IMPROVED UNIFORM LESSONS FOR 1919.

FIRST QUARTER.

PATRIARCHS AND EARLY LEADERS OF ISRAEL.

CONTINUING A SIX-MONTHS COURSE BEGUN IN OCTOBER, 1918, AND
CONTINUING THROUGH MARCH, 1919.

PHARAOH OPPRESSES ISRAEL. Exodus 1: 1–14; 2:1-25.

PRINT Ex. 1:8-14; 2:1-25.

GOLDEN TEXT. He will save the children of the needy,

And break in pieces the oppressor.-PSALMS 72:4.

Devotional Reading: Ps. 2.

Additional Material for Teachers: Ex. 5: 1-6: 1; Heb. 11: 23-27.
Primary Topic: THE STORY OF THE BABY MOSES.

Lesson Material: Ex. 2: I-IO.

Memory Verse: The Lord Jehovah will help me.

Junior Topic: ISRAEL IN BONDAGE IN EGYPT.

Memory Verses: Ps. 107: 13, 14.

Intermediate Topic: A PEOPLE IN SORE DISTRESS.

Isa. 50: 7.

Senior and Adult Topic: MODERN OPPRESSIONS FROM WHICH DELIVERANCE IS NEEDED.

"It is so employed Macgregor.

Exodus is a Greek word meaning " Exit," or "Departure." for the description of Israel's departure from Egypt (Hebrews II: 22)." It is the second book of the Bible, and carries on the narrative of the fortunes of the chosen people after the death of Joseph. "It falls into two parts. The first half is familiar to all who read the Bible, and forms a drama of thrilling interest.' Mc Neile. The second part tells the story of the march to Sinai, the giving of the Law, and various religious ceremonials, and the raising of the Tabernacle.

The portion we study in Lessons 1-6 of this quarter is called by Mr. Kennedy, "The Epic of the Great Deliverance" and the remainder of the book, "The Solemn Institution of the Theocracy at Sinai."

I. THE ISRAELITES IN SCHOOL IN EGYPT, Ex. 1 : 6–12. In our last regular lesson Joseph was Grand Vizier or prime minister of Egypt, as well as director of the royal granaries (Cheyne). Early in his Egyptian career his father and the whole family came down into Egypt to live there, and were settled in Goshen. There were 70 persons in the clan.

Location of the School. The Land of Goshen was in the northeastern part of Egypt toward the desert. "Goshen is not a large tract of country; it is bounded on the north and south by deserts; it dwindles to a mere channel on the east; and on the west it is barred by the great city of Bubastis. A triangle of about ten miles in the side, with perhaps some minor extensions, is all that can be comprised in Goshen. If we make every possible allowance it cannot have covered 100 square miles." Prof. Flinders Petrie in Egypt and Israel.

God had promised again and again to Abraham that his descendants should have their home and their country in Palestine, and that they should from that country bless the whole world. Palestine was the best country in all the earth for the home of the Jews.

But the Israelites were not prepared at this time to take possession of their promised land. They had many things to learn first. Therefore they were sent from their somewhat rude civilization, to Egypt, the most civilized and cultured country in the then known world. It had schools and literature, training in the practical arts, architecture, chemistry, law, medicine, and in all the wisdom and skill known then to the world. It was a fine school for them.

Let us look at what the Israelites learned in this school during the long centuries in that country, and note the ways of God's Providence.

1. Their ancestor Abraham, that great and good man of God, one of the greatest that ever lived, was always present as an ideal, as an example, as an inspiration, as a person who had actually done what God required of him, even though living among heathen.

2. They must be trained and educated, as really as every child now must go to various schools before he can do the work God has sent him into the world to do.

3: Their residence in Egypt would have a vast influence on their culture and civilization and literature. In working for the Egyptians they were compelled to use Egyptian arts and appliances, to study the great national works and the noble architecture on which they were employed, and to become acquainted with weaving, the working of metals, the homes, and the literature which was written upon bricks. Professor Price says "" it was an industrial training school in the foremost civilization of that day. It was the severest, the sharpest, and the most complete training a people could receive to make them masters of the leading arts and occupations of Egypt.'

4. They were sent away from Palestine because they were too few, too feeble in their religious life, to resist the deadly moral influence of the surrounding idolatry of the various tribes of Palestine, who were ruining themselves by the basest revelry, licentiousness, and appeals to every base passion, with which idols were worshipped.

5. The Israelites were secluded in Goshen, since they were shepherds and farmers, who were despised by the Egyptians. They had thus an unusual opportunity to cherish and teach the true religion in their families.

6. They had opportunity of growth and enlargement of mind, of vision, of culture, and of means of worshipping the true God, and contrasting his service with the From a photograph by Wilson. heathenism of the Egyptians.

The Difference in Religion. "As for me, I think one religion is about as good as another. It's mostly a matter of climate and race and tradition.' Christianity is sentimentally attractive.

The "grandest temple ever created by Egyptian skill." Constructed by Rameses II, the Pharaoh of the Oppression.

"That's so,' said the other man. But what has it ever done?'

"A man seated across the aisle who had the air of a foreigner suddenly leaned forward and said very politely:

me.

"Pardon. But your remarks, which I could not help hearing, deeply interest May I say why?'

"Surely. Go ahead,' the first speaker replied, looking curiously at the foreigner. "Thank you, sir. I am an Armenian. I was born in Bitlis. Bitlis has about forty thousand people. Have you a town of that size you can think of in America ??' 66 6 Just the size of my own town,' said the second man.

"Take your town, then, and call it Bitlis; and say of your town these things: no hospital, no doctor, no dentist, no church except the mission and the Armenian, no press, no telephone, no sanitation, no water system, no nurse, no public school. And that is your town, here in America. That is, you understand, my town of Bitlis in Turkey.

"The one bright spot in my town is the Christian mission, which supports a dispensary and a school and the hope of life. During the recent uprising against the Armenians, in which over three hundred thousand of them were massacred, the missionaries in Bitlis, aided by those in Van, at the risk of their lives saved me from torture and death. All my relatives were murdered and our property was utterly destroyed. My wife and children were tortured and burned alive in my house.

1: 8. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. 9. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:

10. Come on, let us deal wisely with them: lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

11. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.

12. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

13. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: 14. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

"Do you wonder that I cannot agree with you that one religion is as good as another? Gentlemen, it is Christianity that has stretched out its healing hand to the tortured people of Europe, and after the war it will be the spirit of the Master that will build up life on the ghastly ruins. I am a witness of it.'

"The two men who had flippantly dismissed Christianity in two sentences spent the next hour learning some wholesome truths about Christian missions and the heroes of the cross.' The Youth's Companion.

II. THE SCHOOL OF ADVERSITY, 1 : 13, 14; 5:6-19. It is not easy to tell how long a period elapsed between the death of Joseph, the ruler of Egypt next to Pharaoh, and the birth of Moses, in one of the periods of persecution. Almost any commentary, or book upon Moses, can be consulted.

'Note I. "The children of Israel occupied Goshen in the N.E. corner of Egypt and therefore were in the region which enemies from the north [coming down along the shores of the Mediterranean] would reach first. What the king was most alarmed for was lest the Israelites should join any invading force, and imperil the Egyptian supremacy." Professor Blaikie.

Note 2 (v. 7). And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them, even beyond the borders of Goshen. There was danger that the Israelites would grow stronger and mightier than the Egyptians. "As a race the Hebrews were more powerful than the Egyptians, remarkable for an active business life," and accustomed to an out of doors life through their labors with the sheep, and on the farms.

Note 3.

Therefore the Egyptians tried to crush the Hebrews' spirits, and weaken their bodies by overwork and cruelty.

13. The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour. "The word translated rigour is a very rare one. It is derived from a root which means to break in pieces, to crush." Rawlinson. "From the original word here used comes the Latin ferox and the English fierce." Bush. Such rigor is seen pictured on the ancient monuments of Egypt: heavy burdens, savage whips wielded by the taskmasters, poor food, naked backs, intolerable sufferings.

Canon Tristram reveals its cruelty to us when he says: "In Egypt this cruel system [of forced labor] ground down the peasantry to the lowest state of degradation, compelled by the kurbash, a weapon worse than the whips of Solomon, until recently abolished there by the English occupation. I have myself seen the whole male population of several villages driven together, at the bayonet's point, to toil at some irrigation works for weeks together, receiving only the barest rations; and their families left to starve or live as they could meanwhile, with no provision whatever." Among their bitter tasks (v. II) was the building of two cities, Pithom and Raamses (a form of Rameses), both within Goshen. These were treasure cities, designed for storing provisions, or perhaps the munitions of war. They were built of brick made of clay held together by means of straw, as our mortar is held by mingling hair with it. We learn from Ex. 5, that after Moses' first appeal to Pharaoh, the oppression grew worse and worse. They were compelled to "make bricks without straw."