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For God's deliverance: and he had sharedIn Marah's bitterness and Elim's rest;And yet again had heard, and quietlyHad borne the murmuring of Israel,The cry for bread, for water, the desireFor a return to their Egyptian life;Had seen the wondrous glory of the LordAppearing in a cloud to comfort them,And all their varied need most fully met.And he had witnessed the discomfitureOf threatening Amalek, as Joshua fought,And Moses prayed, while he sustained his hands.And he had been at Sinai, and heardJehovah's righteous claims, His promisesOf special blessing to that chosen raceIf they would keep His covenant and obey;Had heard their protest of obedience,And, sanctified with them, had looked uponThe awful, visible majesty of God.He had beheld the wondrous fire, the smoke,The blackness, darkness, storm, so terribleThat even Moses quaked. Then had they two,And Aaron's eldest sons, and seventy more—Elders of Israel—at God's command,Gone up into the Mount and seen the LordIn His clear sapphire glory. But when leftTo watch o'er Israel while Moses spentThose forty days upon the mount with God,Most grievously, disastrously he sinned,Yielding unto the clamour of the hostFor man-made gods like to the heathen round,And with their broken gold he made a calf,Calling it their deliverer and thusInvoked fierce wrath upon them, and dire plagues,And threatened overthrow and scattering.And he had witnessed Moses" angry zealAs, coming from his high commune with GodTo see then gross idolatry and shame,He cast the God-writ tables on the ground
