Exodus 2:1

Exo. 2. Concerning Moses. Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. I. reports, out of the books of the Egyptian priests, that an Egyptian was slain by the words of Moses; and Strom. V. he relates some things belonging to Moses, out of Artapanus, though not very truly. Justin, out of Tragus Pompeius, says of Moses, "He was leader of those that were banished, and took away the sacred things of the Egyptians; which they, endeavouring to recover with arms, were forced by a tempest to return home; and Moses being entered into his own country of Damascus, he took possession of mount Sinai." And what follows is a mixture of truth and falsehood; where we find Arvas written, in him, it should be read Arnas, who is Aaron, not the son of Moses, as he imagines, but the brother, and a priest. The Orphic verses expressly mention his being taken out of the water, and the two tables that were given him by God. The verses are thus -

So was it said of old, so he commands,

Who's born of water, who received of God,

The double Tables of the Law.

The great Scaliger, in these verses, instead of hulogenes, with a very little variation of the shape of a letter, reads hudogenes, born of the water.

The ancient writer of the Orphic verses, whoever he was, added those lines after he had said, that there was but one God to be worshipped, who was the Creator and Governor of the world.

Palemon, who seems to have lived in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, had these words: "In the reign of Apis the son of Phoroneus, part of the Egyptian army went out of Egypt and dwelt in Syria, called Palestine, not far from Arabia." Several things are related about his coming out of Egypt, from the Egyptian writers, Monethro, Lysimachus, Choeremon. The places are in Josephus against Apion, with abundance of falsities, as coming from people who hated the Jews; and from hence, Tacitus took his account of them. But it appears from all these compared together, that the Hebrews descended from the Assyrians, and possessing a great part of Egypt, led the life of shepherds, but afterwards being burdened with hard labour, they came out of Egypt under the command of Moses, some of the Egyptians accompanying them, and went through the country of the Arabians unto Palestine, Syria, and there set up rites contrary to those of the Egyptians.

Diodorus Siculus, in his first book, where he treats of those who made the gods to be the authors of their laws, says, "Amongst the Jews was Moses, who called God by the name Ιαω, i.e. "Jehovah," which was so pronounced by the oracles, and in the Orphic verses mentioned by the ancients, and by the Syrians.

Strabo, in his sixteenth book, speaking of Moses as an Egyptian priest (which he had from the Egyptian writers, as appears in Josephus), says, "many who worship the Deity agreed with him (Moses), for he hath said that the Egyptians did not rightfully conceive of God, when they likened him to wild beasts and cattle; nor the Libyans, nor the Greeks, in resembling him to a human shape; for God is no other than the Universe which surrounds us, the earth, and the sea, and the heaven, and the world, and the nature of things, as they are called by us. Who, says he (i.e. Moses), that has any understanding, would presume to form any image like to those things that are about us? Wherefore we ought to lay aside all carved images, and worship him in the innermost part of a temple worthy of him, without any figure." He adds that this was the opinion of good men - He adds also that sacred rites were instituted by him, which were not burdensome for their costliness, nor hateful as proceeding from madness. He mentions circumcision, the meats that were forbidden, and the like; and after he had shown that man was naturally desirous of civil society, he tells us, it is promoted by divine and human precepts, but more effectually by divine.

Pliny, book 30, chap. I, says, "There is another party of magicians which sprung from Moses." Juvenal has these lines -

They learn, and keep, and fear the Jewish law,

Which Moses in his secret volume gave.

Tacitus, Hist. V. according to the Egyptian fables, calls Moses one of them that were banished.

Dionysius Longinus (who lived in the time of Aurelian the emperor, and favorite of Zenobia, queen of the Palmyrians), in his book Of the Sublime, after he had said that they who speak of God, ought to take care to represent him as great and pure, and without mixture, adds, "Thus does he, who gave laws to the Jews, who was an extraordinary man, who conceived and spake worthy of the power of God, where he writes in the beginning of his laws, God spake - What? - Let there be light; and there was light. Let there be earth; and it was so. "

Chalcidius took many things out of Moses, of whom he speaks thus, "Moses was the wisest of men; who, as they say, was enlivened, not by human eloquence, but by divine inspiration."

Numenius, as Eusebius quotes his words, book 8, chap. VIII, says, "Afterwards Jamnes and Mambres, Egyptian scribes, were thought to be famous for magical arts, about the time that the Jews were driven out of Egypt, for those were they that were chosen out of the multitude of the Egyptians, to contend with Musoeus the leader of the Jews, a man very powerful with God by prayers, and they seemed to be able to repel those sore calamities which were brought upon Egypt by Musoeus." Origen against Celsus refers us to the same place of Numenius.

Artapanus, in the same Eusebius, book 9, chap. XXVII, calls them the priests of Memphis, who were commanded by the king to be put to death, if they did not do things equal to Moses.

Strabo, in his 14th book, after the history of Moses, says, "that his followers for a considerable time kept his precepts, and were truly righteous and godly." And a little after he says, "that those who believed in Moses, worshipped God and were lovers of equity."

These things concerning Moses are taken from Grotius, de Verit, book 1, sect. 16.

Exo. 2. Moses in the ark upon the waters is a type of the church. The church of God is like a babe, in infirmity and weakness, in helplessness of itself, and dependence upon a superior help, and in that the members of it are all in a spiritual sense become as little children. And it is like a babe upon the waters floating through all manner of changes, dangers, and troubles, and yet upheld and preserved in Christ the ark. He was especially a type of the church of the Jews in their oppressed condition in Egypt. It was a wonder they were not swallowed up by their enemies, and drowned and lost in their afflictions, and the multitude of their adversaries. Moses in the water and not drowned, is much such another type as the bush all in a flame and not burnt. He was also herein a type of every elect soul, who is naturally all overwhelmed in sin, and misery, and danger, and is redeemed or delivered, as Moses was taken out of the water.

Exo. 2. Moses is the same with the Egyptian Osiris; for, 1. Moses is the same with Bacchus, as has been shown before, No. 401; and Diodorus tells us that Osiris was called by the Greeks Dionysus, the name of Bacchus.

2. Diodorus tells us that Hercules was the chief captain of Osiris's army, who was Joshua, as has been shown, No. 402. 3. Diodorus tells us that Osiris had in his army Anubis covered over with a dog's skin, which thence was pictured with a dog's head, and called the dog keeper, etc.; all which seems to refer to Caleb's name, which signifies a dog. 4. Pan is said to war under Osiris, which is the same with Christ, whom God promises should go with Moses when he says, [the Hebrew word for] " my presence shall go with him." See No. 404.

5. Osiris is said to have horns from the mistake of Moses's character, who is thence pictured with horns, because of his beams of light - the word in Hebrew for horns and beams being the same.

6. Moses with the princes of the tribes carried up the bones of Joseph into Canaan: hence the poets' fable of Osiris' bones, etc. See Gale's Court of Gen. p. 1, b. 2, c. 7, p. 94, 95.