lves with tents? Allowing ten persons for
each tent, they must have required two hundred thousand. Were these
carefully got ready in expectation? In the land of Goshen they lived in
houses with "lintels" and "side-posts." And how were the tents carried?
The Jews themselves were already well loaded. Of course the oxen remain,
but, as Colenso observes, they were not trained to carry t goods on
their backs, and were sure to prove refractory under such a burden.

Whence did the Jews obtain their arms? According to Exodus (xiii, 18)
"the children of Israel went up _harnessed_ out of the land of Egypt."
The Hebrew word which is rendered "harnessed" appears to mean "armed" or
"in battle array" in all the other passages where it occurs, and is so
translated. Some commentators, scenting a difficulty in this rendering,
urge that the true meaning is "by five in a rank." But if 600,000 men
marched out of Egypt "five in a rank," they must have formed a column
sixty-eight miles long, and it would have taken several days to start
them all off, whereas they went out altogether "that self-same day."
Besides, the Jews had arms in the desert, and how could they have
possessed them there unless they obtained them in Egypt? If they went
out of Egypt "armed," why did they cry out "sore afraid" when Pharaoh
pursued them?

According to Herodotus, the Egyptian army, which formed a distinct
caste, never exceeded 160,000 men. Why were the Jews so appalled by less
than a third of their own number? Must we suppose, with Kalisch, that
their bondage in Egypt had crushed all valor and manhood out of their
breasts? Josephus gives a different explanation. He says that the
day after Pharaoh's host was drowned in the Red Sea, "Moses gathered
together the weapons of the Egyptians, which were brought to the camp
of the Hebrews by the current of the sea and the force of the wind
assisting it. And he conjectured that this also happened by Divine
Providence, that so they might not be destitute of weapons." But, as
Colenso observes, though body-armor _might_ have been obtained in this
way, swords, spears and shields _could not_ in any number. The Bible,
too, says nothing about such an occurrence. We must therefore assume
that 600,000 well-armed Jews were such utter cowards that they could not
strike a blow for their wives and children and their own liberty against
the smaller army of Pharaoh, but could only whimper and sigh after their
old bondage. Yet a month