p. 212, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · September 17, 1867

Infidel Objections to the Bible Answered. No. 13.

Moses Feared Pharaoh.—And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Now, when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled before the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian.—And it came to pass, in process of time, that the king of Egypt died.—And the Lord said unto Moses, in Midian, Go, return unto Egypt; for all the men are dead that sought thy life. Ex. ii, 14, 15; Ex. ii, 23; Ex. iv, 19.

Moses Did Not Fear Pharaoh.—By faith he [Moses] forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.—Heb. xi, 27.

THE foregoing is a fair specimen of the way in which objections against the Bible are manufactured. In order for infidels to show a contradiction between Exodus and Hebrews, they must prove that all the texts refer to the same time, or that Moses could not be exercised by different emotions at different times. On these points they probably never stop to inquire. The simple facts are these: When Moses slew the Egyptian, and a knowledge of it came to the ears of the king, Moses did fear the king’s wrath, and escaped from Egypt accordingly. To this flight the texts in Exodus refer. We are then informed that he sojourned in the land of Midian forty years, and subsequently returned at the command of God, and having made known his mission to his people, took his final leave of Egypt, leading them all out from the land of bondage. To this time the text in Hebrews refers. And at this time he did not fear the wrath of the king; for, acting from divine instruction, he had no occasion to quail before any earthly monarch. The texts between which infidels find a contradiction by making them refer to the same time, are forty years apart; and the contradiction—simply goes to swell the catalogue of the disgraceful efforts of infidelity against the Bible.

No. 14.—There Died of the Plague Twenty-four Thousand.—And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.—Num. xxv, 9.

There Died of the Plague but Twenty-three Thousand.—And fell in one day three and twenty thousand.—1 Cor. x, viii.

St. Paul reckons only 23,000, though some manuscripts and versions, particularly the latter, Syrian and Armenian have as here 24,000; allowing the 24,000 to be genuine (and none of the Hebrew manuscripts exhibit a various reading here), and the 23,000 of St. Paul to be also genuine, the two places may be reconciled by supposing, what is very probable, that Moses includes in the 24,000 the 1,000 men who were slain, in consequence of the judicial examination, (verse 4,) as well as the 23,000 who died of the plague, while St. Paul only refers to the latter. Hence it is clear that the whole number of those who died of the plague was 24,000, while it is equally true, as Paul says, that “there fell, in one day, three and twenty thousand.”—Bagster, in Cottage Bible on Num. xxv, 9.