In the execution

no longer of a harmless character. of this warning, Moses and Aaron present themselves before him; "and he [Moses] lifted up the rod, and smote the waters in the river [the Nile], in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants, and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood."*

And here a question is brought before us, which I suppose appears to most minds as of prominent importance, in the interpretation of this whole narrative. It relates to the amount and extent of miraculous operation. We say, the only object contemplated was, to affect Pharaoh's mind, because on his will depended the dismission of the Israelitish people; and, this being so, we ask ourselves, what necessity was there for extending the severity of a judgment over a whole nation? What occasion was there, for instance, to distress a whole people with thirst, for the purpose merely of subduing the obduracy of its monarch? I suppose that nothing goes further towards creating incredulity in respect to the Mosaic miracles, than the thought to which I here refer. And I would do something towards removing the impression, which it makes.

I shall not content myself with saying, that, in the established order of the divine government, the mind of a ruler is generally reached through the fortunes of his subjects. It is true, however, and a truth which ought carefully to be weighed in its bearings on the relation before us, that the principle, here brought to view, is distinctly recognised in all the analogies of human history. If, in these instances of supernatural agency, God did address the mind of the monarch through an influence, exerted on it by his subjects in consequence of the unhappiness of a condition into which they had been brought, it is no more than he is constantly doing

vii. 20.

of war.

in his common providence, when, for instance, a prince, living in seclusion and luxury, is induced to consent to a peace, because his people, on whom alone the burden falls, are impatient of the sacrifices and disturbances The wisdom and righteousness of such a divine economy it does not belong to this place to vindicate, though it admits of the most satisfactory vindication. It is enough to say, what all will admit, that such is the divine economy in respect to natural events; and, being so, no prejudice can attach to the credibility of events alleged to be supernatural, because they also are marked with this character. We ought to expect to see one course of divine action impressed with the same signatures, which we trace on another, proceeding from the same source.

But, leaving this general statement, I conceive that we are by no means justified, in point of fact, in understanding the historian's statements as having been intended to be of that comprehensive character, in which they have been commonly received. Assuredly, if we undertake to discredit his narrative by a process of reasoning, sound or otherwise, founded on the supposed fact that he has represented the supernatural operations to have been carried on over an incredibly wide extent, the burden of proof lies on us to show, that he has actually described them as spread over the extent supposed. I proceed to some considerations, tending to make it appear, that this cannot be affirmed with the confidence which has been common.

In the first place, in our very partial acquaintance with ancient geography, who would undertake to say, that the name "Egypt," which, in one acceptation, stood, no doubt, for all the realm of the Pharaohs, did not, in another, stand for a portion of that territory, perhaps for a small district of it, possibly for the mere

precincts of the royal court? In ancient geography, two instances, of the kind supposed, are familiarly known. The name "Adria" is given, in a narrower sense, to the gulf within the capes of Italy and Greece, and, in a wider, to that estuary, along with a portion of the Mediterranean, south of those promontories *; and the name "Asia," which denotes to us the whole vast reach of a continent, extending over a hundred and sixty degrees of longitude, in another acceptation meant what we now call "Asia Minor," and, in another yet, a small district in its southwest corner, immediately about the city of Ephesus.

Again; it is said, that "there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt." The expression seems comprehensive; and yet, that the historian did not mean to say that the inhabitants of the kingdom were wholly deprived of access to pure water, is manifest from his own words which follow, where he says, that "all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink." That by the phrase, "the waters of Egypt," is meant nothing more extensive than the "waters of the Nile," which irrigated the central portion of that country, not only seems highly probable in itself, but I think its probability is heightened by some important

* See Ptolemy, lib. 3, capp. 4, 16, ad init. Strabo, lib. 7, cap. 5, § 1. Compare Acts xxvii. 27 ; xxviii. 1. For want of attending to this equivocal meaning of the word, Le Clerc argues, (Ars Critica, pars 1, cap. 1, § 1,) that the "Melita" of Paul's shipwreck could not have been our Malta. Illustrations of this kind might be collected in an indefinite number. In our day, the name "Britain" stands for spaces of very different size, distinguished, it is true, by the epithets "Great" and "Little." "America," in its proper sense, means the whole western continent. In a very common use, it denotes the United States. The French Canadians give the name "Boston," to the whole territory subject to the Federal Government, as well as, more specifically, to a single city. "Holland" denotes the Kingdom of the Netherlands, or one of its provinces. "Austria " is one kingdom, or the empire, consisting of several.

† vii. 21.

‡ vii. 24.

considerations. Aaron is commanded, "Take thy rod and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, [that is the streams of the waters of Egypt, the streams into which the waters of Egypt, whatever they were, spread,] upon their rivers, upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water."* But when we are told of what he actually did, in the following verse, the statement is as follows; "He lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants, and all the waters that were in the river were turned into blood, and the fish that was in the river died, and the Egyptians could not drink of the river;" and thus it was, because the Nile was corrupted, and not because the waters of every part of the kingdom shared the taint, that it is said "There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt."+

The injustice which we do to the historian, if we interpret, in an unlimited sense, all expressions which he does not take care expressly to limit, will be further apparent if we look a few verses forward. He tells us, for instance, that in consequence of the plague of murrain, "all the cattle of Egypt died."‡ He means certainly that we should understand, that there was mortality among all the cattle of Egypt,-that there was a prevailing fatal pestilence; for when he presently relates subsequent visitations, he says, that they respectively fell upon man and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt." §

* vii. 19.

This view is strongly corroborated by the remark, (verse 24,) that "all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink," for certainly not all the Egyptians lived on the bank of the river Nile. Many lived in the interior; upon the Oases, and elsewhere; and, if all who dug for water dug by the bank of that river, it seems to follow, that no water except that of the river had been rendered unfit for use.

ix. 6.

§ ix. 9, 19. Compare also ix. 25, with x. 5.

And, finally, that the expressions in question, comprehensive as they are, were not designed to be taken without limitation, is very evident from this consideration; that, so taken, they would call on us, in some cases, to understand, that the land of Goshen itself, the peculiar dwelling-place of the Israelites, was not exempted from the visitation of the pest. The land of Egypt, understood in its widest sense, undoubtedly comprehended that territory. No exception is made of that territory, in the account of the transformation of water to blood; "there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt"; and in some other instances, the historian is not careful to make the discrimination.* No one supposes, that, in those instances, the Israelites shared in the general calamity, as the words, taken without qualification, indicate. Yet he who, in one instance, holds that a qualification, not expressed, ought to be adopted, of course allows that the mere fact of the absence of express qualification in the language, does not forbid it to be made in interpretation.

I return to the course of the narrative. The water of the river having been turned into blood, so that "the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink," we are told that the magicians of Egypt "did so with their enchantments." The nature of the imitation, which they exhibited, is sufficiently apparent from the circumstances. The transformation of the vast rolling mass of water in a river into another substance, is evidently a result attainable only by supernatural agency. The immense scale upon which the work was performed, rendered it incapable of any delusive imitation, and at the same time precluded the attempt at any such imitation. The mass of waters in their neighbourhood being already changed, all that † vii. 22.

*See viii. 6; ix. 9.