Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

warmer plains of Jordan. He is in the fields with the earliest glow of morning, and his simple tent is designed only for shelter at night, and during the rain. Three hundred and eighteen servants, born in his house,* feed his countless flocks of sheep and goats, his herds of cattle, asses and camels. In the fairest part of the pasture the dark brown tents are pitched, and in the midst of them the tent of the patriarch. Seldom does he come into a city; for cities are the abodes of corruption. If a stranger makes his appearance, he is hospitably received, the fatling of the flock is killed, and while the patriarch's own hands prepare it for food, Sarah bakes cakes upon the hearth; the guest is feasted, and not till he has eaten and been satisfied is he asked who he is. Benevolence guides all his actions. If he falls in with another body of roving shepherds, he says to Lot, 'Why should there be strife betwixt me and thee; if thou wilt go to the left hand, I will go to the right; or if thou wilt go to the right hand, I will go to the left.' Independent of all without, he rules as a king in his own house but his highest dignity is that he is also a priest there. He walks before God with a perfect heart: to him he repairs in danger and in joy, to him he offers thanks, to his command he is ready to sacrifice his dearest hopes; to him he erects altars, raises memorials of his providential guidance, and proclaims his name. And Jehovah dwells with his servant Abraham, he appears to him, and blesses him in all things; he discloses the future to him, and says, Shall I hide from Abraham that which I am about to do, seeing that he shall become a great and mighty nation; and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, and do what is just and righteous, that the Lord may accomplish unto Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.'†

"Thus he lived a complete century in Canaan; he came thither not as an old man, but in the prime of life, in his

* Gen. xiv. 14.

+ Gen. xviii. 17.

seventy-fifth year, and in his hundred and seventieth year he died, in a good old age, and was gathered to his people.

"His son Isaac and his grandson Jacob led the same patriarchal life. Both took to themselves wives from the native country of Abraham, that they might form no connexion with the Canaanites. Jehovah appeared to both of them, and their lives throughout, in an equal degree, were simple and happy, like that of Abraham.

"Such was the origin of our nation, and half the world joins with us to extol our great progenitor. The Magi of Persia; the Arabs, the sons of Ishmael, and the Edomites, the children of Esau, even Egypt itself celebrates the wisdom of Abraham, and the whole East praises his name.

"But the sun is already high in the heavens, the slaves are waiting for us with the food, and an old man needs rest before he undertakes a further journey."

The slaves brought the victuals prepared in the Jewish fashion, the round piece of leather was spread upon the ground; they sat around it, ate, and were satisfied. Myron often wished to renew the conversation, but Elisama did not speak during the meal, and Helon was lost in reflections on the glory of his nation, and in anticipation of the delight of soon standing where Abraham and Isaac had talked with God.

After the meal they all laid themselves down during the heat of noon. The evening came - but hardly had the night begun, when, at the fourth hour (about ten of our reckoning) the trumpets sounded for the first time. The tent was struck, the camels loaded, the travellers mounted their horses, each party resumed their former station in the line, and about midnight, after the third blast, they broke up from Gerrha. On account of the heat, caravans travel chiefly at night, and halt during the hottest time of the day. The march was now more orderly and peaceable. The flames flashed from the burning pitch-kettles which were borne aloft, and threw their light over the desert. It was an attractive sight, to behold them like scattered suns, along a

line of march extending for several thousand paces, and to see men and beasts travelling onward through the night by their ruddy gleam. Their journey lay this night and every night, as far as Gaza, along the sea, whose distant thunder was occasionally heard, mingling with the songs of the slaves and the bells of the camels.

[blocks in formation]

IN the morning our travellers found themselves in the neighborhood of Casium. The march had not been long, but the situations of the wells determine the halts of the caravans. Near the town a large sand-hill extended into the sea, on the point of which was built the temple of Jupiter Casius. The active Greek set off, though the distance was considerable, not for the purpose of worshipping there, but of examining it as a work of art. Helon felt no desire to accompany him, for on a journey to Jerusalem, and in his present state of mind, it seemed to him nothing less than a sin to visit a heathen temple, even for the gratification of his curiosity. Elisama praised his determination, and reminded him of the reproof delivered by the mouth of Jeremiah, "Thou hast always broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and hast said, I will not be restrained, but on every high hill and every green tree thou hast gone after idolatry."* In the mean time Elisama began, and Helon devoutly joined in singing the hundred and sixth psalm, which describes the journey, the wilderness, and the disobedience of Israel. "It is well," said Elisama, `when they had done, “that our Greek is not here, or his nascent reverence for our people might be stopped in its growth. I must confess his society was at first very burthensome to

* Jer. ii. 20.

me, but he is more open to the reception of the truth than I had given him credit for being, and I have hopes that he may become a stranger of the gate."

Myron returned full of admiration of the precious works of art which he had found in the temple of the Casian Jupiter, in which however, as a connoisseur, he found of course, something to blame. At the meal the discourse of Helon and Myron (for Elisama was too oriental in his habits to talk at such a time) turned upon the ancient Goshen, in whose limits they now supposed themselves to be. They agreed that at the distance of fourteen hundred years it was very difficult to identify it, but that probably it was the district of Lower Egypt which is bounded by the sea, by the eastern branch of the Nile at Pelusium, and by the river of Egypt, and that it perhaps ascended as far as Heliopolis to the south.

When they awoke towards evening, refreshed by their sleep, the conversation respecting Goshen was resumed. Elisama, seated upon his carpet, thus took up the discourse:

"It seems then that we are at least on the skirts of that fruitful district of pasturage, in which the children of Abraham sojourned, and where they grew from a family to a people. Thou hast already heard, Myron, that our father Jacob came down to Egypt, with seventy persons, to his son Joseph, who had preserved the land of Pharaoh, by his wise precautions, from the miseries of famine; that two hundred and fifteen years after Jacob went down into Egypt, and four hundred and thirty years after Abraham left his native country at God's command, six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty fighting men of the Israelites quitted Egypt, without reckoning the twentytwo thousand Levites, or the women and children. During these four hundred and thirty years Israel grew into a nation.

"In order that the promise of Jehovah, 'that all nations should be blessed in Abraham,' might be accomplished, it may easily be conceived that it was necessary that Abraham should become a people. But there was no country where it could have been accomplished in so short a time as in this. Canaan

was already fully peopled, but in Goshen there was ample room for them to increase and spread. The Canaanites would not have looked on quietly for so many years, and have witnessed their increase, whereas the Egyptians would feel themselves bound by gratitude to Joseph, at least during the first century after his death, to abstain from any injury towards his nation. Nowhere else could Israel have been kept so free from mixture with other nations, as in the neighborhood of the Egyptians, whose religion inspired them with a horror of pastoral tribes. The land was at the same time fruitful, and facilitated the existence of numerous families. Finally, Egypt already possessed a civil polity more perfect than existed at that time in any other country; and though no human means were necessary to form a lawgiver for Israel, yet by constantly observing a people living under a constitution which regulated the rights and duties of even the lowest of the people, the Israelites were prepared to value and receive a similar constitution themselves.

"When therefore Israel had become a numerous people, and began to feel the want of a system of laws, Divine Providence so arranged circumstances, as to awaken in them a longing for freedom and for the promised land. The Pharaohs inhumanly oppressed them, and made their lives bitter to them, by labor in brick and tile, and in all manner of service in the field. At length it was even given in command to the midwives to kill all the male infants. This was indeed, in one point of view, only a just punishment for the guilt of Israel, in worshipping the sacred animals of the Egyptians, and leaving the service of the true God: but as calamity, by the wise ordinance of Jehovah, serves at once for punishment and deliverance, the cruelty of the Egyptians proved the means of Israel's deliverance and exaltation.

“God raised up Moses and laid his spirit upon him. After the command of Pharaoh for the murder of the male infants, he was exposed by his parents among the reeds of the Nile, and rescued in a wonderful manner by the king's own daughter. At the royal court, where he was brought up, he became ac

« VorigeDoorgaan »