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was a land of pasture not tilled or sown, because not overflowed by the Nile. But the land overflowed by the Nile, was the black earth of the valley of Egypt, and it was here that God confined the flies; for he says, it shall be a sign of the separation of his people which he had then made, that not one fly should be seen in the sand or pasture-ground, the land of Goshen; and this kind of soil has ever since been the refuge of all cattle, emigrating from the black earth to the lower part of Atbara. The Chaldee version is content with calling this animal simply Zebub, which signifies the fly in general. The Arabs call it Zimb in their translation, which has the same general signification. The Ethiopie translation calls it Tsaltsalya, which is the true name of this particular fly in Geez, and was the same in Hebrew. (BRUCE'S Trav. vol. i. p. 5. vol. v. p. 191. See also Exod. xxiii. 28. Deut. vii. 20. Josh. xxiv. 12.) — But what a Providence is this in reality, to preserve the cattle from being drowned by the overflowing of the Nile!

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See No. 703, 704, 706, 708, 710, 707, 709, 710.

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1959. [Exod. ix. 9.] At Ghetsci, says TOURNefort, there arose a tempest of sand, in the same manner as it happens sometimes in Arabia, and in Egypt. This sand, extremely fine and salt, was raised by a very hot south-wind; and became very troublesome to our eyes, even in the caravansary when all our baggage was covered with it. The storm lasted from noon to sunset. (Part ii. p. 139.) — These rolling sands, when agitated by the winds, move and remove more like sea than land, and render the trackless desart very dreadful to passengers,

GEORGE HERBERT, p. 167.

1960. [- -23.] In the evening of the 28th of July, 1814, after much thunder and lightning, were seen in a damp meadow, about a mile from Cross-Hands, Somersetshire, six large lights (hop-jacks) which incessantly varied their position and size. Some of them were nearly a foot in diameter; they rose up sometimes to the height of twenty or thirty feet, and then again approached the ground; in their ascent they quivered, and shook, and altered variously their shape and color. On looking steadfastly at them, their light was so brilliant, and their lustre so great, that other objects could not be speedily seen, on removing the eye from them. They altered their position laterally as well as vertically, and hopped, as it were, about the field, occasionally disappearing, and then resuming their original lustre.

Bath Herald.

1961. [31.] Pot-barley is justly entitled to the name of European rice, and may be used in the same mouner, as well simply boiled, as converted into puddings. Sir JOHN SINCLAIR'S Code of Health, vol. i. p. 446.

1965. [Exod. xi. 2. Let every man borrow of his neighbour] Our exceptionable translation of the original, bas given some countenance to the cause of infidelity: its abettors have exultingly said "Moses represents the just God as ordering the Israelites to borrow the goods of the Egyptians under the pretence of returning them, whereas he intended that they should march off with the booty." Let these men know that there was no borrowing in the case; and that if accounts were fairly balanced, Egypt would be found still in considerable arrears to Israel.

The word nastal (Hebr.), signifies not only to spoil, snatch away, but also to get away, to escape, to deliver, to regain or recover. It is worthy of remark that the original word translated spoil Exod. iii. 22 is used 1 Sam. xxx. 22 to signify the recovery of property that had been taken away by violence.

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1967. [5. The maid-servant that is behind the mill] The Quern, still used in the island of Meul in Scotland, will give an idea of such a mill, and of the mode in which generally two female slaves were accustomed to grind at it. This portable mill consists of two circular pieces of gritstone, or granite, about twenty inches in diameter. In the lower stone is a wooden peg, rounded at the top; on this the upper stone is nicely balanced, so as just to touch the

lower one, by means of a piece of wood fixed in a large hole in this upper piece, but which does not fill the hole, room for feeding the mill being left on each side: it is so nicely balanced that, though there be some friction from the contact of the two stones, yet a very small momentum will make it revolve several times, when it has no corn in it. The corn being dried, two women sit down on the ground, having the quern between them; the one feeds while the other turns it round, relieving each other occasionally. Such simple mills seem to have been used by many rude nations. Some of them have been found in Yorkshire; and in the course of the Roman wall, between Solway Firth and the Eastern Sea, several have been dug up.

Matt. xxiv. 41.

Num. xi. 8.

GARNETT'S Tour in Scotland, vol. i. p. 56.

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1968. [Exod. xi. 7.] "I was dogged by an Egyptian." H. BLOUNT Esq.

1973. A similar œconomical year, consisting of mere moons, but regulated and corrected by the harvests, is still in use among the Negroes of Western Africa, between the 16th degree of north and of south latitude.

See OLDENTHORP's History of the
Mission, &c. part i. p. 308.

1969. [Exod. xii. 2.] This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

The Hebrew year begins always at the month Nisan, answering to our March and April; whereas the Syrians, &c. began their year six mouths later. Univer. Hist. vol. x. p. 3 At Lar in Persia, the 21st of March is the festival of New Year's Day.

PINKERTON, vol. ix. p. 120. On the 10th of March (Old Style) day and night everywhere throughout the earth, are equally twelve hours long; and again, on the 12th of September (old style) there is universally a similar equinox. (See Nat. Delin. vol. iv. pp. 233—235.) — Read 20th or 21st of March, New Style; Add also according as the year is bissextile, or common. 11 days for the equinox in September.

1970.

The commencement of the year was, among the Egyptians, at the summer solstice; among the Persians, when the sun enters Aries. (VOLNEY.) — The Jews began their civil year from the autumnal Equinox, and their sacred year from the vernal: and the first day of the first month was on the visible new moon, which was nearest the Equinox, i. e. either before or after. They began their month from the sixth hour at Evening, that is, at sun-set, next after the 18th hour from the conjunction. Sir ISAAC NEWTON'S Observ. on Daniel, x. 11. See also Exod. xxxiv. 22. 1 Sam. xx. 24, 27. Num. x. 10 compared with Ps. lxxxi. 3, and Num. xxviii. 11 with 1 Chron. xxiii. 31.

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1985. [Exod. xii. 10. Ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning] Lest it ferment, and acquire an intoxicating quality.

1986. [——————15.] The MS. CHARDIN informs us, that they use no kind of leaven whatever in the East, but dough kept till it is grown sour, which they preserve from one day to another. HARMER, vol. i. p. 253.

1987.

19. Stranger] Proselyte, in Greek proselutos, signifies in English stranger, or one arrived out of another country. REES.

Dr. LARDNER, with whom Dr. Doddridge and others also agree, is of opinion that there was but one sort of proselytes among the Jews. They were circumcised, and thus they became Jews by religion, and were admitted to eat the passover, and to partake of all religious privileges, as the Jews by descent did. They were called "strangers, or proselytes within the gates, and sojourners", as they were allowed to dwell, or sojourn among the people of Israel; but could not possess land among them. For according to the law of Moses, the whole land of Canaan was to be given to the twelve tribes of Israel, the descendants of the patriarch Jacob. (See Exod. xii. 48, 49. Lev. xvii. 8, 13, 15. Num. ix. 14. xv. 15.) A proselyte was a man circumcised according to the law of Moses, or a Jew by religion: This is the sense of the word in all the texts of the New Testament where it is used. (Matt. xxiii. 15. Acts ii. 10. vi. 5. xiii. 43.) Dr. Lardner thinks that the notion of two sorts of Jewish proselytes cannot be found in any Christian writer before the 14th century or later. He pays no regard to what the later Jewish Rabbins say of the method of initiating proselytes by circumcision, baptism, and sacrifice.

See his Works, vol. vi. and xi. The law of Moses obliged the Jews to incorporate into their church and state all, two or three nations excepted, that would become circumcised and observe the law. See Verse 48.

1988. [ 34. Kneading troughs] Small wooden bowls, in use among the Arabs of Egypt to this day. Dr. DODD. The vessels used by the Arabs for kneading their unleavened cakes, are only small wooden bowls. See Dr. SHAW's Trav. p. 231.

1989. [37. Succoth] Four leagues eastward from Cairo is Birket-el-Hadgi, or the Pilgrim's Pool, a pretty considerable Lake which receives its water from the Nile. There is nothing to render this place remarkable, except at

the time of the setting out of the caravan for Mecca, when the pilgrims encamp near it for a few days, as they do also on their return.

NIEBUHR'S Trav. vol. i. p. 65. A great caravan which is in haste, may go from Birket-elHadgi to Suez in three days. Every-where on the coast of Arabia, we meet with indications that the waters are considerably withdrawn. Yet from Suez to Girondel the breadth of the gulf is at present, about 3500 feet; and its depth in the middle four fathoms, near Girondel teu fathoms. -Eusebius relates after antient traditions, that the Israelites passed at Clysma, the Kolsoun of the Arabs, as Bochart proves in his Phaleg. lib. ii. cap. 18, 107, 108. Macrivi, Abulfeda, and the present inhabitants of Suez, assure us that Kolsoum was near Suez.

Ibid. p. 353, &c. Fr. edit. The huts of the Arabs on the banks of the Euphrates are formed of branches of the date-tree, and have a round roof covered with rush-mats.

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 220.

1993. [Exod. xii. 40.] Now the sojourning of the Israelites, and of their fathers, which they sojourned in the land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. Calculated thus: From Abraham's entry into Canaan to the birth of Isaac, were 25 years, Gen. xxii. 4. - xvii. 1-21. Isaac was 60 years old at the birth of Jacob, Gen. xxv. 26. Jacob was 130 at his going down into Egypt, Gen. xlvii. 9. These three sums make 215 years. Then, as Jacob and his children continued in Egypt 215 years more, the whole sum of 430 years is regularly completed.

1994.

See Dr. A. CLARKE, in loco.

The Israelites, says JOSEPhus, “left Egypt in the month Xanthicus, on the 15th day of the moon, in the 430th year after the coming of our father Abraham into Canaan, and in the 215th year after the migration of Jacob into Egypt." And Paul says, in his Epistle to the Galatians, that "the Law was given 430 years after the promise to Abraham." Exod. xii. 37.

1990. [Exod. xii. 37.] At Rameses, they ate the Passover, one night; at Succoth, they kept the feast of unleavened bread, seven days.

1991. [- 38. And a mixed multitude went up also with them] There were (in those days) many Arabians in Aleppo, called vulgarly Arabs or Bedouins: They call themselves Saracens of Sara; but they are rather Ishmaelites of Ishmael, Abraham's son by Hagar, and therefore also called Hagarens: But some take them to be of the race of the Sabæans, who were a wild and savage people of Sabæa, a country in the middle of Arabia, towards the east, environed with rocks, where is great store of cinnamon and cassia, frankincense and myrrh which people came of Sheba, nephew to Keturah and Abraham. Their native country lay between Judea and Egypt, and was called Arabia from Arabus, the son of Apollo. At this day they have no certain country or place of abode, but wander throughout Syria, Assyria, Galilee, Judea, Palestine, and Egypt.

See the Travels of Four Englishmen and a
Preacher into Syria, &c. London 1612, p. 58.
Or HUTCHINSON's Confusion of Tongues,
P. 158.

The Arabians, the Persians, and Sclavonians, are all of the Caucasian race.

HUMBOLDT.

1992. [39.] DIODORUS, lib. 34 & 40, says, "The Jews were driven out of Egypt at a time of dearth, when the country was full of foreigners" (to build the pyramids); " and that Moses, a man of extraordinary prudence and courage, seized this opportunity of establishing his religion in the mountains of Judea".

1995.

"must

"The period from which to begin these 430 years, we find," says the learned Jew DELGADO, be from Abraham's setting out from Ur-Chasdim, he being then 70 years old; which was thirty years before the birth of Isaac; and from which time it may be said that he lived under the special protection of God in a land that was not his Now thirty years before the birth of Isaac, sixty of Isaac before the birth of Jacob, one hundred and thirty of Jacob when he went down into Egypt, and two hundred and ten of their stay in Egypt, make up the 430 years here mentioned."

own.

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2000. [20.] QUINTUS CURTIUS, writing of the Bactrian deserts in Asia, says: "A great part of the country is covered with barren sands: and, being parched with heat, neither affords nourishment for men nor for vegetables. But when the winds blow from the Pontic sea, they sweep before them all the sands that lie on the plains; which, when heaped together, shew, afar off, like great mountains, while all footsteps of former travellers are quite abolished. Wherefore such as pass over those plains, do, like seamen, observe the stars in the night, by whose motion they steer their course; the shade of the night being there almost clearer than the day. And therefore this region by day is impassable, because men find no tracts to follow, and the stars then are invisible."

2001. The scriptural Etham is still called Etti: the wilderness of Shur, the mountain of Sinai, and the country of Paran, are still known by the same names. NIEBUHR'S Trav. vol. i. pp. 189, 191.

2002. [21, 22. Pillar of a cloud] Such a cloud, and doubtless much greater in degree, than that which attends, what they call, a spout at sea; with an appearance, it is said, of (electric) fire in the darkness.

HUTCHINSON'S Covenant in the Cherubim, p. 456. Fertur illo tempore accidisse ingens naturæ miraculum, quale nunquam auditum fuerat post hominum memoriam. Præcedebat populum nubes in magnæ columnæ speciem, heliocides (Grk.) solari splendore lucens interdiu, noctu vero, flammeo.

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2003. [Exod. xiv. 7.] Armed chariots were used among the Phenicians, Syrians, and Egyptians, in very remote times. 'Univer. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 654. note (B).

Josh. xi. 4. Jud. iv. 3. i. 19. 1 Sam. xiii. 5. 2 Chron. xviii. 30. 2 Sam. viii. 4.

2004. [- 9.] On the third day after their departure from Egypt, the Israelites came to Baalzephon, on the Red Sea; and when they had no food out of the land (there), because it was desert, they ate loaves, kneaded of flour, only warmed by a gentle heat and this food they made use of for thirty days; for what they brought with them out of Egypt would not suffice them any longer time; and this only while they dispensed it to each person, to use so much only as would serve for necessity, but not for satiety. Whence it is, says JOSEPHUS, that, in memory of the WANT we were then in, we kept a feast for eight days, which is called the feast of unleavened bread. (Antiq. b. ii. ch. xv. § 1.) — Had the Israelites eaten flesh, they would not at this time have been in want of food; for, on their dismissal three days before, Take', says Pharaoh, your flocks and your herds, as ye have said; and be gone'. Exod. xii. 32. They undoubtedly ate milk; and on that account, when the golden calf was before them, they ascribed their preservation in the wilderness to the milch cattle (represented by the principal of such animals, the cow or calf), saying, These are thy gods, O Israel! that brought thee out of the land of Egypt. See Deut. xxxii. 14.

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2005. [- — 12. Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians] It appears that the most stubborn tempers, like the hardest metals, may be softened so long, and so much, as to become perfectly passive under every pressure.

2006. [14.] As JOSEPHUS justly observes, if the Israelites should have thought of fighting, they had no

weapons.

Antiq. b. ii. ch. xv. § 4.

2007. [ 23.] These Egyptians consisted of officers and soldiers, with, it is likely, their magicians carrying before the army all their signs and images, their red bull, &c. and the ensign of their god, a candle and lantern. See No. 740.

See HUTCHINSON's Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 177.

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