The cloud which appeared to Israel as soon as they had been redeemed by the blood in Egypt (Exod. 13:21), and which accompanied them through the wilderness, was the guide of the camp; and it was also the veil, or covering, of the glory. Such was that beautiful mystery in the midst of Israel. Commonly it was a hidden glory; at times manifested, but always there; the guide and companion of Israel, but their God also. He who dwelt between the cherubim went through the desert before Ephraim, and Benjamin, and Manasseh (Ps. 80). The glory abode in the cloud for Israel's guidance, but was in the holy place also; and thus, while conducting the camp in its veiled or humbled form, it assumed the divine honors of the sanctuary.

And such was Jesus, "God manifest in the flesh," commonly veiled under "the form of a servant," but always, and without robbery, equal with God in the faith and worship of His saints, and at times shining forth in divine grace and authority.

As they were approaching the Red Sea, Israel had to be sheltered. The cloud does this mercy for them. It comes between the Egyptians and the camp, and is darkness to the one and light to the other, so that the one came not near the other all the night; and then, in the morning, the Lord looked to the host of Egypt through the pillar of cloud, and troubled the host of Egypt. On an occasion kindred with this, Jesus acts as the cloud and the glory. He comes between His disciples and their pursuers:" If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way." He shelters them with His presence as of old; and he looks through the cloud, as of old; and troubles the host of the enemy:"Jesus saith unto them, I am He … As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground " (Jno. 18:6). He did but look out, and His arm was found not to be shortened. With like ease and authority, the God of Israel acts at the Red Sea, and Jesus does the same in the garden of Gethsemane. The gods of Egypt worshiped Him at the Red Sea, the gods of Rome worshiped Him in Gethsemane, and when brought again the second time into the world, it shall be said, "Let all the angels of God? worship Him."

But, in the progress of their history, Israel had to be rebuked as well as to be sheltered; to be disciplined as well as to be redeemed. This we see, as they leave the Red Sea and enter the wilderness. The same glory hid within the cloud does this for them, as it did the other. In the day of the manna, in the day of the spies, in the matter of Korah, at the water of Meribah, Israel provokes the holiness of the Lord, and the glory is seen in the cloud witnessing the divine resentment (Exod. 16; Num. 14 ; 16; 20).

Just so with Jesus. When grieved-as the Glory in the cloud was-at the hardness of heart, or unbelief of the disciples, He gives some token, some expression, of His divine power, with words of rebuke. As on the Lake of Tiberias, He said to the disciples, " Why are ye so fearful ? " as well as to the winds and the waves, "Peace, be still." And so again and again, when the disciples betray ignorant and unbelieving thoughts of Him. As, for instance, to Philip, on one distinguished occasion, He says, in the grief and resentment of the Glory in the cloud, " Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip ? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?" (John 14.) Was not the Lord here again shining through the veil ? This was the glory seen in the cloud as in the day of the manna, or kindred cases already referred to.
Very exact is the corresponding of these forms of divine power. The cloud was the ordinary thing; the glory within was now and again manifested, but was always there. The guide and companion of the camp was the Lord of the camp. And is not all this Jesus in a mystery ? The glory was the God of Israel (Ezek. 43:4; 44:2), and Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel, or the glory (Isa. 6:i; John 12:41). The Nazarene veiled a light, or manifested in flesh a glory which in its proper fulness " no man can approach unto " (i Tim. 6:16).

. .. The person of Jesus lent a glory to all His course of service and obedience, which rendered it of unutterable value. Nor is it merely that His person made all that service and obedience voluntary. There is something far more than its being thus voluntary. There is that in it which the Person imparts:and who can weigh or measure that ? The higher in personal dignity, the higher the value of the service rises in our thoughts. And justly so; because more has been engaged for us, more has been devoted to us, then when the servant was an inferior; the heart instinctively learns that our advantage was indeed sought. We remember the person in the service. The service and obedience of Jesus were perfect; infinitely worthy of all acceptance; but beyond that, beyond the quality of the fruit, there was the Person who yielded it; and this, as we said, imparted to it a value and a glory unutterable. The same value rested on the services of His life which afterwards gave character to His death. It was His person which gave to His death or sacrifice all its virtue. It was His person which gave its peculiar glory to all He did in His course of self-humbling obedience. And the complacency of God in the one was as perfect as His judicial acceptance of the other. J. G. Bellett.