servants born in his own house,” how large an aggregate may we reasonably assume for the servants connected with Jacob’s family, now increased to seventy male souls?  We must not think of Jacob going into Egypt as a humble personage.  He was a rich and prosperous emir, with his children and grandchildren, and a great train of servants.  With the special blessing of God upon his children and all connected with them, we need find no insuperable difficulty in their increase to the number mentioned at the exodus.

Provision was made in a miraculous way for the sustenance of the Israelites in the wilderness.  The question has been raised:  How were their flocks and herds provided for?  In answer to this, the following remarks are in point:  (1.) We are not to understand the word “wilderness” of an absolutely desolate region.  It affords pasturage in patches.  Robinson describes Wady Feiran, northwest of Sinai, as well watered, with gardens of fruit and palm trees; and he was assured by the Arabs that in rainy seasons grass springs up over the whole face of the desert.  The whole northeastern part of the wilderness, where the Israelites seem to have dwelt much of the thirty-eight years, is capable of cultivation, and is still cultivated by the Arabs in patches. (2.) The Israelites undoubtedly marched not in a direct line, but from pasture to pasture, as the modern Arabs do, and spreading themselves out over the adjacent region.  When Moses besought his father-in-law not to leave him, but to go with him that he might be to the people instead of eyes (Numb. 10:31), we may well suppose that he had in view Hobab’s knowledge of the places where water and pasturage were to be found. (3.) There is decisive evidence that this region was once better watered than it is now, and more fruitful.  The planks of acacia-wood, the shittim-wood, which were employed in the construction of the tabernacle, were a cubit and a half in width; that is, in English measure, something more than two and a half feet.  No acacia-trees of this size are now found in that region.  The cutting away of the primitive forests seems to have been followed, as elsewhere, by a decrease in the amount of rain.  But, however this may be, we know that, for some reason, this part of Arabia was once more fertile and populous.  In its northeastern part are extensive ruins of former habitations, and enclosed fields.  The same is true of the region around Beersheba and south of it.  Here Robinson found ruins of former cities, as Eboda and Elusa.  Of the latter place he says:  “Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants.  Now, it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation; across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way.”  Vol. 1, p. 197.  And of Eboda, farther south:  “The large church marks a numerous Christian population.”  “But the desert has resumed its rights; the intrusive hand of cultivation