Moses
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law. And they united with the Egyptians in their worship of the sun,
moon, and stars, also of beasts and images, the work of men’s hands.
Everything around the children of Israel was calculated to make them
forget the living God. Yet there were those among the Hebrews who
preserved the knowledge of the true God, the Maker of the heavens and
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of the earth. They were grieved to see their children daily witnessing,
and even engaging in, the abominations of the idolatrous people around
them, and bowing down to Egyptian deities, made of wood and stone,
and offering sacrifice to these senseless objects. The faithful were
grieved, and in their distress they cried unto the Lord for deliverance
from the Egyptian yoke; that he would bring them out of Egypt, where
they might be rid of idolatry, and the corrupting influences which
surrounded them.
But many of the Hebrews were content to remain in bondage rather
than to go to a new country and meet with the difficulties attending
such a journey. Therefore the Lord did not deliver them by the first
display of his signs and wonders before Pharaoh. He over-ruled events
to more fully develop the tyrannical spirit of Pharaoh, and that he
might manifest his great power to the Egyptians, and also before his
people to make them anxious to leave Egypt, and choose the service of
God. The task of Moses would have been much easier had not many
of the Hebrews become corrupted, and were unwilling to leave Egypt.
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