Egypt (except Joshua and Caleb, who had reported in the proper spirit about Palestine) to set foot within the country to which he had solemnly engaged himself to conduct them (Num. xiv. 1-39). Thus, they were only saved from the Egyptians to perish in the wilderness. Truly, the tender mercies of the Lord were cruel.
But the miseries of these unfortunate wanderers were by no means ended. When, oppressed by the troubles and weariness of the way, they dared to murmur, and inquired of Moses why he had brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there was neither tolerable bread, nor water, the resentment of Jehovah was excited by this audacity. They ought to have been only too grateful that they had remained alive. Jehovah had not caused the earth to swallow them as it had done Korah, Datham, and Abiram, with their wives and little children, because they had ventured to complain of the government of Moses; nor had he destroyed them by plague, as he had destroyed 14,700 people because there had been some expressions of dissatisfaction at the sudden death of those seditious men. If then they had hitherto escaped destruction, they were certainly foolish in complaining of the hardships of the desert. At any rate Jehovah soon convinced them that their grumbling was useless. No constitutional opposition was permitted in those days. Fiery serpents were despatched to bite them, and many of them died in consequence. Such was the extent of the calamity that Moses, always more merciful than his God, interceded for his people; and was directed to set up a brazen serpent, by looking at which the bites of the living serpents were healed (Num. xxi. 1-9).
The extraordinary cruelty ascribed by the Hebrews to their national deity is shown in many other instances besides those that have been mentioned. And it is to be noticed that it is cruelty mingled with caprice. No one could tell beforehand precisely what actions he would visit with punishment, nor what would be the punishment with which he would visit them. Everything with him was uncertain. He had no fixed system of laws at all, and he sometimes condemned a criminal in virtue of ex post facto legislation. The deluge is an example of all these vices combined. It was an excessively cruel punishment;
