468 PREPARATIONS FOR THE [EXERC. XIX.
25. Three things must be explained in reference unto this great and solemn foundation of that Judaical church-state, which our apostle treateth about in this whole epistle ;—first, The prepara- tions for it; secondly, The manner of the giving of it; thirdly, The law itself. For the preparations for it, they are either more remote or immediately preceding it. The former were those tem- porary, occasional, instructive ordinances, which God gave them at their entrance into the wilderness, before they came to receive the law on Sinai.
The first mentioned of this nature is Exod. xv. 28-26, “ And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lorp showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lorp thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lorp that healeth thee.’ The whole course of God’s proceeding with his people, whereof we have here the first pledge in the wilderness, was by a constant series of tem- poral providential straits, sinful murmurings, and typical mercies.
The waters being so bitter that they could not drink of them, God showed to Moses a tree; that is, say some of the Jewish doctors, he showed him the virtue of a tree to cure and make wholesome bitter waters. And they say it was a tree whose flowers and fruit were bitter; for no other reason but because Elisha afterwards cured salt waters by casting into them a cruse of salt. The Targum of Jona- than and that of Jerusalem say, God showed him ‘> 7 WD jx, “the bitter tree Ardiphne;” which is nothing but Adégy, “Daphne,” the laurel. And on this tree the author of that fabulous paraphrase would have the glorious name of God to be written, according to the incantations in use amongst them in his days. But that which is designed in the whole is, that God, preparing them for the bitter, consuming law that was to be given them, and discovering unto them their disability to drink of the waters of it for their refreshment, gave them an intimation of the cure of that curse and bitterness, by Him who “ bare our sins in his own body on the tree,” 1 Pet. ii, 24; who is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” Rom. x. 4
26, Their second preparation for the receiving of the law, was the giving of manna unto them from heaven, Being come into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Sinai (called so from a city in
SECT. 25, 26.] GIVING OF THE LAW. 469
Egypt that it extended unto), in the midst of the second month after their departure from Egypt, the stores they brought with them from thence being spent and exhausted, the whole congregation mur- mured for food; as still their wants and murmurings lay at the bottom, and were the occasion of those reliefs whereby the spiritual mercies of the church by Christ were typed out. In this condition God sends them manna: Exod, xvi. 13-15, “In the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LorD hath given you to eat.” Verse 31, “And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.”
“When the children of Israel saw it, they said 899 }!),”—“Man hu;” and, verse 31, “'The house of Israel called the name thereof }2,”— “Man.” The reason of this name is very uncertain. The calling of it manna in the New Testament, gives countenance to the derivation of the word from 73’), “manah,” to “prepare and distribute.” For what some have thought, that it should be an abbreviation of 729), “a gift,’ and spoken by them in their precipitate haste, is destitute of all probability. If it be from 73, “manah,” it signifies a “ prepared meat” or “portion.” So upon the sight of it they said, one to another, “Here isa portion prepared.” But the truth is, the following words, wherein there is a reason given why they said, upon the sight of it, si 12, “ Man hu,” inclines strongly to another signification: N? ‘3 S777!9 WT“ For they knew not ma hu,” “ what it was.” “They said one to another, Man hu, because they knew not ma hu,”—that is, “ what it was.” So that “ Man hu” is as much as, “ What is it?” and so the words are rendered by the LXX., Ti zor rotro;—“ What is this?” and by the Vulgar Latin, “Quid est hoc?” But this diffi- culty remains, that), “man,” is not in the Hebrew tongue an in- terrogative of the thing, no, nor yet of the person, nor doth signify “what.” Aben Ezra says it is an Arabic word; Chiskuni, an Egyp- tian ; and it is evidently an interrogative of the person in the Chaldee, and sometimes of the thing; as Judges xiii. 17, 12¥ 2,—“ What is thy name?” Yea, it seems to be used towards this sense in the Hebrew, Ps. Ixi. 8, #7782) 12 NX) ION; where, though most take }9, “man,” to be the imperative in Pihel from 13'), “ manah,” which nowhere else occurs, yet the LXX. took it to be an interrogation from the Chaldee, rendering the words, Tis éx{nrq0e1;—“ Who shall find out?” Being, therefore, the language of the common people, in their admiration of a thing new unto them, that is expressed, it is no