departure, and of the Egyptians' deliverance from these terrible
judgments, which, had they not now ceased, they had soon been all dead
men, as they themselves confess, ch. 12. 33. Nor was there any sense in
borrowing or lending, when the Israelites were finally departing out of
the land for ever.

[28] Why our Masorete copy so groundlessly abridges this account in
Exodus 12:40, as to ascribe 430 years to the sole peregrination of the
Israelites in Egypt, when it is clear even by that Masorete chronology
elsewhere, as well as from the express text itself, in the Samaritan,
Septuagint, and Josephus, that they sojourned in Egypt but half that
time,--and that by consequence, the other half of their peregrination
was in the land of Canaan, before they came into Egypt,--is hard to say.
See Essay on the Old Testament, p. 62, 63.

[29] Take the main part of Reland's excellent note here, which greatly
illustrates Josephus, and the Scripture, in this history, as follows:
"[A traveller, says Reland, whose name was] Eneman, when he returned out
of Egypt, told me that he went the same way from Egypt to Mount Sinai,
which he supposed the Israelites of old traveled; and that he found
several mountainous tracts, that ran down towards the Red Sea. He
thought the Israelites had proceeded as far as the desert of Etham,
Exodus 13:20, when they were commanded by God to return back, Exodus
14:2, and to pitch their camp between Migdol and the sea; and that when
they were not able to fly, unless by sea, they were shut in on each side
by mountains. He also thought we might evidently learn hence, how it
might be said that the Israelites were in Etham before they went over
the sea, and yet might be said to have come into Etham after they had
passed over the sea also. Besides, he gave me an account how he passed
over a river in a boat near the city Suez, which he says must needs be
the Heroopolia of the ancients, since that city could not be situate any
where else in that neighborhood." As to the famous passage produced here
by Dr. Bernard, out of Herodotus, as the most ancient heathen testimony
of the Israelites coming from the Red Sea into Palestine, Bishop
Cumberland has shown that it belongs to the old Canaanite or Phoenician
shepherds, and their retiring out of Egypt into Canaan or Phoenicia,
long before the days of Moses. Sanchoniatho, p. 374, &c.

[30] Of these storms of wind, thunder, and lightning, at this drowning
of Pharaoh's army,