FORTY YEARS.

Between the first Passover eaten in Egypt, and the entering into Canaan under Joshua, the Hebrew nation ate manna forty years in the wilderness—Exodus 16: 35.

Moses was forty years old when he forsook the court of Egypt. He remained in the land of Midian as a keeper of sheep forty years—Acts 7: 23, 30. After that he was a king in Jeshurun forty years, during which he showed the wonders of God in the wilderness.

"ACCORDING TO THE DAYS OF ISRAEL’S COMING OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, will I show to him wonderful things"—Micah 7: 15, in the wilderness of the people’s; where I will plead with them face to face, like as I pleaded with their fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt—Ezekiel 20: 35-36, in bringing them into Gilead and Bashan to feed there as in the days of old—Micah 7: 14.

The days of the coming out of Egypt were forty years. This passage in Micah confers an interest and importance upon this forty years, additional to what they naturally possess as the transition period between the servitude in Egypt and the encamping in the valley near Jericho, named the valley of Achor, under Joshua. They are converted by the Spirit into a sign of A FUTURE TRANSITION PERIOD OF FORTY YEARS, at the expiration of which the Twelve Tribes shall again encamp in the same valley, preparatory to their taking possession of the rest of the Holy Land. The papal countries throughout which the Israelites are scattered, are collectively styled Egypt. The words of the Spirit are, "The Great City, which is called pneumatikos; pneumatically, or figuratively, Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." Jesus was crucified in the Roman empire, which was constituted the great municipality or city, by the decree of Caracalla. The demoralised condition and fate of Sodom, and the relation of Israel to ancient Egypt, being significative of the condition and fate of Rome, and of the existing bondage and oppression of Israel in the bounds of its ecclesiastical dominion, and of the Egypt-like judgments that await the kings, priests, and peoples of her communion during the period of Israel’s deliverance—the Roman system is most appropriately designated by the names of those ancient sinks of iniquity and abomination. The spiritually-named Sodom and Egypt is the existing place of Israel’s exile; and from the crucifixion of their king to the death of his witnesses, the arena of their conflicts with the Gentile powers, symbolised by the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Crowned-horns. It is from this Egypt of the West that Israel has to be brought out in these "latter days," and to be transferred into the land promised to Abraham and his seed for a perpetual inheritance. How is it to be done?

The answer to this question, not of difficult production, is not the subject of this article. What I want to impress upon the reader’s mind at this time is, that there is a coming out, or future exodus for Israel from the Egypt of the West; and that there is a future entering into Palestine by way of the ancient Jericho; and that between the coming out and the entering in, THERE IS AN INTERVAL OF FORTY YEARS. The "hour of judgment" on "Sodom and Egypt" belongs to this period. It is the grand climacteric of Israel’s years—the great transition period in which they are passing out of evil into good, exchanging blindness and degradation for divine intelligence, and exaltation above all nations of the earth. The forty years in the wilderness of Egypt was typical of a future forty years, sojourn in the wilderness of the peoples. It will begin under the seventh vial, and end with the exhaustion thereof; when it will be proclaimed, "It is done!" The work of engrafting Israel into her own Olive Tree, upon a principle of faith in Jesus as their king, will have been perfected; a work which only God can accomplish through the agency of Christ and the saints.

But, how shall Israel be induced to stand to arms, and in the face of strong powers begin their march towards the appointed wilderness? Oh, saith Jehovah, addressing David’s son and Lord, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." "Behold I will allure Israel, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth and as in the days when she came up out of the land of Egypt"—Hosea 2: 14-15. This has never happened since Hosea recorded it in the oracles of God; it therefore remains to be fulfilled.

The reader will perceive from these testimonies that the restoration of the Israelites scattered and buried in the nations is indirect. When Moses led them out of ancient Egypt, he did not march them direct to Palestine; but led them by marches and counter-marches through a waste howling wilderness, indirectly to that glorious land. So the Spirit testifies it shall be in the future exodus. They will not be marched direct from the Egypt of the West into the Holy Land. At present they are intellectually and morally unfit for settlement in that land under Messiah. They will be allured from that Egypt into the wilderness; and marched from the wilderness to the Valley of Achor, when, by divine discipline and instruction, they shall be regarded fit.

This forty years in the wilderness of the peoples will precede by ten years, and, of necessity, be parallel with the last "hour" or thirty years of the continuance of "the kingdom of men," which at their expiration will lose all power to practise and make war. The marvellous things to be shown to the Israelites will make them mighty; so that "the nations" of that kingdom "shall see and be confounded at all their might; and shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf, and they shall lick the dust like a serpent; they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth; and they shall be afraid of the Lord our God, and shall fear because of thee"—Micah 7: 16-17—"for the Lamb shall overcome them"—Revelation 17: 14.

* * *