EXPOSITION. Vers. 23-25.-DEATH OJI' THE PHAlll.OH Ver. 23.-In process of time. Literally, Wll0M MosEB FLED-CONTINUANCE 011' 11'1101111 "in those many days." The reign of Rame- THE OPPRESSION OF lBRAEir-lBRAEL'B PRAYERS ses II. was exceptionally long, as previously -Goo's ACCEl'TANCE 011' THEJll'..-After a space explained. He had already reigned twenty- seven years when Moses fled from him ( eh. ii. of forty years from the time of Moses' flight 15). He had now reigned sixty-seven, and from Egypt, according to the estimate of St. Moses was eighty! It had seemed e. weary Stephen (Acts vii. 30), which is not, how- while to wait. The children of Israel sighed. ever, to be strictly pressed, the !ting whose If the time had seemed a. weary while to anger he had provoked-Rameses II., as we Moses, how much more to his nation ! He had escaped 11.nd was in Midian-they toiled on in believe-died. He had reigned sixty-seven Egypt. He kept sheep-they had their lives years - a.bout forty-seven alone, and a.bout made " bitter" for them " with hard bondage, twenty in conjunction with his father. At his in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of death, the oppressed Israelites ventured to service in the field" (eh. i. 14). He could hope for some amelioration of their condition. bring up his sons in safety ; their sons wew still thrown into the river. No wonder that On his accession, a !ting in the East often "an exceeding bitter-cry "went up to God from reverses the policy of his predecessor, or at the oppressed people, so soon as they found that any rate, to make himself popula.r, grants a they had nothing to hope from the new !ting. remission of burthens for e. certa.in period. But Vers. 24, 25.-God heard their groaning. at this time the new monarch, Menephthah I., God is said. to "hear" the prayers which he the son of Rarneses II., disappointed the hopes accepts and grants ; to " be deaf " to those which he does not grant, bnt rejects. He now of the Israelites, maintained his father's policy, "hea.rd" (i.e. accepted) the supplications of continued the established system of oppression, oppressed Israel ; and on account of the cove- granted them no relief of any ltind. They nant which he had made with Abra.ham, Isaac, " sighed," therefore, in consequence of their and Jacob--a covenant always remembered disappointment, and "cried" unto God in their by him-he looked upon his people, made them the objects of his special regard, and trouble, and made supplication to him more entered on e. course, which was abnormal, ea.rnestly,more heartily, the.never before. We irregular, miraculous, in order to carry out his need not suppose that they had previously purposes of mercy towards them It is ob- fallen away from their faith, and "now at last served that anthropomorphic expressions a.re returned to God after many years of idolatrous here accumulated; out this is always the case when the love and tenderness of God towards abenation n(Aben Ezra, Kalisch). But there man a.re spoken of, since they form the only wa.s among them an access of religious fervour ; possible phraseology in which idea.s of love they "turned to God" from a state of dead- and tenderness can be expressed so a.s to be ness, rather from one of alienation, and raised intelligib!el'to human beings. And God re- garded them. Literally, "and God knew." a "cry" of the kind to which he is never deaf. God kept the whole in his thought.5-bore in God therefore "hea.rd their groaning," deigned mind the sufierings, the wrongs, the hopes, to listen to their prayers, and commenced the the fears, the groans, the despair, the appeal course of ID1Iaculous action which issued in to him, the fervent snpplicntions and payers the Exodus. -knew all, remembered all~ounted every ( l'his section is more closely connected word and sigh-gathered the tears into his bottle-noted a.II things in his book-and for with what follows than with what went before, the present endured, kept silence-but was and would better begin eh. iii. than terminate preparing for his foes a terrible vengeance- eh. ii.) for his people a marvellous deliverance
F, 2 62 THE nooK OF EXODUS. [en. n. 23--26,