Exodus

Chapter 1

Ver. 1. Now these are.] Heb., And these are, &c. For this book is a continuation of the former history, and this verse a repetition of what was before recorded in #Ge 46:8, The whole law, say the Schoolmen, is but one copulative. The whole Scripture but Cor et anima Dei, saith a father, {a} the heart and soul of God, uttered "by the mouth of the holy prophets, which have been since the world began." {#Lu 1:70}

{a} Illyric. Clavit.

Ver. 5. And all the souls.] That is, persons; for souls are not begotten, but infused, being divinae particulae aurae. {#Ec 12:7} Aristotle himself saw and acknowledged as much. {a}

Were seventy souls.] More worth than the seventy nations of the whole world, say the Jews: God reckons of men by their righteousness.

{a} λειπεται, τον νουν μονον θυραθεν επειστεναι και θειον ειναι.—De Gene. Ar., lib. ii. cap. 9.

Ver. 6. And all that generation,] Ea enim lege nati sumus ut moriamur: God also maketh haste to have the number of his elect fulfilled; and, therefore, despatcheth away the generations.

Ver. 7. Increased abundantly.] Heb., Spawned, and bred swiftly, as fishes. Trogus author a firmat in Aegypto septenos uno utero simul gigni. Egypt is a fruitful country: it is ordinary there, saith Trogus, to have seven children at a birth. Solinus gives the reason, quod faetifero potu Nilus, non tantum terrarum, sed etiam hominum faecundat arva; - the river Nile, whereof they drink, makes men as well as fields fruitful. But this increase of the Israelites was also by the extraordinary blessing of God, that they might "become a mighty and populous nation." {#De 26:5}

Ver. 8. A new king.] Called Busiris, a most savage tyrant, as heathen histories report him.

Who knew not.] Nothing sooner perisheth than the remembrance of a good turn. The Egyptians are renowned in histories for a thankful people; but it ill appeared in their dealing here with Joseph; who, had he now been alive, might well have said to them, as Themistocles once did to his Athenians, Are ye weary of receiving so many benefits by one man? {a} But herein was fulfilled that of the wise man, #Ec 9:15.

{a} Diod. Sicul., lib. ii.

Ver. 9. More and mightier.] He speaks as if he had looked through a multiplying glass. {See Trapp on "Ge 31:1"}

Ver. 10. Come on, let us deal wisely.] So as the world’s wizards use to do: but God taketh—δρασσομενος—these foxes in their own craft. {#1Co 3:19} Your labouring men have the most and lustiest children. Every "oppressor" is a fool. {#Pr 28:16}

Lest, when there falleth out any war.] It may seem—by #1Ch 7:21,22, compared with #Ps 77:9—that the Ephraimites, weary of the Egyptian bondage, and too hasty to enjoy the Promised Land, invaded the Philistines and plundered them; but were pursued and slain by the men of Gath, to the great grief of their father Ephraim, and to the further exasperating of the Egyptians against all the children of Israel; which might occasion also this cruel edict and proceeding against them. It is a singular skill to bear bondage or any other burden wisely and moderately. They that break prison before God’s time, get nothing but more irons laid upon them.

Ver. 11. To afflict them.] Because they would not "serve God with gladness of heart." {#De 28:47,48} For now they began to go awhoring after the idols of Egypt. {#Eze 23:8 20:5,7,8}

And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities.] They built also those famous pyramids, as some think, {a} of which it is reported, that for the great height of them, a man cannot shoot an arrow so high as the midst of the lower tower, whereon the spire stands. {b}

{a} Bucholcer.

{b} Turk. Hist., fol. 544.

Ver. 12. The more they multiplied.] As the ground is most fruitful that is most harrowed; and as the walnut tree bears best when most beaten. Fish thrive better in cold and salt waters, than in warm and fresh.

And they were grieved.] Or, irked, as Moab likewise was because of Israel: they did fret and vex at them. {#Nu 22:3,4} Yet they wero allied, and passed by them in peace: no other reason but the old enmity, #Ge 3:15, and that utter antipathy, #Pr 29:27.

Ver. 13. To serve with rigour.] Heb. ( ךרפב), With fierceness: {a} so thinking to cow out their spirits, and to exanimate them. So deals the Turk with the Christians.

{a} Quidam cam ferocia voce latina conferunt.

Ver. 14. Bitter with hard bondage.] Did we but live a while, saith one, {a} in Turkey, Persia, yea, or but in France, a dram of that liberty we yet enjoy would be as precious to us as a drop of cold water would have been to the rich man in hell, when he was so grievously tormented in those flames.

{a} Mercer.

Ver. 15. To the Hebrew midwives.] In Egypt and Greece the midwives of old had their schools; and some of them were great writers. I know not whether the priests were then so officious to them as many are now among the Papists; who say they therefore study Albertus Magnus de secrelis mulierum, that they may advise the midwives: but I doubt it is for a worse purpose; to gratify and greaten those abominable lusts wherewith they are scalded. {εξεκαυθησαν, #Ro 1:27}

Ver. 16. Then ye shall kill him.] No greater argument of an ill cause than a bloody persecution. George Tankerfield, the martyr, was in King Edward’s days a very Papist, till the time Queen Mary came in; and then, perceiving the great cruelty used on the Pope’s side, was brought into a misdoubt of their doing, and began, as he said, in his heart to abhor them. {a} So did Julius Palmer, a martyr in Queen Mary’s days, who had been a stiff Papist all King Edward VI’s days, and was therefore expelled out of Magdalen College, whereof he had been Fellow; till beholding the martyrdom of the three bishops burnt in Oxford, he said to his friends, "Oh, raging cruelty! Oh, tyranny tragical, and more than barbarous!" and so became a zealous Protestant.

{a} Act. and Mon., fol. 1535.

Ver. 17. And did not as the king, &c.] Wherein they did no more, though out of a better principle, than nature itself dictateth. Antigona saith thus in Sophocles, Magis obtemperandum est Diis apud quos diutius manendum erit, quam hominibus quibuscum admodum brevi tempore vivendum est. {See Trapp on "Ac 4:19"} "We must rather obey God than men."

Ver. 18. Why have ye done this thing?] They might well have answered, as she did in Euripides, Obediemus Atridis honesta mandantibus: Sin vero inhonesta mandabut, non obediemus. If you command things honest we will obey you; not else. Or as that brave woman upon the rack, Non ideo negare vole, ne peream: sed ideo mentiri nolo, ne peccem. {a}

{a} Jerome.

Ver. 19. For they are lively.] By that "voice of the Lord which maketh the hinds to calve." {#Ps 29:9} Lady Faith was their midwife: and she hath delivered the graves of their dead; {#Heb 11:35} how much more wombs of their quick children! But we need the less wonder at the matter here reported, if that were true which Varro writeth of the Illyrian women; who, being at harvest work in the field, when they were near their time, would but step aside, and return again, bringing a child with them, as if they had found it behind the hedge. {a}

{a} Var., De Agric., lib. ii. cap. 10.

Ver. 20. Dealt well with the midwives.] God is a liberal paymaster: and his retributions are more than bountiful. "Be ye therefore steadfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." {#1Co 15:58}

And the people multiplied.] Sic divinum consilium dum devitatur, impletur: humana sapientia, dum reluctatur, comprehenditur, as Gregory hath it. {a} "There are many devices in the heart of a man: but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." {#Pr 19:21} Among the Romans, the more children any man had, the more he was freed from public burdens. And of Adrian the Emperor it is storied, that when those that had many children were accused of any crime, he mitigated their punishment according to the number of their children. {b} But these poor Israelites were otherwise used.

{a} Greg., Moral.

{b} Dio, in Adriano.

Ver. 21. Because the midwives feared God.] There is no necessity of granting that the midwives told the king a lie. {see #Ex 1:19} But if they did, St Austin saith well, Non remunerata fuit iis fallacia, sed benevolentia; benignitas mentis, non iniquitas mentientis. Their lie was not rewarded, but their kind heartedness.

That he made them houses, ] i.e., He gave them posterity. Thus he built David a house. {#2Sa 7:18,19} And thus Rachel and Leah are said to have "built the house of Israel." {#Ru 4:11} The parents are, as it were, the foundation of the house; the children as so many lively stones in the building. Hence the Hebrews call a son Ben, of Banah to build, quid sit edificium et structura parentum, quoad generationem et educationem.

Ver. 22. And Pharaoh charged.] Imperio non tam duro quam diro. This was a most bloody edict: therefore, when God came to make inquisition for blood, he gave them blood again to drink, for they were worthy. The like he did to Nero— qui orientem fidem primus Romae cruentavit -to {a} Julian, Valens, Valerian, Attilas, Girzerichus, Charles IX of France, and many other bloody persecutors. {See Trapp on "Re 16:6"}

{a} Tertullian.

Chapter 2

Ver. 1. And took to wife.] His own aunt. {#Ex 6:20 Nu 26:59} The law against incest {#Le 18:12} was not yet given, nor the state of Israel settled. But what excuse can there be for that abominable incest of the house of Austria by Papal dispensation? King Philip of Spain was uncle to himself, first cousin to his father, husband to his sister, and father to his wife! {a} And what shall we say of our modern sectaries, whose practising of incest is now avowed publicly in print? They shame not to affirm that those marriages are most lawful that are between persons nearest in blood, brother and sister, father and daughter, mother and son, uncle and niece. The prohibition of degrees in Leviticus is to be understood, say they, of fornication, not of marriage {b} Tamar did not doubt to be her brother Amnon’s wife, but detested the act of fornication, &c. Lo, here, what noonday devils do now, in this unhappy time, walk with open face among us! {c}

{a} Spec. Europ.

{b} See Mr Bayly’s Dissuasion, part 2, and Mr Edwards’s Gangr., part 3.

{c} Little Nonsuch, pp. 5-7.

Ver. 2. A goodly child.] "Fair to God" {a} {#Ac 7:20} See the note there. Art thou fair? be not like an Egyptian temple, where some beast is worshipped. Art thou foul? let thy soul be like a rich pearl in a rude shell.

{a} Αστειας τω Θεω.

Ver. 3. And she laid it in the flags.] This she did by the force of her faith; {#Heb 11:23} casting the child upon God, and "against hope believing in hope."

Ver. 4. And his sister.] By a singular instinct of the Holy Spirit, as appears by the event. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." {#Ps 37:23} "He keepeth the feet of his saints." {#1Sa 2:9}

Ver. 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh.] She was brought hither at this time by a special providence, to do that which she little dreamed of. So when Heidelberg was taken by the Imperialists, the copy of Ursinus’s Catechism enlarged by Pareus was among many other papers carried away by a plundering soldier; but happily dropped in the streets, and found the next day by a young student, who, knowing his master’s hand, restored it to his son Philip Pareus, who afterwards published that golden book, to the great glory of God, who had so graciously preserved it. {a}

{a} Vita David Parei, per Philippum filium.

Ver. 6. One of the Hebrews’ children.] So called of Heber. {See Trapp on "Ge 13:14"}

Ver. 7. A nurse of the Hebrew women.] God’s providence excludeth not man’s prudence. Here is a concurrence of both, for the preservation of the child.

Ver. 8. The child’s mother.] None to her: as David said of Goliath’s sword, "None to that."

Ver. 9. And I will give thee thy wages.] The nurse expects not her pay from the child, but from the parents. Ministers, in case their people prove unkind or unthankful, must look up.

Ver. 10. She called his name Moses.] He was also by the Egyptians called MOneves, as Diodorus Siculus relateth; and Monies, as Aben Ezra. Musaeus calleth him υδρογενης, Water sprung, because "drawn," as David was afterwards, "out of many waters." {#Ps 18:16} Clement of Alexandra saith, that at his circumcision, Moses was called Melchi; others say Joachim: but that is as uncertain as that he was the same with Mercurins Trismegistus.

Ver. 11. When Moses was grown.] In stature and authority, being "mighty in words and deeds," {#Ac 7:22} being a great orator, a great warrior. {See Trapp on "Heb 11:24"} He was, as Pliny saith of Cato Censorius, optimus Orator, optimus Imperator, optimus Senator, omniumque bonarum artium magister, a man every way accomplished.

That he went out unto his brethren.] Associating himself to them, though afflicted, and refusing the pleasures and "treasures of Egypt: for he had respect to the recompense of reward"—he {απεβλεπε, #Heb 11:26} cast an eye, he stole a look from glory, when he was on his journey, and so got fresh encouragement.

Ver. 12. He slew the Egyptian.] This deed of his was heroic and extraordinary, and therefore not to be imitated by every Birchet, who, by this example of Moses and that other of Ehud, persuaded himself it was lawful to kill such as oppose the truth of the gospel: whereupon he wounded Hawkins, slew his keeper, and thought he had a calling to kill a great personage in this kingdom, whom he took to be God’s enemy. The like madness is reported of the Monasterian Anabaptists. {a}

{a} Camden’s Elisab., fol. 174. Mr Bayly’s Dissuas., part 2.

Ver. 13. Behold, two men of the Hebrews strove.] What pity was it that brethren should strive, and one Hebrew smite another, as if blows enough were not dealt them by the Egyptians! Still Satan is thus busy, and Christians are thus malicious. Thus we have seen doves beat, and sheep butt one another. Jonathan and Rab. Solomon boldly say that these two striving Hebrews were Dathan and Abiram; and that the other Hebrew smitten by the Egyptian {#Ex 2:11} was the husband of Salomith the daughter of Dabri!

Ver. 14. And he said.] Yea, "he thrust Moses away." {#Ac 7:27} Doing wickedly "with both hands earnestly." {#Mic 7:3} This act of his is imputed to the whole people, who therefore were deprived of Moses for forty years. So true is that of the wise man, "One sinner destroyeth much good." {#Ec 9:18}

Ver. 15. But Moses fled.] God, by forty years’ exile, fitted Moses for further light and advancement. Much he had learned in Egypt, {#Ac 7:22} but more in Midian. Mr Ascham was a good schoolmaster to Queen Elizabeth, but affliction was a better. Men commonly beat and bruise their links before they light them, to make them burn the brighter. Moses had neither been so illuminate a doctor, nor so excellent a ruler, if not first humbled, as here.

Ver. 16. Now the priest.] Or, Prince. The old Egyptians chose their kings from among the priests. Samuel was both a priest and a judge in Israel. The Emperor of Rome had for one of his titles Pontifex Maximus, the high priest. Among the Turks, the judges at this day are ever ecclesiastical persons, whereby both orders joined give reputation to one another, and maintenance. {a}

And they came and drew water.] They were not so delicately bred as our dainty dames are now-a-days, but did earn before they eat.

{a} Blunt’s Voyage, p. 89.

Ver. 17. And drove them away.] From the water that they had drawn, and so had most right unto. Sic cedit viribus aequum. Might oft overcomes right. See here what we owe to good laws well executed; no man else should enjoy so much as his own water.

Ver. 18. To Reuel their father.] Indeed, their grandfather. {#Nu 10:29} Old men are usually about home, and can do little else but see to things, and advise.

Ver. 19. Delivered us out of the hand, ] Moses, if he may not in Egypt, will be doing justice in Midian. Christ went about doing good. The place is the better wherever a good man cometh: his trade, saith one, is a compound of charity and justice.

Ver. 20. Call him, that he may eat bread.] If the watering of a sheep were thus rewarded, how shall God recompense a cup of cold water given to those of his little flock?

Ver. 21. Zipporah his daughter.] A peevish piece; a cold armful. {a} He had better, haply, have been married to a quartan ague. Sulla felix si non hobuisset uxorem, & c. It is not ill to marry, but good to be wary, lest we make shipwreck in the haven.

{a} ψυχρον παρατκαλισμα.—Lycophron.

Ver. 22. I have been a stranger.] So we are all, while here. Our own place is paradise; haste to it.

Ver. 23. Sighed by reason of the bondage.] They had changed their masters, but not their miseries; αει το παρον βαρυ, but seldom comes a better. Job’s "stroke was heavier than his groaning." {#Job 23:2}

Ver. 24. God heard their groaning.] Yea, their breathing. {#La 3:56} Men’s very misery cries to God, as Hagar’s did.

Ver. 25. Had respect.] Heb., Knew them. He knew their souls in adversity. {#Ps 31:7}

Chapter 3

Ver. 1. To the backside of the desert, ] Here it was that Moses wrote the book of Genesis, and that of Job too, as some conceive, {a} for the comfort of his poor oppressed countrymen in Egypt, that they might lean upon, and live by faith in, the promises made to the fathers.

{a} Alsted., Chron.

Ver. 2. And the Angel of the Lord.] Christ, that Angel of the Covenant, and of the great council.

And the bush was not consumed.] No more is the Church, whereof this is an excellent emblem, by the fire of tribulation, {#Isa 43:2} because of "the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush." {#De 33:16}

Ver. 3. I will now turn aside, and see.] Moses came out of curiosity, but was called by God: so do many to the ordinances for novelty, as the Jews did to John Baptist; or for some other minister respect; to catch, it may be, and are caught, as those in #Joh 7:46. Or as Austin, who coming to Ambrose to have his ears tickled, had his heart touched. It is good to hear, howsoever. Come, said Latimer, to the public meetings, though thou comest to sleep; it may be, God may take thee napping. Absence is without hope. What a deal lost Thomas by being but once absent!

This great vision.] Great indeed. There was a flame of fire, else how was the bush burning? There was light, else how did Moses see it? There was no heat, else how was not the bush consumed? Yet in every of God’s afflicted, saith one, you may see this great vision. The voice of the Lord in his affliction, as in this fire, divideth the heat from the light, so that he is not consumed by the heat—nay, rather his infirmities and carnal concupiscences are consumed thereby—but only illuminated by the light. {See Trapp on "Ex 2:15"}

Ver. 4. And when the Lord saw, &c.] God "meeteth him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness." {#Isa 64:5} Acti; agimus. The miller cannot command a wind; yet he will spread his sails, be in the way to have it, if it come. As our liberty, in external acts, is still some—as to come to church, to hear, to repeat, &c.—so must our endeavours be answerable.

Ver. 5. Draw not nigh.] Be not rash, but reverent. Heathens could say, Non loquendum de Deo sine lumine. God will be sanctified of all that draw nigh unto him. {#Le 10:2}

Put off thy shoes.] Of sensuality and other sins. Quid pedes, saith Erasmus, nisi affectus? Quid pedes calceamentorum onere liberi nisi animus nullis terrenis cupiditatibus oneratus? Affections are the feet of the soul; keep them unclogged.

Ver. 6. Hid his face.] So did the seraphims, with a double scarf, as it were. {#Isa 6:2} Let a man but see God, and his plumes will soon fall.

For he was afraid.] Yea, he "trembled, and durst not behold." {#Ac 7:32} This was his first meeting with God: when better acquainted, he grew more bold.

Ver. 7. For I know their sorrows.] That is a sweet support to a sinking soul, that God knows all, and bears a part. "Your heavenly Father knows," &c. {#Mt 6:32} That is enough.

Ver. 8. I am come down.] Humanitus dictum, as in #Ge 11:7 18:21. {See Trapp on "Ge 11:7"} {See Trapp on "Ge 18:21"}

Milk and honey.] Plenty and dainties; all things both for necessity and delight.

Ver. 9. The oppression wherewith.] We are oft more beholden to our enemies’ insolency than to any innoceney of our own. {#De 32:27}

Ver. 10. That thou mayest bring forth.] Which, though as unlikely to be done as to remove a rock with his shoulder, yet, setting upon it in God’s strength, he effecteth it. Tantum velis, et Deus tibi praeoccurret. {a} Howbeit, let a man do what he can naturally, and God will meet him graciously; -there is no truth in such an assertion.

{a} Chrysostom.

Ver. 11. Who am I?] Worth is modest: the proud man asketh, Who am I not? παντα ποιειν εδωυαμτω, Curi Maioris sepulchro inscriptum refert Arrianus. Worth with modesty is καλον καλως; nothing is so amiable.

Ver. 12. This shall be a token unto thee.] So he had a double sign, for his fuller and further corn firmation: that of the burning bush, for the present; this of serving God at Horeb, for the future.

Ver. 13. What is his name?] God is above all name, all notion. When Manoah inquired after his name, "It is wonderful," said he: that is, I am called as I am called, but such is thy weakness that it surpasseth thy conception. {a} Afri vocant Deum ignotum Amon, id est, Hens tu, quis es? {b}

{a} Bede. Victorinus.

{b} Plutarch, De Isid. et Osiride.

Ver. 14. I AM THAT I AM.] Heb., I will be that I will be. The Septuagint render it Εγω ειμι ο ων, I am He that is. Agreeably hereunto, Plato calleth God το ον and το ον οντως. This name of God is fully opened in #Re 16:5. It imports two of God’s incommunicable attributes: (1.) His eternity, when he saith, I will be; ( 2.) His immutability, when he saith, That I will be. As Pilate said, "What I have written, I have written"; I will not alter it. But how far out was Paulus Burgensis in denying Ehich to be any of God’s names? {a} Whether Aph-hu {#2Ki 2:14} be one, is far more questionable.

{a} Weems.

Ver. 15. Unto all generations.] The Jews, to countenance their conceit of the ineffability of the name of Jehovah, did corrupt this text: and for This is my name, Legnolam, for ever, they read, This is my name, Legnalam, to be concealed. {a}

{a} Galatinus.

Ver. 16. The God of Abraham, &c.] His friends, with whom he had all things common. This was a greater honour done to these patriarchs than if God had written their names in the visible heavens, to be read of all men.

Ver. 17. I have said, I will bring you up.] And now I am come to do it. This is some part of the import of "I am that I am," "the same yesterday, today, and for ever." {#Heb 13:8} Ero qui eram, I will be the same to you in my performances that I was to your fathers in my proraises.

A land flowing with milk.] Sumen totius orbis, as one calleth it, where the hard rocks did sweat out oil and honey. {#De 32:13} See #Ex 3:8.

Ver. 18. Hath met with us.] Of his own accord, and without our seeking. Nolentem praevenit Deus ut velit, volentem subsequitur ne frustra velit. {a} "I am found of those that sought me not." {#Isa 65:1}

{a} Aug., Enchir., cap. 32.

Ver. 19. Will not let you go.] A sturdy rebel he was; but God tamed him, and took him down by those ten plagues, comprised in these four verses—

“Fit cruor ex undis, conspurcant omnia ranae;

Dat pulvis cimices, postea musca venit.

Dein pestis, post ulcera, grando, locusta, tenebrae:

Tandem prototocos ultima plaga necat.”

Ver. 20. And after that he will let you go.] When he dare hold you no longer; when I have sufficiently tamed him and taught him, as Gideon "taught the men of Succoth with thorns and briers of the wilderness." {#Jud 8:16}

Ver. 21. I will give this people favour.] It is God that fashioneth men’s spirits, and speaketh ofttimes for them in the hearts of their greatest enemies.

Ver. 22. Ye shall spoil the Egyptians.] By a special dispensation, which none could grant but the law maker. So #Eze 39:10. These jewels did afterwards become a snare to the Israelites in the matter of the golden calf.

Chapter 4

Ver. 1. They will not believe me.] They had formerly refused him, "and thrust him away." {#Ex 2:14 Ac 7:27} And so they might again, if he had not somewhat to show for his extraordinary calling. {a} In the year 434, the Jews of Crete were shamefully seduced by a pseudo-Moses, who promised to divide the sea for them to bring them back to their own country. {b} Those that will not receive the love of the truth, are justly given up to the efficacy of error. {#2Th 2:10,11}

{a} Quaeque repulsa gravis. -Hor.

{b} Funccius, in Comm. Chron.

Ver. 2. A rod.] Heb., Matte, in answer to Maze, What is that? an elegant antonomasia in the original. This is ordinary in both Testaments; the penmen whereof, many of them, were, as Cicero saith of Demetrius Phalereus, oratores parum vehementes, dulces tamen, soft, but sweet orators.

Ver. 3. And it became a serpent.] So doth the word to those that cast away the care of it; it stings them with unquestionable conviction and horror. With this rod Moses should guide the Israelites, sting the Egyptians. {#Isa 14:29 Jer 8:17}

And Moses fled from before it, ] First fly from sin as from a serpent, saith one. But if thou hast taken this serpent into thy hand, rest not, till, like Moses’s serpent, it be turned into a rod again to scourge thy soul. Be either innocent or penitent.

Ver. 4. Take it by the tail.] Which was dreadful to be done, because of the antipathy and likely danger; but faith fortifies the heart against the fear of the creature, and carries a man through the difficulty of duty.

Ver. 5. That they may believe.] Miracles are sufficient testimonies of an extraordinary calling from God, provided that they be true miracles (not such as #De 13:1-3), to confirm a calling that is agreeable to God’s holy word, as here.

Ver. 6. Put now thine hand.] Here was sign upon sign, as #Ex 3:12. So low stoops the Most High to our meanness. And doth he not the same favour for us by the often administration of the Lord’s supper? Doth he not seal again and again, &c.?

Was leprous as snow.] Let us but lay our hands upon our hearts, thrust them into our bosoms to rifle there, and we shall be sure to take them out leprous, all of a tetter. {tetter: A general term for any pustular herpetiform eruption of the skin, as eczema, herpes, impetigo, ringworm, etc.}

Ver. 7. As his other flesh.] To show him that God, by small means, could bring about great matters, and that in a moment. See #Isa 66:7,8. Which yet was ill applied by Cardinal Pool to this revolting nation in Queen Mary’s days.

Ver. 8. The voice of the first sign.] God’s signs have a voice, and words. {#Ps 105:27} They speak not only to our eyes, but ears; as those many prodigies did before the last desolation of Jerusalem; as the terrible tempest at Rome in 1516, -the same year that Luther began to stir, -that so struck the church where Pope Leo was creating his cardinals, that it removed the child Jesus out of the lap of his mother, and the keys out of St Peter’s hand. So the two suns seen in London at the coming in of King Philip on Feb. 15, 1553: the new star in Cassiopeia in 1572: the prodigious comet {a} in 1618, &c.

{a} Ουδεις κωμητης οστις ου κακον φερει.

Ver. 9. Shall become blood.] In the year 874, in Brixia in Italy, it rained blood for three days and three nights. In 1505, there appeared in Germany, upon the garments of men and women various prints and tokens of the nails, of the sponge, of the spear, of the Lord’s coat, and of bloody crosses. Maximilian, the Emperor, had, and showed the same to Francis Mirandula, who thereupon wrote his "Staurestichon," and therein thus—

“Non ignota cane, Caesar monstravit, et ipsi

Vidimus; innumeros prompsit Germania testes.” {a}

In the third year of Queen Mary, William Pikes being at liberty after imprisonment, and going into his garden, took with him a Bible: where sitting and reading, there suddenly fell down upon his book four drops of fresh blood, and he knew not from whence it came. Whereat he being sore astonished, and wiping out one of the drops with his finger, called his wife and said, In the virtue of God, wife, what meaneth this? Will the Lord have four sacrifices? I see well enough the Lord will have blood; his will be done, and give me grace to abide the trial, &c.

{a} Baleus Centur., 8. Func., Chronol. Act. and Mon., fol. 769, 1853.

Ver. 10. I am not eloquent.] Heb., A man of words, a master of speech—ηγουμενος λογου—as Paul was. {#Ac 14:12} He had not that first, second, and third of an orator, -elocution, or pronunciation. And yet God made choice of him rather than of eloquent Aaron to pray. {#Ex 17:12} Not gifts but graces prevail in prayer.

Slow of speech.] Of a letsom delivery; wordbound.

Ver. 11. Who hath made man’s mouth?] There is no mouth into which God cannot put fit words. Balaam’s ass was enabled by God to convince his master. Whereas by a man, never so full and fluent, he cannot bring forth his conceptions, without the obstetrication of God’s assistance. {#Pr 16:1}

Ver. 12. I will be with thy mouth.] {See Trapp on "Mt 10:19"}

Ver. 13. By the hand of him whom thou wilt.] Or, shouldst send: by that excellent speaker the Messiah, cuius dicere est facere. Thus when God had answered all Moses’s objections, he frowardly denies to go notwithstanding, and bids him send by his son, as one that was better fitted for the service. That which made Moses so unwilling, was, whatever he pretended, the fear of his life: which rub when God had once removed, he went on his journey. {#Ex 4:19,20}

Ver. 14. And the anger of the Lord.] And no wonder: Patientia laesa fit furor. Where God commandeth, there to ask a reason is presumption; but to oppose reason, is a kind of rebellion.

I know that he can speak well.] The gift of utterance is a high favour, a piece of a Christian’s riches. {#1Co 1:5} {See Trapp on "1Co 1:5"} Aaron, as Cicero saith of Aristotle, had aureum flumen orationis, a golden gift of speech.

Ver. 15. Will teach you.] {See Trapp on "Ex 4:11"} {See Trapp on "Ex 4:12"}

Ver. 16. And he shall be thy spokesman.] God hath made me ill-favoured in this world, and without grace in the sight of men, said Tindal to Frith, {a} speechless and rude, dull and slow witted: your part shall be to supply that which lacketh in me: remembering, that as lowliness of heart shall make you high with God, even so meekness of words shall make you sink into the hearts of men.

Instead of God.] To dictate unto him my mind and counsel. Such a god to every Christian is his sanctified conscience.

{a} Act. and Mon., fol. 988.

Ver. 17. Wherewith thou shalt do signs.] God, of his freewill, joining his operation thereunto; as likewise he doth to the outward signs in the two sacraments: and hence their energy, which else would be none.

Ver. 18. Whether they be yet alive.] Which if they be, though in a low condition, both they and I shall see cause to be thankful. {#La 3:39 Ec 9:4}

Ver. 19. For all the men are dead.] Here the Lord lays his finger upon the sore. This was that pad in the straw, the thing that made Moses hang off as he did; however he pretended the people’s incredulity, his own inability, and this and that, neither did he altogether dissemble: but self-love needs not be taught to tell her tale.

Ver. 20. Upon an ass.] This may argue his poverty, as #Zec 9:9. Especially if he had but one ass for the whole family.

Ver. 21. But I will harden his heart.] With a judiciary penal hardness. And thus God is in this book eight times said to have hardened Pharaoh’s heart: thrice it is said that he hardened his own heart, and five times his heart is said to have been hardened—viz., by the devil, through the just judgment of God.

Ver. 22. Even my firstborn.] And so "higher than the kings of the earth." {#Ps 89:27}

Ver. 23. Let my son go.] God commanding Pharaoh to let go his people, and yet hardening his heart that he would not let them go, is not contrary to himself. For by so commanding him, he requireth his obedience; and by so hardening him, he punisheth his disobedience.

Ver. 24. And sought to kill him.] To do justice upon him, according to #Ge 17:14, and as upon one that was an unfit man to take care of the Church, having no better ordered his own house. {#1Ti 3:5} God passeth not by the sins of his best children without a sensible check, especially if scandalous and committed against conscience. He hath much ado to forbear killing us in such cases: he is even ready to have a blow at us, and cries like a travailing woman, who bites in her pain while she can, to be delivered of his judgments. {#Isa 42:14}

Ver. 25. Surely a bloody husband.] A peevish wife, whose frowardness is either tollenda or toleranda, cured or carried patiently, ne coniugium fiat coniurgium. She was not so hot, but Moses was as meek.

Ver. 26. A bloody husband thou art.] This peal she rings oft in his ears, and so taught him patience.

“Coniugium humanae divina Academia vitae.”

Certain it is that we are a bloody spouse to Christ: the Church is Aceldama, a field of blood.

Ver. 27. And the Lord said unto Aaron.] To this religious family rather than to any other, God appeareth: which mercy is remembered, #1Sa 2:27.

Met him in the mount of God.] His wife either had left him, or was sent back by him to her father. God supplies that comfort by the coming of Aaron.

Ver. 28. And Moses told Aaron.] So clouds, when full, pour down, and the spouts run, and the eaves shed, and the presses overflow. Aromatical trees sweat out their precious oils: and as ambergris is nothing so sweet in itself as when compounded with other things; so good men are great gainers by communicating with each other.

Ver. 29. And Moses and Aaron.] So Zerubbabel and Jehoshua; Paul and Barnabas; the other disciples "by two and two"; {#Mr 6:7} the two faithful witnesses; {#Re 11:3} both for more authority, and for mutual help and comfort.

Ver. 30. And did the signs.] Moses did; or Aaron, by his command and appointment.

Ver. 31. They bowed their heads.] An ordinary gesture among the Jews then: as at this day, the reverence they show is in standing up, and the gesture of adoration in the bowing forward of their bodies: for, kneeling they use none, neither stir they their bonnets in their synagogues to any man, but remain still covered. {a}

{a} Spec. Europ.

Chapter 5

Ver. 1. That they may hold a feast.] "That they may serve me." {#Ex 4:23} "Let us keep the feast," {εορταζωμεν, #1Co 5:8} which is the same with "Let us serve God acceptably." {#Heb 12:28} It is a feast, and better, for a good soul to converse with God. {#Ps 63:5 Isa 25:6}

Ver. 2. Who is the Lord?] God’s attributes either show what he is, or who he is. To the question of Moses—-What he is?—God gave a short answer, "I am." To this second by Pharaoh, Who he is?—God made a large reply, till Pharaoh was compelled to answer himself, "The Lord is righteous."

Ver. 3. Three days’ journey, ] viz., to mount Horeb. They made it three months’ journey ere they came there. {#Ex 13:17,18} God leads his people oft not the nearest, but the safest way to their journey’s end.

Ver 4. Let the people from their works.] Moses talks of sacrifice; Pharaoh of work. Anything seems due work to a carnal mind, saving God’s service; nothing superfluous but religious duties. {a} Seneca saith the Jews cast away a seventh part of their time upon a weekly Sabbath. "To what end is this loss?" said Judas.

{a} Aug., De Civit. Dei.

Ver. 5. The people of the land now are many.] Et nihil agendo male agere discent. Iphicrates never suffered his soldiers to be out of employment; but, if out of military services, he set them to dig or lop trees or carry burdens, &c., to keep them from rebelling or worse doing. {a}

{a} η ορυττειν, η ταφρευειν, η δενδρα κοπτειν, &c.—Polym. Stratag., lib. iii.

Ver. 6. And Pharaoh commanded.] He raged the more for the message of dismission: so, wholesome admonitions make ill men worse. Corruptions increase and get bigger by the law. {#Ro 7:8}

Ver. 7. Ye shall no more give the people straw.] Speculum tyrannidis semper augescentis atque invalescentis. "The matter mends with us," said those martyrs in prison, "as sour ale doth in summer." {a}

{a} Act. and Mon.

Ver. 8. For they be idle.] I heard a great man once say, saith Luther, Necesse est otiosos esse homilies qui ista negotia religionis curant. They must needs be idle fellows that are so much taken up about the business of religion. {See Trapp on "Ex 5:4"}

Ver. 9. And not regard vain words.] Vain lying words. So this profane prince calleth and counteth the word of God. "What is truth?" saith Pilate, scoffingly.

Ver. 10. I will not give you straw.] Cold comfort! Things commonly go backward with the saints before they come forward, as the corn groweth downward ere it grow upward. Hold out faith and patience; deliverance is at next door by. Cum duplicantur lateres, venit Moyses. When things are at worst, they will mend.

Ver. 11. Yet not aught.] Such hard service puts Satan his slaves to, and yet they rejoice in their bondage.

Ver. 12. So the people were scattered.] So are most people now-a-days busied about trash and trifles, neglecting the one thing necessary. In the enthronisation of the Pope before he puts on his triple crown, a wad of straw is set on fire before him, and one appointed to say, Sic transit gloria round, the glory of this world is but a blaze of straw or stubble, soon extinct. They that highly esteem it rejoice in a thing of nought, feed upon ashes, &c. {#Am 6:13}

Ver. 13. And the taskmasters.] Who were Egyptians, as the officers under them were Israelities, and beaten. {#Ex 5:14}

Ver. 14. Were beaten.] It is the misery of those that are trusted with authority that their inferiors’ faults are beaten upon their backs.

Ver. 15. Came and cried unto Pharaoh.] They did not rail upon him to his face, as the Janizaries did {a} in an uproar upon Bajazet II, their prince, saying that they would by and by teach him, as a drunkard, a beast, and a rascal, to use his great place and calling with more sobriety and discretion. Neither did they go behind his back and call him, as Sanders did Queen Elizabeth, his natural sovereign, Lupam Anglicanam , the English wolf, or as Rhiston calleth her, leoenam, omnes Athalias, Macchas, Iezabeles, Herodiades, &c., superantem, a lioness worse than any Athalia, Maacha, Jezabel. A foul-mouthed Jesuit made this false anagram of her, Elizabeth, Jezabel. T is omitted; the presage of the gallows—whereon this anagrammatist was afterwards justly executed. Aretine, by a longer custom of libellous and contumelious speaking against princes, had got such a habit, that at last he came to diminish and disesteem God himself. {b}

{a} Turk. Hist., fol. 444.

{b} Rivetti Jesuita Vapulans, p. 263. Fuller’s Holy State, fol. 317.

Ver. 16. But the fault is in thine own people.] Effugiunt corvi, vexat censura columbas. As a man is friended, so is his matter ended. And where the hedge is low, a man may lightly make large leaps. Or, as the Frenchman saith, Qui son chien vult tuer, la rage luy met sus, He that hath a mind to kill a dog, gives out that he is mad. It was fault enough in God’s Israel, that they would not be miserable.

Ver. 17. Ye are idle.] {See Trapp on "Ex 5:4"} {See Trapp on "Ex 5:8"}

Ver. 18. Yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.] Or be miserably beaten, if but one be missing. The Spaniards, besides other intolerable burdens and bondages that they lay upon the poor Indians, suppose they show the wretches great favour when they do not, for their pleasure, whip them with cords, and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon. {a} Regimen without righteousness turns into tyranny.

{a} Sir Francis Drake’s World Encompas., p. 53.

Ver. 19. In evil case.] For their evil courses. {#Eze 23:8 20:5,7,8 Jos 24:14} It is written as a heavy curse of God, {#Le 26:17} "If ye still trespass against me, I will set princes over you that shall hate you": Mischievous, odious princes; odious to God, malignant to the people.

Ver. 20. And they met Moses.] How ready are we to mistake the grounds of our afflictions, and to cast them upon false causes! The Sareptan told the prophet that he had killed her son. {#1Ki 17:18}

Ver. 21. The Lord look upon you.] Thus we have seen dogs in a chase bark at their best friends.

Ver. 22. And Moses returned unto the Lord.] He turned aside, as it were to speak with a friend, and to disburden himself in God’s bosom. This is the saints’ privilege. {See Trapp on "Mt 11:25"}

Ver. 23. Neither hast thou delivered.] Here Moses himself was too short spirited. He considered not, belike, that God’s promises do many times bear a long date, neither is it fit to set him a time, or to awaken him whom our soul loveth, until he please. Do but "wait," saith the Lord. {#Hab 2:3} You shall be delivered, you shall be delivered, you shall be delivered; you shall, you shall. So much that text in effect soundeth and assureth.

Chapter 6

Ver. 1. Then the Lord said unto Moses.] Pardoning the faults of his prayer, God grants him a gracious answer. So he dealt with David, "For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heartiest the voice of nay supplication when I cried unto thee." {#Ps 31:22}

Ver. 2. I am Jehovah.] Αυταυτος (Scaliger’s {a} word); that do Press {b} (Gregory’s word); that have being of myself, give being to all things else, and in special to my promises, to "perform with my hand" what I have "spoken with my mouth"; {#1Ki 8:15} only God expects that men put his promises in suit by their prayers, as here, and burden him with them, as that martyr said.

{a} Scalig., De Subtilit.

{b} Sic.—? Peresse; qui est per se.

Ver. 3. By the name of God Almighty.] {See Trapp on "Ge 17:1"} The sense is this, saith Cameron, {a} Quantum illis sufficiebat tantum indulsit, non indulsit quod erat summum. He gave them enough, but not the main.

But by my name JEHOVAH.] That is, by the import of this his name, the full performance of his promises. God was known to the patriarchs by this name Jehovah, quoad esse De, but not quoad esse rei.

{a} Camer, De Eccles.

Ver. 4. To give them the land of Canaan.] And a better thing with it, the kingdom of heaven. {#Heb 11:10,16}

Ver. 5. I have also heard the groaning.] He heareth "the young ravens that cry" {#Ps 147:9} unto him but by implication only, and with a hoarse voice unfit to move pity (whence also they have their name in the Hebrew— ברע). How much more his own covenanters!

Ver. 6. And I will bring you out.] A great deliverance; but nothing to that which Christ hath wrought for us from the tyranny of sin and terror of hell.

Ver. 7. And I will be to you a God.] This is the top of any man’s happiness, to have God for his God. What can such a man want? {#Ps 23:1} As he in Plutarch said of the Egyptians, that though they had no music nor vines among them, yet they had gods. {a}

{a} Plut., Συμπος.

Ver. 8. And I will bring you.]. {See Trapp on "Ex 5:4"}

Ver. 9. But they hearkened not.] The ear, which tastes words as the mouth doth meat, was so filled with choler, that they could relish no comfort. It is ill sowing in a storm, giving physic in a fever fit. The easiest medicines or waters are troublesome to sore eyes: so here. Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis.

Ver. 10. And the Lord.] Whose "soul was now grieved for the misery of Israel," as #Jud 10:16. {See Trapp on "Jud 10:16"}

Ver. 11. Go in, speak unto Pharaoh.] "Whether he will hear, or whether he will forbear." {#Eze 2:5} Speak when God bids us, though it may seem to little purpose: we have lost many a worse labour. The man of God "must be patient"—ανεξικακον, tolerant—"to all," yea, to "those that oppose," proving "if at any time God will give them repentance," &c. {#2Ti 2:25}

Ver. 13. And the Lord spake unto Moses.] Notwithstanding his former equivocation, and the people’s peevishness. Men’s wickedness cannot interrupt the course of God’s goodness.

Ver. 14. These be the heads.] This is a digression, to show the descent of Moses and Aaron. Digressions in divine discourses are not always and absolutely unlawful. God’s Spirit sometimes draws aside the doctrine, to satisfy some soul which the preacher knows not: and sparingly used, it quickeneth attention.

Ver. 15. The son of a Canaanitish woman, ] Whom it was not lawful for him to marry; but he was a headlong and headstrong, bold and fierce fellow; {#Ge 34:25 49:7} bound by Joseph {#Ge 42:24} as one that had been most forward to sell him to the Midianitish merchants. Simeon also is left out in Moses’s blessing. {#De 33}

Ver. 16. Of the sons of Levi.] Upon this family he insists, and therefore hastens to it. Speak ever to the purpose.

Ver. 20. Jochebed his father’s sister.] See #Ex 2:1.

Ver. 21. Korah.] That ringleader of rebels, #Nu 16:1. Moses and he were first cousins.

Ver. 23. Elisheba.] Or, Elizabeth, a prince’s sister. {#Nu 2:3} Our English Elizabeth was by a French duchess said to be the most glorious and most happy woman that ever swayed sceptre.

Ver. 24. And the sons of Korah.] There were of his sons, that died not, {#Nu 16:11} departing, as it seems, from their father’s tents, as all were counselled. {#Nu 16:24-26} Of them came Samuel the prophet, Heman the music master, and other the sons of Korah so oft mentioned in the titles of Psalms.

Ver. 25. These are the heads of the fathers of the Levites.] And particularly of Moses, concerning whose original, heathen writers, but especially Taeitus—whom therefore Tertullian calleth, mendsdorum loquacissimum, a loud and lewd liar—telleth many untruths. This "the Scripture foresaw," as #Ga 3:8.

Ver. 26, 27. These are that Aaron and Moses: And again, These are that Moses and Aaron.] That famous couple. This is better than "This is that Dathan," {#Nu 26:9} and "This is that Ahaz." {#2Ch 28:22} They are stigmatised with a mark of infamy: these are eternised for good, to all posterity.

Ver. 27. These are that Moses and Aaron.] Before it was Aaron and Moses. It made no matter which was first set: they had their several precellencies; but were so well agreed, that there was no striving for the pre-eminence. {See Trapp on "Ex 6:26"}

Ver. 29. That the Lord spake unto Moses.] Here, after the digression, as touching his own genealogy, Moses returns to the story left off at #Ex 6:13, as Rab. Solomon noteth.

Ver. 30. Of uncircumcised.] See #Ex 6:12".

Chapter 7

Ver. 1. And the Lord said unto Moses.] In answer to his last exception, which yet he had answered before. {#Ex 4:16} God bears with our infirmities.

A god to Pharaoh.] Armed with mine authority; a vice-god.

Shall be thy prophet, ] i.e., Thy spokesman, and interpreter. Aben-Ezra saith that Aaron, as he was Moses’s eldest brother, so he prophesied to the people before Moses showed himself; and hence he is sometimes set before Moses.

Ver. 2. Thou shalt speak.] God’s word must be spoken, however it be taken.

Ver. 3. And I will harden.] {See Trapp on "Ex 4:21"} The Dutch have a proverb, Quem Deus excaecaturus est, huic primum oculos claudit. When God will blind a man, he first closeth up his eyes.

Ver. 4. And Pharaoh shall not hearken.] This judgment God layeth upon many of our hearers at this day of whom, after much painstaking, we may well complain, as the herdsman did in the poet:—

“Heu mihi! quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in arvo.”

Ver. 5. And the Egyptians shall know.] To their cost, when the Lord’s hand, that is lifted up in threatening, shall fall down in punishing. "Lord," saith the prophet, "when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see, but they shall see," &c. {#Isa 26:11} God will unseal their heavy eyes with scorching plagues, and rouse them with horror enough.

Ver. 6. Did as the Lord commanded them.] Mallem obedire, quam miracula facere, saith Luther. Their obedience yielded them more comfort than their working of wonders.

Ver. 7. Fourscore years old.] And so might say to his countrymen and others, as old Augustus did to his mutinous soldiers, Audite senem iuvenes, quem iuvenem senes audierunt.

Ver. 9. Show a miracle for you.] A persuading wonder, an admirable work, above the power of nature, as being a kind of creation, and such as requires omnipotency. But Pharaoh’s heart was such a nether millstone, as neither miracle, nor ministry, nor misery, nor mercy could possibly mollify. At the burning of Bainham the martyr, when his arms and legs were half consumed, he cried out to the bystanders and said, O ye Papists, behold you look for miracles! here now you may see a miracle: for in this fire I feel no more pain than if I were in a bed of down, or of roses. {a} Thus he: sed surdis fabulam.

{a} Act. and Mon., fol. 940.

Ver. 10. And it became a serpent.] Or a dragon, in token of desolation, if they disobeyed; and that their country should become a den of dragons. {#Isa 13:22}

Ver. 11. The wise men and the sorcerers.] Magic is either pure and natural, or impure and diabolical, which implieth a compact with the devil; either overt or covert. The chief of these jugglers here were Jannes and Jambres, {#2Ti 3:8} whose names are also mentioned in the Talmud; Tract. de Oblat., cap. 9. Numenius also, the Pythagorean philosopher, speaketh of them.

Ver. 12. And they became serpents.] Not really such, but in appearance only. The devil’s miracles are mere impostures, phantasms, delusions. And this was the first plague that God inflicted upon Pharaoh.

Swallowed up their rods.] That is, their dragons. So hath Christ, who is life essential, swallowed up death in victory. {#1Co 15:55}

Ver. 13. And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart.] Not by bare prescience, or permission only, but by withdrawing his grace, directing the tyrant’s actions to his own glory, irritating his corruptions by oracles and miracles, and delivering him up to Satan to be further hardened.

Ver. 14. Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.] Heb., Heavy; clogged with corruption, and held down by the devil: as, on the contrary, Jehoshaphat’s "heart was light, and lifted up in the ways of the Lord." {#2Ch 17:6} So were Dr Taylor’s and George Roper’s, the martyrs: the former fetched a frisk, the latter a great leap, when they came to the stake. {a}

{a} Ibid., fol. 1386, 1629.

Ver. 15. In the morning.] It was in the night then that God appeared to Moses. But afterwards "mouth to mouth," "apparently," by special privilege, {#Nu 12:6,8 Ex 33:11} "as a man speaketh with his friend."

Ver. 16. Hitherto thou wouldest not hear.] Indeed, he could not hear; as little as those Jews could believe Christ’s miracles, #Joh 12:37. "Therefore they could not believe," saith the text, "because that Isaiah had said, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts," &c.

Ver. 17. In this thou shalt know, ] q.d., I shall really answer thee to that stomachful question of thine. {#Ex 5:2} {See Trapp on "Ex 5:2"}

Ver. 18. Shall loathe to drink of the river.] Nile. God will confute them in their confidences. The Egyptians used to brag of their river, and in mockery to tell the Grecians that if God should forget to rain, they might chance to perish for it. The rain, they thought, was of God, but not the river. He therefore threateneth to dry it up, and here to bereave them of all comfortable use of it. {#Eze 29:3,9 Isa 19:5,6}

Ver. 19, Upon their ponds.] Fish ponds are in Hebrew called Berechoth, Blessings. But how soon can God "curse our blessings," {#Mal 2:2} and destroy us, "after that he hath done us good!" {#Jos 24:20}

Ver. 20. Were turned into blood.] To show them, as in a mirror, their blood guiltiness. These bloody and deceitful men had "blood to drink, for they were worthy." {#Re 16:6} {See Trapp on "Re 16:6"}

Ver. 21. And the fish.] That was their common food. {#Nu 11:5} The flesh of many beasts, they, through superstition, would not eat of, as one well noteth from #Ex 8:26.

Ver. 22. Did so with their enchantments.] With their secret sleights and jugglings, they seemed to do so. See #Ex 7:12, for Pharaoh’s hardening.

Ver. 23. Neither did he set his heart.] But to his "iron sinews" he added "brows of brass." {#Isa 48:4} To his natural and hereditary hardness, adventitious and habitual.

Ver. 24. Digged round about.] If by drawing the waters they might purify them. But "they looked not to the Maker thereof"; they "returned not to him that smote them." {#Isa 22:11,9:13}

Ver. 25. And seven days were fulfilled.] So long the plague continued; that they might be sensible of it; and not do as the dog, who getting out of the water, shakes his ears, and there is an end. Surely if these Egyptians had believed the prediction of this plague, they would have done as Pliny saith camels do— Implentur cameli, cum bibendi est occasio et in praeteritum et in futurum. They would have drunk for hereafter also. {a}

{a} Plin., lib. viii. cap. 18.

Chapter 8

Ver. 1. That they may serve me.] Eventus platarum est alius per accidens, ut simulata emendatio Pharaonis; alius per se, ut dimissio populi. {a}

{a} Alsted.

Ver. 2. Behold, I will smite.] God usually, not always, warns before he wounds. Ideoque minatur, ut non puniat; and therefore threateneth, that he may not punish his creature.

Ver. 3. And the river shall bring forth frogs.] Instead of fishes. Thus the first and this second plague are about the water; the third and fourth about the earth; the five next about the air; and the last about man.

Ver. 4. And the frogs shall come up.] Neither walls nor weapons could keep off the frogs from Pharaoh and his people. As neither could Hatto, archbishop of Mentz, be possibly rid of that army of mice that God sent out against him for his cruelty to some of his poor subjects till they had devoured him. {a}

{a} A muribus in Rheno confectus periit (anno 923).

Ver. 5. And the Lord spake unto Moses.] By secret inspiration; for it was in Pharaoh’s presence.

Ver. 6. And the frogs came up.] With their hateful hearing of "Brekekekex coax, coax." {a}

{a} Aristoph., in Ranis.

Ver. 7. And the magicians did so.] {See Trapp on "Ex 7:22"}

Ver. 8. Intreat the Lord.] In extremity a hypocrite will cry for help, as a pig under the knife, as a prisoner at the bar, as a drowning man will catch at that twig which erst standing on the bank he despised. Joab in distress runs to the horns of the altar. "Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured forth a charm when thy chastening was upon them," saith the prophet of those hypocrites that yet "brought forth" no better than "wind." {#Isa 26:16,18} But "will the hypocrite pray always?." {#Job 27:10} "Did they at all fast unto me, even to me?." {#Zec 7:5}

I will let the people.] For the present, it may be, he purposed so to do. Good thoughts make but a thoroughfare of carnal hearts: they cannot settle there. "Thy goodness is as the morning dew," &c. {#Ho 6:4}

Ver. 9. Glory over me.] Or, Jeer me, andreject me, as thou hast done heretofore: but when thou hast so done, thou must be beholden to me for my prayers, or thou art like to lie under the plague, for aught that thy wizards can do to relieve and release thee.

In the river only.] For a memento, that thou flinch not, nor forget thy promise. Quo teneam vultus, &c. {a}

{a} Horat.

Ver. 10. To morrow.] Cras vat corvina. "Today, if ye will hear his voice." Now is the day of grace, &c.; procrastination is perilous. Hannibal, when he could have taken Rome, would not: when he would, could not. So, εις αυριον τα σπουδαια, said that fool. Let serious matters alone till tomorrow; but he was slain that night. {a}

“ Nemo tam divos habuit faventes,

Crastinum ut possit sibi policeri.”

{a} Plutarch.

Ver. 11. In the river only.] {See Trapp on "Ex 8:9"}

Ver. 12. And Moses cried unto the Lord.] Not for Pharaoh’s conversion; for he knew he was past cure; but for his deliverance from the present plague, that the power of God might be the more manifested, and the tyrant’s conscience the more convinced.

Ver. 13. According to the word.] Iste vir potuit apud Deum quod voluit. Moses might do what he would with God, as one said of Luther.

Ver. 14. And the land stank.] As once this land also did by those unclean frogs that came out of the Pope’s mouth. {#Re 16:3} But England is now no more a babe, said King Henry VIII, in his protestation against the Pope: {a} there is no man here but now he knows that they do foolishly that give gold for lead, &c. Surely, except God take away our right wits, not only the Pope’s authority shall be driven out for ever, but his name also shall shortly be forgotten in England, &c. Thus he, and much more to like purpose. God hath promised to take away the unclean spirit out of the land. {#Zec 13:2} Fiat, fiat. Surely the society of ungodly men, whether Papists or atheists, is unsavoury and tedious, like the slime and filth that is congealed, when frogs and toads and other vermin join together.

{a} Act. and Mon., fol. 990.

Ver. 15. But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite.] Heb., A breathing, or respiration. So fulfilling that of the prophet Isaiah, #Isa 26:10. In like sort William Rufus, being dangerously sick at Gloucester, in the sixth year of his reign, vowed, upon his recovery, to see all vacancies in the Church furnished: which he did, but with so much ado, as showed, that having escaped the danger, he would gladly have deceived the saint; {a} like the man in Erasmus’s Naufragium, who in a storm promised the Virgin a picture of wax as big as St Christotpher: but when he came to shore would not give a tallow candle! Thus, in the sweating sickness ministers were sent for, and large promises made of amendment: but no sooner were they recovered, but they returned to their old courses, as Mr Bradford complaineth: whence Pliny, in one of his epistles to one who desired rules from him how to order his life aright, I will, saith he, give you one rule, that shall be instead of a thousand, Ut tales esse perseveremus sani, quales nos futuros esse profitemur infirmi: That we go on to be such when well, as we promised to be when sick. Men roar when upon the rack: but once got off, they think they may do as they wish.

{a} Daniel’s Hist, fol. 58. Sciaputo il morbo, fraudato il santo.

Ver. 16. Stretch out thy rod.] Here is no warning given; which shows great wrath. Impenitency makes God "weary of repenting." {#Jer 15:6} Absolute in his threatenings, if any; resolute in his executions, as #De 29:19,20.

Ver. 17. All the dust of the land became lice.] Or, gnats. Quid cniphe villus? saith Philo; what so base and vile a creature as a louse, a gnat? And yet by this poor vermin God so plagued all Egypt, that fainting under it, they were forced to cry out, "This is the very finger of God." Ciniphes sunt muscae minutisslmae, aculeis permolestae, saith Rupert. Others say, that here are meant pediculi inguinales, crab lice; Honos set auribus.

Ver. 18. But they could not.] Though they endeavoured it, as did the juggler of Antwerp, who, being required by the English merchants there to play his feats and show his cunning, after much sweating and toil, when he saw that nothing could go forward, but that all his enchantments were void, was compelled openly to confess that there was some man there at supper which disturbed and hindered all his doings. This was Mr Tindal the martyr, who, hearing of this juggler, had desired certain of the merchants that he might be present to see him play, {a} &c.

{a} Act. and Mon., fol. 985.

Ver. 19. This is the finger of God.] An act of omnipotency, as #Lu 11:20 Ps 8:3. "The heavens are the work of God’s fingers." Deus disponit membra pulicis et culicis, saith Augustine.

And he hearkened not to them.] Neither to Moses, nor to his own magicians, being akin to the catadupes that dwell at the fall of his river Nile, and are deaf.

Ver. 20. Rise up early in the morning.] Sanctificat, sanat, ditat quoque surgere mane. Early rising is good for health, wealth, and godliness. David "prevented the dawning of the morning," &c. {#Ps 119:147} Christ "rose up a great while before day." {#Mr 1:35} {See Trapp on "Mr 1:35"}

Ver. 21. Shall be full of swarms of flies.] Of all the ten plagues this was the most troublesome; for that they never suffered men to rest: so worldly cares; nocte ac die non dabunt requiem, as those tyrants in #Jer 16.

Ver. 22. And I will sever.] Heb., Marvellously separate, by setting upon them my signum salutare. {#Eze 9:4} So that the worst that are "shall return and discern betwixt the righteous and the wicked." {#Mal 3:18} See #Ex 33:16.

In the midst of the earth.] Not in heaven only, whereunto Aristotle and other atheists would confine his providence. {a} Lysippus made Alexander’s picture with this poesy:—

“ Iupiter asserui terram mihi, tu assere coelum.”

{a} Docuit Aristoteles Providentiam Dei ad coelum Lunae usque protendi, non ultra.

Ver. 23. And I will put a division.] Heb., A redemption; so #Lu 1:68. Aristotle reporteth that, when from the hill Etna there ran down a torrent of fire that consumed all the houses thereabouts, in the midst of those fearful flames the river of fire parted itself, and made a kind of lane for those who ventured to rescue their aged parents. This extorted from him an acknowledgment of God’s good providence for the godly here on earth. {a}

{a} Ενθα το των ευσεβων μενος εξοχως ετιμησε το δαιμονιον. Arist., De Mundo., cap. 6.

Ver. 24. A grievous swarm of flies, ] i.e., Numerous and pernicious; yet not so bad as those many noisome thoughts that swarm daily in men’s hearts. There is that Leviathan; there are also creeping things innumerable. And these many times mar and corrupt our prayers, so as that they stink in the nostrils of God.

Ver. 25. Sacrifice to your God in the land.] Persecutors, when they cannot conquer, would compound.

Ver. 26. Will they not stone us?] Superstition is cruel; witness the Popish Inquisition to Lithgow, who, in ten hours, received seventy various torments. And the massacre of Paris, wherein they poisoned the Queen of Navarre, murdered the most part of the peerless nobility in France, their wives and children, with a great sort of the common people, a hundred thousand in one year in various parts of the realm; some say three hundred thousand! The bloody and barbarous persecutions of the religious abroad in Bohemia, the Valtoline, Piedmont, and Netherlands; the Marian dog-days here at home; are better known than I need to mention them.

Ver. 27. As he shall command us.] Manner as well as matter, circumstance as well as substance, to be heeded in God’s service; else there may be malum opus in bona materia, as one saith, -an evil work in a good matter.

Ver. 28. Only ye shall not go very far.] So loath was he to lose his hold. So is the devil. {a} The Pope made large offers to Queen Elizabeth, as also to our king, when in Spain.

Intreat for me.] So Simon Magus, in a fright, begs Peter’s prayers. So Maximinus, the persecuting emperor, sent to the Church for prayers, when God had laid upon him a grievous disease. So #Ezr 6:10, "Pray for the king’s life, and for his sons."

{a} Euseb.

Ver. 29. Deal deceitfully any more.] Some are so slippery, there is no believing of them. Egesippus saith of Pilate, that he was vir nequam, et parvifaciens mendacium, a naughty man, and one that made no conscience of a lie. No more did Pharaoh.

Ver. 30. Intreated the Lord.] {See Trapp on "Ex 8:12"}

Ver. 31. There remained not one.] Prayer makes clean work; it can do wonders in heaven and earth. Say thou with David, "Cleanse thou me from secret faults," {#Ps 19:12} those that are of daily and hourly incursion. Prayer will scour the coast, clear the conscience of dead works. {#Ac 8:22}

Ver. 32. And Pharaoh hardened.] All blows and pressures were so far from mollifying him, that he hardened and emmarbled more and more.

Chapter 9

Ver. 1. Let my people go.] The very same message to a word, as before often. Austin persuades God’s messengers so long to insist upon the same point, beating and repeating of it in the same words, till they perceive by the gesture and countenance of the hearers that they understand and embrace it. {a} Chrysostom at Antioch preached many sermons against swearing; and told the people, that seemed to be weary of that subject, that till they stopped their swearing, he would never stop preaching against that sin; ου μονον ταυτα αλλα και περι ταυτων, said Socrates.

{a} De Doctrina Christiana.

Ver. 2. And wilt hold them still.] Being wedded to thy will, which will prove thy hell. {a}

{a} Voluntas tua infernus tuus. -Bern.

Ver. 3. Is upon thy cattle.] Both those ad esum and those ad usum. Men sin, these suffer, and therefore groan. {#Ro 8:22}

Ver. 4. And there shall nothing die.] It is fair weather oft with the saints when it is foulest with the wicked. God hideth his in the hollow of his hand, {#Ps 91} till the indignation be overpast. {#Isa 26:20} He gives the like charge of them as David did of Absalom. {#2Sa 18:5}

Ver. 6. And all the cattle.] That is, A great sort of them, not all. {a} {#Ex 9:19,25} And this was the fifth of those ten plagues, a number of perfection; to note that God therein did most perfectly administer and execute his judgments.

{a} Non universaliter, sed communiter.

Ver. 7. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.] Like a smith’s anvil, he grew harder for hammering. There was little need to say to Pharaoh, as the smith did to the Landgrave of Thuring, Durescite, durescite, O in felix Lantgravi. {a} He hardened fast enough.

{a} Pet. Nicol. Gelstronp.

Ver. 8. Sprinkle it toward the heaven.] In token that this plague should, in a special manner, be inflicted from heaven. The Philistines, by their golden emerods, acknowledged that the emerods in their flesh were from God. Hippocrates called the pestilence το θειον, the divine disease, as we call the spots thereof God’s marks. The falling sickness was anciently called morbus sacer as an immediate hand of God. And what can we conceive less of the sweating sickness, with which no stranger in England was touched? And yet the English were chased therewith, not only in England, but in other countries abroad; which made them, like tyrants, both feared and avoided wherever they came. {a}

{a} Life of King Edward VI, by Sir John Heywood, p. 127.

Ver. 9. A boil breaking forth.] This Moses threateneth to all disobedient persons {#De 28:27} Job’s boils were rather probational than penal. So were Munster’s ulcers (medicinal they were, howsoever), which he showed to his friend, and said, Hae sunt gemmae et pretiosa ornamenta Dei, quibus Deus amicos suos ornat, ut eos ad se attrahat. These be those gems and jewels wherewith God adorneth his best friends, that he may bring them nearer to himself. {a}

{a} Manlii, loc. com, p. 127.

Ver. 10. And they took ashes of the furnace.] Whereby, being cast up towards heaven, was sent up, as it were, a complaint to God against the oppression of the Israelites in the furnace of the brick kilns, -see #De 4:20, -which came down with a vengeance upon man and beast.

Ver. 11. For the boil was upon the magicians.] Who were convicted, but not converted. {#Ex 8:19} They stood still to withstand Moses: as Balaam, against the light of his own conscience, was resolved to curse, howsoever; and therefore went not aside as at other times to speak with God, but set his face toward the wilderness; like a headstrong horse that gets the bit in his teeth, and runs away with his rider.

Ver. 12. And the Lord hardened.] See #Ex 9:7 4:21, &c.

Ver. 13. Let my people go.] See #Ex 9:1.

Ver. 14. All my plagues upon thine heart.] Heart plagues are the worst plagues of all. A hard heart is in some respects worse than hell: since one of the greatest sins is greater in evil, than any of the greatest punishments.

Ver. 15. For now I will stretch out.] His former preservation was but a reservation: and he hath hitherto escaped with his life; not for any love that God bare to him, but "to show his power on him." Wicked men may have common mercies and deliverances, but "the Lord Ioveth the righteous." {#Ps 146:8}

Ver. 16. Have I raised thee up.] Heb., I have constituted and set thee up as a butt mark: that I may let fly at thee and follow thee close with plague upon plague, till I’have beaten the very breath out of thy body. See #Pr 16:4 Ro 9:17.

Ver. 17. As yet exaltest thou thgself?] q.d., No amendment yet? A sore sign of a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. It is ill with the body when physic will either not enter or not stay with us.

Ver. 18. Such as hath not been in Egypt.] Dio maketh mention of a shower of blood and of water, that fell in Egypt a little before it was subjected by Augustus, in quae loca ne stilla quidem aquae ante ceciderat, saith he; where never any drop of water, much less of blood, ever fell before. {a}

{a} Dio, in Aug.

Ver. 19. Send therefore now.] Here "(mercy rejoiceth against judgment," {#Jas 2:13} if by any means he might be wrought upon. Sed Rhinoceros interimi potest, capi non potest. It was past time of day to do Pharaoh good.

Ver. 20. He that feared the word of the Lord.] As few will do till they feel his hand. But they that tremble not in hearing shall be crushed to pieces in feeling, said that martyr. {a}

{a} Bradford.

Ver. 21. And he that regarded not.] This was, doubtless, the greater number; Qualis Rex, talis grex. This was a just presage and desert of ruin, not to be warned.

Ver. 22. Stretch forth thine hand, ] i.e., Thy rod in thine hand. {#Ex 9:23}

Ver. 23. And the fire ran along upon the ground.] Such "hailstones and coals of fire" we also read of in #Ps 18:13-15 Isa 30:30,31; and in the Roman history, when Marcus Antonius the philosopher fought with the Quades, and by the prayers of the thundering legion—κεραυνοβολος, as they were afterwards called—of the Christians, rain was obtained to the refreshing of the Roman army, ingens grando compluraque fulmina in hostes ceciderunt: Itaque licebat videre in eodem loco aquam ignemque simul de coelo cadere, atque ob eam causam, Romanos valere ac bibere. Quados exuri et penitus interire. i.e., A huge hail and many lightening bolts fell upon the enemy; fire and water fell at once from heaven; the Romans drank of the water and were relieved; the Quades were burnt by the fire, and perished. {a}

{a} Dio, in Vita M. Ant. Phil.

Ver. 24e. So there was hail, and fire mingled.] A strange mixture; a miracle within a miracle, saith Rub. Solomon. Fire and water made a peace betwixt themselves, that they might obey the will of their Creator.

Ver. 25. And break every tree of the fleld.] Here was strages et clades horrenda; yet Pharaoh’s heart is not broken, but remains obdurate. Perdidistis fructum afflictionis, was a heavy charge. {a} Ducklings stoop and dive at any little stone thrown by a man at them; yet shrink not at the heaven’s great thunder.

{a} August.

Ver. 26. Only in the land of Goshen.] {See Trapp on "Ex 8:23"} Dio reports further of the fire forementioned, {#Ex 8:23} that that fire from heaven either fell not at all upon the Romans; or, if it did, it was presently quenched: neither did the waters help the Quades, but inflamed them, as if it had been oil, so that they called for water to cool them, when the rain fell upon them; and wounded their own bodies to quench the fire with their blood. {a}

{a} Dio, ubi supra.

Ver. 27. The Lord is righteous.] {See Trapp on "Ex 5:2"}

Ver. 28. I will let you go.] But though he speak thus fair, believe him not: "for there are seven abominations in his heart." {#Pr 26:25} No sooner was Pharaoh off the rack, but he bites in his confession, and retracts his promise.

Ver. 29. I will spread abroad my hands, ] viz., In prayer; holding up and out the palms of the hand, as those do that expect to receive an alms, in a having manner: so did Solomon, #2Ch 6:13 Ps 143:6 Ezr 9:5.

That the earth is the Lord’s.] {See Trapp on "Ex 9:14"}

Ver. 30. That ye will not yet fear.] Howbeit I will pray for you, and you shall feel the fruit of it. Thus God is good to "the just and the unjust." {#Mt 5:45}

Ver. 31, 32. And the flax and the barley.] We need not wonder that in Egypt their barley harvest was so long before their wheat harvest; since, from the overflow of the Nile, and the difference of the climate, it must, needs be otherwise with them than with other countries.

Ver. 32. {See Trapp on "Ex 9:31"}

Ver. 33. Went out of the city.] For privacy sake.

Spread abroad his hands.] {See Trapp on "Ex 9:29"}

Ver. 34. But sinned yet more.] As iron is very soft and malleable while in the fire, but soon after returns to its former hardness: so here.

Ver. 35. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.] Judicially; and penally, after that he had first hardened his own heart. {#Ex 9:34}

Chapter 10

Ver. 1. For I have hardened his heart.] As he that brings in a light blinds an owl; or as he that pours on water kindles the lime whereupon it is poured: so the Lord by publishing his commands, and by doing his miracles, hardened the heart of Pharaoh; who, for his wilful rebellion, was justly forsaken of God, and delivered up to his own heart which is somewhat worse than to be delivered up to the devil.

Ver. 2. And that thou mayest tell.] The memory of God’s magnalia, his great works, must be transmitted to posterity—

“ Ut nati natorum et qui nascentur ab illis, ”

that later ages may hear and fear this great God. See #1Sa 4:8.

Ver 3. How long wilt thou refuse?] God thinks long of the time that men misspend and waste in wicked courses. {#Jer 4:14,13:27} It is a savoury saying of Bernard, Totum vitae meae tempus perdidi, quia perdite vixi: the time of my looseness I have utterly lost.

Ver. 4. Else, if thou refuse.] Men should look up with David, and see the punishing angel over their heads with a drawn sword, and submit. And if not, Balaam’s ass shall condemn them for their desperate lewdness: for he fell down before the angel.

I will bring the locusts.] God hath treasuries of plagues for the obstinate; neither can he be, as the poet feared of his Jupiter, {a} possibly exhausted.

{a} Si quoties peccent homines, & c.

Ver. 5. And they shall cover.] For "they go forth by heaps," {#Pr 30:27} and huge multitudes. {#Jud 6:5}

And shall eat every tree.] See #Joe 1:7, Plin., lib. xi. cap.

29.

Ver. 6. And he turned himself.] No man may turn himself to go out of the great Turk’s presence, but must go backward till he be out of the room. {a} Dissension falling out between Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex about a fit man for the government of Ireland, he uncivilly turned his back, as it were in contempt with a scornful look: she, waxing impatient, gave him a cuff on the ear, bidding him come again when she sent for him, {b} &c. But Moses may not be imagined to have so turned himself.

{a} Turk. Hist.

{b} Camden’s Elis., fol. 494.

Ver. 7. And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him.] They were convinced and mollified, though he was not. "Whom he will God hardeneth." {#Ro 9:18}

How long shall this man be a snare unto us?] He was not the "snare," but their own sin. {#Pr 29:6} Howbeit he must bear the blame. As if some fond people should accuse the herald or the trumpet as the cause of their war: or, as if some ignorant peasant, when he sees his fowls bathing in his pond, should cry out of them as the causes of foul weather.

Ver. 8. And Moses and Aaron were brought, &c.] Something the tyrant would seem to yield to his counsellors, and not to deal by them as the Persian monarchs, who were wont to advise with their peers: but if any of them delivered that which was contrary to the king’s mind, flagris caedebantur; they were whipped: which is a punishment also usually inflicted at this day by the great Turk, even upon the greatest Bashaws of the court, upon the least displeasure. {a}

{a} Keckerman. Turk. Hist.

Ver. 9. For we must hold a feast.] {See Trapp on "Ex 5:1"}

Ver. 10. Let the Lord be so with you.] In cursing them, he unwittingly blessed them. {#Ex 12:30,31 13:21,22} Cursing men are cursed men. But God’s people fare the better for being cursed. "Let them curse, but do thou bless," {#Ps 109:28} is not more a prayer than a prophecy.

Ver. 11. Not so, ] q.d., I will watch you for that what should children do sacrificing? Them I will retain, as pledges of your return.

Ver. 12. Even all that the hail hath left.] How easily can God straiten, yea, starve us all, if he but send forth his foraging armies! {#Joe 1:6}

Ver. 13. An east wind.] The proper and ordinary office whereof is to purge the air.

Ver. 14. And the locusts went up.] As a formidable army. See a graphical description of a like plague threatened in #Joe 2:4-11.

Ver. 15. So that the land was darkened.] So many of them flying together, as a cloud. The like was seen in Poland and Silesia in 1575 and 1542. {a}

{a} Bucholc., Chronol.

Ver. 16. I have sinned against the Lord.] A fair confession, but forced and extorted. Thus the toad, if beaten on the belly, will vomit up his venom, and the malefactor on the rack will utter all. But as water heated, if taken off the fire will soon return to its natural coldness, yea, become colder after heating than before; {a} so hypocrites’ heats are not kindly, from the Spirit, but violent, from the outward fire of God’s judgments: therefore when that is out, these are gone.

{a} Aristot., Meteor., i. 12.

Ver. 17. Now therefore forgive.] Moses must forgive his sin: God is not in all his thoughts. David cries, Peccavi; Pharaoh, Perii: David, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned"; Pharaoh cries to Moses to pardon his sin. Man may forgive the trespass, but God only the transgression.

Ver. 18. And he went out.] The wisdom from above is "gentle, easy to be intreated," ready to every good work. {#Jas 3:17} The devils are called Shegnirim, rough and rugged.

Ver. 19. A mighty strong west wind.] Rupertus calls the winds mundi scopas, the besoms wherewith God sweeps his great house of this world. Like as his spiritual house—the hearts of his people—he sweeps off all foul lusts, those hellish locusts, with that rushing mighty wind spoken of in #Ac 2:2.

Ver. 20. But the Lord hardened.] {See Trapp on "Ex 10:1"}

Ver. 21. Stretch out thine hand.] Here was no warning. See #Ex 8:16. As good, the more unexpected, is the more welcome; so evil, the more sudden, the more terrible.

Ver. 22. Thick darkness.] It was thick indeed, that might be felt: {a} so thick and foggy were the vapours that caused it.

{a} ψηλαφητον ακοτος.—Sept.

Ver. 23. They saw not one another.] That they might know the worth of light, by the want of it. One being asked whether light was pleasant, answered, τυφλου το ερωτμηα, That is a blind man’s question. Little do we prize this excellent creature.

Ver. 24. Called unto Moses, ] viz., When the darkness was over: though some think that, even during the darkness, Pharaoh—such was his madhess—raged against God, and menaced Moses.

Ver. 25. Thou must give us also sacrifices.] God gave Noah of every clean beast seven, for sacrifice likely, but of every unclean two only. {#Ge 7:2}

Ver. 26. Not a hoof.] God’s law must be kept as the apple of our eye. {#Pr 7:2} A dispensatory conscience is an evil conscience. Repentance makes clean work: as the flood drowned all, even Noah’s friends also.

Ver. 28. Get thee from me.] Evermore when God’s messengers are abandoned, destruction is at next door by. "I know that the Lord hath a purpose to destroy thee." {#2Ch 25:16 36:16}

Ver. 29. Thou hast spoken well, ] q.d., When I see thee next, do thy pleasure by me. {a} This was an act of faith in him, whereby he "feared not the wrath of the king." {#Heb 11:27} So when Valens, the Arian Emperor, threatened Basil with bonds and banishment, Pueris illa terriculamenta proponat, said he; Let him threaten boys with those tortures. The emperor may take away my life, but not my faith; my head, but not my crown.

{a} εζθε γενοιτο μοι τουτο.

Chapter 11

Ver. 1. One plague more upon Pharaoh.] Who, after the hardness of his impenitent heart, treasured up to himself wrath. {#Ro 2:5} God strikes still "upon the thick bosses of his buckler." {#Job 15:26} When men are no whit better by afflictions, and worse with admonitions, God finds it time to strike home.

Ver. 2. Borrow of his neighbour.] This was an extraordinary command, and may not be made a precedent but in the same case, and upon the same warrant. The Lawgiver only can dispense with his own law. Ordinarily it is "the wicked" that "borroweth, and payeth not again." {#Ps 37:21}

Ver. 3. Was very great in the land of Egypt.] Great he was both in gifts and authority; so that for his sake the Israelites might have what they would of the Egyptians. It was not here as once at Rome, Calamitas nostra Magnus est. Sic Mimus olim de Pompeio, plaudente populo Romano tam eleganti soloecismo.

Ver. 4. And Moses said, .] sc., Before he went out of Pharaoh’s presence: for afterwards he saw his face no more. {#Ex 10:29}

Ver. 5. That sitteth upon his throne.] As co-partner in the kingdom. Our Henry II crowned his eldest son Henry while he was yet alive. But this young king, through discontent, fell into a fever, whereof he died before his father; who cast him away first by his indulgence, and after by his rigour, not suffering him to be what himself had made him. Mr Knox, in his "History of Scotland," reporteth of one Sir John Hamilton, murdered by the king’s means, that he appeared to him in a vision with a naked sword drawn, and struck off both his arms with these words, Take this before thou receive a final payment for all thine impieties; and within twenty-four hours two of the king’s sons died.

That is behind the mill.] The hand mill which they drove before them. {#Jud 16:21 Isa 47:2 Mt 24:41}

Ver. 6. A great cry.] Because in every house there shall be a dead corpse, and so a Conclamatum est. They had made Israel cry: and God usually retaliates spoil to spoil, {#Eze 39:10} number to number, {#Isa 65:11,12} choice to choice, {#Isa 66:3,4} cry to cry, {#Jas 5:1,4} &c.

Ver. 7. Shall not a dog move his tongue.] And yet how many dead dogs do now-a-days bark and snarl {a} at the Israel of God! Which, nevertheless, is not without God, {#2Sa 16:9,10} who will one day make iniquity to stop her mouth, {#Job 5:16} Why should this dead dog curse? said Abishai.

{a} Canina facundia.

Ver. 8. In a great anger.] Heb., In heat of anger; wherewith in the cause of God he was blessedly blown up. Meekness here had been but mopishness.

Ver. 9. That my wonders.] {See Trapp on "Ro 9:17"]

Ver. 10. Did all these wonders.] But all was worse than spilt upon him: he was even set in sin, and resolved never to remove. God had a hand in it.

Chapter 12

Ver. 1. And the Lord spake] Befeore the slaughter of the firstborn, yea, before that plague was threatened. See Mr Torshel’s design for harmonising the Bible.

Ver. 2. This month.] Called Abib in #Ex 13:4; with us called March or April; when the day lengthening, and the sun ascending, each thing begins to revive. To show, saith one, that by the true Passover, Christ Jesus, not only is our time and all other things sanctified, but also that we should in recent remembrance of that benefit of our redemption, all our days and years be thankful to our gracious Redeemer, and that by his death, true life and reviving came unto mankind.

It shall be the first month, ] viz., In respect of sacred, not civil affairs, as Junius here proveth out of Josephus. {a} The jubilees began in September. {#Le 25:8 Ex 23:16} The creation of the world began then, as some will have it: but Luther and others think it was in the spring rather.

{a} Antiq., lib. i. cap. 4.

Ver. 3. In the tenth day.] The paschal lamb was taken up the tenth day, but not sacrificed till the fourteenth, that they might "so kill the passover" as first to "sanctify themselves and prepare their brethren." {#2Ch 35:6} For which cause also it was a received tradition among the Jews, that during those four days the lamb was tied to their bedposts. {a}

{a} Hospin., De Orig. Fest., cap. 5.

Ver. 4. Shall make your count, ] sc., Of communicants; that the whole may be eaten up, and every one have enough. Spiritual blessing may be divided in solidum: one may have as much as another, and all alike. The Gentiles also are called to fruition and feeding on the Lamb.

Ver. 5. Without blemish.] Christ, that immaculate Lamb of God, was hereby typified, {#1Pe 1:19} {See Trapp on "1Pe 1:19"}

From the sheep, or from the goats.] A lamb; to show Christ’s innocency, meekness, patience, profitableness. Or a kid; to show that he was a sinner; (1.) By imputation, for "the Lord made our sins to meet upon him"; {#Isa 53:6} (2.) By reputation, for "he made his grave with the wicked." {#Isa 53:9}

Ver. 6. Until the fourteenth day.] {See Trapp on "Ex 12:3"}

In the evening.] Christ came in the evening of the world; {#Heb 1:2} in "the last hour" (εσχατη ωρα, #1Jo 2:11); when all lay buried in darkness; in the eventide of our sin and death.

Ver. 7. And strike it on the two sideposts.] Not on the threshold. We may not "tread under foot the Son of God, or count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing," {#Heb 10:29} but get "our hearts sprinkled" tberewith by the hyssop branch of faith "from an evil conscience, that we may serve the living God." {#Heb 9:14}

Ver. 8. In that night.] By candle light. So must we feed upon Christ, lumine supernaturali. "By his knowledge doth God’s righteous servant justify many." {#Isa 53:11}

Roast withfire.] Not raw: we may not grossly conceive of Christ, nor rashly receive him. Not boiled, but roast: to show that Christ was roasted in the fire of his Father’s wrath: et sicut tostis cibariis non adhibentur alia, ut in elixis fieri consuevlt: ira solum Christum debemus apprehendere fide, saith an interpreter. {a}

And unleavened bread, ]{ See Trapp on "1Co 5:7"} {See Trapp on "1Co 5:8"}

And with bitter herbs.] To teach that, "looking upon Christ whom they have pierced," men must be "in bitterness," {#Zec 12:10} and feel what "an evil and bitter thing sin is," {#Jer 2:19} being ready to suffer hardship with Christ, though he should feed us to the full with bitter herbs, and "make us drunken with wormwood." {#La 3:15}

{a} Alsted.

lVer. 9. His head with his legs.] To let us see our need of whole Christ, and our most perfect communion with him.

Ver. 10. And ye shall let nothing of it remain.] We may not presume to sin in hope of pardon. Christ will not stand us for a sinning stock.

Ver. 11. With your loins girded.] As pressed and intent to the service. So we should be at all times, but especially when to depart out of the Egypt of this life, and to take heaven by force. Then, if ever, we should hoc agere, " gird up the loins of our minds," &c. {#1Pe 1:13}

And ye shall eat it in haste.] As not doubting of deliverance, and waiting a call out of life.

It is the Lord’s Passover.] A sacramental expression, like that of our Saviour, "This is my body". {#Mt 26:26} {See Trapp on "Mt 26:26"} The sacraments of the Old Testament were both sacraments and types: but those of the New, are sacraments only.

Ver. 12. And I will smite all the firstborn.] This crosseth not that in #Eze 18:20, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of his father"; for God never punisheth the innocent, because all are guilty before him. These Egyptians had slain Israel, God’s firstborn. And it is the observation of Theodoret, that when God smote Pharaoh’s firstborn, he drew blood of the arm for the cure of the head: which, because it mended not thereupon, came also to confusion.

And against all the gods of Egypt.] As he did here upon the Popish idols in the beginning of the Reformation, by detecting their vanity, and laying their honour in the dust.

Ver. 13. I will pass over you.] Or, overlook you. So he dealeth oft by his, who should therefore keep a passover for our safety.

Ver 14. By an ordinance for ever.] Till "Christ our passover" should be "sacrificed for us"; {#1Co 5:7} and then the Christian passover was to succeed.

Ver. 15. Ye shall put away leaven.] All unsoundness in point of faith, and insincerity in point of practice. {See Trapp on "1Co 5:7"} The Jews, at this day, on the night before their passover, search and sweep every mouse hole for crumbs of leaven with wax candles. If they find none, they purposely fling down some, that they might not seem to have prayed and laboured in vain.

Ver. 16. A holy convocation.] This same word, in the Hebrew, signifieth the Holy Scripture; to teach us, saith one, that the Scriptures ought to be read in the congregation and holy assemblies. {#Ne 8:9}

Ver. 17. In this selfsame day.] Heb., In the body, or strength, of this day: so the midday is called. Art thou delivered, helped? write up the time and place.

Ver. 18. Until the one and twentieth day.] As Augustine said of the feast of pentecost, might these of the passover, may we of the Gun Powder Plot; Gaudet produci haec solemnitas. It were well if this holiday were a double day.

Ver. 19. No leaven found.] {See Trapp on "Ex 12:15"}

Shall be cut off.] For a small fault, as it may seem to some: but the less the matter the greater is the contempt in denying to do it. Keep therefore God’s commandment as the sight of thine eye. Look to those minutula legis, that ye may live.

Ver. 20. Ye shall eat nothing leavened.] Watch carefully against corruption in life and doctrine: be punctual in your preparation to and participation of the Christian passover.

Ver. 21. All the elders of Israel.] The masters of families, who in this family service were to kill and eat, and set before the rest of the household, as priests at home; and to show them the meaning of that mystery.

Ver. 22. A bunch of hyssop.] A herb of a purging property. See #1Co 6:11.

The blood that is in the bason.] The remembrance of Christ’s bloody passion must be kept fresh in our hearts. {a}

Strike the lintel.] Profess Christ crucified; honour him by a holy conversation; mind trim in your outgoings and incomings.

None of you shall go out.] Be not "of those that withdraw to perdition, but of them that believe to the salvation of the soul." {#Heb 10:39} Mingle no more with the Egyptians.

{a} Tam recens mihi nunc Christus, ac si hac hora fudisset sanguinem. -Luth.

Ver. 23. Will not suffer the destroyer.] Angels delight to be executioners of God’s judgments, and saviours of his people.

Ver. 24. For ever.] {See Trapp on "Ex 12:15"}

Ver. 25. Ye shall keep this service.] Yet with some variation of circumstance.

Ver. 26. When your children.] Children are to be carefully catechised and informed. {#Eph 6:4} {See Trapp on "Eph 6:4"} Luther scorned not to profess himself discipulura catechism, a catechism scholar.

Ver. 27. Bowed the head.] In token of submission to the command, and thankfulness for such a salvation.

Ver. 28. Went away, and did, &c.] They that will not timeously obey God’s sweet precepts, shall one day have no other command to obey but that bitter, Ite maledicti, " Go, ye cursed," &c.

Ver. 29. From the firstborn of Pharaoh.] See #Ex 12:12.

Ver. 30. For there was not a house.] Neither is there a house amongst us, hardly, where not one but many are "dead in trespasses and sins." Our land even stinks again with such, as Egypt did with the frogs.

Ver. 31. And he called for Moses.] That is, He sent them to be packing. See #Ex 10:29.

Ver. 32. Bless me also.] So Maximinus, the persecutor, being sorely diseased, sent to beg the prayers of the Church. "In their month you shall find" these wild asses. {#Jer 2:24}

Ver. 33. We be all dead men.] Quis autem vult mori? prorsus nemo. Everything makes much of life, from the highest angel to the lowest worm. {a}

{a} Ζωον φιλοζωον ο ανθρωπος.—Aristot.

Ver. 34. Took their dough, &c., upon their shoulders.] Not upon their camels, which, saith Aben Erza, were laden with the precious things borrowed of the Egyptians. Rab. Solomon saith, it was to show their cheerfulness in obeying the command of God. See a better reason afterwards, in #Ex 12:39.

Ver. 35. And they borrowed.] For their use at that solemn feast they were to keep in the wilderness. The Egyptians denied them nothing; as willing to be rid of them upon any terms. {a}

{a} Pons aureus fugienti hosti extruendus

Ver. 36. Spoiled the Egyptians.] {See Trapp on "Ex 8:2"}

Ver. 37. About six hundred thousand.] So that promise to Abraham was fulfilled, in #Ge 15:14; and that to Jacob, in #Ge 46:3.

Ver. 38. And a mixed multitude.] Of strangers, that "took hold of the skirts of these Jews, and said, We will go with you," {#Zec 8:23} but afterwards turned tippet, {#Nu 11:4} lusted greatly and greedily, and made Israel to sin. Coals touched will either burn or sully us.

Ver. 39. And they baked unleavened cakes.] A memorial of which sweet mercy they kept on foot by that yearly feast of unleavened cakes. {#De 16:3}

Ver. 40. Was four hundred and thirty years, ] sc., From the time that Abraham began to sojourn in the land of Canaan, and to pass into Egypt. {#Ge 12:10} See #Ga 3:17, {See Trapp on "Gal 3:17"}

Ver. 41. Even the selfsame day.] God, saith one, had well nigh forfeited his bond; but ere the sun went down he payed the debt. His premises are good surehold. At midnight the firstborn were slain, because then exactly the four hundred and thirty years were expired.

Ver. 42. This is that night.] That, with an accent. God expects our returns should be answerable to our receipts. God’s blessings are binders; and of all things he can least abide to be forgotten.

Ver. 43. There shall no stranger, &c.] Strangers are excluded; to show that the faithful only have fellowship with Christ; contra quam Lutherani ineptiunt, saith one.

Ver. 44. When thou hast circumcised him.] And so adinitted him into the fellowship of the faithful. A man must live before he can be nourished; bred before be can be fed.

Ver. 45. A foreigner.] Unless a proselyte.

Ver. 46. In one house.] To teach them unity; which, indeed, is not anywhere found but in the Church. "My dove is but ore." {#So 6:9}

Ver. 47. Shall keep it.] Or perish for their neglect. Aut faciendum, aut patiendum; either men must do it, or die for it.

Ver. 48. No uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.] The Chaldee hath it, No profane person. So God saith, "No stranger uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary." {#Eze 44:9}

Ver. 49. And unto the stranger.] The proselyte, who is Peregrinus iustitiae, non solum peregrinus portae, as the Rabbins distinguish,

Ver. 50. So did they.] Very submissive they were at first; but it lasted not long, as the story showeth and the psalmist oft complaineth.

Ver. 51. The selfsame day.] See on #Ex 12:41 God is very precise and punctual. We have a saying much like ourselves, A day breaks no square. But it is not so with God.

Chapter 13

Ver. 1. And the Lord spake.] God hath a saying to such as he hath saved: and what it is, see #Ex 13:2.

Ver. 2. It is mine.] By right of redemption also. He that is saved is "not his own"; {#1Co 6:19} but his that saved him. Servati sumus ut serviamus. {#Lu 1:74} God hath sworn we shall do so, {#Lu 1:73} or else never come to his kingdom. {#Ps 95:11}

Ver. 3. Remember.] Heb., To remember, indefinitely; q.d., Remember perpetually, and commemorate.

Ver. 4. In the month Abib.] The flowery month, as Micarius calls it. {See Trapp on "Ex 12:2"}

Ver. 5. A land flowing with milk and honey.] Where fulness may breed forgetfulness, saturity, security.

Ver. 6. Seven days.] Figuring our whole life.

Ver. 7. {See Trapp on "Ex 12:19"} {See Trapp on "Ex 12:20"}

Ver. 8. And thou shalt show.] {See Trapp on "Ex 12:26"}

Ver. 9. And for a memorial] {See Trapp on "Mt 23:5"}

Ver. 10. From year to year.] The Chaldee hath it, From time to time. We have the Lord’s Supper, that sweet ordinance wherein Christ "kisseth us with the kisses of his lips," and giveth us a privy seal of his love, much oftener: yet not so oft as the primitive Christians, who had it weekly: whence it was called Panis hebdomadarias. Yea, Basil tells us, that they ate the Lord’s Supper three or four times a week—viz., on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Lord’s-days: but that was a time of persecution.

Ver. 11. Land of the Canaanites.] A general name to all those seven accursed nations.

Ver. 12. The males shall be the Lord’s.] This God did, that with the firstborn son, commonly best beloved, he might draw all the love to himself.

Ver. 13. And every firstling of an ass.] This God would not have paid him in kind, eo quod asinus tardum et pigrum auimal, as Bellarmine gives the reason. The zealous God hates dulness. Tardis mentibus virtus non facile committitur. {a}

{a} Tusc. Quaest., lib. v.

Ver. 14. That thou shalt say unto him.] Plantas tenellas frequentius adaguare proderit, young plants must be often watered. {a}

{a} Primas. Greg. Mag.

Ver. 15. Would hardly let us go.] Heb., Was hard to send us away, He had as leave have been knocked on the head almost as have done it. It was morely extorted, as sour juice is wrung out of a crab apple. It was an honest prayer of an ancient, Domine duc me quo non volo.

Ver. 16. Frontlets.] Phylacteries. See on #Mt 23:5,6. The right use of them was memorative: the superstitious use, preservative against the power of sin.

Ver. 17. That God led them not.] He carefully chose their way out of Egypt; not the nearer, but the safer. He tempts not above what we are able: but so orders the matter, that evils are not ready for us till we for them.

Ver. 18. God led the people about.] Philo writeth, that it was not much above three days’ journey from Egypt to Canaan the other way: Sed Dei voluntas est summa necessitas. {a}

{a} Tertul.

Ver. 19. And Moses took the bones of Joseph.] And with those, as it is likely, the bones of the other patriarchs too. {#Ac 7:16}

Ver. 20. From Succoth.] Their first rendezvous. {#Ex 12:37}

Ver. 21. And the Lord, &c.] See #Ps 105:39 Isa 4:5,6. God protects, directs, and every way suits the necessities of his people.

Ver. 22. He took not away.] This is reckoned, as well it might, for a great mercy, by those holy Levites in #Ne 9:19. The Romans’ Vibilia was but an imaginary deity; and her help in this kind a mere fancy.

Chapter 14

Ver. 1. And the Lord spake.] It was of God, then, that the people fell into such straits: that where human help failed, divine might come in. {a}

{a} Necesse est adesse divinum, ubi humanum cessat auxilium. -Philo Jud.

Ver. 2. That they turn, ] i.e., Return. In passing the Red Sea, the Israelites made a semicircle. Compare #Ex 13:20 Nu 33:8. God must be followed, though he lead us through a maze or labyrinth.

Ver. 3. They are entangled.] Perplexed; intricated; they know not what to do, or which way to turn. Enemies watch opportunities, but oft miss of their meaning.

Ver. 4. And I will be honoured.] By subduing this sturdy rebel, and bringing "his violent dealing upon his own pate." {#Ps 7:16} When the prophet cried to Jeroboam’s altar, it clave presently asunder. {#1Ki 13:2,3} But the mighty "hammer" of "God’s word," {#Jer 23:29} with ten miracles, gave ten mighty strokes at Pharaoh’s heart, and yet could find no entrance. God will therefore now take another course with him.

Ver. 5. That the people fled, ] i.e., Ran quite away, without any resolution ever to return. This troubled the tyrant. Crowns have their cares. Little David likes his hook the better ever since he saw the court.

Ver. 6. Made ready his chariot.] To meet his destruction.

Ver. 7. Six hundred chosen chariots.] They fought of old out of chariots armed with scythes and hooks; which at first were a terror, and after a scorn. {a}

{a} Veget., lib. i. cap. 24.

Ver. 8. With a high hand.] Bravely; boldly; in battle array, not as runaways; in all comely equipage.

Ver. 9. But the Egyptians pursued.] And God made fair way before them, till they came into the Red Sea.

Ver. 10. And they were sore afraid.] Because sorely distressed. They saw no way to escape, unless they could have gone up to heaven: which because they could not, heaven came down to them, though unworthy, that God might get him a name. {#Isa 63:12,14} The Israelites herein were far more happy than those ancient Britons, who, being greatly distressed by their northern enemies in the time of Valentinian III, implored the aid of Aetius, the Roman prefect of Gaul, using these words: "To Aetius, thrice consul, the sighs of the Britons": and after thus they complain, "The barbarous enemy beats us to the sea; the sea beats us back to the enemy: between these two kinds of deaths, we are either murdered or drowned." {a} But their implorations prevailed not. Neither found they any other remedy than what the Prince of Orange showed to his soldiers at the battle of Newport; when they had the sea on one side and the Spaniards on the other. If, saith he, you will live, you must either eat up these Spaniards, or drink up this sea. {b}

{a} Daniel’s Chronicle.

{b} Hist. of Netherl.

Ver. 11. Because there were no graves.] Thus "they provoked him at the sea, at the Red Sea; nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake." {#Ps 106:7,8}

Ver. 12. Is not this the word?] Invalidum omne natura querulum. {a} Weak spirits are ever quarrelling and contending.

{a} Seneca.

Ver. 13. Stand still, and see the salvation.] Thus God "heard their cry at the Red Sea," {#Ne 9:9} though it were not the cry of faith, but of fright and perturbation. So he "heard the voice of the lad." {#Ge 21:17}

Ver. 14. Ye shall hold your peace, ] i.e., Ye shall neither say nor do.

Ver. 15. Wherefore criest thou unto me?] so., With inward groanings, without any audible voice. Moses egit vocis silentio, ut corde clamaret. And God was readier to answer than he to ask.

Speak unto the children of Israel, ] q.d., There is something more to be done than to pray. Ora et labora. {a} We must not only crave God’s help, but be forward in the course whereby to make way for God’s help.

That they go forward.] Though upon a manifest danger. This is an act of strong faith, pure obedience.

{a} August.

Ver. 16. But lift thou up thy rod.] This rod God makes use of, fo: the greater manifestation of his own power, and the gracing of his servant Moses.

Ver. 17. I will harden.] See on #Ex 9:35.

Ver. 18. When I have gotten me honour.] Made me "a name as at this day." {#Ne 9:10} For this he was famous in far countries. Jethro, the first proselyte to the Jewish Church, was hereby converted, say the Rabbins. And the Philistines cry, "Woe unto us! these are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness." {#1Sa 4:8}

Ver. 19. And the Angel of God.] Christ, the Angel of God’s presence. See #Ex 13:21 23:23.

Went behind them.] So "the glory of the Lord" was "their rearward." {#Isa 58:8} He will be to his both van and rear. {#Isa 52:12}

Ver. 20. A cloud and darkness to them.] {See Trapp on "Heb 12:2"}

Ver. 21. And Moses stretched out his hand.] Of that pseudo-Moses that cozened many credulous Jews of Crete into the midst of the sea, anno 434, see Funceius’s Chron. at that year.

And the waters were divided.] So was that torrent of fire, if Aristotle {a} may be believed, that ran from Etna, consuming the country, and yet parted itself; making a kind of a lane for those that ventured to rescue their aged parents.

{a} De Mundo, cap. 6.

Ver. 22. Were a wall unto them.] Every main affliction is our Red Sea, saith one, which, while it threats to swallow, preserves us.

Ver. 23. And the Egyptians pursued.] God permitting it, and making fair weather before them, they also blustering, and "breathing out threatenings," saying, "I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil," &c., till anon "they sank as lead in the mighty waters." {#Ex 15:9,10}

Ver. 24. In the morning watch.] God "watcheth upon the evil to bring it" upon his enemies then when he may do them a greatest mischief. {#Da 9:14} He picketh his times for vengeance: "Now will I rise, saith the Lord; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself." {#Isa 33:10}

The Lord looked unto the host.] He set his eyes upon them; as Paul did upon Elymus the sorcerer; with highest offence, and utmost indignation. After which lightning follows that terrible thunderclap, wherewith he troubled them and took off their wheels. See #Ps 77:18,19,18:15.

Ver. 26. That the waters may come again.] By wind that God sent. {#Ex 15:10} "The winds blow, the waters flow." {#Ps 147:18}

Ver. 27. Returned to his strength.] For by being divided, it had been weakened. Si collidimur, frangimur. The daughter of dissension is dissolution.

Ver. 28. There remained not so much as one of them.] No more doth there of our subdued iniquities. {#Mic 7:10} Peccata non redeunt. We shall see them no more, any otherwise than these Israelites did their enemies, dead upon the shore.

Ver. 29. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land.] This is applied as a type of Christ, {#1Co 10:2} to show that Christ is present with his people, to save them in all troubles and afflictions, {#Isa 43:2} and from all their spiritual enemies and sins, both by justification and sanctification, {#Mic 7:19} through faith in him, {#Heb 11:29} and will in the end give them songs of victory and triumph. {#Ex 15:1 Re 15:3}

Ver. 30, 31. Thus the Lord.] A mercy never enough memorised. What, then, is our redemption from sin, death, and hell

Ver. 31. {See Trapp on "Ex 14:30"}

Chapter 15

Ver. 1. Then sang Moses.] Presently upon the deliverance, while their hearts were hot, and the mercy fresh. No part of the thank offering might be kept unspent till the third day. Benefits soon grow stale, and putrify, as fish.

Ver. 2. I will prepare him a habitation.] Or, I will adorn him i I will give him ornaments and trimmings. Such God accounts our poor praises.

Ver. 3. The Lord is a man of war.] Yea, he alone is a whole army of men, van and rear both. {#Isa 52:12} He sends the sword; {#Eze 14:17} musters the men; {#Isa 13:4} orders the ammunition; {#Jer 50:25} gives the victory: whence he is here styled by the Chaldee, The Lord and Victor of wars.

Ver. 4. In the Red Sea.] So called, haply, from that red man, Esau or Edom, who usurped the dominion of that sea, now called Sinus Arabicus.

Ver. 5. As a stone.] So shall Rome. {#Re 15:5,18:21 Mic 7:19} The Jews, saith Montanus, took those things they abominated as filthy and unclean, and threw them into the sea. {a}

{a} Ex lib. Misna. cap. de Phase.

Ver. 6. Hath dashed in pieces.] "It is a fearful thing to fall into the" punishing "hands of the living God." {#Heb 10:31} For "who knoweth the power of his anger?" {#Ps 90:11}

Ver. 7. That rose up against thee.] Because against thine. There is a league, offensive and defensive, betwixt God and his people.

Ver. 8. And with the blast.] In celebrating God’s favours, we must be punctual and particular.

Ver. 9. The enemy said, I will.] They made account all was their own, but were soon confuted, as were likewise Sisera and Sennacherib. Where the beginning of a business is confidence, the end is confusion.

Ver. 10. Thou didst blow, &c.] Here it was that the arm of the Lord put on strength to cut Rahab, and wound the dragon. {#Isa 51:9}

Ver. 11. Who is like unto thee?] One of the most stately descriptions of God that is found in Holy Writ. God is to be magnified: we must make room for him. This chapter #Ex 15 and #Jud 5 are rightly called by one, "monumental chapters."

Ver. 12. The earth swallowed them, ] That is, the sea, which compasseth the earth about as a girdle: God having set the solid earth upon the liquid waters. See #Jon 2:6 Ps 24:2.

Ver. 13. Unto thy holy habitation.] Canaan, where God chose to dwell. This he is said already to have done, because he would certainly do it. God’s promises are his performances, and every former mercy a pledge of a future.

Ver. 14. So, now shall take hold.] So it did. {#1Sa 4:8}

Ver. 15. Then the dukes of Edom.] See #De 2:4.

The mighty men.] See it fulfilled, #Nu 22:3.

Shall melt.] So they did. {#Jos 2:9-11}

Ver. 16. Till thy people pass over.] Over Jordan; as now they have done over the Red Sea, into Canaan.

Ver. 17. Of thine inheritance.] Provided and purchased by thee for thy firstborn, Israel.

Ver. 18. The Lord shall reign.] Gaudeo quod Christus Dominus est; alioqui totus desperassem, writes Miconius to Calvin, upon the view of the Church’s enemies. The Lord Christ reigneth: or else I had been out of all hope of better.

Ver. 19. For the horse of Pharaoh.] A good soul is altogether unsatisfiable in sanctifying God’s name, and setting forth his goodness. Should I do nothing else all the days of my life, said that martyr, yea, as long as the days of heaven shall last, but kneel on my knees and repeat David’s Psalms; yet should I fall infinitely short of what I owe to God. {a}

{a} Act. and Mon.

Ver. 20. And Miriam.] Souls have no sexes: and if souls follow the temperament of their bodies, as philosophy saith they do, women’s bodies consist of rarer rooms, of a more exact composition than men’s do.

Ver. 21. Sing ye to the Lord.] This seems to have been the burden of the song: as #Ps 134:1.

Ver. 22. And found no water.] Thirst and bitterness was their first bad omen on their journey.

Ver. 23. They could not drink.] Water they now had, but what the better? God can give us blessings, but with such a tang, that we shall have no great joy of them.

Ver. 24. Murmured against Moses.] He must bear the blame of all. Public persons are sure to have an ill life of it. Qui vitaverit culpam, non effugit infamiam. {a}

{a} Seneca.

Ver. 25. Showed him a tree.] A type of Christ’s sweet cross, and easy yoke, that sweeteneth and facilitateth all our light afflictions. The Jewish doctors tell us that this tree was bitter, and give us this note; It is the manner of the blessed God to sweeten that which is bitter by that which is bitter. {a}

{a} In Tanct. sive Ilmedenu.

Ver. 26. And said, If thou, &c.] This God premiseth as a preface to the law, to be shortly after given in Sinai.

I am the Lord that healeth thee.] Both on the inside, by "forgiving all thine iniquities," and on the outside, by "healing all thy diseases." {#Ps 103:3} I am Jehovah the physician. And Omnipotenti medico nullus insanabilis occurrit morbus. {a} To an almighty physician no disease is incurable.

{a} Isidor.

Ver. 27. And they came to Elim.] The heathens slandered the Jews, that they found these fountains by the means of certain asses that guided them. Whence they are called Asinarii by Melon and Appion of Alexandria; who affirmed that for this cause the Jews worshipped the golden head of an ass, &c. {a}

{a} Corn. Tacit., Annul., lib. xii.

Chapter 16

Ver. 1. Unto the wilderness of Sin.] So called because it bordered upon the city of Sin, whereof see #Eze 30:15,16 20:35,36. Or, of the many brambles that grew therein.

Ver. 2. And the whole congregation.] The most part of the people. Diaconos paucitas honorabiles fecit, saith Jerome: sic et veros Israelitas.

Ver. 3. To kill this whole assembly.] Thus discontent will say anything: neither careth it how true the charge be, but how stinging and stabbing.

Ver. 4. I will rain bread from heaven.] Not hell from heaven, as once he did upon Sodom. "If thine enemy hunger, feed him," as God here doth.

Ver. 5. On the sixth dug they shall prepare.] The Jews’ preparation for the Sabbath began at three o’clock in the afternoon. The best and wealthiest of them, even those that had many servants, did with their own hands further the preparation. So that sometimes the masters themselves would chop herbs, sweep the house, cleave wood, kindle the fire, &c. {a}

{a} Buxtorf., Synagog.

Ver. 6. That the Lord.] And not we without his authority: so that in murmuring against us, ye have set your mouths against heaven. Caveant μεμψιυοιροι: "Grudge not: behold, the Judge standeth before the door." {#Jas 5:9}

Ver. 7. Ye shall see the glory of the Lord.] Shining in that wonderful work of his, the bread from heaven. Compare #Nu 14:21 Joh 11:40.

Ver. 8. In the evening flesh to eat, &c.] Never was prince so served in his greatest pomp, as these rebellious Israelites. How good shall we find him then to those that please him!

Ver. 9. For he hath heard your murmurings.] Now then "what will you do, since God riseth up and since he visiteth, what will ye answer?" {#Job 31:14}

Ver. 10. Toward the wilderness.] Where the cloud was in the forefront of their armies.

Ver. 11. And the Lord spake, ] i.e., He had before spoken.

Ver. 12. And in the morning.] Theyhave their flesh at even, and bread in the morning. God will be waited on, and give the consummation of his blessings at his leisure. The cloud empties not itself at a sudden burst, but dissolves upon the earth drop after drop.

Ver. 13. The dew lay round, ] i.e., The manna that came down in the dew; as Christ the bread of life doth in the ministry of the word. See #De 32:2. Josephus writeth, that as Moses was lifting up his hands in prayer, there fell upon them a dew from heaven, and crusted. This when he had tasted, it proved very sweet; and the nature of this manna, saith he, was such, that he who had it would desire no other meat.

Ver. 14. The dew that lay.] And covered the manna: whence that promise of hidden manna in #Re 2:17.

Ver. 15. It is manna, ] i.e., What shall I call? Herba Anonymus non inveniendo nomen, invenit, saith Pliny; {a} so manna. Others interpret manna, a portion, an admirable gift, or meat prepared.

{a} Lib. xxvi. cap. 14.

Ver. 16. Every man according to his eating.] Thus they were inured in diem vivere, as Quintilian saith the birds do, to depend upon God for their daily bread.

Ver. 17. Some more, some less.] Secundum proportionem arithmeticam, sed non secundum propertionem geometricam. As a man had more or less mouths in his family to feed.

Ver. 18. He that gathered much.] {See Trapp on "2Co 8:15"}

Ver. 19. Let no man leave of it, &c.] It was to be gathered in the morning, and not kept till the morrow. "I made haste and delayed not," saith David. {#Ps 119:60}

Ver. 20. Left of it until, &c.] Either through distrust or curiosity.

Ver. 21. It melted.] Or, Putrified, faded, dissolved. Some Papists derive their Mass from this root: and well it may; nam per eam omnis pietas linquefacta est et dissoluta, saith Rivet: for it is the utter bane of all good, as being a mass or heap of abominations.

Ver. 22. And told Moses.] As fearing that the people had not done so well, as indeed they did: or, as desirous of further direction.

Ver. 23. Lay up for you, &c.] This is no plea for the Popish keeping of their breaden god in a pyx; for here was a command so to do, lest the Sabbath should be profaned: but for the other there is none.

Ver. 24. Till the morning.] The Sabbath morning, wherein it putrified not, but continued sound and savoury by the special hand of God; that they might keep the Sabbath, as it appears here they did before the law given at Sinai. Papists press the sanctification of the Sabbath as a mere human institution in religious worship. Our anti-Sabbatarians took this text for an anticipation only, and made little account of the fourth commandment, which Spalato had taught them was done away, &c.

Ver. 25. Eat that to day.] So shall those that labour in the Lord rest and feast in heaven. Thus the Rabbis moralise it.

Ver. 26. {See Trapp on "Ex 16:30"}

Ver. 27. And it came to pass.] {See Trapp on "Ex 16:20"} Some unruly beasts, masterless monsters, will be breaking over the hedge: but the law will hamper them.

Ver. 28. How long refuse ye.] The rulers are disgraced for the people’s unruliness.

To keep my commandments?] For in breaking that one of the Sabbath they had broken all: the whole law is but one copulative. See #Jas 2:10.

Ver. 29. Hath given you the Sabbath.] And a great gift is was. {#Ne 9:14} Were it not for the weekly Sabbath we should all run wild.

Abide ye every man in his place.] Sabbath, coming from Shabath, to cease or rest, hath some affinity with Jashabh, to sit still, and with Shabach, to worship and give praise; to show that this rest must be sanctified: for else it is but asinorum sabbatum, as one saith, the Sabbath of the ox and ass; for these also must rest.

Ver. 30. So the people rested.] According to their custom, though probably intermitted for a season in Egypt, during their hard servitude. Sed rationem reddat qui potest, aith a learned doctor; {a} are, ante legem promulgatam, in die septimo cessavit manna, nisi quia, ad exemplum Domini, ab ipsius mundi primordi invaluisset sabbati obserratio. This ceasing of manna on the seventh day shows that the Sabbath was kept from the beginning.

{a} Dr Prideaux.

Ver. 31. And the taste of it.] It had not all manner of good tastes, according to every man’s appetite, {#Nu 11:8} else why should the people lust and murmur as there they did? {#Ex 16:4,5}

Ver. 32. Fill an omer.] Monuments and memorials of God’s great mercies are to be set up, lest, as it fares with children, eaten bread be soon forgotten.

Ver. 33. Take a pot.] A golden pot. {#Heb 9:4} Strabo {a} writeth, that the Metapontini, after a plentiful harvest which had much enriched them, dedicated to Apollo at Delphi χρυσουν θερος, a harvest of gold.

{a} Geog.

Ver. 34. To be kept.] For the use of succeeding ages in the most holy places. So Christ, glorified in his humanity, abides for ever. {#Heb 7:24}

Ver. 35. Until they came.] So, till we come to heaven shall we have need of ordinances.

Ver. 36. Of an ephah.] Or, Of a bushel: a plentiful allowance. {See Trapp on "Joh 2:7"}

Chapter 17

Ver. 1. After their journeys, ] i.e., After they had first been at Dophkah, and at Alush. {#Nu 33:12-14}

There was no water.] Bread they had from heaven, but wanted water. Our condition here is a condition of singular indigency: we are ever wanting somewhat or other.

Ver. 2. The people did chide with Moses.] As they did before for bread. And as thirst is the more eager appetite, so they are more eager and earnest for water than they were for bread.

Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?] viz., Whether he be amongst you and be able by miracle to relieve you.

Ver. 3. Murmured against Moses.] Magistrates have many times a weary life with the mutinous multitude. Seneca observeth of Egypt, -it proved true of this people newly come out of Egypt, -that it was loquax et ingeniosa in contumeliam praefectorum provincia: in qua, qui vitaverit culpam, non effugit infamiam; That it was a province apt to prate against their governors, and to cast a slur upon them, though never so well deserving.

Ver. 4. Ready to stone me.] Well might he ask with our Saviour, "For which of my good works do ye stone me?" {#Joh 10:32} But the belly hath no ears.

Ver. 5. Take with thee of the elders.] As witnesses of this great work of God; which the people for their unbelief might not behold. God puts up with their rebellion, and satisfies their thirst: but yet intimates his just displeasure, by denying them this privilege of seeing the rock smitten.

Ver. 6. Upon the rock.] If God had not stood upon the rock, in vain had Moses struck it. Means must be used, but God only depended upon for success. It is he alone that sets the rock abroaeh.

Thou shalt smite the rock.] Herein a type of Christ "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." {#Isa 53:4 1Co 10:4}

And there shall come water out of it.] Not fire—that had not been so miraculous—but water. This "cleaving the" hard "rock," {#Ps 78:1 5} this "turning of the flint into a fountain," {#Ps 114:8} was a work of Onmipoteney, and is therefore much celebrated. {#De 8:15 Ps 105:41 Ne 9:15} Dioseorides tells us of the stone Galactites, quod succum emittat lacteum, that it yields a kind of moisture like milk: which, if it "be true, is very strange.

That the people may drink.] And so be cooled and comforted in their weariness and wanderings. "Ho, every one that thirsteth," &c. {#Isa 55:1}

Ver. 7. Is the Lord among us?] As if that could not be, and they athirst. But he is most present when he afflicts. "He knows our souls in adversity." {#Ps 31:7}

Ver. 8. Then came Amalek.] Not having the fear of God before his eyes, {#De 25:18} but carried on by the ancient enmity: for Amalek was Esau’s grandchild.

Ver. 9. I will stand on the top.] Where the people might see him with that ensign in his hand, and be encouraged. Xerxes used to pitch his tent on high, and stand looking on his army when in fight, for their encouragment.

Ver. 10. Aaron, and Hur.] This Hur, saith Josephus, was husband to Miriam, and Moses’s deputy. {#Ex 24:14}

Went up to the top of a hill.] To pray together. In the congregation where the saints are praying, there the arrow, shield, and spear are broken. {#Ps 76:3} From thence shalt thou help us, said the people to David; {#2Sa 18:3} that is, thy prayers shall prevail with God for our assistance. Non tam praeliando quam precando. The king of Sweden, as soon as he set foot in Germany, fell down to prayer, and he proved very victorious.

Ver. 11. When Moses held up his hand.] The push of Moses’s prayers did more than the pikes of all Israel besides. Moses orat et vincit, cessat et vincitur, saith one. Great is the power of prayers. Henricus Anceps, the Emperor of Germany, slew and put to flight a huge army of the Hungarians, his soldiers all crying out with a loud voice, Kyrie eleison; Kyrie eleison!—i.e., Lord, have mercy upon us; Lord, have mercy upon us! This was done before the city of Mersburg. {a}

{a} Bucholc., Chronol.

Ver. 12. But Moses’s hands were heavy.] It is a praise proper to God, that "his hand is stretched out still": as for men, even the best, though "the spirit" in them be "willing, yet the flesh is weak," {#Mt 26:41} and will not suffer any long intention.

And Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands.] Neither did they only raise up their hands, but their minds with his. There are that here observe, that upon the fortieth day after their coming out of Egypt, Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up into the mount, where Moses’s hands are thus supported, while Amalek is discomfited; and that Moses the prophet, Hur the prince, and Aaron the priest, all put together, were a type of Christ; who on the fortieth day after his resurrection ascended into the mount of heaven; where, as our prophet, priest, and prince, he holds up the hands of his intercession for his Church militant, while she fights with spiritual Amalelk, sin, Satan, Antichrist, world, flesh, &c.

Ver. 13. And Joshua discomfited.] How should he do otherwise when he fought with such weapons Prayers are the bombardae et instrumenta bellica Christianorum, saith Luther i the great guns and warlike weapons of the saints. The Romans in a great distress were driven to take the weapons out of the temples of their gods, and overcame.

Ver. 14. In a book.] Or, In the book that thou art now in writing, viz., the Pentateuch, the most ancient book that is extant.

I will utterly put out, &c, ] The portion of wicked men is to be "forgotten in the city where they had so done." {#Ec 8:10} Their memory dies with them: or, if it be preserved, it stinks in keeping, and remains as a curse and perpetual disgrace.

Ver. 15. And Moses built an altar.] As a lasting monument of God’s great mercy in that first victory. The Romans had a custom, that the conqueror in his triumphant chariot rode to the capitol, and offered a white ox to Jupiter. {a}

{a} Liv., lib. vi. decad. 3.

Ver. 16. Because the Lord, &c.] Heb., The hand upon the throne of the Lord. God’s hand is laid upon his own throne, as swearing to root out Amalek. Or Amalek’s hand is lifted up against God’s throne—that is, the Church; called God’s throne of glory, {#Jer 3:17} and crown of glory; {#Isa 62:3} therefore he will have perpetual war with him. Tua causa erit mea causa, said the Emperor Charles V to Julius Pflugius, who, being his agent, had received wrong by the Duke of Saxony. So saith God to all that belong to him.

Chapter 18

Ver. 1. Heard of all.] And thereby was converted, say the Rabbis, being the first proselyte to the Jewish Church that we read of in the Scripture.

Ver. 2. After he had sent her back.] Because she was troublesome with her peevishness, and a hindrance to the good work in hand. {#Ex 4:25,26} Sulla felix fuisset ni uxorem duxisset; Adrianus ni imperitasset; Moses, both.

Ver. 3. In a strange land.] {See Trapp on "Ex 2:22"}

Ver. 4. Eliezer.] Or, Lazarus. We should write God’s mercies upon the names of our children, or some other ways perpetuate the memory of them.

Ver. 5. At the mount of God.] Horeb; whither they were removed from Rephidim, though the remove be not mentioned.

Ver. 6. And he said.] That is, Sent him word. So God’s messages to us are to be received as his own immediate words; "He that heareth you, heareth me."

Ver. 7. And did obeisance.] Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor, would, in Westminster Hall, beg his father’s blessing on his knees.

Ver. 8. All that the Lord had done.] It is not enough to relate God’s mercies to us in the lump, and by wholesale; but we must instance the particulars both to God and men.

That had come upon them.] Heb., Had found them; yet not without a providence. {#Job 5:6} God cuts us out our various conditions: it is his hand that finds us when we suffer aught.

Ver. 9. And Jethro rejoiced.] So must all Sion’s sons. {#Isa 66:10}

Ver. 10. And Jethro said, &c.] Cheerfulness makes thankfulness. {#Lu 1:46 Jas 5:13}

Ver. 11. Now I know.] {See Trapp on "Ex 18:1"} So the people knew that Jehovah was God. {#1Ki 18:37} See #2Ch 33:13.

He was above them.] God sits in the heavens, {#Ps 2:4} where he sees that their day is coming; {#Ps 37:13} and meanwhile scorneth these scorners; {#Pr 3:34} frights them, as he did those Syrians; {#2Ki 7:6} overawes them, as he did Laban; diverts them, as he did Saul, Sennacherib, &c., or otherwise defeats them, as he did Benhadad, disclosing their counsels, blasting their designs, &c.

Ver. 12. Before God, ] i.e., As in his presence, with reverence and godly fear. "To feed without fear" is a foul fault. {#Jude 1:12} See my "Commonplace of Abstinence."

Ver. 13. And the people stood by Moses.] Being haply, as the French are said to be, very litigious; and thereunto abusing Moses’s lenity: whereas had they been soundly whipped, -as among Mohammedans they are, that go to law for light matters, -there would have been but few and short suits amongst them. Sure it is, that if men’s hearts were not bigger than their suits, there would not be half so many.

Ver. 14. What is this thing?] A man by good counsel may become an angel; nay, a god to another. Alexander, being requested by some ambassadors to show them his treasures, showed them his faithful counsellors.

Ver. 15. To inquire of God.] For a divine sentence is in the mouth of the Judge: therefore also the place of judicature is called the holy place. {#Ec 8:10} Let those that go to law inquire of God, and rest in his will.

Ver. 16. When they have a matter.] In our ordinary suits there is, for the most part, more malice than matter. The late Judge Dier, if there came any such trifling controversies to be tried before him, would usually say, that either the parties are wilful, or their neighbours without charity; because their suits were not quietly compromised.

Ver. 17. Is not good.] We commonly say, He that receives a courtesy, sells his liberty. But so did not Jethro.

Ver. 18. Thou wilt surely wear away.] Heb., Fading, thou wilt fade; as a leaf that wanteth moisture. Melancthon was wont to say, that none laboured so hard as travailing women, magistrates, and ministers. Politici et Ecelesiastici labores maximi sunt, saith Luther. Atterunt enim corpus, et tanquam ex imis medullis exhauriunt succum.

Ver. 19. I will give thee counsel.] A Midianite counsels Moses: God hereby teacheth him humility.

Ver. 20. And thou shalt teach them ordinances.] This alone will be work enough for thee, if done as it ought to be.

And shalt show them the way wherein they must walk.] The Chaldee Paraphrast hath it thus, And shalt show them the prayer which they shall pray in their synagogues.

Ver. 2l. Out of all the people.] Magistrates must be drained from the dregs, sifted from the bran of the ordinary sort of people.

Able men.] Able and active; strong and stouthearted; wealthy also, and well grounded. See Jethro’s Justice of Peace, -a sermon by Mr Sam. Ward.

Ver. 22. So shall it be easier, &c.] How thankless is their labour that do wilfully overspend themselves in their ordinary vocations!

Ver. 23. To their place.] To the Promised Land, or to their own homes, well apaid, and with good content.

Ver. 24. So Moses hearkened.] Of a meek man it is said that a child shall lead him: {#Isa 11:6} how much more so grave a counsellor as Jethro! Augustus, ταις παρρησιαις των φιλων υπερεχαιρε, was overjoyed with the plain dealings of his friends and counsellors; as of Mecaenas. {a}

{a} Dio, in Augusto.

Ver. 25. And Moses chose.] Not without the people’s consent. {#De 1:13,14}

Ver. 27. Into his own land.] An honest man’s heart is the place where his calling is: such a one when he is abroad is like a fish in the air; whereinto if it leap for recreation or necessity, yet it soon returns to its own element.

Chapter 19

Ver. 1. Into the wilderness of Sinai.] A place where were many bushes and briers. Here they received the law, which, like briers and brambles, pricketh and pierceth the consciences of evil men. And this happened four hundred and thirty years after the promise made to Abraham; not to disannul the promise, {#Ga 3:17} but to advance it; and, that guilt being discovered, and "every mouth stopped," {#Ro 3:19} we might acknowledge the riches of free grace and mercy.

Ver. 2. For they were departed.] {See Trapp on "Ex 18:5"}

Ver. 3. And Moses went up.] {See Trapp on "Ex 3:12"}

Ver. 4. On eagles’ wings.] The eagle beats her young ones out of their sluggish nest, that they may learn to fly: there was somewhat to do to bring Israel out of Egypt. The eagle carries her young upon her wings—and not between her talons, as other birds do—openly, safely, speedily: so did God his Israel, being choice and chary of them all the way; securing them also from their enemies, who could do them as little harm as any can do the eagle’s young, which cannot be shot but through the body of the old one. {a} Some by eagles here understand Moses and Aaron, who are so called, say they, propter acumen intelligentiae et altitudinem vitae, for the sharpness of their understanding and the loftiness of their lives. {See Trapp on "De 32:11"}

{a} Munster, in Schol. in #De 32:11, ex R. Solomon.

Ver. 5. If ye will obey my voice indeed.] As I am good to you in deed, and not in pretence or profession only. Nathanael was "an Israelite indeed." {#Joh 1:47} And Caleb fulfilled after God, or fully followed him; so did not Solomon. {#1Ki 11:6}

Ver. 6. A kingdom of priests.] A holy state, such as shall be all satiated with fatness. {#Jer 31:14} {See Trapp on "1Pe 2:9"} {See Trapp on "Re 1:6"}

Ver. 7. Laid before their faces.] Or, Plainly proposed the mind of God. So did Paul. {παρατιθεμενος, #Ac 17:3} So must ministers.

Ver. 8. All that the Lord hath spoken.] Sed, quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu! How easily over estimate we our own abilities! Pollicitis dives quilibet esse potest. Words are good cheap.

Ver. 9. And believe thee.] Without suspicion of an imposture; such as was that of Mohammed.

Ver. 10. Sanctify them to day and to morrow.] Men must come before God with the best preparation they can get. He will be sanctified in all them that draw nigh unto him. This the blind heathens saw, and therefore said, Ουκ εκ παροδου προσκυνειν αλλ οικοθεν παρασκευασμενοι, worship not God by the by, but with all possible preparation. {a} Hence they had their caena pura before their solemn sacrifices. {b} Numa nihil rerum sacrarum cives voluit neglectim agere. Hinc solenne illud, Hoc agite. The ministers likewise in the primitive Church prepared the people’s minds by saying Sursum corda, Lift up your hearts; and the deacons used to call upon the people in these words, Oremus, attendamus: Let us pray, let us attend. {c}

{a} Plutarch.

{b} Bucholcer.

{c} Cyprian., De Oratione. Chrysost. Basil.

Ver. 11. Against the third day.] That is, three days hence, on the day of Pentecost.

Ver. 12. That ye go not up into the mount.] God loves at once familiarity and fear, saith a learned divine; {a} familiarity with him in our conversation, and fear of him in his commands. He loves to be acquainted with men in the walks of their obedience, yet he takes state upon him in his ordinances, and will be trembled at in his word and judgments.

{a} Dr Hall.

Ver. 13. They shall come up to the mount, ] i.e., To the bottom of the mount, to the foot thereof. {#Ex 19:17} {See Trapp on "Heb 12:20"} "The way of life is above to the wise," saith Solomon. {#Pr 15:24} As Moses was with God in the mount, when the people were below in the valley.

Ver. 14. And they washed their clothes.] In token of washing their hearts, and "cleansing themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit." The Gentiles also washed, that they might go to sacrifice: and the primitive Christians before prayer. {a}

{a} Plaut., in Alul., act. iii. scen. 6. Tertul., De Orat., cap. 11.

Ver. 15. Be ready against the third day.] If the word of a command expected such readiness, what shall the word of promise? &c.

Come not at your wives.] For the legal uncleanness that was in it, {#Le 15:18 1Sa 21:4} figuring the filth of original sin.

Ver. 16. There were thunders and lightnings.] The law was delivered in this terrible manner; partly to procure reverence to the doctrine of it, and partly to set forth the nature and office of it; which is to terrify and thunder struck offenders.

Ver. 17. To meet with God.] Who "came with ten thousands of his saints," as Moses, that climbed up that hill, and alone saw it, says. {#De 33:2} And if he thus gave the law, how shall he require it at the last day

Ver. 18. The Lord descended upon it in fire.] This fire wherein the law was given, is still in it, and will never out. {#De 33:2}

Ver. 19. Moses spake.] Yet not without horror. {#Heb 12:21}

Ver. 20. And Moses went up.] As a mediator between God and his people. {#Ga 3:19 Ac 7:38} A mediator Moses was, not of redemption, as Christ that "Mediator of the new covenant" and "surety of a better testament," {#Heb 7:22 9:15} but of receiving the law, and delivering it to the people, for which end here he went up.

Ver. 21. And many of them perish.] As the men of Bethshemesh did for prying into the ark. {#1Sa 6:19} Arcana Dei, sunt Arca Dei: God’s secrets are his ark. Eorum quae scire nec datur, nec fas est, docta est ignorantia; scientiae appetentia, insaniae species. {a} Not to know what is not fit to know, is a learned ignorance; to desire to know in that case is a kind of madness. He that curiously searcheth into God’s majesty, shall be oppressed of his glory.

{a} Calvin.

Ver. 22. And let the priests.] The firstborn of the family, which before the Levitical law had the priesthood.

Sanctify themselves.] With a singular care, above that of the rest of the people. Much is required of ministers.

Ver. 23. The people cannot come up, ] i.e., Siquid ego aut capio, aut sapio, they cannot: that which I know not teach thou me.

Ver. 24. Away, get thee down.] Abundans cautela non nocet. It is fit that men should know and keep their distance.

Thou, and Aaron with thee.] These only, who were types of Christ’s princely and priestly office, might come up unto the Lord.

Chapter 20

Ver. 1. God spake all, &c.] All the ten are of divine authority. Papists disannulling the second, that yet they may retain the number of ten words, so loath are heretics to have their asses’ ears seen, divide the last, which yet is called "the commandment," not the commandments. {#Ro 7:7} Vasques, not able to answer our argument, saith that the second commandment belonged to the Jews only. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

Ver. 2. Which have brought thee.] God’s blessings are binders; and every deliverance a tie to obedience. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

Ver. 3. Thou shalt have.] This "thou" reacheth every man. Xenophon saith of Cyrus, that when he gave anything in command, he never said, Let some one do this; but, Do thou this. {a}

No other gods before me.] But "know" and "serve" me alone "with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind." {#1Ch 28:9} Hoc primo praecepto reliquorum omnium observantia praecipitur, saith Luther. In this first commandment the keeping of all the other nine is commanded. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Hoc tu facias.—Xenophon’s Cyropaed.

Ver. 4. Thou shalt not make unto thee, ] i.e., For religious use; for civil they may be made. {#Mt 22:20} Howbeit the Turks will not endure any image, no not upon their coins, because of this second commandment. The Papists by their sacrilegious practices, have taken away this commandment out of their vulgar catechism. This is a great stumbling block to the Jews, and a let to their conversion: for ever since their return from Babylon, they do infinitely abhor idolatry. And for their coming to Christian sermons, they say, that as long as they shall see the preacher direct his speech and prayer to that little wooden crucifix that stands on the pulpit by him, to call it his Lord and Saviour to kneel to it, to embrace it, to kiss it, to weep upon it, as is the fashion of Italy, this is preaching sufficient for them, and persuades them more with the very sight of it, to hate Christian religion, than any reason that the world can allege to love it. {a} {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Specul. Europ.

Ver. 5. Thou shalt not bow down.] Images came first from Babylon. For Ninus having made an image of his father Belus, all that came to see it were pardoned for their former offences: whence in time that image came to be worshipped, through the instigation of the devil, who is, saith Synesius, ειδωλοχαρης; one that rejoiceth in images.

Am a jealous God.] Be the gods of the heathens good fellows, saith one: the true God is a jealous God, and will not share his glory with another, nor be served by any but in his own way. They that wit-wanton it with God, may look to case worse than that citizen in King Edward IV’s days did; who was executed in Cheapside as a traitor, for saying he would make his son heir of the crown: though he only meant his own house, having a crown for the sign. {a}

Visiting the iniquity.] This second commandment is the first with punishment: because men do commonly punish such as worship God in spirit and in truth. As therefore one fire, so one fear should drive out another i the fear of God, the fear of men. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Speed’s Chro.

Ver. 6. Unto thousands.] Of succeeding generations. Personal goodness is profitable to posterity. And this promise, though made to all, yet is more specially annexed to this second commandment; to teach, saith one, that parents should chiefly labour to plant piety in their families, as they would have God’s blessing entailed upon their issue. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

Ver. 7. The Name of the Lord.] That "holy and reverend" Name; {#Ps 111:9} that Nomen Maiestativum, as Tertullian callcth it; "dreadful among the heathen." {#Mal 1:14} The very Turks at this day chastise the Christians that live amongst them for their oaths and blasphemies darted up against God and Christ. The Jews also are much offended thereat, and it should be no small grief to us to hear it. When one of Darius’s eunuchs saw Alexander the Great setting his feet upon a low table that had been highly esteemed by his master, he wept. Being asked the reason by Alexander, he said, it was to see the thing that his master so highly esteemed, to be now contemned, and made his footstool. {a} {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Diod. Sic., lib. xvii.

Ver. 8. Remember the Sabbath day.] He saith not, The seventh day from the creation, but the day of religious rest; such is now our Christian Sabbath, called a "Sabbath day" by our Saviour, {#Mt 24:20} who is "Lord of this Sabbath," called therefore the Lord’s day, {#Re 1:10} as one of our sacraments is called "the Lord’s supper," {#1Co 11:20} and "the table of the Lord," {#1Co 10:21} because instituted by him. Pope Sylvester presumed to alter the Christian Sabbath, decreeing that Thursday should be kept through the whole year; because on that day Christ ascended, and on that instituted the blessed sacrament of his body and blood. {a} And generally Papists press the sanctification of the Sabbath as a mere human institution in religious worship; an ordinance of the Church; and do in their celebration more solemnly observe the festivals of the saints, than the Lord’s Sabbaths, making it as Bacchus’s orgies, &c., that, according to what their practice is, it may more fitly be styled, Dies daemoniacus quam Dominicus, the devil’s day than God’s.

To keep it holy.] Let every one of us keep the Sabbath spiritually, saith Ignatius, -μελετη {β} νομου χαιρων ου σωματος ανεσει, -rejoicing in the meditation of Christ’s law, more than in the rest of our bodies. The ox and ass must rest; we must consecrate a rest: as God on the seventh day rested not from his works of preservation. {#Joh 5:17} {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Hospin, De Fest. Christ.

{b} Epist. 3, ad Magnesian.

Ver. 9. Six days shalt thou labour.] God hath reserved but one day in seven, as he reserved the tree of knowledge of good and evil; {#Ge 2:2,3} yet wretched men must needs clip the Lord’s coin. In many places God’s Sabbaths are made the voider and dunghill for all refuse businesses. The Sabbath of the Lord, the sanctified day of his rest, saith one, is shamelessly troubled and disquieted. The world is now grown perfectly profane, saith another, and can play on the Lord’s day without concern. {a} {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Bishop King, On John, lect. vii.

Ver. 10. But the seventh day.] Or, A seventh day. Not only Hebrews, but also Greeks and Barbarians, did rest from work on the seventh day: witness Josephus, Clemens Alexand., and Eusebius. That which they tell us of the river Sabbatius, its resting, and not running on that day, I look upon as fabulous.

Thou shalt not do any work.] Only works of piety, of charity, and of necessity may bc done on the Sabbath day. He that but gathered sticks was paid home with stones. The first blow given the German Churches was upon the Sabbath day, which they carelessly observed. Prague was lost upon that day. {a}

Thou, nor thy son, &c.] Every mother’s child. The baser sort of people in Sweden do always break the Sabbath, saying, that it is for gentlemen to keep that day. {b}

Thy man servant.] There is an old law of the Saxon king Ina, If a villain work on Sunday by his lord’s command, he shall be free. {c} {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Dike, Of Confession of Sin, p. 276.

{b} David’s Desire, by R. Abbot.

{c} Sir H. Spelman, in Concil.

Ver. 11. For in six days.] God took six days to make the world in, to the end that we might be in a muse when we think of it; and think on his works in that order that he made them.

And rested the seventh day.] Not as tired out—for he made all without either tool or toil; his Fiat only did the deed—but to give us example, as #Joh 13:15.

Wherefore the Lord blessed, &c.] How God esteemeth the strict observation of the Sabbath day, may appear by the exact delivery of it. For he hath fenced it about, like mount Sinai, with marks and bounds, that profaneness might not approach it: (l.) By his watchword, "Remember"; (2.) By his bounty, "Six days," &c.; (3.) By his sovereignty, "It is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God"; (4.) By the latitude, "Thou, nor thy son," &c.; (5.) By his own example, "And he rested the seventh day"; (6.) By his benediction, as here, "He blessed it," and ordained it to be a means of much blessing to those that observe it. Add hereunto, that God hath placed this command in the midst of the Decalogue, betwixt the two tables; as much conducing to the keeping of both. It stands like the sensus communis, between the inward and outward senses, being serviceable to both. {a}

And hallowed it.] Diem septimam opifex, ut mundi natalem, sibi sacravit. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Bodin., Theat. Naturae.

Ver. 12. Honour thy father, &c.] Philo well! observeth, that this fifth commandment, which therefore he maketh a branch of the first table, and so divides the tables equally, is a mixed commandment, εντολη μικτη; and differs somewhat from the rest of those in the second table. They consider man as our neighbour, in nature like us: this, as God’s deputy, by him set over us, and in his name, and by his authority, performing offices about us.

That thy days may be long.] A good child lengtheneth his father’s days; therefore God promiseth to lengthen his. Ill children, as they bring their parents’ "gray hairs with sorrow to the grave"; so they are many times cut off in the midst of their days, as Abimelech was: God rendering upon him the evil that he did to his father. {#Jud 9:56} Besides the punishment they have in their posterity, to whom they have been peremptores potius quam parentes. {a} One complained, that never father had so undutiful a child as he had: yes, said his son, with less grace than truth, my grandfather had. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} Bernard.

Ver. 13. Thou shalt not kill.] A crying sin. {#Ge 4:8-12 23,24} For the which God makes inquisition, {#Ps 9:12} and strangely brings it to light. It was a saying of King James, that if God did allow him to kill a man, he would think God did not love him. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

Ver. 14. Thou shalt not commit adultery.] Adultery only is named; because bestiality, sodomy, and other unclcannesses, though more heinous, yet they do not directly fight against the purity of posterity and human society, which the law mainly respects. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

Ver. 15. Thou shalt not steal, ] i.e., Not rob or wrong another, either by force or fraud {a} {#1Th 4:6} {See Trapp on "1Th 4:6"} Basil chargeth the devil as a thief of the truth, in that he had decked his crows with her feathers. And it was of the devil surely that she had learned her answer, who, being charged by her mistress for stealing her linens, and other things which she found in her trunk, said, that she stole them not: and when she was asked, How came they to be laid and locked up there? did not you do this? No, said she, it was not I, but sin that dwelleth in me. {b} {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

{a} επιβολη και επιβουλη.—Naz.

{b} Light for Smoke, p. 85.

Ver. 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness.] Neither bear it, nor hear it; raise, nor receive wrong reports of another; {#De 19:16} make a lie, nor love it when it is made. {#Re 22:15} The truth must be spoken, and that in love. Doeg had a false tongue, though he spoke nothing but truth against David. {#Ps 120:3} {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Ex 20:17"}

Ver. 17. Thou shalt not covet.] {See Trapp on "Ro 7:7"} {See Trapp on "Heb 13:5"} One observeth that the word Concupisco, here used, is inceptive; to show that the very first motion is sin, though no consent be yielded.

Thy neighbour’s house.] House is here first set, as that which holds and harbours all the rest. Neither will a wise man take a wife before he hath a house. Birds will not couple till their nest be ready.

To these ten words, written by God himself in the day of the assembly, divines have reduced those other laws, moral, judicial, and ceremonial, written by Moses. {#Ex 34:27,28 De 10:4} And herein Alstedius, that excellent methodist, hath, in his "Harmonia Mosaica," as in all those brief but pithy notes upon the Pentateuch, done the Church of Christ singular good service; whom therefore—for a preface to that which follows in the opening of this and the three next books, and for the use of my English reader—I have abridged, translated and the same here inserted.

SECTION I.

Of reducing all the Moral Laws to the Decalogue.

To the first commandment belong laws that concern faith, hope, and love to God.

First, Faith: as, that there is but one God, and three Persons, Jehovah Elohim; that he will send them a Prophet greater than Moses; {#De 18:15} that he is to be honoured with our confidence, patience, and inward worship,

Next, Hope: of favour, grace, and glory.

Thirdly, Love to God with the whole heart; filial fear, humble prayer, holy vows, constant care to avoid idolising the creature, seeking to the devil, tempting of God, listening to seducers, &c.

To the second commandment belong laws made against gross idolatry, will worship, &c., and for right worship.

To the third pertain laws for prayer, thanksgiving, oaths, lots, blasphemies, worthy walking, &c.

To the fourth, all laws of sanctifying the Sabbath.

To the fifth, of honouring and reverencing parents, princes, elders, &c., and of punishing rebellious children.

To the sixth may be reduced all laws concerning murder, revenge, rancour, smiting, fighting, cursing the deaf, laying a block before the blind, &c.

To the seventh, all that is said against fornication, adultery, sodomy, incest, wearing the apparel of the other sex.

To the eighth, laws against robbery, rapine, usury, sacrilege, detaining wages or pledges, removing landmarks, accepting of persons, taking of gifts, false weights, &c.

To the ninth belong laws against backbiting, tale bearing, false witnessing, judging, not admonishing, &c.

To the tenth no laws are referred: because it is wholly spiritual, and hath no visible violations.

SECTION II.

Of reducing Judicial Laws to the Decalogue.

To the first commandment: It was death, (1.) To deny obedience to the priest, who was a type of Christ; (2.) To persuade apostasy from the true God; (3.) To seek to witches and wizards.

It was likewise unlawful to make a covenant with the Canaanites, whom God had cursed: to make mixtures of divers kinds of creatures, &c.: whereby they are taught sincerity in religion and conversation.

To the second commandment: God commanded to abolish images, pictures, idolatrous temples, altars, groves, &c., and forbade them, upon pain of death, to bow to sun, moon, or any other strange gods; because Moses’s polity could not consist of true worshippers and professed idolaters.

To the third commandment: There were two kinds of blasphemy or cursing of God; whether it were mediate or immediate, direct or indirect; one proceeding of infirmity and impatience, the other of malice and obstinacy. This latter was to be punished with stoning: that former with some corporeal punishment; as beating, boring the tongue, &c.

To the fourth commandment: The wilful profanation of the Sabbath was punished with death. Tithes, offerings, firstfruits, firstlings, and the like, were commanded by God, as part of the priests’ maintenance, due to them by the very law of nature. And the same custom is at this day commendably kept up, there not being a more equal and easy way of maintaining the ministers of the Church, and so of upholding the Church’s ministry.

To the fifth commandment: Wrong done to a parent, whether by striking or cursing, is parricide, and to be punished with death: so is wrong offered to the chief magistrate; this is treason. Parents had power to command and correct their children, yea, in some cases, to sell them to their brethren the Israelites, and to sue out a writ of execution against them, if uncounselable and incorrigible.

The privilege of primogeniture made for the honour of the family, and prefigured Christ.

The chief magistrate is both ordained and ordered by God. {#De 17:15} Inferior magistrates must neither be strangers, nor eunuchs, nor bastards, nor Ammonites, nor Moabites. {#De 23:1-3} But they must be men of courage, fearing God, &c.

To the sixth commandment: Four sorts of capital punishments were in use among God’s people; viz., stoning, burning, beheading, and strangling. Execution was done either by the whole people, or else some deputed thereunto.

Man slaughter was committed either by man or beast. If by a man, either it was voluntary, and that was punished with death: or involuntary, and in that case they had their cities of refuge: these prefigured Christ, our sole sanctuary of safety. But if by a beast, the beast was stoned, as also the master of the beast, if done by his default.

Blows that caused loss of limbs were punished with the like loss; or if not, with a reasonable recompense.

Violence offered to a woman pregnant with child, so as she lost her fruit, was death: but if she were not pregnant, it was only a money fine.

God straitly charged them to abstain from the use of beasts’ blood; that they might learn to abstain much more from shedding man’s blood.

Lepers were to live apart, lest the sound should be infected: and to intimate the contagiousness of sin. #Ex 20:17

A Jewish servant, if he should not go free at the year of jubilee, was to be bored in the ear with an awl, and to live and die with his master.

Hereto also pertain their laws for war: as, that newly married men, timorous persons, and ploughmen should be excused; that a soldier should be twenty years of age at least; that the general should desire passage through his brother’s country; that he should send forth spies; offer peace; lead on his soldiers; use stratagems; spare fruit trees; equally divide the spoil; reserve a part thereof for God; see that the camp be kept clean from sin, &c.

To the seventh commandment: Adultery was death: and, in the high priest’s daughter, fornication was burning; because he was a special type of Christ, and therefore his family should be without blame or blemish.

Sodomy and bestiality were likewise death: so was the deflouring of an espoused virgin, and a rape. The priest might not marry any but a virgin. The price of a harlot might not be brought into the sanctuary. Polygamy and divorce were permitted only, and not commanded.

Marrying with the brother’s widow was peculiar to the Old Testament.

They were to marry within their own tribes; because our Lord was to spring of the tribe of Judah.

He that defiled a virgin, was both to marry her, and to endow her, so that he had her parents’ consent thereunto.

The prohibited degrees both of consanguinity and affinity are moral, and grounded upon very good reason. {#Le 16 Le 20}

To the eighth commandment: Kidnapping, sacrilege, and compound theft were punished with death. Usury is condemned by the law of God.

The law for things borrowed, deposited, intrusted, lent, or found, is grounded upon this rule. He that marreth another man’s goods robbeth him.

God would not have any poor—that is, sturdy beggars—amongst his people.

To the ninth commandment: Hereunto belong the laws for ecclesiastical and civil judgments.

SECTION III.

Of the Signification of the Ceremonial Laws; and first, for Holy Places.

These laws concern either holy places, times, things, or persons.

The general law for holy places was, that in that place only that God should choose, holy services should be performed. And this signified, (1.) That through Christ alone we must go to God in every divine duty; (2.) That the time shall come when we shall enjoy the immediate presence of God in heaven.

The special law was, as touching the tabernacle, a lively type of Christ, and of the Church, and of each Christian.

Now in the tabernacle are considerable, (l.) The causes, and (2.) The parts thereof. The causes that concurred to the making of it up, are,

1. The matter; which was various, voluntary, and sufficient. This figured that freewill offering wherewith every man ought to honour God, by trading with his talent, and by doing what he is able for the maintenance of the ministry, and relief of the needy.

2. The form: and so the tabernacle was to be made according to the pattern received in the mount. To teach us, that God will be served according to his own prescript only, and not after man’s inventions.

3. The efficient, was every skilful workman, and by name Bezaleel and Aholiab. These latter figured out the Church’s chieftains and master builders; as those former, all gifted ministers.

These were the causes of the tabernacle: the parts thereof, as well containing as contained, follow. These all were so framed as that they might easily be set up or taken down, and so transported from place to place: whereby was signified, that while we are in this tabernacle of the body—which shall be taken down by death, and set up again by the resurrection—we are absent from the Lord; and that the whole Church not only is a stranger upon earth, but also moveth from one place to another, as God disposeth it.

The covering of the tabernacle set forth that the Church and her members do ever sit safe under God’s protection.

The court made up of various pillars, signified that the Church, in regard of the ministry therein, is the pillar of truth; and that the offices and abilities of the several members ought to be as props to the whole body.

The holy instruments and implements served to set forth all the precious gifts and ordinances of the Church; such as are the word, sacraments, faith, holiness, &c.

The taches, whereby the curtains were knit together, signified that the various members of the Church militant and triumphant are but one tabernacle.

The covering of the tabernacle was twofold, inward and outward; whereby was signified the internal and external estate of the Church.

The glorious gate signified the hearts of God’s people made glorious by faith, whereby we entertain Christ.

The tabernacle fitly knit together by its joints, and rightly erected, signified the Church of Christ fitly compacted by that which every joint supplieth, and making increase with the increase of God. {#Eph 4:16 Col 2:19}

The veil signified the flesh of Christ, whereby his deity was covered, and a way paved for us to heaven.

The veil was filled with cherubims: to show how serviceable the angels are to Christ and his people.

The Holy of Holies shadowed out the third heaven, into the which Christ only entered and we by him.

The ark of the covenant covered with gold, figured Christ, in whom the Godhead dwelleth bodily; and in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom, &c.

The testimony laid up in the ark signified Christ, the end of the law; which also hath its testimony from him.

The golden censer signified that all our services must be perfumed, and perfected by Christ, before they can be accepted.

The golden pot of manna in the side of the ark was a sacrament of that eternal life that is laid up for us in Christ. {#Col 3:3}

Aaron’s rod blossoming was a sign of God’s fatherly affection, whereby it comes to pass that we bloom and flourish under the cross.

The sanctuary, or tabernacle of the congregation, was the way into the Holy of Holies; and signified the Church militant, through which we enter into heaven.

The brazen altar for burnt offerings shadowed out the humanity of Christ, which is sanctified by his deity, and supported under all his sufferings for us.

The altar of incense signified that Christ appeareth for us before his Father, and maketh all our services accepted by the sacrifice of himself, once offered for sin.

The table furnished with so many loaves as there were tribes in Israel, signified that God keeps a constant table in his Church for all believers.

The golden candlestick with its seven lamps, figured the glorious light of the gospel, whereby "God hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." {#2Co 4:6}

The laver wherein the priests washed themselves before they ministered in the tabernacle, signified that we cannot draw nigh to God in his services without due preparation.

The outer court signified the visible Church, wherein hypocrites also partake of external privileges.

Lo, these are the things typed out by the tabernacle: and they cannot be better understood than by God’s own interpretation of them, when he saith, "Let them make me a sanctuary, that may dwell in the midst of them." {#Ex 25:8} For in those words, as learned Junius observeth, is contained an explication of all the above said ceremonies.

SECTION IV.

Treating of Holy Times.

Concerning holy times, the law is either general or special.

The general law is, partly concerning the most strict rest from all servile works; and partly concerning the sacrifices which were on those holy days to be offered. The former figured that rest where unto God in his due time will bring us.

The latter served not only to exercise the Jews, prone to excess, with the hard yoke of great expense; but also, by the great charge they were at, to shadow out the great worth of Christ, far beyond all worldly treasures.

The special law concerned, (1.) Holy days; (2.) Holy years. Holy days were either daily portion, or solemn. And these latter were partly the new moons, partly the Sabbaths, and partly the feasts; which feasts were either more solemn, as the passover, pentecost, and feast of tabernacles; or less solemn, as the feast of trumpets, and the feast of atonement.

Holy years were, (1.) The Sabbatical or seventh year; or, (2.) The jubilee or fiftieth year. The explication of all these is as followeth:—1. The continual sacrifice was offered twice every day, that the people might, every morning and evening, be admonished of their sin guiltiness: and, with it, might be exercised in the remembrance and belief of the continual sacrifice of Christ for their sin. It signified also our daily service, or continual sacrifice of praise and holiness, offered up to God in the name of Christ.

2. The new moon sacrifice served to set forth that all our time, and actions done therein, are sanctified unto us by Christ.

3. The Sabbath was a memorial of the creation: it was also a type partly of Christ’s resting in the grave, and partly of our rest in Christ; the beginning whereof we have here, the perfection of it in heaven. And whereas special order was taken that no fire should be kindled on that day; it was to signify that Christ’s rest, and ours in him, was, and should be, free from the fire of affliction.

4. The holy feasts were, in general, appointed for these ends and uses, (1.) To distinguish the people of God from other nations; (2.) To keep afoot the remembrance of benefits already received; (3.) To be a type and figure of benefits yet further to be conferred upon them by Christ; (4.) To unite God’s people in holy worships; (5.) To preserve purity in holy worships prescribed by God.

5. The passover of those that were clean, celebrated in the beginning of the year, figured out the time, manner, and fruit of Christ’s passion. The passover kept by those that had been unclean, signified that Christ profiteth not sinners as long as they persist in their uncleanness; and so it figured out the time of repentance.

6. At the feast of pentecost there was a day of waving and of offering the firstfruits. The former signified that the handful of our fruits—that is, our faith and good works—are not accepted of God, unless they be waved by Christ our High Priest. The latter, that God’s blessings are to be joyfully and thankfully received and remembered.

7. The feast of tabernacles, besides that it brought to mind the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, did notably set forth the Church’s pilgrimage in this present world; which yet is so to be thought on, as that, with greatest spiritual joy, we remember and celebrate our redemption by Christ’s death.

8. The feast of trumpets signified that continual cause of cheerfulness and thankfulness that the saints should have by Christ’s death.

9. The feast of atonement signified that the sins of God’s people in their holy meetings and daily services should be expiated by Christ. Moreover, atonement was also made for the most holy place and for the sanctuary. That signified that the visible heaven also was defiled by our sin, and need he purged by Christ’s blood. This, that the Catholic Church is, by the same blood of Christ, made alone acceptable to God. By the application that was made for several persons was set forth the applicatory force of faith. Furthermore, that application and expiation was made by a live and a slain goat. Upon the live goat, called the scapegoat, were put the offences of the children of Israel, and the goat thus ceremonially laden, was let go into the wilderness: the other goat was set apart for a whole burnt-offering. The former ceremony signified that the Son of God came down from heaven into the wilderness of this world, that he might take away the sins of the world. The latter shadowed out the blood of Christ, which alone cleanseth us from all sin.

10. The seventh-year Sabbath had both an ecclesiastical and a civil use. For, (1.) It did set forth and commend to the people the spiritual Sabbath, which beginneth in the expiation wrought by Christ; (2.) It distinguished this nation from others; (3.) It exercised the people in confidence of God’s providence; (4.) It much conduced to the fruitfulness of the fields, which, if exhausted with continual tillage, would have grown barren, and so an evil report would have passed of the Holy Land.

11. The years of jubilee had their ecclesiastical, political, and chronological use. For, (1.) They signified the jubilee of grace and glory; both which Christ doth both proclaim and confer upon his people; (2.) They were a great help to the poor; (3.) They preserved the distinction of tribes; (4.) They served to distinguish the times thenceforth, from the division of the land, in the year of the world 2559 (1445 BC), to the destruction of Jerusalem; (5.) They figured the rest that the land should have by the just judgments of God for the sins of the people.

SECTION V.

Treating of Holy Things.

Holy things were either common, as oil; or proper: and these again were either principal, or less principal. The principal things were sacrifices; the requisites whereof were three—viz., fire, salt, and fat. The kinds of sacrifices were six—viz., (1.) A whole burnt-offering; (2.) An oblation or meatoffering; (3.) A peace-offering; (4.) A sacrifice for sin of ignorance or error; (5.) A sacrifice for wilful I wickedness; (6.) A sacrifice of consecration. The less principal things pertained either to all in general, as first-fruits, tenths, vows, &c.; or to the priest peculiarly, as incense, holy water, trumpets. The application of these is thus:—

1. Oil is said to be a most holy thing, because use was made of it in the consecration of the tabernacles, priests, and people. It figured out the oil of gladness—that is, the gifts of the Holy Ghost which Christ received without measure, and after that, by him, all the parts of the Church, both pastors and all Christians; for all and only such are anointed with the oil of gladness. Now this oil was so made up of most precious things, and the confection thereof by none to be imitated, as might best set forth that reprobates are not consecrated with the anointing of God’s children.

2. The fire that came down from heaven, and was to be continually kept alive, signified four things:—(1.) The fire of God’s wrath kindled and kept in by our sins; (2.) The fire of God’s favour, whereby our sins are consumed in Christ; (3) The fire of the Holy Spirit’s operation upon all believers, but especially upon the apostles and their successors; (4.) Lastly, the fire of tribulation, which causeth us to aspire towards heaven.

3. The salt of the covenant was a symbol of incorruption—that is, of perpetual continuance in the covenant of God. And so it signified that every faithful Christian is so confirmed in the covenant of God by faith, that, by the salt of affliction, he is preserved against temptations and assaults of all sorts.

4. The fat of the sacrifices was holy to God alone: and hereby was signified that we ought to consecrate our choicest things to God; that so we may obtain the fatness and sweetness both of grace and gloW laid up for us in Christ.

5. A right common to all sacrifices offered up of living creatures, was the sprinkling of the blood by the priest upon the altar. Hereby was signified the blood of Christ, who is at once our priest, altar, and sacrifice. Those great drops of his blood, I say, are hereby signified, wherewith believers’ hearts, which also are so many altars, are sprinkled.

6. The whole burnt sacrifice was an offering whereby the sacrificer testified that he gave himself up wholly to Christ; and that he believed that Christ was his with all his benefits; as also that he was all a-light with the flame of the fire of charity.

7. In the meat-offering it was not lawful to offer leaven, or anything that leaveneth, as honey: whereby was signified that corruption, at once in doctrine, life, and discipline, is to be put far away, if we ‘would offer up ourselves to God.

8. In peace-offerings, leavened bread also was made use of: that, together with our cheerful praising of God, we may remember our afflictions, the property whereof is to leaven the heart. {#Ps 73:21}

9. The waving of some part of the sacrifice in meat-offerings and peace-offerings, signified the continual motion of our lips m prayers and praises.

10. The sacrifice for errors and infirmities, signified that all our sins are mortal, and cannot be pardoned but through Christ alone..

11. The sacrifice of consecration showed the difference between the Levitical priests and Christ—viz., that they had need to offer for their own sins; but he for the sins of his people only.

And these are the ceremonial sacrifices: all which signified the sacrifice of Christ, and the sacrifices of Christians; such as are all their moral works proceeding from faith—viz., a contrite spirit, alms, prayer, &c. And lastly, that offering up of the Gentiles mentioned by the apostle in #Ro 15:16.

Furthermore, in all sacrifices, clean things only were to be offered: whereby was signified the purity of Christ and of all his members. Like as the offering of doves signified that dove-like simplicity of Christ and his people: which simplicity procecdeth from the Holy Ghost, who is also represented by the dove.

12. Firstfruits were holy to God: and thereby all a man’s substance also was made holy. This signified, (1.) That the holiness of Christ was the holiness of the whole Church; (2.) That the children of believing parents are holy.

13. Tithes, by divine ceremonial right, belonged to the priests for their maintenance: but by moral right they were holy to God; who by this means required to be acknowledged the Owner and Giver of all good things. In the New Testament, tithes, though they be not of necessity, yet are they of perpetual equity, as to the maintenance of the ministry.

14. The tenth of the tithes, which the Levites out of their tithes offered to the high priest, signified the prerogative of Christi in whom we are all tithed.

15. The ceremonial vow, and the redemption thereof, was part of the worship of God: yet without opinion of satisfaction and merit: this then makes nothing at all for those that now-a-days impose upon the people laws of vows, and redemption of vows, with an opinion of necessity, satisfaction, and merit. Vows are a service pleasing to God, so they be made and used freely; as exercises of piety, and as helps thereunto. The same may be said of things devoted.

16. Novals were the fruits of trees, which for the three first years being accounted as uncircumcised, were in the fourth year offered up to the Lord; to teach us that all our food is uncircumcised unto us by reason of sin, but is circumcised by faith in Christ; being received with praying and thanksgiving.

17. The holy perfume figured the grace of the Holy Ghost, wherewith the services of the saints are sanctified.

18. The holy water of atonement was a figure of that blessed fountain of Christ’s blood, ever running for the washing away of the filth of sin.

19. The burning of the sacrifices signified Christ burnt in the fire of his Father’s wrath for our sins: but the burning of the garbage and excrements shadowed out the crucifying of the old man. Lastly, those things that were not to be burnt noted the victory of Christ and of our faith.

20. The two trumpets of silver were used by the priest for causes ecclesiastical and civil. As to the former, they blew to call an assembly, and to rejoice spiritually; and this they did without an alarm. As to the latter, they sounded to go forward, or to go forth to battle; and this was done with an alarm. By all which was signified the glorious instancy and efficacy of God’s faithful ministers in reproving sin, in preaching the glad tidings of salvation, and in stirring up men to the spiritual warfare.

SECTION VI.

Of Holy Persons.

Holy persons are considered either in general or more particularly.

That which is to be taken notice of in the general is, that God would not approve of any work but what was done by a sacred person. To teach us that good works please not God, unless the man that doeth them be first justified.

More particularly, holy persons were either those that served at the altar, or other holy ones. Those that served at the altar were the high priest, the rest of the priests, and the Levites. Those other holy ones were the Nazarites, and clean persons. Let us view them severally.

1. The office of the priest was to offer sacrifice, and to pray for the people: hereby was signified the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ.

2. The consecration of the priests, and their freedom from all bodily blemish, signified the holiness of Christ, both habitual and actual.

3. The holy garments, and their stately bravery, signified the beauty and bravery of Christ and his Church. {#Ps 45}

4. The anointing of the high priest signified the anointing and appointing of Christ to his office of Mediator.

5. The holy abstinence of the priests signified the actual holiness of Christ.

6. The high priest was a lively type of Jesus Christ, as the apostle excellently sets forth in his Epistle to the Hebrews. The other priests represented our dignity in Christ, and our duty toward him. {#1Pe 2:5 Re 1:5,6} The high priest shadowed out both the person and the office of Christ. His person, as he was a man like unto other men, and yet superior to them in office and ornaments: which ornaments did thus represent the threefold office of Christ. The bells and pomegranates hanging at the hem of his garment, signified the prophetical office of Christ. The plate of gold, whereupon was engraven HOLINESS TO THE LORD, signified his priestly office. The bonnet, mitre, upon the high priest’s head, typified his kingly office. Other ornaments, common to the high priest with the rest of the priests, signified partly the gifts of grace, and partly the Christian armour, which the apostle describeth {#Eph 6:11-17} as consisting in the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, &c.

7. Those twelve precious stones in the breastplate were a type of the old and new Church; that consisting of twelve tribes, and this collected by twelve apostles. Those two precious stones in the shoulderpiece, figured likewise those two Churches, as they have the two Testaments. Those two precious stones in the breastplate of judgment, the Urim and Thummim, were a type of Christ, who is our only light and perfection.

8. There was but one high priest: there is but "One Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." {#1Ti 2:5}

9. The priests only did partake of the sacrifices; so Christians only have communion with Christ.

10. Aaron bore the names of the children of Israel before the Lord. So doth Christ his Church, and all the members thereof; for whom he continually appears in heaven.

11. The binding of woven work strengthened the robe that it might not be rent. This signified the righteousness and strength of Christ for the salvation of his people, and subversion of his enemies.

12. When Aaron entered into the holy places, his bells gave a sound. Hereby was signified Christ’s intercession for us, the Spirit’s making request in us, and the duty and property of all faithful pastors.

13. The high priest might not marry any but a virgin from among his own people. This figured that the Church was to be presented unto Christ as a pure virgin.

14. The high priest was forbidden to lament or to rend his garments: so Christ after his resurrection obtained glory and joy, without any mixture of grief or ignominy.

15. The priests and Levites that served at the tabernacle figured the ecclesiastical hierarchy, as it admits of divers orders and degrees.

16. The Nazarite’s vow was to separate himself unto the Lord by a special holiness. Hereby was signified the purity of Christ, and withal his country of Nazareth, by an illusion of name.

17. Those that were legally unclean, either by meats, or carcasses of men, or leprosy, were first separated, and then cleansed. In like sort, all our sins, of what size soever, do separate us from God, and some of them from his Church also; being all expiated in and by Christ alone.

18. The uncleanness of childbearing women set forth the filth of natural corruption.

19. The casting of lepers out of the camp was a figure of excommunication.

20. The house and all the goods of lepers were unclean, and therefore either burnt or destroyed: to teach us to abolish all instruments of idolatry.

21. Lepers, after they were cleansed, showed themselves to the priest, who was to pronounce them clean. This was a type of church absolution.

22. The leper being cleansed, was to offer two little birds; whereof the one was killed, the other was let go free. Hereby was figured the death of Christ, and the power of his Godhead in his resurrection and ascension.

23. Unclean meats were a part of the Jewish pedagogy, and signified that there is a mixture of clean and unclean persons in the Church. It further figured that distinction of Jews from Gentiles—which distinction is now taken away by Christ. {#Ac 10} Hitherto Alstedius. Now let us proceed, and go on where we left, in explaining the text.

Ver. 18. They removed, &c., ] viz., From the hill foot, where they stood and trembled. {#De 4:11} They feared and fled. Man is ζωον φιλοζωον, {a} a creature that would fain live.

{a} Aristot.

Ver. 19. Speak thou with us.] See here what a mercy it is to have the mind of God made known by men like ourselves; that may say unto us, as Elihu did to Job, "Behold, I am according to thy wish in God’s stead: I also am cut out of the clay. Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee." {#Job 33:6,7}

Ver. 20. Fear not.] And yet fear. Fear not this glorious appearance so much: but let it bring your cogitations to his future fearful appearance.

Ver. 21. Stood afar off.] Yea, God, tendering their infirmity, gave them leave to go home to their tents. {#De 5:30,31}

Ver. 22. From heaven.] For wheresoever God is, heaven is: as where the king is, there is the court.

Ver. 23. Ye shall not male with me gods.] Say we of such petty deities as that heathen did, Contemno minutulos istos deos, modo Iovem (Iehovam) mihi propitium habeam. I slight them all.

Ver. 24. An altar of earth.] In opposition to the costly shrines and services of those dunghill deities. God cares not for outward pomp: Popery is all for it, and scoffs at our simplicity. The God of the Protestants, saith a blasphemous popeling, is the most uncivil and unmannered God of all those that have borne the names of gods upon earth; yea, worse than Pan, the god of the clowns, which can endure no ceremonies, nor good manners at all. {a}

{a} John Hunt, in his Appeal to King James, cap. 6.

Ver. 25. Thou hast polluted.] Not polished it. So in preaching. {#1Co 2:4,5} Epistolae ornamentum est ornamentis carere: Plainness commends an epistle. {a} Nimio mundo studentes, ab immundo propius absunt. {b} Some mar all by over doing it.

{a} Politian.

{b} Colerus.

Ver. 26. That thy nakedness.] We blush when taken naked, as if the blood would run forth to cover us. What beasts, then, were those priests of Priapus, and those base Bacchanalists, that ran up and down naked!

Chapter 21

Ver. 1. Now these are the judgments, ] i.e., The judicial laws, fitly annexed to the Decalogue, whereof the civil magistrate is the lord-keeper. It was written upon the sword of Charles the Great, Decem praeceptorum custos Carolus.

Ver. 2. In the seventh year.] No longer might they serve, because they were God’s servants; {#Le 25:42} whose privilege, see in #Isa 65:13,14 Christ’s "freemen." {#1Co 7:22}

Ver. 3. If he came in by himself, ] Without a second-self, a yoke fellow, standing on even ground with himself, though drawing on the left side.

Ver. 4. Have given him a wife, ] viz., One of his heathen handmaids, whom to part with was no great punishment, because an unlawful couple.

Ver. 5. I love my master.] A little better than he in Plautus, that said, Ego non servio libenter; herus meus me non habet libenter, tamen utitur me ut lippis oculis.

Ver. 6. And he shall serve him.] Being υπερετης και οργανον και ολως εκεινου, as Aristotle hath it; the master’s instrument, underling, and wholly his. He doeth his own, and not his master’s will, that doeth no more than himself will: this is a holiday servant, as they say.

Ver. 7. She shall not go out.] But upon better terms. He that was to come "in the form of a servant," {#Php 2:7} see what care he takes of poor servants’ welfare. Lawyers seldom speak but for great men, or when they may have great gifts. Christ is not of that humour.

Ver. 8. He hath dealt deceitfully with her.] By not answering her expectation. This God tolerated for the hardness of their hearts, but approved not.

Ver. 9. After the manner of daughters.] Not put her off, as they say they do their daughters in Hungary, without a portion, only with a new coat at their wedding: much less set her to sale, as the Thracians did their young brides; quae non moribus nubebant, sed praemiis. {a}

{a} Solin, cap. 15.

Ver. 10. Her duty of marriage.] See #1Co 7:5, {See Trapp on "1Co 7:5"}

Ver. 11. And if he do not these three unto her.] Picus est imago ingrati mariti, quia sub autumnum eiecit coniugem, ne cogatur per hyemem nutrire: postea sub vernum tempus eam ad se blande revocat, ac in consortium recipit. {a}

{a} Melancthon.

Ver. 12. Shall be surely put to death.] {See Trapp on "Ge 9:6"}

Ver. 13. But God deliver him.] Who is the Lord of our lives, and to whom we have frequently forfeited them; so that it is his mercy that we are not consumed; {#La 3:22} that we are not cut off from the land of the living.

Ver. 14, Thou shalt take him, &c.] "A man that doeth violence to the blood of any person shall flee to the pit; let none stay him"; -where {#Pr 28:17} the word Adam, rendered man, hath in the original a little d, to show that a murderer is not worthy to be called a man; -he is to be drawn from the altar to the slaughter. {Hebrew Text Note}

Ver. 15. He that smiteth.] By the law of God, of nature, and of nations, such a man should die. And herein, I think, our laws are defective: albeit, I am not of Carolostadius’s mind, who, if Melancthon misreport him not, held that these judicial laws set down by Moses should be still of force, and these only, in Christian commonwealths, and all other civil and municipal laws abolished. Our English Alfred I cannot but commend for his piety, in that he began his common laws with the ten commandments. {a}

{a} Lombard.

Ver. 16. He that stealeth a man.] Akin to these are they that steal other men’s books, and father them, setting them out in their own names. Diagoras was so served by a plagiary, which, when he saw, and that the thief was not presently struck with a thunderbolt, he, out of stomach, turned atheist. Thus, of late, Fabricius stole Tremelius’s Syriac translation. Villavincentius stole Hyperius’s treatise, "De Ratione Studii Theologici." And Possevinus stole Dr James’s "Cyprianus Redivivus."

Ver. 17. And he that curseth.] {See Trapp on "Ex 21:15"} {See Trapp on "Mt 15:4"} {a}

{a} Immane verbum est ultio. -Seneca.

Ver. 18. If men strive together.] This is counted manhood, when indeed it is doghood rather: heathens condemned it; {a} and yet Navarrus, a Popish casuist, Caedem recte admitti putat, ut alapa vitetur, et ad honorem recuperandum.

{a} Qui ulciscitur, excusatius peccat. -Ibid.

Ver. 19. Upon his staff.] See #2Sa 3:29 Zec 8:4.

Ver. 20. He shall be surely punished.] At the discretion of the magistrate, who is the "revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." {#Ro 13:4}

Ver. 21. For he is his money.] And therefore he hath power over his flesh. {#Col 3:22} Yet "hide not thine eyes from thine own flesh," saith the prophet. {#Isa 58:7}

Ver. 22. And yet no mischief follow, ] i.e., No life be lost. There is a time, then, when the embryo is not alive; therefore the soul is not begotten, but infused after a time by God. Infundendo creatur, et creando infnnditur, saith Augustine, who at first doubted, till overcome by Jerome’s arguments.

Ver. 23. And if any mischief follow.] Either by death or maim, either of mother or child.

Ver. 24. Eye for eye.] How the Pharisees had wrested that text. {See Trapp on "Mt 5:39"} This kind of law, in use among heathens also, Aristotle calls το αντιπεπονθος and was given against private revenge.

Ver. 26. And if a man smite the eye of his servant.] Think the same, saith Aben Ezra, of the other principal members, which the Jews call capita membrorum: these are the ten fingers, the ten toes, the two ears, the nose, and the yard.

Ver. 28. Then the ox shall be surely stoned.] God requiring man’s blood even of beasts. {#Ge 9:5} {See Trapp on "Ge 9:5"}

Ver. 29. That he hath killed a man, &c.] Since the fall, all creatures are armed against us; as that sword which Hector gave Ajax: which so long as he used against men, his enemies, served for help and defence: but after he began to abuse it to the hurt of hurtless beasts, it turned into his own bowels.

Ver. 30. Sum of money.] Taxed upon him by the next of kin, or, if he be unreasonable, by the judge. {#Ex 21:22}

Ver. 31. A son or a daughter.] A little one, and in his minority, as Puerilitas est periculorum pelagus.

Ver. 32. Thirty shekels.] This same was that "goodly price" that our Lord Christ was valued at by the vile Jews. {#Zec 11:12,13 Mt 26:15}

Ver. 33. And an ox or an ass.] We can hardly open the deep pit of God’s bottomless, boundless mercy, but some silly beast will be falling thereinto; "stumbling at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed." {#1Pe 2:8}

Ver. 34. The owner of the pit shall make it good.] Think the same of other cattle also, good vel ad usum, vel ad esum, as horse, ass, sheep, &c.: a parte, tolum intelligendum, saith Augustine here; by a part it is to be understood the whole.

Ver. 36. Ox for ox.] These were those "right judgments, true laws, good statutes, and commandments." {#Ne 9:13}

Chapter 22

Ver. 1. If a man shall steal, &c.] The Persians at this day punish theft and manslaughter so severely, that in an age a man shall hardly hear either of the one or the other. The Turk’s justice will rather cut off two innocent men than let one thief escape. {a}

{a} The Preacher’s Travels, by J. Cartwright.

Ver. 2. If a thief be found.] So, if an adulteress be taken, -as she was in #Joh 8:4, -επαυτοφωρω, in the very act.

llllVer. 3. If the sun be risen.] Chaldee hath it, If the eye of witnesses: if he can raise the town, and call in aid.

Ver. 4. He shall restore double.] In Solomon’s time it was sevenfold. {#Pr 6:31}

Ver. 5. To be eaten.] By unadvised turning in of his cattle, through mistake or neglect.

Ver. 6. Or the field.] The stubble.

Ver. 7. Or stuff.] Heb., Vessels, instruments, ornaments, apparel, furniture, weapons, &c.

Ver. 8. To see whether, ] sc., By putting him to his oath. {#Ex 22:11} Some think that a private oath may be in such a case as this lawfully taken for the satisfaction of another, if he will not otherwise be satisfied.

Ver. 9. Before the judges.] Heb., The gods: so judges are called, if good especially. {#Ps 82:6} And the seat of judicature is called the holy place. {#Ec 8:10}

Ver. 10. Or any beast, to keep.] As Jacob kept Laban’s cattle. {#Ge 31:39}

Ver. 11. An oath of the Lord.] Who is called in as a witness and as an avenger. How hateful, then, is that Popish proverb and practice, Mercatorum est, non regum, stare iuramentis.

Ver. 12. If it be stolen, ] sc., Through his carelessness. Poor Jacob had hard law. {#Ge 31:39}

Ver. 13. Let him bring it.] A leg, or a limb of it, as #Am 3:12.

Ver. 14. And if a man borrow.] God hath so ordered human condition, that one man must be beholden to another.

Ver. 15. It came for his hire, ] q.d., He shall pay the hire only, and no more, though the owner be not by when it miscarrieth.

Ver. 16. Entice a maid.] Heb., persuade with her by fair words, which make fools fain.

Ver. 17. He shall pay.] No fine is laid upon her, because she had nothing of her own; and she had lost her honour in losing her virginity. {#1Th 4:4} {See Trapp on "1Th 4:4"}

Ver. 18. A witch.] An enchantress, sorceress, whose help was sometimes sought in enticing young maids to folly. {a} The wizzard also is here meant, but the woman witch mentioned; both because women are more inclinable to that sin; and also because the weaker sex is not to be spared for this fault. {b}

{a} Vatab.

{b} Junius.

Ver. 19. Be put to death.] Heb., Put him to die. Gr., Kill him with death; as God threateneth to do Jezebel’s children. {#Re 2:23}

Ver. 20. He shall be utterly destroyed.] As an execrable and accursed creature.

Ver. 21. Theft shalt not vex a stranger.] The right of strangers is so holy, saith one, that there was never nation so barbarous that would violate the same. When Stephen Gardner had in his power the renowned divine Peter Martyr, then teaching at Oxford, he would not keep him to punish him; but when he should go his way, gave him wherewith to bear his charges. {a}

{a} Act. and Mon., fol. 1783.

Ver. 22. Or fatherless child.] With God "the fatherless findeth mercy." {#Ho 14:3} Widows and orphans are God’s clients, taken into his protection.

Ver. 23. And they cry at all unto me.] A vine whose root is uncovered thrives not: so a widow, whose covering of eyes is taken away, joys not. In Hebrew she is called Almanach, from Alam, to be dumb; because she hath none to speak for her, {a} But if she call and cry to God, he will speak for her in the hearts of her oppressors.

{a} Mercer, in Proverb.

Ver. 24. Your wives shall be widows.] God delights to punish cruelty in kind, as he did in Agag. {#1Sa 15:33}

Ver. 25. Thou shalt not be to him as a usurer.] Heb., As an exacting creditor, Qui nullum diem gratis occidere creditori permittit. The usurer’s money is to necessity, like cold water to a hot ague, that for a time refresheth, but prolongeth the disease.

Lay upon him usury.] Heb., Biting usury. Usurer’s are men eaters. {#Ps 14:4} Like pickrels in a pond, or sharks in the sea, that devour the lesser fishes. These ostriches can digest any metal, especially money. Aristotle in one page condemneth the usurer and the dicer; {a} and yet some Christians blush at neither.

{a} Arist., Ethic, lib. iv. cap. 1.

Ver. 26, 27. Thy neighbour’s raiment.] Meant only of his bedclothes, tegumentum nocturnum; without which he cannot comfortably rest in the night.

Ver. 27. {See Trapp on "Ex 22:26"}

Ver. 28. Thou shalt not revile the gods.] Blaspheme dignities. {#Jude 1:8} This is blasphemy is the second table.

Ver. 29. Theft shalt not delay.] True obedience is prompt and present, ready and speedy, without demurs and consults. "Wings, and wind in their wings." {#Zec 5:9}

Ver. 30. On the eighth day.] When a Sabbath had once gone over it, say the Hebrews.

Ver. 31. Holy men.] Heb., Men of holiness, which should run through our whole lives, as the woof doth through the web.

Chapter 23

Ver. 1. Thou shalt not raise.] Neither raise nor receive it; neither be the tale bearer nor talehearer: the one carries the devil in his tongue, the other in his ear. Not only those that "make a lie," but those that "love" it when it is made to their hands, are shut out of heaven. {#Re 22:15} Solomon makes it an ill sign of a graceless man to be apt to believe scandalous reports of godly persons. {#Pr 17:4}

Ver. 2. Thou shalt not follow a multitude.] The way to hell is broad and well beaten. Per viam publicam ne ingredere, was one of Pythagoras’s precepts. Do not as the most do, lest thou be undone for ever. Argumentum turpissimum est turba, saith Seneca. To live "according to the course of the world" is to be acted by the devil. {#Eph 2:2}

Ver. 3. Neither shalt thou countenance.] Spare not the great for their might, nor the mean for their misery.

Ver. 4. Ox or his ass going astray.] How much more his soul. {See Trapp on "Jas 5:20"} {See Trapp on "Jude 1:22"} {See Trapp on "Jude 1:23"}

Ver. 5. Thou shalt surely help with him.] So the Spirit helps with us; or lifts over against us. {ουναντιλαμβανεται, #Ro 8:26} He looks ut acti agamus.

Ver. 6. The judgment of thy poor.] I have seen, saith one, {a} the king of Persia many times to alight from his horse, only to do justice to a poor body. Causes are to be heard, and not persons: the Athenian judges passed sentence in the dark.

{a} The Preacher’s Travels, by J. Cartwright.

Ver. 7. Keep thee far from a false matter.] Stand aloof off; keep at a distance. See #Isa 33:15. A public man should be above all price or sale: and every man should carefully keep himself from the occasions of sin. A good man dare not come near the train, though he be far off the blow.

Ver. 8. And thou shalt take no gift.] Rain is good, and ground is good; yet Ex eorum coniunctione fit lutum, saith Stapleton. So giving is kind, and taking is courteous, yet the mixing of them makes the smooth paths of justice foul and uneven.

Ver. 9. Thou shalt not oppress, &c.] {See Trapp on "Ex 22:21"}

Ver. 10. Thou shalt sow thy land.] Here the wise man’s counsel would be remembered, Laudato ingentia rura, exiguum colito. To be called a good husbandman, was of old a high praise.

Ver. 11. But the seventh year.] That they might learn to live by faith, and be at good leisure to wait upon God. {#De 31:10-12} Let every one of us keep a spiritual Sabbath, saith Ignatius, {a} Μελετη νομου χαιρων, ου σωματος ανεσει, Better apaid of the meditation of the law, than of the relaxation and rest from labour.

{a} Ep, iii. ad Magnes.

Ver. 12. Six days.] {See Trapp on "Ex 20:8"}

Ver. 13. Be circumspect.] Or wary; keep you close to the rule, and up to your principles. {See Trapp on "Eph 5:15"}

Of the name of other gods, ] sc., Without dislike. The primitive Christians would not call their days of the week, Dies Martis, Mercurii, &c., as Mercurius Trismegistus had named them; but the first, second, third, &c., day of the week, Deastrorum nomina ne nota quidem esse voluerunt inter Christi cultores, saith one. They desired that Christians should spit out of their mouths those dunghill deities with utmost contempt; as David did. {#Ps 16:4}

Ver. 14. Three times.] See #De 16:16. The Hebrew hath it three feet, because the most went up to those three feasts every year afoot, saith Aben Ezra.

Ver. 15. Thou shalt keep the feast.] Let us also keep the feast, or holy day. {#1Co 5:8} {See Trapp on "1Co 5:8"}

Ver. 16. And the feast of harvest.] Pentecost, when their wheat harvest came in.

In the end of the year.] See the reason of this law in #De 11:12. It was "a land which the Lord cared for: the eyes of the Lord were always upon it from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year."

Ver. 17. All thy males.] The females are not required to appear, because they were weak, and not so fit for travel. They were also the housekeepers, and sanctified in their husbands. Howbeit many of them came up to these feasts, as Hannah, {#1Sa 2:19} and the Virgin Mary. {#Lu 2:41} And this was well accepted as a freewill offering.

Ver. 18. Of my sacrifice.] Especially of the passover. See #Ex 34:25 Le 2:1-3.

Ver. 19. The first of the firstfruits.] The best of the best is not to be held too good for God. His "soul hath desired the first ripe fruits." {#Mic 7:1}

Thou shalt not seethe a kid.] Hereby seemeth to be forbidden either cruelty, or curiosity to please the palate. See my "Commonplace of Abstinence." The Jews at this day, in reference to this law, may not eat flesh and cheese or milk meats together.

Ver. 20. Behold, I send an Angel, ] i.e., Christ. Immediately after God had given the law, -by the rule and threats whereof God the Father in his government was to proceed, saith a divine, -and {a} after they had transgressed it, {#Ex 33:2-4} he could not go along with them, for he should destroy them: but his Angel, that is, his Son, he would send with them; who also would destroy them, if they turned not, nor repented according to the rules of his law, the gospel.

{a} Mr Thomas Goodwin.

Ver. 21. My name is in him, ] i.e., He is of the same nature with myself. See #Php 2:6 Heb 1:3. {See Trapp on "Php 2:6"} {See Trapp on "Heb 1:3"}

Ver. 22. An enemy unto thine enemies.] There is a covenant offensive and defensive betwixt God and his people. Tua causa erit mea causa, said that emperor to his wronged friend: so saith God to his.

Ver. 23. For mine angel.] Heb., Malachi; which is by transposition of letters Michael, as some Rabbis have observed.

Ver. 24. Thou shalt utterly overthrow them.] As Henry VIII began here to do in demolishing the monasteries, and saying, Corvorum nidos esse penitus disturbandos ne iterum ad habitandum convolent. This Saunders relates and discusses. {a}

{a} Schism. Angl., lib. i.

Ver. 25. Bless thy bread.] God’s blessing is the staff of bread, and strength of water. {See Trapp on "Mt 4:4"}

Ver. 26. The number of thy days.] Thou shalt die, as Abraham did, with a good hoary head; be satur dierum, as Job; fall as a full ripe apple into the hands of God, the gatherer.

Ver. 27. My fear before thee.] Strike a panic fear into the hearts of thine enemies, so that they shall flee at the noise of a driven leaf; they shall be made & corde suo fugitivi, as Tertullian hath it.

Ver. 28. Hornets before thee.] Understand it either literally, as in #Jos 24:12; or figuratively, of the stinging terrors of their self-condemning consciences.

Ver. 29. In one year.] God’s time is best: and to prescribe to him is to set the sun by our dial. His help seems long, because we are short. Wait upon him, who waits to show us mercy. {#Isa 30:18}

Ver. 30. By little and little] God crumbles his mercies to us; we have his blessings by retail. So the cloud empties not itself at a sudden burst, but dissolves upon the earth drop after drop.

Ver. 31. The sea of the Philistines, ] i.e., The Mediterranean.

Ver. 32. No covenant with them.] Because devoted to destruction; and they will be drawing thee to idolatry, as it also happened in #Jud 1 Jud 2.

Ver. 33. A snare.] See #De 7:16 Jos 23:13 Jud 2:3.

Chapter 24

Ver. 1. Worship ye afar off.] Thus under the law; but now by grace we draw nigh with boldness, and "have access with confidence by the faith of Christ." {#Eph 3:12} {See Trapp on "Eph 3:12"}

Ver. 2. But they shall not come nigh.] But half-way only. {#Ex 24:2} {See Trapp on "Ex 19:12"}

Ver. 3. And told the people, ] So he became a Mediator {#Ga 3:19} — non redemptionis sed relationis.

Will we do.] God’s people are "willing." {#Ps 110:3} But "weak through the flesh." {#Ro 8:3} {See Trapp on "Heb 13:18"}

Ver. 4. An altar.] Representing God on the one party, as the twelve pillars did the people on the other party. So here was a formal covenant.

Ver. 5. Young men.] The firstborn of the families. {#Ex 13:2}

Ver. 6. Half of the blood.] Having mingled it first with water {#Heb 9:19} See #1Jo 5:6, {See Trapp on "1Jo 5:6"}

Ver. 7. Will we do, and be obedient.] Christ will enjoy his spouse’s love by a willing contract, not by a ravishment.

Ver. 8. On the people.] The representative people, the elders: or, as others will, the twelve pillars. {See Trapp on "Ex 24:4"}

Ver. 9. And seventy of the elders.] {See Trapp on "Ex 24:2"}

Ver. 10. And they saw the God of Israel.] A glimpse of his glory. {See Trapp on "1Ti 6:16"}

As it were a paved work of sapphire stone.] To show that God had now changed their condition, their bricks, made in their bondage, to sapphire. Compare #Isa 54:11.

Ver. 11. He laid not his hand, ] i.e., They came off without hurt; which is reckoned as a great mercy: since no man, ordinarily, can see God and live: besides the infinite distance that is betwixt God and the greatest nobles.

And did eat and drink, ] i.e., They were much cheered, and made merry in the Lord. Others sense it thus:—Though they had seen God, yet they turned again to temporal pleasures; they soon after ate and drank at that idolatrous feast of the golden calf, and rose up to play. It is set as an aggravation of Solomon’s sin, that he departed from God "that appeared unto him twice." {#1Ki 11:9}

Ver. 12. Tables of stone.] To show, (1.) The stony hardness of the people’s hearts; (2.) The lastingness of the law.

Ver. 13. And Moses went up.] Joshua stayed the while in some convenient place.

Ver. 14. And Hur.] {See Trapp on "Ex 17:10"}

Ver. 15. And Moses went up into the mount.] But he went not yet into the cloud, as #Ex 24:18, till the seventh day, that he might, by degrees, be heavenlised, and edged with an earnest expectation of beholding God’s glory, and understanding his will. This was heaven beforehand.

Ver. 16. Six days.] The people had but three days of preparation to receive the law; Moses hath six. Singular holiness is required of ministers: the measures of the sanctuary were double to the ordinary, as the shekel, cubit, &c. Ministers had need wish, as Elisha did, a doubled and trebled spirit, that they may save themselves and those that hear them. {#1Ti 4:16}

Ver. 17. Was like devouring fire.] So it is still; {#Heb 12:29} which so terrifieth the sinners in Zion, that they run away with these words in their mouths, "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" {#Isa 33:14}

Ver. 18. Forty days.] All which time he never ate nor drank, {#De 9:9} and so better merited the surname of Nesteutes, the faster, than that proud prelate John, Bishop of Constantinople.

Chapter 25

Ver. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses.] Gave him the ceremonial law also—as before he had done the moral and judicial—which was their gospel.

Ver. 2. That giveth it willingly.] Virtus nolentium nulla est; God strains upon no man. If ye consent and obey, &c. If there be a willing mind, God accepteth, &c. {#2Co 8:11,12}

“ Si desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas:

Hac ego contentos auguror esse Deos.”—Ovid.

Ver. 3. Gold, and silver, and brass.] No mention of iron. Compare #1Ki 6:7 8:51.

Ver. 4. And blue, and purple, and scarlet, ] i.e., Wool dyed with these colours; {#Heb 9:19} to teach the Church that both themselves and their actions should be washed and dyed in the blood of Christ.

Ver. 5. Shittim wood.] A kind of cedar that rotteth not.

Ver. 6. Spices.] As cinnamon; which in Galen’s time was very rare, and hard to be found but in princes’ storehouses. {a}

{a} Antidit. Gal., lib. i.

Ver. 7. In the ephod, and in the breastplate.] Of which see afterwards in #Ex 28.

Ver. 8. That I may dwell among them.] "But will God in very deed dwell with men upon earth?" {#2Ch 6:18} What can he do more to make them happy? As he in Plutarch said of the Scythians, that although they had no music nor vines among them, yet, as a better thing, they had gods: and as the philosopher, having little else in his house, yet could say of it, ενθα δε οι Θεοι εισιν, Here be gods: so may every good man boast of his house and of his heart, This is the habitation of the Most High. {#Heb 3:6 2Co 6:16} As for the public assembly of saints, "This is the house of God, this is the gate of heaven." {#Ge 28:17}

Ver. 9. According to all that I show thee.] Nothing was left to man’s invention. Here then is no footing for the Popish pomp.

Ver. 10. An ark.] Chest, or cabinet, wherein to keep the two tables of the law, signifying thereby that "Christ is the end of the law," covering the imperfection of our works.

Ver. 11. A crown of gold.] To set forth the majesty of Christ’s kingdom, or the eternity of his deity; which, as a crown or circle, had neither beginning nor end.

Ver. 12, 13. And thou shalt cast four rings, &c.] These staff rings were to continue upon the ark; the Kohathites’ shoulders felt wherefore. But "God helped them to bear the ark"; {#1Ch 15:26} and so he doth still his gospel ministers.

Ver. 13 {See Trapp on "Ex 25:12"}

Ver. 14. That the ark may be borne with them.] The ark was transportative till settled in Solomon’s temple; so, till we come to heaven, shall we be in a continual motion.

Ver. 15. The staves shall be, &c.] That they might not touch it; for reverence’ sake, it being a visible sign of God himself among them.

Ver. 16. The testimony.] Those tables of the testimony, {#Ex 31:18} that testified what God required of them, and would be a testimony against them if disobedient. {#De 31:26}

Ver. 17. A mercy seat.] Heb., A covering; or covering up of men’s sins; the appeasing of an angry God, {compare #Ge 32:20} by Christ who is our propitiation or mercy seat. {#Ro 3:25 1Jo 2:2}

Two cubits and a half, &c.] Just so big every way as the ark. {#Ex 25:10} Get into covenant with God, saith one, for as the mercy seat was no larger than the ark, so neither is the grace of God than the covenant. And as the ark and mercy seat were not asunder; so God is near to all that call upon him in truth.

Ver. 18. And thou shalt make two cherubims.] Golden winged images, made by God’s special appointment, and set out of sight. Hence then is no warrant for the use of images in churches. These here were to represent the holy angels attendant upon God, looking intently into the mystery of Christ, as the cherubims did into the propitiatory, {#1Pe 1:12} and joined to the society of saints.

Ver. 19. Even of the mercy seat.] Of the matter of it: to show that the very angels have their establishment in and by Christ: and that, if they need mercy, how much more do we. Angels also are under Christ as a head of government, of influence, of confirmation, though not of redemption.

Ver. 20. Toward the mercy seat shall the faces, &c.] Angels in the Syriac are called םינפא, of the face; because they look ever on the face of God, waiting his commands.

Ver. 21. Above upon the ark.] The ark covering the law within it, the mercy seat upon it, and over them two cherubims covering one another, did typify Christ covering the curses of the law, in whom is the ground of all mercy; "which things the angels desire to pry into," {#1Pe 1:12} as into the pattern of God’s deep wisdoms. {#Eph 3:10}

Ver. 22. From between the two cherubims.] Which covered the place from whence the Lord spake, to restrain curiosity.

Ver. 23. Of shittim wood.] Which corrupteth not. {#Isa 41:19} Christ’s hody could not putrify in the grave.

Ver. 24. Pure gold.] Pointing to the glory of Christ’s deity, and the majesty of his kingdom.

Ver. 25. A golden crown.] To hide the joints, and for ornament. Christ also is said to have many crowns. {#Re 19:12}

Ver. 26. Four rings of gold.] {See Trapp on "Ex 25:12"}

Ver. 27. Over against the border, ] i.e., Close under it, for more convenient carriage.

Ver. 28. Of shittim wood.] See #Ex 25:23. A wood much commended for lightness, firmness, fairness, and lastingness.

Ver. 29. The dishes thereof, &c.] Haply to hold the loaves and frankincense.

Spoons.] To put the frankincense into those dishes.

Covers and bowls to cover withal.] Or, To pour out with.

Ver. 30. Show bread.] {See Trapp on "Mt 12:4"}

Ver. 31. And thou shalt make a candlestick.] Called the candlestick of light. {#Ex 35:14} A type of Christ who is Αυτοφως, light essential, and "giveth light to every man that cometh into the world." {#Joh 1:9} {See Trapp on "Joh 1:9"}

Ver. 32. And six branches shall come out of the sides.] Denoting the ministers both of the law and gospel; those "lights of the world," {#Mt 5:14} that have their light all from Christ.

Ver. 33. Three bowls made like unto almonds, &c.] Signifying the several endowments and ornaments of Christ’s faithful ministers.

Ver. 34. And in the candlestick, ] i.e., In the shaft of the candlestick. See #Ex 25:33.

Ver. 37. Seven lamps.] Signifying the manifold graces and diversity of gifts in the Church. {#Zec 4:2}

Ver. 38. And the tongs.] All of gold; betokening the purity of doctrine and discipline in the Church.

Ver. 39. Of a talent of pure gold, ] i.e., Of a hundred and twenty pounds’ weight.

Ver. 40. After their pattern, &c.] The like also was afterwards given in writing, for the building of the temple. {#1Ch 28:19 Heb 8:5}

Chapter 26

Ver. 1. Thou shalt make the tabernacle.] A type, (1.) Of Christ who "dwelt among us, full of grace and truth"; {#Joh 1:14} (2.) Of the Church built by Christ; {#1Co 3:9} (3.) Of every true Christian. {#Eph 2:19-22}

Ver. 2. Of the curtains.] Not, Of the tabernacles, as the vulgar interpreter hath it.

Ver. 3. Shall be coupled together.] These curtains were coupled with loops; so should Christians by love. "My dove is but one: the daughters saw her and blessed her." {#So 6:9} See #Eph 2:21,22 4:16.

Ver. 4. Upon the edge of the one curtain.] The coupling of these two great curtains together, to make one tabernacle, might signify that the saints both in heaven and earth do make but one Church. {#Eph 1:10 3:15}

Ver. 6. With the taches.] So is "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." {#Eph 4:3}

Shall be one tabernacle.] See those many ones in #Eph 4:3-5, {See Trapp on "Eph 4:3"} {See Trapp on "Eph 4:4"} {See Trapp on "Eph 4:5"}

Ver. 7. Of goats’ hair.] The tabernacle was goats’ hair without, and gold within. God hid his Son under the carpenter’s son. "The king’s daughter is all glorious within." {#Ps 45:13} And all her sons are princes in all lands. {#Ps 45:16} Howbeit, they must be content to pass to heaven as Christ their Head did, as concealed men. "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew not him." {#Joh 1:10} "Our life is hid with Christ," {#Col 3:4} as the life of flowers in winter is hid in the root.

Ver. 14. A covering for the tent.] Shadowing out God’s protecting his people, {#Isa 4:6 25:4 Ps 27:5} as these rams’ skins covered the ark from the violence of wind and weather.

Ver. 15. Standing up.] As pillars. "Him that overcometh will Christ make a pillar in God’s temple." {#Re 3:12}

Ver. 28. And the middle bar in the midst of the boards.] The fastening together of these boards thus with bars signified, saith an interpreter, the uniting of all the members together by one and the same Spirit in Christ: "from whom the whole body fitly joined together, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love." {#Eph 4:16}

Ver. 31. With cherubims.] To note the special presence and attendance of the holy angels in the assemblies of the saints. {#Lu 1:11 Joh 1:51}

Ver. 36. A hanging for the door.] This shadowed him that said of himself, "I am the door." {#Joh 10:9} The ceremonial law was the Jews’ gospel, for it was Christ in figure; and to him it led them.

Ver. 37. Of shittim wood.] This, say some, they might bring with them out of Egypt, for necessary uses. Others note that great store of it grew in the desert of Arabia.

Chapter 27

Ver. 1. Five cubits long.] Solomon’s altar was four times as large as this: to teach that as our peace and prosperity is more than others, so should our service in a due proportion.

Ver. 2. Horns of it.] To bind the beasts unto, that were to be slain in sacrifice. {#Ps 118:27} And to signify the power of Christ’s priesthood. {#Hab 3:4}

Thou shalt overlay it with brass.] The brass kept the wood; so did the deity of Christ keep his humanity from being consumed by the fire of God’s wrath, wherein it was roasted.

Ver. 3. His shovels, and his basons.] These several instruments figured the ministry of the word, say some; the sundry callings that Christ hath in his Church, say others, for her edification.

Ver. 4. A grate.] Which served for a hearth, and represented Christ bearing the fire of his Father’s displeasure.

Ver. 7. And the staves shall be.] As ever ready to remove. Here we have no assured settlement.

Ver. 9. The court of the tabernacle.] This outer court signified the visible Church, where hypocrites also come to the external worships. Doeg may set his foot as far as David.

Ver. 10. And the twenty pillars.] In allusion whereunto, the Church is called the "pillar and stay of truth." {#1Ti 3:15}

Ver. 17. Their hooks shall be of silver, and their sockets of brass.] The nearer things were unto God the more precious they were: and e contra.

Ver. 20. Pure oil olive.] Signifying the precious gifts and graces of the Spirit in godly ministers, whose lips must both preserve knowledge, and present it to the people.

Oil olive beaten.] Signifying, saith one, how with much labour and affliction the light of God’s word is to be prepared, and with patience preached and made to shine in his Church. {#2Co 1:4 2:4 11:21,23-25 1Th 2:9}

Chapter 28

Ver. 1. Take thou unto thee.] Christ also was "taken from among men," {#Heb 5:1} to mediate and negotiate man’s cause with God: and this honour he assumed not to himself, but it was given him from above. {#Heb 5:5}

Ver. 2. For glory and for beauty.] Prodit Aaron a capite ad calcem, os humerosque Deo similis. The high priest was gloriously apparelled, to strike a religious reverence into the eyes and hearts of the beholders, and to set forth the beauty and bravery of Christ and his Church.

Ver. 3. That they may make, &c] Vides, in sacerdotibus nil plebeium reperiri, nil populare, saith Ambrose. Nothing in the priests but what was above the ordinary. The very workmen are to be filled with the Spirit of wisdom, to make their attire.

Ver. 4. An ephod.] Not that which was common to all priests, {#1Sa 2:18,22:18} but peculiar to the high priest. See #Ex 28:6.

Ver. 5. And they shall take gold, and blue, &c.] The cloak of Alcisthenes the Sybarite (sold for one hundred and twenty talents), that parliament robe of Demetrius, king of Macedonia (which no prince after him would put on propter invidiosam impendii magnificentiam, for its stately costliness), were but rags to Aaron’s raiment. {a}

{a} Athenaeus.

Ver. 6. The ephod of gold.] This the high priest only might wear; neither might any imitate it; for that was the fall of Gideon’s house. {#Jud 8:26,27}

Ver. 9. Two onyx stones.] These signified Christ’s perpetual love to his people, and how precious they be to him.

Ver. 12. And Aaron shall bear their names.] To set forth Christ’s incessant intercession for all God’s Israel, even when his back seems turned upon them.

Ver. 14. Fasten. the wreathen chains.] These chains wherewith the breastplate and shoulder were tied, signified, saith one, {a} the perfect contexture of all heavenly virtues adorning Christ’s humanity; as also that true faith whereby we are girded to him.

{a} Moses Unveiled.

Ver. 15. The breastplate of judgment.] So called because the priest was to put it on when he was to inquire and give sentence as from God. {#Nu 27:21}

Ver. 17. Four rows of stones.] According to the number and order of the twelve tribes encamping about God’s tabernacle. In all which rows, a very reverend writer {a} hath well observed eight things:—(1.) The shining of the stones; pointing to the purity of Christ and his Church: (2.) Their price; of great value and worth; signifying what a price Christ valued his Church at: (3.) Their place or situation; they are set in the heart, and Aaron must carry them on his heart, signifying that Christ hath as much care of his Church, as if it were enclosed in his heart, -lets out his blood to make room in his heart for them: (4.) Their number; twelve; noting, that with Christ is plentiful redemption: (5.) Their order; they stood in a comely quadrangle; Christ hath stablished a comely order in his Church; and we must keep our ranks: (6.) The figure; the four square; signifying the stability and firmness of the Church; Satan and all deceivers shall not pick one stone out of Christ’s heart: (7.) Their use; that Aaron must bear them on his heart; signifying Christ’s ardent affection to his, and constant intercession for them: (8.) The quantity; as all the names of Israel were gathered into a narrow compass, so Christ shall "gather together into one all the dispersed sons of God," and present them before God as the most beautiful and precious parts of the world. {#Joh 11:52}

{a} Dr Taylor.

Ver. 30. The Urim and the Thummim.] A distinct thing from the stones and chains; made it was not by the artificers, but given by God to Moses, as were the two tables, and by him put into the breastplate. The very names of Urim and Thummim, -lights and perfections, -lead us to Christ, in whom is all fulness. In imitation of this Urim and Thummim, the high priest among the Egyptians is reported by Aelian to have worn about his neck a sapphire stone, which was called αληθεια, truth. {a}

When he goeth in before the Lord, ] sc., To consult with God, who answered the priest by "voice." {#Nu 7:89}

{a} Var, Hist., lib. 14. s. 34.

Ver. 31. The robe of the ephod.] Which signified the royal robe of Christ’s righteousness, reaching down to the feet, large enough to cover all our imperfections.

Ver. 32. That it be not rent.] To show that there should be no rents or schisms in the Church. {#1Co 1:10,13 1Ti 1:3}

Ver. 33. Pomegranates of blue.] These hanging intermixed with bells, signified the sweet and comfortable effects of Christ’s doctrine; {a} by which we come to be clothed with Christ’s righteousness, and "from his fulness to receive even grace for grace." {#Joh 1:16}

{a} Mr Jackson.

Ver. 34. A golden bell and a pomegranate.] Shadowing out, (1.) The prophetic office of Christ here, and his perpetual intercession in heaven: (2) The duty of ministers; which is, Vivere concionibus, concionari moribus: to live sermons, to be fruitful as well as painful teachers: not like him of whom it was said, that when he was out of the pulpit, it was pity he should ever go into it: and when he was in the pulpit, it was pity he should ever come out of it.

Ver. 35. And his sound shall be heard.] Necesse erat ut Pontifex totus vocalis ingrederetur sanctuarium, ne forte non audito sonitu, morte lueret silentium. A "dumb dog" is a child of death. {#Isa 56:10} Ministers must be both able and "apt to teach" upon all occasions.

Ver. 36. HOLINESS TO THE LORD.] Hence it was not lawful for the high priest, say the Jews, to put off his bonnet to whomsoever he met, were he never so great a man; lest the name and glory of God, whose person he sustained, should seem to submit to any man.

Ver. 37. Upon the mitre.] Which had a holy crown with it, {#Ex 29:6} signifying the deity and dignity of Christ.

Ver. 38. That Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things.] Get the people’s pardon. This Christ did indeed for all his. {#1Jo 2:1,2}

Ver. 39. Embroider the coat.] See #Re 1:13. Christ is clothed with such a robe, as king and counsellor of his Church.

Ver. 40. Coats] (1.) Linen garments for innocency; (2.) Girdles for constancy and stability; (3.) Bonnets for safety from the rage of Satan and his instrumants; (4.) Breeches, for comely reverance in God’s service.

Ver. 43. That they bear not the iniquity, and die, ] sc., For not hiding their nakedness. See on #Ex 20:26.

Chapter 29

Ver. 1. Take one young bullock.] All sorts of sacrifices—sin offerings, burnt offerings, peace offerings—were to be offered for the priests, because of the special holiness and honour of their calling.

Ver. 2. And unlevened bread.] See #1Co 5:7,8. {See Trapp on "1Co 5:7"} {See Trapp on "1Co 5:8"]

Ver. 4. Wash them with water.] A type of Christ’s baptism. {#Mt 3:13-17}

Ver. 6. The holy crown.] {See Trapp on "Ex 28:40"}

Ver. 7. The Anointing oil.] Typing out that abundance of the Holy Spirit poured upon Christ, {#Isa 61:1} and upon Christions. {#1Jo 2:27 Ps 133:2}

Ver. 8. Coats, &c.] {See Trapp on "Ex 28:40"}

Ver. 9. Consecrate.] Heb., Fill their hands, sc., with sacrifices: they were not to fill their own hands, as Jeroboam’s priests did. {#1Ki 13:33, margin; #Heb 5:5}

Ver. 10. Shall put their hands.] As transferring the guilt of their sins upon Christ. {#Isa 53:6}

Ver. 11. By the door.] Pointing to Christ, the door into heaven. {#Heb 10:20 Joh 10:9}

Ver. 12. The blood of the bullock.] For "without blood there was no remission of sin." {#Heb 9:22}

Beside the bottom of the altar.] To signify the plenteous redemption wrought by Christ.

Ver. 13. All the fat that covereth.] God must have the very best of the best; since Christ offered himself, and the best parts he had.

Ver. 14. Without the camp.] {See Trapp on "Heb 13:12"} {See Trapp on "Heb 7:27"} {See Trapp on "Heb 7:28"}

Ver. 15. Thou shalt also take.] After the sin offering, other offerings: till sin be expiated, no service is accepted.

Ver. 16. Sprinkle it.] See #1Pe 1:2.

Ver. 17. Wash the inwards of him.] This signified that entire holiness, that thorough sanctification. {#1Th 5:23}

Ver. 18. The whole ram.] See #Ro 12:1, {See Trapp on "Ro 12:1"}

Ver. 19. Put their hands.] Both their hands between the horns of the ram.

Ver. 20. Upon the tip of the right ear.] To set the holy obedience required of them in all senses, actions, and motions. {#Joh 13:5,6,9}

Ver. 21. Of the blood, and of the anointing oil.] Signifying Christ’s merit and Spirit.

Ver. 22. A ram of consecration.] A thank offering to God for advancing Aaron to the priesthood. See the like in St Paul, #1Ti 1:12.

Ver. 23. Unleavened bread.] See #1Co 5:7,8. {See Trapp on "1Co 5:7"} {See Trapp on "1Co 5:8"}

Ver. 24. And shalt wave them.] As acknowledging God’s omnipresence: and that many should come from east, west, north, and south, to partake of the merits and benefits of Christ, our true Sacrifice.

Ver. 25. It is an offering made by flre.] Christ in like sort having offered himself for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour before the Lord, ascended up into heaven, and gave gifts unto men.

Ver. 26. It shall be thy part.] Because he did for this time extraordinarily execute the priest’s of office.

Ver. 27. The breast of the wave offering, and the shoulder.] To teach the priests to serve the Lord with all their heart, and with all their strength.

Ver. 28. A heave offering.] Signifying the heaving of Christ upon the cross, and the heaving up of our hearts to God for so great benefits.

Ver. 29. Shall be his sons’ after him.] His garments remained for ever; so doth the robe of Christ’s righteousness. {#Isa 61:10}

Ver. 30. And that son.] There were garments but for one: there is but one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus.

Ver. 31. And thou shalt take the ram, ] i.e., The remnant of him.

Ver. 33. And they shall eat those things.] Apply Christ’s death by faith to their own souls. {#Joh 6:51}

Ver. 34. Thou shalt burn the remainder.] The thank offering was not to be kept till the morrow, to teach us to be prompt and present in praising God and applying Christ.

Ver. 35. Seven days.] To teach the priests to consecrate their whole lives to God’s service.

Ver. 36. Cleanse the altar.] Which, as well as the creatures, may be defiled by man’s sin. {#Le 16:16}

Ver. 37. Whatsoever toucheth the altar.] See #Mt 23:19. {See Trapp on "Mt 23:19"}

Ver. 38. Day by day continually.] When this daily sacrifice was intermitted, -as in the days of Antiochus, that little Antichrist, -they counted it an "abomination of desolation." {#Da 12:11 Mt 24:15}

Ver. 39. Thou shalt offer in the morning.] These two lambs were types of the Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world, with a commemoration of whose benefits the day was begun and ended. Wherefore, also, from David’s days and forwards, they sang the 22nd Psalm at the morning sacrifice, and the 136th Psalm at the evening.

Ver. 42. Where I will meet you.] Hence it was called "the tabernacle of the congregation," because there God met them, and made a covenant with them. See #Ex 40:34.

Ver. 43. And I will dwell.] {See Trapp on "2Co 6:16"}

Chapter 30

Ver. 1. An altar to burn incense upon.] Shadowing Christ, as perfuming and presenting the prayers of saints, {#Re 8:3 5:8} and obtaining answer thereto "from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God." {#Re 9:13}

Ver. 2. A cubit shall be the length.] That in Ezekiel {#Eze 41:22} is much larger, as setting forth the service of God under the gospel.

Ver. 3. Overlay it with pure gold.] Shadowing Christ’s deity, yielding glory to his humanity.

A crown of gold round about.] To show that devotion is a rich royal virtue, best beseeming the best princes.

Ver. 6. Where I will meet with thee.] To give oracles and answers of mercy. God still "meeteth him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness." {#Isa 64:5}

Ver. 7. Shall burn thereon sweet incense.] Faciunt et vespae favos. The heathens had the like custom—

“Verbenasque adole pingues, et mascula thura.”

- Virgil.

Ver. 8. And when Aaron lighteth the lamps.] To show that our prayers must be made according to the light and direction of God’s Word, lest we ask we know not what, and worship we know not how.

Ver. 9. No strange incense.] So may we not pray, but according to God’s revealed will. {#1Jo 5:14}

Ver. 10. An atonement upon the horns of it.] Pardon must be sought for the defects found in prayers; as Nehemiah craved mercy for his reformations.

Ver. 12. That there be no plague.] David, in numbering the people, neglected this duty; thence the plague.

Ver. 13. Half a shekel.] Towards the making of the tabernacle; and as an amercing himself for his sin, that subjected him to utter destruction. {#Ex 30:15}

Ver. 14. From twenty years old.] Such were able to get it, before they gave it.

Ver. 15. The rich shall not give more.] They are both of a price, because in spirituals they are equal. {#2Pe 1:1}

Ver. 16. That it may be a memorial.] A perpetual poll money, in token of homage and subjection to the Almighty.

Ver. 18. Between the tabernacle and the altar.] The laver and altar situated in the same court, signified the same; as the water and blood issuing out of Christ’s side, viz., the necessary concurrence of justification and sanctification in all that shall be saved.

Ver. 19. For Aaron and his sons.] Here they were to wash before they prayed for the people. {#Heb 10:22} We must first make our own peace with God before we take upon us to intercede for others. So did David. {#Ps 25:22 51:18,19} So we are advised to do, #La 3:39,40.

Ver. 20. Wash with water.] "Wash their hands in innocency," before they "compass God’s altar." {#Ps 26:6 Heb 10:22 Isa 52:11}

Ver. 21. That they die not.] Come not to an untimely end, as Nadab and Abihu did. {#Le 10:1,2}

Ver. 26. And thou shalt anoint the tabernacle.] So to consecrate the same to God’s service, and to set forth how joyfully and gladly men should serve the Lord.

Ver. 29. Whatsoever toucheth them.] So are all those anointed holy, that by a lively faith touch the Lord Christ.

Ver. 30. Aaron and his sons.] Those only that succeeded him in the office of high priest. {#Le 4:3,5,16 16:32}

Ver. 32. Upon man’s flesh.] A Latine Postiller hence infers, in a hyperbolical sense, that priests are angels, not having human flesh.

Ver. 33. Whosoever compoundeth any like it.] Holy things must not be profaned, on pain of death. No people so abuse Scripture to common and ordinary use as the Jews do.

Ver. 36. And thou shalt beat some of it very small.] This holy perfume, as in the matter costly, so in the manner it cost much pounding and beating: to show that Church prayer must be accurate and elaborate; it must cost setting on, as we say.

Chapter 31

Ver. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses.] At "sundry times," during those forty days, and not all at once, were these directions delivered to Moses.

Ver. 2. The son of Hur.] Of that Hur mentioned in #Ex 17:12 24:14.

Ver. 3. And I have filled him.] God gifts whomsoever he calls to any employment.

Ver. 4. To devise cunning works.] All skill in lawful callings, whether manual or mental, is of God. {#Isa 28:26}

Ver. 5. And in cutting of stones.] Moses might well doubt where he should find fit workmen among those brick makers for Egypt.

Ver. 6. I have given with him.] Two is better than one; four eyes see more than two: God usually therefore coupleth his agents. {See Trapp on "Mt 10:2"} {See Trapp on "Mt 10:3"} {See Trapp on "Lu 10:1"}

Ver. 12. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying.] See on #Ex 31:1.

Ver. 13. Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep, ] q.d., Though this sanctuary work is to be done, yet it shall be no Sabbath day’s work. The good women in the Gospel forbare on the Sabbath to anoint the dead body of our Saviour, "resting according to the commandment." {#Lu 23:56}

For it is a sign.] And with it an effectual means to convey holiness into the heart.

Ver. 14:. For it is holy unto you.] Hence the Hebrews gather, but falsely, that only Israel was charged with the Sabbath day, and not the nations of the world: but the Sabbath was kept before Israel was born.

Ver. 15. Whosoever doeth any work.] A certain Indian that had been taught by the English, coming by, and seeing one of the English profaning the Lord’s day by felling of a tree, said to him, Do you not know that this is the Lord’s day in Massachusetts (one of the English plantations), much machete man that is, very wicked man; -why break you God’s day? {a}

{a} New England’s Firstfruits.

Ver. 16. For a perpetual covenant.] So the Sabbath is called by way of eminency; as if nothing of God’s covenant were kept, if this were not Philo Judaeus saith, The fourth commandment is a famous precept, and profitable to excite all kind of virtue and piety.

Ver. 17. He rested, and was refreshed.] This is spoken to our apprehensions, and for our imitation.

Ver. 18. Written with the finger of God.] Of the Decalogue, above all other Holy Writ, God seems to say, as Paul, {#Phm 1:19} "Behold, I have written it with mine own hand"; i.e., By mine own power and operation.

Chapter 32

Ver. 1. Up, make us gods.] Aaron might make a calf, but the people made it a god, by adoring it.

“Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus,

Non facit ille Deos; qui rogat, iste facit.”—Martial.

Ver. "2. Brake off the golden ear-rings.] Hereby he hoped to break their design; but all in vain for they were "mad upon their idols." {#Jer 50:38}

Ver. 3. Brake off the golden ear-rings.] Which they had got of the Egyptians. {#Ex 12:35} To make use of heathen authors for ostentation, is to make a calf of the treasure gotten out of Egypt.

Ver. 4. A molten calf.] In imitation of the Egyptian idol Apis, a pied-bull. A man may pass through Ethiopia unchanged; but he cannot dwell there, and not be discoloured. How oft, alas, have we abused God’s mercy; taking his jewels, and making a golden calf of them!

Ver. 5. A feast to Jehovah.] Whom these idolators pretended to worship in the golden calf; as did also Jehu, {#2Ki 10:16,29 2Ch 11:15} and as the Papists at this day. But with what face can some of their Rabbis excuse this people from idolatry? or the Jesuits their image worshippers?

Ver. 6. Rose up to play.] To dance about the calf. Now, if they were so cheered and strengthened by those baneful bits, those murdering morsels; should not we much more by God’s spiritual provisions, to dance as David did, to do his work with all our might

Ver. 7. For thy people, which thou broughtest.] God will own them no longer; they are now discovenanted. The saints by gross sins may lose their ius aptitudinale, non ius haereditarium, their fitness for God’s kingdom; they may sin away all their comfortables.

Ver. 8. They have turned aside quickly.] Moses’s back was but newly turned, as it were. "I marvel that you are so soon removed," &c. {#Ga 1:6} {See Trapp on "Ga 1:6"} When we have spent all our wind on our people, their hearts will be still apt to be "carried away with every wind of doctrine,"—in our absence especially.

“Mures, fele absente, choreas ducunt.”—Suidas.

Ver. 9. A stiffnecked people.] And so they are still to this very day. Jerome {a} complains that in his time they thrice a day curse {a} Christ in their synagogue, and closed up their prayers with Maledic, Domine, Nazaraeis. They are thought to advise most of that mischief which the Turk puts in execution against Christians. They counterfeit Christianity in Portugal even to the degree of priesthood, and think they may do it, either for the avoiding of danger, or increasing their substance. There are very few of them that turn Christians in good earnest: Adeo in cordibus eorum radices fixit pertinacitas. {b} So stubborn they are to this day, and stiffnecked, their necks are wholly possessed with an iron sinew.

{a} Jerome, in Isa., lib. xii. cap. 49, tom. 5, et lib. xiv. cap. 42.

{b} Rivet., Jesuita Vapul., 322.

Ver. 10. Let me alone.] God is fain to bespeak his own freedom: as if Moses’s devotion were stronger than God’s indignation. Great is the power of prayer; able, after a sort, to transfuse a dead palsy into the hand of Omnipotency. For, Let me alone, the Chaldee hath, Leave off thy prayer: but Moses would not. If he get but his head above water, the Lord shall hear of David. {#Ps 69:1-3}

Ver. 11. Lord, why doth thy wrath.] God offered Moses a great fortune. {#Ex 32:10} He tendering God’s glory refused, and makes request for the people. It is the ingenuity of saints to study God’s ends more than their own, and drown all self-respects in his glory. Good servants, such as were Bacon and Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth should consult their master’s praise, rather than their own profit. "Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant." {#Heb 3:2,5}

Ver. 12. Repent of this evil.] God’s repenting is mutatio rei, non Dei; effectus, non affectus; facti, non consilii; not a change of his will, but of his work.

Ver. 13. Remember Abraham.] Here Moses neither invocateth the patriarchs, nor allegeth their merits, but reminds God of his promise to them, and presseth the performance. In the want of other rhetoric, let Christians in their prayers urge this with repetition. Lord, thou hast promised, thou hast promised. Put the promises into suit, and you have anything. God cannot deny himself.

Ver. 14. And the Lord repented.] See #Ex 32:12. Moses here had a hard pull, but he carried it.

Ver. 15. Written on both their sides.] See the like in other mystical books. {#Eze 2:10 Re 5:1}

Ver. 16. The work of God.] The greater was the people’s loss, brought upon them by their sin.

Ver. 17. And when Joshua.] Who had waited, in some part of the mount, the return of his master.

Ver. 18. It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery.] As Joshua, a man of a warlike spirit, was ready to imagine. Non est vox clamoris fortitudinis, vel clamandi fortitudinem: so the original hath it.

Ver. 19. And Moses’s anger waxed hot.] Meekness in this case had been no better than mopishness. How blessedly blown up was Moses here! So, Cranmer the martyr, though in his own cause so meek and mild, that it was grown to a proverb, "Do my Lord of Canterbury a shrewd turn, and you shall be sure to have him your friend for ever after," yet in the truth’s cause, opposed by any man, no general in battle ever showed greater courage and constancy than he, saith our Churchantiquary. {a}

He saw the calf, and the dancing.] One calf about another. It was a custom among Papists, that men should run to the image of St Virus, and there they should dance all day, usque ad animae deliquium, till they fainted and fell into a swoon. {b}

{a} Antiq. Eccl. Brit., p. 341

{b} Joh. Maulii, loc. com., 187.

Ver. 20. And he took the calf.] We may all wish still as Ferus did, that we had some Moses to take away the evils of our times: Nam non unum tantum vitulum, sed multos habemus, We have not one, but many such calves.

Ver. 21. What did this people unto thee?] The people sinned by precipitancy; Aaron by popularity.

Ver. 22. That they are set on mischief.] The whole world is so. {#1Jo 2:16 5:19} Quomodo Plautus, "In fermento toto iacet uxor."

Ver. 23. We wot not what, &c.] See the danger of nonresidency.

Ver. 24. There came out this calf.] A very poor excuse. Something he would have said, if he had known what. Here he "hid his sin as Adam," {#Job 31:33} being too much his child.

Ver. 25. Aaron had made them naked.] As Aaron’s engraving instrument writes down his sin: so the confession of other more ingenuous Jews proclaims the Israelites, saying that, No punishment befalleth thee, O Israel, in which there is not an ounce of this calf. {a}

{a} Mos. Gerund.

Ver. 26. Let him come.] This word through haste and earnestness Moses omitteth. The Chaldee and Greek version supply it.

Ver. 27. Slay every man his brother.] Not all that they met with, for so they might have slain the innocent; but all that were chief in the transgression. In the war against the Waldenses in France, the Pope’s great army took one populous city and put to the sword sixty thousand, among whom were many of their own Catholics. For Arnoldus the Cistercian Abbot, being the Pope’s Legate in this great war, commanded the soldiers saying, Caedite eos: novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius: Kill them one with another: for the Lord knoweth who are his. {a} This was fine Popish justice.

{a} Caesar Heisterbuchensis, Hist., lib. v. cap. 21.

Ver. 28. About three thousand.] Chieftains and ringleaders.

Ver. 29. Consecrate yourselves.] Regain that blessing which your father Levi lost. {#Ge 49:5,7}

Ver. 30. And now I will go up unto the Lord.] As angry as he was, he could pray for them: as when our children, through their own fault have got some sickness, for all our angry speeches we go to the physician for them.

Ver. 31. Made them gods of gold.] Sin must not be confessed in the lump only, and by wholesale, but we must instance the particulars.

Ver. 32. Blot me, I pray thee.] God never revealed his love to Moses more than when he thus earnestly prayed for God’s people. Joab never pleased David better than when he made intercession for Absalom.

Ver. 33. Blot out.] Cut him out of the roll of the living.

Ver. 34. I will visit.] I will pay them home for the new and the old.

Ver. 35. They made.] {See Trapp on "Ex 32:1"}

Chapter 33

Ver. l. Which thou hast brought.] {See Trapp on "Ex 33:7"}

Ver. 2. An angel before thee.] A created angel to conduct thee. But Moses would none of that; he would not be so put off. {#Ex 34:9} Low things satisfy not a high spirit.

Ver. 3. I will not go up, ] sc., By those visible signs of my gracious presence as heretofore.

Ver. 4. They mourned.] As good cause they had: for "woe be unto thee when I depart from thee." {#Ho 9:12}

Ver. 5. And consume thee.] God’s threatenings are cordial, but conditional. Minatur Deus ut non puniat. "Fury is not in me." {#Isa 27:4} He punisheth not "till there be no other remedy," {#2Ch 36:16} as the bee stings not till provoked.

Ver. 6. Stripped themselves.] As in a day of restraint.

Ver. 7. Afar off from the camp.] In token of God’s deep displeasure and departure from them.

Ver. 8. And looked after Moses.] To see what success, what acceptance: as David looked up after his prayer to see how it sped. {#Ps 5:3}

Ver. 9. And the Lord talked with Moses.] Out of the cloudy pillar: which was a sign of favour. {#Ps 99:7} The Turks honour Moses, and call him the talker with God.

Ver. 10. Rose up and worshipped.] Though obnoxious, they would not despair of mercy. See #1Sa 12:20-22.

Ver. 11. Face to face.] Friendly and familiarly, as #Nu 12:8. And perhaps in human shape, as he spake with Abraham his friend. #Ge 18:16-33

Ver. 12. See, thou sayest unto me.] See, saith one, {a} how Moses here encroacheth upon God. God had done much for him, he must have more. {#Ex 33:13} "Show me now thy way," &c. This God grants him. {#Ex 33:14} This serves not the turn; he must have more yet. {#Ex 33:16} Well, he hath it. {#Ex 33:17} Is he satisfied? No, he must yet have more. {#Ex 33:18} "I beseech thee show me thy glory." It is done. {#Ex 33:19} Is he satisfied yet? No. {#Ex 34:9} God must pardon the sin of his people too; and take them and him for his inheritance: this fruit of his favour he must needs be entreated to add to the rest.

{a} Mr Bur. ?Burroughs.

Ver. 13. That I may know thee.] Moses knew more of God than any man; he was but newly come down from the mount, and at the tabernacle door God spake with Moses "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." {#Ex 33:11} The more a man knows of God, the more desirous he is to know him.

Ver. 14. I will give thee rest.] Full content of mind, in the sense of my presence and light of my countenance.

Ver. 15. If thy presence go not with me.] What is it to have the air without light? What was all Mordecai’s honour to him when the king frowned upon him?

Ver. 16. So shall we be separated.] Heb., Marvellously separated. The separation of the saints is a wonderful separation. See #De 4:7; also #Isa 20:6, where Judea is for this cause called an "isle."

Ver. 17. I know thee by name.] As princes do their favourites, who easily forget others, as Saul did David. {#1Sa 17:55}

Ver. 18. Show me thy glory.] None ever knew God’s glory; our cockle shell can never comprehend this sea: yet it may be apprehended that it is incomprehensible.

Ver. 19. I will make all my goodness.] My glorious goodness. Thus Moses may have what he will of God. "The king is not he that can do anything against you," said Zedekiah to his courtiers. {#Jer 38:5}

Ver. 20. Thou canst not see my face.] Otherwise than in his words and works. {#Ro 1:20} As we cannot see the sun in rota, in the circle, but in the beams. Some have seen Mercabah velo harocheb, as the Hebrews speak, {a} the chariot in which God rode, but not the rider in it: they saw some created image, or glory, whereby he testified his more immediate presence, but not himself.

No man shall see me, and live.] But be oppressed and swallowed up with majesty: as the sight of the eye is dazzled with the sun; or a crystal glass broken with the fire.

{a} Rab. Maimon.

Chapter 34

Ver. 1. Which thou brakest.] Not without a tincture of passionate infirmity, as some conceive. He that was the meekest upon earth, saith one, {a} in a sudden indignation abandons that which he would in cold blood have held faster than his life. But Augustine cries out, O ira Prophetica, et animus non perturbatus, sed illuminatus!

{a} Dr Hall.

Ver. 2. In the morning.] A sign of mercy. {#Ps 90:14 30:5 5:3}

Ver. 3. Neither let any man be seen.] {See Trapp on "Ex 19:12"}

Neither let the flocks.] Moses comes alone to God, and leaves the flocks. Jacob ferrieth over all belonging to him on the other side of the river, before he wrestleth with God. Abraham leaveth the servant and asses at the foot of the hill, &c. Men must lay aside all, and prepare, before they draw nigh to God in holy duties.

Ver. 4. And he hewed two tables.] Moses hewed them. The first tables were hewn out of the sapphire of the throne of God’s glory, say the Jewish doctors.

Ver. 5. And proclaimed the name of the Lord.] In answer to Moses’s prayer. {#Ex 33:18,19}

Ver. 6. The Lord, The Lord God. &c.] These glorious titles and attributes are those back parts of God. {#Ex 33:23} None can see more than these and live: and we need see no more than these that we may live.

Longsuffering.] Heb., Wide of nostrils; not apt to snuff at small matters, but bearing with men’s evil manners. This Averroes, the atheist, made use as an argument against the providence of God, and to prove that he meddled with nothing below the moon, because of his slowness to anger.

In goodness and truth.] God’s goodness, though great, yet here and elsewhere it goes bounded with his truth.

Ver. 7. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, ] i.e., All sorts of sin. It is natural to him as here. None like him for this. {#Mic 7:18} It is the comfort of saints, that they have to do with a forgiving God, {#Ne 9:31} that can multiply pardons, as they multiply sins. {#Isa 55:7}

Keeping mercy for thousands.] The Hebrew word here rendered Keeping, is written with a greater letter {a} than ordinary, to note the extraordinary greatness of God’s promise to his people and their posterity. {#Ps 25:10} {Hebrew Text Note} God is here said to keep mercy, to forgive sins of all sorts: as if his mercy were kept on purpose for pardoning poor sinners.

Clear the guilty.] This last letter in God’s name must still be remembered. So must all the rest: since there is enough in this sweetest text to answer all our objections. It is said of Leonard Lessius, that, a little before his death, he finished his treatise concerning the fifty names or attributes of God: and that he oft affirmed, that he found more spiritual light and delight in that last little work of his—at such time as he was grievously tortured with the stone, whereof also he died—than in all his large Commentaries upon Thomas Aquinas’s Sums.

{a} Nun rabbath Masor.

Ver. 8. And Moses made haste.] It was time for him. The more any man sees of God, the lower he falls in his own eyes: as he that hath looked intently upon the sun, sees little when he looks down again.

Ver. 9. Let my lord, I pray thee.] {See Trapp on "Ex 33:12"}

Ver. 10. Behold, I make a covenant, ] i.e., I re-establish it with this backsliding people. God receiveth returning sinners with much sweetness "He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy." His mercy, to us, is greater than his justice, though in themselves they are equal, yea, the same.

I will do marvels.] See this fulfilled and recorded in #Jos 10:12,13.

Ver. 11. Observe thou.] This is the condition of the covenant on man’s part to be performed. With others God makes a single covenant only, that they shall observe that which he commands them: but with his elect he makes a double covenant; to perform both parts, to "work all their works in them," and for them, to "put his fear into their hearts, and to cause them to keep his commandments." {#Isa 26:12 Jer 32:40}

Ver. 12. With the inhabitants.] They were devoted to destruction, as having filled the land from one end to another with their uncleanness. {#Ezr 9:11}

Ver. 13. Break their images.] The Popish historians have blurred and blasted those zealous emperors, Zeno and others, that were Iconomachi and Iconoclastai, as sacrilegious. Berne was the first town that, after the Reformation, was purged of images; which Augustine saith cannot be placed in churches, Sine praesentissimo idololatrioe periculo, { a} without extreme danger of idolatry. Epiphanius saith, It is utterly unlawful and abominable to set up images in the churches of Christians. Irenaeus reproveth the Gnostics, for that they carried about the picture of Christ in Pilate’s time, after his own proportion: using also, for declaration of their affection toward it, to set garlands upon the head of it.

{a} Aug., in Psalm cxiv.

Ver. 14. No other god.] In the Hebrew word Acher, rendered Other, there is a large R, to show the greatness of the sin of serving any other God. {Hebrew Text Note}

Ver. 15. And one call thee.] Any one of the idolatrous rout, if he do but hold up his finger to thee, thou wilt easily follow him. Cereus in vitium flecti. {a}

{a} Horat.

Ver. 16. And make thy sons.] Satan still works upon Adam by Eve. Omnes haereses ex gyneeceis. It is the guise of heretics to abuse the help of women to spread their poisonful opinions. Satan per costam, tanquam per scalam ad cor ascendit. Satan climbs up by the rib to the heart. {a}

{a} Greg.

Ver. 17. No molten gods.] As the golden calf was. Goodly gods that are molten! Olim truncus eram. {a}

{a} Horat.

Ver. 18. In the month Abib.] So called from the new fruits, or ears of corn, then first appearing. See #Ex 12:1 13:4. God here repeateth divers laws. It was a token of reconciliation to the people after their apostasy, in that he treats with them again, after their repentance, about his solemn worships. So, for a testimony of his reconciliation to Peter after his foul fall, he sets him to work in the ministry. {#Joh 21:15} So he commendeth his spouse afresh, after her drowsy decays, every whir as amiable as she was before her fall. {#So 6:5 5:10,11-16}

Ver. 19, 20. See on #Ex 13:12,13.

Ver. 20. {See Trapp on "Ex 34:19"}

Ver. 21. In earing time and in harvest.] Though most busy times, you may not make bold with God.

Ver. 22. And thou shalt observe.] See #Ex 23:16.

Ver. 23. Thrice in the year.] See #Ex 23:14,17.

Ver. 24. Neither shall any man desire.] A wonderful providence, since Judea was compassed about with such warlike adversaries, that they should not watch and catch at such opportunities. Pompey besieging Jerusalem, made his strongest batteries on the Sabbath day, whereon he knew the superstitious Jews would not make their defence—and took it. {a}

{a} Dio Cass.

Ver. 25. Thou shalt not offer.] See #Ex 23:18,19,

Ver. 26. In his mother’s milk.] See on #Ex 23:19.

Ver. 27. I have made a covenant.] We also have the covenant, the seals, ministers, &c. But, alas! are not these blessings amongst us as the ark was amongst the Philistines, rather as prisoners than as privileges? Rather in testimonium et ruinam quam in salutem? Rather for our ruin than reformation?

Ver. 28. Forty days and forty nights.] Moses, Elias, and Christ—those three great fathers met glorious in mount Tabor. Abstinence merits not, but prepares the best for good duties.

He wrote.] That is, God wrote, as some will have it. {a}

{a} Weems. Exer.

Ver. 29. The skin of his face shone.] God hereby assuring the people that he had inwardly enlightened him for their better instruction.

Ver. 30. And they were afraid.] This was another manner of brightness and majesty than that which piercing gaze from the eyes of Augustus and Tamerlane; whose eyes so shone, as that a man could hardly endure to behold them without closing of his own: and many in talking with them, and often beholding of them, became dumb: which caused them ofttimes with a comely modesty to abstain from looking too earnestly upon such as spake unto them, or discoursed with them. {a}

{a} Turk. Hist., fol. 236.

Ver. 31. And Moses called unto them.] Having first vailed his face, as in #Ex 34:33.

Ver. 32. And he gave them in commandment.] Rabbi Menahem telleth us, that the former ancients of Israel, at the reading of the book of the law, covered their faces and said, "He that heareth from the mouth of the reader is as he that heareth from the mouth of Moses." The Jews at this day, in their synagogues, put on each man his Taleth or square vestment, turning it back about their necks, that so they may hear and pray with more attention and reverence. {a}

{a} Leo. Modena.

Ver. 33. He put a vail on his face.] And had more glory by his vail than by his face. How far are those spirits from this Christian modesty, which care only to be seen and wish only to dazzle others’ eyes with admiration, not caring for unknown riches! This vail signifieth the law’s obscurity and our infidelity.

Ver. 34. But when Moses went in.] Hypocrites on the contrary show their best to men, their worst to God; God sees both their vail and their face; and I know not whether he hates more their vail of dissimulation or face of wickedness.

Chapter 35

Ver. 1. And said unto them, These, &c, ] He often goes over the same things, as the knife doth the whetstone. Good things must be repeated, sicut in acuendo. It is Moses’s own metaphor. {#De 6:7}

Ver. 2. Six days shall work be done.] This duty is so oft inculcated, to show the necessity, excellency, difficulty of well doing it.

Ver. 3. Ye shall kindle no fire, ] sc., For the furtherance of the work of the tabernacle: or, at least, that is not of absolute necessity. It might also signify that in the kingdom of heaven we shall be set free from all the fire and scorching heat of affliction.

Ver. 4-7, &c. Much of this chapter is to be read in the twenty-fifth, and elsewhere. See the notes there.

Ver. 5. {See Trapp on "Ex 35:4"}

Ver. 6. {See Trapp on "Ex 35:4"}

Ver. 7. {See Trapp on "Ex 35:4"}

Ver. 22. And brought bracelets.] Glad they had anything of price to dedicate to God and to seal up their thankfulness for this readmittance into his love and favour. {See Trapp on "Mt 9:10"} Nazianzen put this price upon his Athenian learning, wherein he was very famous, that he had something of value to part with for Christ. These in the text, in token of their true repentance, brought their bracelets and other ornaments, as freely for the service of the tabernacle, as erst they had done to the making of the golden calf.

Ver. 32. And to devise curious works.] "This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working." {#Isa 28:29} Pliny {a} makes mention of some famous painters, whose rare pieces were Oppidorum opibus venditae: sold for so many towns’ wealth. A certain craftsman set a watch clock upon a ring that Charles V wore upon his finger. {b} King Ferdinand sent to Solyman the Turk, for a present, a wonderful globe of silver of most rare and curious device; daily expressing the hourly passing of the time, the motions of the planets, the change and full of the moon; lively expressing the wonderful conversions of the celestial frame. {c} To which I may well add that admirable invention of printing, a special blessing of God to mankind.

{a} Lib. xxiii.

{b} Sphinx Philos., p, 90.

{c} Turk. Hist., fol. 713.

Chapter 36

Ver. 2. And Moses called Bezaleel.] God qualified them, Moses called them. See #Ac 13:1-3. Ministers also must have an outward calling too, {#Heb 5:4} and be sent ere they preach. {#Ro 10:15} And whereas in #1Co 14:31 it is said, "Ye may all prophecy," the meaning is, All ye that are prophets, may. "But are all prophets?." {#1Co 12:29}

Ver. 7. And too much.] Thus in outward ordinances of service, and for the making of "a worldly sanctuary," {#Heb 9:1} they could do and over do. So, #Joh 6:28, "They said unto him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God?" Men would fain have heaven as a purchase. I would swim through a sea of brimstone, said one, that I might come to heaven at last. But what said our Saviour to those questionists in #Joh 6:29? "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." And what said Luther? Walk in the heaven of the promise, but in the earth of the law; that in respect of believing, this of working. Many poor souls can think of nothing but working themselves to life. We must do all righteousness, but rest in none but Christ’s.

Ver. 8. And every wise-hearted man.] Let no man look upon this and the following chapter as an idle repetition; nor say, as one said once, Did we not know that all Scripture was divinely inspired, we should be ready to say, Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. But know that here is set forth a table, index, or inventory, of what Moses and the workmen did in obedience to God’s command, for every particular about the sanctuary. This inventory was taken by Ithamar, at the commandment of Moses, Et sic in archivum Ecclesiae relatum, and so laid up in the charter house of the Church for the use of posterity. See the notes on Exod 36, and consider that saying of an ancient, Necessarium et utile est etiam quae scripta sunt scribere, ne leve existimetur quod non frequenter arguitur. {a}

{a} Prosper., Epist. ad Augustin.

Chapter 38

Ver. 8. Looking glasses.] Or, Brazen-glasses. These devout women that used to assemble by troops at the door of the tabernacle to pray and serve God, -see #Lu 2:37 1Ti 5:5, -frankly gave the instruments whereby they dressed their bodies, to make the instrument whereby, through faith, they might sanctify their souls. Let those who view themselves oft in their looking glasses take his counsel who said, "Art thou fair? be not like an Egyptian temple, varnish without and vermin within. Art thou foul? let thy soul be like a rich pearl in a rude shell." Some such advice as this Pythagoras gave his scholars. St James would have men "look" often "into the perfect law of liberty," that crystal glass, "and continue therein." {#Jas 1:25} David did so, and got much good by it. {#Ps 119:59} I considered my ways: Heb., I viewed my ways on both sides. The curious works of the sanctuary were wrought on both sides, therefore called works with two faces. Common works are wrought only on one side, on the other full of ends and shreds. The prophet here strives to walk curiously, precisely, accurately, to turn his feet to God’s testimonies: and hence he is so exact in his self-searching.

Chapter 39

Ver. 43. And Moses blessed them.] He highly commended them, praised God for them, and prayed heartily for them, as afterwards David did, "The Lord, that made heaven and earth, bless thee out of Zion."

Chapter 40

Ver. 36. The children of Israel went.] The Jews conceive that this cloud that led Israel through the wilderness, levelled mountains, raised valleys, and laid all aflat: that it burnt up bushes, and smoothed rocks, and made all plain, &c. See #Lu 3:5 Isa 4:5

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40