As in the book of GENESIS we have God's own account of the commencement of the WORLD, the origin of nations, and the peopling of the earth; so in the book of EXODUS we have an account, from the same source of infallible truth, of the commencement of the Jewish CHURCH, and the means used by the endless mercy of God to propagate and continue his pure and undefiled religion in the earth, against which neither human nor diabolic power or policy have ever been able to prevail! The preservation of this religion, which has ever been opposed by the great mass of mankind, is a standing proof of its Divinity. As it has ever been in hostility against the corrupt passions of men, testifying against the world that its deeds were evil, these passions have ever been in hostility to it.

Cunning and learned men have argued to render its authority dubious, and its tendency suspicious; whole states and empires have exerted themselves to the uttermost to oppress and destroy it; and its professed friends, by their conduct, have often betrayed it: yet librata ponderibus suis, supported by the arm of God and its own intrinsic excellence, it lives and flourishes; and the river that makes glad the city of God has run down with the tide of time 5800 years, and is running on with a more copious and diffusive current. Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.

"Still glides the river, and will ever glide." We have seen how, by the miraculous cloud, all the movements of the Israelites were directed. They struck or pitched their tents, as it removed or became stationary. Every thing that concerned them was under the direction and management of God. But these things happened unto them for ensamples; and it is evident, from Isa. iv. 5, that all these things typified the presence and influence of God in his Church, and in the souls of his followers. His Church can possess no sanctifying knowledge, no quickening power but from the presence and influence of his Spirit. By this influence all his followers are taught, enlightened, led, quickened, purified, and built up on their most holy faith; and without the indwelling of his Spirit, light, life, and salvation are impossible. These Divine influences Are necessary, not only for a time, but through all our journeys, ver. 38; though every changing scene of providence, and through every step in life. And these the followers of Christ are to possess, not by inference or inductive reasoning, but consciously. The influence is to be felt, and the fruits of it to appear as fully as the cloud of the Lord by day, and the fire by night, appeared in the sight of all the house of Israel. Reader, hast thou this Spirit? Are all thy goings and comings ordered by its continual guidance? Does Christ, who was represented by this tabernacle, and in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, dwell in thy heart by faith? If not, call upon God for that blessing which, for the sake of his Son, he is ever disposed to impart; then shalt thou be glorious, and on all thy glory there shall be a defense.

Amen, Amen.

On the ancient division of the law into fifty-four sections, see the notes at the end of Genesis. See note on "Gen. l. 26". Of these fifty-four sections Genesis contains twelve; and the commencement and ending of each has been marked in the note already referred to. Of these sections Exodus contains eleven, all denominated, as in the former case, by the words in the original with which they commence. I shall point these out as in the former, carrying the enumeration from Genesis.

The THIRTEENTH section, called twm� shemoth, begins Exod. i. 1, and ends chap. vi. 1.

The FOURTEENTH, called araw vaera, begins chap. vi. 2, and ends chap. ix. 35.

The FIFTEENTH, called ab bo, begins chap. x. 1, and ends chap. xiii. 16.

The SIXTEENTH, called jl�b beshallach, begins chap. xiii. 17, and ends chap. xvii. 16.

The SEVENTEENTH, called wrty yithro, begins chap. xviii. 1, and ends chap. xx. 26.

The EIGHTEENTH, called µyfp�m mishpatim, begins Exodus xxi. 1, and ends chap. xxiv. 18.

The NINETEENTH, called hmwrt terumah, begins chap. xxv. 2, and ends chap. xxvii. 19.

The TWENTIETH, called hwxt tetsavveh, begins chap. xxvii. 20, and ends chap. xxx. 10.

The TWENTY-FIRST, called a�t tissa, begins chap. xxx. 11, and ends chap. xxxiv. 35.

The TWENTY-SECOND, called lhqyw vaiyakhel, begins Exodus xxxv. 1, and ends chap. xxxviii. 20.

The TWENTY-THIRD, called ydwqp pekudey, begins Exodus xxxviii. 21, and ends ver. 38.

It will at once appear to the reader that these sections have their technical names from some remarkable word, either in the first or second verse of their commencement.

MASORETIC Notes on EXODUS

Number of VERSES in Veelleh shemoth, (Exodus,) 1209.

The symbol of this number is fÓra ; aÓ aleph denoting 1000, r , resh 200, and f teth 9.

The middle verse is 28: Thou shalt not revile God, nor curse the ruler of thy people.

Its parashioth, or larger sections, are 11. The symbol of this is the word ya ei, Isa. lxvi. 1.: WHERE is the house that ye will build unto me? In which a aleph stands for 1, and y yod for 10.

Its sedarim are 29. The symbol of which is taken from Psalm xix. 2, hwhy yechavveh: Night unto night SHOWETH FORTH knowledge. In which word, y yod stands for 10, j cheth for 8, w vau for 6, and h he for 5; amounting to 29.

Its pirkey, perakim, or present chapters, 40. The symbol of which is wblb belibbo, taken from Psa. xxxvii. x21: The law of God is IN HIS HEART.

In this word, b beth stands for 2, l lamed for 30, b beth for 2, and w vau for 6; amounting to 40.

The open sections are 69. The close sections are 95. Total 164. The symbol of which is ûd[sy yisadecha, from Psa. xx. 2: STRENGTHEN THEE out of Zion. In which numerical word [ ain stands for 70, s samech for 60, û caph for 20, y yod for 10, and d daleth for 4; making together 164.

Number of words, 16, 513; of letters 63, 467.

But on these subjects, important to some, and trifling to others, see what is said in the concluding note on GENESIS. See note on "Gen. l. 26".

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE TRAVELS OF THE ISRAELITES THROUGH THE WILDERNESS IN the preceding notes I have had frequent occasion to refer to Dr. Shaw's account of the different stations of the Israelites, of which I promised an abstract in this place. This will doubtless be acceptable to every reader Who knows that Dr. Shaw traveled over the same ground, and carefully, in person, noted every spot to which reference is made in the preceding chapters.

After having endeavoured to prove that Goshen was that part of the Heliopolitan Nomos, or of the land of Rameses, which lay in the neighbourhood of Kairo, Matta-reah, and Bishbesh, and that Cairo might be Rameses, the capital of the district of that name, where the Israelites had their rendezvous before they departed out of Egypt, he takes up the text and proceeds thus:- "Now, lest peradventure (chap. xiii. 17) when the Hebrews saw war they should repent and return to Egypt, God did not lead them through the way of the land of the Philistines, (viz., either by Heroopolis in the midland road, or by Bishbesh, Tineh, and so along the seacoast towards Gaza and Ascalon,) although that was the nearest, but he led them ABOUT through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. There are accordingly two roads through which the Israelites might have been conducted from Kairo to Pihahhiroth, on the banks of the Red Sea. One of them lies through the valleys, as they are now called, of Jendily, Rumeleah, and Baideah, bounded on each side by the mountains of the lower Thebais. The other lies higher, having the northern range of these mountains, (the mountains of Mocattee) running parallel with it on the right hand, and the desert of the Egyptian Arabia, which lies all the way open to the land of the Philistines, on the left. About the middle of this range we may turn short upon our right hand into the valley of Baideah through a remarkable breach or discontinuation, in which we afterwards continued to the very bank of the Red Sea. Suez, a small city upon the northern point of it, at the distance of thirty hours or ninety Roman miles from Kairo, lies a little to the northward of the promontory that is formed by this same range of mountains, called at present Attackah, as that which bounds the valley of Baideah to the southward is called Gewoubee.

"This road then through the valley of Baideah, which is some hours longer than the other open road which leads us directly from Kairo to Suez, was, in all probability, the very road which the Israelites took to Pihahhiroth, on the banks of the Red Sea. Josephus then, and other authors who copy after him, seem to be too hasty in making the Israelites perform this journey of ninety or one hundred Roman miles in three days, by reckoning each of the stations that are recorded for one day. Whereas the Scriptures are altogether silent with regard to the time or distance, recording the stations only. The fatigue, likewise, would have been abundantly too great for a nation on foot, encumbered with their dough, their kneading- troughs, their little children and cattle, to walk at the rate of thirty Roman miles a day. Another instance of the same kind occurs Num. xxxiii. 9, where Elim is mentioned as the next station after Marah, though Elim and Marah are farther distant from each other than Kairo is from the Red Sea. Several intermediate stations, therefore, as well here as in other places, were omitted, the holy penman contenting himself with laying down such only as were the most remarkable, or attended with some notable transaction.

Succoth, then, the first station from Rameses, signifying only a place of tents, may have no fixed situation, being probably nothing more than some considerable Dou-war of the Ishmaelites or Arabs, such as we will meet with at fifteen or twenty miles' distance from Kairo, in the road to the Red Sea. The rendezvous of the caravan which conducted us to Suez was at one of these Dou-wars; at the same time we saw another at about six miles' distance, under the mountains of Mocattee, or in the very same direction which the Israelites may be supposed to have taken in their marches from Goshen towards the Red Sea.

"That the Israelites, before they turned towards Pihahhiroth, had traveled in an open country, (the same way, perhaps, which their forefathers had taken in coming into Egypt,) appears to be farther illustrated from the following circumstance: that upon their being ordered to remove from the edge of the wilderness, and to encamp before Pihahhiroth, it immediately follows that Pharaoh should then say, they are entangled in the land, the wilderness (betwixt the mountains we may suppose of Gewoubee and Attackah) hath shut them in, chap. xiv. 3, or, as it is in the original, ( rgs sagar,) viam illis clausit, as that word is explained by Pagninus; for, in these circumstances the Egyptians might well imagine that the Israelites could have no possible way to escape, inasmuch as the mountains of Gewoubee would stop their flight or progress to the southward, as the mountains of Attackah would do the same towards the land of the Philistines; the Red Sea likewise lay before them to the east, whilst Pharaoh closed up the valley behind them with his chariots and horsemen.

This valley ends at the sea, in a small bay made by the eastern extremities of the mountains which I have been describing, and is called Tiah-Beni Israel, i.e., the road of the Israelites, by a tradition that is still kept up by the Arabs, of their having passed through it; so it is also called Baideah, from the new and unheard-of miracle that was wrought near it, by dividing the Red Sea, and destroying therein Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen. The third notable encampment then of the Israelites was at this bay. It was to be before Pihahhiroth, betwixt Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-tsephon, chap. xiv. 2; and in Num. xxxiii. 7 it was to be before Migdol, where the word ynpl liphney, (before, as we render it,) being applied to Pihahhiroth and Migdol, may signify no more than that they pitched within sight of, or at a small distance from, the one and the other of those places. Whether Baal-tsephon then may have relation to the northern situation of the place itself, or to some watch tower or idol temple that was erected upon it, we may probably take it for the eastern extremity of the mountains of Suez or Attackah, the most conspicuous of these deserts, inasmuch as it overlooks a great part of the lower Thebais, as well as the wilderness that reaches towards, or which rather makes part of, the land of the Philistines. Migdol then might lie to the south, as Baal-tsephon did to the north, of Pihahhiroth; for the marches of the Israelites from the edge of the wilderness being to the seaward, that is, towards the south-east, their encampments betwixt Migdol and the sea, or before Migdol, as it is otherwise noted, could not well have another situation.

"Pihahhiroth, or Hhiroth rather, without regarding the prefixed part of it, may have a more general signification, and denote the valley or that whole space of ground which extended itself from the edge of the wilderness of Etham to the Red Sea: for that particular part only, where the Israelites were ordered to encamp, appears to have been called Pihahhiroth, i.e., mouth of Hhiroth; for when Pharaoh overtook them, it was in respect to his coming down upon them, chap. xiv. 9, tryth yp l[ i.e., beside or at the mouth, or the most advanced part, of Hhiroth to the eastward.

Likewise in Num. xxxiii. 7, where the Israelites are related to have encamped before Migdol, it follows, Num. xxxiii. 8, that they departed tryth ynpm from before Hhiroth, and not from before Pihahhiroth, as it is rendered in our translation.

"There are likewise other circumstances to prove that the Israelites took their departure from this valley in their passage through the Red Sea, for it could not have been to the northward of the mountains of Attackah, or in the higher road, which I have taken notice of; because as this lies for the most part upon a level, the Israelites could not have been here, as we find they were, shut in and entangled. Neither could it have been on the other side, viz., to the south of the mountains of Gewoubee, for then (besides the insuperable difficulties which the Israelites would have met with in climbing over them, the same likewise that the Egyptians would have had in pursuing them) the opposite shore could not have been the desert of Shur where the Israelites landed, Exodus xv. 22, but it would have been the desert of Marah, that lay a great way beyond it. What is now called Corondel might probably be the southern portion of the desert of Marah, the shore of the Red Sea, from Suez, hitherto having continued to be low and sandy; but from Corondel to the port of Tor, the shore is for the most part rocky and mountainous, in the same manner with the Egyptian coast that lies opposite to it; neither the one nor the other of them affording any convenient place, either for the departure of a multitude from the one shore, or the reception of it upon the other. And besides, from Corondel to Tor, the channel of the Red Sea, which from Suez to Sdur is not above nine or ten miles broad, begins here to be so many leagues, too great a space certainly for the Israelites, in the manner they were encumbered, to pass over in one night. At Tor the Arabian shore begins to wind itself round about Ptolemy's promontory of Paran, towards the gulf of Eloth, whilst the Egyptian shore retires so far to the south-west that it can scarce be perceived. As the Israelites then, for these reasons, could not, according to the opinion of some authors, have landed either at Corondel or Tor, so neither could they have landed at Ain Mousa, according to the conjectures of others. For if the passage of the Israelites had been so near the extremity of the Red Sea, it may be presumed that the very encampments of six hundred thousand men, besides children and a mixed multitude, which would amount to as many more, would have spread themselves even to the farther or the Arabian side of this narrow isthmus, whereby the interposition of Providence would not have been at all necessary; because, in this case and in this situation, there could not have been room enough for the waters, after they were divided, to have stood on a heap, or to have been a wall unto them, particularly on the left hand. This, moreover, would not have been a division, but a recess only of the water to the southward.

Pharaoh likewise, by overtaking them as they were encamped in this open situation by the sea, would have easily surrounded them on all sides.

Whereas the contrary seems to be implied by the pillar of the cloud, chap. xiv. 19, 20, which (divided or) came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and thereby left the Israelites (provided this cloud should have been removed) in a situation only of being molested in the rear.

Matthew Henry Commentary

Original Hebrew