tions and natural appetites. And so we shall find, that the fear which Pharaoh had of the increase of the Hebrews, multiplied by God to exceeding great numbers, was the next natural cause of the sorrows and loss which befell himself and the Egyptian nation; which numbers when he sought, by cruel and ungodly policies, to cut off and lessen, as when he commanded all the male children of the Hebrews to be slain, God (whose providence cannot be resisted, nor his purposes prevented by all the foolish and savage craft of mortal men) moved compassion in the heart of Pharaoh's own daughter, to preserve that child, which afterwards became the most wise, and of all men the most gentle and mild, the most excellently learned in all divine and human knowledge, to be the conductor and deliverer of his oppressed brethren, and the overthrow of Pharaoh, and all the flower of his nation; even then, when he sought by the strength of his men of war, of his horse and chariots, to tread them under, and bury them in the dust. The grief which Moses conceived of the injuries and of the violence offered to one of the Hebrews in his own presence, moved him to take revenge of the Egyptian that offered it; the ingratitude of one of his own nation, by threatening him to discover the slaughter of the Egyptian, moved him to fly into Midian; the contention between the shepherds of that place and Jethro's daughters made him known to their father; who not only entertained him, but married him to one of those sisters; and, in that solitary life of keeping of his father-in-law's sheep, far from the press of the world, contenting himself (though bred as a king's son) with the lot of a poor herdsman, God found him out in that desert, wherein he first suffered him to live many years, the better to know the ways and passages through which he purposed that he should conduct his people toward the land promised; and therein appearing unto him, he made him know his will and divine pleasure for his return into Egypt. The like may be said of all things else, which Moses afterwards by God's direction performed in the story of Israel before remembered. There is not therefore the smallest accident which may seem unto men as falling out by chance, and of no consequence, but that the same is caused by God to effect somewhat else by; yea, and oftentimes to effect things of the greatest worldly importance, either presently or in many years after, when the occasions are either not considered or forgotten. CHAP. VI. Of the nations with whom the Israelites had dealing after their coming out of Egypt; and of the men of renown in other nations, about the times of Moses and Joshua, with the sum of the history of Joshua. SECT. I. How the nations, with whom the Israelites were to have war, were divers ways, as it were, prepared to be their enemies. IN like manner if we look to the quality of the nations with whom the Israelites, after their coming out of Egypt, had to do, either in the wilderness or afterwards, we shall find them long beforehand, by the disposing providence of God, as it were prepared for enmity; partly in respect that they were most of them of the issue of Canaan, or at least of Ham; and the rest (as the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Ismaelites) were mingled with them by mutual marriages; whereas the Israelites still continued strangers, and separate from them: and so partly in this respect, and partly by ancient injuries or enmities, and partly by reason of diversity in religion, were these nations, as it were, prepared to be enemies to the Israelites, and so to serve for such purposes as God had reserved them for. To make these things more manifest, we must understand that this part of Syria, bounded by the mountains of Libanus, and Zidon on the north, by the same mountains continued as far as the springs of Arnon on the east; by the way of Egypt, and the Red sea on the south, and by the Mediterranean sea on the west; was inhabited and peopled RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. II. N by two nations, the one springing from the sons of Cham, the other from Sem: but those of Sem were but as strangers therein for a long time, and came thither in effect but with one family, to wit, that of Abraham, and a few of his kindred. The other for the greatest part were the Canaanites, the ancient lords and possessors of those territories, by process of time divided into several families and names; whereof some of them were of eminent stature and strength, as the Anakims, Zamzummims, or Zuzei, Emims, Horites, and others. These (as men most valiant and able commonly do) did inhabit the utter borders and mountains of their countries; the rest were the Zidonians, Jebusites, Amorites, Hevites, Hetites, and others, who took name after the sons of Canaan, and after whom the country in general was still called. As for the Hebrews which descended of Shem by Abraham, they were of another family, and strangers in that country; especially the Israelites, and this was some cause that the Canaanites did not affect them, or endure them ; no more than the Philistines did, who descended also of Cham by Mizraim. For though Abraham himself, being a stranger, was highly esteemed and honoured among them, especially by the Amorites inhabiting the west part of Jordan; yet now even they which descending from Abraham, or from his kindred, abode and multiplied in those parts, were alienated in affections from the Israelites, as holding them strangers and intruders; k making more account of their alliance with the Canaanites, and the rest of the issue of Cham, with whom they daily contracted affinity, than of their old pedigree from Abraham. True it is, that these nations descended of1 Abraham, or of his kindred, who had linked themselves and matched with the Canaanites and others, had so far possessed them i It seemeth also that Hus, the son of Nachor, and Buz his brother, planted themselves in the east side of Jordan about Basan, where they find the land of Hus: in which both Job dwelt, as one of the issue of Hus the son of Nachor, and Elihu his friend, which is called a Buzite. See hercafter, chap. 10. sect. 7. k Exod. xvii. 16. selves of the borders of those regions, as they began to be equal in strength to the bordering Canaanites, if not superior. For of Lot came those two great families of the Moabites and Ammonites; of Esau the Idumeans; of Madian the Madianites; of Ismael, the eldest son of Abraham, came the Ismaelites, with whom are joined, as of the same nation, the Amalekites, whom though the more common opinion thinketh to have been a tribe of Edom, because Esau had a grandchild of that name, yet manifest reason convinceth it to have been otherwise. For the Israelites were forbidden to provoke the m Edomites, or do them any wrong; whereas contrariwise, Amalek was cursed, and endless war decreed against him: but hereof more elsewhere, chap. viii. sect. 3. Of n Ismael's eldest son Naboth sprung the Arabians of Petræa, called Nabathæi. Now even as Abraham besought God to bless Ismael, so it pleased him both to promise and perform it. For of him those twelve princes came which inhabited, in effect, all that tract of land between Havilah upon Tigris, and Sur, which is the west part of the desert of Arabia Petræa. Yet howsoever the strength of these later named nations, which descended from Abraham, were great, yet it is not unlikely but that some reason which moved them not to favour the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, was in respect of fear; because all princes and states do not willingly permit any stranger or powerful nation to enter their territories. Wherefore, though all these families beforenamed were not so united in and among themselves, but that they had their jealousies of each other, and contended for dominion; yet fearing a third more strong than themselves, whether they stood apart or united, they were taught by the care of their own preservation, to join themselves together against Israel; though they did it nothing so maliciously and resolvedly as the Canaanites did. For the Idumeans only denied the Hebrews a passage, which the Moabites durst not deny, because their country lay more open, and because themselves had lately been beaten out of the richest part of their m Deut. xi. 5. n Exod. xvii. 16. " Gen. xvii. dominions by the Amorites; and as for the Ammonites, their country lay altogether out of the way, and the strength of Sehon and Og, kings of the Amorites, was interjacent : and besides that, the P border of the Ammonites was strong, by reason of the mountains which divided it from Basan. Again, that which moved the Moabites in their own reason not much to interrupt Israel in the conquest of Sehon the Amorite, and of Og his confederate, was, that the Moabites might hope, after such time as the Amorites were beaten by Moses, that themselves might recover again their own inheritance; to wit, the valleys and plains lying between the mountains of Arabia and Jordan: but as soon as Sehon was slain, and that the king of Moab, Balak, perceived that Moses allotted that valley to the tribes of Gad and Reuben, he began to practise with Balaam against Israel, and by the daughters of Midian, as aforesaid, to allure them to idolatry. And thus at length the Moabites, by special occasion, were more and more stirred up to enmity against Israel. And as for divers of the rest that were descended from Abraham's kindred, we may note, how in the beginning, between the authors of their pedigrees, God permitted some enmity to be as it were presages of future quarrels, which in the posterity might be the easier incensed by the memory of old grudges; and withal by some disdain from the elder in nature to the younger. For the Ismaelites being descended from the eldest son of Abraham, and the Edomites from the eldest son of Isaac, Jacob being but a second son of a second brother, those princes which were descended of the elder houses, being natural men, might scorn to give place, much less to subject themselves to their inferiors, as they took it; and for a more aggravation, the issues of Esau, princes of Idumæa, might keep in record, q that their parent was bought out of his birthright by Jacob's taking his advantage, and that he was deceived of his father's blessing also by him; and that $ Jacob after reconciliation came not unto him, as he promised, unto Seir, or Idumæa. P Numb. xxi. 24. a Gen. xxv. Gen. xxvii. s Gen. xxxiii. 14. |