Bible Romances, First SeriesFoote, G. W. (George William)
Religion
Bible Romances, First Series
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Bible; Free thought
What did the drove live upon during the journey from Barneses to
Succoth, and from Succoth to Etham, and from Etham to the Red Sea? Such
grass as there was, even if the sheep and cattle went before the men,
women, and children, could not have been of much avail; for what was not
eaten by the front ranks must have been trodden under foot at once, and
rendered useless to those that followed. After they "encamped by the Red
Sea," on the third day, there was no vegetation at all. The journey
was over a desert, the surface of which was composed of hard gravel
intermixed with pebbles. After crossing the Red Sea, their road lay over
a desert region, covered with sand, gravel, and stone, for about nine
miles; after which they entered a boundless desert plain, called _El
Ati_ white and painfully glaring to the eye; and beyond this the ground
was broken by sand-hills. How were the two million sheep and two hundred
thousand oxen provisioned during this journey?
What did the Jews themselves live on? The desert afforded them no
sustenance until God miraculously sent manna. They must, therefore, have
taken a month's provisions for every man, woman, and child. How could
they possibly have provided themselves with so much food on so short
a notice? And how could they have carried it, seeing that they were
already burdened with kneading-troughs and other necessaries for
domestic use, besides the treasures they "borrowed" of the Egyptians.
How did they provide themselves with tents? Allowing ten persons for
each tent, they must have required two hundred thousand. Were these
carefully got ready in expectation? In the land of Goshen they lived in
houses with "lintels" and "side-posts." And how were the tents carried?
The Jews themselves were already well loaded. Of course the oxen remain,
but, as Colenso observes, they were not trained to carry t goods on
their backs, and were sure to prove refractory under such a burden.
Whence did the Jews obtain their arms? According to Exodus (xiii, 18)
"the children of Israel went up _harnessed_ out of the land of Egypt."
The Hebrew word which is rendered "harnessed" appears to mean "armed" or
"in battle array" in all the other passages where it occurs, and is so
translated. Some commentators, scenting a difficulty in this rendering,
urge that the true meaning is "by five in a rank." But if 600,000 men
marched out of Egypt "five in a rank," they must have formed a column
sixty-eight miles long, and it would have taken several days to start
them all off, whereas they went out altogether "that self-same day."
Besides, the Jews had arms in the desert, and how could they have
possessed them there unless they obtained them in Egypt? If they went
out of Egypt "armed," why did they cry out "sore afraid" when Pharaoh
pursued them?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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