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Mic_6:4 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
Ver. 4. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt] Here God twits them with his former favours; which he never doth but in case of brutish unthankfulness. Now there was brutish, and worse. To render good for evil is divine; good for good is human; evil for evil is brutish; but evil for good devilish. This makes God, contrary to his custom, upbraid people with what he hath done for them; and angrily call for his love tokens back again, as Hos_2:9. For their deliverance out of the Egyptian servitude how great a mercy it was, {See Trapp on "Hos_11:1"} such as they were again and again charged never to forget, Deu_6:12; Deu_5:15; Deu_26:5-12. How much more bound are we to God for our redemption by Christ! for what is Pharaoh to Satan? Egypt to this present evil world? Egyptian bondage to sin’s slavery? Seeing then that our God hath given us such deliverance as this, should we again break his commandments? Well might the hills and mountains testify against such a monstrous unthankfulness and disingenuity.
And redeemed thee out of the house of servants] Gradatim progreditur, saith Calvin. It was something to be brought out of the land of Egypt, a most superstitious place, where they turned the glory of the incorruptible God to the similitude of the image of a corruptible man, Rom_1:23 (for they deified their king, Osiris), and of birds (for they worshipped the hawk and ibis), and of four-footed beasts (for they worshipped an ox, a dog, a cat, a swine), and of creeping things, for they worshipped the crocodile, ichneumon, &c., yea, they worshipped plants and pot herbs. Hence Juvenal,
“ Felices genres, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis Numina ” -
To be brought out, therefore, from among such hateful idolaters was no small favour, lest they should smell of their superstitions, as Micah’s mother did after all that erring sin in the desert, Jdg_17:3; and Jeroboam, by being there a while, had learned calf worship; hence that strict charge never to make league with them. But to be redeemed out of the house of servants was more; out of the iron furnace, Deu_4:20 Jer_11:4, where they wrought night and day in latere et luto, Exo_1:11, in setting up those famous pyramids and treasure cities for Pharaoh, where they served with rigour, Exo_1:13; their lives were made bitter with hard bondage, Exo_1:14, till God withdrew their shoulders from the burden, and their hands did leave the pots, Psa_81:6, "till they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone," Exo_24:10, to show that God had now changed their condition, their bricks made in their bondage to sapphires. Confer Isa_54:11, and consider what God hath done for us, by bringing us into the glorious liberty of his own children, who were once the devil’s drudges and dromedaries, "serving divers lusts and pleasures," Tit_3:3, which gave laws to our members, Rom_7:23, and held us under in a brutish bondage, much worse than the heathen’s mill house, the Turks’ galleys, Bajazet’s iron cage, the Indian mines, or Egyptian furnace. For there, if they did their task they escaped stripes; but here, let men do the devil never such doughty service, they are sure of scourges and scorpions after all, armies and changes of sorrows and sufferings, terrors and torments, without any the least hope of ever either mending or ending. This should make us lift up many a humble, joyful, and thankful heart to our most powerful Redeemer; saying with St Paul, "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen," 1Ti_1:17.
And I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam] As three principal guides, and Miriam for one who did her part among the women, Exo_15:20, and having a prophetic spirit, became a singular instrument in the hand of God, who spake by her, Num_12:2. But her weak head was not able to bear such a cup of honour without being intoxicated; which caused her father to spit in her face, Num_12:2; Num_12:14. Her death is recorded in Scripture, Num_20:1, but not her age, as is Sarah’s, Gen_23:1. Some have observed that God thought not fit to tell us of the length of the life of any woman in Scripture but Sarah, to humble that sex. But as souls have no sexes, so of some women (such as were Miriam, Deborah, the Virgin Mary, Priscilla, Blandina, the Lady Jane Grey, Queen Elizabeth) it may be said, that in them, besides their sex, there was nothing woman-like or weak: as if (what philosophy saith) the souls of these noble creatures had followed the temperament of their bodies, which consist of a frame of rarer rooms of a more exact composition than man’s doth. It is possible that Miriam might (till that matter of emulation between her and Moses’s wife occured) be as helpful to Moses and Aaron as Nazianzen’s mother was to his father; not a help fellow only, but a doctress and governess, Non solum adiutricem in pietate, sed etiam doctricem et gubernatricem (Nazian.).