EPC Australia

The first is not easily understood from the present version. It is said. They went up out of Egypt harnessed. The word harness, when the Bible was translated, signified not the furniture of a horse, but of a soldier, or armour; and this is the first sense the term bears in the dictionary; and, to check the presumption of a warrior, it was once said, "Let not him that putteth on the harness boast himself like him that putteth it off!" The translators therefore meant to say, that they went out armed. Yet this is not at all probable. Such a jealous tyrant as Pharaoh would, by his spies, have prevented the Israelites from manufacturing, or purchasing, or hoarding up, weapons. We find in aftertimes, when the Philistines held the Jews in subjection, they would not allow a smith to live in the country, and only permitted them to sharpen their agricultural implements at particular places. "But they had arms in the Wilderness, when they fought Amalek and others." Yes, they had carried away a few weapons concealed, and made others out of the materials they had with them; and above all, they furnished themselves from the spoils of Pharaoh's army thrown on shore. But they were now only going out from Egypt. The margin is, they marched "five in a rank." But this would have extended the train to an immense length. Others, therefore, have rendered it, "in five squadrons." But all the meaning seems to be, that they moved out not armed, but in soldier-like order; as regularly organized and slowly as disciplined troops, and not like a rude rabble, or a huddled, jostling multitude. It shows that they did not go out by "haste or by flight." And this is very remarkable, considering their numbers, and the quality of the people, and how natural it was for those behind to dread lest their task-masters should overtake them, and therefore to press forward and incommode those that were before. But there was nothing of this; they moved with such steadiness and stillness, that "against none of them did a dog move his tongue." We are also informed that "there was not found one feeble among them." Indeed, they had enough to do to take care of themselves and their goods, without being encumbered with invalids. Yet did ever such an immense multitude leave a place before without one individual unable to follow? It was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

The other circumstance in this march regards "the bones of Joseph, which Moses took with them." This rendered it a kind of funeral procession, and such as no other history relates. Much people of Nain followed the bier of the widow's son, but Joseph's corpse was accompanied with every man, woman, and child, of a whole nation. There is generally some time between death and interment, though in warm climates this is very short: here was an interval of near two hundred years. Other bodies may have been carried as far, but were never so long in their conveyance to the grave, for here forty years were taken up in bearing Joseph to his burial.

We read at the death of Joseph, that "they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt;" and when we consider that he was the prime-minister and the saviour of the country, and the most popular man in the realm, we may be assured that this was done in a manner the most perfect and sumptuous. The descendants of his own family would be likely to have the care of this precious deposit, and they would feel a peculiar veneration for it. But it was dear to all, and useful to all. It was a memento of the vanity of all human greatness. Joseph had risen in life to an unexampled degree of eminence. But what? where? now is the Governor and idol of Egypt? Mummied within those few inches of board. It was also a moral, as well as a mortal memento. Joseph was a very pious character; he had been highly exemplary in every relation and condition of life, and much of God, of providence, and of grace, was to be read in his history. What an advantage to be always reminded of such a man, in having his remains always in the midst of them. But the body would be, above all, valuable, as a pledge of their future destination. It was a present palpable sign of God's Covenant with their fathers, on their behalf.

For observe how they came in possession of this treasure.

It was according to the dying wish and prophecy of Joseph: "For he had straitly charged the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you." His charge did not arise from a superstitious principle, as if it were better or safer to moulder in one place than another, nor even from a principle of natural and relative affection. This feeling, indeed, is often strong, and the wish of persons to lie with their kindred seems to grow with the decline of life. How affectionately does Jacob express this sentiment, when dying. "I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah." This, however, was more than the language of Nature in the father, and so it was in the son. The Apostle tells us, "By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones." If he did it by faith, his faith must have had a divine warrant. This was the promise of a God that cannot lie, that he would give Canaan for a possession to the seed of Abraham.

"And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance." And this was, at the very time, ratified by a solemn covenant. Joseph knew of this engagement, and believed it; and though the time was remote, and the difficulties in the accomplishment many, like a true son of Abraham, he staggered not at the promise of God, through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. This raised him above the treasures of Egypt; this kept him from naturalizing there amidst all his prosperity: there he was only a stranger and a sojourner; another nation was his people, another land was his home. And therefore, instead of being entombed in an Egyptian pyramid, he ordered his body to be taken immediately to Goshen, and kept by them till they should go as a body to possess their inheritance, and then bury him with his fathers.

And behold the fulfilment! Enslaved as they were, they are delivered. Their enemies perish. They live by miracle for forty years in the Wilderness. The Jordan is crossed. Canaan is taken; and, says the Conqueror to the people he had led to victory, "Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth; and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof." "So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem." What more? "And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph." Here we leave his hallowed remains till the resurrection of the just; inscribing over his sepulchre, A MEMORIAL OF THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD.

Morning Exercises For Everyday In The Year
By Rev. William Jay