Observations on

EXODUS.

the preceding chapter.

lished my covenant; the people themselves have acknowledged its justice and equity, and have voluntarily ratified it. He then that sins against me (for sin is the transgression of the law, 1 John iii. 4, and the law must be published and known that it may be binding), him will I blot out of my book." And is it not remarkable that to these conditions of the covenant God strictly adhered, so that not one soul of these transgressors ever entered into the promised rest? Here was justice. And yet, though they deserved death, they were spared! Here was mercy. Thus, as far as justice would permit, mercy extended; and as far as mercy would permit, justice proceeded. Behold, O reader, the GOODNESS and SEVERITY of GOD! MERCY saves all that JUSTICE can spare; and JUSTICE destroys all that MERCY should not save.

This seems to be the simple and pure light in | ignorance, I have given you my law, and thus pubwhich this place should be viewed; and in this sense St. Paul is to be understood, Rom. ix. 3, where he says: For I could wish that myself were ACCURSED from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh; who are ISRAELITES, to whom pertaineth the ADOPTION, and the GLORY, and the COVENANTS. Moses could not survive the destruction of his people by the neighbouring nations, nor their exclusion from the promised land; and St. Paul, seeing the Jews about to be cut off by the Roman sword for their rejection of the gospel, was willing to be deprived of every earthly blessing, and even to become a sacrifice for them, if this might contribute to the preservation and salvation of the Jewish state. Both those eminent men, engaged in the same work, influenced by a spirit of unparalleled patriotism, were willing to forfeit every blessing of a secular kind, and even die for the welfare of the people. But certainly, neither of them could wish to go to eternal perdition, to save their countrymen from being cut off, the one by the sword of the Philistines, the other by that of the Romans. Even the supposition is monstrous.

Verse 34. Lead the people unto the place] The word place is not in the text, and is with great propriety omitted. For Moses never led this people into that place, they all died in the wilderness except Joshua and Caleb; but Moses led them towards the place, and thus the particle x el here should be understood, unless we suppose that God designed to lead them to the borders of the land, but not to take them into it.

I will visit their sin] I will not destroy them, but they shall not enter into the promised land. They shall wander in the wilderness till the present generation become extinct.

On this mode of interpretation we may at once see what is implied in the book of life, and being written in or blotted out of such a book. In the public registers, all that were born of a particular tribe were entered in the list of their respective families under that tribe. This was the book of life; but when any of those died his name might be considered as blotted | out from this list. Our baptismal registers, which Verse 35. The Lord plagued the people] Every record the births of all the inhabitants of a particular time they transgressed afterwards divine justice seems parish or district, and which are properly our books of to have remembered this transgression against them. life; and our bills of mortality, which are properly | The Jews have a metaphorical saying, apparently our books of death, or the lists of those who are thus founded on this text: "No affliction has ever hapblotted out from our baptismal registers or books of pened to Israel in which there was not some particle life; are very significant and illustrative remains of of the dust of the golden calf." the ancient registers, or books of life and death, among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and most ancient nations. It is worthy of remark, that in China the names of the persons who have been tried on criminal processes are written in two distinct books, which are called the book of life and the book of death: those who have been acquitted, or who have not been capitally convicted, are written in the former; those who have been found guilty, in the latter. These two books are presented to the emperor by his ministers, who, as sovereign, has a right to erase any name from either to place the living among the dead, that he may die; or the dead, that is, the person condemned to death, among the living, that he may be preserved. Thus he blots out of the book of life or the book of death according to his sovereign pleasure, on the representation of his ministers, or the intercession of friends, &c. An ancient and extremely rich picture in my own possession, representing this circum-guard. Trust in Christ, and watch unto prayer. stance, painted in China, was thus interpreted to me by a native Chinese.

Verse 33. Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out] As if the Divine Being had said: “All my conduct is regulated by infinite justice and righteousness: in no case shall the innocent ever suffer for the guilty. That no man may transgress through

1. The attentive reader has seen enough in this chapter to induce him to exclaim, How soon a clear sky may be overcast! How soon may the brightest prospects be obscured! Israel had just ratified its covenant with Jehovah, and had received the most encouraging and unequivocal pledges of his protection and love. But they sinned, and provoked the Lord to depart from them, and to destroy the work of his hands. A little more faith, patience, and perseverance, and they should have been safely brought into the promised land. For want of a little more dependance upon God, how often does an excellent beginning come to an unhappy conclusion! Many who were just on the borders of the promised land, and about to cross Jordan, have, through an act of unfaithfulness, been turned back to wander many a dreary year in the wilderness. Reader, be on thy

2. Many people have been greatly distressed on losing their baptismal register, and have been reduced in consequence to great political inconvenience. But still they had their lives, and should a living man complain? But a man may so sin as to provoke God to cut him off; or, like a fruitless tree, be cut down, because he encumbers the ground. Or he may have

God refuses to

CHAP. XXXIII.

sinned a sin unto death, 1 John v. 16, 17, that is, a sin which God will punish with temporal death, while he extends mercy to the soul.

3. With respect to the blotting out of God's book, on which there has been so much controversy, is it not evident that a soul could not be blotted out of a book in which it had never been written? And is it

go up with the people.

not further evident, from ver. 32, 33, that, although a man be written in God's book, if he sins he may be blotted out? Let him that readeth understand; and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall. Reader, be not high-minded, but fear. See the notes on verses 32 and 33.

I

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Moses is commanded to depart from the mount, and lead up the people towards the promised land, 1. An angel is promised to be their guide, 2. The land is described, and the Lord refuses to go with them, 3. The people mourn, and strip themselves of their ornaments, 4-6. The tabernacle or tent is pitched without the camp, 7. Moses goes to it to consult the Lord, and the cloudy pillar descends on it, 8, 9, The people, standing at their tent doors, witness this, 10. The Lord speaks familiarly with Moses; he returns to the camp, and leaves Joshua in the tabernacle, 11. Moses pleads with God, and desires to know whom he will send to be their guide, and to be informed of the way of the Lord, 12, 13. The Lord promises that his presence shall go with them, 14. Moses pleads that the people may be taken under the divine protection, 15, 16. The Lord promises to do so, 17. Moses requests to see the divine glory, 18. And God promises to make his goodness pass before him, and to proclaim his name, 19. Shows that no man can see his glory and live, 20; but promises to put him in a cleft of the rock, and to cover him with his hand while his glory passed by, and then to remove his hand and let him see his back parts, 21—23.

out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it :

C

b

2 And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:

4 And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned; and no man did put on him his ornaments.

5 For the LORD had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee;

m

3 Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee,

NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIII.

45.-i Numb. xiv. 1, 39.- k Lev. x. 6. 2 Sam. xix. 24. 1 Kings xxi. 27. 2 Kings xix. 1. Esther iv. 1,4. Ezra ix. 3. Job i. 20. ii. 12. Isai. xxxii. 11. Ezek. xxiv. 17, 23. xxvi. 16.- Ver. 3.- m See Numb. xvi. 45, 46.

was and so the people understood it; hence the

Verse 1. Unto the land] That is, towards it, or to mourning which is afterwards mentioned. the borders of it. See chap. xxxii. 34.

Verse 2. I will send an angel] In chap. xxiii. 20 God promises to send an angel to conduct them into the good land, in whom the name of God should be; that is, in whom God should dwell. See the note there. Here he promises that an angel shall be their conductor; but as there is nothing particularly specified of him, it has been thought that an ordinary angel is intended, and not that Angel of the Covenant promised before. And this sentiment seems to be confirmed by the following verse.

Verse 3. I will not go up in the midst of thee] Consequently, the angel here promised to be their guide was not that angel in whom Jehovah's name

Verse 5. Now put off thy ornaments from thee] "The Septuagint, in their translation, suppose that the children of Israel not only laid aside their earrings, and such like ornaments, in a time of professed deep humiliation before God, but their upper or more beautiful garments too. Moses says nothing of this last circumstance; but as it is a modern practice, so it appears by their version to have been as ancient as their time, and probably took place long before that. The Septuagint give us this as the translation of the passage: The people, having heard this sad declaration, mourned with lamentations. And the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Now, therefore, put off your robes of glory, and your ornaments, and I will show you the things I will do unto you. And the children

The Tabernacle of

A. M. 2513.
B. C. 1491.

An. Exod. Isr.

1. Ab.

a

EXODUS.

C

the Congregation.

that I may know what to do one which sought the LORD
unto thee.
went out unto the tabernacle of
the congregation, which was
without the camp.

6 And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their or

naments by the Mount Horeb.

7 And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, band called it the Tabernacle of the Congregation. And it came to pass, that every

a Deut. viii. 2. Ps. cxxxix. 23.- b Ch. xxix. 42, 43.

8 And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle.

c Deut. iv. 29. 2 Sam. xxi. 1. d Numb. xvi. 27.

of Israel put off their ornaments and robes by the particularly Micah i. 8: Therefore I will wail and mount, by Horeb.'

howl; I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.

"Saul's stripping himself, mentioned 1 Sam. xix. 24, is perhaps to be understood of his assuming the appearance of those that were deeply engaged in devotional exercises, into which he was unintention

"If it had not been the custom to put off their upper garments in times of deep mourning, in the days that the Septuagint translation was made, they would not have inserted this circumstance in the account Moses gives of their mourning, and concerning which he was silent. They must have sup-ally brought by the prophetic influences that came posed too that this practice might be in use in those elder times.

"That it is now practised in the East, appears from the account Pitts gives of the ceremonies of the Mohammedan pilgrimage to Mecca. A few days after this we came to a place called Rabbock, about four days' sail on this side of Mecca, where all the hagges or pilgrims (excepting those of the female sex) do enter into hirrawem or ihram, i. e., they take off all their clothes, covering themselves with two hirrawems, or large white cotton wrappers; one they put about their middle, which reaches down to their ancles; with the other they cover the upper part of their body, except the head; and they wear no other thing on their bodies but these wrappers, only a pair of grimgameca, that is, thin-soled shoes like sandals, the over-leather of which covers only the toes, the insteps being all naked. In this manner, like humble penitents, they go from Rabbock until they come to Mecca, to approach the temple, many times enduring the scorching heat of the sun until the very skin is burnt off their backs and arms, and their heads swollen to a very great degree.'-pp. 115, 116. Presently after he informs us that the time of their wearing this mortifying habit is about the space of seven days.' Again (p. 138): 'It was a sight, indeed, able to pierce one's heart, to behold so many thousands in their garments of humility and mortification, with their naked heads, and cheeks watered with tears; and to hear their grievous sighs and sobs, begging earnestly for the remission of their sins, promising newness of life, using a form of penitential expressions, and thus continuing for the space of four or five hours.'

"The Septuagint suppose the Israelites made much the same appearance as these Mohammedan pilgrims, when Israel stood in anguish of soul at the foot of Mount Horeb, though Moses says nothing of putting off any of their vestments.

"Some passages of the Jewish prophets seem to confirm the notion of their stripping themselves of some of their clothes in times of deep humiliation,

upon him, and in which he saw others engaged.”— Harmer's Observat., vol. iv., p. 172.

The ancient Jewish commentators were of opinion that the Israelites had the name Jehovah inscribed on them in such a way as to ensure them the divine protection; and that this, inscribed probably on a plate of gold, was considered their choicest ornament; and that when they gave their ornaments to make the golden calf, this was given by many, in consequence of which they were considered as naked and defenceless. All the remaining parts of their ornaments, which it is likely were all emblematical of spiritual things, God commands them here to lay off; for they could not with propriety bear the symbols of the divine protection, who had forfeited that protection for their transgression.

That I may know what to do unto thee.] For it seems that while they had these emblematic ornaments on them, they were still considered as under the divine protection. These were a shield to them, which God commands them to throw aside. Though many had parted with their choicest ornaments, yet not all, only a few comparatively, of the wives, daughters, and sons of 600,000 men, could have been The major thus stripped to make one golden calf. part still had these ornaments, and they are now commanded to lay them aside.

eth

Verse 7. Moses took the tabernacle] haohel, the TENT; not own eth hammishean, the tabernacle, the dwelling-place of Jehovah, see chap. xxxv. 11, for this was not as yet erected; but probably the tent of Moses, which was before in the midst of the camp, and to which the congregation came for judgment, and where, no doubt, God frequently met with his servant. This is now removed to a considerable distance from the camp (two thousand cubits, according to the Talmudists), as God refuses to dwell any longer among this rebellious people. And as this was the place to which all the people came for justice and judgment, hence it was probably called the Tabernacle, more properly the tent, of the Congregation.

9 And it came to pass, as wilt send with me. Yet thou Moses entered into the taber- hast said, 'I know thee by nacle, the cloudy pillar descend- name, and thou hast also found ed, and stood at the door of the grace in my sight. tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses. 10 And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door.

Ps. i. 6. Jer. i. 5. John x. 14, 15. 2 Tim. ii. 19.- - Ch.9 Ch. xxxiv. 10.
xxxiv. 9.- h Ps. xxv. 4. xxvii. 11. lxxxvi. 11. cxix. 33. viii. 53. Ps. cxlvii. 20.