After ten distinct plagues (more or less akin to natural phenomena peculiar to Egypt), the last being the death of all the firstborn, Pharaoh consented to let his slaves go free, "that they might serve their God." Noses very soon had occasion to prove that he was not only the God-inspired liberator of his people, who in the enthusiasm of the zornen` had braved the great king and his disciplined armies, but that lie possessed all thosc, rarer qualities which alone could enable a man to mold half-brutalized hordes of slaves into a great nation. Calmness, disinterestedness, patience, perseverance, meekness, coupled with keen energy, rapidity of action, unfailing courage—" wisdom in council and boldness in war"—constituted the immense power which he held over the hundreds of thousands who knew no law in their newly-acquired liberty, and who were apt to mur mur and to rebel on any or no provocation. Nor were the hostile Bedouin tribes, "W hose territories the new emigrants approached, easily overcome with untrained war riors, such as formed the ranks of Moses's army. The jealousy of certain elders foster ing seditions within, added to his unceasing vexations; and to fill the measure to overflowing, indeed, his own brother Aaron, whom he had made his representative during his temporary absence on the Mount of Sinai, himself assisted in the fabrication of an idol. His sacred °Mee as legislator lie in reality first assumed in the third month after the Exodus, when, after many hard and trying marches and counter-marches from Goshen to Succoth (? Latopolis, the present old Cairo); thence, by a detour, to Etham (? Ilamlieh), Pi-haehiroth (? Bedea), through the Red sea, to the desert of Shur (? Al-Djofar). Marah, Eiim (Wadi Gharandel), desert of Sin (Wadi Mocatteb, or Wadi Al-Sheikh), Dophka, Alus, Baphidim (near the Makkad Sidna Mousa)—made more trying by want of food and of water, by encounters with Pharaoh and the Amalekites, having arrived near the Mount of Sinai, he made the people encamp all round, and ascended the summit of the mountain by himself. On the incidents connected with the "revelation" made to the whole people, we need not dwell any more than on any other part of this well-known narrative. Suffice it to point out briefly, that the tendency of the whole law was to make the Hebrews a people "consecrated to the Lord," "a holy people, and a kingdom of priests," i.e., a people of equals both before God and the law: Three distinct parts compose this Mosaic constitution. The doctrine with respect to God mid his attributes; the "symbolical" law, as the outward token of his doctrine, and the moral and social law. The Decalogne forms a kind of summary of all the three: the existence of Jehovah as the Absolute Being, the liberation of the people and the prohi bition of polytheism, and the representation of the divinity by visible images (1.—iii). While the institution of the Sabbath, the symbol of creation and the Creator, forms the basis of all religions observances (iv.), the remaining part of the laws relate to the inter course among the members of the human commonwealth; the gratitude of children is inculcated; murder, adultery, theft, false witness, coveting of others' goods are prohib ited. The groundwork of these regulations had, indeed, been a special inheritance in the family of the Abrahamites from the earliest times; but the vicissitudes of fortune, the various migrations, and the enormous increase of this family, and its being mixed up for long years with the surrounding idolaters, had obliterated nearly all traces of the primeval purity of the .populace. The wisdom even in the ,minor regulations of the MOsaic dispensation, with respect to their adaptation to the peculiarity of the race, the climate, the political state of the country which they were to inhabit; in the hygienic regulations, and the rules which treat of the social and domestic relations; mil, above all, the constantly-reiterated caution from mixing again with other nations, inch as they found them in Canaan—and the neglect of which subsequently proved their min—is traced to a direct influence of Jehovah, generally indicated by the words, "And God spoke to Moses, speak unto the children of Israel." An ample ritual, in connection with the tabernacle, or constantly-visible symbol of a divine dwelling; the allegory of an ever-new covenant represented by sacrifices, prayers, purifications, kept the supreme task of being priests and a holy people unceasingly before the eyes of the nation. The tribe of Levi (q.v.) to a certain degree acted in this respect as permanent representatives; and not to Moses's sons, but to his brother Aaron and his descendants, was intrusted the office of high-priest.
When on the eve of entering into the promised land, the people broke out in open rebel lion, and threatened, by a spontaneous return to the land of slavery, to undo the entire work of Moses's life. Convinced that they were not as yet fit to form a commonwealth of their own, the liberator and lawgiver had to postpone, for the long space of 40 years, the crowning act of his work; and, in fact, did not himself live to see them taking possession of the hallowed territory. How these years of nomadic journeying through the desert
(Eh-Tylt or Al-Tyh Beni-Israel) were spent, save in rearing up a new generation of is more nilkily and brave, as well as more " civilized" stamp, we can only conjecture. All those who had left Egypt as men were doomed to die in the desert, either by a natural death, or by being suddenly " cut off," in consequence of their openly defying Moses, and through Moses Jehovah. The apparent lack of incidents during this period has indeed furnished grounds for various speculations on this subject, and critics have tried to reduce it to a much shorter space, without, however, being able to prove their point. Even Goethe, with more ingenuity than knowledge of the subject, has endeavored to prove the " forty " to be a mythical round number, the real time being two years. The testimonies of the Hebrew prophets and historians, however, are perfectly unani mous on the subject (cf. Jos. v. 6; xiv. 10; Amos, ii. 10; v. 20; Ps. xcv. 10, etc.) and modern criticism has mostly endorsed the number as in keeping with the circumstances. On the first month of the fortieth year after the exodus, we find Moses at the head of an entirely new generation of Hebrews at Kadesh, in the desert of Phoran or Zin. Here his sister Miriam died. Here also, for the first time, Moses seeing the new generation as stubborn and " hard-necked" as their fathers, is recorded to have despaired of the Divine Providence; and his disobedience to the letter of the command given to him, " to speak to the rock," is alleged as the reason " that his bones too had to fall in the desert." His brother Aaron died at Hor (near Petra, according to Josephus and St. Jerome), whither the Israelites had gone next. Not long afterwards, Moses once more had occa sion to punish with relentless severity the idolatrous tendencies of the people (Baal Peer), thus showing that age had had no power of making him relax his strong rule over the still half-savage and sensuous multitude. Having finally fixed the limits of the land to be conquered, and given the most explicit orders to Joshua, to Eliezer, and time chiefs of the ten tribes, respecting its division, he prepared the people for his own impending death. He recalled to their minds in the most impressive language, their miraculous liberation, and no less miraculous preservation in the desert. Their happiness—their life—was bound up, he told them, in the divine law, communicated through him by Jehovah. A recapitulation of its principal ordinances, with their several modifications and additions, and reiterated exhortations to piety and virtue, form the contents of his last speeches, which close with one of the grandest poetical hymns. The law was then handed over to the priests that they might instruct the people in it henceforth; Joshua was installed as successor (while his own sons sunk into the obscurity of ordinary Levites), and he blessed the whole people. He then ascended the mount of Nebo, from whence he east a first and last look upon the land for which lie had pined all his life, and on which his feet were never to tread. He died upon this mountain, 120 years old, in the full • vigor of manhood, according to the Scriptures, "and no man knew his hurial-place up to this day "—so that neither his renmins nor his tomb were desecrated by"Divine honors" being superstitiously paid to them.
This is a summary of Moses's life as derived from biblical as well as non-biblical sources. The latter—except, perhaps the very doubtful traditions of Manetho—belong, whatever may be the date of the respective documents of the Pentateuch, to a much later age, and bear the air of tradition and legend, grown out of those very documents, so plainly on their face. that they are of about the same importance for historical pur poses as the cycle of Midrash-sagas that have gathered around Moses,, and which are reproduced variously in Moslem legendaries. On his office as a " prophet: "—what was the special nature of big revelations, how far the doctrines promulgated by him were traditional among the Abrahamites, and how much of his laws is due to Egyptian influ ences; whether part of them was first inaugurated by later generations and ascribed to him, or whether others were never carried out at all: on these and similar questions which have been abundantly raised, mere especially in recent times, we must refer for fuller information to the Special works on the subject. . Some notice of the morel impor tant points will be found under GF-Isnsis. JEivs, Ri5c...t.olguE, etc. There seems, however, but one conclusion. The brief span of human history of which we have any knowledge, shows few, if any, men of Moses's towering grandeur—even with all the deductions that the most daring criticism has yet proposed.