to future ages, It might cause the brook, which descended out of the mount, and supplied them with water all the time they lay encamped here, and tho brook caused by it may, perhaps, run to this day. But, though this may be true, yet it will not hence follow, that the streams of this brook flowed after the camp, when they departed from Horeb, and took their journies out of the wilderness of Sinai into the wilderness of Paran. But IV. The chief argument for supposing that the. rock followed the Israelites in their journeys through the wilderness, is taken from the words of St. Paul, 1 Corin. x. 4. who says, Our fathers did all drink the same spiritual drink (for they drank of that spiritual Rock, which followed them, and that Rock was CHRIST.) But I think it is very evident, that the apostle here speaks not of the rock of Horeb, but of CHRIST, who though invisible, was the spiritual support of the Israelites in the wilderness. In ver. 3. He alludes to the manna which was given them; but then treats of the spiritual meat which sustained them, We find from the accounts of modern travellers, that there runs now a brook from mount Horeb, which supplies water to the monastery called St. Saviour's, being a Greek convent situate at the foot of the mountain. Chorebus, says Belonius, lib. 2, c. 63, commodissimo fonte instructus est; and in c. 62. speaking of the convent, he says, monasterium aquâ abundat: rivus enim ex monte do fluens monachorum cisternam replet aquâ limpida, frigida, dulci, denique optima, &c. designing to turn the thoughts of the Corinthians from the manna to GOD, who gave the manna and made it a sufficient nourishment to his people: Man liveth noť by bread alone. The manna of itself had been but a very slender provision: but by the direction of God, the morning dew would have been an abundant supply; or he could, if he had pleased, as well have sustained them the whole forty years without any food at all, as he did Moses in the mount forty days and forty nights, without eating bread or drinking water. We must not therefore look at the manna, as if that were sufficient to nourish the people; but consider the power of God, who was their spiritual meat, and invisibly supported them. In the same manner we must consider the supply they had of drink. The rock at Horeb struck by the rod of Moses, sent forth waters, but the benefit was not owing to the rock, but to CHRIST, who was the spiritual and invisible rock of his people; who by his power gave them this supply, and whose presence was with them, not only at this time, but in all their journeyings. The meaning of St. Paul is very plain and easy; and we evidently play with the letter, instead of attending to the design of his words, if we infer from them, that the rock at Horeb, or any water from it, followed the Israelites through the wilderness. Upon the whole, if we had any authority from Scripture to say, that the rock at Horeb followed the camp; or that the waters from Horeb flowed after the Israelites, we should have no Matt. iv. 4. Deut, viji, 3. f Deut. viii. 3. xxix. 6. reason to question the fact. The power of Gon could have caused either; but neither Moses nor any other sacred writer says any thing like it, nor was any such fact known to either Philo or Josephus; so that I think it a mere fictions of the Rabbins, and that it ought to be rejected. A due application will enable every sober querist to vindicate the miracles recorded in Scripture; but it is an idle labour, and will prove of disservice to religion, to add miracles of our own making to those which the Scriptures set before us. J Whilst the Israelites were at Rephidim, the Amalekites, near whose country they then encamped," attacked them, whereupon Moses ordered Joshua to choose out a number of the ablest men to sustain the assault, and he himself went up the hill with his rod in his hand, and Aaron and Hur with him. The battle had many turns: whilst Moses held up his The Rabbins were fruitful inventors of this sort of miracles. Jonathan B. Uziel says of the well, which the Israelites dug at Beer, that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob first dug it; but that Moses and Aaron drew it after them' into the wilderness by the rod, and that it followed them up high hills, and down into low vallies, and went round. about the camp of the Israelites, and gave every one drink at his tent-door, and that it followed them until they came to the borders of the land of Moab, but that they lost it upon the top of a hill over against Beth-Jeshimon. See Targum Jonathan on Numbers xxxi. The country of the Amalekites lay next to Seir. Gen. ziv. 7. hands the Israelites had the better; but whenever he let his hand fall, the Amalekites prevailed. Upon observing this event, Aaron and Hur, Moses being quite tired, caused him to sit down upon a stone, and supported his hands all the remainder of the day until the evening; and upon this Joshua obtained a complete victory over the Amalekites." Then the LORD ordered Moses to leave it upon record, and to remind Joshua that it was his design utterly to extirpate the Amalekites; which purpose of GOD was revealed to Balaam; and Moses, according to the directions given him to write in a book, took care to record it in his book of Deuteronomy, in the most express terms.' And because GOD had vouchsafed the Israelites this victory upon the holding up his hands, he, in order to give God the glory, and not to take the honour to himself, built an altar in memory of it, and called it Jehovah Nissi, or the LORD is he who exalteth me; and he declared to the Israelites, that for this base attempt against them, the LORD would war against the Amalekites from generation to generation. S This certainly must be the meaning of the 16th verse of the xviith chapter of Exodus: The Hebrew words are difficult to be translated, and I think none of the versions express clearly the sense of them. We render the place, For he said, Because the Lord • Ibid. v. 16. Deut. xxv. 17, 18, 19. hath sworn, that the LORD will have war with Ama, lek, &c. The vulgar Latin translation runs thus, Quia manus solii Domini, et bellum Domini erit contra Amalek: i. e. Because the hand of the throne of the LORD, and the war of the LORD will be against Amalek. This version rather shews that the translators were at a loss how to render the place intelligibly, than expresses the true meaning of it. The LXX say, OTI εν χειρι κρυφαια πολεμη 0 JEOS Επι Apan. i. e. That the LORD fights [with a hidden hand] i. e. secretly against Amalek. The sense here is clear and plain; but there are no words in the Hebrew text to answer to εν χειρι κρυφαια, with a hitden hand." The Hebrew words are, Ki yad nal kes yah Milcamah Lahovah ba Namalek; which ver t Ecce manus super sedem, bellum Domini cum Amalek, &c. Vers. Syriac. Nunc est mihi quod jurem per solium, quod erit Deo bellum in Amalekitas. Vers. Arabic. Cum juramento dictum est hoc á facie terribilis, cujus majestas est super solium gloriæ, fore, ut committatur prælium â facie Domini contra viros domus Amalech. Targum Onkelos. It has been suggested to me by a very learned friend, that the two words, which in the present Hebrew text stand next to one another, might perhaps be taken by the LXX to have been originally but one word, D, and they might derive such a word from casah, to cover, and imagine that by might be rendered in secret, or covertly: but if this may be a just correction and translation of the text, the Lxx should have rendered the verse to this |