WITH loins girded, with shoes on their feet and with staff in hand. Israel fed in haste on the roasted lamb on that memorable night when the Lord passed through the land of Egypt, smiting the first-born of man and beast. Pharaoh and the Egyptians were now urgent to get them out of the land for they were afraid that death would come upon all of them if they were not allowed to go; so they told them to be gone with their children and their flocks and their herds, and serve the Lord, as they had said.
Thus thrust out in haste, the children of Israel got their effects together and started. There was a very great company of them—six hundred thousand men, beside the women and children, making, it is supposed, a company of about two million people. They did not go out empty-handed, for they had silver and gold, and they had flocks and herds and much cattle; and, what was most remarkable, there was not a feeble person amongst them. Ps. 105:37.
Another thing of note we might mention. While the first-born of man and beast among the Egyptians lay dead on every hand, not a dog was allowed to move his tongue against man or beast among the children of Israel. This is the more to be noted because of the many dogs who run without owners in that land, and whose barking may be heard day and night. But in this remarkable manner, the Lord showed that He put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.
In moving out of that land in which they had been strangers for so long a time, Moses did not forget to carry the bones of Joseph along with them. Thus God honored Joseph’s faith, for he believed that God would certainly visit Israel in the land in which they were strangers, and that they would carry his bones up to the land of his fathers.
This exodus, or going out, of the children of Israel, made for them a never to-be-forgotten night. It was in every way remarkable. But the most remarkable thing of all was the manner in which this immense company of people, with their numerous flocks and herds, was led. The Lord went before them, manifesting His presence to them in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. The pillar of cloud guided them by day as they journeyed, and the pillar of fire was light to them in the darkness of the night. In this wonderful way the Lord led His people, never taking the pillar as ay from before them. Do you think they could ever question the Lord’s guidance when led in this way? Alas! the heart of man so loves to go its own way that the plainest guidance of the Lord is sometimes questioned.
We have just as sure a guide, though not visible to our eyes, as the children of Israel had. And much sorrow will be saved us if we yield ourselves implicitly to this guidance, even as sorrow would have been saved Israel if they had unmurmuringly followed the guidance of the pillar.
God did not choose to lead Israel through the land of the Philistines to the promised land. He had lessons to teach them, for now they were under His control, and He must teach them of His ways, so He led them about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.
And now, too, there are lessons in God’s school for His people to learn. He does not take us directly home to heaven when He saves us; but He is leading us through a wilderness world, and fitting us. by the trials we are passing through, for the fuller enjoyment of that blessed, promised land to which we are going.
ML 12/21/1902