Application. Job was not a Christian, and had not, as we have, the example of Christ’s patient sufferings before him; yet how patient and resigned he was in the midst of his great trials! But you are a Christian, and in spite of being so you are often impatient, and incessantly complain and bewail your lot when anything goes wrong. Resolve for the future to look on all troubles as visitations from God; offer them up to God and bear them patiently, resigning yourself entirely to God’s will. In all times of adversity you should, like Job, praise God, and say with our Lord: “Father, not my will, but Thine be done!” In all your temporal losses say with Job: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
II. EPOCH :
THE AGE OF MOSES.
(From the year 1500 to 1450 B. C.)
Chapter XXIX.
THE BIRTH OF MOSES.
[Ex. 1 to 2, 10.]
GOD had made two promises to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: first, that they should be the fathers of a great nation; second, that the Saviour would be a descendant of theirs. The first promise was now fulfilled. In the space of two hundred years the descendants of Jacob in Egypt had become a great people. In the meantime a new king had arisen, “who knew not[1] Joseph”, and who said to the Egyptians: “Behold, the children of Israel[2] are stronger than we. Come, let us oppress them, lest they join with our enemies and depart out of the land.”
Now the Egyptians hated the children of Israel, and mocked them and made their life bitter, both by hard words and also with hard work in brick and clay (Fig. 20). And the king placed
