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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
were losing all that they had gained through the labor of the Hebrews.
The king sent for Moses and Aaron, and he said unto them. “Go serve
the Lord your God; but who are they that shall go? And Moses said,
We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with
our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we
must hold a feast unto the Lord. And he said unto them. Let the Lord
be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones. Look to it,
for evil is before you. Not so. Go now ye that are men, and serve the
Lord, for that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s
presence.”
The king shows his contempt of God’s command by his answer to
Moses and Aaron. Let your God require this of you if he will, for you
to take your little ones, I will not let you go. Your little children are not
needed in your journey. Does your God think I will do this thing, and
let you go with your wives and little children into the wilderness upon
so dangerous an expedition to them? I will not do this, but only you
that are men shall go to serve the Lord. This hard-hearted, oppressive
king would now pretend to the Hebrews that he had a special interest
in their welfare, and a tender care for their little ones. He had tried
to destroy the Israelites with hard labor; but now, to serve his own
purpose, professes to have a very special care for them, and plainly
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declares to Moses and Aaron that God, who would require such a thing
as for them to go with their families into the wilderness, should not
be obeyed; for he would only lead them out to destroy them, and their
bodies would certainly lie in the wilderness.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the
land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land
of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath
left. And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the
Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night;
and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the
locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts
of Egypt; very grievous were they. Before them there were no such
locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the
face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened. And they did
eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail
had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the
herbs of the field through all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called