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sionally intermingling among them, constituted a being so awful, as that pillar is stated to have been.

It is stated, the Israelites were under the guidance of the pillar during forty years; and it is inconceivable that for so long a period they could be cajoled into the belief that a cloudy pillar was moving, sometimes before, sometimes behind them; that sometimes it rested in their camp, sometimes at a short distance from it; that they heard Moses receive, from time to time, commands from the Being who inhabited it, and that they saw lightnings flash from it, to destroy daring sinners; it is inconceivable that the Israelites could have been persuaded of all this, if in reality there was nothing of the kind seen or heard by them. He who still urges this objection, with a bad grace accuses the most bigoted sectarian of credulity.

The

Some Infidels have asserted that the Israelites crossed the Red sea at Suez, where the passage could easily have been effected without a miracle by the recess of water at a spring tide, aided by the blowing of the Etesian winds. This assertion however is untrue. passage was not effected at Suez, but at a point which, according to an oriental idiom, lies ten hours' journey farther down the gulf. This is ascertained from the tradition of the natives, compared with the import of the name of the place, where previous to the division of the sea the Israelites encamped. The word "Pi-ha-hiroth," signifies the mouth of the ridge, or chain of mountains, which line the western coast of the Red sea, among which we know that the people were entangled; and as there is but one mouth to that chain, through which a retreating multitude could pass, there can be no doubt whatever respecting the situation of Pi-ha-hiroth. Before that opening we are told the Israelites encamped, between Migdel and the sea, over against Baal-zephon; but Migdel being probably a tower, which indeed is the meaning of the word, and Baal-zephon, or the northern Baal, a temple on the opposite promontory, both these landmarks, like other works of man, have long ago disappeared. The opening, however, in the ridge of mountains, anciently called Pi-ha-hiroth, still remains, and the names of conspicuous places in its neighborhood distinctly prove, that the persons by whom such names were given, believed this to be the point at which the Israelites passed the gulf in safety, and where Pharaoh and his host were drowned in attempting to follow. Thus we have close by Pi-ha-hiroth, on the western side of the bay, Mount Attaka, which we are told signifies deliverance on the western side, and nearly opposite, a head-land

[graphic]

[Moses at the passage of the Red Sea.-N. POUSSIN.I

sionally intermingling among them, constituted a being so awful, as that pillar is stated to have been.

It is stated, the Israelites were under the guidance of the pillar during forty years; and it is inconceivable that for so long a period they could be cajoled into the belief that a cloudy pillar was moving, sometimes before, sometimes behind them; that sometimes it rested in their camp, sometimes at a short distance from it; that they heard Moses receive, from time to time, commands from the Being who inhabited it, and that they saw lightnings flash from it, to destroy daring sinners; it is inconceivable that the Israelites could have been persuaded of all this, if in reality there was nothing of the kind seen or heard by them. He who still urges this objection, with a bad grace accuses the most bigoted sectarian of credulity.

Some Infidels have asserted that the Israelites crossed the Red sea at Suez, where the passage could easily have been effected without a miracle by the recess of water at a spring tide, aided by the blowing of the Etesian winds. This assertion however is untrue. The passage was not effected at Suez, but at a point which, according to an oriental idiom, lies ten hours' journey farther down the gulf. This is ascertained from the tradition of the natives, compared with the import of the name of the place, where previous to the division of the sea the Israelites encamped. The word "Pi-ha-hiroth," signifies the mouth of the ridge, or chain of mountains, which line the western coast of the Red sea, among which we know that the people were entangled; and as there is but one mouth to that chain, through which a retreating multitude could pass, there can be no doubt whatever respecting the situation of Pi-ha-hiroth. Before that opening we are told the Israelites encamped, between Migdel and the sea, over against Baal-zephon; but Migdel being probably a tower, which indeed is the meaning of the word, and Baal-zephon, or the northern Baal, a temple on the opposite promontory, both these landmarks, like other works of man, have long ago disappeared. The opening, however, in the ridge of mountains, anciently called Pi-ha-hiroth, still remains, and the names of conspicuous places in its neighborhood distinctly prove, that the persons by whom such names were given, believed this to be the point at which the Israelites passed the gulf in safety, and where Pharaoh and his host were drowned in attempting to follow. Thus we have close by Pi-ha-hiroth, on the western side of the bay, Mount Attaka, which we are told signifies deliverance on the western side, and nearly opposite, a head-land

[graphic]

[Moses at the passage of the Red Sea.-N. POUSSIN.

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