It was Moses' part. It was the portion appointed for Moses, in the right of that priesthood, which he did yet extraordinarily execute. Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the LORD, that ye die not. Therefore ye shall not go out of the bounds of the court-yard of the tabernacle, for the space of seven days and seven nights: and shall duly keep all these observations, which the Lord hath enjoined you; that so God may not be provoked to strike you with death. And the glory of the LORD shall appear unto you. The Lord shall give you some visible and glorious sign of his presence. IX. 23, 24. And the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people. And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering. And, in the sight of all the people, there came a fire, whether out of the tabernacle or from heaven, and fell upon the altar, and consumed the sacrifice of burnt offering, which lay ready upon it. For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. Or, I had stretched out my hand, that I may have smitten thee. For now, when I stretched forth my hand, I might have smitten thee and thy people, as well as I did thy cattle, with the pestilence; and so thou shouldest have perished from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power. Or, But indeed. But indeed, I have in my secret counsel reserved thee, for a further manifestation of my glorious power. But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will not yet fear the LORD God. As for thee and thy servants, I know, and find upon the experience of your former obstinacy, that you will not, as yet, fear before the face of the Lord. For I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants. For I have withdrawn my grace from him and his servants, that their heart should not relent at my judgment; yea I have punished their former sins with hardness of heart, and obstinacy in sinning. And offered strange fire before the LORD. And took up in their censers common and unsanctified fire, whereon they burnt the holy incense to the Lord. Uncover not your heads, neither rend your garments; lest you die. Give no testimonies of a repining grief, and discontentment at this just judgment of God, lest, in his displeasure, he consume you also. How long shall this man be a snare unto us? How long shall Moses be a means of punishment and destruction to us? When ye go into the tabernacle. When ye are to go into the inner court of the tabernacle, here to do your service to the Lord. Let the LORD do so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: Look to it; for evil is before you. I wish you might have no more favour of God, than you are like to have of me, in this suit of dismissing you and your children: look to it; go if you will, at your own peril. In a clean place. In a place free from legal pollution; or within the compass of the camp of Israel, or that selected city, where God will have his worship to be fixed. That he may take away from me this death only. That he would take away from me but this one deadly plague, wherewith we and our land are thus hurt and spoiled. Behold, this day have they offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD; and such, &c. Behold, the children of Israel have this day offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord; but as for me, you do well know what cause of just sorrow I have had this day, in that heavy judgment, which hath befallen my sons; and if, in this mourning and sad dejectedness, I had eaten of the sin offering, how could it have been well taken of that God, who requires cheerfulness in all that thus partake of his holy things? XI. 2, 3. These are the beasts, &c. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat. I would have your diet a figure of your conversation; beasts, to be figures of men: those men, which put just differences betwixt their actions, and that do meditate and chew upon the law of God continually, those are fit for you to converse with, and to be received of you into your entire fellowship; these are LÉVITICUS, CHAP. XVIII.—XVI. represented to you by beasts, that divide the hoof and chew the cud. About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt. About midnight, I will, by my destroying angel, go through the midst of Egypt. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast. But as for the children of Israel, there shall not be so much as the least danger of any slaughter towards them, or any unquietness amongst them. All that have not fins and scales in the seas, &c. shall be an abomination to you. The fins of the fish are for steering of their motion; the scales are for smoothness of passage, for safeguard, for ornament: those men, that have no knowledge and faith to guide them, no good dispositions to set them forward, nor good works to set them forth, are not for your entire conversation. And the LORD spake unto Moses, &c. Now, before the last plague, the Lord had spoken to Moses, &c. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. This month shall be unto you, both a month of principal account, as also the first in number in all your religious computations; so that from this, you shall count the year to begin. Her infirmity. That sickness, which, in ordinary course, is every month incident to her sex. In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb. Let every master of a family, within his several household, take unto him a lamb. Ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats. Ye shall celebrate your passover for this once, in respect of those straits, wherein you are, either with a lamb or a kid, whether can most commodiously be provided. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. Every one of the congregation, whom it concerns, shall kill the lamb, betwixt the ninth and eleventh hour of the day. And thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded. And thus shall you eat it, for this first time, for the greater haste; with your loins girded. That soul shall be cut off from Israel. That person shall be separated from the communion of the Church, and lie open unto bodily judgments. And they spoiled the Egyptians. So they left the Egyptians destitute of their jewels and rich furnitures; who, by their own consent and will, parted with these things, to hire the Israelites unto a more speedy haste, for their own safeguard. There shall no stranger eat thereof. None, that is a stranger in religion, shall eat of it. Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel. That, which first cometh out of the womb, set it apart to me, and consecrate it to my name; whether it be of man, or of any serviceable beast, among the Israelites: for it is mine, by a peculiar right; I having well deserved it, in my preservation from the common destruction. And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the LORD's law may be in thy mouth. This passover shall be as full a remembrance unto thee of God's mercy in thy deliverance, as if thou shouldst, by any signet upon thy hand or frontlet between thine eyes, recal any business or favour, which thou wouldest ever think upon; yea, thou shalt keep some record or memorial of this blessing also, in those scrolls, which thou shalt bind upon thine arm and head. And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck. But the first foal of the ass, because it is an unclean beast, since it may not be sacrificed, thou shalt redeem it with a lamb; If the leprosy have covered all the flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: all is turned white: he is clean. If the whole flesh be so covered over, that there is no appearance of difference in the skin, it is a sign that the strength of nature hath wholly driven out that inward matter, which was the cause of the leprosy; and therefore it argues, that the party is delivered from his disease. And the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. And the children of Israel went up well furnished out of the land of Egypt, both with provision and munition.