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Then Esau came and the trick was discovered, but the blessing could not be recalled from Jacob. So enmity arose in the heart of Esau against Jacob, and Jacob fled for his life. One night, during his exile, as he lay asleep he had a vision of Heaven opened and angels descending and ascending on a great ladder; and God spoke to him and renewed to him the covenant he had made with Abraham and Isaac. In the morning Jacob built there an altar, and consecrated his life to the service of God, and went on his way encouraged and rejoicing.

The Family of Jacob.

Jacob soon came to the home of his uncle Laban, who had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Jacob became enamored of Rachel, and agreed to work in Laban's service for seven years if Laban would give her to him for his wife. But at the end of the seven years Laban insisted that Jacob should marry Leah instead, because she was the elder. Jacob agreed to this, but asked to have Rachel also, for whom he would serve Laban seven years longer. Thus he secured his two cousins for his wives, and he took two other wives also. To him they bore a number of sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Nephtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. These were the sons of Jacob. Then Jacob, who had grown richer in cattle and goods than Laban, took his departure and returned to his old home. On the way he met his brother Esau and became reconciled with him. Soon after the aged Isaac died, and Jacob succeeded to his possessions.

Joseph, the next to the youngest of Jacob's sons, was his father's favorite. He was also a dreamer of dreams, and in some of these dreams he was represented as superior to his brothers. Therefore his brothers hated him, and one day planned to kill him. But Reuben persuaded them merely to imprison him in a pit, and then to sell him as a slave to some Egyptian traders. Then they reported to Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast, and Jacob mourned for him as one dead. Joseph was, however, sold to Potiphar, an officer of the court of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt. He proved himself a faithful and capable servant, and was soon advanced to be manager of Potiphar's whole estate. Then Potiphar's wife tempted him to sin, and on his refusal to do as she wished, had him cast into prison. There he won the favor of the prison keeper, and became noted as an interpreter of dreams. Pharaoh, the King, having a strange dream, which none of his men could interpret, Joseph was sent for. He interpreted the dream and was taken into Pharaoh's favor and made the chief minister of Pharaoh's court.

Israel in Egypt.

After this there came a great famine upon the country where Jacob dwelt, and the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt to buy grain, where it was plentiful. They did not know Joseph, but he knew them, and on a pretence that they were spies he threw them into prison and refused to release them until they had sent for their youngest brother, Benjamin, who had remained at home with his father. Then he released them, and they all started home with an abundant supply of grain. But he stopped them, and revealed to them who he was, and bade them remain in Egypt

and prosper, and send for their father and all his household to come there too. So Jacob, who was now called Israel, and all his family, settled in Egypt and greatly prospered. He adopted as his own his two grandsons, Manasseh and Ephraim, the sons of Joseph who had been born in Egypt, and then he blessed them all and died. Joseph bore his body back to his old home and buried it there, and then returned to Egypt and died. But his brothers and all their households remained in Egypt.

CHAPTER II.

FROM EGYPT TO JERUSALEM.

THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT-THE EXODUS-IN THE WILDERNESS-THE GIVING OF
THE LAW-THE TABERNACLE-NUMBERING THE TRIBES - SPYING OUT THE
LAND-BALAK AND BALAAM-REACHING THE PROMISED LAND-THE

DEATH OF MOSES-OVER JORDAN-THE SIN OF ACHAN-THE
CONQUEST OF CANAAN-THE JUDGES-ABIMELECH-
JEPHTHAH-SAMSON-RUTH-SAMUEL - Saul-
DAVID AND GOLIATH-THE PASSING OF
SAUL-DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL.

FTER the death of Joseph another king came to the throne in Egypt, who was jealous of the prosperity of the Israelites and began to persecute and oppress them. First he made them slaves, and then commanded all their male children to be put to death. One of the sons of Levi and his wife had a son whom they sought to preserve by placing him in a little boat hidden in the rushes in the margin of the river Nile. There the child was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, and she named him Moses, and adopted him and had him brought up as her own. But when Moses was grown, and saw how his kinsmen were oppressed, he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, but departed from the court and cast in his lot with the Children of Israel.

While Moses was tending the flocks of his father-in-law, God appeared to him in a vision at Mount Horeb, as a flame of fire in a bush, though the bush was not consumed. And God told him he would make him the deliverer of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, and the leader of them into the land of Canaan, which he would deliver into their hands. So Moses and Aaron his brother returned to their oppressed kinsmen in Egypt, to begin the work of deliverance. They found the persecutions greatly increased. The Israelites were compelled to make bricks for the building of Pharaoh's palaces, though the necessary materials for making the bricks were not furnished to them, and when they failed to make the required number they were cruelly beaten with whips.

The Plagues of Egypt.

Moses and Aaron went before Pharaoh and demanded that he should release the Israelites from their bondage and let them depart from Egypt. Pharaoh asked

for a sign of their divine mission, whereupon Aaron threw his staff upon the ground and it became a serpent. The Egyptian priests did the same with their rods, which also became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up all the others. Pharaoh's heart was hardened, however, and he refused to let the Israelites go. So at the word of Moses the waters of the river were turned into blood. This was the first of the plagues of Egypt. Pharaoh was still stubborn, and a second plague was sent upon the land, in the form of swarms of frogs, which were regarded by the Egyptians as unclean. Then Pharaoh consented to let them go, and the plague was abated. Again he hardened his heart and refused to let them go, and another plague, of lice, was sent upon the land. That was followed with a plague of flies, and then Pharaoh relented and promised to let them go, only to break his word as soon as the plague was abated.

Next came a murrain, which destroyed all the cattle of Egypt, and then an epidemic of boils upon the people, and then a storm of hail and fire. Then Pharaoh once more pretended that he would release the Israelites, but did not, and a plague of locusts was sent. Next came a plague of darkness, so dense that it could be felt, and finally the first-born child of every Egyptian family was slain, and also the first-born of all beasts. From all these plagues the children of Israel were exempt. In the last plague the Israelites marked the doorposts of their houses with the blood of lambs, and the death which smote the first-born of the Egyptians passed over them and left them unharmed. Thus was established the feast of the Passover, which ever afterward was the chief of the feasts kept by the Children of Israel.

The Exodus.

After this last and most dreadful plague, Pharaoh did let the Children of Israel go. The latter, under the command of God, before setting out borrowed from their Egyptian neighbors all the gold and gems and other valuable articles they could, and carried them away, partly to punish the Egyptians for their cruelty, and partly to reward the Israelites for their years of servitude. They marched toward Canaan, but not by the direct road, which would have led them through the land of the Philistines, a warlike people with whom they were ill prepared to cope. Instead they went toward the Red Sea, the Lord leading them in the form of a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of flame by night.

Then Pharaoh began to regret that he had let them go, and set out with an army to bring them back. He overtook them near the shore of the Red Sea, and they were in great distress for fear he would capture them before they could get across. At first there seemed no way for them to get across. But God sent a great wind which parted the waters of the Red Sea so that the Israelites could pass over on dry ground. The Egyptians followed them, but God delayed their pursuit until the Israelites were safely on the other side. Then he let the Egyptians come on to the middle of the sea and then let the waters rush back and drown them all. Thus were the Israelites led safely out of Egypt and they sang songs of praise to God for their deliverance.

In the Wilderness.

When they

The Israelites were now in the wilderness of Arabia Petræa. became weary of marching they murmured. When they found at Marah only bitter or brackish water to drink, they complained to Moses, and Moses prayed to God and made the water sweet for them. Then they ran short of food, and murmured again, and wished they were back in Egypt. So God sent great flocks of quail to them, and caused manna to grow on the grass, so that they were well fed. Again they came to a place where there was no water to drink, and murmured against Moses, until God enabled him to draw a plentiful stream of water from a rock by striking it with his staff.

Next they came to a hostile tribe known as the Amalekites, and Moses sent out the strongest of the Israelites under the leadership of a man named Joshua, to fight them. Moses himself went up on a hill overlooking the battle and prayed. As long as he held his hands up to Heaven the Israelites were victorious, but when his hands grew weary and fell they were defeated. So Aaron and Hur stood one at each side

and held up his hands all day, until the complete victory was won.

The Giving of the Law.

When the Israelites reached Mount Sinai, they encamped there, and Moses went up to the top of the mountain to commune with God. And the mountain was enveloped in clouds, and there were thunder and lightning and a great earthquake. In that most memorable interview God gave to Moses the great fundamental law known as the Ten Commandments, engraved on a tablet of stone. These were the Commandments:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. "Honor thy father and thy mother: That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

"Thou shalt not kill.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery

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