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| Chapter XV.
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Chapter XV.
But on the day275
| 275 Such is Halm’s
reading; another is simply “before.” | before the people went out of Egypt, being
as yet unacquainted with dates, they were instructed by the command of
God to acknowledge that month which was then passing by as the first of
all months; and were told that the sacrifice of the day was to be
solemnly and regularly offered in coming ages, so that, on the
fourteenth day of the month, a lamb without blemish, one year old,
should be slain as a victim, and that the door-posts should be
sprinkled with its blood; that its flesh was wholly to be eaten, but
not a bone of it was to be broken; that they should abstain from what
was leavened for seven days, using only unleavened bread; and that they
should hand down the observance to their posterity. Thus the people
went forth rich, both by their own wealth, and still more by the spoils
of Egypt. Their number had grown from those seventy-five276
| 276 The Hebrew text has
“seventy,” but our author, as usual, follows the LXX. | Hebrews, who had first gone down into
Egypt, to six hundred thousand men. Now, there had elapsed from the
time when Abraham first reached the land of the Canaanites a period of
four hundred and thirty years, but from the deluge a period of five
hundred and seventy-five277
years. Well, as
they went forth in haste, a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of
fire by night, marched before them. But since, owing to the fact that
the gulf of the Red Sea lay between, the way led by278
| 278 The text here is
uncertain and obscure. | the land of the Philistines, in order
that an opportunity might not afterwards be offered to the Hebrews,
shrinking from the desert, of returning into Egypt by a well-known road
through a continuous land-journey, by the command of God they turned
aside, and journeyed towards the Red Sea, where they stopped and
pitched their camp. When it was announced to the king that the Hebrew
people, through mistaking the road, had come to have the sea right
before them, and that they had no means of escape since the deep would
prevent them, vexed and furious that so many thousand men should escape
from his kingdom and power, he hastily led forth his army. And already
the arms, and standards, and the lines drawn up in the widespreading
plains were visible, when, as the Hebrews were in a state of terror,
and gazing up to heaven, Moses being so instructed by God, struck the
sea with his rod, and divided it. Thus a road was opened to the people
as on firm land, the waters giving way on both sides. Nor did the king
of Egypt hesitate to follow the Israelites going forward, for he
entered the sea where it had opened; and, as the waters speedily came
together again, he, with all his host, was
destroyed.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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