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wave it, and not be contented to take the worse for the better.

Thou didst blow with thy wind

The sea covered them:

They sank as lead in the mighty waters.

Nothing, as I have said, can be finer than the fierce exultation expressed by Pharoah in the passage previously quoted, setting forth that tyrant's determination to destroy the whole of Jacob's posterity, who, in obedience to the divine command, had quitted a state of bondage, in order to enter upon an inheritance promised to their fathers, in a land of such plenty, as to be characterized, by the inspired historian, as flowing with milk and honey. Observe the judicious contrast between that and the passage quoted above. Exultation is immediately succeeded by the most complete destruction. The vociferations of rage and the loud menaces of presumed authority, are followed by "lamentations and mourning and woe." They who so lately gave way to rejoicing at contemplating the annihilation of an unoffending people, who were marching from slavery to freedom, are themselves suddenly involved in ruin as complete as they anticipated casting upon the long-injured but unresisting Israelites. How emphatically is this ruin represented in every part of the poem where it is introduced.

Thou didst blow with thy wind.

It was a wind raised by the divine intervention, not the ordinary operation of nature.

It was God's wind distinctly and specially, such a wind as caused the waters to divide, to remain for a while stationary,-in fact, to be congealed in the heart of the sea. It was not a common action of the elements, but a wind immediately and expressly directed to its issues by the Divinity. Here is a distinction worthy of observation. This was a something out of the usual course of natural events;-it was the direct result of a providential agency. The wind blew, the sea was raised like a wall on either side as the Israelites passed over; and being followed by their pursuers, the waves recoiled upon these fierce oppressors, who

Sank like lead in the mighty waters.

Can any thing more aptly represent the suddenness and completeness of their overthrow than this short passage? It was instantaneous and final. They sank like lead, which, from its great weight, descends to the bottom with the utmost precipitation. So did Pharoah and his mighty host, his chariots and his horsemen. They had neither time for repentance nor escape, but reaped that dreadful harvest of destruction which they were preparing with such fiendish exultation for the unoffending seed of Abraham. They were overwhelmed in the depths of the sea. What a sudden and terrible death! This is, in truth, a subject to call our thoughts home to our own state, and who but must concur with the great moralist :-*

* Young, see Night ii.

Who venerate themselves, the world despise:
For what, gay friend, is this escutcheon'd world,
Which hangs out death in one eternal night?-
A night that glooms us in the noontide ray,
And wraps our thoughts, at banquets, in the shroud.
Life's little stage is a small eminence,

Inch-high above the grave-that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude: we gaze around,
We read their monuments, we sigh; and while
We sigh, we sink, and are what we deplored;
Lamenting or lamented, all our lot!

CHAPTER XXI.

Thanksgiving Ode continued, from verse 11—14.

THE reflections which closed the last chapter, though sad, are of the highest interest to humanity; well, therefore, might the Hebrew bard exclaim, under the transports of awakened gratitude, for so signal a deliverance from threatened destruction

Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like thee, glorious in holiness,

Fearful in praises, doing wonders?

In this triplet the vast superiority of the true God is maintained over the artificial gods of Egypt, and those animal and reptile divinities to which that besotted people offered adoration. A contrast is presented between the omnipotence of the former and the utter impotence of the latter: "We have already seen that all the Egyptian gods, or the objects of Egyptian idolatry, were confounded and rendered completely despicable by the ten plagues, which appear to have been directed principally against them. Here the people of God exult over them afresh. 'Who among these gods is like unto THEE?

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They can neither save nor destroy: THOU dost both in the most signal manner.'"*

Waterland translates the first line of this triplet, and is followed by many other commen

tators

Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the mighty ones?

But I do not think that this reading can be admitted, and for this reason: the poet is not here comparing God to the princes or mighty ones of the earth generally, but to the factitious gods of Egypt exclusively, as is evident from the whole context. The latter were unable to deliver the Egyptians from their overthrow and destruction in the Red Sea, whereas the former had completely delivered his people Israel from the bondage of Pharoah. The gods of Egypt were manifestly impotent, the God of Israel was evidently omnipotent. These two objects of worship are placed in immediate juxtaposition, in order to render the contrast the more striking. The hosts of Pharoah, himself, his captains, and his nobles, had been all in an instant overwhelmed by the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, while the dumb deities of Egypt had shown how utterly unable they were to save their worshippers from his fatal wrath. In spite of their supposed power to protect their votaries, the latter, the flower of populous Egypt, together with their sovereign and his princes, were all drowned.

Who is like thee, glorious in holiness?

Dr. A. Clarke's note.

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