency, even at the present hour, to the christian ministry; "Thus saith the Lord;" "Now then," says the apostle," we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.' And again, "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers (or servants) of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." + As if the apostle were willing to be personally forgotten, and to place nothing before the eyes of his hearers as a motive for receiving himself or his message, but the office which he filled as a "steward," "servant," "ambassador," of the Most High.

It is then, that the ministers of God may expect the largest results, the greatest fruits of their labours, when they are content to be themselves overlooked in the offers of reconciliation, with which they are charged, as entirely as the

* 2 Cor. v. 20.

† 1 Cor. iv. 1.

bearer of a message is forgotten, when we are overwhelmed with joy at its contents, and our hearts filled even to overflowing, with a grateful love to the benefactor from whom it comes.

It was well, indeed, for Moses that he did not attempt to speak in his own name, for probably the hostile feeling in the heart of Pharaoh, which found utterance in rebellion against God, would not have stopped short of murder, in the case of Moses. Considering him, however, merely as the ambassador, all the haughty rage of the monarch manifests itself in his insolent opposition to the Most High. "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?" "I know not the Lord." Here is at once the key to Pharaoh's disobedience; it requires no supernatural hardening of the heart, to turn ignorance into presumption, or gross darkness into open rebellion. The first is parent to the last. If we would preserve ourselves, our children, our country, from the one, we must release them from the other. "I know not the Lord," is a full and sufficient explanation of all that follows. O that men would but learn that the first step to all knowledge is the knowledge of God! Upon this, we cannot erect too large, too high, too grand a superstructure; but wanting this, like the man who built upon the sand, the first wind

that beats, the first storm that blows, destroys our edifice and our hopes together.

The cruelty that follows the refusal of Pharaoh, opens to us another view of his character: we have seen him ignorant of, and disobedient to God; we now behold him atrociously cruel to his fellow-creatures. His unfortunate bondsmen are no longer to be allowed the straw, which was mixed with the clay, previously to baking the bricks in the sun, but they are to wander up and down the land of Egypt to find it, and yet produce, at the end of the day, the same number of bricks as when the straw was granted them. The absolute impossibility of obedience to such a command, is no sufficient motive with Pharaoh not to endeavour to enforce it. There is no depth of iniquity or cruelty, to which the human heart will not stoop, when uncontrolled by the knowledge of the Most High. We read of the "innocent and beautiful superstitions" of Pagan nations, but the moment that the veil is undrawn to the close observer, he finds the most innocent and the most beautiful of them, disgraced by the lowest immorality, and polluted with blood; so truly did the prophet say," The dark corners of the earth are full of cruelty." The truth is, that the heart of fallen man is precisely the same in every country, and under every sun, and it is

not until that heart is changed and sanctified, that it is humanized and purified. Philosophy cannot do it, human knowledge cannot do it, civilization cannot do it, nothing but God's Spirit can achieve it; and He and He only who made the human heart, can remake or regenerate it, and prepare it for himself, and his own blessed society, throughout eternity.

EXPOSITION XIV.

EXODUS V. 9-23.

9. Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard vain words.

10. And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw.

11. Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished.

12. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. 13. And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw.

14. And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten