XXXIX

OF THE JEWS IN EGYPT

ACCORDING TO the annals of the Jews, this nation inhabited the confines of Egypt in those remote times that history furnishes no account of: they resided in the little country of Gossen, or Gessen, towards mount Casius and lake Sirbon. The Arabians, who in winter, repair with their herds to graze in Lower Egypt, still remain there. This nation was composed of no more than a single family, who, in the space of four hundred years, produced a race of two millions of people; for to furnish six hundred thousand warriors, who according to Genesis came out of Egypt, they must have consisted of at least two millions of souls. This multiplication, contrary to the order of nature, is one of those miracles which God deigned to operate in favour of the Jews.

It is in vain for a multitude of learned men to be astonished that the King of Egypt should have commanded the two midwives to destroy all the male children of the Hebrews; that the king’s daughter who resided at Memphis should go and bathe herself at a great distance from Memphis, in a branch of the Nile, where nobody ever bathed, on account of crocodiles: it is in vain for them to make objections to the age of eighty, which Moses had already attained, before he undertook to conduct a whole people out of bondage.

They dispute upon the ten plagues of Egypt; they say that the magicians of the kingdom could not perform the same miracles as the messenger of God; and that if God gave them his power, he seems to have acted against himself. They suppose, that as Moses had changed all the waters into blood, there remained no more water for the magicians to perform the same metamorphosis upon.

They ask how could Pharaoh pursue the Jews with a great number of horsemen, after all the horses had died, by the fifth and sixth plagues? They ask why six hundred warriors should run away when God was at their head, and they might have engaged the Egyptians to advantage, all the first born of whom being struck dead? They ask again, why God did not give fertile Egypt to his cherished people, instead of making them wander forty years in shocking deserts?

There is but a single answer to all these innumerable objections; and this answer is, God would have it so; the church believes it, and we should believe it. It is in this respect, that this history differs from others. Every people have their prodigies; but every thing is prodigious with the Jewish nation; and it should have been so, as they were conducted by God himself. It is plain that the history of God should not resemble that of men. Wherefore we shall not relate any of those supernatural facts, which should be mentioned only in the holy Scripture. Still less should we dare attempt their explanation. Let us only examine those few that may be subject to criticism.