Moses, after a solemn charge to the whole as sembly, and a song of praise and triumph, bade the people a last farewell, and retired to the top of Nebo to die [MosEs]. He was the desert leader, and with his death the desert-journey ended.
The literature of this subject is very extensive. The leading authorities alone are here mentioned They with others are frequently quoted in the body of the article. Laborde, Commentaire Geogra phigue PExode ; Robinson, Bib. Res. i. ; Wil son, Lands of ; Stanley, Sin. and Pal. ; Porter, Handbook ; Bartlett, Forty days in the Desert ; Seetzen, Reisen, ; Burckhardt, Tray. in Syr. Also for peculiar views, Beke, Grigines Biblicce ; Fullarton's Cyc. of Bib. Geogr. s. v. Exode' ; Yournal of Sac. .Lit. 1860, on Sinai and Kadesh.—j-. L. P.
WAR. The Hebrew nation, so long as it con tinued in Egyptian bondage, might be regarded as unacquainted with military affairs, since a jealous government would scarcely permit so numerous and dense a population as the pastoral families of Israel which retained their seat in Goshen cer tainly were to be in possession of the means of resistance to authority ; but placed as this portion of the people was, with the wanderers of th,e wilderness to the south, and the mountain robbers of Edom to the east, some kind of defence must have been provided to protect its cattle, and in a measure to cover Lower Egypt itself from foreign inroads. Probably the labouring population, scat tered as bondsmen through the Delta, were alone destitute of weapons, while the shepherds had the same kind of defensive arms which are still in use, and allowed to all classes in Eastern countries, whatever be their condition. This mixed state of their social position appears to be countenanced by the fact that, when suddenly permitted to depart, the whole organisation required for the movement of such a multitude was clearly in force ; yet not a word is said about physical means to resist the pur suing Egyptians, although at a subsequent period it does not appear that they were wanting to invade Palestine, but that special causes prevented them from being immediately resorted to. The Israelites were, therefore, partly armed ; they had their bows and arrows, clubs and darts, wicker or ox-hide shields, and helmets (caps) of skins, or of woven rushes, made somewhat like our bee-hives.
These inferences are borne out by the fact that the Egyptian offensive weapons were but little better, and tha.t the materials, being readily acces sible and in constant use, could be manufactured by the cattle-herds and dwellers in tents themselves. From their familiar knowledge of the Egyptian institutions, the Israelites doubtless copied their military organisation as soon as they were free from bondage, and became inured to a warlike life during their forty years' wandering in the desert ; but with this remarkable difference, that while Egypt reckoned her hundred thousands of regulars, either drawn from the provinces or nomes by a kind of conscription, such as is to be seen on the monuments, or from a military caste of hereditary soldiers, the Hebrew people, having preserved the patriarchal institution of nomades, were embodied by families and tribes, as is plainly proved by the order of march which was preserved during their pilgrimage to the Land of Promise. That order likewise reveals a military circumstance which seems to attest that the distribution of the greatest and most warlike masses was not on the left of the order of movement—that is, towards their immedi ate enemies—but always to the front and right, as if even then the most serious opposition might be expected from the east and north-east—possibly from a reminiscence of past invasions of the giant races, and of the first conquerors, furnished with cavalry and chariots, having come from those diree• tions.
At the time of the departure of Israel, horses were not yet abundant in Egypt, for the pursuing army had only 600 chariots, and the shepherd people were even prohibited from breeding or pos sessing them. The Hebrews were enjoined to trust, under divine protection, to the energies of infantry alone, tbeir future country being chiefly within the basin of high mountains, and the march thither over a district of Arabia where to this day horses are not in use. We may infer that the in spired lawgiver rejected horses because they were already known to be less fit for defence at home than for distant expeditions of conquest, in which it was not intended that the chosen people should engage.