[Footnote 119: Hastings, Dict. of the Bible, vol. i., p. 401.]
We have now briefly considered the Books of the Old Testament, both as to their _undesigned agreements_, which are very interesting; their _alleged mistakes_, which are unimportant; and the effect of _modern discoveries_, which has undoubtedly been to support their accuracy. What, then, is the value of the evidence they afford as to the history of the Jewish Religion having been confirmed by miracles?
We will include under this term superhuman coincidences as well as miracles in the strict sense; and they occur all through the historical books of the Old Testament. A few of them have been already noticed in the last chapter, but we must now discuss them more fully, first considering whether they are credible, and then whether they are true.
Now this can scarcely be disputed, _provided miracles at all are credible_, which we have already admitted, since scientific difficulties affect all miracles equally; and of course the Superhuman Coincidences have no difficulties of this kind whatever. Among these may be mentioned most of the Ten Plagues, the destruction of Korah, the falling of the walls of Jericho, probably due to an earthquake; the lightning which struck Elijah's sacrifice; and many others.
The _Passage of the Red Sea_, for instance, almost certainly belongs to this class. The water, we are told, was driven back by a strong east wind, lasting all night; and this was doubtless due to natural forces, though, in common with other natural events (such as the growth of grass[120]), it is in the Bible ascribed to God. And the statement, _the waters were a wall unto them_, need not be pressed literally, so as to mean that they stood upright. It may only mean here, as it obviously does in some other cases, that the waters were a defence on each side, and secured them from flank attacks.[121] And as they must have advanced in several parallel columns, probably half a mile wide, this certainly seems the more likely view.
[Footnote 121: Exod. 14. 21, 22; Nahum 3. 8; 1 Sam. 25. 16.]
And what makes it still more probable is that much the same thing occurred in this very neighbourhood in recent times. For in January, 1882, a large expanse of water, about 5 feet deep, near the Suez Canal, was exposed to such a strong gale (also from the east) that next morning it had been entirely driven away, and men were walking about on the mud, where the day before the fishing-boats had been floating.[122] Moreover, on this theory, the miracle would not lose any of its evidential value. For the fact of such a strip of dry land being formed just when and where the Israelites so much wanted it, and then being suddenly covered again, through the wind changing round to the west (which it must have done for the dead Egyptians to have been cast up on the _east_ side)[123], would be a coincidence far too improbable to be accidental.