The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 342

with his conduct in eh, v. 22-23.) The peril is to the natural eye overwhelmin(J' but it is not peril to him, for God has filled him with the spirit of faith. He hi~self, unfearing, can toll the people not to fear. He himself, calmly expectant that some great deliverance is on the way, can recommend, his face not belying his tongue, the same calm expectancy to the people. Let them stand still and wait, instead of rushin"' hither and thither, weakening themselves still more by their disorder. Moses, exactly comprehending that the position is one in which man can do nothing, and God must do everything, presses this view on his brethren. What is his personal dignity, his amour- propre, compared with the glorious view to be opened out to them? Here is a lesson then, when people speak to us out of little envies and personal grudges. Reply by direct- ing them to great soul-filling truths. Lead, if you can, mean, grovelling souls to the mountain top. Give them the chance of seeing the wide inheritance of the saints; and if they cannot take it in, then the loss, and the responsibility of the loss, is theirs. II. NOTE THE INSTRUCTIONS WHICH Goo GIVES TO MOSES, vers.15-18. These instruc- tions, astounding as they must have seemed at the time, were, nevertheless, eminently practical. Those who bear the name of practical among men are those who keep well within what is reckoned possible by the ordinary judgment. Men of the Columbus type, such as great discoverers and great inventors, have to bear for long enough the name of being mere visionaries, day-dreamers, wasters of life. But God's practicality is to set his servants at once to things reckoned impossible. His directions are very simple: "Go forward." He waits till the people are indeed shut up on every hand, and then be says, "Go forward." They were to continue in the same direction, au.d that led onward to the sea. This was the appointed path to the mountain where they were to serve God. Yes; and if the path had been through the rocky steeps which enclosed them, God could have dissolved those steeps away. Or if it had been through Pharaoh's host, he could have smitten that host utterly, as he afterwards did Sennacherib's. Notice that in this co=and there is another proving of faith. First, with regard to Moses. For it will be observed that there is nothing to show that Moses knew anything of what would happen in the Red Sea, until God now made it known. Probably during the whole course of the plagues, the precise na.ture of each plague was revealed to Moses only just as it was approaching. And so here, in this new imprisonment, he was quietly waiting for light to come from God, well knowing that sufficient would be done to deliver Israel-that God bad led his people into this entanglement, not without a per- fectly definite purpose, and that the end of all would be the destruction of the Egyptians. But he knew not any more than the least child in Israel, until just beforehand, how all this wa.s to be brought a.bout. There was also a great proving of the faith of the people. God has a comma.nd for them, and it is one requiring great faith. Notice how appro- priately it comes on, as the climax of past treatment. \Ve he.ve seen the Israelites sha.ring at first in the sufferings of the Egyptian plagues. After a while, the district in which they reside is exempted from the pla..:,crues. Then when the first-born are smitten, the Israelites, by their obedience to Jehovah's instructions, escape the blow. .And now at last their escape is to be completed by aga.in obeying Jehovah's instructions, and equally in the obedience of a pure faith. But mark the most important advance and develop- ment of faith, which is here illustrated. Two quite different states of mind are brought out by slaying the passover lamb in faith, and by going towards and through the Red Sea in faith. To slay the passover lamb is to do a thing for which no reason is given but the command of God. But it is a thing which plainly can be done. It involves no peril; there is no appearance of impossibility about it; the only temptation is to think it useless, a superfluous reasonless form. On the other hand, it is perfectly plain that passage through the Red Sea. will provide escape. The question is, can such a passage be gained, and therein the temptation lies. In slaying the passover lamb, the Israelites had to humble their intellects before Divine wisdom; in advancing to the Red Sea, they had to show the utmost confidence in Divine power. We must steadily believe that all God commands is useful and necessary; we must also steadily believe that all which is fit for him to do, be most assuredly can do. It is a. matter deserving consideration that Jehovah should have given such a command, seeing the state of unbelief and carnaldy fa which the Israelites evidently were. They had not spoken like men ready for such an awful miracle, But we can see certain things which made obedience easier. For one thing, God had shut them up to it. If they had been taken down to the Red Sea, EXODUS, Z.  33B THE DOOK OF EXODTJS. [en. XIV, 15-18.