message of redeeming love. He tells you that he desires to deliver you from a worse than Egyptian bondage, from the degradation and ruin of sin He makes known to you the way of escape, and the means that you must use for your rescue. Every thing on his part is ready; and he offers you the aid of his own omnipotence to work in you, and with you, while you are striving to attain this important end.

He sends this message to you by his Son, his only and well-beloved Son, the very Saviour who died to redeem all who come unto God through him. He has delivered to you this message. He waits to see how you will receive it. He would persuade, he would entreat you by his own sorrows and sufferings in your behalf,-by his sighs, and tears, and groans; by his agony in the garden, and by his bloody sacrifice on the cross, to receive this message in faith and love. Have you thus received it?

CHAPTER XIII.

Moses and Aaron appear before Pharaoh. Aaron's rod becomes a serpent. What the magicians did, and the various opinions on the subject.

Moses was again commanded by God, to appear before Pharaoh, and require of him to let the children of Israel go; and again he seems to shrink from what appears to him a hopeless service. This was probably owing to the discouragement which he felt from the reception that he had just received from his countrymen. "Behold," says he, "the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me, and how then shall Pharaoh hear me," who have no eloquence of speech? He had made not the least impression on those who, from every circumstance of their condition, from the relation in which he stood to them, and from the abundant evidence with which they had been furnished of his divine mission, he expected, would receive his message with believing and joyful hearts. What hope, then, could he have of influencing the haughty monarch of Egypt; especially as he was destitute of a ready command of language, and the power of a persuasive eloquence.

The divine injunction, however, is upon him to go; and is repeated with peculiar emphasis. He

Moses.

6

obeys it. But before we proceed in the narrative, it is important to refer to a genealogical account which is given in the sixth chapter of Exodus; and to which, as there recorded, the attention of the reader is more particularly invited. This account is doubtless intended to show the true lineage of Moses and Aaron, and of their immediate descendants. It was very necessary thus to preclude all doubt or mistake with regard to this matter, considering that one was to be the great Legislator, and the other the high priest, of a peculiar people; and that this people would come under the more immediate protection and government of the Almighty.

In this account, some things are worthy of peculiar notice. It appears from it, that the promise of God made to Abraham, and recorded in the sixteenth verse of the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, that he would deliver the Israelites out of Egypt in the fourth generation, was strictly fulfilled. For Moses was the son of Amram, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Jacob. Jacob went down into Egypt: and Moses was in the fourth generation from him.

This account also furnishes an interesting evidence of the impartiality, frankness, and humility of Moses. He inserts in it the list of those of his relations who were afterwards severely punished for their wickedness; and though he says nothing

of himself, yet he mentions particularly the marriage of his brother Aaron into a very distinguished and honorable family, his wife being the sister of a prince of the tribe of Judah.

But to return to the narrative.—In again directng Moses, with his brother Aaron, to appear before the king, God assured him that he should be a god to Pharaoh, and that Aaron should be his prophet. By him Pharaoh was to witness the exercise of divine power, and hear the communications made to him from Jehovah, delivered indeed from the lips of Aaron, as the interpreter of Moses, and the utterer of what he should receive directly from

heaven.

At the same time, God informed Moses that the course which he should pursue with Pharaoh, would but serve to harden his heart, (so great was ais pride and obstinacy,) against permitting the Israelites to go. It would thus become necessary to display before the Egyptians more striking and wonderful exhibitions of the divine majesty and power. "Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that. I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt, by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.' Upon repeating their message, as thus directed,

and the king's demanding a miracle in attestation of their divine commission, Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and his servants, and it immediately became a serpent. But the king was not disposed to yield to this striking, and, as it appears to us, satisfactory evidence that they were messengers from God. There were men in his nation who could do many strange and unaccountable things, the power of doing which was ascribed to their familiarity with evil spirits or demons. The art which they practised was called magic, and themselves, magicians or sorcerers.

Pharaoh would fain think, that Moses and Aaron knew something of this mysterious art, and, in this way, had produced the wonderful sight which he had witnessed. So he sent for the magicians, to see whether they could not equal or excel, by their power, what had been done by Moses and Aaron, to show that Jehovah had sent them.

How many of them came we do not know, but probably a number; boasting, no doubt, of their ability to perform as great wonders as could any of the despised Israelites.

We read, in the account which is given us of the transaction, in the seventh chapter of Exodus, that "the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments;" their mysterious words, and motions, and ceremonies, as if to invoke the aid of some hidden and supernatural