​I have asked for the opportunity to teach some lessons from the Westminster Larger Catechism, and tonight I want to introduce you to this great expression of Christian wisdom and biblical truth. Particularly, I want to expose you to some teaching on the ten commandments that I believe will not only improve your understanding, but enrich your lives. This is a precious resource that has been too long neglected, despised, and trodden under foot. Like a raw diamond, which looks like a common stone until it has been expertly cut, the Westminster Larger Catechism is a spiritual treasure lying within easy reach, but unappreciated for its hidden worth and beauty.
Where did this document come from, and under what circumstances? The following quotation is from the preface of the PCA's The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms with Scripture Proofs:
In 1643, during a period of civil war, the English “Long Parliament” (under the control of Presbyterian Puritans) convened an Assembly of Divines (mostly Puritan ministers, including a few influential Scottish commissioners) at Westminster Abbey in London. Their task was to advise Parliament on how to bring the Church of England into greater conformity with the Church of Scotland and the Continental Reformed churches. The Westminster Assembly produced documents on doctrine, church government, and worship that have largely defined Presbyterianism down to this day. These documents included a Confession of Faith (1646), a Larger Catechism (1647), and a Shorter Catechism (1647), often collectively called “the Westminster standards.”
Parliamentary efforts to reconstitute the established Church of England along Presbyterian lines were soon thwarted by the rise to power of Cromwell (who favored Independency) and the expulsion of Presbyterians from Parliament in 1648, and then the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, which quickly led to the reinstitution of Episcopacy and the suppression of Puritanism.
But things were different in Scotland. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland adopted the Confession of Faith in 1647 and the Catechisms in 1648. The Scottish Parliament ratified them in 1649 and again (after a time of political and religious strife) in 1690. The Presbyterian character of the Church of Scotland was safeguarded when Scotland and England were united under one crown in 1707. Numerous Presbyterian bodies have been formed since then, both in the United Kingdom and around the world, and they have always been constituted on the basis of the Westminster standards (although declension from them has sometimes followed)."
The Larger Catechism was the last of the three great documents produced by the Westminster Assembly, and though often overshadowed by the Shorter Catechism and the Confession of Faith, it is by no means inferior to the others. In fact, the Larger Catechism exhibits the Assembly’s most mature theological reflection and insight. While the Shorter Catechism is still used in the training of the young, the Larger Catechism has lost its place as the authoritative basis for adult Christian education. Though it is very well suited to be used as a ready-to-hand outline for teaching the whole body of Christian doctrine and practice, it is not commonly used in Reformed and Presbyterian churches today at all. My opinion is that this is a great loss to the church, and shows a failure to appreciate the prodigious labor and great learning that went into this document.
The impression of modern Christians, when confronted with the Larger Catechism, is that its doctrine is too dogmatic and excessively detailed, and that its practical requirements are far too demanding and unrealistic.
First, I suspect that one reason moderns find it unacceptable is that its doctrine is the same high Calvinism that we find set forth in the Confession of Faith. And second, I think it is probable that the typically Puritan intensity of its piety and the seriousness of its perspective on sin and holiness are also a reason why moderns neglect or reject it as a guide to Christian practice.
But perhaps a third reason is that it expounds -- as none of the other Westminster Standards do -- the particulars of God's law. While the Confession and the Shorter Catechism also define sin as the transgression of God's law -- a fact which makes it possible to define sin and holiness; only the Larger Catechism takes the time to actually do so. In an antinomian age, the Larger Catechism is simply viewed as legalistic, and worse than useless.
I say antinomian (which means a doctrine that is against law) because that is the spirit of this age. The law of nature and nature's God, the transcendent and immutable law that determines what is right and what is wrong beyond any appeal, is profoundly unpopular today. The very idea is repugnant to those who have shaped and those who are re-shaping the modern world. They want the power to change whatever stands in their way -- be it long-standing tradition, cultural taboo, religious observance, common sense, but especially the dictates of revealed religion. God's law is nothing to them, if it inhibits their grasping for power and riches.
Criminals of all sorts, sexual deviants, hedonists, atheists are increasingly making bold demands to eliminate God's moral law from the laws of our nation.
The Christian religion has also been corrupted by antinomian doctrines -- some claiming that the law of God cannot have any bearing on Christian conduct; because this is supposedly the "dispensation of grace"!
The traditional Protestant perspective is different. Both Lutherans, Anglicans, and Reformed Christians hold that the law is a rule of life for Christians. In both the Confession and the Larger Catechism, the doctrine of the law of God is treated only after the scheme of redemption is fully expounded. This reflects the biblical fact that the law is so far from being irrelevant to redeemed men that only in the saints does the law fulfill its natural and essential function -- that is, as a guide to the will of God. The other two uses of the law, the restraint and the conviction of sinners, are incidental to this fundamental purpose, functions that owe their existence to the fact of the fall.
Christ redeemed us from slavery to sin that we might become slaves of obedience ount righteousness. Just as Israel was first delivered from Egypt, and then given the law of righteousness to direct them in obedience to God, the Christian is freed from sin and its consequences so that he may bring forth fruits pleasing to God -- that is, those things which he has declared to be His will in His holy law. Grace does not annul the law; it establishes it. Without grace, the law will never be kept; but by grace, we become by degrees more cognizant of the law, more appreciative of it, more convinced of our inability to keep it. But, at the same time, we are more deeply disappointed at ourselves for esteeming it as little as we do, and more desirous of having in our souls a greater love for God and a more perfect obedience.
The law does not take the central place in the exposition of Christianity, and it does not become the sole focus of the Christian life. The glorious Gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ provides the meaning and the motivation for the Christian life, as well as the way of deliverance from sin and guilt. But after that, it ought to be a matter of thankfulness to have as clear and complete a definition of the requirements of God's law as we have in the Larger Catechism, so that we may actually pursue holiness.
Beginning at question 91 "What is the duty that God requires of man?" and continuing to question 152 "What doth every sin deserve at the hand of God?" we are treated to a full and immensely practical exposition of the law of God. At the heart of this exposition is a series of questions regarding the decalogue. Question 98 begins this section: "Where is the moral law summarily comprehended?" The answer is "The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments..." Then follows, question 99 "What rules are to be observed for the right understanding of the ten comandments?" There are eight rules given, which provide the basis for interpreting the words of the law throughout the section.
The pattern for expounding each commandment is as follows: "Which is the (first or second or third, etc.) commandment?" the answer being words of the commandment precisely as it was given. Then follows "What duties are required in the (nth) commandment?" with a listing of the various duties included in it. This is often a long paragraph. At least one proof text is indicated for each one. This is meaty -- solid food -- not for babes. Then the question is asked "What sins are forbidden in the (nth) commandment?" and the answer is a catalog that may, with the proof texts, cover several pages. Finally, a supplemental question is asked such as "What are we specially taught by these words [before me]..." or "What are the reasons annexed..." The pattern varies from one commandment to another; but this is the basic structure.
I intend, God willing, to give readings and commentary on selected portions of this section on the ten commandments. Let me just whet your appetite with a short reading on the ninth commandment (Q143-145).






Howard Douglas King
January 1, 2018 A.D. [6064 A.M.]

​We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old. (Psalms 44:1)


"We have heard" the text says. But the problem is that, for generations, we have not heard! Our fathers have failed to pass on to their children the good heritage of the knowledge of God's mighty acts; and we have been left to find out for ourselves, or else to remain ignorant.
On this 500th anniversary of the Great Reformation, it behooves us to do what in us lies to make known just what it was, and how it has mightily affected the lives of all nations to this day! Just what are we talking about when we speak of "the Reformation"?
Most of you know that the Reformation involved a rediscovery of the holy Scriptures. You may have heard of the four "solas":
Sola Scriptura -- Scripture alone
Sola gratia -- Grace alone
Sola fide -- Faith alone
Sola Christa -- Christ alone
This is a good summary of the principles of the Reformation; but if this is all we know of it, we will not fully understand what it was, and why it is so important.
It is, of course, impossible to do this subject justice in the space of forty minutes. All one can hope to do is to shed some rays of light upon it, and hopefully to create an interest in those who love truth -- a desire to know more. This presentation will be short on historical details. I have had to leave out much that I would have wished to put in. There is no shortage of books and videos that give that information better than I could have done. My aim is to give you the "big picture", rather than a historical sketch.
It is my belief that it is our duty to recover our Reformed heritage. And it is my fervent prayer that God's people will awake to the glory of their heritage; and to find inspiration and wisdom for the difficult times in which we find ourselves -- times which call for a new Reformation!
What then was that great upheaval that we call "The Protestant Reformation"?
First, it was a resurgence of biblical Christianity in doctrine and practice. As such, it transformed the social life of whole nations. It was such a powerful and sustained moving of the Spirit of God that it even transformed the central institutions of life: the family, the church, the school, the legal system, even governments and international relations.
Second, it was a work of God, born out of the cry of the Christian conscience. It was carried on as a powerful Spiritual revival and a sequence of striking Divine providences. Because it was God's doing, and not man's, it cannot be limited to any one man or any single place. It took its rise in many places simultaneously, building on what had gone before.
Third, it has had lasting effects on the culture of the whole civilized world. It dramatically lessened the power and weakened the influence of the Papacy throughout the world. It left its mark in every sphere of human creative endeavor: literature, music and the fine arts. Most importantly, it started a missionary movement that carried the gospel to the heathen world; and goes on today!
I will endeavor to make a few pertinent comments on these three points.
First, the Reformation of the sixteenth century was a restoration of Christianity to a world that had effectually suppressed it and substituted a counterfeit. This had been effected by the apostasy of the church and its gradual corruption, until it was no longer the church of Jesus Christ; but an organization wholly co-opted for the evil purposes of men: wealth and power.
The church was no longer defined as the whole company of the faithful; but as the clerical hierarchy. The people were merely their servants, and had no voice or vote concerning any matter.
The wealth of nations was being systematically drained away by church taxes, charges for services, and impositions of all sorts. The richest man in England at one time was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and not the King! While the Bishops and Abbots and the horde of locusts called the lesser clergy lived in luxury, the greater part of the spoils went to Rome, which, like our Washington D.C. had an insatiable thirst for money.
The Pope was called "God's Vicar" and had unlimited authority in every area of every man's life. He could nullify a vow or forgive any sin. This kind of unlimited power was logically consistent with the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, which is that the physical body of Jesus Christ could be conjured up out of a piece of bread by the incantations of a priest (and then eaten by people who could only taste, feel, and smell it as ordinary bread. What a miracle!)
To doubt the universal authority of the Pope was heresy. The clergy were exempt from arrest or prosecution by any secular authority. They literally had license to do what they pleased; and many of them were no better than criminals. Monks and priests, who had to take a vow of celibacy, were notoriously unclean, and a threat to the wives and daughters of honest men. The monasteries in England were systematically investigated under Thomas Cromwell; and many of the practices uncovered there were so vile that they could hardly be believed. Yet these men were, according to the "church", more holy than ordinary men.
In short, what was called "the church" was a vast, international criminal conspiracy under the name of the church. The real church was in captivity, as documented in Luther's famous book, "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church".
For centuries before the Reformation, anyone who had the temerity to reject any of "the church's" teachings or practices in favor of the religion of the New Testament placed himself in mortal jeopardy thereby. Anyone who was not regularly seen at mass, or who ate meat on Friday, could be imprisoned, tortured, condemned and burnt. To possess the Scriptures, or even a few verses, in the vernacular language was a crime. Not only were individuals and religious communities persecuted for the gospel's sake; but the Papacy slaughtered whole populations of peaceful agrarian Christians who lived in the Alpine valleys. The demonic brutality of these soldiers of the Pope is documented; but it takes a strong stomach to read of them. He literally made war against nations, such as Bohemia, that declared themselves under the authority of God's word, rather than the Pope's.
If any king or prince resisted his iron hand in his own realm, the Pope could declare his subjects free from obedience, and could command them, and other princes, to overthrow him. In addition to this, the confessional allowed him to spy on everyone, and to pry into every man's inmost thoughts. Remember that the confessional was not optional. One's sins had to be pardoned by a priest, or they would have to be atoned for in the fires of purgatory, or even Hell! Even the royalty of Europe were not exempt -- each had his appointed confessor; and the mighty emperor, Charles V, trembled when his confessor would not give him absolution until he promised to wipe out the Protestants in Germany.
The evils of the Roman catholic cult were so many and so great that it would take a book just to survey them, without going into much detail. The so-called "church" was a terrible, crushing burden rather than a blessing on mankind. It was a cloud of locusts, eating up all the labor of men's hands. It threatened the populace with damnation for minor or even non-offenses, while absolving the most horrendous crimes committed by it's own protected class. Even today, where Rome reigns, these same evils exist.
We talk about the difficulty of "draining the swamp". Yes, it looks impossible. But consider the swamp that Luther and Calvin and all the other faithful men of that age had to drain! And yet they succeeded to a degree almost unimaginable! They could not reform the unreformable false church; but they built up the true church in many lands, and conquered territory held for centuries in darkness with the light of God's truth. They set free the consciences of men bound with the Pope's laws, that they might fear God, and obey His! They restored faith, hope and love to the lives of people, families, churches and communities that had only known moral degradation and oppression.
Second, it was an awakening of the consciences of men, a sovereign work of Almighty God. The awakening of consciences is His work alone. Men do not become more sensitive to the voice of conscience on their own. The tendency is rather for conscience to be suppressed until it gradually becomes silent. It was men whose consciences would not leave them alone that drove on the work. Martin Luther's famous words , spoken when he was on trial for heresy before the Emperor Charles V will never be forgotten:
"Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear arguments... my conscience is bound to the word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. I cannot and will not recant anything. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen!"
Calvin documents his own struggles to shake off the convictions he received, and to suppress the thunderings of God in his own conscience. Here was a man who could have become a famous jurist, a Cardinal, or even a Pope! He would rather have been a secluded scholar, writing books somewhere, than be in the midst of the storm, giving up all his comforts, risking his life every day for the glory of God, for conscience' sake!
The fruit of the Reformation shows it to be God's work. The character of the reformers and martyrs abundantly evidence it to be God's work. The innumerable striking providences of God that brought it to pass are further evidence. But ultimately, the fact that the Reformation was founded on God's word, and furthered it, is the surest proof that it was the work of God.
Many people think that Luther was the first to declare the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and so credit him with starting the work; but this is not quite true. Wyclif and Hus went before him by a hundred years, and left behind a numerous body of believers. Lefevre in France and Zwingli in Switzerland both anticipated Luther's formulation of the doctrine of "justification by faith alone" by several years. Before they had even heard his name, they were teaching the so-called "Lutheran" doctrine. The Vaudois had retained the gospel since they moved to those Alpine valleys many centuries before. This fact of the multiple sources of the Reformation adds yet another proof of its Divine origin. That such a movement could begin in different nations and cultures; and yet unite them in a common faith is itself remarkable.
Third, it has had lasting effects on the culture of the whole civilized world. It was not merely a great revival of religion, such as the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century under Whitfield and the Wesleys. This is not to diminish that wonderful work of God, documented in breathtaking detail by Arnold Dallimore in his three-volume work. It differed from this in that it was not clearly "over" in a few years. Nor did any revival in history have the scope or the deep effect on the world that the Reformation did. It was more like the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the first century, when the gospel first went into the world and won conquests everywhere, putting an end to Paganism and transforming the Gentile world.
If a new Reformation were to be granted by Heaven today, it would not only mean the revival of the churches and the conversion of multitudes, but also the end of secular humanism's dominance: a restoration of biblical law in the state, an end to humanistic mis-education in the schools, the salvation of marriage and the family, and a radical reconstruction of the work life of man in the economy.
The Reformation dramatically lessened the power and weakened the influence of the Papacy throughout the world. It did not end it; but it greatly reduced its scope, and ended its dominance. The Protestant nations gained the ascendancy in power, wealth, science and technology, industry and commerce in a short time. This dominance continues to this day in the nations that were once Protestant.
It left its mark in every sphere of human creative endeavor: literature, music and the fine arts. In this, it resembles the first conversion of the Gentiles and the age of Constantine. Art reflects the artist's aspirations, ideas of beauty, and inevitably, his religion. Some of the most important literary works, and those acknowledged as the greatest or the most popular, were written by the Reformers or those of following generations who were educated in Protestant schools.
Most importantly, the Reformation started a missionary movement that carried the gospel to the heathen world; and goes on today! It was providential that Luther's struggles with the Papacy began shortly after the invention of the printing press. By this means, his written works and doings were made known wherever there were people who could read. Entrepeneurs made fortunes publishing his works, and tracts, essays and books by the other Reformers. The instinct of every true Christian is to evangelize -- to share the great news of Jesus Christ with his neighbors. The field was ripe. The whole world was Roman Catholic, and very few had any notion of the gospel. So the work began at home. But it was not long before colporteurs and preachers were being sent out to foreign lands, wherever the gospel had not been preached before. Succeeding generations of Protestant Christians have carried on the work, which reached its zenith in the nineteenth century.
The Reformation was most concerned about the relationship of the individual to God. Everything starts there; but it does not end there. The new-created, enlightened soul then finds that the Word of God is a rule for all of life and all its institutions. Men and women who fear God and not man exert an irresistible force, each in his own sphere, and the world is changed thereby. Even if the world makes a martyr of him, he conquers; for in his honest adherence to his principles, he bears eloquent testimony to the truth and value of them. He glorifies God in his death, and makes an impression on those who look on that is not easily forgotten. Consciences are awakened, and that is what a Reformation feeds on!
Dear brothers and sisters, let us so live that we can be an instrument for awakening the consciences of our fellow human beings! Then they will be open to hear the word of God as never before! And let us never fail to give out the word when we have opportunity. We know not what our witness will effect in others. Perhaps if we were more faithful, we would be seeing a revival of religion even now! Perhaps it is true of us, as it was of the cities of old: "But Jesus could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief." Let it not be so! Hearing of the mighty works of God in the past, let us believe all things with respect to the future. The early Baptist missionary to Burma, Adoniram Judson, was once asked "What are the prospects for the speedy conversion of the heathen?" His answer -- "They are as bright as the promises of God!"



Howard Douglas King
October 28, 2017

​A sinner is not just someone who is not quite perfect. Nobody is going to wake up in hell and say,"If only I hadn't stolen that cookie when I was a child, I wouldn't be here!"
A sinner is not someone who tried his best to be good, but fell short. No one is going to stand before God and say, "I admit I failed; but you are a God of mercy, so I know you won't be so harsh as to disregard all my sincere efforts. So which way to the pearly gates?" Jesus didn't die to make up for our shortcomings.
A sinner is someone who is under the dominion of sin so completely that he is usually unconscious that he is sinning.
A sinner may be very sure of his own goodness -- or at least of his sincerity. But if he is, then he is just practicing self-deceit. A sinner is not good. He's not even trying to be good. He doesn't want to be good -- he wants to do what he wants, even if he knows it to be evil. He sins from the heart. Yes, he sometimes shocks even himself by doing something that he didn't know he was capable of. But this does not mean that he didn't do it deliberately, intentionally.
A sinner goes wrong in three ways:
1) He commits acts that are sinful as to the matter. These are acts forbidden in themselves by the moral law of God. He may keep some of the commandments of God in an outward sense, but not all; and none in the true and spiritual sense Jesus insisted on in the sermon on the mount.
2) He acts from an unlawful motive. Even when doing something lawful in God's sight, often it is only for show, or for gain, or for other evil motives. Sometimes his own self-interest happens to coincide with God's; but where self-interest reigns in the heart, you have nothing but sin. We ought to have God's will as our supreme motive for everything we do. Self ought to be secondary; and the minute we see that God's will and ours conflict, we must sacrifice our selves.
3) He sins in his method. He does something lawful, perhaps even with good intentions, but in a way that is not lawful.
A sinner sins in thought, word and deed, all day long, all the days of his life. He may be outwardly moral, and seem a good neighbor and a responsible citizen, but this is only the outside that he has learned to create to impress his fellow-man. God sees what is inside, and that is the only thing that matters. That is the true man.
We have all seen villains depicted in plays and movies and in novels that are so morally offensive that we find ourselves wanting very much to see them severely punished. We may be moved to anger, as if it was not play-acting, but something happening in real life! But there is no villain in any play that is worse than the common, garden-variety sinner is in real life. Listen to how Jesus describes the things that are generated by the evil heart of man:
And he said, "That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." (Mar 7:20-23)
In the New Testament epistles, written to churches, or bodies of believers, there are found "catalogs of sins"; such as Romans 1:28-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:8-11. I used to think that these lists referred only to those who have not been converted, or to believers before their conversion. I did not realize the truth of Paul's words "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing"(Rom 7:18).
The Saints are Still Sinners
The truth is that saints are still sinners. They are no longer the blind and powerless slaves of sin, it is true. There is a new nature, and it increasingly shows itself; but the old self is still there, living within, fighting against the new self. We have stopped doing many things which we used to do; but we are very, very far from perfection. We need to hear this: we need to be humbled by our sins. We need to learn to see our sins as God sees them: to hate our sins, and to use all means to avoid them. We need to "watch", which in Scripture means to "stand guard" against occasions of sin. These things we will not do if we remain blind to the evil that is in our bosoms.
The very fact that the saints are unable to conform themselves completely to the will of God, even though they desire this most sincerely and ardently shows how completely corrupt the sinner is, and demonstrates the native strength of sin in the hearts of all men.
What it Means to be a Sinner
One of the most painful aspects of the Christian life is the knowledge of the sinfulness of man: both our own, and that of others. It is not a pretty picture that we see as we observe our own lives; and it is not encouraging to view the progress of human affairs without the illusions which most people embrace to make life palatable.
In addition, it is grievous to realize how blind people are about their own miserable state. Our catechism teaches us that we are born into a state of sin and misery. (See Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 13-19.) The Catechism explains our awful plight in the following words:
Question 19: What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
Answer: All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
This is a good summary of the terrible condition that we are in. There are 5 elements, which we will consider one by one:
1. The sinner is alienated from God.
2. The sinner is under His wrath and curse.
3. The sinner is liable to all temporal miseries.
4. The sinner must soon die.
5. If the sinner continues in this state until death, he will be damned forever.
1. Alienated from God
We are not born innocent, or in fellowship with God. A child does not have to be taught to rage whenever his will is crossed: he has to be taught not to. The psalmist said, "They go astray from the womb, speaking lies". God must act to change the heart before we are even desirous of His fellowship. In our hearts, we are all God's enemies. But alienation is a word that cuts two ways: God is also our enemy. He is, so to speak, forced to oppose us, for we are out to sabotage His holy and good plan for the world of men. Our evil words, our wicked actions, and our bad example and incitement of others to sin cannot be ignored. For example, the one who is pledged to care for the widow and fatherless cannot sit smiling while his subjects oppress them. No, we are in need of reconciliation. God is so far from being pleased with us, that he counts us His enemies. The sinner needs to understand that this is a terrible thing: the danger is extreme!
2. Under His wrath and curse
We are not to think of God as losing His temper like we do. When He is angry, it is not something He regrets and tries to repress. His wrath is like the righteous indignation with which a man fights to drive an invader from his home with deadly force. No, when the Lord God acts in wrath and fury, it is willingly, with His whole self. He is therefore "greatly to be feared", as the Scripture says.
What is the significance of the curse of God? What does it mean to be under His curse? A curse is a maledictory oath; as a blessing is an oath of benediction. It means that God has fixed and declared His intention to destroy the sinner. God never goes back on His blessings or His cursings; for an oath of God is unbreakable. Like His wrath, His curse is not something that is owing to a moment of passion, when God "forgets himself" as we do; or "doesn't know what he is doing" or "doesn't mean what he's saying". God's curse is deliberate, well considered. From eternity, He has always intended to oppose those who despise His good laws, and who rather choose to do evil. Nothing can make Him change His mind on this. Truly, the fact of god's wrath and curse should make every sinner tremble!
3. Liable to all temporal miseries
There are innumerable ways to suffer; and human beings have a practically infinite capacity for pain. It requires no proof that life is filled with misery. Though we would rather dwell on our dreams and ambitions of happiness in this life, few ever approach happiness; and those who do so do not find their happiness in temporal things, nor do they live free of sorrow. Rich or poor, old or young, no one can insulate himself from pain, so that he is not touched by it. This is the will of God.
4. Soon to die
Who ever thinks about death? Our culture constantly sets before us images of death and dying; but in such a way that we rarely if ever think what it is like to die, or what it means to die. People will do almost anything rather than willingly give up their lives. The fear of death absolutely drives us. We are so afraid that we cannot allow ourselves to think that we are afraid. Billions take refuge from that fear in the various religions of the world; by trying to conciliate whatever powers there may be to be faced after death. Some try to convince themselves that there is nothing after death; but this too is motivated by their fear of death. The way that men view the world and the way they live are rarely (if ever) determined by rational consideration. The world-views that men adopt are a consequence, in large part, of the way they have chosen to hide themselves from the reality of death, and the fear of what is beyond. It may truly be said that, in the hearts of men, death reigns.
Yet, no matter how long he lives, the sinner will certainly die, and then He must stand before his Judge to give an account of his life -- and enter at last into his eternal destiny as a saint in heaven, or as a sinner in hell.
5. Damned forever without repentance
Forever! What one word has more of hope or of fear in it than this one? Eternal life! Everlasting joy! Eternal punishment! Everlasting pains! If death is not the end -- and no one really believes that it is -- then what awaits us on the other side? It must needs be wonderful beyond all imagining or dreadful beyond our worst fears if it be our eternal destiny! People refuse to confront facts that, if true, cannot be endured. If a man finds that he is ruined with no way of escape; he often loses his reason, rather than face dishonor, shame, poverty, or whatever it is in which his entire happiness consists. But no ruination that we can ever face here can compare with damnation; for all else is temporary. We find ways to bear what we must, and we have family and friends, sometimes, to help us bear up. But our chief consolation in trouble is that nothing in this life lasts forever! But damnation is forever. Oh, my friends! Damnation is forever!
We must pity, preach to, and pray for those who are in such awful danger as this!
If sinners are to be saved, there must be some way for God to reconcile those who are alienated from Him. Jesus has satisfied the honor and justice of the offended majesty of God; and thus made a way for God's forgiveness and favor. Should we not tell them?
If sinners are to be saved, there must be an appeasement of God's righteous anger. This also was accomplished when Jesus died in the place of sinners. Is this not worthy to be proclaimed?
If sinners are to be saved, there must be a lifting of the curse. Some way must exist whereby God neither breaks His word nor carries it out. Infinite wisdom has found out the way: the curse falls on another who is by nature indestructible. He bears the awful load for us, in our place; and is not crushed because He is Divine. The elect sinner, bound to Christ in a covenantal union that has existed from eternal ages, is freed from the curse forever. Is this not good news?
Pity, preach and pray!
Glory to God! Amen!
Howard Douglas King
October 13, 2017

The Testimony and Martyrdom of
ANNE ASKEW
Edited by Howard Douglas King


Introduction


The following account is taken verbatim from the old book, Cross and Crown, by James D. McCabe, a collection of accounts of the martyrs of the Protestant Reformation period. Only the introduction, section headings, and conclusion are mine.
Why would anyone want to hear the story of one of the church's martyrs? From the human point of view, it seems like nothing but a tragedy of hopelessness -- the good and beautiful trampled into the dust by gigantic, unstoppable forces of evil. But from the Divine viewpoint, it's the story of one saint's super-human courage, strength, and triumph! She looked the devil in the face, and did not flinch. She dared his minions to do their worst, and braved their furious hate! She overcame them by the blood of the lamb, and the word of her testimony, and she is now in heaven, out of the reach of any evil, at rest, surrounded by saints and angels, held in honor by all, awaiting the day of Jesus Christ, and the glorious resurrection!
All honor to her! And to the countless unsung heroes of the Great War! All glory to the Lamb, who gave them the victory! We may be sure that her death was not defeat, and that it was fruitful in glory to God, as well as confirming the truth of the gospel. Why would someone willingly die for a lie? Would people of character and sober judgment give themselves up to bitter pains for a delusion?
So let us fortify our own hearts by contemplating their courageous lives and deaths. Here, then, is one of the numerous examples of men and women who gave their all for Jesus Christ. Let us hear the true story of Anne Askew.



How Anne Came to be Persecuted


THERE lived in Lincolnshire, in the reign of Henry VIII., a knight, of ancient and honorable family, Sir William Askew by name. He resided at Kelsay, his ancestral home, and was the father of several daughters and a son. Close by him lived his most intimate friend, a Mr. Kyme, who was a man of great wealth. Mr. Kyme was the father of a son who was just entering upon manhood, and who would one day be the heir to his vast estate. Wishing that the young man should marry and settle down early, he began to look about him, as was the fashion with parents in those days, for a wife for his son, and his choice fell upon the eldest daughter of his old friend, Sir William Askew. The young people were betrothed, but before the marriage could be solemnized, the lady, who had been greatly averse to the proposed union, died. Sir William then proposed to Mr. Kyme that his son should marry Anne, his second daughter, who was more beautiful and attractive than her sister had been. The knight was not willing to lose the chance of an alliance with so much wealth, and Mr. Kyme, on his part, was very anxious that his son's wife should be a member of such a good old family. Young Kyme does not seem to have been very much concerned as to whom he married, but Anne Askew was earnestly opposed to becoming his wife. She begged her father not to compel her to marry a man whom she did not love, and who was personally disagreeable to her, but Sir William turned a deaf ear to her appeals, and in due time the marriage was celebrated.
Anne Askew was not only a beautiful and high spirited woman, but she was also well educated for a woman of her time, and was possessed of unusual mental gifts. She was a very pious woman, and having become a wife, she endeavored faithfully to discharge her duty to her husband. They lived together in peace for some time, and she bore him two children. Yet she could not bring herself to love her husband, or even to feel attached to him, and there is very good reason for thinking that he was not worthy of such a feeling on her part. There were frequent causes of discontent between them, and their married life at length became entirely the reverse of happy.
About this time the English Bible was given to the people by means of the printing press, and one of these copies came into the possession of Anne Askew, or Mistress Kyme. She read it with avidity, and it had the effect of working a complete revolution in her feelings and life. Up to this time she had been a Romanist, but the perusal of the Scriptures opened her eyes to the errors of Rome, and she soon abandoned her old faith and became a convert to the religion of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Holy Gospel. Her Bible readings were watched with suspicion by the priests, who were quick to advise her husband to compel her to abandon a practice which they declared to be full of danger. Mr. Kyme, who was a bigoted Papist, endeavored to compel her to discontinue her studies, and thus drew from her the avowal that she was no longer a Romanist, but a follower of the doctrines of the Reformation. Instigated by the priests, he ordered her to give up her religion, and return to his own faith; but she refused, telling him that her conscience was not subject to his control. He treated her very cruelly on account of her change of faith, and at length finding that he could not force her into obedience to his tyrannical demands, turned her out of his house.
She at once repaired to London, where she found friends, and began a suit for a divorce from her husband. The probability is that she abandoned the suit, finding it would be impossible to obtain justice at the hands of the Roman Catholic judges by whom her case would be considered. She resumed her maiden name, however, and steadfastly refused to return to her husband, or to have anything to do with him. She found friends at Court, and the queen, Catharine Parr, became warmly attached to her, and is said to have made her one of her ladies in waiting.
It was at this time that the Romanist enemies of Queen Catharine were busily working to accomplish her ruin. They found it a difficult and a dangerous thing to attack the queen directly, for she still retained her influence over Henry. Her enemies hoped that by selecting one or more of her friends they might wring out of them by the torture, evidence enough to warrant them in bringing an accusation against her.
They, therefore, made common cause with Anne Askew's husband, and determined to make Anne the means of involving her royal friend and benefactress in the ruin they designed for every English Protestant. They accordingly surrounded her with spies, whose business it was to note and report every act or utterance upon which a charge of heresy could be based.
One of these, a worthless wretch named Wadloe, took lodgings next door to her house, and even went so far as to enter her residence and watch her through the door of her sleeping apartment. He could discover nothing, however, and being conscience stricken went back to his employers with this confession: " She is the most devout woman I have ever known ; for at midnight she begins to pray, and ceases not for many hours, when I and others are addressing ourselves to sleep and work." The priests kept up their watch upon her, however. They wished to destroy her because of her renunciation of their creed and practices, and they also hoped to wring from her in the agony of torture some confession which would be damaging to the queen.
Her First Arrest and Examination
They were at length rewarded for their vigilance. She was heard to say she had rather read five lines in the Bible than hear five masses in the chapel. She also expressed her disbelief as to the efficacy of the sacrament of the eucharist being dependent on the character or intention of the priest; and observed that whatever was the character or intention of the priest who administered to her the eucharist, he could not prevent her from receiving spiritually the body and blood of Christ. These expressions were promptly reported to the priests, who obtained from the civil authorities a warrant for her arrest on the charge of heresy.
In March, 1545, she was brought before a commission in London, and examined concerning her belief. In this, as in all her subsequent examinations, the question most strongly pressed was, what her sentiments were as to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. She refused to answer some of the questions, knowing the malice of her judges, and not wishing to criminate herself. Others she answered with great readiness and freedom. The chief examiner was Christopher Dare, who began by asking her: " Do you believe that the sacrament upon the altar is the very body and blood of Christ?"
If she had answered frankly according to her belief she would have rendered further examination useless, and her judges could have condemned her to death upon this confession. She was aware of this, and was determined not- to gratify them, or to criminate herself, so she said to Christopher Dare: "Please tell me why St. Stephen was stoned to death?" " I cannot tell," replied Dare. "Neither will I tell you whether I do or do not believe the sacrament upon the altar to be the very body and blood of Christ."
"Why did you say," asked Dare, " that you would rather read five lines in the Bible than hear five masses in' the church ?" "I confess that I said no less," she answered, " because the one greatly edifies me, the other nothing at all." Then, without censuring the idolatry of the Mass, for she had no wish to needlessly prejudice her case, she quoted in proof of the uselessness of performing the service connected with it in a tongue not understood by the people, the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. 14:8), "If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" She also quoted the 19th verse of the same chapter: " In the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue."
They asked her many other questions, among others what she thought of the book the king had written against Luther, and which had won him from the Pope the title of "Defender of the Faith." They hoped she would answer that she did not approve it, and thus make the king her enemy, for he was merciless to those who failed to praise his book; but, fortunately for her, she was able to answer, "I can pronounce no judgment upon it, as I never saw it." They also asked her, "Do you not think that private masses help souls departed ?" "It is great idolatry," she answered, "to believe more in these than in the death which Christ died for us."
Her First Imprisonment
Finding it impossible to elicit anything from her, the examination was brought to a close, and she was sent to the Lord Mayor, who undertook to question her, but with no better success. He then committed her to prison, although there was no law to justify him in his act. Her friends endeavored to procure her release on bail, but the priests took care to prevent it, and she lay for seven days in the Compter prison, no one being allowed to speak with her during that time save a priest who was sent by the Bishop of Winchester, the infamous Gardiner, to question her. He asked her this question: " If the host should fall, and a beast should eat it, does the beast receive God or no?" "Seeing you have taken the trouble to ask this question," she replied, " I desire you also to take the trouble to answer it yourself: for I will not, because I perceive you all come to tempt me."
Her cousin Brittayne, who was much attached to her, now endeavored to secure her release on bail. He appealed to the Lord Mayor to liberate her, but the magistrate told him that, as this was the Church's matter, he could not set her free without the consent of the Bishop of London. Bonner, the prelate referred to, professed the greatest interest in her case, assured her cousin that he would do everything in his power to obtain her freedom, and urged him to advise her to speak her sentiments freely. The crafty bishop was fully resolved to burn Anne Askew, but he wished to beguile her into making an open confession of heresy, which he might use as a pretext for her murder. He had her brought before him on the 25th of March, and finding that he could not draw anything from her which would incriminate her, taunted her with the cowardly insinuation that her life was not as pure as the Scriptures she read required. Looking him full in the face, she answered calmly: "I would, my lord, that all men knew my conversation and living in all points; for I am so sure of my self this hour, that there is none able to prove any dishonesty in me. If you know any that can do it, I pray you bring them forth."
Finding it impossible to make her utter anything for which she could be punished, the bishop drew up a confession, which he ordered her to sign.

This confession would have committed her to the very doctrines she condemned, and she refused to sign it. At length, in compliance with the entreaties of her friends who were seeking her release, she wrote under the confession: "I, Anne Askew, do believe all things contained in the faith of the Catholic Church."
Bonner burst into a furious passion as he read this subscription, well knowing that by it she did not mean the "Roman Catholic Church", and it was with difficulty that he could be brought to a sufficient degree of calmness to consent to her release. Bail was given, and she was set at liberty. But the priests were resolved that she should not escape them. Her youth, her beauty, her intellectual attainments, and her virtues were winning her too many friends, and she was too dangerous a heretic to be suffered to live. In less than three months she was again a prisoner in their hands. She was brought before the Lords of the Privy Council at Greenwich, and by them sent to Newgate prison, to be dealt with according to the law.
Anne Before the King's Privy Council
The Lord Chancellor of England at this time was Thomas Wriothesley, one of the cruelest and most bigoted Romanists that ever held power in England. He was intimately associated with the old Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner in all the measures brought forward by the Romanist party to throttle the Reformation. He now undertook the prosecution of the beautiful woman whose innocence and pure womanliness had no power to touch his cruel heart. He caused her to be brought before the council on the 25th of June, and subjected her to an examination which lasted for five hours. He asked her what was her opinion as to the bread in the eucharist. She replied: "I believe that as oft as I, in a Christian congregation, receive the bread in remembrance of Christ's death, and with thanksgiving, according to His holy institution, I receive therewith the fruits also of His most glorious passion." Bishop Gardiner interrupted her, angrily, and ordered her to give a direct answer, and not to speak in parables, at the same time calling her a parrot. " I am ready," she said, calmly, "to suffer all things at your hands; not only your rebukes, but all that shall follow besides, yea, and that gladly."
The next day her examination was resumed, and her answers not being satisfactory to Gardiner, that merciless prelate cried out to her, "You will be burned." She answered: "I have searched all the Scriptures, yet could I never find that Christ or His apostles put any creature to death." Mr. Paget, one of the council, now asked her, more kindly than the others had done: " How can you avoid the very words of Christ, 'Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you?'" "Christ's meaning in that passage, "she

replied, "is similar to the meaning of those other places of Scripture, 'I am the door,' 'I am the vine,' 'Behold the Lamb of God,' 'That rock was Christ,' and such like. You are not in these texts to take Christ for the material thing which He is signified by, for then you will make Him a very door, a vine, a lamb, a stone, quite contrary to the Holy Ghost's meaning. All these indeed do signify Christ, even as the bread signifies His body in that place. And though He said there, 'Take, eat this in remembrance of me,' yet did He not bid them hang up that bread in a pix and make it a god, or bow to it'".
In Newgate Prison
She was sent back to Newgate, and the next day was very ill. Believing that she was dying, she requested leave to receive a visit from the good Hugh Latimer, who afterwards proved so faithful a witness for Christ, that he might comfort her with his godly counsel, but her request was refused. It was now very plain to her that her enemies were resolved upon her death. She was a brave woman, as all her history proves, and she was a sincere Christian as well. She turned for support and comfort to the only true source, and she found strength to bear all her trials with Christian fortitude and meekness. Her feelings are well described in the following poem, written by her during her imprisonment in Newgate:
Like as the armed knight,
Appointed to the field,
With this world will I fight,
And Christ shall be my shield.


Faith is that weapon strong,
Which will not fail at need;
My foes, therefore, among,
Therewith will I proceed.


As it is had in strength
And force of Christ's way,
It will prevail at length,
Though all the devils say nay.


Faith in the fathers old
Obtained righteousness;
Which makes me very bold
To fear no world's distress.


I now rejoice in heart,
And hope bids me do so;
For Christ will take my part,
And ease me of my woe.


Thou say'st, Lord, whoso knock
To them Thou wilt attend;
Undo, therefore, the lock,
And Thy strong power send.


More en'mies now I have
Than hairs upon my head:
Let them not me deprave,
But fight Thou in my stead.


On Thee my care I cast,
For all their cruel spite;
I set not by their haste,
For Thou art my delight.


I am not she that list
My anchor to let fall,
For every drizzling mist,
My ship substantial.


Not oft use I to write,
In prose, nor yet in rhyme;
Yet will I show one sight
That I saw in my time.


I saw a royal throne,
Where Justice should have sit,
But in her stead was one
Of moody, cruel wit.


Absorbed was righteousness,
As of the raging flood;
Satan, in his excess,
Sucked up the guiltless blood.


Then thought I, Jesus, Lord,
When Thou shalt judge us all,
Hard is it to record
On these men what will fall.


Yet, Lord, I Thee desire,
For that they do to me,
Let them not taste the hire
Of their iniquity.
Second Examination by the Privy Council
In all her previous examinations, Anne had avoided a direct answer to the question concerning her faith in the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but now feeling that her enemies were determined to kill her, and that she had no longer anything to gain by refusing to answer their questions, she wrote to the Privy Council a plain statement of her belief, in these words:
"That the sacramental bread was left us to be received with thanksgiving in remembrance of Christ's death, the only remedy of our soul's recovery, and that thereby we also receive the whole benefits and fruits of His most glorious passion."
On Monday, June 28th, she was taken to Guildhall to be examined again by the council. She was taunted with being a heretic, but she denied the imputation, and declared that she had done nothing for which she deserved death by the law of God. When they asked her if she denied the Sacrament of the eucharist to be Christ's body and blood, she answered, without hesitation:" Yes, for the same Son of God that was born of the Virgin Mary is now glorious in Heaven, and will come again from thence at the last day in like manner as He went up. And as to what you call your God, it is but a piece of bread. As an additional proof of this (mark it when you please), let it lie in the pix but three months and it will be mouldy, and so turn to nothing that is good. I am therefore persuaded that it cannot be God."
"Do you deny," she was asked, "the bread in the pix to be God?" "God is a spirit," she replied, "and not a wafer-cake, and He is to be worshiped in spirit and in truth, and not by the impious superstitious homage paid to a wafer, converted, by Popish jugglery, into a God."
"Do you plainly deny Christ to be in the Sacrament?" she was asked again. "I believe,"she answered, "the eternal Son of God not to dwell there." She fortified her declaration—she quoted many passages of Scripture. " I neither wish death," she concluded, "nor fear his might. God have the praise thereof with thanks."
The council urged her to take the benefit of a priest, but she replied, with a smile, that she would confess her sins to God, from whom alone she could obtain absolution.
The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Martin Bowes, now asked and received permission to question her. "Thou foolish woman," he began, "sayest thou that the priest cannot make the body of Christ?" "I say so, my lord," replied Anne, "for I have read that God made man, but that man can make God I never yet read, nor I suppose ever shall."
"Thou foolish woman!" continued the pompous magistrate, "after the words of consecration, is it not the Lord's body?" "No, it is but consecrated or sacramental bread," she answered. "What if a mouse eat it after the consecration?" asked the mayor, confident of annihilating her with this argument. "What shall become of the mouse? What sayest thou, foolish woman?" Anne Askew gazed at him a moment, and then asked, quietly: "What shall become of it, say you, my lord?" "I say that the mouse is damned," he answered, quickly. "Alack! poor mouse!" she exclaimed, with mock pity.
Some of the council burst into a laugh at these words, and seeing how badly their champion was faring at the hands of Mistress Anne, they put a stop to his question ing, and "proceeded," says Strype, "to the butchery they intended before they came thither."
Condemned Without a Proper Trial
By the law of England, Anne Askew was entitled to an open trial by jury, but the Roman Catholic influence was strong enough in the council to deprive her of this right. The Lord Chancellor Wriothesley and Bishop Gardiner exerted themselves to induce the council to condemn her, and were successful in their efforts.
There is nothing so hateful to Rome as civil freedom, and nothing which gives her greater delight than the trampling down of the barriers with which the laws of a country encompass that freedom. On the 28th of June, Anne was condemned by the council in company with Christopher White, and a Mr. Adams, a tailor. They were all three informed that they had been found guilty of heresy by their own confessions. The lord chancellor then read to them the sentence of the council, which was that they should be burned at the stake. They were then sent back to Newgate.
Back in Newgate Prison
Anne now appealed to the king for justice, but her appeal fell upon an ear of stone. Henry was too intensely selfish to care for the life of this poor woman, and he left her case in the hands of the priests, her sworn enemies. These people endeavored to make it appear that her appeal was based upon her fear of death ; but this was not so. She did not fear death, but she wished to have justice done her. She felt that the law was being violated in her case, and that her rights as an English woman were being trampled under foot by the myrmidons of the Pope, and she was brave enough to contend for them to the last. In a letter to her old tutor, John Lascels, who suffered with her, she thus meets this charge of cowardice: "Friend, most dearly beloved in God, I marvel not a little what should move you to judge in me so slender a faith as to fear death, which is the end of all misery. In the Lord, I desire of you not to believe of me such wickedness ; for I doubt not, but God will perform His work in me, like as He hath began."
The Romanists now began to annoy her with efforts to induce her to recant. They sent to her Nicholas Shaxton, the apostate ex-Bishop of Salisbury, and others, who did their utmost, by promises of mercy and freedom, to move her. She remained firm, however, and told Shaxton to his face that it had been good for him if he had never been born. When her visitors left her she was sent to the Tower of London—the day being the 13th of July—where, at three o'clock in the afternoon, she underwent a new examination.
Anne's Enemies Resort to Torture
This examination was conducted by the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, who wished to compel her to say something that would incriminate the queen, or the Duchess of Suffolk, the Countess of Sussex, the Countess of Hertford, Lady Denny, or Lady Fitzwilliams, all of whom the Romanists were anxious to destroy. Some of these ladies had been very kind to her since her imprisonment. The chancellor plied her with questions, but could discover nothing to the prejudice of these ladies. He then ordered her to be stretched upon the rack, in order to force her through sheer suffering to say something that he might twist into an accusation against the ladies mentioned. She was fastened to the rack, and the levers were turned, causing her the keenest suffering. She bore the cruel torture without a cry or a murmur. The torture of the rack, or stretching, was applied in various ways, the object being always to cause the victim to suffer by the stretching.
The chancellor was furious at not being able to extort anything from her, and ordered the torture to be increased ; but the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Anthony Knevet, ordered the jailors to release her. Wriothesley angrily commanded the lieutenant to obey him, but Sir Anthony told him that he commanded in the Tower, and reminded the chancellor that he had not the king's order to put the prisoner to the torture, and that he, the lieutenant, was incurring a serious risk in allowing one of the king's subjects to be racked without express orders from the king.
Wriothesley was a true son of the Romish Church, and he was not to be stopped in his cruelty. He threw off his gown, and called on Richard Rich, who had accompanied him, and who was afterwards lord chancellor, to do likewise. Then these brutal men themselves seized hold of the levers. The chancellor, pausing a moment, asked Anne if she was with child.
"Ye shall not need to spare for that," replied the heroic woman. "Do your wills upon me." The chancellor and Rich then applied themselves to their horrid task. The rack was usually a stout wooden frame with two rollers or windlasses, one at each end, placed horizontally, seven feet apart. The arms and feet of the victims were fastened to these rollers by sharp, cutting cords. The windlasses were then turned by levers, until the body of the victim was in a state of tension, some times so great as not only to dislocate the limbs, but to tear the muscles. The agony of the sufferer was also increased by the cords cutting through the ankles and wrists to the very bone. The rack has always been a favorite instrument of punishment with the Romish Church. The victim on the rack was a woman whose helplessness and gentleness might have moved any hearts but those hardened by the religion of Rome. They were merciless, and with their own hands they stretched her body until her joints were pulled asunder, and her bones almost broken. She endured it all, however, and to the end refused to say one word which might compromise any one who had befriended her, or whom she had reason to think held the same faith as herself. Nothing but the fear that she would die under the torture made these wretches desist.
As soon as she was released from the rack, she swooned from the awful agony. Restoratives were applied and her consciousness returned. Then the brutal chancellor kept her sitting for two hours on the bare floor, while he urged her to renounce her faith. After this, she says, in her touching narrative of her sufferings, "was I brought to a house, and laid in a bed, with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job; I thank my Lord God therefor."
Her words do not convey a fair idea of her condition. The torture had deprived her of the use of her limbs, which had been pulled apart, and her sufferings were intense. Her condition was such that she could have lived but a short time at the best, for it was not possible for a human body to rally from injuries such as she had received.
The lieutenant of the Tower set out for the king's presence immediately upon the departure of the chancellor, who had threatened him with the royal displeasure for refusing to continue the torture. He reached the palace before the chancellor, and gave the king an exact account of the affair, declaring that he had not the heart to torture a poor woman when it was useless, without express orders from his majesty. Henry approved his conduct, and sharply censured the chancellor. There the matter ended, and he allowed the priests and their followers to work their will on the poor victim whom they had already brought down to the gates of death.
The chancellor and the Privy Council endeavored to prevent their treatment of Anne from becoming known, but without effect. They were ashamed that their cowardly brutality should be made known to the people. The chancellor sent her a message that if she would change her faith she should want for nothing, but that if she continued obstinate she should be sent to Newgate and put to death. She replied that she would rather die than break her faith.
A Vain Attempt to Discredit Her
Bonner and his associates, who were adepts at circulating false reports in such cases, endeavored to damage their victim in the eyes of the people by printing and circulating the paper which he had written after her first imprisonment, and which she had refused to sign. The reader will remember that she had written under this paper, "I, Anne Askew, do believe all things contained in the faith of the Catholic Church." Now, however, Bonner printed the paper with her unqualified signature to it, and with the names of upwards of a dozen of ecclesiastics and laymen appended to it as witnesses. It was a trick worthy of its author. She at once drew up an answer, in which she utterly denied the genuineness of the document printed by Bonner, and declared that she had never, at any time since her trials began, ceased to profess the faith she then held. She was then committed to Newgate, and while she lay in prison there, suffering and sore from the effects of her torture, she drew up the following confession of her faith:
"I, Anne Askew, of good memory, although my merciful Father hath given me the bread of adversity and the water of trouble, yet not so much as my sins have deserved, do confess myself here a sinner before the throne of His heavenly Majesty, desiring His eternal mercy. And forasmuch as I am by the law unrighteously condemned for an evil-doer concerning opinions, I take the same most merciful God of mine, who hath made both heaven and earth, to record that I hold no opinions contrary to His Holy Word. And I trust in my merciful Lord, who is the giver of all grace, that He will graciously assist me against all evil opinions, which are contrary to His most blessed verity. For I take Him to witness that I do, and will unto my life's end, utterly abhor them to the uttermost of my power.
"But this is the heresy which they report me to hold: That after the priest hath spoken the words of consecration, there remaineth bread still. They both say, and also teach it for a necessary article of faith, that after those words are once spoken, there remaineth no bread, but even the selfsame body that hung upon the cross on Good Friday, both flesh, blood, and bone. To this belief of theirs, say I nay. For then were our common creed false, which saith, 'that He sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Lo, this is the heresy that I hold, and for it must suffer the death. But as touching the holy and blessed supper of the Lord, I believe it to be a most necessary remembrance of His glorious sufferings and death. Moreover, I believe as much therein as my eternal and only Redeemer, Jesus Christ, would I should believe.
"Finally, I believe all those Scriptures to be true which He hath confirmed with His most precious blood. Yea, and as St. Paul saith, those Scriptures are sufficient for our learning and salvation that Christ hath left here with us ; so that I believe we need no unwritten verities to rule His Church with. Therefore look what He hath said unto me with His own mouth in His holy Gospel, that have I, with God's grace, closed up in my heart. And my full trust is, as David saith, that it shall be a lantern to my footsteps.
"There be some that do say that I deny the eucharist, or Sacrament of thanksgiving ; but those people do untruly report of me. For I both say and believe it, that if it were ordered like as Christ instituted and left it, a most singular comfort it were unto us all. But as concerning your Mass, as it is now used in our days, I do say and believe it to be the most abominable idol that is in the world; for my God will not be eaten with teeth, neither yet dieth He again. And upon these words that I have now spoken will I suffer death."
Throughout the whole of her persecution, Anne Askew had preserved the patient sweetness of her demeanor. All the cruelties of her enemies had been powerless to change this, or to wring from her one unchristian complaint or unwomanly word. She was only in her twenty-fifth year, and life was very sweet to her, but not so sweet as to make it worth the sacrifice of her conscience. She did not desire martyrdom, but she did not shrink from it, and she bore all her sufferings with a firmness and gentleness never surpassed in the annals of Christian heroism. Not once did she revile her enemies, but like her blessed Master she prayed for her murderers, that they might be saved from the just punishment of their crimes.
At length the day of her execution arrived. Three stakes were set up in front of St. Bartholomew's Church at Smithfield, and the space surrounding them enclosed with a railing to keep off the crowd. A dense concourse of people filled the street, and lined the windows and housetops commanding a view of the stake. A platform had been erected at the side of the church, and on this sat the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, the old Duke of Norfolk, the old Earl of Bedford, the Lord Mayor of London, and several other leaders of the Papist party.
Numerous monks and priests were scattered through the crowd, but there were also many friends and sympathizers of the martyrs, who had come as a matter of duty to witness the death of their friends, and to cheer them, if possible, with their prayers or their exhortations. Anne Askew, being unable to walk or stand, in consequence of her torture upon the rack, was brought in a chair to the stake, where she was fastened to the post by an iron chain passed about her waist, and was thus held up to it.
Three other victims of Rome were brought out to die with her. They were, John Lascels, a former member of the king's household and Anne's old tutor, Nicholas Belenean, a priest of Shropshire, and John Adams, a tailor, all condemned for holding the opinions for which Anne was to suffer. Anne was fastened to a separate stake, and the others to the remaining two. They spoke to each other constantly words of comfort and encouragement, and it was evident to all that the men became more intrepid and resolute on witnessing the courage and hearing the Christian exhortations of the beautiful woman who was to die with them. As for Anne, her face was calm and peaceful. "She had an angel's countenance, and a smiling face," says one who witnessed her death.
When the preparations were completed, the renegade Bishop Shaxton mounted the pulpit which had been erected in the square, and began to preach to the martyrs, urging them to repent of their sins and be reconciled to the Church of Rome. His words were in vain, however. In the eyes of the martyrs he was a traitor who had betrayed his Lord as basely as Judas had done, and he was the last man in the world that could have influenced them at such a time. Anne, in spite of her sufferings, followed him with marked attention throughout his discourse. When he spoke the truth she expressed her assent audibly, but when he advanced anything contrary to Scripture, she exclaimed: "There he misseth, and speaketh without the book."
The sermon being ended, the martyrs began their prayers—the last they were to utter on earth. Then the lord chancellor, in accordance with the law of Parliament, sent to Anne a letter sealed with the great seal of England, offering her the king's pardon if she would abjure her heretical opinions. She would not even look at the document, but waved the messenger back, saying, calmly and firmly: "I am not come here to deny my Lord and Master." The same offer was made to each of the other three martyrs, but they followed the example of their heroic sister in the faith, and refused to accept it. The messenger then returned to the platform on which the chancellor and the Roman Catholic nobles were sitting, and the Lord Mayor, rising to his feet, exclaimed, with a loud voice: "Fiat justitia! "
The reeds were immediately kindled, and the martyrs were instantly enveloped in the flames and smoke. Powder had been placed about their persons for the purpose of ending their sufferings speedily, and in a little while this exploded, killing them all instantly.
Up to the time of the lighting of the fire, the sky had been fair and peaceful, but the torch had hardly been applied to the reeds when the heavens were suddenly covered with dark clouds. There was a sharp peal of thunder, and then a slight shower of rain descended. This strange occurrence produced a profound impression upon the multitude assembled about the stake. The Reformers who were present cried out that it was a manifestation of God's displeasure at the cruel murder of his servants ; but the priests and monks standing by cried, ferociously: "They are damned! They are damned!" At the same time, they gnashed their teeth in impotent rage at the martyrs, whose lifeless bodies were being fast consumed by the flames; but whose souls had passed through the gates of affliction to the heavenly land, where the power and malice of Rome could not follow them.
So died Anne Askew, one of the noblest and purest witnesses of the truth of which the Christian Church can boast. She gave her life gladly for Christ, and she has her reward in the grateful reverence which is paid to her memory by the Church of Christ in every land.
Conclusion
What lessons can we take home with us? Have you been moved while reading this? It is well to be moved; but emotion is a transient thing. It may not do us any good at all: it all depends on what we do about it. So let's think about how we can profit from what we have just heard.
Ladies, there is a lesson for you in this -- spiritual warfare is not just for the guys. You too must be prepared to face severe temptation, and to overcome it. All of us are warriors, and we must either fight or die. There is no third option, no exemption for the fair sex.
And men, what a challenge it is to us that a woman showed such immense courage and constancy! It is not, by far, the only such case: many women have put men to shame by their constancy in the hour of persecution. Let us remember that we are men when such trials come upon us!
We all have our heroes, and a notion of what heroism is. Sadly the people we admire are often not really that admirable -- celebrities and athletes, for example. They may give a good example of overcoming some adversity, or adhering to a purpose -- but what purpose! Their personal victories don't even save anybody's life, much less save souls! On the other hand, we call some of our policemen, firemen and servicemen heroes; and so we should. For someone to risk his life to protect someone from danger, or in defense of hearth and home is commendable.
But the Christian martyrs show us true heroism! These die for something far nobler still -- for God and His truth, for His cause in this world! We ought to admire them. More, we ought to imitate them. Their names should be familiar in our households, and the role models for our children. It is not just what they died for that is admirable: it is how they died. Many a time, an enemy of truth was converted by observing the way that a martyr faced death. Such selfless courage is unexampled elsewhere in all the annals of the world!
But there is also great hope to be gained from the lives of the martyrs. Many -- yea, most of them were ordinary people, unknown, for the most part, to their own generation. Like Anne Askew, they had no idea of what they were about to face until they became the targets of an ever-escalating assault of the evil powers. Yet she rose to the occasion, by the grace of God. It was He who had chosen her, and who had fore-ordained that she would be honored with the gift of martyrdom. It was He who sustained her in the long hours of extreme suffering to which she was subjected. She

was given a peaceful heart and a gracious disposition to those who hated her so intensely. To the end, she was seeking the good of her enemies, bearing constant witness to the truth, even while chained to the stake. We too can triumph like this! If we will trust God, then grace will be given to us when we shall have need of it.
Sola Deo Gloria!
The End

Blaming God
 
Nothing is more natural or more common than for human beings to ask “Why?”  This is especially true when we suffer disappointment, loss, sickness; or when we are suddenly faced with the prospect of death.  Sometimes the why is a challenge hurled at the heavens; an accusation of unfairness aimed at the God whom we instinctively blame for the unexpected sorrow that so often invades our lives. 
 
Often, that challenge could be easily answered; since the challenger has probably neglected and provoked God for most of his life.  “Why not?” He might with justice demand.  “What have you done to render me the honor or the  gratitude or the respect that I deserve from you as the Author of your being, and the providential support of your life?  I have given you every joy you have ever known.  I have preserved you from countless dangers that might have ended your life before now.  Why should I not send you the trouble that you have deserved from Me?”  Instead of blaming God when things don't go as we want them to, we ought to take the opportunity to look within and ask if we have ever deserved otherwise.

 
The Why of Despair
 
But sometimes “Why?” is not a challenge.  Sometimes it is simply despair.  We are sure there is no answer to the question, but we ask it anyway, just to let out our feeling of unbearable and irreparable loss.  We don't expect an answer, because we do not believe.  This is a terrible mistake; for if we really asked God the reason for our trouble – if we were ready to listen to His voice – He would give us the answer.  And the answer would not lead us to despair; but to hope and peace and joy, and ultimately to eternal life!
 
The answer is simple, and it has been said so many times from the foundation of the world, that it is a great pity so few have found it!  The wise man wrote about it three thousand years ago:
 
“Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?   She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.  She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.  Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.  O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.  Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.  For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.  All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.  They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.   Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.   For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. (Proverbs 8:1-11) 

 
Happiness was the Original Plan
 
When God made man, He meant for him to be perfectly happy.  There was nothing lacking to him.  He had perfect health, a beautiful companion, a palatial home in a garden planted by God Himself, under cloudless skies, abundant food of every kind of delicious fruit, unpolluted air and water, peace and quiet and perfect security, an endless variety of trees and plants and harmless animals to wonder at.  Most of all, he had the fellowship and the goodwill of his Creator.  (God is not the monster that some men make him out to be.  He is really the best friend anyone can have.)
 
Man was given an understanding of the will and law of God when he was created.  He didn't have to go to school to learn what he was, why he had been made, or what he was supposed to do.  If he had a question about anything, or a problem of any kind, he had an Infallible One to ask.  He would never get rebuffed or made to feel stupid for asking.  He would never catch God on a bad day, or find Him too busy to be bothered.  He must have had a lot of questions, starting out from scratch in a brand new world, and with no Encyclopedia Britannica or Internet; and every time he got an answer, he also had with it a new discovery of the wisdom and power and goodness of God!
 
There was just one special rule.  It was apparently given just as a test.  The rule was simple and plain and abundantly clear.  There it was, from the start: “You can eat the fruit of every tree in the whole garden – except this one.”  How fair is that!


The Fall of Man
 
We do not know how long this idyllic state lasted – days, or months, or years.  The Bible doesn't say.  But one day the Tempter appeared and seduced Adam and Eve into an act of foolish and wanton disobedience.  They had absolutely nothing to gain by breaking the one special rule; but Satan managed to convince Eve that the rule was designed to hold them back from reaching their potential.  He made her think she was downtrodden and abused by this God who had never given them a reason to doubt His love and goodness.  He instigated doubt in her mind, where there had never been anything before but faith and trust.  He convinced her that the only sensible thing to do was to disobey the silly commandment and become the woman she was meant to be, living above all such arbitrary restrictions.  Somehow, he got her to swallow the whole thing, hook, line and sinker.  Her husband followed her lead, knowing full well that none of it was true; for the Bible tells us that “Adam was not deceived.”  Why did he go along?  I don't know, and no one else does either.  The fact is that he did, and he joined his wife in the act that brought them and us into a state of sin and misery.
 
Before the fall, no one died, got sick, or suffered in any way.  There was no hunger or thirst, no money woes, no fighting or killing, no deadly storms, no earthquakes or landslides.  There was no oppressor or tyrant or IRS.  Not so now.  Death was the threatened punishment for breaking the rule; and now death in all its forms, and all the forms of suffering that lead to it began to come on the scene.  They would be evicted from Paradise, or course.  Hard labor for the man, and a different kind of “hard labor” for the woman were appointed as a part of the punishment; as was scarcity of good food and family strife:
 
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.  17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;  18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;  19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:16-19)
 


Not Without Hope
 
This was a curse.  It was meant as the Divine expression of His displeasure at the evil they had done.  But it was more than this; for God had foreseen the whole sad affair, and He had intended from the first to rescue this pair from the ruin they had brought upon themselves.  A hint of this is seen in the fact that they did not die right away.  Another was in the promise that “the seed of the woman” would one day “crush the head” of the serpent.  A third is that God clothed them with skins, which almost certainly implies that an animal was slain, and a blood sacrifice was made for them.  This could not save them; but it held out the hope that a better sacrifice would someday be offered that would.  This sacrifice was Jesus Christ himself, who offered Himself without spot unto God for us.
 
But there was a rupture in the beautiful relationship with Him that they had formerly enjoyed, which was a monumental tragedy.  God could no longer treat them the same, for now their nature had been permanently corrupted.  They could no longer be trusted to live under ideal conditions; they would only abuse it, like spoiled children, and grow worse and worse.  Sometimes there must be consequences.  Something had to be done to make sure that they never could forget where they came from, what they once had, what had happened, and why.  They were cast out of Paradise – never to return while they lived.


God's Rights
 
Sorrow is a conspicuous part of our inheritance in this world.  No one is exempt.  This is not an accident; it is designed to punish those who never repent and turn to God; but its beneficent purpose is to save us from ourselves.  God will not allow us to forget that He is there.  Why should He?  Has He no rights?  Does mankind have rights, and not God?  God not only has rights, but it is entirely fitting that He should insist on them, and punish those who refuse to render Him what they owe.  Parents who care for their children will never allow them to walk all over them; for to thus permit them to be ungrateful and disrespectful to their parents would be to teach them to despise all authority, and to take everyone for granted.  No decent person would want to be responsible for rearing such a monster and loosing it on the world.  Besides, such children become delinquents and criminals, and usually come to a bad end.  This kind of indulgence and permissiveness would not be a kindness to them, but cruel neglect.  So it is with God and his children: He will not be the cause of their delinquency.

 
The Conclusion
 
That, in short, is the answer to our question: that is why.  It is not the whole answer: but it is true as far as it goes.  God sends sorrow and trouble into every life, including yours and mine, to punish mankind for its disobedience, to uphold His honor, to make us think of Him, and to bring us to repentance.  If we respond to suffering in the right way, we will find that it is not only necessary, but highly beneficial to our souls.  If, on the other hand, we rebel against God's almighty hand upon us, we will only compound our guilt and risk the eternal misery that God has prepared for the impenitent.  Seek the Lord while He may be found!  Turn the evil into good by using it to learn of your true plight, and the remedy that a good God has provided.  Jesus says:
 
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)
 
 
Howard Douglas King
December 1, 2015

[Merle D'daubigne, in his great work, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, records the exploits of the mighty men of God who gave us our Bible, our treasured theological works and sermons, our confessions of faith, and our Protestant churches themselves.  But he also recounts some of the contributions of ordinary people who suffered for the sake of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  I would like to remember a few of them to you tonight.  I do not fear that their Lord will fail to vindicate any of them in the last day; yet I think it fitting, on this day when we commemorate the Great Reformation, that we honor the faithfulness of these victims of cruel Antichrist.  And should it please the Lord to bring us into the fiery furnace of persecution, my prayer is that we receive grace to emulate their courageous confession of Christ “unto death”.]
 


A MAN NAMED JOHN BROWN
 
In the spring of 1517—the year in which Luther posted up his theses—a priest, whose manners announced a man swollen with pride, happened to be on board the passage-boat from London to Gravesend with an intelligent and pious Christian of Ashford, by name John Brown. The passengers, as they floated down the stream, were amusing themselves by watching the banks glide away from them, when the priest, turning towards Brown, said to him insolently: "You are too near me, get farther off.  Do you know who I am?"—"No, sir," answered Brown.—"Well, then, you must know that I am a priest."—"Indeed, sir; are you a parson, or vicar, or a lady's chaplain?"—"No; I am a soul-priest," he haughtily replied; "I sing mass to save souls."—"Do you, sir," rejoined Brown somewhat ironically, "that is well done; and can you tell me where you find the soul when you begin the mass?"—"I cannot," said the priest.—"And where you leave it when the mass is ended?"—"I do not know."—"What!" continued Brown with marks of astonishment, "you do not know where you find the soul or where you leave it ... and yet you say that you save it!"—"Go thy ways," said the priest angrily, "thou art a heretic, and I will be even with thee."  Thenceforward the priest and his neighbour conversed no more together.  At last they reached Gravesend, and the boat anchored.

As soon as the priest had landed, he hastened to two of his friends, Walter and William More, and all three mounting their horses, set off for Canterbury, and denounced Brown to the archbishop.



Brown put to the torture

In the meantime John Brown had reached home.  Three days later, his wife, Elizabeth, who had just left her chamber, went to church, dressed all in white, to return thanks to God for delivering her in the perils of childbirth.  Her husband, assisted by her daughter Alice and the maid-servant, were preparing for their friends the feast usual on such occasions, and they had all of them taken their seats at table, joy beaming on every face, when the street-door was abruptly opened, and Chilton, the constable, a cruel and savage man, accompanied by several of the archbishop's apparitors, seized upon the worthy townsman.  All sprang from their seats in alarm; Elizabeth and Alice uttered the most heart-rending cries; but the primate's officers, without showing any emotion, pulled Brown out of the house, and placed him on horseback, tying his feet under the animal's belly.   It is a serious matter to jest with a priest.  The cavalcade rode off quickly, and Brown was thrown into prison, and there left forty days.

At the end of this time, the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of Rochester called before them the impudent fellow who doubted whether a priest's mass could save souls, and required him to retract this "blasphemy."  But Brown, if he did not believe in the mass, believed in the Gospel: "Christ was once offered," he said, "to take away the sins of many.  It is by this sacrifice we are saved, and not by the repetitions of the priests."  At this reply the archbishop made a sign to the executioners, one of whom took off the shoes and stockings of this pious Christian, while the other brought in a pan of burning coals, upon which they set the martyr's feet.

The English laws in truth forbade torture to be inflicted on any subject of the crown, but the clergy thought themselves above the laws.  "Confess the efficacy of the mass," cried the two bishops to poor Brown.  "If I deny my Lord upon earth," he replied, "He will deny me before his Father in heaven."  The flesh was burnt off the soles of the feet even to the bones, and still John Brown remained unshaken.  The bishops therefore ordered him to be given over to the secular arm that he might be burnt alive.

On the Saturday preceding the festival of Pentecost, in the year 1517, the martyr was led back to Ashford, where he arrived just as the day was drawing to a close.  A number of idle persons were collected in the street, and among them was Brown's maid-servant, who ran off crying to the house, and told her mistress: "I have seen him!... He was bound, and they were taking him to prison."  Elizabeth hastened to her husband and found him sitting with his feet in the stocks, his features changed by suffering, and expecting to be burnt alive on the morrow.  The poor woman sat down beside him, weeping most bitterly, while he, being hindered by his chains, could not so much as bend towards her.  "I cannot set my feet to the ground," said he, "for bishops have burnt them to the bones; but they could not burn my tongue and prevent my confessing the Lord.... O Elizabeth! ... continue to love him for He is good; and bring up our children in his fear."


His Martyrdom
On the following morning—it was Whitsunday—the brutal Chilton and his assistants led Brown to the place of execution, and fastened him to the stake.  Elizabeth and Alice, with his other children and his friends, desirous of receiving his last sigh, surrounded the pile, uttering cries of anguish.  The fagots were set on fire, while Brown, calm and collected, and full of confidence in the blood of the Saviour, clasped his hands, and repeated a hymn.  Soon the martyr was silent: the flames had consumed their victim.  Such were the scenes passing in England shortly before the Reformation.



 
HENRY MONMOUTH
 
[The merchant, Henry Monmouth, was a patron of the Reformation in England in its earliest days.  Among his imports from Germany were the writings of Luther, hidden in grain sacks – and later, the New Testaments and other works of his friend, William Tyndale, similarly concealed.]

The adversaries of the gospel, proud of [Bilney's recantation], now desired a more glorious victory.  If they could not reach Tyndale, had they not in London the patron of his work, Monmouth, the most influential of the merchants, and a follower of the true faith?  The clergy had made religion their business, and the Reformation restored it to the people.  Nothing offended the priests so much, as that laymen should claim the right to believe without their intervention, and even to propagate the faith.

Sir Thomas More, one of the most amiable men of the sixteenth century, participated in their hatred.  He wrote to Cochlæus: "Germany now daily bringeth forth monsters more deadly than what Africa was wont to do; but, alas! she is not alone.  Numbers of Englishmen, who would not a few years ago even hear Luther's name mentioned, are now publishing his praises!  England is now like the sea, which swells and heaves before a great storm, without any wind stirring it."  More felt particularly irritated, because the boldness of the gospellers had succeeded to the timidity of the Lollards. "The heretics," he said, "have put off hypocrisy, and put on impudence."  He therefore resolved to set his hand to the work.

On the 14th of May 1529, Monmouth was in his shop, when an usher came and summoned him to appear before Sir J. Dauncies, one of [the King's] privy council.  The pious merchant obeyed, striving to persuade himself that he was wanted on some matter of business; but in this he was deceived, as he soon found out.  "What letters and books have you lately received from abroad?" asked with some severity, Sir Thomas More, who, with Sir William Kingston, was Sir John's colleague.  "None," replied Monmouth. "What aid have you given to any persons living on the continent?"—"None, for these last three years. William Tyndale abode with me six months," he continued, "and his life was what a good priest's ought to be.  I gave him ten pounds at the period of his departure, but nothing since.  Besides, he is not the only one I have helped; the bishop of London's chaplain, for instance, has received of me more than £50."—"What books have you in your possession?"  The merchant named the New Testament and some other works.  "All these  books have lain more than two years on my table, and I never heard that either priests, friars, or laymen learnt any great errors from them."  More tossed his head.  "It is a hard matter," he used to say, "to put a dry stick in the fire  without its burning, or to nourish a snake in our bosom and not be stung by it.—That is enough," he continued, "we shall go and search your house."  Not a paper escaped their curiosity; but they found nothing to compromise Monmouth; he was however sent to the Tower.

He is interrogated by More

After some interval the merchant was again brought before his judges.  "You are accused," said More, "of having bought Martin Luther's tracts; of maintaining those who are translating the Scriptures into English; of subscribing to get the New Testament printed in English, with or without glosses; of having imported it into the kingdom; and, lastly, of having said that faith alone is sufficient to save a man." 

There was matter enough to burn several men.  Monmouth, feeling convinced that Wolsey alone had power to deliver him, resolved to apply to him.  "What will become of my poor workmen in London and in the country during my imprisonment?" he wrote to the cardinal.  "They must have their money every week; who will give it them?... Besides, I make considerable sales in foreign countries, which bring large returns to his majesty's customs.  If I remain in prison, this commerce is stopped, and of course all the proceeds for the exchequer."  Wolsey, who was as much a statesman as a churchman, began to melt; on the eve of a struggle with the pope and the emperor, he feared, besides, to make the people discontented.  Monmouth was released from prison.  As alderman, and then as sheriff of London, he was faithful until death, and ordered in his last will that thirty sermons should be preached by the most evangelical ministers in England, "to make known the holy word of Jesus Christ."—"That is better," he thought, "than founding masses."  The Reformation showed, in the sixteenth century, that great activity in commerce might be allied to great piety.
 



JOHN TEWKESBURY
 
The evangelical life in the capital alarmed the clergy more than the evangelical doctrine in the colleges.  Since Monmouth had escaped, they must strike another. Among the London merchants was John Tewkesbury, one of the oldest friends of the Scriptures in England.  As early as 1512 he had become possessor of a manuscript copy of the Bible, and had attentively studied it; when Tyndale's New Testament appeared, he read it with avidity; and, finally, The Wicked Mammon had completed the work of his conversion.  Being a man of heart and understanding, clever in all he undertook, a ready and fluent speaker, and liking to get to the bottom of every thing, Tewkesbury like Monmouth became very influential in the city, and one of the most learned in Scripture of any of the evangelicals.  These generous Christians, being determined to consecrate to God the good things they had received from him, were the first among that long series of laymen who were destined to be more useful to the truth than many ministers and bishops.  They found time to interest themselves about the most trifling details of the kingdom of God; and in the history of the Reformation in Britain their names should be inscribed beside those of Latimer and Tyndale.


Tewkesbury before the bishops

The activity of these laymen could not escape the cardinal's notice.  Pope Clement VII was abandoning England: it was necessary for the English bishops, by crushing the heretics, to show that they would not abandon the popedom.  We can understand the zeal of these prelates, and without excusing their persecutions, we are disposed to extenuate their crime.  The bishops determined to ruin Tewkesbury.  One day in April 1529, as he was busy among his peltries, the officers entered his warehouse, arrested him, and led him away to the bishop of London's chapel, where, besides the ordinary (Tonstall), the bishops of Ely, St. Asaph, Bath, and Lincoln, with the abbot of Westminster, were on the bench.  The composition of this tribunal indicated the importance of his case.  The emancipation of the laity, thought these judges, is perhaps a more dangerous heresy than justification by faith.


More's attack
"John Tewkesbury," said the bishop of London, "I exhort you to trust less
to your own wit and learning, and more unto the doctrine of the holy mother the church."  Tewkesbury made answer, that in his judgment he held no other doctrine than that of the church of Christ.  Tonstall then broached the principal charge, that of having read [Tyndale's book] “The Wicked Mammon”, and after quoting several passages, he exclaimed: "Renounce these errors."—"I find no fault in the book," replied Tewkesbury.  "It has enlightened my conscience and consoled my heart.  But it is not my Gospel.  I have studied the Holy Scriptures these seventeen years, and as a man sees the spots of his face in a  glass, so by reading them I have learnt the faults of my soul.  If there is a disagreement between you and the New Testament, put yourselves in harmony with it, rather than desire to put that in accord with you." 

The bishops were surprised that a leather-seller should speak so well, and quote Scripture so happily that they were unable to resist him.  Annoyed at being catechised by a layman, the bishops of Bath, St. Asaph, and Lincoln thought they could conquer him more easily by the rack than by their arguments.  He was taken to the Tower, where they ordered him to be put to the torture.  His limbs were crushed, which was contrary to the laws of England, and the violence of the rack tore from him a cry of agony to which the priests replied by a shout of exultation.  The inflexible merchant had promised at last to renounce Tyndale's “Wicked Mammon”.  Tewkesbury left the Tower "almost a cripple," and returned to his house to lament the fatal word which the question had extorted from him, and to prepare in the silence of faith to confess in the burning pile the precious name of Christ Jesus.



FOUR MORE OF MORE'S VICTIMS
 
From that time the persecution became more violent.  Husbandmen, artists, tradespeople, and even noblemen, felt the cruel fangs of the clergy and of Sir Thomas More.  They sent to jail a pious musician who used to wander from town to town, singing to his harp a hymn in commendation of Martin Luther and of the Reformation.  A painter, named Edward Freese, a young man of ready wit, having been engaged to paint some hangings in a house, wrote on the borders certain sentences of the Scripture.  For this he was seized and taken to the bishop of London's palace at Fulham, and there imprisoned, where his chief nourishment was bread made out of sawdust.  His poor wife, who was pregnant, went down to Fulham to see her husband; but the bishop's porter had orders to admit no one, and the brute gave her so violent a kick, as to kill her unborn infant, and cause the mother's death not long after.

The unhappy Freese was removed to the Lollards' tower, where he was put into chains, his hands only being left free.  With these he took a piece of coal, and wrote some pious sentences on the wall: upon this he was manacled; but his wrists were so severely pinched, that the flesh grew up higher than the irons.  His intellect became disturbed; his hair in wild disorder soon covered his face, through which his eyes glared fierce and haggard.  The want of proper food, bad treatment, his wife's death, and his lengthened imprisonment, entirely undermined his reason.  When brought to St. Paul's, he was kept three days without meat; and when he appeared before the consistory the poor prisoner, silent and scarce able to stand, looked around and gazed upon the spectators, "like a wild man."  The examination was begun, but to every question put to him Freese made the same answer: "My Lord is a good man."  They could get nothing from him but this affecting reply.  Alas! the light shone no more upon his understanding, but the love of Jesus was still in his heart.  He was sent back to Bearsy Abbey, where he did not remain long; but he never entirely recovered his reason.  Henry VIII and his priests inflicted punishments still more cruel even than the stake.


Agitation in Exeter

Terror began to spread far and wide.  The most active evangelists had been compelled to flee to a foreign land; some of the most godly were in prison; and among those in high station there were many, and perhaps Latimer was one, who seemed willing to shelter themselves under an exaggerated moderation.  But just as the persecution in London had succeeded in silencing the most timid, other voices more courageous were raised in the provinces.  The city of Exeter was at that time in great agitation; placards had been discovered on the gates of the cathedral containing some of the principles "of the new doctrine."  While the mayor and his officers were seeking after the author of these "blasphemies," the bishop and all his doctors, "as hot as coals," says the chronicler, were preaching in the most fiery style.  On the following Sunday, during the sermon, two men who had been the busiest of all the city in searching for the author of the bills, were struck by the appearance of a person seated near them.    "Surely, this fellow is the heretic," they said.  But their neighbour's devotion, for he did not take his eyes off his book, quite put them out; they did not perceive that he was reading the New Testament in Latin.
This man, Thomas Bennet, was indeed the offender.  Being converted at Cambridge by the preaching of Bilney, whose friend he was, he had gone to Torrington for fear of the persecution, and thence to Exeter, and after marrying to avoid unchastity (as he says) he became schoolmaster.  Quiet, humble, courteous to everybody, and somewhat timid, Bennet had lived six years in that city without his faith being discovered.  At last his conscience being awakened he resolved to fasten by night to the cathedral gates certain evangelical placards.  "Every body will read the writing," he thought, "and nobody will know the writer."  He did as he had proposed.


The great curse

Not long after the Sunday on which he had been so nearly discovered, the priests prepared a great pageant, and made ready to pronounce against the unknown heretic the great curse "with book, bell, and candle."  The cathedral was crowded, and Bennet himself was among the spectators.  In the middle stood a great cross on which lighted tapers were placed, and around it were gathered all the Franciscans and Dominicans of Exeter.  One of the priests having delivered a sermon on the words: There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel, the bishop drew near the cross and pronounced the curse against the offender. 

He took one of the tapers and said: "Let the soul of the unknown heretic, if he be dead already, be quenched this night in the pains of hell-fire, as this candle is now quenched and put out;" and with that he put out the candle.  Then, taking off a second, he continued: "and let us pray to God, if he be yet alive, that his eyes be put out, and that all the senses of his body may fail him, as now the light of this candle is gone;" extinguishing the second candle.  After this, one of the priests went up to the cross and struck it, when the noise it made in falling re-echoing along the roof, so frightened the spectators that they uttered a shriek of terror, and held up their hands to heaven, as if to pray that the divine curse might not fall on them.  Bennet, a witness of this comedy, could not forbear smiling.
"What are you laughing at?" asked his neighbours; "here is the heretic, here is the heretic, hold him fast."  This created great confusion among the crowd, some shouting, some clapping their hands, others running to and fro; but, owing to the tumult, Bennet succeeded in making his escape.

The excommunication did but increase his desire to attack the Romish superstitions; and accordingly, before five o'clock the next morning (it was in the month of October 1530,) his servant-boy fastened up again by his orders on the cathedral gates some placards similar to those which had been torn down.  It chanced that a citizen going to early mass saw the boy, and running up to him, caught hold of him and pulled down the papers; and then dragging the boy with the one hand, and with the placards in the other, he went to the mayor of the city.   Bennet's servant was recognised; his master was immediately arrested, and put in the stocks, "with as much favour as a dog would find," says Foxe.


Bennet's martyrdom

Exeter seemed determined to make itself the champion of sacerdotalism in England.   For a whole week, not only the bishop, but all the priests and friars of the city, visited Bennet night and day.   But they tried in vain to prove to him that the Roman church, was the true one.  "God has given me grace to be of a better church," he said.—"Do you not know that ours is built upon St. Peter?"—"The church that is built upon a man," he replied, "is the devil's church and not God's."  His cell was continually thronged with visitors; and, in default of arguments, the most ignorant of the friars called the prisoner a heretic, and spat upon him.  At length they brought to him a learned doctor of theology, who, they supposed, would infallibly convert him.  "Our ways are God's ways," said the doctor gravely.  But he soon discovered that theologians can do nothing against the word of the Lord.  "He only is my way," replied Bennet, "who saith, I am the way, the truth, and the life.  In his way will I walk;—his truth will I embrace;—his everlasting life will I seek."

He was condemned to be burnt; and More having transmitted the order de comburendo with the utmost speed, the priests placed Bennet in the hands of the sheriff on the 15th of January, 1531, by whom he was conducted to the Livery-dole, a field without the city, where the stake was prepared.  When Bennet arrived at the place of execution, he briefly exhorted the people, but with such unction, that the sheriff's clerk, as he heard him, exclaimed: "Truly this is a servant of God." 

Two persons, however, seemed unmoved: they were Thomas Carew and John Barnehouse, both holding the station of gentlemen.  Going up to the martyr, they exclaimed in a threatening voice: "Say, I pray holy Mary and all the saints of God"—"I know no other advocate but Jesus Christ," replied Bennet.  Barnehouse was so enraged at these words, that he took a furze-bush upon a pike, and setting it on fire, thrust it into the martyr's face, exclaiming: "Accursed heretic, pray to our Lady, or I will make you do it."—"Alas!" replied Bennet patiently, "trouble me not;" and then holding up his hands, he prayed: "Father, forgive them!" 

The executioners immediately set fire to the wood, and the most fanatical of the spectators, both men and women, seized with an indescribable fury, tore up stakes and bushes, and whatever they could lay their hands on, and flung them all into the flames to increase their violence.  Bennet, lifting up his eyes to heaven, exclaimed: "Lord, receive my spirit."  Thus died, in the sixteenth century, the disciples of the Reformation sacrificed by Henry VIII.



John Petit, M. P. for London

The priests, thanks to the king's sword, began to count on victory; yet schoolmasters, musicians, tradesmen, and even ecclesiastics, were not enough for them.  They wanted nobler victims, and these were to be looked for in London.  More himself, accompanied by the lieutenant of the Tower, searched many of the suspected houses.  Few citizens were more esteemed in London than John Petit, the same who, in the house of commons, had so nobly resisted the king's demand about the loan.  Petit was learned in history and in Latin literature: he spoke with eloquence, and for twenty years had worthily represented the city.  Whenever any important affair was debated in parliament, the king, feeling uneasy, was in the habit of inquiring which side he took?  This political independence, very rare in Henry's parliaments, gave umbrage to the prince and his ministers.  Petit, the friend of Bilney, Fryth, and Tyndale, had been one of the first in England to taste the sweetness of God's word, and had immediately manifested that beautiful characteristic by which the gospel-faith makes itself known, namely, charity.  He abounded in almsgiving, supported a great number of poor preachers of the gospel in his own country and beyond the seas; and whenever he noted down these generous aids in his books, he wrote merely the words: "Lent unto Christ." 

He, moreover, forbade his testamentary executors to call in these debts.
Petit was tranquilly enjoying the sweets of domestic life in his modest home in the society of his wife and two daughters, Blanche and Audrey, when he received an unexpected visit.  One day, as he was praying in his closet, a loud knock was heard at the street-door.  His wife ran to open it, but seeing Lord-chancellor More, she returned hurriedly to her husband, and told him that the lord-chancellor wanted him.  More, who followed her, entered the closet, and with inquisitive eye ran over the shelves of the library, but could find nothing suspicious. 

Presently he made as if he would retire, and Petit accompanied him.  The chancellor stopped at the door and said to him: "You assert that you have none of these new books?"—"You have seen my library," replied Petit.—"I am informed, however," replied More, "that you not only read them, but pay for the printing."  And then he added in a severe tone: "Follow the lieutenant."  In spite of the tears of his wife and daughters this independent member of parliament was conducted to the Tower, and shut up in a damp dungeon where he had nothing but straw to lie upon.  His wife went thither each day in vain, asking, with tears, permission to see him, or at least to send him a bed.  The jailors refused her every thing; and it was only when Petit fell dangerously ill that the latter favour was granted him.  This took place in 1530, sentence was passed in 1531; we shall see Petit again in his prison.  He left it, indeed, but only to sink under the cruel treatment he had there experienced.



[These are just a few of the very many forgotten heroes of the Reformation.  We have seen examples of their courage and their human failings, their defeats and their triumphs.  They were ordinary people, just like us.  If there was anything good in them, they would be the first to say, ”It is not me – it is the grace of God!”  We must aspire to imitate their steadfastness, and to avoid their falls.  Those who fail to prepare themselves for such times are all too likely to fail when the time of testing comes to them.  May God preserve us to His heavenly kingdom, and may He give us grace to serve him boldly and faithfully while we are free to do so.  Work while it is day!  The night may come, when no man can work.]



 
A Reformation Day presentation
Edited by Howard Douglas King
November 1, 2015

Scholars of antiquities would love to know the definitive answer to this question, for it bears directly on the question of who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.   If the Pharaoh of the Exodus perished in the Red Sea, and his firstborn died before he could ascend to the throne, then these facts might point to the end of a dynasty, and help to identify the particular Pharaoh among the many candidates.
 
Some say that Pharaoh himself did not drown in the Red Sea – only his armies.  On the other hand, Flavius Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian says “And thus did all these men perish, so that there was not one man left to be a messenger of this calamity to the rest of the Egyptians”(Antiquities of the Jews, 2:16).  What does the Word say?
 

Reasonable Doubt
 
There are several texts which speak to the destruction of the Egyptians, among them Exodus 14:4:
 
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. (Exodus 14:4)
 
This text is prophetic: it was spoken before the event – even before Pharaoh decided to “follow after”, that is, to pursue the departing Israelites.  At first sight, this seems to say that Pharaoh himself would be killed along with his armies, and in this way,  God would “be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host.”  This would be a great proof-text for the drowning of Pharaoh if the word translated as “and” could only mean and.  But in both Hebrew and Greek, the common word for and can also mean even.   It might be that God is anticipating the honour he will gain from destroying Pharaoh's army.  Pharaoh might conceivably, as Kings usually do, take his place on a height away from battle to observe and command.  Or he might have led the cavalry into the sea.  This cannot be determined with certainty from the text.
 
A similar uncertainty occurs in Psalm 136:15, which celebrates the victory long after.  In our Authorized Version it reads:
 
To him which divided the Red sea into parts: for his mercy endureth for ever: And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy endureth for ever: But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth for ever. (Psalms 136:13-15)
 
This might also be read “overthrew Pharaoh, even his host”.
 
The original account of the event at the Red Sea, written by Moses himself, tells us plainly that not one of the Egyptians who ventured into the sea escaped:
 
And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.  And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.  And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. (Exodus 14:26-28)
 
But it does not tell us whether Pharaoh was among them.
 
There are several verses that mention Pharaoh in the song of Moses, which he composed immediately after the event, found in Exodus 15:1-21:
 
Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. (Exodus 15:1)
 
Obviously, this is poetic description: no one was literally thrown into the sea.   And “the horse and his rider” may be generic, or rather a personification of the whole Egyptian host.  Or it could mean Pharaoh.  Who can say for sure?  Farther down, we find:
 
Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.  The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone. (Exodus 15:4-5)
 
But again, no explicit reference to Pharaoh.  A little further on:
 
The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.  Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters. (Exodus 15:9-10)
 
Once again, “the enemy” could be taken as a personal reference to Pharaoh, but it could  equally well refer to the Egyptians as a body.  Finally, there is Exodus 15:19, which reads:
 
For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the LORD brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.  (Exodus 15:19)
 
This might seem to give the answer we seek, but John Gill pours cold water on our hopes with this comment:
 
“... Meaning not that particular and single horse on which Pharaoh was carried, but all the horses of his that drew in his chariots, and all on which his cavalry was mounted; these all went into the Red sea, following the Israelites thither.”
 
That's all I could find in the Old Testament.  In the New Testament, there is a brief note on the event in the book of Hebrews:
By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. (Hebrews 11:29)
 
But it sheds no light on our query.


 
The Other Side
 
There seems to be no single text that unequivocally declares that Pharaoh himself was drowned in the Red Sea.  However, it would be over-hasty to dismiss the question on that basis alone.  For one thing, there is not a hint anywhere in Scripture that Pharaoh walked away from this debacle, like Yul Brynner in the movie.  That would seem odd, if he had indeed escaped with his life, wouldn't it?
 
For another, Exodus 15:9 may not be worthy of such a quick dismissal as Gill's comment suggests.  The great Reformed scholar and Hebraist may have made a mistake here.  In his day, it was common to use the word, “horse” in a military context, as a collective noun.  That is not quite the same thing as plural: the plural in English is “horses”.  One could speak of “a cavalry of five hundred horse”.  But could the Hebrew word have the same meaning?  That is the crux of the matter.  Gill gives us no proof of his contention, and none of the commentaries I consulted agree with him.
 
Furthermore, his comment is not really coherent.  The text reads “For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea”.  If the word horse means “all the horses of his that drew in his chariots, and all on which his cavalry was mounted”, then why would he need to say that all his horses went in to the sea with his chariots and his horsemen?  Who would ever imagine otherwise?  But if it means Pharaoh's personal steed, the sentence makes perfect sense.
 
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint, translated by Hellenistic Jews, before the coming of Christ, renders the word for horse in the singular.
 
Other Hebrew authorities, such as Keil and Delitzsch in their renowned critical commentary, express no doubt that Pharaoh went personally into the Red Sea, and was destroyed with his army.  In their introduction to “the song of Moses”, we read:
 
“By their glorious deliverance from the slave-house of Egypt, Jehovah had practically exalted the seed of Abraham into His own nation; and in the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, He had glorified Himself as God of the gods and King of the heathen, whom no power on earth could defy with impunity. As the fact of Israel's deliverance from the power of its oppressors is of everlasting importance to the Church of the Lord in its conflict with the ungodly powers of the world, in which the Lord continually overthrows the enemies of His kingdom, as He overthrew Pharaoh and his horsemen in the depths of the sea”
 
Their comment on 15:19 is explicit:
 
“In the words “Pharaoh's horse, with his chariots and horsemen,” Pharaoh, riding upon his horse as the leader of the army, is placed at the head of the enemies destroyed by Jehovah.”

So I conclude that Pharaoh's own horse, as distinguished from the horses of his cavalry, “went in with them”, and was with them inundated by the mighty waters:
 
For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the LORD brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.  (Exodus
            15:19)
 
This seems to me decisive of the question, for why would his horse go in without him?And what would be the point in marking the death of Pharaoh's horse if Pharaoh himself escaped?  The song begins with these words ”I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”(15:1).  This seems to be also the refrain of the song (see 15:21).  While the term, “the horse and his rider” can and should be understood generically, it surely does not exclude the most important horse and rider (or driver) of them all – the one who commanded them!
 
Pharaoh himself had his own personal chariot (v.6), and so may not have been riding on a horse.  When the Scripture says that “the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea”, it might have been the horse that drew his chariot.  Heavy chariots, with more than one occupant, require two or more horses to draw, or else speed is sacrificed, so it is likely that Pharaoh drove his own light chariot.  But in view of the trouble the Egyptians had with their chariots on this occasion, it is possible that Pharaoh abandoned his chariot and continued his hot pursuit riding his horse just before the end.
 
It follows that the other verses we have considered, which did not give us the certainty we sought, should be understood in accord with this conclusion.  And should not be understood as even in these texts, and “the Egyptians” must include the King of Egypt.
 
Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: And the LORD shewed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes: (Deuteronomy 6:21-22)
 
Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; (Deuteronomy 7:18)


 
The Ethical Argument
 
But there is another reason why I think Pharaoh was drowned with his troops.  It has to do with his character and his acts.  This was not the Pharaoh who “knew not Joseph”, who instigated the oppression of the Hebrews, who first commanded the midwives to murder the Hebrew boys at the birthing-stool (Exodus 1:15-16), and then, when that failed, charged all his subjects to throw them into the Nile whenever they found them (Exodus 1:22).  That monster was already dead when Moses returned to Egypt.  It was another Pharaoh, who inherited the totalitarian slave-state that Egypt had become; who ratified the inhuman “Hebrew policy” of his predecessor, and augmented it by cruelties of his own (Exodus 5:7-19).  Think what it meant to the Hebrews, humiliated and crushed already, to be told that they were shirking!  And that from now on, they would have to somehow provide their own straw, without diminishing the full tally of bricks!
 
We do not know how many Hebrew children were thus sacrificed; but we do know that this means of suppressing the population also failed, through the super-abundant fertility with which God blessed his people, the persevering faithfulness of the midwives who feared God; and probably the reluctance of ordinary Egyptians to obey such a wicked law.  (For how could the children of Israel have continued to multiply at such a rate throughout the oppression, if it had been rigorously enforced?)  But there is no doubt that much innocent blood was shed by the Egyptian tyrants and their people.
 
The first of the Ten Plagues was the turning of the waters of the Nile into blood.  The last judgment of God upon Egypt was the drowning of Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea.  Both miracles recall the drowning of innocent Hebrew baby boys by the Egyptians.  The celebratory song of Moses uses the expressions, “the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:1) and “Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea (15:4); which are not literally true.  But these are not just arbitrary poetic exaggerations; they are expressions designed to remind us that Pharaoh had caused the Egyptians to “throw” or “cast” the Hebrew babies into the river to drown them (Exodus 1:22).
 
God was not just fighting a war against Egypt: He was avenging the blood of innocents.  It was not enough that Pharaoh's nation and army be destroyed.  The principal living offender must pay with his life for a crime so great.  Would it be right to punish the servants and spare the master?  How fitting, rather, that he at whose word so many were drowned should be drowned himself – indeed, that he should first be made so mad with impotent rage that he should, in effect, drown himself!
 
This should cause us to reflect upon the enormity and heinousness of America's sin of abortion.  What judgments are reserved for us, a nation that has probably murdered a thousand times more innocent babies than Egypt ever did?  God's vengeance, reserved for us, must be terrible indeed!
 
Howard Douglas King
May 17, 2015
 

Israel's Four Hundred and Thirty Years,
 its Four Hundred Years
And its Four Generations
 
 
40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. 41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
(Exodus 12:40-41)
 
This statement appears to be a notice of the fulfillment of prophecy.  The phrase “even the selfsame day it came to pass” seems to mark a particular and exact fulfillment.  This impression is confirmed by the words of the martyr Stephen:
 
17 But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, 18 Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.  (Acts 7:17-18)
 
There is no other promise of a set time that this could be, but the promise that, after four hundred years of sojourning, Abram's seed would come out of the nation that had enslaved them, and re-enter Canaan to inherit it.  There is no prophecy of a four hundred and thirty years' sojourning of the children of Israel anywhere in Scripture.  There is only the prediction of a four hundred years sojourning, in Genesis 15:13: 
 
And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them) four hundred years;
 
How can this be reconciled? 


 
The Importance of This Study
 
 
Many have used apparent discrepancies such as these to attempt to discredit the word of God.  The student of Scripture must recognize that there are not a few of them in the chronological record of Israel's history.  One difficulty is in reconciling the four hundred years in Genesis 15 with the four hundred and thirty years of Exodus 12.  Incidentally, there is the problem of the four generations mentioned in Genesis 15.  Also involved is the question of how long Israel was in slavery in Egypt.  I hope to show – not only the solutions to these difficulties, but – the proper way to address all such problems; which is to trust the Word of God to be true, accurate, and consistent with itself, and to carefully separate opinion from fact in choosing between interpretations of the text.  Then we need not be afraid to confront any of these challenges head-on.
 
Some of the conclusions may be startling; but all is founded on a literal reading of the text, and uses the simple arithmetical operations of addition and subtraction.  This is not a technical article for historians or scholars in Hebrew
and Greek.  The facts can be verified by any serious student of Scripture from his English Bible.  Some may find such a study tedious, but those who persevere will be rewarded by a deeper and more solid conviction that the Word of God is absolutely consistent and absolutely accurate.
 
The study of Bible chronology results in the construction of a system, and the refinement of that system; but we need not begin from scratch.  Others have labored, and we have entered into their labors.  The chronological system employed is essentially that of Ussher, as refined and corrected by Martin Anstey.  Anstey's magnum opus, titled Romance of Bible Chronology is a masterpiece of disciplined mental labor.  For sources, it confines itself to actual statements of Scripture, and shuns presenting guess-work as conclusions.  I have personally verified his reasoning and his calculations for all of the dates that I present as fact in this paper.  I have supplied a chronology of the period discussed in this paper following the footnotes and appendices, for ease of reference.
 

Is Four Hundred Just a Round Number?
 
Some interpreters have suggested that the “four hundred years” simply rounds off the number for the same period, defined more exactly as “four hundred and thirty years”.  But this would mean that God promised them deliverance after four hundred years of sojourning when he really meant four hundred and thirty, which is impossible.  Thirty years is a long time to be late on keeping a promise!
 
Consider the importance of this promise to the Hebrews at the time when they were in bondage in Egypt.  Joseph knew of the promise (Genesis 50:24) and implied that his brethren knew of it too, when he charged them to take his bones with them into Canaan; and he could only have learned of it from his father Jacob, or from the written family records (the source documents which Moses used to create the book of Genesis).  At the time Moses returned to Egypt from Midian, there must have been many among the children of Israel who knew the prophecy.  They would have known from the promise recorded in Genesis 15:13-16 that the time of Israel's deliverance was at hand.
 
13 And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them) four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.  15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.  16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Genesis 15:13-16)   
 
Not only was the four hundred years of verse 13 ending (of which more later), but the generation then living was the fourth since Jacob had come down with his family to Egypt, in the time of Joseph.  They also must have had some idea of the deliverance from servitude foretold in verse 14.  This prophecy must have been much on the minds of the pious Hebrews.  It would have lent credit to Moses' claim to be a God-appointed deliverer.  (Yet for all that, the body of the people was too demoralized to believe Moses at first.  The ten plagues may have been as necessary to prepare Israel for God's deliverance as they were to destroy Egypt's power to resist.)

In view of the importance of the prophecy to the generation suffering oppression and hoping for deliverance at a particular time, it is unthinkable that the four hundred years could have meant anything but the precise number of years until Israel's deliverance.  Nothing less than the faithfulness of God was at stake.  The solution must rather be that there are two distinct and well-defined periods – a longer and a shorter – that share the same point of termination, as we shall see.


 
The Four Generations
 
 
13 And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them) four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.  16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Genesis 15:13-16)
 
God had told Abram already (Genesis 12:7) that his seed would inherit the land of Canaan.  In chapter 15, he is told that there will be four hundred years in which his seed will be strangers “in a land that is not theirs” before they come into the possession of the promised land.  But they would come back to Canaan to possess it “in the fourth generation”.  What does this mean?
 
Many assume that these four generations run concurrently with the four hundred years, and this is a natural assumption.  In this case, the length of a patriarchal generation would be reckoned at one hundred years.1  But there are major problems with this view.  First, Isaac was born in his father's one hundredth year.  This was considered (and was in fact) a miracle.  It would be strange indeed to reckon as a normal generation something so exceptional.  Second, there were six actual generations of the seed of Abraham before the Exodus, at least in the line of Moses: Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses (See Exodus 6:16-20).
 
A better solution is to count the four generations from the entry of Israel into Egypt.  The first Israelite to dwell in Egypt was Joseph, and so his generation (that of the twelve sons of Jacob) may be counted as the first, even though Jacob came with his sons and their families.  Scripture gives us Moses' genealogy; and it shows that Levi's son Kohath sired Amram, the father of Moses.  Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses: that makes four generations.  The starting point for the counting of the four generations is Israel's entrance into Egypt, because what is being spoken of in Genesis 15 is when they will come out.   “But in the fourth generation (in Egypt) they shall come hither again”.
 
Not all the tribes had passed through just four generations at the time of the Exodus; but Moses and Aaron were their chief men, and this is enough reason to count the generations in the tribe of Levi for all Israel.  There were four generations in the line of the Deliverer. 
 
It is also possible that the word, “generation” in the prophecy of Genesis 15 was used to denote the time of a typical or average generation.  In Abram's day, it was certainly less than a hundred years, but also more than forty.  It may be that sixty years was reckoned as a normal generation during this period.  In that case, the Exodus would have been in the fourth generation from the going-down into Egypt. 
 
But it would be odd to speak in this manner.  Normally, when a generation is spoken of as a second, third, fourth, etc. it means the number of successive births in a bloodline.  Also, the life expectancy of man was still declining fairly rapidly, as it had ever since the flood of Noah.  So there was no long period of predictable lifespans from which to infer an average generational time period, as in David's time.
 
It is true that this prediction is not explicit about the relocation of Israel into Egypt, but though the years of the sojourning run continuously, the distinction between the periods in Canaan and in Egypt is necessarily implied in verses 14-16:
 
14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance... 16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
 
Abram's seed would come into existence, and begin their sojourn, in the land where he was when this prophecy was given to him, in Canaan, the land of the Amorites; but here Abram's seed are contemplated as living somewhere else for the latter part of the four hundred years.  From thence shall they “come hither again”.  This necessarily implies that they have left Canaan.

Their return to Canaan will be to judge the Amorites; but it is not time for that yet.  God is going to let them fill up the measure of their iniquity for four more centuries before He puts an end to it by sending in His army, the “hosts” of Israel, to execute His judgment on them.
 
In the meantime, He is going to preserve and provide for His people while He greatly multiplies them, by sending them into Egypt, called in verse 14 “that nation whom they shall serve”.   At the right time, God “will judge” Egypt, and Israel will then “spoil” the Egyptians (a term which implies that they were an army that had been victorious in a war against their captors) and “come out with great substance”.  All of this was literally fulfilled!


 
The Four Hundred and Thirty Years
 
So far, so good, but what about the four hundred versus the four hundred and thirty? 
The first thing to observe is that both of these periods definitely terminate at the Exodus from Egypt; but neither one begins at the entrance into Egypt.  To show when each of them started, I will consider the longer period first.
 
The four hundred and thirty years is the entire period from the time the covenant promises were given to Abraham, just before he went into Canaan, until the giving of the law, in the same year as the Exodus.  This fact is proved by Galatians 3:17, which I now quote in its context:
 
15 Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.
16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. 17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. 18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise. (Galatians  3:15-18)
 
The covenant promise referred to in verse 17 is this one, given in the preceding context:
And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. (Galatians 3:8)
 
This promise, recorded in Genesis 12:3, was given when Abram was in Haran (verse 4) and he entered Canaan in the same year:
 
1 Now the LORD said 2 unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. 4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. (Genesis 12:1-4)

Therefore, the four hundred and thirty years clearly extends from this year, the year in which Abram's sojourning began, to the year of the Exodus.  Notice the careful wording Moses uses in Exodus 12:40: “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years”.  He does not say, ”the sojourning in Egypt”, but “the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt”.
 
The expression, “the children of Israel” in this case must include Abraham himself, as well as Isaac and Jacob.  Those who were literally “the children of Israel” – that is, Jacob's children – had only been in existence for less than two hundred and sixty years at the Exodus.  For Jacob wasn't even married until 2252 A.M.3 , and the Exodus was in 2513.  (2513 – 2252 = 261.)  Abram and his seed are here being viewed as organically one – as one family or nation, here called “the children of Israel”.  This term, first used by Moses in Genesis 32:32, appears about six hundred times in the historical books of the Old Testament as a standard term for the nation of Israel.


 
The Four Hundred Years
 
We have seen that the whole time of Israel's “sojourning” in the lands of others (Canaan and Egypt) was four hundred and thirty years.  What about the four hundred years?  This is pretty straightforward, with just a few minor complications.  Basically, this shorter period is reckoned from the appearance in history of the promised seed of Abraham (namely Isaac) until the Exodus.  It is the period when Abraham's seed would live as strangers in a land that was not theirs.  The difference of thirty years is accounted for by the time when
Abram was in Canaan, before the seed came, through whom the covenant promises would be realized.  Let us recall the exact words of the prophecy:
 
And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them) four hundred years; (Genesis 15:13)
 
Even though Abraham already had a son named Ishmael when Isaac was born, God told him that the seed of promise had to come through Isaac:
 
19 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
20 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.  21 And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. (Genesis 17:19-21)
 
Until Isaac was born, there was no “seed of Abraham” in this sense.  Abram's age when he entered the land in 2083 A.M. was seventy-five (Genesis 12:4).  Isaac was born twenty-five years later, in his one-hundredth  year.  But that leaves us five years short of the thirty years' difference between the two periods in question.
 
The solution to this problem is that the period is actually reckoned from the date of the feast held when Isaac was weaned, rather than from his birthday.  That is because it was at this time that Ishmael was cast out, signifying that Ishmael and his seed was to have no part with the children of promise.  The inheritance was not to be shared.  Isaac was then officially recognized as the sole heir, and the appointed seed through whom the promises would come to fulfillment.  This was a major development, and accordingly, a detailed account is given:
 
8 And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.  9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.  10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.  11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son.  12 And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.  13 And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. (Genesis 21:8-13)
 
The date of this feast is not given in the Bible, but it must have been held when Isaac was five years old.  That is not as strange as it may seem, for according to Edersheim, the Hebrews generally weaned their sons at three years or so during later biblical times.  Allowing for the longer ages of the patriarchs, and assuming a corresponding slower maturation (Isaac wasn't married until he was forty), it makes perfect sense.  These five years, added to the twenty-five years that Abram was in the land before Isaac was born, make up the thirty
years' difference we are seeking.
 
It should be remembered that the four hundred and thirty years definitely began when God first made the promises to Abram in his seventy-fifth year – the year he entered the promised land.  This has been established by Galatians 3:17ff.  It is also beyond dispute that Isaac was born twenty-five years later, when Abraham was one hundred.  Therefore the four hundred years must be reckoned from Isaac's fifth year.  This feast is the only event recorded in Scripture near that date; and therefore the only possible explanation for that fact: moreover, it is a relevant and credible one.


 
How Long was Israel in Egypt?
 
There are a few more matters to clear up.  The reader may have noticed that my citation of Genesis 15:13 above is punctuated differently from the reading in the Authorized Version, which has:
 
And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
 
But John Gill (known as a master Hebraist) punctuates it like this:
 
And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them) four hundred years;
 
The A.V.'s rendering obscures the central point of the prophecy; which is that there would be a very long wait before the seed of Abraham would actually inherit the land.  It was given to sustain the faith of the seed of Abraham during the centuries that passed while they lived as strangers in the lands of others.  Many generations of Hebrews would live and die before the promised day would come.  This was a severe test of faith; and required the support of a definitely defined period of time.  It was necessary to the purpose that the beginning of the period be definite, so that the time of fulfillment could be accurately known, anticipated, and recognized when it came as a fulfillment of the promise.  It was also necessary that Israel should be prepared for the deep humiliation and oppression that they would suffer before their triumphant Exodus from the land of their slave-masters; but this is not the primary idea.
 
I have accordingly adopted John Gill's punctuation from his commentary, for the fact is, that they did not serve, nor were they afflicted for four hundred years, as the A.V.'s reading says.  For, to begin with, the length of time Israel spent in Egypt was just two hundred and fifteen years, all told.  Of the four hundred years, one hundred and eighty-five were spent in Canaan.   Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt in 2298 A.M.  Isaac's weaning-feast was in 2113.  2298 – 2113 = 185.
 
There were also just two hundred and fifteen years from Abram's entry into Canaan to the entry of Jacob into Egypt.  Is it not interesting that the four hundred and thirty years of Israel's sojourning is divided into two equal parts at this point?
 


Jochebed and Amram
 
The idea that Israel was in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years leads to many wrong conclusions; such as the idea that Jochebed was not literally Levi's daughter, but a distant descendant of Levi, because she could not have lived to have children 300 years later.  This is directly contradicted by Numbers 26:59.
 
59 And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
 
Kohath and his two brothers were born in Canaan, not Egypt.  They came down to Egypt with their father (Genesis 46:8-11).  Jochebed was born after Levi entered Egypt in 2298; and was therefore younger than they, but we do not know by how much.  But we do know that Levi died in 2392, forty-one years before the birth of Moses.  So she may have been as young as forty-one when she gave birth to Moses in 2433.  It is entirely possible that she was as young as, or even younger than Amram, her nephew.
 
The same problem arises with the elongated chronology with respect to Moses' father.  A second Amram must be invented also, because Amram the son of Kohath could not possibly have lived long enough to father Moses eighty years before the Exodus.  Can you find two different Amrams in this genealogy?
 
16 And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari: and the years of the life of Levi were an hundred thirty and seven years.
17 The sons of Gershon; Libni, and Shimi, according to their families.
18 And the sons of Kohath; Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel: and the years of the life of Kohath were an hundred thirty and three years.
19 And the sons of Merari; Mahali and Mushi: these are the families of Levi according to their generations.
20 And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years. (Exodus 6:16-20)
 
The structure of this genealogy is sublimely simple and logical.  The members of each successive generation are listed in order: first, the members of Levi's second generation in verse 16, then the third generation in verses 17-19, the fourth in verses 20-22, and finally some members of the fifth in verses 23-25.  Each succeeding generation is linked to the previous one by the names of all the fathers.  There is therefore no possibility of confusion; nor can there be any generations left out.  Yes, some persons are omitted; for example, the sons of Hebron are not given, and the fifth generation list is selective, but this is not intended to be exhaustive – but only a list of “the heads of the fathers of the Levites”(6:25).
 
So how can anyone say that the Amram of verse 20 is not the same Amram introduced in verse 18?  We correctly assume that the Merari of verse 16 is the same with the Merari in verse 19, and the Izhar of verse 18 is the same as the Izhar in verse 21.  To deny this simple principle would violate the structure of the record and introduce complete confusion.

This should remove any doubt that it is Amram the son of Kohath who fathers Aaron and Moses in verse 20.  And yet there is more proof: 
 
57 And these are they that were numbered of the Levites after their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites: of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites: of Merari, the family of the Merarites.  58 These are the families of the Levites: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korathites. And Kohath begat Amram.  59 And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister. (Numbers 26:57-59)
 
Kohath, it says, begat Amram.  And in the very next verse, Amram is identified as the husband of Jochebed.  Will they now say that begat does not necessarily mean begat?    Or that there were two Kohaths?
 
The only reason that Moses' parents are thus removed by some from their proper place in the genealogies is because of the myth of a four hundred and thirty year sojourn in Egypt.


 
How Long was Israel's Enslavement?
 
The circumstances of Israel's enslavement were as follows:
 
6 And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.  7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. 
8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. 
9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: 10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.  11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.  And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. (Exodus 1:6-11)
 
Israel was not enslaved until after Joseph and all his generation had died (Exodus 1:6), and after the last Pharaoh who knew Joseph had also died (Exodus 1:8).  Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten, in the year 2369 A.M., but we know that Levi didn't die until @2392, ninety-four years after Jacob entered Egypt4 .  So the years of slavery could not have been more than one hundred and twenty-one years (215 – 94 = 121); and they may have been less.
 
In fact, they were not enslaved until “...the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them“(Exodus 1:7)5 and they had become “more and mightier than [the Egyptians]”, as the “new Pharaoh” put it (Exodus 1:9).  This suggests that Israel was not in bondage until late in its stay in Egypt.  Remember Stephen's words:
“17 But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, 18 Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.  19 The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.  20 In which time Moses was born...” (Acts 7:17-20)
 
However, it is clear that the oppression lasted more than eighty years, for Moses was eighty years old at the time of the Exodus (Exodus 7:7); and he was born after the massacre of the male children began.  The enslavement, therefore, must have begun before the birth of Moses.  On the other hand, Aaron, his older brother, who was three years older (Exodus 7:7), must have been born just before the massacre of the male children began. 
Concluding Remarks
 
At the outset, I observed that the statement in Exodus 12:41 “appears to be a notice of the fulfillment of prophecy.  The phrase 'even the selfsame day it came to pass' seems to mark a particular and remarkable fulfillment...  But there is no prophecy of a four hundred and thirty years' sojourning of the children of Israel anywhere in the Old Testament.  There is only the prediction of a four hundred years sojourning, in Genesis 15:13.” 
 
Clearly, Moses was recording the fulfillment of that prophecy at the Exodus.  But it would not make sense to speak of four hundred and thirty years unless those for whom he wrote understood that the four hundred years of the original prediction began at a time thirty years subsequent to Abram's entering of Canaan, when “the sojourning of Israel”, of which he speaks, began.  Otherwise, in order to draw attention to the fulfillment of the prophecy, he would have had to say:
 
Now the sojourning of the seed of Abraham, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred years.  And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred  years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
 
And if the original prediction of just four hundred years was, as some say, a round number for the same period of four hundred and thirty, then Moses would have looked pretty silly claiming that the prediction was fulfilled to the day, when it was off by thirty years!  This is my final argument for the distinction between the two periods, and for my identification of their respective starting points and durations.
 
Thus we see, in this brief study – instead of discrepancies, contradictions and inaccuracies – yet another example of how precise the biblical history is, and how perfectly the chronological statements of holy Scripture fit together into a coherent, systematic whole.




Footnotes
 
1 The average length of a generation during this era actually turns out to be close to sixty-five years.  From the birth of Isaac in 2108 to the birth of Moses in 2433 was three hundred and twenty-five years.  This represents five generations: Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram.  325 / 5 = 65.
 
2 There is no warrant in the Hebrew text for inserting the word “had”.  The AV translators seem to have assumed that the call referred to here is the original call of Abram to leave Mesopotamia, referred to by Stephen in Acts 7:2-3; but this is a second call, given in Haran, as the context shows.  Terah had settled there, perhaps because of an illness that eventuated in his death.  God renewed the original call at that time, which was simply a command, ”Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee”; but adding promises to it (see Genesis 12:1-3).
 
3 The designation of years from the creation of the world as “Anno Mundi” or “A.M.” is from the Seder Olam Rabah, the official Jewish chronology; and was also used by James Ussher.  It is the most natural and biblical way of referring to events in biblical history, being less confusing and cumbersome than the use of B.C. dates, which count backwards, and from a date not given in Scripture.  I use it in all my chronological studies.
 
4 Jacob married Leah and Rachel in the year 2252 A.M.  Levi was his third son.  None of them were twins or triplets, for Leah conceived each of them separately (Genesis 29:32-34).  So Levi could not have been born before 2254.  He lived one hundred and thirty-seven years (Exodus 6:16).  Levi is the only son of Jacob whose lifespan is given in Scripture.  There is a tradition that Benjamin was born twenty-three years after Jacob's marriage, which would make him about fifteen years younger than Joseph, the next youngest.  Others of Jacob's sons may have lived longer than Levi.
 
5 From the time that Jacob was 84, when he was married, to the time when he and his family moved to Egypt at age 130, the males in his family had increased from one to 58.  Jacob had eleven of his twelve sons in just seven years.  215 years later, at the Exodus, there were about 600,000 men in the family.   The average number of male sons for each Israelite male, over the last three generations, had to be about 22 in order to achieve this astounding growth.  For  58 X 22 X 22 X 22 = 617,584.  But the growth rate was not constant; for Exodus 1:7 says that the growth, already great, was further accelerated after the death of Joseph, and 1:12 definitely states, “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.”








Appendix A:
Back to Canaan
 
 
We have seen that the prophecy we have been studying was most exactly fulfilled.  But we have not yet considered all its details.  There is more:
 
13 And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them) four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.  16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Genesis 15:13-16)
 
The four hundred years' sojourn was to terminate in the judgment of Egypt and the Exodus of Israel from that land; but the time of the return of Israel to the land of Canaan was not so definitely foretold.  It was only stated that “ in the fourth generation they shall come hither again”.   We have already seen that Moses' generation was the fourth from the entrance of Israel into Egypt.  This is the generation that should have inherited the land; but sadly, Joshua and Caleb were the only representatives of that generation who did so.  However, that generation did “come hither [back to Canaan] again”.  They returned to the very border of Canaan, but they did not enter in, because of unbelief.  The conquest would have to wait for the rise of the fifth generation.
 
40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. 41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:40-41)
 
The “sojourning”, the predicted period in Israel's existence when they were strangers in lands belonging to others was ended at the Exodus, but Israel would not actually “possess” the land of Canaan until forty-six years later.  Nevertheless, during the first year after the Exodus, Israel was constituted a nation under God.  It received a complete system of laws: both criminal, religious and administrative.  A center of worship was set up – the tabernacle – which was also the seat of judgment.  Israel was now united – not only by its familial bonds, but – by a common government and by a common form of worship.  They were no longer sojourners: they were now a nation in their own right.
 
Early in the second year, Israel, having been organized into a nation, was summoned to take possession of the promised land.  Moses recalled this event just before he handed over the leadership to Joshua and left this earthly scene:
 
6 The LORD our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount: 7 Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates.  8 Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them. (Deuteronomy 1:6-8)
 
Then spies were sent out, which reported the goodness of the land; but Israel believed not, and God turned them back into the wilderness instead, to be chastised for their refusal to trust Him.  All but a few of the fourth generation would have to die there.  The Amorites would thus gain a brief reprieve, a further space for repentance; in which they might reflect upon the meaning of the tidings out of Egypt, before their inevitable judgment fell.
 
It is clear, then, that it was God's intention for Israel to immediately begin the conquest as soon as they had been organized into a nation at Mount Horeb.  The delay in fulfillment of the promise was owing solely to Israel's rebellion.





 
Appendix B:
Keil & Delitzsch to the Contrary
 
 
“Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.  And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:40-41)
 
I have delayed the discussion of objections to the view I have set forth to keep the presentation as simple as possible.  But this paper would be incomplete without a word from critics of my view.  Keil & Delitzsch, whose commentaries I use almost daily, strongly oppose the view that I have set forth in this paper.  Their suite of arguments in rebuttal of my position is complete, their scholarship impeccable.  They attack from many angles.  For all that, I am confident that my readers can discern the lack of substance in their attack, which I shall quote in full, with my comments interspersed.   At the end, you will find a two-column table that exhibits the main differences between the two views.
 
Their commentary on Exodus 12:40-41 begins as follows:
 
“The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt had lasted 430 years.”
 
But the text does not say so.  If Moses had meant to say so, he could have
omitted two words that appear in the text in both English and Hebrew.  Those words are, “who dwelt”.  No one has been able to explain why they are there, if Moses meant to say that Israel was in Egypt 430 years.
 
Moreover, it cannot be proved that these two words have no effect on the meaning of the statement; nor can it be shown that my interpretation of them is not grammatically possible.  All that the esteemed authors can honestly say for certain is that they think it means something else.
 
“This number is not critically doubtful, nor are the 430 years to be reduced to 215 by an arbitrary interpolation, such as we find in the LXX, ἡ δὲ κατοίκησις τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ ἥν κατῷκησαν (Cod. Alex. αὐτοὶ καὶ οί πατέρες αὐτῶν) ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ ἐν γῇ Χαναάν, [Translated 'and of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan.' HDK]”
 
No one “reduces the 430 years to 215”; we merely say that one half of this time was spent in Egypt, and the other in Canaan.  And no one bases his view on this statement of the Septuagint.  It simply provides corroborative evidence that the Alexandrian Jews also understood that the four hundred and thirty years includes the sojourning of Abraham and the patriarchs in Canaan.
 
“This chronological statement, the genuineness of which is placed beyond all doubt by Onkelos, the Syriac, Vulgate, and other versions...”
 
Again, no one disputes its genuineness.  The point at issue is what period it refers to.
 
“...is not only in harmony with the prediction in Gen_15:13, where the round number 400 is employed in prophetic style...”
 
Notice that no proof is given that four hundred is a “round number”.  There is not only no proof that can be given: but in fact it is impossible that God would leave the Israelites a promise of deliverance from an intolerable slavery after four hundred years when He really knew that it would be another thirty years before they would be freed!
 
“... but may be reconciled with the different genealogical lists, if we only bear in mind that the genealogies do not always contain a complete enumeration of all the separate links, but very frequently intermediate links of little historical importance are omitted, as we have already seen in the genealogy of Moses and Aaron (Exodus 6:18-20).”
 
This is faulty logic: “An omission sometimes occurs, therefore we may assume that it has occurred here, even though there is no proof that it has.”  One way that we can know that a gap exists is by comparing one text with another parallel text where the missing material is supplied.  Where is the parallel genealogical text that shows more descendants in Moses' genealogy than the one in Genesis 6?  There is none: it would have been cited if there were. 
 
The only other case that would prove that one or more gaps exist is if the time period were too long to possibly span with just the persons listed.  An example occurs in Ruth 4:20-22, where the span of years from Nahshon to David is about five hundred and ten years, and only four intervening links are given.  That is simply not the case here.

The authors' commentary on Exodus 6:18 theorizes, but does not prove, that there are gaps in Moses' genealogy.  It theorizes that there were two Amrams, and that Moses was the son of the younger Amram – perhaps the great-great-great-great (etc.) grandson of the original.  I have already discussed this, but it may be instructive to address it again here.
 
“But the Amram mentioned in Exodus 6:20 as the father of Moses, cannot be the same person as the Amram who was the son of Kohath (Exodus 6:18), but must be a later descendant.  For, however the sameness of names may seem to favour the identity of the persons, if we simply look at the genealogy before us, a comparison of this passage with Numbers 3:27-28 will show the impossibility of such an assumption.”
 
Then they quote Tiele to explain why it is impossible for the Amram in verse 20, who married Jochebed, who bore Moses, to be the same Amram who in verse 18 is given as the son of Kohath through whom Moses was descended:
 
“According to Numbers 3:27-28, the Kohathites were divided (in Moses' time) into the four branches, Amramites, Izharites, Hebronites, and Uzzielites, who consisted together of 8600 men and boys (women and girls not being included).  Of these, about a fourth, or 2150 men, would belong to the Amramites.”
 
This is wholly gratuitous; but it is typical of the way many chronologists argue.  Assumptions, estimates, theories are set against the plain statements of chronological facts.  No one knows how many there were of each clan, period.
 
“Consequently, if Amram the son of Kohath, and tribe-father of the Amramites, was the same person as Amram the father of Moses, Moses must have had 2147 brothers and brothers' sons (the brothers' daughters, the sisters, and their daughters, not being reckoned at all).  But as this is absolutely impossible, it must be granted that Amram the son of Kohath was not the father of Moses, and that an indefinitely long list of generations has been omitted between the former and his descendant of the same name' (Tiele, Chr. des A. T. p. 36).”
 
Obviously, the argument is inconclusive.  Amram may have had as many as thirty or forty or even more male offspring, for all we know.  When Jacob went down to Egypt , the males in his family numbered fifty-eight.  Two hundred and fifteen years later, at the Exodus, there were about six hundred thousand men in the family.  As I reckon it, the average number of male sons for each Israelite male, over the last three generations, had to be about twenty-two in order to achieve this astounding growth.  For  58 X 22 X 22 X 22 = 617,584. 
 
But the growth rate was not constant; for Exodus 1:7 says that their rate of growth, already great, was further accelerated after the death of Joseph “And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.”  God does not exaggerate: this was no ordinary fertility!  And 1:12 definitely states, “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.”  Amram therefore lived at the time when Israel was most prolific.
 
Keil & Delitzsch then suggest that the reason that the genealogy of Moses lists only four generations is to make the record artificially seem to conform to the prophecy in Genesis 15:16 that Israel would return to Canaan in the fourth generation! 
 
“The enumeration of only four generations, viz., Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses, is unmistakeably related to Genesis 15:16, where it is stated that the fourth generation would return to Canaan.”
 
It seems that they would rather believe that the prophecy was not literally fulfilled (i.e. was false) than admit that only four generations existed from Levi to Moses.
 
“For example, the fact that there were more than the four generations mentioned in Exodus 6:16ff. between Levi and Moses, is placed beyond all doubt, not only by what has been adduced at Exodus 6:18-20, but by a comparison with other genealogies also.  Thus, in Numbers 26:29, Exodus 27:1; Joshua 17:3, we find six generations from Joseph to Zelophehad; in Ruth 4:18, 1Chronicles 2:5-6, there are also six from Judah to Nahshon, the tribe prince in the time of Moses; in 1Chronicles 2:18 there are seven from Judah to Bezaleel, the builder of the tabernacle; and in 1Chronicles 7:20, nine or ten are given from Joseph to Joshua.  This last genealogy shows most clearly the impossibility of the view founded upon the Alexandrian version, that the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt lasted only 215 years; for ten generations, reckoned at 40 years each, harmonize very well with 430 years, but certainly not with 215.”[Italics mine, H.D.K.]
 
There is impressive biblical scholarship in this paragraph.  I will begin with the last, since they claim it proves their case beyond doubt.  But it is unfortunate for them that the authors have cited the case of Joseph and of the Ephraimites; for on careful examination it will be seen to tell against them.  For along with the birthright which passed from Reuben to Joseph, there was a Divine blessing of extraordinary fruitfulness on the tribe of Joseph (Genesis 49:22-26) which was chiefly manifested in Ephraim's line (Genesis 48:17-19).  Joseph means “God shall add” and Ephraim means “double fruit”.  Moses (Deuteronomy 33:13-17) also predicted extraordinary fruitfulness for the tribe of Joseph.
 
There are three ways to increase the growth rate of a population: involve more females (as Jacob did), increase the incidence of multiple births, or start the childbearing years sooner.  Probably all three of these contributed to Israel's astounding growth while in Egypt.  But in Ephraim, we see clear evidence of the last method.  For in Genesis 50:22-23, we read:
 
And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph's knees. (Genesis 50:22-23)
 
According to Keil and Delitzsch themselves, this means that Joseph lived to see his great-great-grandchildren!  Now, all this happened after Joseph was released from prison, at age thirty.  Ephraim and Manasseh were both born in the latter part of the years of plenty (Genesis 41:46-53), so around his thirty-seventh year.  In just the seventy-three  years that remained to him, four generations grew up and had children: Ephraim, his sons, his grandsons, and
his great grandsons.  These “generations” – the ages of the fathers when they had their first sons – averaged eighteen and one quarter years – not forty years, as our opponents suppose.  At this rate, the ten generations from Joseph to Joshua that Keil and Delitzsch refer to above would represent one hundred and eighty years.  As I have proved, Israel was in Egypt two hundred and fifteen years; and Joshua was grown when the Exodus occurred.  A plausible scenario can be constructed from these facts as follows:
 
Joseph had Ephraim and Manasseh before the years of famine, but after he was freed from prison (2289 A.M.) and after he had been collecting grain for some time.  Joseph's brothers came down to Egypt in the second year of the famine (2298).  So his sons were still quite young, between three and seven years old.   Taking the mean of five years, and counting 18 years as a generation, we then –
 
Add 13 years to the birth of Zabad.  (18 – 5 = 13)
Add 18 years to the birth of Shuthelah, Ezer, and Elead.
Add 18 years to their deaths (slain by the men of Gath, 1 Chronicles 7:21).
Add 1 year to the birth of Beriah. (Joshua's line begins here.)
Add 18 years to the birth of Rephah.
Add 18 years to the birth of Telah.
Add 18 years to the birth of Tahan.
Add 18 years to the birth of Laadan.
Add 18 years to the birth of Ammihud.
Add 18 years to the birth of Elishama.
Add 18 years to the birth of Non.
Add 18 years to the birth of Jehoshua.
Add 21 years to the Exodus, in 2513 A.M., Joshua now full grown.
                              -------
                               215 years total
 
There is nothing impossible in this.  However, it does reflect the extraordinary blessing of God alluded to above.  It was not equaled by any other tribe of Israel. 
 
Four generations would seem to have been the general rule, from the words of the promise.  Or else the preeminence of Moses and Aaron, of Levi's fourth generation, accounts for the number of generations being reckoned as four for the whole nation. 
 
It is also possible that the word, “generation” in the prophecy of Genesis 15 was used to denote the period of time of a typical or average generation.  In Abram's day, it was certainly less than a hundred years, but probably more than forty.   It so happens that the average of the generations of Isaac, Jacob, and those of Levi during the Egyptian sojourn was sixty-five years.  It may be that sixty years was reckoned as a normal generation.
 
And what if there were six, ten, or even twelve generations in some genealogical lines?  Such things are highly variable in any population.  Some people start having children in their late teens.  Others may not marry until middle age.  The length of a generation is never defined in Scripture.  But chronology – real chronology versus imaginary chronology – does not depend on such variables.  It depends on the chronological statements of the Hebrew
text, and necessary inferences therefrom.
 
Going back to the original assertion, “the fact that there were more than the four generations mentioned in Exodus 6:16ff. between Levi and Moses, is placed beyond all doubt... by a comparison with other genealogies also”, the simple answer is – the fact that there were more generations than four in some of the other tribes does not prove that there were more than four in the tribe of Levi.
 
Besides, we have a definite and authoritative statement of the Apostle Paul to the effect that the law was given four hundred and thirty years after the covenant promise was given to Abraham:
 
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. (Galatians 3:16-17)
 
Aware that this one text sweeps away all their sophisticated arguments, the authors have had to find a way to discredit the statement.  This involves more reflections on the weaknesses of the Septuagint:
 
“(Note: The Alexandrian translators have arbitrarily altered the text to suit the genealogy of Moses in Exodus 6:16ff., just as in the genealogies of the patriarchs in Gen 5 and 11.”
 
The translators of the Septuagint indeed took unwarranted liberties with the text in Genesis 5 and 11; but that is a different matter from offering helpful explanatory material derived from actual chronological facts given elsewhere in the Bible, as they have done in Exodus 12:40.
 
“The view held by the Seventy became traditional in the synagogue, and the Apostle Paul followed it in Galatians 3:17, where he reckoned the interval between the promise to Abraham and the giving of the law as 430 years, the question of chronological exactness having no bearing upon his subject at the time.)”
 
It cannot be proved that Paul was just following the traditional view, or that he was unconcerned about the accuracy of the number.  Why should we not assume that he knew the facts and meant what he said?  If there was no need to be exact, why did Paul not use the “round number” of four hundred years?  In Galatians, we find Paul locked in mortal combat with Judaizing Jews.  To make an inaccurate statement regarding Jewish history was to invite attacks on one's credibility.
 
But Paul's statement, taken literally, is perfectly harmonious with the view that I am defending.  There were precisely four hundred and thirty years – to the day – from the first announcement of the gospel to Abraham to the Exodus; and the Law was given later in that same year.
 
But Keil and Delitzsch are not done.  They are at least determined to be consistent.  Even the plain expression, “the self-same day” must be explained away because of their “round number” theory of the four hundred years.  It makes no sense to say that the prophecy was fulfilled to the day if it was thirty years off!
 
“The statement in Exodus 12:41, “the self-same day,” is not to be understood as relating to the first day after the lapse of the 430 years, as though the writer supposed that it was on the 14th Abib that Jacob entered Egypt 430 years before; but points back to the day of the exodus, mentioned in Exodus 12:14, as compared with Exodus 12:11., i.e., the 15th Abib (cf. Exodus 12:51 and Exodus 13:4).”[Italics mine, H.D.K.]
 
I think Keil and Delitzsch interpret Moses to mean that the entire Exodus occurred on the same day as the first Passover.  But why may not the phrase mean what every reader of the text has naturally understood it to mean?  No reason is given for the authors' preference for their interpretation of the phrase.  If we are right, it is highly significant; and if they are right, it could well have been left out.  But consider the phrase in its immediate context:
 
40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.  41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:40-41)
 
Verse 40 tells us how long “the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt” was – “four hundred and thirty years”.  This calls attention to the promise of Genesis 15:13, with its “four hundred years”, but which commenced its count thirty years after it was given, since the birth of Isaac twenty-five years later, and his recognition as the appointed seed was in his fifth year.
 
Verse 41 tells us when “the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.”  It was “at the end of the [same period of] four hundred and thirty years”.  This repetition is for emphasis. 
 
“And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years...  that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.”
 
To add further emphasis, and to call attention to the exactness of the fulfillment, the clause “even the selfsame day it came to pass” is inserted. 
 
41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
 
The syntax requires that both occurrences of the phrase, “it came to pass” refer to the same day – the day at “the end of the four hundred and thirty years”, on which “all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.”  How then can anyone say that “the selfsame day” has nothing to do with “the end of the four hundred and thirty years”?  The sense is plain and obvious: no other interpretation is possible.
 
I have presented the entirety of Keil and Delitzsch's case.  I have not distorted it, misrepresented it, or selectively quoted from it.  I have given, I believe, a fair and equitable evaluation of the argumentation employed against my view; and I submit that it fails at every point. 
 
 




The Long Chronology
 
 
1 The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt lasted 430 years.
 
2 The Septuagint is wrong when it makes Exodus 12:40 to read “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel and of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years.”
 
3 The “four hundred” in Genesis 15:13 is a round number for “four hundred and thirty”.
 
4 The genealogy of Moses and Aaron in Exodus 6 omits several unspecified generations.
 
5 Jochebed, the Mother of Moses, was not the literal daughter of Levi, but a later descendant of his.
 
6 The Amram mentioned in Exodus 6:20 as the father of Moses, cannot be the same person as the Amram who was the son of Kohath (Exodus 6:18), but must be a later descendant.
 
7 The enumeration of only four generations, viz., Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses, is artificially adapted to fit the prophecy in Genesis 15:16, where it is stated that the fourth generation would return to Canaan.
 
8 The fact that other tribes went through more generations than four shows that Levi must have done the same.
 
9 When Paul used the number 430 in Galatians 3:16-17, he was not concerned about the accuracy of the number, since it had no bearing on his subject; but was only using the currently-accepted chronology, based on the Septuagint, which was in error.
 
10 In the statement in Exodus 12:41, “the self-same day,” does not mean that the 430 years was exact, that is, that it began and ended on the same day of the year; but that the whole body of the Israelites left Egypt on the same day – the day of the first Passover.  The prophecy was not accurate to the decade, let alone to the day.




The Short Chronology
 
1 The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt lasted only 215 years.  The 430 years runs from the time that Abram entered the promised land to the Exodus, in the same year as the giving of the Law. (Gal 3:16-17)
 
2 The Septuagint translation is not wrong, but only expands the text with a helpful explanatory interpolation.
 
3 The “four hundred” in Genesis 15:13 is the exact number of years that the seed of Abram lived as sojourners, from the weaning of Isaac to the Exodus; the thirty years' difference being the time Abraham was in Canaan before Isaac was established as his sole heir.
 
4 The genealogy of Moses and Aaron in Exodus 6 is complete, as the structure of it proves.
 
5 Jochebed, the Mother of Moses, was the literal daughter of Levi, “whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt.”(Num. 26:59)
 
6 There is only one Amram, the immediate and proper son of Kohath, in the genealogies: the second is invented. (Numbers 26:58-59)
 
7 The prophecy was literally fulfilled when Israel came out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, Levites, in the fourth generation of their tribe since Israel entered Egypt.
 
8  The fact that other tribes went through more generations than four shows nothing of the kind.  There was variation among the tribes.
 
9 Paul, besides writing under inspiration, knew what the facts were and said what he meant.
 
10 The text is unambiguous.  “And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.”  The prophecy was accurate to the day.







Old Testament Chronology
 from
Abram to Joshua
(2008 to 2559 Anno Mundi)
 
2008. Abram was born.
2083. Abram left Haran and entered Canaan in his 75th year.  The 430 years'      of Israel's sojourning began.
2093. Abram married Hagar in his 85th year.
2094. Ishmael was born in Abram's 86th year.
2107. Sarah's conception and the birth of Isaac was foretold.
          Abram, 99 years old, received the covenant of circumcision. 
          Abram's name was changed to Abraham, Sarai's to Sarah.
          Sodom was destroyed, Lot saved. 
          Abraham went to Gerar and returned.
          Sarah conceived.
2108. Isaac, the promised seed, was born in Abraham's 100th year.
2113. Isaac was weaned at age five, Ishmael cast out.  The 400 years' sojourning           of Abram's seed began.
2145. Sarah died, aged 127.  Abraham was 137.
2148. Isaac married Rebekah in his 40th year.
2168. Esau and Jacob were born in Isaac's 60th year.
2183. Abraham died, aged 175
2208. Esau married at the age of 40.
2245.          Jacob left home at the age of 77.
2252. Jacob, at the age of 84, married both Leah and Rachel.
2259. Joseph was born in Jacob's 91st year.
2265. Jacob returned to Canaan, aged 97.  Joseph was 6. 
2276. Joseph told his dreams to his brothers at the age of 17.
2288. Isaac died, aged 180.
2289. Joseph stood before Pharaoh, aged 30, and interpreted his dreams.
2296. At the end of 7 years' plenty, Joseph was 37.
2298. At the end of 2 years' famine, when Jacob came down into Egypt,
          Joseph was 39 and Jacob was 130.
2315. Jacob died, aged 147.  Joseph was 56.
2369. Joseph died, aged 110.
2391. Earliest possible date for Levi's death, aged 137.
2433. Moses was born 80 years before the Exodus.
2473. Moses fled Egypt at age 40, went to Midian.
2474. Caleb was born.
2513. Moses returned to Egypt, now 80 years old. 
          Egypt was destroyed by the ten plagues. 
          Israel departed from Egypt at the end of the 400/430 years of Israel's
          sojourning. 
          The law was given at Mount Sinai.
          The Tabernacle was built.
          Aaron was consecrated and Mosaic worship instituted.
2514. Moses sent out the spies. 
          Israel's 4th generation refused to enter Canaan.
          The wilderness wanderings began.
2552. The 5th generation was prepared to enter Canaan by the conquest of Og    and Sihon.
2553. Israel crossed the Jordan and entered Canaan.  The conquest began with           Jericho.
2559. The war of conquest ended, Joshua divided the land. 
          Israel possessed the land of Canaan, as God had promised.
 
 
 
Howard Douglas King
November 25, 2014
Revised August 9, 2015
 
 
 


 

16 And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD.  17 Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD.  18 And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
 
19 Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days? (2 Kings 20:16-19) 

 
It has always seemed strange to me that some find fault with Hezekiah for these words.  I have heard it said that Hezekiah showed a callous selfishness in so saying.  The implication is that he was unconcerned that the judgment of God was to fall on others, if only he would be spared.  But Christian charity requires us to think well of other saints – even if they are dead – and to put a charitable construction on their words and deeds, as much as possible.  There is no necessity in these words for thinking the worst of the good king.  It is better to understand them as words of submission to God's rebuke of him.  He accepts the bad news, does not quarrel about it, and looks for the mercy that is in it.  Would we be able to take it as well, I wonder?
 
Matthew Henry reads it this way:
 
Hezekiah's humble and patient submission to this sentence (2 Kings 20:19).  Observe how he argues himself into this submission:
 
1. He lays it down for a truth that “good is the word of the Lord, even this word, though a threatening; for every word of his is so.  It is not only just, but good; for, as he does no wrong to any, so he means no hurt to good men.  It is good; for he will bring good out of it, and do me good by the foresight of it.”   We should believe this concerning every providence, that it is good, is working for good.
2. He takes notice of that in this word which was good, that he should not live to see this evil, much less to share in it.  He makes the best of the bad: “Is it not good?  Yes, certainly it is, and better than I deserve.”  Note:
(1.) True penitents, when they are under divine rebukes, call them not only just, but good; not only submit to the punishment of their iniquity, but accept of it.  So Hezekiah did, and by this it appeared that he was indeed humbled for the pride of his heart.   
(2.) When at any time we are under dark dispensations, or have dark prospects, public or personal, we must take notice of what is for us as well as what is against us, that we may by thanksgiving honour God, and may in our patience possess our own souls.
(3.) As to public affairs, it is good, and we are bound to think it so, if peace and truth be in our days. That is,
 
[1.] Whatever else we want, it is good if we have peace and truth, if we have the true religion professed and protected, Bibles and ministers, and enjoy these in peace, not terrified with the alarms of war or persecution.
[2.] Whatever trouble may come when we are gone, it is good if all be well in our days.  Not that we should be unconcerned for posterity; it is a grief to foresee evils: but we should own that the deferring of judgments is a great favour in general, and to have them deferred so long as what we may die in peace is a particular favour to us, for charity begins at home.  We know not how we shall bear the trial, and therefore have reason to think it well if we may but get safely to heaven before it comes.
 
There are many places in Scripture which show that God intentionally delayed judgment until one of his servants had died, to spare him the pain.  Isaiah says:
 
The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.  He shall enter into peace... (Isaiah 57:1-2)
 
This is no small mercy, and it is proper that it be acknowledged as such.  Here is an example from the account of Josiah's response upon the discovery of a book of the law of the Lord:
 
And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to enquire of the LORD, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard; Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD.   Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again. (2 Chronicles 34:26-28)
 
God assures Josiah through the prophetess that He has heard his prayer for mercy, and granted it, as far as Josiah himself was concerned.  What if Josiah had said the same thing as Hezekiah?  Would he then be accused of selfishness?


 
Howard Douglas King
September 26, 2015

Hugh Ross's Faulty Proof-Texting
             for the
Expanding Universe Theory

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.  And God called the firmament Heaven. (Genesis 1:6-8a)

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” (Isaiah 40:22)

Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein... (Isaiah 42:5)

Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself... (Isaiah 44:24)  

 


Hugh Ross and others have very few exegetical arguments to make their version of the “Big Bang” theory, the so-called “Progressive Creationism” look like it came from the Bible.  One of them recurs in his presentation: that the Bible says  that God is (even now) stretching out the universe.  Sadly, many young-earth creationists have embraced this view as well. 
 
It deserves mention that there are many alternative explanations to the phenomena of “the red-shift” of distant luminaries and of “cosmic background radiation” besides the common theory that the universe is expanding.  Many scientists, secular and Christian, are skeptical of the “expanding universe theory”, which creates more problems than it solves.  But apart from the question of whether or not the universe is indeed expanding, Ross's interpretation of these texts is a patent misrepresentation of what the Bible actually says, as an examination of the texts will clearly show. 
 
One does not need to know Hebrew to understand the arguments that follow.  One only needs to know how to use a lexicon, and how to reason soundly upon the scriptural text.  The Hebrew words that are important to our discussion have been represented using Strong's pronunciation guide, rather than a transliteration.  It seemed the best way to give the reader a “handle” on the words, so he can remember and use them.  In a live lecture, I would have simply pronounced them.
 
My first observation is that the appeal to these texts creates an insuperable problem for Ross, at least in Isaiah 44:24, cited above.  Is it not plain that his interpretation must apply to both members of the clause?  In other words, if the text is telling us that the heavens are now expanding, then it must also be telling us that the earth is expanding as well, which is patently false.  This fact alone is fatal to the Rossian interpretation.
 
My second point is that many of these texts (there are seventeen in all) that refer to the stretching out of the heavens use the past tense.  These do not help his case, for he must explain why the “stretching out” is commonly spoken of as a past event if it refers to an ongoing process.  Only a few of these seventeen texts are rendered in the present tense in our English Bible; and I will address them later on.
 
Our third observation is that this stretching out is a figure of speech – poetic imagery, not scientific data.  It is intended to set forth an appropriate image of something beyond our experience and understanding.  In Proverbs 8:27, God is said to have “set a compass upon the face of the depth”.  This is obviously not literal description.  In another place (Job 37:18) the Bible uses very different imagery to represent God's creation of the sky,  “Hast thou with him spread out (raw-kah') the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?”  Here, the sky is made of metal, formed into a bowl and polished to a mirror finish.  How different from the thin gauze curtain of Isaiah's picture!  But both representations are true as poetic descriptions of Almighty God creating the sky.
 
Fourth, the verb, naw-taw', translated “stretch” in all three of these verses has many significations; but is in the Bible commonly used of the setting up of a tent.  It is often translated “pitch”, and therefore can mean the whole process of setting up a tent.  Tents, in ancient times, were made of relatively inelastic fabrics.  One did not so much stretch a tent as simply spread it out.  A tent was unfolded and placed on a frame, which had already been set up.  Then the tent fabric was spread out, and finally secured with ropes and stakes under light tension.  The only sense in which the tent was “stretched” is that it was made taut – not expanded.  Likewise for “curtain” in this text.  This word occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament, but it could mean the fabric of a tent; for this sentence seems to be a simple parallelism.  (Parallelism is the hallmark of Hebrew poetry.) The heavens apparently are being compared first to a “curtain”, then to a tent; but the nouns may be nearly synonymous, as the verbs are.  In any case, this provides no support for an ongoing expansion of space, or of the universe; for it clearly refers to a once-for-all act of God in “pitching the tent” of the sky on the second day of creation week.
 
But Ross will tell us that we are overlooking the fact that the verbs used are in the present tense.  For example, God “stretcheth out the heavens... and spreadeth them out...”(Isaiah 40:22)  Ross admits that he is not a Hebrew scholar; and neither am I.  But in consulting the authorities, we find that here a participle is used.  There is no indication of time, or of continuous versus completed action.  Weingreen's Hebrew Grammar, discussing the active participle, states that the same Hebrew phrase can be rendered “the man keepeth”, or “the man who was keeping”, or “the man who is keeping”, depending entirely on context.   The clause could therefore be rendered, “stretching out the heavens, and spreading them out...” without any implication as to time.  But one does not stretch out a curtain endlessly, nor does the pitching of a tent take forever.  These analogies point to  action completed in the past.  Accordingly, the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on Isaiah renders both these verbals in the past tense.  So did the translators of the Greek Old Testament.  They all understood this as a reference to God's creative work in the beginning of the world – not of something going on now.
 
Brenton's translation of 40:22 in the Septuagint reads: “It is he that comprehends the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants in it are as grasshoppers; he that set up the heaven as a chamber, and stretched it out as a tent to dwell in...”
Delitzsch renders it, “He who is enthroned above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants resemble grasshoppers; who has spread out the heavens like gauze, and stretched them out like a tent-roof to dwell in...”  (See also Psalm 104:2.)  Note the use of the past tense in both these translations.  This does not reflect a time element in the Hebrew original, but rather, the obvious fact that this verse refers to the creation.  Delitzsch, commenting on 42:5, states the principle: “The attributive participles we have resolved into perfects, because the three first at least declare facts of creation, which have occurred once for all.”
 
Why, then, are the verbs sometimes rendered into the present tense in the AV?  Isn't this wrong?  No, it's not wrong.  Time is unexpressed in the text, both because the reference to creation is obvious, and because the focus is on God, as the One who alone is capable of such a mighty work.  Besides, it is not unknown to use the present tense to express things that are past.  “So I tell him what's on my mind, and what do you think he does?” This mode of speech occurs very commonly in the Greek New Testament as well, (i.e.  “Jesus saith (says) unto them...” Matthew 4:19).  It is used to bring the listener into the action, as if it were occurring in the present.  The AV's translators had a fine poetic and dramatic sense, and they used it here.  There was no danger of them being misunderstood at that time, for no one had ever proposed or imagined any theory of an “expanding universe”.
 
Is there further support for the claim that this “stretching out of the heavens” refers to the creation?  Indeed there is.  On day two of creation week, God makes the “firmament in the midst of the waters”(verse 6).  This firmament is identified as “heaven” in verse 8.  It is not what we call “outer space” that is referred to, for the creation account is only meant to explain the origin of those aspects of the universe that belong to the common experience of mankind. 
 
We do not know how much the patriarchs and prophets knew about the actual architecture of the cosmos.  But we do find in Scripture what is plainly phenomenological language, language that describes things from the viewpoint of the observer.  The sun “rises” and “goes down”.  Such language is useful; and if not pressed beyond its designed intent, perfectly true.  Consider what would have happened if each part of Scripture had recorded a specific scientific or cosmological terminology from the era in which it was written.  We know that cosmological models vary from time to time, so the Bible would inevitably, at some time or other, contradict itself.  At least, it would have made the interpretation of these passages much more difficult for us, who use modern models and terminology.
 
But besides, the “firmament” cannot be space, because space has no “waters above” it, as this firmament has (“the clouds”, per Proverbs 8:28; Psalms 148:4).  For the same reason, it cannot be the heaven in which God dwells.  It is the visible heaven, which looks to us as if it were a gigantic dome.  In this heaven the sun, moon and stars appear.  It is a highly-important part of our world, of which the simplest of men are aware.  This is especially true of agrarian  peoples.  Their lives are intimately related to, and dependent on, the state of the heavens.
 
Now lexicographers agree that the Hebrew word here translated “firmament” would be better rendered “expanse”.  This noun, pronounced raw-kee'-ah, is related to the verb, raw-kah', which we saw used in the quotation from Job above.  It refers to the process of forming a bowl out of sheet metal.  There are two ways to make a metal bowl in a pre-industrial world.  One is by “spinning”, done with a sort of lathe and a hard rounded forming tool; and the other is by hammering.  In both cases, the metal is expanded and spread out to form the bowl.  The spun bowl is smoother and more even, but it has concentric lines in the surface – the tracks of the forming tool.  But the lexicographers tell us that raw-kah' originally meant “to pound”, so the latter method is probably meant here.  In any case, God is here represented as creating an “expanse” which he calls the sky; which is the same thing as “expanding” or “stretching out” the sky.  This reference to the sky as an “expanse” in Genesis one supports the view that in other places in Scripture, the stretching out of the sky is to be understood as an accomplished fact, occurring in creation week, rather than something going on at present.  
 
The spreading of a tent is not an ongoing process.  Tents are designed to go up quickly.  It is a short-term process with a long-term result.  So, by the way, was creation.  God finished it in six days, as the Bible says.  To make it say anything else is really a stretch!
 
Howard Douglas King