xix. THE BLOOD OF THE PASCHAL LAMB. 337 



first-born of each creature. In these respects it differed 

 from any natural pestilence recorded in history. But 

 the destructive agency itself was only a portentous and 

 well-timed employment for a moral purpose of a natural 

 occurrence. It was like the smiting of Sennacherib's 

 army, and the punishment of the murmurers among the 

 Israelites in the wilderness, which were brought about 

 by an extraordinary wielding in the hands of Omnipo- 

 tence of natural causes. The Jewish Psalmist, referring 

 to the event in the seventy-eighth Psalm, ascribes it to 

 a sudden visitation of the plague : " He spared not 

 their soul from death, but gave their life over unto the 

 pestilence." 



Now, if the death of the first-born in Egypt was 

 caused by some natural epidemic or pestilence of this 

 kind, Divinely employed to accomplish this particular 

 purpose, its proximate cause would be the presence of 

 morbific germs to an unusual degree in the atmosphere. 

 The unhealthy conditions produced by the previous 

 plagues, which were all linked together, would favour 

 an undue development of these ; and the occurrence of 

 a pestilence in such circumstances is what we should 

 have naturally expected. By sprinkling the lintels and 

 door-posts of the Israelites with the fresh blood of the 

 paschal lamb, the morbific germs would be attracted 

 and absorbed by the fluid, and so prevented from 

 passing the threshold and reaching the inmates, who 

 would thus enjoy immunity from the pestilence which 

 devastated the homes of their enemies not similarly pro- 

 tected. This view of the case is still further strength- 



