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 He shall he the expectation of nations' (Gen. xlix. 10). And, in fact, when Christ, who was sent by God, was born, Herod, an Idumean, sat on the throne of the kings of Juda, and the kingdom was evidently approaching its end.

9. After Joseph's death, the Israelites grew into a great people, insomuch that the Egyptians, fearing they might become too powerful, reduced them to the hardest slavery. At length the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and commissioned him to lead the children of Israel back to Chanaan. Pharao, King of Egypt, would not let them go; and therefore Almighty God sent dreadful plagues over all his dominions. At last an angel in one night slew all the first-born of the Egyptians. But the destroying angel did not harm the Israelites, because they had sprinkled the doors of their houses with the blood of the paschal lamb, which, according to God's command, they ate that very night.

By this was foreshown how, one day, mankind should be delivered from eternal death by the Blood of Jesus Christ, the true Divine Paschal Lamb, which we eat in the Holy Eucharist.

10. Then Pharao permitted the Israelites to depart; but he soon regretted it. In all haste he collected his troops, and pursued the unarmed Israelites to the shores of the Red Sea. Here, struck with alarm and dread of