Such was the ordinance of the PASSOVER, a Memorial-Feast to be celebrated, not on that night only, but throughout all future generations, and to be kept for a period of seven days, during which leavened bread was neither to be eaten nor found in any of the houses of the Israelites. On receiving from Moses the Lord’s commands respecting this Feast, the elders of Israel, partakers with him of a like faith in the certainty of the events about to be enacted (Heb. xi. 28), _bowed their heads and worshipped_. On the tenth day of Nisan, the Month of Redemption, each household selected a lamb or kid, kept it till the fourteenth day, slew it, sprinkled the blood upon the side-posts and the upper door-post of their houses, and at midnight were eating of it with the prescribed ceremonies, when suddenly the last and most awful of all the Ten Plagues began. The Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon unto the firstborn of the mighty Pharaoh himself, and all the firstborn of cattle. In the darkness of that awful night the monarch rose up, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians, and a loud frantic cry arose throughout the land, for there was not a house where there was not one dead. Terrified and confounded the stubborn king could no longer resist the power of Jehovah. He implored Moses and Aaron, as an act of kindness, to depart with the utmost speed. And not only he, but all his people joined in the petition, and pressed upon the Israelites jewels of silver and jewels of gold, earrings, signet-rings, necklaces, and festal apparel. Thus furnished by the Egyptians themselves with costly ornaments befitting the great day of their deliverance[67], the whole host of the Israelites, numbering 600,000 men capable of bearing arms, besides women and children and a mixed multitude from the lower orders of the Egyptians, went forth from RAMESES, and in the darkness and cool of the night pursued their way (Ex. xii. 37, 38).
The nearest route to Canaan would have been the usual caravan route, which runs in a north-easterly direction along the coast of the Mediterranean, and would not have occupied more than a few days. But it would have brought the host into collision with the warlike and powerful nation of the Philistines, and for such an encounter they were as yet totally unfit. From RAMESES, therefore, which was probably on the eastern skirts of the Delta in the _Wady Tumeilat_, they proceeded in a southerly course, and after a day’s journey halted for the first time at SUCCOTH (Ex. xii. 37), the place of _booths_, “formed by the luxuriant foliage of tamarisk, sycamore, and palm” at the verge of the cultivated land of Egypt. The next day’s halt was at _Etham in the edge of the wilderness_ (Ex. xiii. 20). At this point the Lord Himself in an outward and visible form assumed the direction of their march, appearing by day in a Pillar of Cloud, and by night in a Pillar of Fire. Such a miraculous intervention was indeed needed to confirm the faith of the host, for instead of being conducted round the northern extremity of the Red Sea, so as to escape with all speed beyond reach of their Egyptian oppressors, they were commanded to turn and encamp before Pihahiroth (_the place of sedge_), between Migdol (a frontier _Watchtower_) and the western side of the Red Sea over against Baal-zephon. Here they had scarcely encamped, when lifting up their eyes the Israelites discerned the terrible horses and chariots of Pharaoh pursuing after them. Astonished that the people had not made good their flight into Asia, and deeming them entangled in the land and shut in by the wilderness, the monarch had directed all his forces to give chase to the fugitives. In wild alarm the Israelites cried out to Moses, and already complained of their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. But the faith of their leader was not shaken. He bade the trembling, panic-stricken host stand still and _see the salvation of the Lord_.