'led the flock to the back of the wilderness,' far from the shores of the Red Sea, where Jethro seems to have dwelt, and 'came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.' We know not the precise place. Tradition, reaching back to the sixth century of the Christian era, fixes it in the same deep seclusion as that to which in all probability he afterwards led the Israelites. The convent of Justinian is built over what was supposed to be the exact spot where the shepherd was bid to draw his sandals from off his feet. The valley in which the convent stands is called by the Arabian name of Jethro. But whether this, or the other great centre of the peninsula, Mount Serbal, be regarded as the scene of the event, the appropriateness would be almost equal. Each has at different times been regarded as the sanctuary of the desert. Tach presents that singular majesty, which, as Josephus tells us, and as the Sacred narrative implies, had already invested the Mountain ' of God' with an awful reverence in the eyes of the Arabian tribes, as though a Divine Presence rested on its solemn heights. Around each, on the rocky ledges of the hill-side, or in the retired basins, withdrawn within the deep recesses of the adjoining mountains, or beside the springs which water the adjacent valleys, would be found pasture of herbage, or aromatic shrubs for the flocks of Jethro. On each, in that early age, though now found only on Mount Serbal, must have grown the wild acacia, the shaggy thornbush of the Seneh, the most characteristic tree of the whole range. So natural, so thoroughly in accordance with the scene, were the signs, in which the call of Moses makes itself heard and seen. Not in any outward form, human or celestial, such as the priests of Heliopolis were wont to figure to themselves as the representatives of Deity, but out of the midst of the spreading thorn,

the outgrowth of the desert wastes, did 'the Lord The burning bush. 'appear unto Moses.' A flame of fire, like that which seemed to consume and waste away His people in the furnace of affliction,3 shone forth amidst the dry branches of

'Shoaib Hobab (Ewald, Cesch. ii. 50,

note).

=

Ant. ii. 12, § 1.

See Philo, Vita Mosis, 91. Compare Sinai and Palestine, 17, 20, 45, 4.

the thorny tree, and 'behold! the bush,' the massive thicket, 'burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.' And when the question arose, with what he should work the signs by which his countrymen shall believe and hearken to his voice, the same character recurs. No sword of war, such as was wielded by Egyptian kings, no mystic emblem, such as was borne by Egyptian gods, but-"What is that in thine hand?" 'And he said, "A rod," a staff, a shepherd's crook, the staff which indicated his return to the pastoral habits of his fathers, the staff on which he leaned amidst his desert wanderings, the The shepstaff with which he guided his kinsman's flocks, the herd's staff. staff like that still borne by Arab chiefs-this was to be the humble instrument of Divine power. 'In this,' as afterwards in the yet humbler symbol of the cross, in this, the symbol of his simplicity, of his exile, of his lowliness, 'the 'world was to be conquered.' These were the outward signs of his call. And, whatever the explanation put on their precise import, there is this undoubted instruction conveyed in their description, that they are marked by the peculiar appropriateness to the circumstances of the Prophet, which marks all like manifestations, through every variety of form, to the Prophets, the successors of Moses, in each succeeding age. In grace, as in nature, God, if we may use the well-known expression, abhorret saltum, abhors a sudden unprepared transition. 'child is father of the man :' the man is father of the prophet -the days of both are 'bound each to each by natural piety.' It is the first signal instance of the prophetic revelations. Its peculiar form is the key of all that follow.

The Name

But, as in all these Revelations, it is the substance and spirit of the message, rather than its outward form, which carries with it the most enduring lesson, and the of Jehovah. surest mark of its heavenly origin. 'Behold, when I 'shall come to the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, 'The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they 'shall say, "What is His name?" what shall I say unto them?

In the Mussulman traditions it was the white shining hand of Moses that worked the wonders. D'Herbelot (' Moussa ').

'And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM.

Thus

'shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, “I AM hath sent me ' unto you."

It has been observed, that the great epochs of the history of the Chosen People are marked by the several names, by which in each the Divine nature is indicated. In the Patriarchal age we have already seen that the oldest Hebrew form by which the most general idea of Divinity is expressed is 'El,' 'Elohim,' 'The Strong One,' 'The Strong Ones,' 'The Strong.' 'Beth-El,' 'Peni-El,' remained even to the latest times memorials of this primitive mode of address and worship. But now a new name, and with it a new truth, was introduced. 'I am JEHOVAH; I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 'by the name of El-Shaddai (God Almighty); but by my name 'JEHOVAH was I not known unto them.' The only certain use of it before the time of Moses is in the name 2 of 'Jochebed,' borne by his own mother. It has been beautifully conjectured that in the small circle of the family of Amram a dim conception had thus arisen of the Divine Truth, which was through the son of that family proclaimed to the world. It was the rending asunder of the veil which overhung the temple of the Egyptian Sais. 'I am that which has been, and 'which is, and which is to be; and my veil no mortal hath yet 'drawn aside.' It was the declaration of the simplicity, the unity, the self-existence of the Divine Nature, the exact opposite to all the multiplied forms of idolatry, human, animal, and celestial, that prevailed, as far as we know, everywhere else.The Eternal.' This was the moving spring of the whole life of Moses, of the whole story of the Exodus. In viewing the history, even as a mere national record, we cannot, if we would, dispense with the impulse, the elevation, of which

1 Ex. vi. 2, 3.

Ibid. 20. Jochebed is a contraction of Jeho-chebed=' Jehovah my glory.' (Gesenius, sub voce.)

Ewald, ii. 204, 5.

Plutarch, De Isid. et. Os. ch. 9.

The word LORD, by which we render it, is the translation of pios, in the LXX.,

which again is the translation of Adonai, the word used by the excessive reverence of the later Jews in the place of JEHOVAH. The only modern translation which has preserved the true rendering of JEHOVAH is the French 'L'Éternel,' whence Bunsen has taken, in his Bibelwerk, ‘der Ewige.'

the name of Jehovah' was at once the cause and the symbol. Slowly and with difficulty it won its way into the heart of the people. We can trace it through its gradual incorporation into the proper names, beginning with the transformation of Hoshea into Jehoshua. We can trace its deep religious significance in the distinction between those portions of the Sacred records where the name 'Jehovah' occurs, and those which contain only or chiefly the older name of 'Elohim.' The awe which it inspired went on, as it would seem, increasing rather than diminishing with the lapse of years. A new turn was given to it under the monarchy, when it becomes encompassed with the attributes of the leader of the armies of earth and heaven, 'JEHOVAH Sabaoth,'The LORD of Hosts.' And in later times it lies concealed, enshrined, behind the word which the trembling reverence of the last age of the Jewish people substituted for it, and which appears in the Greek and in the English version of the Scriptures,-' Adonai,' 'Kyrios,' 'The LORD,'a substitution which, whilst it effaced the historical meaning of the name, prepared the way for the still nearer and closer revelation of God in Him whom we now emphatically acknowledge as 'Our Lord.'

The return of Moses.

But we must return to the original circumstances under which the revelation was first made. It is characteristic of the Biblical history that this new name, though itself penetrating into the most abstract metaphysical idea of God, yet in its effect was the very opposite of a mere abstraction. Moses is a prophet,-the first of the Prophets,but he is also a Deliverer. Israel, indeed, through him becomes 'a chosen people,' 'a holy congregation'-in one word, a Church. But it also through him becomes a nation: it passes, by his means, from a pastoral, subject, servile tribe, into a civilised, free, independent commonwealth. It is in this aspect that the more human and historical side of his appearance presents itself. It is true that even here we see him very imperfectly. In him, as in the Apostle afterwards, the man is swallowed up in the cause, the messenger in the message and mission with which he is charged. Yet from time to time, and

and charac

ter.

here in this opening of his career more than elsewhere, his outward and domestic relations are brought before us. He returns to Egypt from his exile. In the advice of his father-inlaw to make war upon Egypt,' in his meeting with his brother in the desert of Sinai, may be indications of a mutual understanding and general rising of the Arabian tribes against the Egyptian monarchy.2 But in the Sacred narrative our attention is fixed only on the personal relations of the two brothers; now His personal first mentioned together, never henceforth to be appearance parted. From that meeting and co-operation we have the first indications of his individual character and appearance. We are accustomed to invest him with all the external grandeur which would naturally correspond to the greatness of his mission. The statue of Michael Angelo rises before us in its commanding sternness, as the figure before which Pharaoh trembled. Something, indeed, of this is justified by the traditions respecting him. The long shaggy hair and beard, which enfold in their vast tresses that wild form, appear in the heathen representations of him. The beauty of the child is, by the same traditions, continued into his manhood. 'He was,' says the historian Justin (with the confusion so common in Gentile representations), both as wise and as 'beautiful as his father Joseph.' But the only point described in the Sacred narrative is one of singular and unlooked-for infirmity. O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, 'nor since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant; but I am slow of 'speech, and of a slow tongue; . . . . how shall Pharaoh hear 'me, which am of uncircumcised lips?'—that is, slow and without words, stammering and hesitating' (so the Septuagint strongly expresses it), like Demosthenes in his earlier youth,slow and without words, like the circuitous orations of the English Cromwell, 5-'his speech contemptible,' like the speech of the Apostle Paul. How often has this been repeated in the

'Artapanus.

Ewald, i. 59, 60.

* An old man with a long beard, seated on an ass, was the idea of Moses, as given by Diodorus (xxxiv.); or tall and dignified

in appearance, with long streaming hair, of a reddish hue, tinged with grey, as given by Artapanus.

• xxxvi. 2.

See Carlyle's Cromwell, ii. 219.