5. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony. The nation is called Joseph; in Egypt it would probably be known as
Joseph’s family. The Passover, which is probably here alluded to, was to be a
standing memorial of the redemption from Egypt. When he went out through the land of Egypt. Much of Egypt was traversed by the tribes in their exodus
march, and in every place the feast which they had kept during the night of
Egypt’s visitation would be a testimony for the Lord, who had also himself in
the midnight slaughter gone forth through the land of Egypt. Where I heard a language that I understood not. Surely the connection requires that we
accept these words as the language of the Lord. It would be doing great
violence to language if the I here should be referred to one person, and the “I” in the next verse to another. But how can it be imagined that the Lord
should speak of a language which he understood not, seeing he knows all things,
and no form of speech is incomprehensible to him? The reply is, that the Lord
here speaks as the God of Israel identifying himself with his own chosen
nation, and calling that an unknown tongue to himself which was unknown to
them. He had never been adored by psalm or prayer in the tongue of Egypt; the
Hebrew was the speech known in his sacred house, and the Egyptian was outlandish
and foreign there. In strictest truth, and not merely in figure, might the Lord
thus speak, since the wicked customs and idolatrous rites of Egypt were
disapproved of by him, and in that sense were unknown. Of the wicked, Jesus
will say, “I never knew you,” and
probably in the same sense this expression should be understood, for it may be
correctly rendered, “a speech
I knew not I am hearing.”
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