it, may be appreciated, it is important that
the Egyptian bondage should be analyzed. We shall then be able to
ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, and what they
retained.

EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. (1.) _The Israelites were not dispersed among
the families of Egypt, the property of individual owners_[A]. They
formed a _separate_ community. See Gen. xlvi. 35. Ex. viii. 22, 24, and
ix. 26, and x. 23, and xi. 7, and ii. 9, and xvi. 22, and xvii. 5.

[Footnote A: The Egyptians evidently had _domestic_ servants living in
their families; these may have been slaves; allusion is made to them in
Exodus ix. 14, 20, 21. But none of the Israelites were included in this
class.]

(2.) _They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen_[B], _one
of the richest and most productive parts of Egypt_. Gen. xlv. 18, and
xlvii. 6, 11, 27. Ex. xii. 4, 19, 22, 23, 27.

[Footnote B: The land of Goshen was a large tract of country, east of
the Pelusian arm of the Nile, and between it and the head of the Red
Sea, and the lower border of Palestine. The probable centre of that
portion, occupied by the Israelites, could hardly, have been less than
60 miles from the city. From the best authorities it would seem that the
extreme western boundary of Goshen must have been many miles distant
from Egypt. See "Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt," an able article
by Professor Robinson, in the Biblical Repository for October, 1832.]

(3.) _They lived in permanent dwellings_. These were _houses_, not
_tents_. In Ex. xii. 6, the two side _posts_, and the upper door _posts_
of the houses are mentioned, and in the 22d, the two side posts and the
lintel. Each family seems to have occupied a house _by itself_--Acts
vii. 20, Ex. xii. 4--and from the regulation about the eating of the
Passover, they could hardly have been small ones--Ex. xii. 4--and
probably contained separate apartments, and places for seclusion. Ex.
ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex.
xii. 11. To have had their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19, and xiv.
11.

(4.) _They owned "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds_," and "_very
much cattle_." Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38.

(5.) They had their own form of government, and preserved their tribe
and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, though
still a province of Egypt, and _tributary_ to it. Ex. ii. 1, and xii.
19, 21, and vi. 14, 25, and v. 19, and iii. 16, 18