allowed to hold a religious
festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their God. The
plan no doubt was that the people should escape once they were outside
the boundaries of Egypt; Moses evidently considered any method
justifiable in the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh
answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to his voice to let
Israel go?" The request was sharply refused. It is surprising that
Moses himself was not arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he
still had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the Egyptians had
a certain reverence for him as a messenger from a god, even though
they did not grant his demands.

=Bricks without straw.=--At first it seemed that Moses had failed. For
instead of the longed-for freedom, the toiling Hebrews found that a
still heavier burden of work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of
sun-dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay in the
molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the product. Previously
the straw for this purpose had been furnished by the Egyptians. But
now the order was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it."
So they had to go and hunt through the surrounding fields for old
refuse straw, in rotting ricks and compost heaps. Yet the same number
of bricks was required as before, with a whipping in case of failure.

The granaries in Pa-Tum and Rameses were excavated many years ago from
beneath the sands of Egypt, and their ruined walls may still be seen
by tourists. It is noticeable that the upper tiers in the walls are
made of bricks of a very poor quality as compared to those in the
lower tiers. Evidently, the Hebrews got through the work somehow each
day, putting very little straw in the clay, or sometimes none at all.

But they wished they had never heard of Moses, and they reproached him
for "making them hateful in the eyes of Pharaoh." In the first round
of the fight Moses and freedom had lost; Pharaoh and slavery had won.
But the end was not yet.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the article on Egypt; or read
the summary of Egyptian history in some recent general history.

2. Draw a map of Egypt, locating approximately the place where the
Hebrews worked.

3. In what special ways was Moses well trained to be an emancipator
for his people?

4. Are there workers to-day who are in any form of slavery which may
be compared to that of the Hebrews in Egypt?