The Departure

Exo_12:20-40
Good reason had Egypt to mourn that the obduracy
of its rulers had brought down upon it a judgment,
such as had not been known since that day in which
God brought down a flood of waters to destroy the
earth. We cannot sufficiently dwell on the fact, that a
judgment not less severe than this had been, by this
obduracy, rendered necessary to produce the
intended result. Let us not think only of the
judgments of God, but of his mercy and forbearance.
The Egyptians had, from the first, deserved the
utmost severity of judgment for the most atrocious
deeds of which a nation, as such, is capablethat of
reducing a free and generous people, not only to
political, but to personal bondageand by
murdering the children to prevent the increase of the
race. Yet when the appointed time of deliverance
came, God did not at once bare the arm of vindictive
justice against this people. He acted forbearingly and
leniently with them; and had they in time relented
in time agreed to relax the iron yoke they had laid
upon Israels neck, all had been well, and their great
wrong would have passed unpunished. Wonder at

the forbearance and long-suffering of God, no less

than at the awful severity of his justice. The hand of
man, armed with irresistible might, would not thus
long have forborne to inflict the consummating
horrorwould not so long have endured these
repeated evasions and breach of promisesnot so
long have tried, by successive steps, with how little
of compulsory judgment they might be induced to let
the oppressed go free. And even terrible as this last
inflictionthe death of the first-bornwas, it was
not one jot more than necessary to produce the
result; for, after all this, was yet one more relapse to
hardness of heartyet one more act of bold defiance,
which rendered another exterminating sweep of
Gods fiery sword necessary.
The immediate effect, however, of the death of the
firstborn, was exactly such as had been calculated. It
was a strange art of faith, when an entire nation
stood in the dead of the night awake, ready for a
journey, in the conviction that a certain judgment
was to be inflicted by the hand of Heaven, and that
this infliction would infallibly ensure their departure
from the house of bondage. In that conviction much
labor had been undergone, and large preparations
completedfor we may conceive that it was no light

matter for so vast a body of people, with all their

flocks and herds, and with numerous women and
children, to have completed its arrangements for a
sudden departure without confusion or disorder.
That all this had been done, and that every direction
of Moses and Aaron was implicitly followed, show
that the judgments of the Lord upon the Egyptians,
and their own exemption from the plagues which
had been showered upon the land, had not failed of
their effect in bringing up to the proper pitch of
faith, confidence, and resolution, a people whose
spirits had naturally and excusably become
enfeebled by the slow poison of slavery.
They waited not long or vainly. Moses had declared
when he last quitted the presence of Pharaoh, that he
would see his face no more; but he foretold that the
time was near, when All these thy servants shall
come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto
me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that
follow thee. And so it came soon to pass. When the
stroke had fallen, the people were terrified to think
of the danger which the detention of the Israelites
had brought upon them. In the apprehension that
the visitation that rent their hearts, might be the
precursor of one more dreadful, which would sweep

off all the population in a mass, they became urgent

for their instant departure; and, for all that appears,
would have driven them out by force, had they
evinced the least disposition for delay. It is clear that
the people were wrought up to such a frame of mind,
that it would have been as much as the kings crown
was worth for him to attempt to detain the Hebrews
one moment longer. But it does not seem that even
he was now so inclined. That very night he sent to
Moses and Aaron a more urgent command to do at
once all that they had so long and vainly sought his
consent for: Rise up, and get you from among my
people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go,
serve Jehovah, as ye have said. Nor is this all. We
remember how stoutly he held out before for the
retention of the flocks. But now his imperial pride is
so effectually humbled, that he hastens to remove
any idea of reservation or evasion which past
conduct may have awakenedand he therefore
quickly addsAlso take your flocks and your herds,
as ye have said, and begone. Still more
extraordinary; he is desirous not to part in anger, he
craved to be allowed to feel that he was no longer
under the ban and exposed to the wrath of the great
and terrible Godterrible to himwhose hand had
abased him so low. Therefore his last words were

And bless me also. Is it then come to thisthat

he who declared that he knew not Jehovah, and
would not obey his voice, is now constrained to crave
the blessing of his servant, that the anger he has so
daringly invoked may no longer hang over his head?
So now there is nothing to impede the free course of
the Israelites, and forth they march. Such an
emigration as this, as a recent writer well remarks,
Note: Smiths Sacred Annals, ii. 47. London: 1850.
the world never saw. On the lowest computation,
the entire multitude must have been above two
millions, and in all probability the number exceeded
three millions. Is the magnitude of this movement
usually apprehended? Do we think of the emigration
of the Israelites from Egypt as of the emigration of a
number of families twice as numerous as the
population of the principality of Wales, or
considerably more than the whole population of the
British metropolis (in 1841), with all their goods,
utensils, property, and cattle? The collecting
together of so immense a multitudethe arranging
of the order of their marchthe provision of the
requisite food for even a few days, must, under the
circumstances, have been utterly impossible, unless
a very special and overruling Providence had

graciously interfered to obviate the difficulties of the

case. To the most superficial observer it must be
evident that no man, or number of men, having
nothing but human resources, could have ventured
to undertake this journey. Scarcely any wonder,
wrought by divine power in Egypt, appears greater
than this emigration of a nation, when fairly and
fully considered.
It is said, in the authorized version, that they went
up out of Egypt harnessed (Exo_13:18), which
means fully equipped for war or for a journey, in
which latter sense only it is now used, and is that
intended by the translators here. The marginal
reading is, by five in a rank; but although there is,
in the original Hebrew word, an obscure reference to
the number five, the word probably means, as the
translators in their textual rendering understood,
that they went out in an orderly manner, fully
equipped for the journey, as we indeed know was the
fact. It is possible they may have marched in five
large divisions, and hence the choice of this
particular word; but that it meant five in a rank
could only be fancied by those who had no real
conception of the numbers of the people. At this rate,
if we allow the ranks of only the 600,000 men fit to

bear arms, to have been three feet asunder, they

would have formed a procession sixty miles in
length, and the van would almost have reached the
Red Sea before the rear had left the land of Goshen;
and if we add to these the remainder of the host, the
line would have extended, by the direct route from
Egypt, quite into the limits of the land of Canaan.
This fact is stated, not only to correct an erroneous
impression, but to assist the reader to a tangible idea
of the vastness of that body of people which Moses
led out of Egypt, and which the Lord sustained in the
wilderness for forty years.
The computation of the numbers of the Israelites is
formed in this way. Our information is that the
efficient men in the Hebrew host amounted to
600,000. Now, it is known that the number of males
too young and too old for military service, is at least,
in every average population, equal to that of efficient
men. Note: Strictly, the number of males under
twenty is about equal to that over twenty. Allowing
that the age of military services commences under
twenty, the number thus gained to the class of
efficient males, is counterbalanced by the number
too old for military service, that the duplication is
good either way. This raises the number to

1,200,000 males of all ages; and then, when this

number is to be doubled for the females of all ages,
raising the whole to 2,400,000or we may safely
say two millions and a halfespecially if we take
account of the mixed multitude, who, we are told,
went out with the Israelites. These we take to have
been native Egyptian vagrants, and convicts, and
foreign captives, whom community of suffering had
brought into contact with the Israelites, and who,
with or without their consent, quitted the country
along with them. These were like the camp-followers
of an army; which, in the case of an eastern army,
are often as numerous as the soldiers themselves.
That they were numerous is historically known. It is
quite safe to calculate that they raised the whole
number from somewhere about two and a half to
three millions; but this number is not calculable like
that of the Hebrews, which, on the data given, we
feel assured must have been about 2,400,000 or
2,500,000. The presence of this mixed multitude
proved a great inconvenience and danger to the
Israelites, not only from their being foremost in all
discontent and rebellion, but from their keeping
idolatrous tendencies alive in the camp. If they did
eventually conform to the outward observances of
Hebrew worship, it is clear that the bulk of them

were, in fact, idolaters, absorbed in the mere

externals of their condition, and having no real share
in the hope or faith of Israel.