Jonathan Edwards · 329 of 409

Exodus · Part 1

[383] Exod i. 6, 7. “And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation; and the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them.” After the death of Christ, our Joseph, his spiritual Israel began abundantly to increase, and his death had an influence upon it. It was like the sowing of a corn of wheat, which, if it die, bringing forth much fruit. John xii. 24. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” From the call of Abraham, when God first told him he would make of him a great nation, to the deliverance of his seed out of Egypt, was 430 years, during the first 215 of which they were increased but to 70, but in the latter half, those 70 multiplied to 600,000 fighting men; so sometimes God’s providence may seem for a great while to thwart his promises, and go counter to them, that his people’s faith may be tried, and his own power the more magnified; and though the performance of God’s promises is sometimes slow, yet it is always sure; at the end it shall speak, and not lie, Heb. ii. 3. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?”

[432] Exod. ii. Concerning Moses. Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. I. reports, out of the books of the Egyptian priests, that an Egyptian was slain by the words of Moses; and Strom. V. he relates some things belonging to Moses, out of Artapanus, though not very truly. Justin, out of Tragus Pompeius, says of Moses, “He was leader of those that were banished, and took away the sacred things of the Egyptians; which they, endeavouring to recover with arms, were forced by a tempest to return home; and Moses being entered into his own country of Damascus, he took possession of mount Sinai.” And what follows is a mixture of truth and falsehood; where we find Arvas written in him, it should be read Arnas, who is Aaron, not the son of Moses, as he imagines, but the brother, and a priest. The Orphic verses expressly mention his being taken out of the water, and the two tables that were given him by God. The verses are thus

So was it said of old, so he commands.Who’s born of water, who received of God The double Tables of the Law.

The great Scaliger, in these verses, instead of hulogenes, with a very little variation of the shape of a letter, reads hudogenes, born of the water.

The ancient writer of the Orphic verses, whoever he was, added those lines after he had said, that there was but one God to be worshipped, who was the Creator and Governor of the world.

Palemon, who seems to have lived in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, has these words: “In the reign of Apis the son of Phoroneus, part of the Egyptian army went out of Egypt and dwelt in Syria, called Palestine, not far from Arabia.” Several things are related about his coming out of Egypt, from the Egyptian writers, Monethro, Lysimachus, Chœremon. The places are in Josephus against Apion, with abundance of falsities, as coming from people who hated the Jews; and from hence, Tacitus took his account of them. But it appears from all these compared together, that the Hebrews descended from the Assyrians, and possessing a great part of Egypt, led the life of shepherds, but afterwards being burdened with hard labour, they came out of Egypt under the command of Moses, some of the Egyptians accompanying them, and went through the country of the Arabians unto Palestine, Syria, and there set up rites contrary to those of the Egyptians.

Diodorus Siculus, in his first book, where he treats of those who made the gods to be the authors of their laws, says, “Amongst the Jews was Moses, who called God by the name Greek or Hebrew. Jehovah,” which was so pronounced by the oracles, and in the Orphic verses mentioned by the ancients, and by the Syrians.

Strabo, in his sixteenth book, speaking of Moses as an Egyptian priest, (which he had from the Egyptian writers, as appears in Josephus,) says, “many who worship the Deity agreed with him, (Moses,) for he hath said that the Egyptians did not rightfully conceive of God, when they likened him to wild beasts and cattle; nor the Libyans, nor the Greeks, in resembling him to a human shape; for God is no other than the Universe which surrounds us, the earth, and the sea, and the heaven, and the world, and the nature of things, as they are called by us. Who, says he, (i. e. Moses,) that has any understanding, would presume to form any image like to those things that are about us? Wherefore we ought to lay aside all carved images, and worship him in the innermost part of a temple worthy of him, without any figure.” He adds that this was the opinion of good men He adds also that sacred rites were instituted by him, which were not burdensome for their costliness, nor hateful as proceeding from madness. He mentions circumcision, the meats that were forbidden, and the like; and after he had shown that man was naturally desirous of civil society, he tells us, it is promoted by divine and human precepts, but more effectually by divine.

Pliny, book xxx. chap. 1. says, “There is another party of magicians which sprung from Moses.” Juvenal has these lines

They learn, and keep, and fear the Jewish law,Which Moses in his secret volume gave.

Tacitus, Hist. V. according to the Egyptian fables, calls Moses one of them that were banished.

Dionysius Longinus, (who lived in the time of Aurelian the emperor, and favourite of Zenobia, queen of the Palmyrians,) in his book Of the Sublime, after he had said that they who speak of God, ought to take care to represent him as great and pure, and without mixture, adds, “Thus does he, who gave laws to the Jews, who was an extraordinary man, who conceived and spake worthy of the power of God, where he writes in the beginning of his laws, God spake, What? Let there be light; and there was light. Let there be earth; and it was so.“

Chalcidius took many things out of Moses, of whom he speaks thus, “Moses was the wisest of men; who, as they say, was enlivened, not by human eloquence, but by divine inspiration.”

Numenius, as Eusebius quotes his words, book viii. chap. 8. says, “Afterwards Jamnes and Mambres, Egyptian scribes, were thought to be famous for magical arts, about the time that the Jews were driven out of Egypt, for those were they that were chosen out of the multitude of the Egyptians, to contend with Musœus the leader of the Jews, a man very powerful with God by prayers, and they seemed to be able to repel those sore calamities which were brought upon Egypt by Musœus.” Origen against Celsus refers us to the same place of Numenius.

Artapanus, in the same Eusebius, b. ix. ch. 27. calls them the priests of Memphis, who were commanded by the king to be put to death, if they did not do things equal to Moses.

Strabo, in his 14th book, after the history of Moses, says, “that his followers for a considerable time kept his precepts, and were truly righteous and godly.” And a little after he says, “that those who believed in Moses, worshipped God and were lovers of equity.”

These things concerning Moses are taken from Grotius, de Verit. h. 1. sect. 16.

[154] Exod. ii. Moses in the ark upon the waters is a type of the church. The church of God is like a babe, in infirmity and weakness, in helplessness of itself, and dependence upon a superior help, and in that the members of it are all in a spiritual sense become as little children. And it is like a babe upon the waters floating through all manner of changes, dangers, and troubles, and yet upheld and preserved in Christ the ark. He was especially a type of the church of the Jews in their oppressed condition in Egypt. It was a wonder they were not swallowed up by their enemies, and drowned and lost in their afflictions, and the multitude of their adversaries. Moses in the water and not drowned, is much such another type as the bush all in a flame and not burnt. He was also herein a type of every elect soul, who is naturally all overwhelmed in sin, and misery, and danger, and is redeemed or delivered, as Moses was taken out of the water.

[408] Exod. ii. Moses is the same with the Egyptian Osiris; for, 1. Moses is the same with Bacchus, as has been shown before, No. 401.; and Diodorus tells us that Osiris was called by the Greeks Dionysus, the name of Bacchus.

2. Diodorus tells us that Hercules was the chief captain of Osiris’s army, who was Joshua, as has been shown, No. 402. 3. Diodorus tells us that Osiris had in his army Anubis covered over with a dog’s skin, which thence was pictured with a dog’s head, and called the dog keeper, &c.; all which seems to refer to Caleb’s name, which signifies a dog. 4. Pan is said to war under Osiris, which is the same with Christ, whom God promises should go with Moses when he says, MS ”my presence shall go with him.” See No. 404.

5. Osiris is said to have horns from the mistake of Moses’s character, who is thence pictured with horns, because of his beams of light the word in Hebrew for horns and beams being the same.

6. Moses with the princes of the tribes carried up the bones of Joseph into Canaan: hence the poets’ fable of Osiris’ bones, &c. See Gale’s Court of Gen. p. 1. b- 2. c. r. p. 94, 95.

[159] Exod. ii. 5. Pharaoh’s daughter became the mother of Moses, which typified the calling of the Gentile church, that is naturally the daughter of Satan, the spiritual Pharaoh, which becomes the church of Christ, and so his mother; and also is to represent that all the saints of which the whole church consists, are naturally the children of the devil, that by conversion become the spiritual mother of Christ, as Christ says that whosoever shall do the will of his Father which is in heaven, the same is his mother, &c. The whole church, which is often represented as the mother of Christ, is in her constituent parts naturally an Egyptian, and the daughter of Pharaoh. She found Moses when she came down to wash herself in the river. The river here represents the Holy Ghost, and the washing is the washing of regeneration, by which souls are brought to Christ, which is signified by baptism, by which their admission into the Christian church is declared and sealed. Pharaoh’s daughter is more than once made use of in Scripture, to signify the church, especially the Gentile. So was Pharaoh’s daughter that became Solomon’s wife, for the church is figuratively both the wife and mother of Christ.

[384] Exod. ii. 5. Pharaoh’s daughter came to Moses herself, into the same river into which Moses was cast. So, if we would find Christ, and be the spiritual mother of Christ, we must die with Christ, be made conformable to his death, be buried with him by baptism; must die to sin; must be crucified to the world, and die to the law, and be willing to suffer affliction and persecution with him. By such mortification and humiliation is the soul washed in the river into which Christ was cast.

[439] Exod. ii. 6. “And behold, the babe wept.” As Moses, in the water, was a type of the church in affliction, so his weeping a little before he is taken out of the water, seems to be typical of the spirit of repentance, mourning, and supplications often spoken of in the prophets, given to the church a little before her deliverance from adversity.

[412] Exod. iii. 14. “I am that I am,” &c. Some of the heathen philosophers seem to have derived notions that they had of the Deity from hence. Plato and Pythagoras make the great object of philosophy to be Greek or Hebrew, that which is; Greek or Hebrew, that which truly is: and also Greek or Hebrew, being itself. The Seventy render this place in Exodus thus: Greek or Hebrew

w, that the philosophers by their Greek or Hebrew, and Greek or Hebrew, meant God, appears by what Jamblicus saith of Pythagoras, “by Greek or Hebrew, Beings, he understood sole and self agents, immaterials, and eternals. Other beings indeed are not beings, but yet are equivocally called such by a participation with these eternals.” So Plato, in his Parrnenides, (who was a Pythagorean,) treating of Greek or Hebrew, which he makes the first principle of all things, thereby understands God. So, in his Timœus Locrus, he says, Greek or Hebrew, Being is always; neither hath it beginning. So again in his Timœus, folios 37, 38. he proves nothing properly is, but God, the eternal essence, “to which,” says he, “we do very improperly attribute those distinctions of time, was, and shall be.“ Plutarch says, Greek or Hebrew, “The true Being, is eternal, ingenerable, and incorruptible, unto which no time ever brings mutation.” Hence in the Delphic temple there was engraved “Greek or Hebrew, Thou art. Gale’s Court of Gen. p. 2. b. 2. ch. 8. p. 173, 174, 175.

That Plato by Greek or Hebrew, meant God, appears by his own words in his Epist. 6. fol. 323. “Let there,” says he, “be a law constituted and confirmed by oath, calling to witness the God of all things, the Governor of beings present, and things to come, the Father of that governing cause whom, according to our philosophy, we make to be the true Being, Greek or Hebrew” &c. This is the same with him that revealed himself to Moses by the name I am that I am, out of the bush, that was the Son of God. G. C. of Gen. p. 1. b. 3. c. 5. p. 64. Plato seems evidently to have heard of this revelation that God made of himself to Moses by the name of I am, &c. out of the burning bush in mount Sinai, and to have a plain reference to it in his Philebus, fol. 17.; he confesseth, “The knowledge of the Greek or Hebrew,” &c. was from the gods, who communicated this knowledge to us, by a certain Prometheus, together with a bright fire. G. C.of G. p. 2. b. 3. c. 2. p. 228.

[457] Exod. iii. 14. “And God said unto Moses, I am that I am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.” “We are informed that there was an ancient inscription in the temple at Delphos, over the place where the image of Apollo was erected, consisting of these letters, Greek or Hebrew; and Plutarch introduces his disputants querying what might be the true signification of it. At length Ammonius, to whom he assigns the whole strength of the argumentation, concludes that “the word “Greek or Hebrew was the most perfect title they could give the Deity, that it signifies thou art, and expresses the divine essential Being, importing that, though our being is precarious, fluctuating, dependent, subject to mutation, and temporary; so that it would be improper to say to any of us, in the strict and absolute sense, thou art; yet we may with great propriety give the Deity this appellation, because God is independent, uncreated, immutable, eternal, always and every where the same, and therefore he only can be said absolutely To Be. Plutarch would have called this Being to Greek or Hebrew. Plato would have named him Greek or Hebrew, which he would have explained to signify Greek or Hebrew, implying to be essentially, or self-existent.” Shuckford’s Connections, vol. 2. p. 385, 386.

[505] Exod. iii. 18. “And you shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.” That is, inform Pharaoh that your God that hath met with you, has instructed you to ask this of him. In this Pharaoh was not treated with any falsehood or unjust deceit. The utmost that can be supposed by any objector is, that here is an implicit promise, that if he would let them go three days’ journey into the wilderness, they would return again after they had there served their God, and received the revelation of his will, which he should there make to them. But if there had been, not only an implicit, but an express, promise of this, it might have been consistent with God’s real design, and the revelations of it that he had made to Moses, and by him to the people, without any false or unjust dealing. God knew that Pharaoh would not comply with the proposal, and that his refusal would be the very occasion of their final deliverance. He knew he would order it so, and therefore might reveal this as the event that should finally be brought to pass, and promise it to his people, though he revealed not to them the exact time and particular means and way of its accomplishment. Conditional promises or threatenings of that which God knows will never come to pass, and which he has revealed will not come to pass, are not inconsistent with God’s perfect justice and truth; as when God promised the prince and people of the Jews in Jeremiah’s time, that the city should surely be preserved, and never should be destroyed by its enemies, if they would repent and turn to God, and cleave to him, though it had been often most expressly and absolutely foretold that Jerusalem should be destroyed by the Chaldeans; and as the apostle Paul denounced unto the mariners that were about to flee out of the ship, that if they did, the ship’s crew must perish, though he had before in the name of God foretold and promised that there should be the loss of no man’s life, but only of the ship.

[443] Exod. iv. 6, 7. “And the Lord said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as the other flesh.” This sign is much like the foregoing, of casting the rod on the ground, and its becoming a serpent; and much the same thing is signified, but only more is signified in this latter sign than in the former. By Moses’s hand is represented the hand or arm of the Lord, which often in the Old Testament signifies the Messiah. By God’s plucking his hand out of his bosom, is meant his appearing for the salvation of his people. While God long forbears to appear for his churches salvation, while they are longing and waiting for him, he as it were hides his hand in his bosom; Ps. lxxiv. 11. “Why withdrawest thou thine hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom.” There are remarkable appearances of God in the world for the salvation of his people, which are both by the coming of the Messiah, both of which are long wished and waited for before they are accomplished. The first is God’s appearing in the world for the redemption of the church, by laying the foundation of her salvation in the first coming of the Messiah, after the church had long waited for him, while God had hid his hand in his bosom. At length the arm of the Lord is made bare, the Messiah appears, but in such a manner that it was to the surprise and astonishment of those that saw him many were astonished at him, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. They were offended in him. He had no form or comeliness, and when they saw him, there was no beauty that they should desire him. He appears in the form of sinful flesh. He was as it were diseased with the leprosy, because himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses. He was made sin for us, as though he had been all over leprous or sinful. God’s second remarkable appearance will be in the Messiah’s second coming for the actual salvation of his people, when he will appear without sin unto salvation, without the leprosy of our sin, and will appear in that glory that he had with the Father before his humiliation, which he emptied himself of at his first coming. God having answered his prayer in glorifying him with his own self, with the glory he had with him before the world was: as Moses’s hand, the second time he plucked it out of his bosom, was restored as it was at first. This type of the redemption of the Messiah was fitly given on this occasion, and as a sign of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the carrying them through the Red sea, the wilderness, and Jordan, into Canaan, because the redemption of the Messiah, both fundamental and actual, was variously represented and presignified in that great work of God.

[195.] Exod. iv. 20. Moses’s rod. “And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.” This rod typified the word, both the personal word, and the word of Revelation. The word of God is called the rod of God’s strength, Ps. cx. 2. It is called the rod of Christ’s mouth, Isa. xi. 4. It is expressly represented by the rod of an almond-tree, Jer. i. 11. Moses’s rod was the rod of an almond-tree. Jesus Christ is also called a rod. “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” He is frequently called a branch, or sprout, a tender plant, &c.

If we consider this rod as representing the revealed word of God, then Moses or Aaron, who kept and used the rod, represent Christ. A rod is the instrument of a shepherd, by which he governs, directs, defends, and orders his flock, and this rod was that that Moses kept sheep with, which he was found with when he was feeding his father-in-law’s sheep, when God appeared to him in the bush. The same that a rod or staff is to a shepherd and his flock, the same is the word of God to Christ and his spiritual flock. As Moses used it in leading Jethro’s flock of sheep, so he used it in leading God’s people Israel. As the word of God is the instrument Christ uses to save his people, and to destroy their enemies, and work those wonders that are wrought in bringing them to salvation, and which belong to the application of redemption, so Moses used this rod in the temporal deliverance of his people. It is the word of God that is used to remove all obstacles, and overcome all opposition in the way of a sinner’s conversion and progress in holiness; as Moses’s rod was made use of to divide the Red sea.

If the rod be considered as representing Christ, then Moses or Aaron represent God. Moses cast his rod on the ground, and it became a serpent, and he took it up, and it became a rod again, signifying how that Christ, when he was sent down by God to the earth, and was made sin for us, became guilty for our sakes, was accursed, and appeared in the form of sinful flesh: he appeared in our stead, having our guilt imputed to him, who are a generation of vipers. Thus, when the children of Israel were bitten with fiery serpents, Christ was represented by the brazen serpent. The rod being become a serpent, swallowed the magicians’ rod or serpents; so Christ, by his being made sin for us, destroyed sin and Satan. When Moses took up his rod from the ground, it was no longer a serpent, but became a rod again, so when God took up Christ from his stroke of humiliation, he was acquitted, justified, he had no longer the guilt of sin imputed to him, he no longer appeared in the form of sinful flesh. Rulers and princes are compared to rods, Ezek. xix. 11, 12, 14. and to branches, Ps. lxxx. 15, 17. so Christ himself is often called a rod and branch.

It is by the word of God, or by Christ, that God works all his wonders in and for the church: and Moses wrought wonders by his rod. It is by Christ that all obstacles and difficulties are removed in order to our salvation. As the Red sea was divided by Moses’s rod, it is by Christ, and in his name only, that God’s people prevail over their enemies. The children of Israel prevailed while Moses held up his rod, and when he let it down, Amalek prevailed; Moses held up the rod in that battle as the banner or ensign of the armies of Israel, as is evident from Exod. xvii. 15. so Christ is lifted up as an ensign, Isa. xi. 10.

When this rod budded, and blossomed, and bare fruit, that which it brought forth was almonds, intimating this, that the spreading of the word of God in producing its effects in the world will be rapid. The almond-tree is a tree of a very sudden growth, and speedily brings its fruit to perfection. Jer. i. 11, 12. So the word of God is quick and powerful; this is the way which the powerfulness of it is shown in the suddenness of its producing its great effects, Isa. lxvi. 7, 8. “Before she travailed she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child: who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children.”

As Moses and Aaron represent God, the rod represents Christ: as Moses and Aaron represent Christ, the rod represents the word: as they represent ministers, the rod represents two things, viz. the word of God which they preach, and their faith; and this rod was Moses’s staff, and this staff represents the same as Jacob’s and Elisha’s staves. See note on Numb. xxi. 18.

[442] Exod. iv. 20. Moses’s rod. One thing at least typified by this rod is faith, the same that was signified by Jacob’s staff with which he passed over Jordan, and that he leaned upon in his last sickness, that the apostle speaks of in Heb. xi. and Elisha’s staff that he bid the servant lay on the dead child, and the staves of the princes with which they digged the well, and David’s staff he took in his hand when he went against Goliath. The word properly signifies a staff as well as rod, such a staff as persons walk with, or lean upon: the word comes from a root, one signification of which is, to lean.

The word translated bed. Gen. xlvii. 31. (Jacob bowed himself upon the bed’s head,) comes from the same root, and therefore the apostle renders it staff, in Heb. xi. The word is not the same in the original with that used to signify Elisha’s staff that was laid on the child, but it is a word of the same signification, and therefore both words are used to signify the stay of bread, the latter in Isa. iii. 1. and the former in Levit. xxvi. 23. This word is used to signify Judah’s staff, that he gave to Tamar as a pledge, Gen. xxxviii. 19.

[390] Exod. v. to xiv. inclusive. Concerning Pharaoh’s hardness of heart and obstinacy in refusing to let the children of Israel go, and the manner of God’s dealing with him. In Pharaoh’s behaviour is very lively represented the behaviour of impenitent sinners when the subjects of reproofs and corrections for their sins, and under convictions of conscience and warnings, and fears of future wrath, with respect to parting with their sins, or letting go the objects of their lusts. Indeed it is an instance of this very conduct; for Pharaoh in refusing to let the people go, refused to let go the objects of his lusts: in keeping them in bondage, he kept his sins. His pride was gratified in his dominion over that people. He was loth to let them go, because he was loth to part with his pride. His covetousness was also gratified by the profits he had by their slavery; he would not let them go because he would not part with the object of his covetousness.

God commanded him to let the people go, he sent his commands from time to time by the hand of Moses and Aaron, and warned him of the ill consequence if he refused: so God counsels and warns sinners by his word, by his ministers. God first made known his will to Pharaoh in a mild and gentle manner, chap. v. at the beginning; but that was so for from being effectual, that he was only the worse for it. Instead of letting the people go, he only increased their burdens: so God is wont in the first place to use gentle means with sinners. But impenitent sinners are not the better, but the worse, for the gracious calls and counsels of the word of God; they sin with the greater contempt for it: as Pharaoh took God’s command in disdain. He said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?” Then God proceeded to lay greater matter of conviction before Pharaoh, and to warn him of the mischief that would come upon him by his refusal, by turning the rod into a serpent; (see notes on that miracle, Exod. vii.) and when he still hardened his heart, then God began to chastise him, by turning the water into blood, which was not only a chastisement, but also a clear and loud warning of the future destruction he would bring upon himself by his obstinacy. (See notes on that plague.) So God is wont to give sinners fair warning of the misery and the danger of their sins before he destroys them. After this, when God’s hand pressed Pharaoh, and he was exercised with fears of God’s future wrath, he entertained some thoughts of letting the people go, and promised he would do it; but from time to time he broke his promises when he saw there was respite. So sinners are often wont to do under convictions of conscience and fears of wrath; they have many thoughts of parting with their sins; but there is never a divorce actually made between them and their lusts; it is common for sinners when under affliction and threatening dispensations of providence, to make promises of amendment, as in times of sore sickness, and when in danger of death and damnation, but soon to forget them when God’s hand is removed, and future damnation more out of sight. In such cases sinners are wont to beg the prayers of ministers, that God would remove his hand and restore them again, as Pharaoh begs the prayers of Moses and Aaron, Exod. viii. 8. “Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Entreat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people, and I will let the people go that they may sacrifice unto the Lord;” and so ver. 28. so ch. ix. 27, 28. and x. 16, 17. Pharaoh was brought by God’s judgments and terrors to confess his sin with seeming humility, as Exod. ix. 27. “And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time, the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.” This was when there were mighty thunderings; and it follows in the next verse, “Entreat the Lord that there may be no more mighty thunderings. ” So chap. x. 16, 17. “And he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you; now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once.” So sinners oftentimes under affliction and danger of future wrath, and when God thunders upon their consciences, seem very penitent and humble, and are much in confessing their sins, but yet have not their lusts divorced from them, have no thorough disposition to forsake them. Pharaoh, in the struggle that was between his conscience and his lusts, was contriving that God might be served, and he enjoy his lusts, that were gratified by the slavery of the children of Israel. Moses kept insisting upon it that God should be served, and sacrificed to; Pharaoh was willing to consent to that, but he would have it done without his parting with the children of Israel. Exod. viii. 25. “And Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.” So it is oftentimes with sinners under fear of divine wrath; they are for contriving to serve God and enjoy their lusts too; they are willing to be very devout in many duties of religion, but without parting with their beloved sins. How do some wicked men amongst the papists and elsewhere seem to abound in acts of devotion! how much pains do they take, how much trouble and loss are they at! they are like the Samaritans that worshipped the God of Israel, and served their own gods too. So did the Jews, Jer. vii. 9, 10. “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal; and come and stand before me in this house?” And Ezek. xxiii. 39. “For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it, and lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.” Moses objected against complying with Pharaoh’s conscience, and proposed in this matter that serving God and continuing in the land of Egypt among the Egyptians in slavery to them, did not agree together, and were inconsistent one with another. The Egyptians, their taskmasters, would abhor that service that God required, and would not tolerate it, but would kill God’s worshippers; and therefore there was a necessity of a separation to be made between Israelites and Egyptians, in order to God’s being served. So the service of God and our still continuing in the service of our lusts, are inconsistent one with another, as Christ says, “ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” There is a necessity of forsaking one in order to cleave to the other. If we retain our sins, if we do not part from them, they will kill those duties wherewith God is served.