And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry, by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And, now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come to me and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. But, come now, and I will send thee to Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?

And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a sign to thee, that I have sent thee: When thou shalt have brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.

And Moses said to God, Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and shall say to them, The God of your fathers hath sent me to you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM HE WHO IS:* and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM† hath sent me to you.

And God said again to Moses, Thus shalt thou

*I AM HE WHO IS.— This seems to be an assertion of the self-existence of the Deity, for whose existence there is no cause but that he is.

† I AM.—In the Douay, HE WHO Is. It is part of the substantive verb, and might also be rendered, I WILL BE, for the Hebrews have, properly, no present time, but a past and

say unto the children of Israel, The LORD the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial to all generations. Go, and gather together the elders of Israel, and say to them, The LORD the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, I have surely visited* you, and have seen that which is done to you in Egypt: and I have declared that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the Land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebuzites, to a land flowing with milk and honey. And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and ye shall say to him, The LORD the God of the Hebrews hath met with us; and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God. And I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go but by a mighty hand. And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst of it and after that, he will send you away. And I will give to this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: but every woman shall ask of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.

a future. And in this they are metaphysically correct, for the present is strictly a point of time, which becomes past while we are speaking. The past, or the future, therefore, is used in those cases in which we use the present.

* Visited, i. e. To inspect their condition

And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken to my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared to thee. And the LORD said to him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the LORD said to Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: that they may believe that the LORD the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to thee.

And the LORD said yet again to him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and he took it out, and, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he said, Put back thy hand into thy bosom. And he put back his hand into his bosom, and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe even these two signs, neither hearken to thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land.

And Moses said to the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

And the LORD said to him, Who gave a mouth to man? or who appointed the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? did not I the LORD? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by whom thou wilt send.

And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he will certainly speak, And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. And thou shalt speak to him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach both of you what ye shall do? And he shall speak for thee to the people: and he shall certainly be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God. And thou shalt take this rod in thy hand, wherewith thou shalt do the signs.

And Moses went away and returned to Jethro nis father-in-law, and said to him, Let me go away, I pray thee, and return to my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace.

And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life. And Moses took his wife and his sons, and made them ride upon an ass, and returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And the LORD said to Moses, In going to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thy hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

*

I will harden his heart.-The heart does not, in this passage, signify what we commonly mean by the heart, viz.-the affections, but the understanding; in which sense the word was formerly used; as it still is in the phrase of "learning any thing by heart." There are, accordingly, many places in Scripture, in which "hardness of heart" is used to signify dulness of intellect; as where Jesus upbraids his apostles with "unbelief and hardness of heart," i. e. slowness of heart in not understanding the prophecies. The meaning then is,

And thou shalt say to l'haraoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, my firstborn: and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me : and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn.

And after [these things] Moses and Aaron wen1 in and said to Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD the God of Israel, Send forth my people, that they may hold a feast unto me in the desert.

And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that ] should obey his voice to send forth Israel? 1 know not the LORD, neither will I send forth Israel.

And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, a journey of three days into the desert, and sacrifice to the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with tilence, or with the sword.

pes

And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, set the people loose from their works? get you to your burdens. And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens. And Pharaoh commanded, the same day, the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the number of the bricks, which they did make heretofore,

not that God made Pharaoh cruel (in the modern sense hardhearted), for he was so already; but that he blinded or infatuated his understanding, so that he did not perceive that "Egypt was ruined." We are not, however, to suppose, that God operated directly on the heart of Pharaoh to blind his understanding; but that he withheld from him those lights and graces from above, of which he had proved himself unworthy, and that he was left thus unassisted, in circumstances which, in consequence of his own previous perverseness, led to blindness or infatuation.