up against thee: thou sentest forth thy

1 Moses' song. 22 The people want water. 23 The wrath, which consumed them as stubble.

1 Wisd. 10.20, 2 Or, repossess. 3 Or, mighty ones. 4 Deut, 2. 25. Josh. 9.

Verse 4. "Pharaoh...and his host."-As this is the first mention of an organized military force, a few considerations on the general subject and the military state of Egypt will not be misplaced. When societies were first established and men began to act in common, the first warlike operations do not appear to have been for purposes of conquest, but were mere incursions to acquire spoil and do as much mischief as possible. Such was the first military operation which the Scripture records (Gen. xiv.), and we have there traced its essential identity with the warlike undertakings of the barbarians of Asia at the present day. Yet wars of conquest would seem to have been known previously to that period, for Chedorlaomer had before that rendered the kings of the plain tributary, and it was to punish their rebellion that his expedition was undertaken. But when a considerable number of families became associated under one sovereign, views of ambition and schemes for extending dominion began to be entertained; and, in warlike enterprises, more permanent advantages than those which result from a successful incursion were desired. This certainly tended to mitigate the horrors of war, as the object was not to exterminate or ruin, but to subdue. The conquest was the more valuable in proportion as it remained uninjured in the act of acquisition. How troops were raised in the earliest ages for military undertakings, there is no precise evidence to show. But Goguet, whom we are chiefly following in this part, thinks, with good reason, that every one went to the wars without distinction, except aged men, children, and women. Subsequently, as the population increased, a selection was made of such men as were more robust and best able to endure fatigue: and ultimately the plan was devised of allotting a certain number of men wholly to the profession of arms. This scheme of having a certain number of men always disciplined to prevent surprise, and to be in readiness for any urgent enterprise, must have been the invention of some civilized and settled nation; and if it was not invented by the Egyptians, it is certainly among that extraordinary people that we first discover its existence. The most ancient Greek authors describe a certain proportion of land as having from time immemorial been set apart for the subsistence of the military; and the sacred narrative so far agrees with this, as to show that Egypt possessed in the most ancient times an organized military force. The narrative before us is, however, sufficiently explicit on this subject. The king no sooner heard of the march of the Israelites from Etham, than he pursued with a large army of both horse and foot. The quickness with which this was done, necessarily implies that a large force was constantly maintained, ready to march wherever occasion called. This leads us to state a few particulars concerning the military arrangements of the ancient Egyptians, as known to us through the Greek writers. Their warlike force consisted of a numerous militia, which formed a tribe or caste by itself, in which the military occupation was hereditary, and which, although far below, was next to the priestly tribe in authority and privileges. This militia was divided into two bodies, the Hermotybi and the Calasari: the former, at the time of their greatest power, consisted of 160,000 men, and the latter of 250,000. For their subsistence, they had possession of certain nomes or districts, which Herodotus mentions by name. No soldier had any pay, but every man had an estate of about twelve acres. The landed property of the soldiers, like that of the king and priests, was generally let out to farmers, who paid the proprietors a certain rent. The military were not allowed to carry on any business; but it does not seem that they were precluded from cultivating their own grounds if they thought proper. Each of the great military divisions furnished a thousand men to compose the king's personal guard. The men were changed every year, and during their period of service they were allowed good rations of bread, meat, and wine. We know very little concerning the internal organization, the tactics, and discipline of the Egyptian army. It seems that the king held the privilege of commanding the army; that the right was the post of honour, and that those soldiers who quitted their post, or were disobedient, were marked with infamy, but were enabled by good conduct to recover the standing they had lost. The equipments of the foot soldiers will be seen from the cut, after a plate in the great work on Egypt. The cavalry and war-chariots have been separately noticed. The Egyptian infantry, in all paintings of battles, are readily distinguished from the adverse party by their want of beards and short dresses, as well as by their arms. They are represented with shields, square at one end and round at the other, and their offensive arms are generally a bow and arrow, and sometimes swords and spears.

Verse 10. "Lead."-The specific gravity of lead being somewhat more than 11, that is, eleven times heavier than water, its rapid descent when thrown into that fluid is pointed at in this sublime poem as representing the unchecked impetus with which the host of Pharaoh sank at the return of the waters. It is probable that a piece of lead was fastened to the end of the sounding-line in the time of Moses, as it is at this day, whence the comparison becomes more striking and natural.

22. "They went out into the wilderness of Shur."-The term "desert of Shur" was, as we have seen, applied to the western portion, and, in a large sense, to the whole, of the desert between Palestine and Egypt, therefore extending across the peninsula of Sinai on the north. Here the denomination is applied so as to show that it was extended into the peninsula, at least to some distance down on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. It is possible, however, that the denomination "wilderness of Shur," as applied here, was an independent designation for this part of the eastern shore, being perhaps the district near a town or village of that name. To this day there is, nearly opposite the bay of Badea, the bed of a winter-torrent which is called Wady Sdur, and the coast to some distance northward also bears the name of Sdur. It is fair therefore to infer that the Hebrews emerged from the bed of the gulf somewhere between Wady Sdur and Ras Mousa. Indeed the necessary breadth of the opening made for their passage would have obliged them to have spread over a considerable part of the extent between the two points, which are distant about fifteen miles from each other. It should be observed that the coast hereabouts is as low and sandy as that which they had left is rugged and mountainous.

23. "Marah."-The Israelites wandered three days in the wilderness before they came to Marah; but as we do not know that there were three complete days' journey, nor what distance made a day's journey for such a numerous and encumbered host, and are also not quite assured of the point from which to begin the computation, we are allowed a considerable latitude in looking for Marah. Proceeding, then, along the coast south by east, over a plain alternately gravelly, stony, and sandy, we find the country begins to be hilly, with sand-hills near the coast, and at last come to the barren bed of a winter-torrent, called Wady Amarah (just the same in sound and meaning as Marah), a few miles south of which there is a well called Howara, which both Niebuhr and Burckhardt concur in considering to be the Marah of Scripture. It is true that these travellers agree in fixing the passage of the Red Sea at Suez, from which this spot is fifty miles distant, and forty miles from Ain Mousa. The distance from either point would be a good three-days" journey for such a body as the Hebrew host, nor would the distance be too short, if we suppose them to have started from some point between Ain Mousa and Wady Sdur. Even Dr. Shaw, who places the starting point at or below Wady Sdur, does not fix Marah more than a few miles below Howara. We may therefore consider the evidence for Howara as good as for any place that has yet been indicated. The well there lies among rocks about a hundred paces out of the road, and its water is so bitter that men cannot drink it, and even camels, uniess very thirsty, refuse to taste

it. It occurs on the customary road along the coast from Suez to Sinai, and Burckhardt observes that there is no other well absolutely bitter on the whole coast so far as Ras Mohammed at the extremity of the peninsula. He adds: "The complaints of the bitterness of the water by the children of Israel, who had been accustomed to the sweet water of the Nile, are such as may be daily heard from the Egyptian peasants and servants who travel in Arabia. Accustomed from their youth to the excellent water of the Nile, there is nothing they so much regret in countries distant from Egypt; nor is there any eastern people who feel so keenly the want of good water as the present natives of Egypt." (Tour in the Peninsula of Mount Sinai.')

25. "The LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet."-The use of certain plants and vegetable juices, in correcting the bad qualities of water, admits of ample illustration. It is understood that the original inducement of the Chinese to the use of tea was for the purpose of correcting the bad qualities of their water; and our early colonists in America infused in the water, for the same purpose, the branches of sassafras. (Burder's Oriental Literature,' vol. i., p. 146.) Niebuhr also, speaking of the Nile, observes, "The water is always somewhat muddy; but by rubbing with bitter almonds, prepared in a particular manner, the earthen jars in which it is kept, this water is rendered clear, light, and salutary." Mr. Roberts, in his Oriental Illustrations,' has some interesting observations concerning the practices of the Hindoos with reference to this subject. He informs us that the brackish water in the neighbourhood of the salt pans or of the sea, is often corrected by the natives throwing into it the wood called Perru-Nelli (Phylanthus emblica); and should the water be very bad, the well is lined with planks cut out of this tree. He adds: "In swampy grounds, or where there has not been rain for a long time, the water is often muddy and very unwholesome. But Providence has again been bountiful by giving to the people the Teatta Maram (Strychnos potatorum). All who live in the neighbourhood of such water, or who have to travel where it is, always carry a supply of the nuts of this tree. They grind one or two of them on the side of an earthen vessel: the water is then poured in and the impurities soon subside." (Oriental Illustrations.")

With particular reference to Marah, Burckhardt observes that he had frequently inquired among the Bedouins in different parts of Arabia, whether they possessed any means of effecting such a change by throwing wood into it, or by any other process: but he could never learn that such an art was known. This is important, because such a tree and process of rectification being locally unknown, the necessity for the divine indication of such a tree, and, possibly, of giving to it curative qualities for the occasion, becomes apparent. It shows that such trees do not exist as a common or obvious resource, or else surely their useful properties would be known to the Arabs, to whom they would be of incalculable value. These considerations neutralize the subsequent observations of Burckhardt, who, when he comes a few miles further down to the Wady Gharendel, observes that it (the Wady) contains among other trees and shrubs the thorny shrub Gharkad, the Peganum retusum of Forskal, which is extremely common in this peninsula, and is also met with in the sands of the Delta, on the coasts of the Mediterranean. "Its small red berry, of the size of the grain of the pomegranate, is very juicy and refreshing, much resembling a ripe gooseberry in taste, but not so sweet. The Arabs are very fond of it, and I was told that when the shrub produces large crops they make a conserve of the berries. The gharkad delights in a sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in the height of summer when the ground is parched up,

exciting an agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry produced in the driest soil and season." In a note to this, he asks, "Might not the berries of this shrub have been used to sweeten the waters of Marah?" After quoting our version of the text, he proceeds:-"The Arabic translation of this passage gives a different, and perhaps more correct reading, And the Lord guided him to a tree, of which he threw something into the water, which then became sweet.' I do not remember to have seen any gharkad in the neighbourhood of Howara, but Wady Gharendel is full of this shrub. As these conjectures did not occur to me when I was on the spot, I did not inquire of the Bedouins whether they ever sweetened water with the juice of the berries, which would probably effect this change, in the same manner as the juice of pomegranate grains expressed into it." This is scarcely consistent with what he says Defore, that he had asked them whether they had any means for effecting such a change, and they answered in the negative. We have no hesitation in rejecting his supposition; because it would not have been necessary for the Lord to have shown Moses so common a plant; nor, being so common, is it likely that Moses, who had lived so long in the desert, would be unacquainted with the curative property of the berries, if they had any such property at all; but, above all, the Israelites were at Marah in April, when the gharkad could have had no berries, as, according to Burckhardt's own account, the fruit does not attain maturity till the middle of summer.

27. "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and three-score and ten palm trees."-About seven miles south by east from Howara occurs Wady Gharendel, the largest of all the torrent beds on the west side of the peninsula. It is about a mile in breadth and stretches away to the north-east: the Arabs say it may be traced throughout the desert, and that it begins at no great distance from El Arish, on the Mediterranean. But this is doubtful. The valley is full of date-trees, tamarisks, acacias of different species, and the gharkad mentioned in the preceding note. VOL. I.