Moses when, not to mince matters, he acted as a quack. On the one hand, he
was all vacillation, timidity, and irritability. On the other, all
temerity and effrontery.

In this particular emergency, which touched his very life, Moses vented
his disappointment and vexation in a number of interviews which he
pretended to have had with the "Lord," and which he retailed to the
congregation, just at the moment when they needed, as Joshua perceived, to
be steadied and encouraged.

"How long," vociferated the Lord, when Moses had got back his power of
speech, "will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they
believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?

"I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make
of thee a greater nation and mightier than they."

But when Moses had cooled a little and came to reflect upon what he had
made the "Lord" say, he fell into his ordinary condition of hesitancy.
Supposing some great disaster should happen to the Jews at Kadesh, which
lay not so very far from the Egyptian border, the Egyptians would
certainly hear of it, and in that case the Egyptian army might pursue and
capture Moses. Such a contingency was not to be contemplated, and
accordingly Moses began to make reservations. It must be remembered that
all these ostensible conversations with the "Lord" went on in public; that
is to say, Moses proffered his advice to the Lord aloud, and then retailed
his version of the answer he received.

"Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which
have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,