the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, and by accepting them as the people of His possession (Exo. 6:2ff.). How magnificent are the prophetic revelations contained in the Thorah, embracing the whole future history of the kingdom of God till its glorious consummation at the end of the world! Apart from such promises as Gen. 12:1-3, Exo. 19:5-6, and others, which point to the goal and termination of the ways of God from the very commencement of His work of salvation; not only does Moses in the ode sung at the Red Sea behold his people brought safely to Canaan, and Jehovah enthroned as the everlasting King in the sanctuary established by Himself (Exo. 15:13, Exo. 15:17-18), but from Sinai and in the plains of Moab he surveys the future history of his people, and the land to which they are about to march, and sees the whole so clearly in the light of the revelation received in the law, as to foretell to a people just delivered from the power of the heathen, that they will again be scattered among the heathen for their apostasy from the Lord, and the beautiful land, which they are about for the first time to take possession of, be once more laid waste (Lev. 26; Deu. 28-30, but especially 28). And with such exactness does he foretell this, that all the other prophets, in their predictions of the captivity, base their prophecies upon the words of Moses, simply extending the latter in the light thrown upon them by the historical circumstances of their own times.[1]
How richly stored, again, are all five books with delicate and casual allusions to Egypt, its historical events, its manners, customs, and natural history! Hengstenberg has accumulated a great mass of proofs, in his “Egypt and the Books of Moses,” of the most accurate acquaintance on the part of the author of the Thorah, with Egypt and its institutions. To select only a few — and those such as are apparently trivial, and introduced quite incidentally into either the history or the laws, but which are as characteristic as they are conclusive, — we would mention the thoroughly Egyptian custom of men carrying baskets upon their heads, in the dream of Pharaoh’s chief baker (Gen. 40:16); the shaving of the beard (Gen. 41:14); prophesying with the cup (Gen. 44:5);
- ↑ Yet we never find in these words of Moses, or in the Pentateuch generally, the name Jehovah Sabaoth, which was unknown in the Mosaic age, but was current as early as the time of Samuel and David, and so favourite a name with all the prophets.
