During the forty years of Moses’ sojourn in the land of Midian, the
Hebrews in Egypt were being gradually prepared for the great national
crisis which was approaching. The plagues that successively fell upon the
land loosened the bonds by which Pharaoh held them in slavery, and at
length he was eager that they should depart. But the Hebrews must now
also be ready to go. They were poor; for generations they had laboured for
the Egyptians without wages. They asked gifts from their neighbours
around them (Exodus 12:35), and these were readily bestowed. And then,
as the first step towards their independent national organization, they
observed the feast of the Passover, which was now instituted as a
perpetual memorial. The blood of the paschal lamb was duly sprinkled on
the door-posts and lintels of all their houses, and they were all within,
waiting the next movement in the working out of God’s plan. At length the
last stroke fell on the land of Egypt. “It came to pass, that at midnight
Jehovah smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.” Pharaoh rose up in
the night, and called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, “Rise up,
and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of
Israel; and go, serve Jehovah, as ye have said. Also take your flocks and
your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.” Thus was
Pharaoh (q.v.) completely humbled and broken down. These words he
spoke to Moses and Aaron “seem to gleam through the tears of the
humbled king, as he lamented his son snatched from him by so sudden a
death, and tremble with a sense of the helplessness which his proud soul at
last felt when the avenging hand of God had visited even his palace.”
The terror-stricken Egyptians now urged the instant departure of the
Hebrews. In the midst of the Passover feast, before the dawn of the 15th
day of the month Abib (our April nearly), which was to be to them
henceforth the beginning of the year, as it was the commencement of a new
epoch in their history, every family, with all that appertained to it, was
ready for the march, which instantly began under the leadership of the
heads of tribes with their various sub-divisions. They moved onward,
increasing as they went forward from all the districts of Goshen, over the
whole of which they were scattered, to the common centre. Three or four
kiana
(Kiana)
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