vii. 20.  They appear to have been well apparelled.  Ex. xii. 11. 4. They owned “flocks and herds,” and “very much cattle.”  Ex. xii. 4, 6, 32, 37, 38.  From the fact that “every man” was commanded to kill either a lamb or a kid, one year old, for the Passover, before the people left Egypt, we infer that even the poorest of the Israelites owned a flock either of sheep or goats.  Further, the immense multitude of their flocks and herds may be judged of from the expostulation of Moses with Jehovah.  Num. xii. 21, 22.  “The people among whom I am are six hundred thousand footmen, and thou hast said I will give them flesh that they may eat a whole month; shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them.”  As these six hundred thousand were only the men “from twenty years old and upward, that were able to go forth to war,” Ex. i. 45, 46; the whole number of the Israelites could not have been less than three millions and a half.  Flocks and herds to “suffice” all these for food, might surely be called “very much cattle.” 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; xii. 19, 21; vi. 14, 25; v. 19; iii. 16, 18. 6. They had in a considerable measure, the disposal of their own time. Ex. iii. 16, 18; xii. 6; ii. 9; and iv. 27, 29-31. They seem to have practised the fine arts.  Ex. xxxii. 4; xxxv. 22, 35. 7. They were all armed.  Ex. xxxii. 27. 8. They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded them as inviolable.  No intimation is given that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any article of property. 9. All the females seem to have known something of domestic refinements.  They were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in the working of fine fabrics.  Ex. xv. 20; xxxv. 25, 26; and both males and females were able to read and write.  Deut. xi. 18-20; xvii. 19; xxvii. 3. 10. Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males.  Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be inferred; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by Pharaoh’s daughter, go against such a supposition.  Ex. ii. 29. 11. Their food was abundant and of great variety.  So far from being fed upon a fixed allowance of a single article, and hastily prepared, “they sat by the flesh-pots,” and “did eat bread to the full.”  Ex. xvi. 3; and their bread was prepared with leaven.  Ex. xii. 15, 39.  They ate “the fish freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.”  Num. xi. 4, 5; xx. 5.  Probably but a small portion of the people were in the service of the Egyptians at any one time.  The extent and variety of their own possessions, together with