a, which
were impassable by reason of their roughness, and obstructed their
flight; wherefore they there pressed upon the Hebrews with their army,
where [the ridges of] the mountains were closed with the sea; which army
they placed at the chops of the mountains, that so they might deprive
them of any passage into the plain.

4. When the Hebrews, therefore, were neither able to bear up, being
thus, as it were, besieged, because they wanted provisions, nor saw any
possible way of escaping; and if they should have thought of fighting,
they had no weapons; they expected a universal destruction, unless they
delivered themselves up to the Egyptians. So they laid the blame on
Moses, and forgot all the signs that had been wrought by God for the
recovery of their freedom; and this so far, that their incredulity
prompted them to throw stones at the prophet, while he encouraged them
and promised them deliverance; and they resolved that they would deliver
themselves up to the Egyptians. So there was sorrow and lamentation
among the women and children, who had nothing but destruction before
their eyes, while they were encompassed with mountains, the sea, and
their enemies, and discerned no way of flying from them.

5. But Moses, though the multitude looked fiercely at him, did not,
however, give over the care of them, but despised all dangers, out of
his trust in God, who, as he had afforded them the several steps already
taken for the recovery of their liberty, which he had foretold them,
would not now suffer them to be subdued by their enemies, to be either
made slaves or be slain by them; and, standing in midst of them,
he said, "It is not just of us to distrust even men, when they have
hitherto well managed our affairs, as if they would not be the same
hereafter; but it is no better than madness, at this time to despair
of the providence of God, by whose power all those things have been
performed he promised, when you expected no such things: I mean all that
I have been concerned in for deliverance and escape from slavery. Nay,
when we are in the utmost distress, as you see we ought rather to hope
that God will succor us, by whose operation it is that we are now this
narrow place, that he may out of such difficulties as are otherwise
insurmountable and out of which neither you nor your enemies expect
you can be delivered, and may at once demonstrate his own power and
his providence over us. Nor does God use to give his help in