The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 7

posHiLility of the revival of this line of attack; but the counter-evitlenco ::ontinually accumulates. Not a year passes without the discovery of fresh passages in Egyptian literature, which harmonise with and illustrate the narrative delivered to us in Exodus. It is further observable that the writer, who has this wide and exact acquaintance with Egypt and the Egyptians, is also perfectly familiar with the character of the Sinaitic peninsula, with its vegetable and animal products, with its natural phenomena, as that of the manna, with its rare springs, sometimes sweet, sometimes "bitter" ( eh. xv. 23), its wells, its occasional palm-groves (ib. 27), its acacia trees ( eh. xxv. 10, 23; xxvi. 15, , etc.), its long stretches of dry sand, its bare rocks and lofty mountains. It has been well said that" the chapters of Exodus which belong either to the early sojourn of Moses or to the wanderings of the Israelites, are pervaded by a peculiar tone, a local colouring, an atmosphere (so to speak) of the desert, which has made itself felt by all those who have explored the country, to whatever school of religious thought they may have belonged." 1 This double knowledge of Egypt and of the Sinaitic peninsula, joined to the antique character of the work, seems to amount to a proof that the book of Exodus was written either by Moses or by one of those who accompanied him in his journey from the land of Goshen to the borders of Palestine. There was no period between the Exodus and the reign of Solomon when an Israelite-and the writer was certainly an Israelite-was likely to be familiar either with Egypt or with the Sinaitic peninsula, much less with both. There was little intercourse between the Hebrews and Egypt from the time of the passage of the Red Sea to that of Solomon's marriage with Pharaoh's daughter; and if occasionally during this period an Israelite went down into Egypt and sojourned there (I Chr. iv. 18), it was a very unlikely thing that he should visit the region about Sinai, which lay above 150 miles out of his route. Add to this the dangers of the journey and the absence of any conceivable motive for it, and the conclusion seems almost certain that only one of those who, after being brought up among the Egyptians, traversed the "wilderness of the wanderings" on hiR way to Palestine, can have composed the existing record. The conclusion thus reached is, for all critical purposes, sufficient. If the narrative is from the pen of an eye-witness, it must possess the highest degree of historical credibility,2 and, so far as accuracy and trustworthinesi, are concerned, can gain nothing, or at any rate very little, by being ascribed to one of the emigrants rather than another. We trust the last book of the 'De Bello Gallico ' no less than the remainder, though written by Hirtius and not by C~sar; and the authenticity of Exodus would be no whit 1 Canon Cook, in the' Speo.ker's Commentary,' vol. i. p. 244. • See the writer's 'Ba.mpton Lectures,' pp 21, 22, and compare Coroe_wa.ll Lewis on the 'Credibility of Early Rome.n History,' vol i. p. 16.  INTRODUCTION.