once by the enemy and by the disaffected population of Goshen, had
been cooped up within the walls of the great cities, afraid to venture
forth. The fate of the invasion was sealed, however, by a decisive
battle in which the Egyptians almost annihilated their foes. But the
land of Goshen was left empty and desolate; the foreign tribes who had
dwelt in it fled into the wilderness under the cover of the Libyan
invasion. The pressure of the invasion had forced the Pharaoh to allow
his serfs a free passage out of Egypt, quite as much as the "signs and
wonders" which were wrought by the hand of Moses. Egypt was protected on
its eastern side by a line of fortifications, and through these
permission was given that the Israelites should pass. But the permission
was hardly given before it was recalled. A small body of cavalry, not
move than six hundred in number, was sent in pursuit of the fugitives,
who were loaded with the plunder they had carried away from the
Egyptians. They were a disorganised and unwarlike multitude, consisting
partly of serfs, partly of women and children, partly of stragglers from
the armies of the Libyan and Mediterranean invaders. Six hundred men
were deemed sufficient either to destroy them or to reduce them once
more to captivity.

But the fugitives escaped as it were by miracle. A violent wind from the
east drove back the shallow waters at the head of the Gulf of Suez, by
the side of which they were encamped, and the Israelites passed dryshod
over the bed of "the sea." Before their pursuers could overtake them,
the wind had veered, and the waters returned on the Egyptian chariots.
The slaves were free at last, once more in the wilderness in which Isaac
had tended his flocks, and in contact with their kinsmen of Edom and
Midian.

Moses had led them out of Egypt, and Moses now became their lawgiver.
The laws which he gave them formed them into a nation, and laid the
foundations of the national faith. Henceforth they were to be a separate
people, bound together by the worship of one God, who had revealed
Himself to them under the name of Yahveh. First at Sinai, among the
mountains of Seir and Paran, and then at Kadesh-barnea, the modern 'Ain
Qadis, the Mosaic legislation was promulgated. The first code was
compiled under the shadow of Mount Sinai; its provisions were
subsequently enlarged or modified by the waters of En-Mishat, "the
Spring of Judgment."

The Israelites lay hidden, as it were, in the