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handwriting, the printer made a valiant attempt to decipher it, and although we could not
allow his interpretation to appear, it nevertheless, though a mistake, expressed the very
truth of the matter. This was the printer's version:
"Some trust in charity, and some in works &100:"
and it can be left as a comment upon the second typical character of Egypt.
When Stephen would summarize the training which Moses received at the court of
Pharaoh he said that Moses was "learned in all wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7: 22).
This wisdom of Egypt which makes some of their buildings to-day the wonder of the
world, and makes the record of their intelligence and industry almost like a fabulous tale,
this wisdom nevertheless was "the wisdom of the world" that finally "crucified the Lord
of glory". To the Egyptians, owing to the usurpation of the "Shepherd Kings" a "sheep"
was an "abomination", and Israel's ritual which demanded the sacrifice of a lamb was
to the Egyptian abhorrent (Exod. 8: 26). So was enacted upon the soil of Egypt the
age-old antagonism of human wisdom to the cross of Christ. This wisdom of Egypt,
moreover, led the people into the lowest of idolatrous degradation:
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of
the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and
four-footed beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1: 22, 23).
It must be remembered that when the Lord smote the firstborn, He also said "against
all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment".
Egypt stands therefore for all that is attractive and prosperous in a world that knows
not God. Its wisdom, its idols, its wealth, its horses and chariots, its very climate, all
combine to present us with a picture of this present evil world (Gal. 1: 4), its bewitchment
(Gal. 3: 1), its trust in "men" not "God" (Gal. 1: 1, 10), "flesh" not "spirit" (Gal. 3: 3)
where the "cross" is an offence (Gal. 5: 11), even as a sheep was the abomination of the
Egyptians, and where the child of God is in "bondage" (Gal. 2: 4). The attractiveness of
Egypt, "leeks, and onions and garlick" (Numb. 11: 5) and the decision "Let us make a
captain, and let us return unto Egypt", find an echo in the cry of the apostle:
"But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye
again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"
(Gal. 4: 9).
Ten times in the A.V. of the O.T. is Egypt denominated "the house of bondage", and
this title is embedded in the ten commandments (Exod. 20: 2), and remembered wherever
"the law" is known. There are other occurrences (e.g. Deut. 7: 8; Jer. 34: 13 "out
of the house of bondmen") and other variants which we have not tabulated. Five times in
Deuteronomy, Moses reminds Israel that they were Pharaoh's "bondmen" and in
28: 68, reveals that for their sins the nation will know something of this experience
once again.