them.

#37. Life as a Leader of God's People in the Desert.#--His life of
solitude came to a sudden close, when God called to him out of the
midst of the burning bush, and bade him return to Egypt and deliver
his people. At first Moses begged to be excused, for he doubtless well
remembered that because of his effort to deliver _one_ Hebrew, he had
been an exile for forty years. How then could he succeed in delivering
_a nation_? But on God's promise to be with him, he and his brother
Aaron undertook the task.

#38.# Here we note the collision between God's plan and that of the
king. God's plan is, Let my people go. Pharaoh's plan is, they shall
stay right here. So the battle was joined. Note that Pharaoh, as a
result of the consecutive plagues, relents and tries compromises. For
these read carefully the story of the plagues, noting especially these
passages: Exodus 8:8, 15, 25, 32; Exodus 9:28, 35; Exodus 10:11, 20,
24, 28. And at last, when his pride is utterly broken, comes Exodus
12:31.

#39.# Then came that night, much to be observed, on which Israel
marched out in triumph, while Egypt mourned, and Pharaoh repented ever
resisting the divine command. To this day all Jews observe that great
night, called the night of the Passover.

#40.# Under the crags of Mount Sinai, Moses spent one year with his
people. That was a most significant year, as there he received the ten
commandments, and the instructions as to the building of the
Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. There, too, he received
directions as to the sacrifices that were to be typical of that great
sacrifice on Mount Calvary, hundreds of years later. There, too, he
had his bitter experience with his people in the matter of the worship
of the golden calf; a presage of much that was to follow in the
history of that wonderful but stiffnecked people as they continued
their journeys through the wilderness.

#41.# Mark in the life of this wonderful man the incredible contrast
between his highest and his lowest moods. In his agony over the
idolatry of his people while he was on the Mount receiving the ten
commandments, Moses pleads with God for them, and even goes so far as
to beg that, if need be, his own name might be blotted out of God's
book. If he or the people must perish, let it be he, and not the
people. This is most noble, and reminds one of what Paul later on
said, in the same strain (Rom. 9:1-3). Yet later on Moses yields to
incomprehensible murm