ISRAEL. 
reservoirs vast enough to slake the thirst of the moving multitude. The natural perils 
of the march were counteracted by a still more expressive miracle; in the tract infested by 
serpents, the sufferers under their poison were instantly healed by looking on a brazen 
serpent raised by their leader, an emblem of the future triumph of the Messiah over the 
original adversary of mankind. To consummate all those wonders; the Divine Presence, 
in a pillar of cloud by day and of flame by night, shone on high in front of the tribes, 
marking where the camp was to be pitched, and advancing when it was again to be put in 
motion; a visible and unanswerable proof to the most doubting among the people, that 
the host were under the hourly guidance of Heaven. 
But a still more striking connexion was to be established; God was to declare himself 
their actual king. One of the most astonishing features of Scripture is the divine conde¬ 
scension. The natural idea of Deity is that of lofty, abstract, unapproachable grandeur. 
But Scripture acknowledging all, and more than all the grandeur, continually mingles 
with it a human interest, an intimate intercourse with human feelings, and even an 
association with human beings, closely resembling that of man with man. The Eternal 
condescends to meet Abraham as “ friend with friend,” He converses with Moses “ face to 
face,” He is the peculiar “ God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacoball prefiguring that still 
more intense condescension and measureless mercy, by which the Messiah finally took upon 
Him our nature, and even submitted to the death of a slave. 
He now condescended to offer Himself to the election of the people as their sovereign, 
in almost the language of a human candidate for a throne . 1 
In the third month after the departure from Egypt, and on the day of their entrance 
into the wilderness of Sinai, Moses was summoned to hear the divine command. 
“ And the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the 
house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; 
“ Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, 
and brought you unto myself. 
“ Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall 
be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 
“ And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the 
words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel .” 2 
Moses returned to the host and proposed the terms of the covenant of royalty. It was 
publicly accepted. “ And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath 
spoken we will do .” 3 
On this national acceptance, Jehovah put the first act of temporal sovereignty in practice, 
and proclaimed his will as the national legislator. 
The tribes were led by the fiery pillar to the front of the mountain range of Sinai, a 
noble elevation, in itself an object of natural astonishment to a multitude whose lives had 
been spent in the level country of Egypt; and rendered more awful by the command which 
made a nearer approach to it death. On the third morning they were aroused by thunders 
and lightnings, and the sound of the angelic trumpet, “ so that all the people that was in 
Jahn. Hebrew Commonwealth, c. ii. § 9. 
2 Exodus, xix. 3-6. 
3 Ibid. v. 8. 
