Very interesting, indeed, is our lesson in Exodus, journeying with the children of Israel. They have come into the Wilderness of Sin. Their food is exhausted which they brought from Egypt; and God gives them the manna from heaven; using it also as a moral test as to whether they regarded Him or not, marking the Sabbath by a threefold weekly miracle, the beginning of forty years of testing. Some wars they met with on the way, but the Lord was with them. Amalek, as a bitter foe against God and His work, comes before us the first time in chapter 17, the wise counsel of Jethro in chapter 18, the preparation for God's law in chapter 19, and the holy law itself in chapter 20. Then comes the sad plea of Israel that God should not speak to them any more, but that Moses might speak. And yet had they been willing to listen to God, and put away all that brought the terror of God upon them, the Most High would have shined His law into their hearts, even as He did into that of Moses. Practical lessons, lessons containing preliminary instruction for the building of the sanctuary follow; closing the week with Psalms 16 and 17.
