|LIBRAM OF CONGRESS. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. $ 
 
^1 
 
 I' 
 
THE PENTATEUCH VINDICATED. 
 
THE PENTATEUCH VINDICATED 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 OBJECTIONS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS 
 
 BISHOP COLENSO. 
 
 EEV. PEIEB DAVIDSON, D.D., 
 
 MINISTER OF UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, QUEEN STREET, 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 EDINBURGH: ANDREW ELLIOT. 
 
 LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. 
 
 1863. 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 The following lectures, being intended for audiences 
 composed of different classes of the ordinary hearers 
 of the Gospel and readers of the Bible, were neces- 
 sarily confined to the discussion of general principles, 
 and of such broad views of the matters introduced 
 as could be clearly expounded to such audiences. 
 The author neither attempted to review all Bishop 
 Colenso's objections to the historical truth of the 
 Pentateuch, nor to enter into all the details of 
 any of them. His object was to consider the most 
 formidable, to expose the false principles on which 
 these were founded, and to unfold the spirit of the 
 whole of this extraordinary crusade against the inspi- 
 ration and authority of the Word of God. He. was 
 convinced that this is both the safest and the most 
 effectual way of meeting such an assault on the Bible. 
 For if the principles on which it is conducted can be- 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 shown to be false, there can be little necessity for 
 intermeddling with minute details ; and if these prin- 
 ciples cannot be shown to be false — if they are sound 
 principles — then to criticise details can be of little 
 use. In the Appendix, however, the author has sup- 
 plemented the discussions contained in the lectures 
 by some additional notes and illustrations. 
 
 It has been alleged that Bishop Colenso's book 
 hardly deserves an answer ; for had it not been the 
 book of a bishop, it would have produced no impres- 
 sion whatever. In so far as this allegation is true, it 
 answers itself; for if the book be injurious because 
 it is the work of a bishop, then for the same reason 
 it ought to be answered. But the allegation is not 
 altogether true; for, unquestionably, though the same 
 or similar objections to the authenticity and inspi- 
 ration of the Pentateuch have been often before 
 published, they were never before set in so im- 
 posing and startling forms, and, especially, were never 
 before accompanied with such specious assumptions 
 of regard for the Truth, and devotion to the God of 
 Truth, as in this instance. 
 
 It is impossible to read Bishop Colenso's book with- 
 out having the question irresistibly pressed upon the 
 attention, What could be his aim or object in pub- 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 lishing the infidel sentiments which it contains f ? 
 And what, especially, could his object be — consider- 
 ing him as a Christian man and minister, and anxious 
 to be still regarded as such? It is said in the 
 following lectures that his aim appears to be inscrutable. 
 And this is true, reasoning on ordinary principles — 
 such principles as commonly actuate Christian men 
 and ministers of the Gospel. But Bishop Colenso 
 has some extraordinary principles, and it is from the 
 consideration of them that the object of his book is 
 most likely to be ascertained, so far, at least, as reli- 
 gion is concerned. 
 
 One of his principles appears to be, that while there 
 is no such thing as supernatural revelation, at least of 
 natural and historical facts, there is what may be called 
 natural inspiration — an operation of the Spirit of God 
 in the understandings and hearts of good men, origi- 
 nating noble and true thoughts and aspirations, and 
 making them thus the guides and teachers of the 
 world. ' These inspirations can be embodied in a fable 
 as well as in a true history ; and the historical truth 
 of the Pentateuch, or of any part of the Bible, becomes 
 therefore a matter of no importance. Though not 
 historically true, the Bible still conveys the good 
 thoughts of good men of former times, and is "to be 
 reverenced as a book, the best of books, the work of 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 living men like ourselves — of men, I mean, in whose 
 hearts the same thoughts were stirring, the same hopes 
 and fears were dwelling, the same gracious spirit was 
 operating, three thousand years ago." In this way 
 the Bible is to be valued and studied, not as a divine, 
 but a " human book," giving us thus, indirectly, " re- 
 velations of the Divine will and character," and 
 occupying the same platform with the "noble words" 
 of Cicero, or the inspirations of Sikh Gooroos, and of 
 the worshippers of Ram.'' * 
 
 Another of Bishop Colenso's principles, or ruling 
 sentiments, undoubtedly is an exaggerated or confused 
 idea of the power of Reason in matters of religion. 
 This is to be recognised in his book on the Pentateuch, 
 in his frequent references to the Truth, and the power 
 of Truth, by which he means not what God says in 
 his Word, but what he, the Bishop, thinks, on any 
 particular subject. But it is in his Commentary on 
 the Romans, that this sentiment is met with most 
 fully developed. In a curious passage in that work,t 
 we have Eeason, or the natural conscience in man, first 
 spoken of as " a power to see what is revealed, un- 
 
 * " Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch," Prefaces passim ; 
 Concluding Remarks, Part I., pp. 151-157; Part II., pp. 
 380-384. 
 
 t Pp. 208, 209. 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 covered to our eyes," in the Bible. A few sentences 
 further on, this power to see becomes a God-given 
 " Light of the inner man to be the very guide and 
 polestar of our lives;" and then, a page still further 
 on, it is transformed into a Divine Law, by which all 
 the dictates of Scripture are to be judged, and either 
 approved or condemned : " He that sitteth upon the 
 throne judging righteously, has set His own Law to 
 be a Law of Life within the heart of every man. 
 Whatever contradicts that Law, whether it be the 
 word of man, or the dictum of a church, or the sup- 
 posed teaching of Holy Scripture, cannot, ought not, 
 to be a Law for him." Now, no doubt, in a modi- 
 fied sense, were man's reason uninjured, this would 
 be true; but broadly and indefinitely taken, how 
 deceitful, and destructive of all the authority of 
 Divine Eevelation must this principle be ! It leaves 
 no room for supernatural revelation at all. Human 
 reason is made the sole Judge and Dictator of Truth, 
 and God himself must be whatever pleases it — this 
 more than "deified it." 
 
 Another of Bishop Colenso's remarkable principles, 
 which seems to have a good deal to do with his 
 assault on the Pentateuch and the whole Bible, is his 
 doctrine of the universal justification of mankind. 
 This is brought out partially in his book on the Pen- 
 
x Preface. 
 
 tateuch, but more clearly in his Commentary on the 
 Eomans. Without holding anything like a proper 
 atonement for sin — a satisfaction to Divine justice, — 
 the Bishop undoubtedly holds that all men from the 
 beginning of time have been made righteous in Christ, 
 and are safe for eternity. The righteousness of God, 
 through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, is 
 upon all who don't believe, as well as upon all who 
 do.* If any ask, What, then, is the use of the Gos- 
 pel or of faith *? The Bishop would answer, * That 
 they are good for enabling us to realize this justifica- 
 tion and enjoy it in the present life ; but they can 
 make no difference in the life to come. All shall 
 then be accepted, but, at the same time, all shall have 
 to undergo a purgative chastisement from their lov- 
 
 * In his comment on Rom. iii. 23 (24), the Bishop says, "As 
 he (the apostle) has just said that all sin, and all come short 
 of God's glory, so now he must mean that all are made right- 
 eous, justified, freely by God's grace." Afterwards hesitating, 
 apparently, as to the propriety of making the apostle's words, 
 all who do believe, to include all who don't believe, he adds, 
 "The apostle's words in this verse most probably mean this, 
 because he afterwards (yv. 15-19) fully and explicitly states 
 it, namely, that the justification here spoken of extends to 
 all, to those who have never heard the name of Christ, as 
 well as to Christians. It is certain that in this latter passage 
 he is speaking of the whole human race." N.B. — Though 
 we have quoted the above sentences as they stand, the cita- 
 tion {yv. 15-19) seems to be a misprint for chap. v. 15-19. 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 ing Father's hand, of few stripes or many stripes, 
 according to the degree in which they obeyed or dis- 
 obeyed the light which they enjoyed in this life.' — 
 Such, in few words, appears to be the Bishop's theory 
 of salvation by Christ; and the inference from it 
 seems a fair one, that even to the true believer in 
 Christ, the sincere but imperfect Christian, the pos- 
 session of the Scriptures and the faith of the Gospel 
 may turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing, — 
 subjecting him to a heavier punishment, more stripes, 
 hereafter, than if he had never heard of " the glorious 
 Gospel of the blessed God." 
 
 This doctrine, however strange, will be greedily 
 drunk in, we doubt not, by multitudes, seeing it does 
 away with all fear of endless punishment, and replaces 
 Christianity with what may be called a modified hea- 
 thenism. But for its establishment, all faith in the Bible, 
 as an authoritative and infallible revelation of the mind 
 and will of God, must evidently be removed out of the 
 way. The doctrine cannot stand for a moment in the 
 face of such authoritative statements as these : " He 
 that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and 
 he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but 
 the wrath of God abideth on him. If ye believe not 
 that I am he, ye shall die in your sins ; and whither 
 I go ye cannot come. How shall we escape if we 
 
xii Preface, 
 
 neglect so great salvation? The Lord Jesus shall 
 be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 
 in naming fire, taking vengeance on them that know 
 not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; who shall be punished with everlasting 
 destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from 
 the glory of his power."* 
 
 Taking these principles of Bishop Colenso, and the 
 other well-known principles of the Theological party 
 with which he is connected, into view, it can hardly 
 be doubted that his book on the Pentateuch is a bold 
 stroke designed to change the religion of England, 
 or the Church of England, into a modified — a sort of 
 Christianized — heathenism, in which " the foolishness 
 of the Cross " shall be replaced by " the wisdom of 
 men," and all that in the religion of the Bible is offen- 
 sive and burdensome to the natural heart, exchanged 
 for what will be either gratifying or tolerable to it. 
 No doubt the Bishop thinks that " he is doing God 
 service " in aiming at such a result, — and this seems 
 to be what he refers to in such passages as the fol- 
 lowing : "I trust that, as ministers of God's truth 
 and God's message of love to mankind, we shall be 
 able, before long, to meet the Mahomedan, and Brah- 
 
 * John iii. 36 ; Heb. ii. 3 ; 2 Thes. i. 7-9. 
 
Preface. xiii 
 
 min, and Buddhist, as well as the untutored savage 
 of South Africa and the South Pacific, on other and 
 better terms than we now do, and no longer feel our- 
 selves obliged to maintain every part of the Bible as 
 an infallible record of past history, and every word as 
 the sacred utterance of the Spirit of God." * 
 
 But in order to this religious result, and more im- 
 mediately, there is another, and a somewhat political 
 object, which Bishop Colenso's book has in view — 
 namely, to get the constitution of the Church of Eng- 
 land so altered as to permit the continuance and the 
 growth, within her pale, of the theological party to 
 which the Bishop belongs. He would have the galling 
 fetters of the Church's creed and formularies relaxed 
 or removed, so that he and others of like senti- 
 ments might still eat her bread, and enjoy her dig- 
 nities, without being so painfully self- convicted of 
 inconsistency, and dishonesty, or even perjury, as 
 they cannot but feel themselves to be. This object 
 is plainly avowed by the Bishop over and over again, 
 and "the English laity" are earnestly entreated to come 
 to the rescue of the Church's ministers, and the de- 
 fence of what are called " their own religious liberties." 
 Witness the following appeal : — 
 
 * Part L, Conclud. Rem., p. 150. 
 
xiv Preface. 
 
 " If the arguments here stated can fairly be set aside, most 
 gladly will I acknowledge my fault before the Church, and 
 submit to the just consequences of my acts. But, if they 
 shall appear to be well founded and true, I appeal once more 
 to the English laity to look to their own religious liberties, 
 and the interests of the truth, and to set on foot such mea- 
 sures as may seem best, for obtaining, through the action of 
 Parliament, on whose decisions the system of our National 
 Church depends, such relief for the consciences of the clergy 
 as shall give room for the free utterance of God's truth in 
 the congregation, instead of the worn-out formulae of a 
 bygone age. Can we not trust God's Truth to take care of 
 itself in this world ? Must we seek, in our ignorant, feeble 
 way, to prop it up by legal enactments, and fence it round 
 by a system of fines, and forfeitures, and church anathemas, 
 lest the rude step of some ' free inquirer ' should approach 
 too near, and do some fatal injury to the Eternal Truth of 
 God? Have we no faith in God, the living God? And do 
 we not believe that He himself is willing, and surely able as 
 willing, to protect His own honour, and to keep in safety the 
 souls of His children, and, amidst the conflict of opinions 
 that will ever be waged in this world in the search after 
 truth — which may be vehement but need not be uncharitable 
 — to maintain in each humble, prayerful heart, the essential 
 substance of that Truth, which maketh wise unto salva- 
 tion? "—Part II., Pref., p. 35, 
 
 Now the latter half of this appeal is powerful and 
 irrefragable as an argument against all civil establish- 
 ments of Christianity. It could not have been more 
 pointedly or forcibly put by the Liberation Society 
 itself; and it would be interesting to know what 
 reply to it, in this aspect, the " evangelical" friends 
 of a State Church would now give. Eemembering 
 
Preface. xv 
 
 the history of the last thirty years, and hearing the 
 language of infidelity from the very pulpits, and pro- 
 fessorial chairs, and Episcopal thrones, of the Church 
 of England, can they any longer confidently plead for 
 the National Church as a necessary bulwark against 
 Popery on the one hand and infidelity on the other ? 
 It is to he hoped that they will not. 
 
 But, as a reason for releasing the clergy of a State 
 Church from their ordination vows, the Bishop's appeal 
 has no force whatever. The clergy have the means 
 of release in their own hands. If they can no longer 
 preach the universally understood — the commonly 
 avowed — doctrines of the Church's creed, they have 
 but to go out in order to be free. Or if they think a 
 State Church unnecessary, let them seek the sever- 
 ance of the Church from the State, and they will 
 obtain the same freedom. Let the Church of England 
 cease to be a national institution, supported by na- 
 tional property, and the clergy and laity belonging 
 to her may make her creed and formularies what 
 they please. But so long as she is a State Church, 
 why should " faith in God, the living God," lead the 
 English laity or the British nation to release her 
 clergy from obligations, voluntarily undertaken, to do 
 the work for which that Church exists, and which 
 common honesty prescribes to them? "Why should 
 
xvi Preface. 
 
 confidence in God's Truth induce that nation to hon- 
 our and support a set of men to fight against that 
 which, not only the nation, but these men themselves 
 have solemnly avowed, and still continue by their 
 position to avow, to be God's Truth ? Surely this is a 
 demand a little too extravagant to be listened to for a 
 moment. — Such, however, is the political object which 
 Eishop Colenso's book has avowedly in view, and it 
 goes far to explain what would otherwise be inex- 
 plicable. 
 
 It does not belong to the author of this volume to 
 say what ought to be done by the friends of the Bible 
 and of Bible Truth in the circumstances. He has 
 endeavoured to refute the principles of Bishop Col- 
 enso's book, and he has, in doing so, borne testimony 
 also against the inconsistency and ignominy of Bishop 
 Colenso's position. It belongs to others to say what 
 is to be done with the Bishop himself. Most cer- 
 tainly he, and others like him, cannot be allowed to con- 
 tinue in their present position without most disastrous 
 consequences, both to the religion and morality of the 
 nation. But what is to be done, and who is to do 
 it % The courts and dignitaries of the English Church 
 seem to be powerless. They cannot do what the 
 meanest or most despised dissenting church or con- 
 
Preface. xvii 
 
 gregation can easily do. Shall we look to Parliament 
 for a remedy ? Parliament would be both indis- 
 posed and incompetent to the task. And even the 
 great body of the nation seems to be so apathetic as 
 to give little hope of its being roused to exertion in 
 defence of the cause of truth and righteousness. 
 Under God there is but one quarter from which it 
 seems possible for help to come ; and that is from the 
 friends of the Eible and of Bible truth within the 
 pale of the Church of England. They, with God's 
 blessing, could possibly rectify what is wrong ; 
 and surely if they could, they are bound by their 
 own principles and honour to do so at any sacri- 
 fice, And how 1 Simply by leaving a church in 
 which they cannot longer remain without being " un- 
 equally yoked with unbelievers," and becoming the 
 main supporters of avowed infidelity. If they can- 
 not sever such men as Bishop Colenso from the 
 Church of England, then they should — they must, 
 for the Truth's sake, sever themselves. ISTo doubt 
 this would be a great sacrifice — greater, perhaps, in 
 many points of view, than onlookers can easily under- 
 stand ; but is it too great a sacrifice for the Truth to 
 demand — for the interests of pure religion in Britain 
 to demand — for Christ himself to demand of them 1 
 Surely not : it is no greater sacrifice than Christ and 
 
xviii Preface. 
 
 his cause have often required ; and it might, as in 
 other cases, turn out in the end to be no sacrifice at 
 all, but a source of honour, and strength, and joy. 
 
 But, be the sacrifice what it may, are they not 
 morally pledged to make it? They have requested 
 Bishop Colenso to resign ; and does not that prove 
 a deep conviction on their part, that they and he 
 cannot honourably remain longer together — cannot 
 longer -serve at the same altar, or be partakers of 
 the same table? They may depend on it that on- 
 lookers will so judge; and if they fail to act in 
 accordance with their convictions (in whatever way 
 Providence may shut them up to do so) they will do 
 a thousand-fold more injury to the cause of the 
 Eedeemer, and of the Bible, in this land, than 
 all the books which Bishop Colenso or men of his 
 stamp can possibly write. May the grace of the God 
 of Truth preserve them from such a disastrous failure ! 
 
 33 Warriston Crescent, Edinburgh, 
 March 25, 1863. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface, ..... v.-xviii 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Revelation xvi. 15. 
 Introductory Bernarks — Bishop Colenso's First Volume on 
 the Pentateuch, &c. — Position assumed by him in opposi- 
 tion to the Testimony of Jesus Christ — His qualifications 
 for maintaining this position, as judged of from his book, 
 and especially from his charge of iniquity and cruelty 
 against one of the Laws of Moses — Conclusion, . 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 John v. 46, 47. 
 Scripture difficulties — Sources of Scripture difficulties — Diffi- 
 culties in the Pentateuch — Number of the Israelites at 
 the Exodus — Number of the First-born compared with 
 the number of Adult Males — Number of the Israelites 
 compared with the Extent of the Promised Land — Con- 
 clusion, . . . . . . .29 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Psalm xviii. 30. 
 Institution of the Passover — Preparations for the Exodus — 
 The Exodus— Sheep and Cattle of the Israelites in the 
 Desert— The Assembly of the Congregation — The Israel- 
 ites armed — Conclusion, ... 62 
 
xx Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Numbers xii. 7, 8 ; Hebrews iii. 5, 6. 
 The Genealogies of Scripture — The Family of Judah — The 
 War on Midian — Origin of the War on Midian — Con- 
 clusion, ....... 100 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Exodus vi. 2, 3. 
 Bishop Colenso's Second Volume — His theory of the Origin 
 and Authorship of the Pentateuch, self-destructive, op- 
 posed to Scripture, incredible, and injurious to the reputa- 
 tion of inspired men — The foundation of his Theory — 
 The use of the name Jehovah in Genesis — Conclusion, 130 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. The Exodus in the Fourth Generation, and the families 
 
 of Dan and Levi, &c. ..... 165 
 
 B. The number of the Priests and their Duties, &c. 
 C Moses and Joshua addressing all Israel, . 
 
 D. The Family of Judah, and Chief Families of Israel, 
 
 E. The incredibility of Bishop Colenso's Theory as to the 
 
 Origin of the Pentateuch, &c, .... 180 
 
 F. The use of the name Jehovah in Genesis investigated, . 188 
 
 171 
 174 
 177 
 
LECTURE I* 
 
 Eev. xvi. 15. — " Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that 
 watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, 
 and they see his shame." 
 
 By many modern interpreters of prophecy, and, among 
 others, by the late acute and learned G. Stanley Faber, 
 who in 1817 predicted the revival of the French 
 Empire, this context has been regarded as referring 
 to the times in which we live — giving symbolical 
 representations of the events which are now passing 
 over us. If this opinion be correct, the text must 
 plainly be regarded as addressed to ourselves, warn- 
 ing us of the peculiar dangers and temptations to 
 which we are exposed, and admonishing us to be on 
 our guard against them. " Behold," says the faith- 
 ful and true Witness, " I come as a thief. Blessed is 
 he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he 
 walk naked, and they see his shame." 
 
 But whether this opinion be correct or not, there 
 are various classes of men, professing to be followers 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom the admonition of 
 
 * Delivered December 14, 1862. 
 A 
 
2 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 the text might be appropriately commended. It 
 might, I think, be not unseasonably whispered in the 
 ears of a very considerable body of the clergy of the 
 Church of England, who seem to have been seized 
 with a perfect rage to divest themselves of those 
 garments of truth and righteousness, with which 
 above all men they have hitherto professed to be 
 clothed, and to stand before the world in an attitude 
 which is nothing less than shameful. 
 
 Lately, no fewer than seven men, of high name and 
 influence in that Church, sworn to maintain and defend 
 her creed and formularies, and still retaining the hon- 
 ours, emoluments, and influence which they derived 
 from their connection with her, were seen labouring, 
 " with might and main," to unsettle and destroy the 
 foundations on which she rests. And now a bishop 
 — no less than a consecrated and mitred bishop — seeks 
 to do the same thing, not only for the foundations of 
 the Church of England, but for the foundations of all 
 Christian churches, and of Christianity itself. He 
 seeks, I say, and seeks unblushingly, while retaining 
 the name and status of a Christian bishop, to unsettle 
 and destroy the deepest foundations on which Chris- 
 tianity itself, and all communities deserving the name 
 of Christian churches, must ever rest. Is this honest, 
 or honourable, or anything less than shameful % If it 
 be, then I at least must confess my ignorance alike of 
 moral distinctions and of the meaning of words. 
 
 It may be said that these men do not suppose that 
 they have departed from the standards of the Church 
 
Introductory Remarks. 3 
 
 of England ; and further, that it has not yet been 
 proved that they have so departed, — for the recent 
 decision of the Court of Arches leaves this question 
 very much in doubt. If so, then so much the worse 
 for the Church of England ; for, in that case, the 
 charge must be transferred from her sons to herself. 
 The Bishop of London was speaking to his clergy, the 
 other day, of the Church of England as " appointed 
 by the Lord Jesus Christ to be the chief witness on 
 earth for those great truths which are of heavenly 
 origin." The panegyric is perhaps a little too high- 
 toned for our Presbyterian taste, yet we cannot with- 
 hold the honour of a high place among the witnesses 
 for the truth to the Church of the Eidleys and Lati- 
 mers, the Hookers and Barrows, the Taylors and 
 Tillotsons, the Butlers and Paleys of former days. 
 But what has that Church become now, or what must 
 she become, if it cannot be determined by her stand- 
 ards or law courts what truths are of heavenly origin 1 
 and if among her clergy and people all possible 
 varieties of creed, or no creed, are found, from the 
 rankest Bomanism to the most withering infidelity 1 
 Must not the Church herself in that case appear 
 naked ? and must not it become an urgent question 
 for the nation that supports her, Whether she has not 
 outlived her usefulness, lost all spiritual vitality and 
 power, become a source of corruption, and ought to 
 be, as a national establishment, buried out of sight? 
 Eor, otherwise, may not her rich endowments only 
 attract the ever watchful birds and beasts of prey ? 
 
4 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 " Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be 
 gathered together." 
 
 But there is another class of persons to whom the 
 warning and admonition of the text might be profit- 
 ably proclaimed, and proclaimed, not in a whisper, 
 but with the loudest voice, and in the most earnest 
 manner which any Christian man or minister can 
 assume : namely, professing Christians, whose faith 
 and experience are as yet but doubtful or immature, 
 and who are likely to be tossed to and fro by the 
 various winds of doctrine to which they are exposed ; 
 or the anchor of whose souls is apt to be parted with 
 and lost amid the trying, perplexing changes and 
 storms which are coming on the Church and the 
 world. To them I would more particularly apply the 
 words of the text. Of the heretical clergy of the 
 Church of England, or of any other church, who 
 have already committed themselves, there is not 
 much hope. But only the more ought the young and 
 inexperienced to listen to the warning thus addressed 
 to them, and be upon their guard. Let them watch 
 and look well about them. Let them not part easily 
 or thoughtlessly with the garments of their Christian 
 faith and profession. Let them, even when stumbled 
 by the objections brought against the Bible and the 
 religion of Christ, reserve their opinion, and only 
 study these the more that they may become better 
 acquainted with them. Let them remember that 
 these great temples of divine truth have withstood 
 many a fierce blast both from earth and hell already, 
 
Bishop Colenso's Volume. 5 
 
 and that He whose word has never yet been proved to 
 be false, has pledged himself that they shall stand for 
 ever. Sectarian creeds, though professedly founded 
 on Scripture, may become obsolete and be forgotten. 
 National and denominational churches which He 
 never planted shall certainly perish. But that Church 
 which He himself planted, and which rests on the 
 foundation of his own person, and word, and work, 
 shall never perish. Like the souls which He has 
 redeemed, it shall live and nourish, even more abund- 
 antly, in the time of trial and tempest, " and the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 But to come to the subject of which we propose to 
 speak, — namely, the volume of Bishop Colenso on the 
 Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, — there cannot be 
 a moment's question that the publication of that 
 volume is a remarkable phenomenon : so much so as 
 to be a sign of the times. Not that there is much in 
 the volume that is, properly speaking, new ; the same 
 or similar objections against the authenticity and 
 inspiration of these portions of the Scripture have 
 often before been started, not only in Germany but in 
 England. The books of the old English deists are 
 full of such objections and quibbles, — some of them 
 not less startling than any that Bishop Colenso's book 
 contains. You will find, for instance, in that pro- 
 scribed and infamous book, " Paine's Age of Eeason," 
 as startling and plausible objections to the authenti- 
 city and genuineness of the Pentateuch as any that 
 
I ,111. MWHIHUIILJ 
 
 6 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 this Christian bishop has brought forward ; and the 
 best evidence that his objections are not new is that 
 his book is to a large extent filled with the answers, 
 and refutations of the answers, which other learned 
 men — some of them far more learned than Bishop 
 Colenso appears to be — have already given to these 
 objections ; so that the whole meaning of the book 
 is, that what has satisfied other learned men does not 
 satisfy the Bishop of Natal. — The grand novelty in 
 the Bishop's book is, that it is the book of a bishop 
 — a colonial and missionary bishop of the Church of 
 England — who still holds his place, and means, if he 
 can, to do so ; and who seems to think that it will 
 be a very great hardship or an actual injustice, if the 
 English nation do not immediately consent to change 
 its religion to suit his convenience, and the conveni- 
 ence of men like him who seem bent on betraying 
 that truth which they have sworn to defend. 
 
 Perhaps I ought in fairness to add that there is 
 another novelty in this book, compared with such 
 books as that of Thomas Paine, with which it has the 
 same object and tendency. Dr. Colenso does not 
 clothe his objections to the truth and inspiration of 
 the Scriptures in the language of ribaldry and pro- 
 fanity as that old and bold outlaw did. He does not 
 make war on the priesthood as Paine did. On the other 
 hand, his book is written with a show of candour, an 
 air of modesty, and even, to use a Scottish phrase, 
 " a sough of piety," which are very imposing ; and 
 he enters also more minutely and learnedly into the 
 
Bishop Colenso's Volume. 7 
 
 objections started than former objectors were accus- 
 tomed to do. He professes to bring the statements of 
 the Pentateuch to the test of arithmetic and mensura- 
 tion, and to be compelled to reject them because they 
 are not only untenable but absolutely and demonstrably 
 impossible. The Bishop of Natal is a great mathema- 
 tician ; he carries his foot-rule and his multiplication 
 table with him into the field of inspiration, and when 
 there, like the man " who botanizes on his mother's 
 grave," he seems to forget everything but Euclid and 
 the Rule of three. I do not find fault with him for 
 bringing the statements of Scripture to the test of 
 calculation. I think it perfectly right to do so; but 
 I think also that the Christian who does so should 
 not be so intent on always finding them wrong, — that 
 he should be very careful that his data be sound and 
 his calculations unquestionable, — and that, above all, 
 he should not allow himself to forget that there are 
 heights and depths, and lengths and breadths in 
 Scripture which no human mensuration can compass, 
 and momentous interests, which no human arithmetic 
 can compute. 
 
 What I propose in the sequel of this lecture is a 
 very simple and general thing : I propose, first, to 
 show what is the definite and undoubted position 
 which this Christian bishop has assumed, not only in 
 respect of the Pentateuch, but also in respect of the 
 whole Bible, which has its foundation in the Penta- 
 teuch, and even in respect of Christ, whose word the 
 whole Bible is ; and then, secondly, to inquire 
 
8 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 whether he, or indeed any man, is qualified to as- 
 sume that position and maintain it? and whether, 
 especially, it is wise or safe for others to follow him 
 into it 1 In doing this, I shall not require to go 
 beyond the Preface and Introduction of the Bishop's 
 volume ; but in future lectures, God willing, I shall 
 consider some of its arithmetical and other objections 
 to the truth of the Pentateuch, and so endeavour to 
 enable you to judge of its character and spirit and 
 probable effects. My apology for taking up this sub- 
 ject at all is the great sensation which the book has 
 evidently occasioned throughout the country, the 
 freedom with which extracts from it have been given 
 by the public press, and the frequency with which, 
 in all kinds of periodicals, it has been and continues 
 to be discussed. I think that every friend of Divine 
 revelation is, in the circumstances, called on to do 
 what he can to guide perplexed minds to the truth. 
 
 First, then, let us endeavour to show the precise 
 and definite position which the Bishop of Natal has, 
 in his volume, assumed in regard to the inspiration 
 and historical truth of the books of Moses and Joshua. 
 This is easily shown ; for it is sufficiently brought 
 before us in the preface : a very curious preface, by 
 the way, consisting in part of a long letter (which 
 was never sent) to a professor of Divinity in one of 
 the English universities, asking advice and direction 
 in reference to the difficulties which the writer felt 
 on the subject of his present publication. Prom this 
 
Bishop CoUnsds Position. 9 
 
 letter we learn that, long before he became a bishop, 
 Dr. Colenso had difficulties as to the historical truth of 
 the early portions of the Old Testament ; and that, 
 even when a parochial clergyman in England, he was 
 in the habit of preaching from passages of the Old 
 Testament, into the historical truth of which he did 
 not closely examine. We learn also, from the same 
 letter, that it was when he came into contact with 
 the Zulu Kaffirs of southern Africa, that he was 
 " brought face to face with questions " which he had 
 before put by or allowed to sleep ; for then he was 
 obliged to answer their simple-minded interrogations 
 as to the historic truth of the inspired narratives (as, 
 for. instance, in regard to the universality of the 
 Deluge) in a manner which satisfied them, but did 
 not satisfy himself ; i.e. apparently, he taught them to 
 believe what he did not himself believe, (p. viii.) 
 
 From the preface also we learn, that it is not more 
 than two years, from the present date, since the 
 Bishop began to study, carefully and deeply, the sub- 
 ject on which he writes ; but that now, having done 
 so, he has come to the distinct and decided conclusion, 
 that the Pentateuch is neither genuine nor true : i. e. 
 was neither written by Moses, to whom it is commonly 
 ascribed, nor by any other man, who was personally 
 acquainted with the facts he professed to describe. 
 " I became so convinced," says he, " of the unhistori- 
 cal character of very considerable portions of the 
 Mosaic narrative, that I decided not to forward my 
 letter at all." And what he means by very consider- 
 
10 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 able portions of the Mosaic narrative, we afterwards 
 learn to be the whole of it. For, says he, in his in- 
 troduction, " The result of my inquiry is this, that I 
 have arrived at the conviction, that the Pentateuch, 
 as a whole, cannot possibly have been written by 
 Moses, or by any one acquainted personally with 
 the facts which it professes to describe, and further, 
 that the (so-called) Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever 
 written, and though imparting to us, as I fully believe 
 it does, revelations of the Divine will and character, 
 cannot be regarded as historically truer And by this 
 expression, ' not historically true,' the Bishop means 
 simply not true, out false. Not that he would call 
 the Pentateuch a fiction : no ! for a fiction, according 
 to him, is meant to deceive ; but the author of the 
 Pentateuch, whoever he was, had no such intention : 
 he never meant his story to be received as true, either 
 by his own countrymen the Jews, or by any other 
 class of men.* Such are some of the crudities we 
 meet with in this preface, and are expected to receive 
 on the word of a bishop. And such, also, is the 
 position which this Christian bishop has assumed and 
 undertaken to defend: the first five books of the 
 Bible, he says, were neither written by Moses, nor 
 are they a true history; and by consequence they 
 could not have been written under the inspiration of 
 the Spirit of God — the Spirit of holiness and truth. 
 
 But this is not all, nor the worst. The author has 
 virtually said, in his preface, that he has not exam- 
 * Pref., p. 17, Note. 
 
Bishop Golensds Position. 1 1 
 
 ined "in what way the interpretation of the New 
 Testament is affected " by his denial of the truth of 
 the Pentateuch. But he shows, at the same time, 
 that he has a pretty good guess on the subject. For he 
 himself starts and endeavours to answer the patent 
 objection to his theory, which will present itself to 
 every intelligent Christian mind, viz., Did not our 
 blessed Lord, by the manner in which he referred to 
 and quoted the language of the Pentateuch, certify at 
 once the Mosaic authorship, the historical truth, and 
 the divine inspiration of that portion of the sacred vol- 
 ume ? — I need not quote all the passages in which Christ 
 thus speaks of the writings of Moses. It is enough 
 to refer to one, in the 5th chapter of John's gospel, 
 in which, when reasoning with the Pharisees, he said, 
 (?;. 45-47), " Do not think that I will accuse you to 
 the Father : there is one that accuseth you, even 
 Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed 
 Moses, ye would have believed me : for he wrote of 
 me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye 
 believe my words?" Nowhere it is plain that our 
 blessed Lord not only virtually asserted that the 
 books which the Jews ascribed to Moses were written by 
 him, and were true, but also that they possessed divine 
 authority, and required to be believed by men in order 
 to their believing in Christ. For how, otherwise, 
 could the Pharisees be accused and condemned before 
 the Father for their want of faith in Moses 1 and 
 how, otherwise, could they not be expected to believe 
 Christ's words 1 It is self-evident that these things 
 
12 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 could have been said by Christ, only if the writings 
 of Moses were the inspired and authoritative word of 
 God. 
 
 Here then we have a complete authentication of the 
 books of Moses, by "the faithful and true Witness" 
 — the beloved Son of the Father, who always spoke 
 the words of the Father, and whom the Father him- 
 self, by a voice from heaven, commands us to hear : 
 "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased : hear him." 
 
 And what does Bishop Colenso say to this 1 He 
 has three answers : the first being the supremely 
 weak one, that because there are several evident in- 
 terpolations, or additions, in the books of Moses, 
 such as the last chapter of Deuteronomy, Christ is 
 not to be held as authenticating the Pentateuch as a 
 whole. I shall not insult your understandings by 
 seeking to shew the futility of this. — The Bishop's se- 
 cond answer is equally weak, but still more dangerous. 
 It is, in effect, that our blessed Lord spoke in accom- 
 modation to the current, popular notions of the time, 
 which of course were false : a principle which has 
 only to be carried far enough in order to throw down 
 all that is peculiar or divine in the teaching of Christ 
 and his apostles, and turn the facts and doctrines of 
 Christianity into Jewish myths, or "old wives' fables." — 
 But the Bishop's third answer is more especially wor- 
 thy of our attention : for it truly goes to the bottom 
 of all such questions j and if it be sound, you may 
 without hesitation, I might almost say, burn your 
 Bibles at once. 
 
Bishop Colensb's Position. J 3 
 
 I give that answer in his own words :— 
 
 " Lastly, it is perfectly consistent with the most entire and 
 sincere belief in our Lord's Divinity, to hold, as many do, 
 that, when He vouchsafed to become a ' Son of man,' He 
 took our nature fully, and voluntarily entered into all the 
 conditions of humanity, and, among others, into that which 
 makes our growth in all ordinary knowledge gradual and 
 limited. We are expressly told in Luke ii. 52, that ' Jesus 
 increased in wisdom ' as well as in ' stature.' It is not sup- 
 posed that, in His human nature, He was acquainted, more 
 than any educated Jew of the age, with the mysteries of all 
 modern sciences ; nor, with St Luke's expression before us, 
 can it be seriously maintained that, as an infant or young 
 child, He possessed a knowledge, surpassing that of the most 
 pious and learned adults of his nation, upon the subject of 
 the authorship and age of the different portions of the 
 Pentateuch. At what period, then, of His life upon earth, 
 is it to be supposed that he had granted to Him, as the Son 
 of Man, super naturally, full and accurate information on 
 these points, so that he should be expected to speak about 
 the Pentateuch in other terms than any other devout Jew 
 of that day would have employed? Why should it be 
 thought that He would speak with certain Divine know- 
 ledge on this matter, more than upon other matters of 
 ordinary science or history ?" 
 
 To this we reply : We readily admit that, as a 
 man, our blessed Lord grew in wisdom and know- 
 ledge, and was not omniscient. We admit, moreover, 
 (and perhaps we would go farther here than even 
 Bishop Colenso) that in seasons of trial and tempta- 
 tion, when it was the will of His Father that his 
 human nature should be tested, and thus proved to 
 be wholly submissive to the Divine will, that nature 
 
14 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 was left, so to speak, to act for itself. The divine 
 nature which he possessed' must have been in a 
 manner, and for the time, quiescent. It did not 
 convey to the human nature either the power or the 
 knowledge which was possessed by the divine. For 
 how otherwise could he have either suffered or been 
 tempted at all, even as a man % — But, these things 
 being readily admitted, we maintain, on the other 
 hand, and maintain it as part of the very foundation 
 of Christianity, that in all things necessary for the 
 revelation of Divine truth and the performance of 
 the work which his Father had given him to do — 
 in all things that related to the ends and objects of 
 his mission — the human nature of Christ, being in 
 most intimate union with his divine nature, was 
 furnished by that divine nature with perfect and 
 infallible knowledge. "He knew all things." He 
 was " The Truth," and always spoke the truth. How 
 often did he assert that the words which he spoke 
 were not his, but the Father's that sent him; and 
 that it was necessary to receive his words in order to 
 be saved % And why, then, should it not be thought 
 -'that he would speak with certain Divine know- 
 ledge" on the authorship and truth of the books of 
 Moses 1 ? or on any other subject on which he deigned 
 to speak % If he did not speak on matters of ordinary 
 science or history, it was not because he could not 
 have spoken with " certain Divine knowledge," but 
 because it did not come within his Divine commission 
 — it was not a part of his work to do so. But on the 
 
Bishop Colensos Position. 15 
 
 authorship and truth of the books of Moses he did 
 speak; and whoever says that He did not speak infal- 
 libly and truly, however he may pretend to believe in 
 the Divinity of Christ, knows not what he says nor 
 whereof he affirms. What ! was Christ the "I AM that 
 was before Abraham,"* and yet did not know who 
 wrote the books of Moses 1 or whether these books 
 contain a true history ? Was He " The Lord God 
 of Israel" who marched at their head through 
 the wilderness in his pillar of cloud and fire, and yet 
 could not tell whether the things related concern- 
 ing Himself and his people in the books of Moses 
 were true 1 ? Nay, did He create the worlds, and 
 throughout all the former ages " uphold all things by 
 the word of his power ;"f and could He not, if he 
 pleased, have made known the truth concerning all 
 history and all science, as well as concerning the will 
 of God and the way of salvation % Undoubtedly he 
 could ; but he came for another purpose than that of 
 teaching ordinary history and science — he came to 
 save them that were lost — and his life on earth was 
 all too short for doing anything else, or for doing any- 
 thing whatever but that which his Father had given 
 him to do. 
 
 It may be added here, that as Christ expressly 
 said, " I have not spoken of myself, but the Father 
 who sent me, He gave me a commandment what I 
 should say, and what I should speak; and what- 
 soever I speak, therefore, even as the Father said 
 * John viii. 58. f Heb. i. 2, 3. 
 
16 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 unto me, so I speak;"* — Bishop Colenso cannot main- 
 tain his ground without going much farther than he 
 has yet done. He must either deny the truth of 
 these words of Christ, or say of the Father, as well 
 as the Son, — Why should it be thought that HE 
 would speak with certain Divine knowledge on this 
 matter 1 — But I have said enough, perhaps, to show 
 distinctly the position which this Christian bishop has 
 assumed. While bearing the name of Christ, and hold- 
 ing a high place in the Church of Christ, he sets him- 
 self in offensive, not to say insolent, antagonism to his 
 Divine Master, and says, virtually, that he knows 
 better about the origin and truth of Scripture than 
 the Incarnate Son of God, whose own word all Scrip- 
 ture is, and " in whom dwelt all the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily;" — who, while the "child born" and 
 the " son given," was at the same time " the Won- 
 derful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlast- 
 ing Father, and the Prince of Peace." 
 
 I come now to inquire, as I proposed, whether 
 Bishop Colenso be the man to occupy such a position, 
 and maintain it ; and whether, especially, it will be 
 wise or safe for others to follow him into it. I might 
 well have asked whether any man, or even an angel 
 from heaven, is capable of maintaining such a position 
 as this. But as we may be well assured that no angel 
 from heaven will ever be found in it ; and equally 
 
 * John xii. 49, 50. 
 
Bishop Colensos Qualifications. 17 
 
 well assured that no wise, and thoughtful, and 
 devout Christian would dare to occupy it — 
 
 "But fools rush in where angels fear to tread ;" 
 — it may be as well to confine our question to 
 the man who has dared to occupy it, and ask, What 
 peculiar qualifications has he for maintaining that 
 position? We are told that he has achieved for 
 himself a great reputation as a mathematician. Well, 
 let us honour him as such. But let us also keep in 
 mind that there have been great mathematicians who 
 were so destitute of the power of reasoning justly on 
 moral and religious matters, as to be little better than 
 children, or fools, on these subjects. I put little faith 
 in his mathematical powers or learning, then, so far 
 as the subject of his present volume is concerned ; 
 and I must be allowed to ask what qualifications he 
 has for treating of this subject in so authoritative, so 
 dogmatical a way as he has done. Of course, I judge 
 of his mind entirely from his books. I know nothing 
 of him otherwise, and beg you to remember that in 
 what follows, I am not, properly speaking, judging 
 the man, but his book. 
 
 Now, there are various things in his book from 
 which we may safely conclude, that, on moral and re- 
 ligious questions, his mind is neither very sensitive, 
 nor very sagacious. For instance, he says in his 
 letter to the professor of Divinity, "For myself, if 
 I cannot find the means of doing away with my pre- 
 sent difficulties, I see not how I can retain my Epis- 
 copal office, in the discharge of which I must require 
 
1 8 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 of others a solemn declaration that they unfeignedly 
 believe all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments ; which, with the evidence now before me, 
 it is impossible wholly to believe in." Now, what I 
 marvel at here is, that any man of sense or feeling 
 should tremble at requiring of others the same solemn 
 declaration which he has made, and continues, by 
 remaining in his office, to make for himself ; especi- 
 ally when we remember that it is not these " others," 
 but himself that has the difficulties and evidence 
 spoken of ; and when we remember, too, that by the 
 time he published this unsent letter his difficulties 
 had been transformed into disbeliefs, and he was 
 telling the whole world, not only that he could not 
 " unfeignedly believe," but that he thoroughly disbe- 
 lieved part of what this solemn declaration asserts, 
 namely, the authority and truth of all the canonical 
 books of the Old and New Testaments. This, I think, 
 displays so strange an idiosyncrasy, and so great a 
 moral obliquity, in the mind of the writer, as render 
 his judgments on moral and religious subjects utterly 
 worthless. 
 
 Take another illustration of the character of Dr 
 Colenso's mind as brought out in his book ; and as 
 I esteem it an important matter, seeing it relates to 
 the morality of one of the laws of Moses, you will 
 forgive me for dwelling upon it at some length. The 
 reference to it is introduced in a somewhat indirect 
 and artistic manner, and is in no small degree im- 
 posing. The law in question is contained in Exodus 
 
Bishop Colenso 's Qualifications. 19 
 
 xxi. 20, 21, and reads thus : — " And if a man smite 
 his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under 
 his hand, he shall surely be punished ; (rather he, i. e. 
 the servant, shall surely be avenged.) JSTot withstand- 
 ing, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be 
 punished (or avenged) ; for he is his money." JSTow 
 observe carefully what the Bishop of Natal says of 
 this law; — 
 
 " I shall never forget the revulsion of feeling with which a 
 very intelligent Christian native, with whose help I was trans- 
 lating these words into the Zulu tongue, first heard them as 
 words said to be uttered by the same great and gracious Being, 
 whom I was teaching him to trust in, and adore. His whole 
 soul revolted against the notion, that the Great and Blessed 
 God, the Merciful Father of all mankind, would speak of a 
 servant or maid as mere 'money,' and allow a horrible crime 
 to go unpunished because the victim of the brutal usage had 
 survived a few hours. My own heart and conscience, at the 
 time, fully sympathized with his. But I then clung to the 
 notion, that the main substance of the narrative was histori- 
 cally true. And I relieved his difficulty, and my own, for the 
 present, by telling him that I supposed that such words as these 
 were written down by Moses, and believed by him to have 
 been divinely given to him, because the thought of them 
 arose in his heart, as he conceived, by the inspiration of God ; 
 and that hence, to all such laws, he prefixed the formula, 
 ' Jehovah said unto Moses,' without it being on that account 
 necessary for us to suppose that they were actually spoken 
 by the Almighty. This was, however, a very great strain 
 upon the cord which bound me to the ordinary belief in the 
 historical veracity of the Pentateuch ; and since then, that 
 cord has snapped in twain altogether." 
 
 Such is the Bishop's comment, given with a great 
 
20 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 deal of apparent simplicity, but, at the same time, 
 with, considerable ingenuity and art. 
 
 Now, the question here does not relate to the Tight- 
 ness or wrongness of slavery. If it did, the answer 
 would be that the law of Moses tolerated slavery 
 just as it did polygamy, as an evil unavoidable in the 
 circumstances in which the Israelites were placed ; but 
 sought also to regulate and modify it. But what 
 Bishop Colenso and his "intelligent native" stand 
 aghast at is, that if a master beat his slave with a rod, 
 and if that slave died a day or two after, his death 
 was not to be avenged ; and for this reason, that the 
 slave was his master's money. 
 
 Now, notice that this law occurs among a number 
 of other laws, designed evidently to distinguish be- 
 tween murder and manslaughter, and designed also to 
 regulate that old consuetudinary law so prevalent 
 among the Hebrews and Arabs and other oriental 
 nations, commonly called the law of blood revenge ; 
 according to which it was not the magistrate that 
 punished the manslayer, but the Goel, or nearest of kin, 
 of the man who had been slain — a rude and summary 
 mode of executing justice which, no doubt, must often 
 have been productive of much injustice and blood- 
 shed and cruelty, but still one which could not be at 
 once put down. Eead some of the verses in the 
 context, and you will perceive at once that this was 
 the character and design of this law, which was so 
 horrifying to the tender consciences of the Bishop of 
 Natal and his Zulu christian : — " He that smiteth a 
 
Bishop Colenso's Qualifications. 21 
 
 man, so that lie die, shall be surely put to death. 
 And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him 
 into his hand ; then I will appoint thee a place 
 whither he shall flee. But if a man come pre- 
 sumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him wilh 
 guile ; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that 
 he may die. And he that stealeth a man, and 
 selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall 
 surely be put to death. And if men strive together, 
 and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, 
 and he die not, but keepeth his bed : If he rise again, 
 and walk abroad, upon his staff, then shall he that 
 smote him be quit : only he shall pay for the loss of 
 his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly 
 healed."* 
 
 But to eome to the law in question itself — How 
 may it be explained % I answer first, that there can 
 be no question of the truth of the reason assigned for 
 the slave's not being avenged, namely, that he was his 
 master's money. When a person buys a house, that 
 house is his money. It is purchased with his money, 
 and is all he has for his money. "When he buys a 
 horse, that horse is his money. And so, when he 
 buys a slave, that slave is his money: not "mere 
 money," as the Bishop of Natal presumes to pervert 
 the language of Scripture. The Bible gives no coun- 
 tenance to the " goods-and-chattels " theory of slavery. 
 It never forgets that the meanest slave has an immortal 
 soul, and is much more than any fellowman's pro- 
 
 * Exod xxi. 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19. 
 
«^VMM^H_ 
 
 22 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 perty. But still, that tlie slave, bought with his money, 
 is so far his master's property — his master's money — 
 his silver, as the expression literally is — who can 
 deny? 
 
 "Well, this being admitted, I ask you, Is there any 
 likelihood in ordinary circumstances of any sane man 
 deliberately and willingly setting about the destruc- 
 tion of his own property 1 Did you ever hear of any 
 but a maniac buying a house, and then deliberately 
 setting it on fire 1 or buying a horse, and then de- 
 liberately taking a gun and shooting it dead 1 And 
 have we any right then to suppose that a master hav- 
 ing bought a slave, will deliberately and willingly 
 beat him to death 1 Certainly not ; and why ? Just 
 because the slave is "his money," and his death would 
 necessarily be a great loss to the master himself. 
 True, there may be instances ir» which a master may 
 be so excited with passion, so transported by rage 
 against his slave, that he thinks not of his own loss 
 or of his servant's life, but intentionally, though we 
 can hardly say deliberately, kills him outright. But 
 the law in question made provision for such cases by 
 saying, that if the servant died under his master's 
 hand, he was to be avenged. It was only in case he 
 lived a day or two after being beaten with a rod — or 
 bastinadoed, as the expression may be understood to 
 mean — it was only then that the death of the slave 
 was not to be avenged. And why, again, but just 
 because he was his master's money. For that proved 
 the crime (even if we should so call what might be 
 
Bishop Colensos Qualifications. 23 
 
 more an accident than a crime) to be not murder, but 
 manslaughter ; and it reminds us at the same time 
 that for this the master was punished already. He 
 had punished himself; for he had destroyed his own 
 property — thrown away his own money. If any say, 
 surely the loss of money was not a sufficient punish- 
 ment of manslaughter, I ask, How is manslaughter 
 commonly punished in Britaiu 1 Is it not commonly 
 by temporary imprisonment 1 And is not such im- 
 prisonment again considered equivalent to, and often 
 remitted for, a fine — a payment in money 1 ? So that, 
 after all Bishop Colenso's affectation of horror at the 
 iniquity and cruelty of this law of Moses, it may 
 easily be seen that the highly civilized, and professedly 
 Christian, British nation, in the nineteenth century, 
 acts upon precisely the same moral principles as those 
 so plainly embodied and so graphically expressed in 
 this short law. 
 
 But more than this : there was not only justice but 
 mercy in this Mosaic law. Tor let it be remembered 
 that the circumstance of the slave's living a day or two 
 was just a rude and simple way of determining the im- 
 portant question whether his death could certainly be 
 traced to his master's hand or not. And it was perhaps, 
 in those days, the only way in which such a question 
 could be determined ; for the Israelites had not, like 
 us, the means of deciding, by post-mortem examina- 
 tions or otherwise, what was certainly the immediate 
 cause of death. If any be disposed to allege that a 
 day or two was too short a time for this purpose, I 
 
24 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 reply, that if this law, as I believe, was intended also 
 to regulate and moderate the operation of the law of 
 blood revenge, then the shorter the time allowed the 
 better ; for it was the more likely to rescue many an 
 innocent victim from the operation of that rude and 
 bloody custom. It was, in this view, a parallel insti- 
 tution to that of the cities of refuge, which no one has 
 ever doubted was a very merciful institution, — an 
 appointment worthy of the God of mercy and love. 
 For let it be remembered, again, that the operation of 
 this law of blood revenge, like the blood feuds which 
 formerly prevailed in our own land, was liable to be 
 carried down from father to son, and from generation 
 to generation, leading to endless bloodshed, and misery, 
 and crime. 
 
 Before leaving the words of Bishop Colenso on 
 this subject, notice for a moment the ingenuity (not 
 ingenuousness) of the answer which he says he returned 
 to the Zulu who was so horrified at this law of the 
 God of Jacob. It may be safely asserted that, though 
 Bishop Colenso had been meditating on the subject 
 from that day to this, he could not have found or con- 
 trived a more direct or complete way than that which 
 he adopted of striking a blow, not only at the Penta- 
 teuch, but at the whole Bible, and reducing all its 
 contents at once to a heap of rubbish. What might 
 he have said — even though ignorant of the true mean- 
 ing and design of this law — if he had been disposed, 
 " for his oath's sake," to maintain the authority of 
 Scripture? He might have said that God gave some 
 
Bishop Colensos Qualifications. 25 
 
 laws to the Israelites, not because He approved of 
 them, but "because of the hardness of their hearts" 
 — "statutes which were not good, and judgments 
 whereby they should not live ;" * and perhaps this 
 was one of these. Or, without " speaking wickedly 
 for God," he might have made other apologies for a 
 law he did not understand. But instead of this, what 
 did he say 1 ? He tells us that he said, virtually, that 
 Moses did not certainly know that he was inspired 
 when he wrote these laws, but only thought and 
 said so, and added the solemn expression, " Jehovah 
 said unto Moses," to cover the pretence. And 
 does not this make Moses as really a lying impostor 
 as Mohammed or any other impostor ever was 1 ? 
 And more than this, if Moses did not know when 
 he was inspired, what reason have we to think 
 that any of the Old Testament prophets or New 
 Testament apostles knew it better than he ? And if 
 they did not know this, what is the whole volume 
 of inspiration but a delusion and a snare 1 Thus, 
 even at this early period of his difficulties and studies, 
 the Bishop must have been far gone in scepticism, and 
 the cord which bound him to the ordinary belief in 
 the historical veracity of the Pentateuch must have 
 been not only a very feeble, but also a very slippery 
 one. 
 
 But he is sadly out in his facts and reckoning 
 here as he is in many other places. For those laws 
 of Moses, of which this was one, were not revealed to 
 * Matt. xix. 8; Ezek. xx. 25. 
 
26 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 him by what is commonly called inspiration, but were 
 communicated to him when he was with Jehovah 
 forty days and forty nights on the mount, when he 
 saw Him "face to face," and talked with Him "mouth 
 to mouth." Was it ignorance, or unbelief, or what 
 was it, that led to this mistake 1 
 
 But enough : I now leave the question with your- 
 selves — Whether this is a man, though a bishop, 
 whom it will be safe to follow into the dark, dreary, 
 desolate regions of infidelity into which he has 
 wandered ? — a man who is so weak or so deceitful 
 as to say such things of himself; so ignorant or 
 blinded with prejudice as thus to misrepresent the 
 character of the laws of Moses ; and who has, at the 
 same time, so little honour or conscience as to remain 
 under the solemn avowal that he "unfeignedly be- 
 lieves all the canonical Scriptures," when he is labour- 
 ing to unsettle the faith of others, not only in a part, 
 but in the whole of the volume of inspiration. 
 
 In conclusion, let me exhort all who hear me 
 to give all diligence to understand and obey the 
 warning of the text, and enjoy the blessedness which 
 it promises. Let every Christian — let every young 
 and inexperienced person especially — give good heed 
 to this earnest and affectionate voice of the true 
 " Shepherd and Bishop of souls," " Behold, I come as 
 a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his 
 garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame." 
 There are times when it is comparatively easy to hold 
 

 Bishop Colensos Qualifications. 27 
 
 fast the garments of the Christian faith and profes- 
 sion. Then there is no temptation to cast them off. 
 But at other times — times of persecution, - or of 
 abounding infidelity — it is different ; and the present 
 threatens to be one of these times. It threatens to 
 be one of those times which the Apostle who wrote 
 the words of the text calls a last time : " Little chil- 
 dren, it is a last time : and as ye have heard that 
 antichrist shall come, even now are there many 
 antichrists; whereby we know that it is a last time." 
 Be upon your guard then ; look out for dangers and 
 be ready to meet them. And for this purpose main- 
 tain your confidence in Scripture — the whole Scrip- 
 ture — as the Word of God. That is our grand security. 
 We need an infallible guide in religion; and if 
 Scripture be not such a guide, there is none on 
 earth. In all other matters — in science, in politics, 
 in all worldly affairs — man's reason, and observation,, 
 and experience are sufficient to guide him ; but in 
 religion, he can know nothing and do nothing with- 
 out first having a revelation from God — a revelation 
 unfolding to him the character and will of God, and 
 the way of salvation. And that revelation, to serve 
 its purpose, or be of any value, must be all true and 
 infallible. It will not serve its purpose if it be partly 
 true and partly false — partly dictated by inspiration 
 of God, and partly by the wisdom or folly of man. 
 Such a Bible would be alike unworthy of God and 
 useless to man ; it would be " a mockery, and a delu- 
 sion, and a snare." Be persuaded, then, to maintain 
 
28 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 your confidence in Scripture ; and for this purpose 
 study it more, and seek to understand it better. 
 Love it, lay it up in your hearts, practise it. No 
 man, I believe, ever lost confidence in Scripture as 
 the Word of God who understood it well — who had 
 found Christ in it, and, through Him, the hope of 
 eternal life. That man is a safe and happy, and 
 the only safe and happy man. " Blessed is the man 
 who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor 
 standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat 
 of the scornful : but his delight is in the law of the 
 Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and 
 night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the 
 rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his 
 season : his leaf also shall not wither ; and what- 
 soever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not 
 so ; but are like the chaff which the wind driveth 
 away." 
 
LECTURE II.* 
 
 John v. 46, 47o — "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have 
 believed me ; for lie wrote of me. But if ye believe not bis 
 writings, bow shall ye believe my words ?" 
 
 That there are many and great difficulties in the 
 Bible, and especially in the earlier books of the Bible, 
 will be at once frankly admitted by all who have 
 much knowledge of these books, or any thing to do 
 with their interpretation. These difficulties are of 
 all kinds — theological and ethical, philological and 
 philosophical, historical and prophetical, difficulties 
 in regard to facts, and difficulties in regard to figures 
 — and of those last, both what we call figures of 
 speech and arithmetical figures, or numbers. As to 
 the former, I confess I have never seen any commen- 
 tary that has brought tolerable sense out of that 
 language of good old Jacob (though I have no doubt 
 that it contains some profound and far-reaching 
 truth) concerning the Shiloh, — ■" Binding his foal unto 
 the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine, he 
 washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the 
 blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine, 
 and his teeth white with milk." And as to the 
 
 * Delivered Jan. 11, 1863. 
 
30 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 latter, I have no hesitation in saying that, if our 
 faith in the Bible were to hinge on our being able to 
 make out from it a consistent chronology of the 
 events recorded in it, or to harmonize all the other 
 numbers of which it speaks, very few indeed would 
 or could believe in it. Few would have the time to 
 search into such matters, and fewer still the talents 
 and learning necessary for the task. I do not say 
 that it would be impossible to do this, but only that 
 it would be a great and difficult labour indeed, for 
 which not one in many thousands of the readers of the 
 Bible would be at all competent. 
 
 If any should ask, Whence are these difficulties, 
 and why are they found in a book that comes from 
 God, and is designed for the instruction, correction, 
 and edification in righteousness of all classes of men? — 
 it would take a long time and much consideration to 
 give anything like a suitable reply. But permit me 
 shortly to mention some of the most obvious sources 
 of these difficulties. — Think of the antiquity of the 
 whole Bible, and especially of the earlier portions of it. 
 It is now by common reckoning thirty-three centuries 
 since the books of Moses were written, — and what 
 changes have taken place since then in the customs and 
 manners, and in the modes of thinking and speaking 
 of men ! Who can reflect for a moment on this fact, 
 and on the other fact, that the whole scriptures were 
 written in other lands, in other languages, than 
 ours, without seeing that in the very nature of things 
 obscurities and difficulties must be found in them ? 
 
Sources of Scripture Difficulties. 31 
 
 These obscurities and difficulties are part of the 
 evidence of their antiquity and truth ; for certainly a 
 book that was all plain to us would have been very 
 obscure and very useless to those for whom the Bible 
 was first written. 
 
 Think again of the necessary brevity of the whole 
 Bible, and especially the historical parts of the Penta- 
 teuch. Often you have the records of a hundred or 
 a thousand years in a single chapter or two ; and how 
 can these records be free of difficulty, or at least of 
 such statements as may furnish ground of difficulty to 
 captious cavillers ? Bishop Colenso is in the habit of 
 saying, concerning certain answers to his difficulties, 
 ' They are not found in the record.' But if all had 
 been in the record which would have been necessary 
 to preclude such cavils as his, the Pentateuch, or the 
 book of Exodus alone, would have required to be 
 many times larger than the whole Bible, and the 
 whole Bible, constructed on the same principle, would 
 have become so voluminous as to be useless : The 
 world itself, to use the evangelist's popular hyperbole, 
 would hardly have contained the books that would 
 have been written. At any rate, instead of having 
 a Bible which you can hold in your hand, and carry 
 in your pocket, you would have had a whole library 
 to wade through before you could have attained a 
 complete view of the revelation of God. And this is 
 no unimportant evidence of the divine origin of 
 Scripture. Considered as a specimen of the multum 
 in parvo, the Bible is a perfect miracle. Sure I am, 
 
32 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 there is no other book in the world to be compared 
 with it in this respect. 
 
 Another source of Scripture difficulties is the errors 
 of transcription and translation, and even the thought- 
 less or wicked interpolations (the work of uninspired 
 men) which have, in the course of so many ages, 
 crept into the Bible, and which cannot now be de- 
 tected and cast out. I believe the Bible to be as pure 
 as the generality of ancient books, perhaps a great 
 deal purer, for the providence of God seems to have 
 watched over it with special care ; but without a con- 
 tinuance of stupendous miracles — without in fact the 
 gift of inspiration, imparted to all who were engaged in 
 the work of transcribing and translating it, — such 
 errors and interpolations could not be prevented ; and 
 it becomes us to bear this in mind when dealing with 
 the apparent discrepancies or contradictions, and 
 especially with the arithmetical difficulties of Scrip- 
 ture. We ought not lightly, on account of such 
 things, to cast away our confidence in any part of the 
 Bible. It is now generally believed by critics that 
 the first eleven verses of the eighth chapter of John's 
 gospel are an interpolation ; but are we on this 
 account to lose confidence in the divine authority and 
 value of one of the profoundest, richest, and most in- 
 structive of all the books of Scripture 1 Surely not : 
 and if such interpolations are found in one of the latest 
 books of the New Testament — perhaps the very last that 
 was written — can we rationally expect that the books of 
 the Old Testament, and especially those of the Penta- 
 
Sources of Scripture Difficulties. S3 
 
 teuch, the very first that were written, will be alto- 
 gether free of them ? 
 
 I mention only one other source of Scripture diffi- 
 culties at present, but I have no doubt it is the most 
 fertile of all — the ignorance and self-conceit of readers 
 and interpreters. This, indeed, is not in the Bible 
 itself, but in the mind of the reader or interpreter. 
 But does that make it the less productive of difficulty, 
 or the less perplexing ? Far from it : it makes it 
 manifestly more so ; for comparatively few men are 
 more ready to trace a mistake to themselves than to 
 the Bible. Even honest and believing interpreters, 
 who are not seeking difficulties, are liable to this 
 weakness ; and how much more those unbelieving or 
 dishonest ones, who have set out on a voyage of dis- 
 covery for the purpose of finding them ! Take an 
 illustration of this : The very first objection which 
 Paine, in his "Age of Eeason," brought against the 
 genuineness and truth of the books of Moses — for his 
 book had partly the same object in view as that of 
 Bishop Colenso — was what appeared to him a glaring 
 anachronism. In the 14th chapter of Genesis it is 
 said that Abraham pursued the confederate kings, 
 who had carried off his nephew Lot, to Dan. Now 
 Paine could easily show, from the book of Judges, 
 that the Israelitish city called Dan was not built till 
 hundreds of years after the time of Abraham, and a 
 very considerable period after the death of Moses. 
 Here, then, was a stumbler for the priests, and a 
 marrow-bone for the infidels. What could be clearer 
 C 
 
34 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 than the inference that the book of Genesis was not 
 written by Moses, and, as Bishop Colenso would say, 
 was not 'historically true V And what was the sole 
 foundation for this objection 1 Nothing but the 
 ignorance and self-conceit of its author. Paine was 
 not sufficiently acquainted with the Bible, or the 
 lands of the Bible, to know, and he was not suffici- 
 ently modest to suppose, that there was or might be 
 another place called Dan existing in the days of 
 Abraham, and that it, and not the Dan he thought 
 of, was that which is mentioned in the history of 
 Abraham.* 
 
 But to come to Bishop Colenso, and his arithmetical 
 and other difficulties to be found in the Pentateuch : 
 
 * In his second volume, among the garbage raked together 
 from various quarters, Bishop Colenso has given this objection 
 of Paine's a place. The fact is enough to indicate the unity 
 of spirit of the two men, and is far from being creditable either 
 to the Bishop's candour or learning. How many instances 
 of more than one place bearing the same name are to be 
 found in Scripture ! That there was a place named Dan, 
 before the death of Moses, is proved by Deut. xxxiv. 1, 
 This could not be Dan-Laish referred to in Judges xviii. 29, 
 for it was in the land of Gilead, which Dan-Laish was not. 
 This Dan in Gilead was probably that to which Abraham 
 is said to have pursued the confederate kings, for it would be 
 on the most direct route from Hebron to Damascus, beyond 
 which he followed them, (Gen. xiv. 15). Even though Dan- 
 Laish had then existed, it could not have been rationally 
 supposed to be the place referred to in Genesis xiv. 14, see- 
 ing it would have been fifty miles at least out of the way 
 both of the pursuer and pursued. 
 
Difficulties in the Pentateuch. 35 
 
 it will not be supposed that I propose to examine all 
 these and endeavour to solve them. This would be 
 a task for which I have neither the necessary learn- 
 ing nor the necessary time. It is far more easy, in 
 this sinful world of ours, to create difficulties than 
 remove them — to do mischief than to remedy it ; and 
 as Bishop Colenso seems to have taken nearly two 
 years to frame his objections to the Pentateuch, it 
 would take a much longer time to answer them all. 
 But to examine and answer them all is not necessary, 
 at least for my purpose. My thesis is, That Jesus 
 Christ has authenticated the Pentateuch both as the 
 writings of Moses and as true ; — and my question is, 
 Is Bishop Colenso the man to overturn this authenti- 
 cation, or our confidence in it, by proving that the 
 Pentateuch was not written by Moses, and is not 
 true 1 And I conceive it to be quite sufficient, as an 
 answer to this question, to examine a few of his diffi- 
 culties, and show of what character they are. Sure I 
 am that this will be sufficient, even if it were neces- 
 sary, to satisfy the mind and establish the faith of 
 all who have confidence in Jesus Christ as "the 
 faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation 
 of God, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily." 
 
 But permit me to explain here that, when I say 
 that Jesus Christ has authenticated the Pentateuch, 
 I mean that He has done so only in its original and 
 pure state. I do not mean that He has made himself 
 responsible for any errors or interpolations that have 
 
36 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 crept into it. If there be such, let them, as far possible, 
 be discovered and cast out. If there be any misinter- 
 pretations or exaggerations of numbers, for instance, 
 or any adulteration of the narrative by the insertion of 
 spurious statements, or paragraphs, or sections, which 
 neither Moses nor any other inspired man wrote, let 
 all such, when detected, be summarily condemned and 
 excluded from the canon. Nay, if even any whole 
 book can be satisfactorily proved to be uncanonical, 
 let it be taken from the Bible and added to the 
 Apocrypha. ~No one will have more reason to be 
 thankful for such a service than the intelligent and 
 devout Christian. But this is a very different thing 
 from that which the Bishop of Natal proposes. What 
 he would have us to do is, on the ground of certain 
 arithmetical and other difficulties which he has 
 found, or framed, to reject the whole Mosaic narra- 
 tive as a fable, and, of course, the authentication of it 
 by Jesus Christ as either an ignorant or wilful mis- 
 representation. 
 
 JSTow what I propose is, to examine as carefully as 
 I can some of the grounds on which he wishes us to 
 come to this tremendous conclusion, and ascertain 
 whether they are sufficient to bear it, and whether, 
 therefore,- we must necessarily cease to believe both 
 in Moses and in Christ. I shall, for convenience 
 sake, arrange the difficulties which I propose to con- 
 sider in three classes. 
 
 I. Those which may be shown to be entirely or 
 mainly of Bishop Colenso's own creation. 
 
Number of the Israelites. 37 
 
 II. Those in regard to which, though not entirely 
 of his own creation, he has ignored or rejected obvious 
 considerations which go far to lessen or remove them. 
 
 III. Those from which, though they may be ad- 
 mitted to be real difficulties, he has drawn unwarrant- 
 able conclusions. I shall consider one or more 
 difficulties of each of these classes. 
 
 And first, of the difficulties which I take to be of the 
 Bishop's own creation — I shall notice, first, that which 
 relates to the number of the Israelites at the time of 
 the Exodus. It is not necessary that I should read 
 much of what he says on this subject, for as I mean 
 to grapple only with the principle on which he pro- 
 ceeds, it will be enough to quote a few sentences in 
 which this principle is clearly stated. He says (p. 
 102) :— 
 
 " In the first place, it must be observed, as already noted, 
 that we nowhere read of any very large families among the 
 children of Jacob or their descendants to the time of the 
 Exodus. We may suppose, in order that we may have the 
 population as large as possible, that very few died prema- 
 turely, and that those who were born almost all lived and 
 multiplied. But we have no reason whatever, from the data 
 furnished by the Sacred Books themselves, to assume that 
 they had families materially larger than those of the present 
 day. Thus we are told in Gen. xlvi. that Reuben had 4 
 sons, Simeon 6, Levi 3, Judah 5, Issachar 4, Zebulun 3, 
 Gad 7, Asher 4, Joseph 2, Benjamin 10, Dan 1, Naphtali4." 
 
 And again (p. 103), 
 
 "The twelve sons of Jacob, then, as appears from the 
 above, had between them 53 sons, that is, on the average, 4|- 
 
38 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 each. Let us suppose that they increased in this way from 
 generation to generation. Then in the first generation, that 
 of Kohath, there would be 54 males, (according to the story, 
 53, or rather only 51, since Er and Onan died in the land of 
 Canaan, ver. 12, without issue,) — in the second, that of 
 Amram, 243, — in the third, that of Moses and Aaron, 1,094, — 
 and in the fourth, that of Joshua and Eleazar, 4,923 ; that is to 
 say, instead of 600,000 warriors in the prime of life, there 
 could not have been 5,000." 
 
 Now what I count the principle, and the vicious 
 principle, in this sort of reasoning or calculation is, 
 that, forgetting that God had sent the Israelites into 
 Egypt for the very purpose of being preserved and 
 increased there, Bishop Colenso takes it for granted 
 that He must needs increase them, at the same rate at 
 which the sons of Jacob had increased in Canaan, or 
 at any other rate to be derived from any preceding 
 part of their history ; and also that the whole families 
 of Israel had only four generations to increase in. I 
 perfectly agree with him that the time of their resi- 
 dence in Egypt was only 215 years. All who ques- 
 tion this, seem to me to contradict the plain language 
 of Scripture. I agree also that men of the 4th genera- 
 tion, from the sons of Jacob, entered into Canaan 
 with Joshua. And perhaps this is sufficient to satisfy 
 all that is required by the promise to Abraham — that 
 in the fourth generation his descendants should come 
 hither again.* But whether it be so or not, (for that 
 promise may be explained in other ways,) I deny 
 
 * Gen. xv. 18. 
 
Number of the Israelites. 39 
 
 that it warrants us to suppose that the Israelites 
 generally did not marry till they were more than 50 
 years of age, and that they all passed through only four 
 descents in 215 years. Why, Joshua, the leader of 
 Israel into Canaan, was himself, so far as we can 
 learn, of the 10th generation from Joseph;* and his 
 case, I am inclined to believe, would be nearer the 
 general mark than that of some of the families of Levi 
 and others, which Bishop Colenso has adduced. Or 
 suppose these two numbers (4 generations and 10 
 generations) the extremes — then the average de- 
 rived from them would be seven generations; and 
 that would make the length of each generation the same, 
 or even greater than it had been for more than two 
 centuries before the birth of Terah the father of 
 Abraham, and very nearly the same as it is reckoned 
 still. 
 
 But there is a far deeper and more serious objec- 
 tion to Bishop Colenso's principle, than any such 
 reckoning about the number of generations, which at 
 the best must be greatly conjectural and insecure. I 
 have to remind you of a fact concerning the Israelitish 
 nation and its growth which all Scripture and all his- 
 tory attest, but which Bishop Colenso has altogether 
 ignored. He has not denied it, so far as I have 
 observed, but all his data and suppositions and calcula- 
 tions on this subject run in the very face of it. It is 
 this, that the seed of Abraham and of Jacob, were a 
 " peculiar people " — in some respects a supernatural 
 
 * 1 Chr. vii. 20-27.— Hales's Chron., Vol. ii., 145, n. 
 
40 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 people, whose origin and history, whose increase and 
 diminution were not regulated by the laws which 
 govern those of other peoples, but by that peculiar 
 and supernatural and covenanted providence, under 
 which God himself had intimated to their fathers, 
 that He would place them. Do you ask where is the 
 evidence of this, apart from Scripture 1 I answer, you 
 have it before your eyes. There the Jews still stand 
 before you, a peculiar people, dispersed among all 
 nations, yet separate from all nations, and testifying 
 by all their character and history, as clearly as if it 
 were written on their countenances, that they have 
 not been providentially treated as other peoples, nor 
 trained as other peoples ; but have, from their begin- 
 ning hitherto, been a peculiar people, " dwelling alone, 
 and not reckoned among the nations." 
 
 Let us remember one or two facts concerning their 
 origin and early history, that we may see how vain it 
 is to reason about their increase on the ground of what 
 is called " natural law," or ordinary experience in other 
 cases. Abraham was 100, and Sarah was 90 years 
 old before they had a son — according to all natural 
 law and ordinary experience, we should have said they 
 would never have a son. But they had a son — not 
 a "child of the flesh, but of the promise," — and that 
 son became the root of the whole Israelitish nation. 
 
 Again, Isaac was 60 years old, and had been twenty 
 years married, before he had a child. From all ordi- 
 nary experience we should have concluded that, pro- 
 bably at least, he would die childless. But again the 
 
Number of the Israelites. 41 
 
 dictates of nature and experience were contradicted, 
 and Isaac had two sons, one of them, at least, the 
 child of prayer, and the heir of the promises. And 
 here it may be remarked, by the way, that the birth 
 of Jacob and Esau ought to check some other reckless 
 speculations of the present day, beside those of Bishop 
 Colenso. For how often are objections to Scripture 
 drawn from the different bodily conformation and 
 complexion of what are called "different races" of 
 men 1 I suspect that almost as great a difference in 
 these respects was to be seen in these twin sons of Isaac, 
 as exists now between the Caucasian and the Malay. 
 But however this may be, there the children were, 
 laughing to scorn all calculations founded on ordinary 
 experience or natural law. 
 
 Once more, Jacob, according to the common chrono- 
 logy, was well on to eighty years of age before he 
 had a wife, or could have a son ; and what then, 
 according to the principles on which Bishop Colenso 
 forms his data, and rests his calculations, should 
 have been our conclusion in regard to him ? Cer- 
 tainly that he could not be expected to have either 
 son or daughter ; and that for any thing that nature 
 could do, or ordinary experience teach, God's pro- 
 mises to Abraham must have failed, and the seed of 
 Jacob never existed. But what again was the 'fact 
 — a fact attested not only by all Scripture, but also, 
 through its division into twelve tribes, by all the 
 future history of the Israelitish nation 1 In a very 
 short time Jacob had twelve stalwart sons, and at 
 
42 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 least one daughter; and these sons became the fathers 
 of " the many thousands of Israel." 
 
 Now, either Bishop Colenso believed all this peculiar 
 history of the patriarchs, or he did not. If he did 
 not, then he ought to have said so ; and, beginning 
 with Abraham, he ought to have given us some idea 
 of the true patriarchal history down to the time of the 
 migration to Egypt. But if he did, believe it, then 
 why has he ignored and contradicted all the lessons 
 it is fitted to teach 1 
 
 Observe his method of procedure. He wishes to 
 prove Scripture inconsistent with itself, as well as 
 with ordinary experience or natural law, and thus to 
 prove its incredibility. To do this, he takes only so 
 much of it as suits himself, interpreting it in his own 
 way, and so brings out a conclusion in startling oppo- 
 sition to the facts attested by the record. Tor instance, 
 God had promised to Abraham and Jacob tliat their 
 seed should be as the stars of heaven, and as the dust 
 of the earth for multitude.* For the trial of their 
 faith the fulfilment of this promise was long delayed ; 
 but, as we are told by Stephen, "the time of the 
 promise" came when the Israelites were in Egypt, and 
 " the people grew and multiplied. "t WhatMoses says 
 of this fulfilment of the promise is, that "the children 
 of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and 
 multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty ; and the 
 land was filled with them :"J an increase evidently, if 
 there be meaning in words, as rapid and marvellous 
 * Gen. xv. 5- xxviii. 14. f Acts vii. 17. % Exod. i. 7. 
 
Number of the Israelites. 43 
 
 in the end as it had been slow at the beginning. But 
 'No,' says Bishop Colenso, 'there was nothing, and 
 could be nothing marvellous in the case. We must 
 judge of the end by the beginning. We nowhere 
 read of any very large families among the children of 
 Jacob, or their descendants, and we must judge 
 accordingly. Either there was no promise of God on 
 the subject, or God could not or would not, for the 
 fulfilment of his promise, make the Israelites multiply 
 faster than other peoples, or than He had multiplied 
 their fathers in Canaan. He could give only four-and- 
 a-half sons to each Israelitish father, and that only 
 four times repeated in 215 years. And there you have 
 the whole result, — less than 5,000 warriors, or men up- 
 wards of twenty years of age.' Now what is this kind 
 of reasoning ? Is it not arrant trifling 1 Or is it not 
 worse, "replying against God," or even denying the 
 power or the being of God 1 
 
 Why, on this principle you may make anything you 
 please of the number of the Israelites at the time of 
 the Exodus. Bishop Colenso has reduced them to 
 5,000 adult men ; I will undertake by another, but 
 equally warrantable application of the principle, to re- 
 duce them to five. And I shall show you how. From 
 the time when Abraham received the promise that his 
 seed should be as the stars of heaven for multitude, to 
 the time when Jacob went to Padan-Aram to seek a 
 wife, according to the ordinary chronology, about 160 
 years had elapsed. And what, according to the in- 
 spired record, was the number of the descendants of 
 
41 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Abraham in the line of Isaac then 1 Just three per- 
 sons, — Isaac himself, and his two sons, Jacob and 
 Esau. Esau indeed did not properly belong to the 
 promised seed, but he was the son of Isaac, and there- 
 fore we take him in. Now from this latter time to the 
 Exodus was another period of 270 years; and if God 
 was obliged to increase the descendants of Abraham 
 at the same rate as before, or if we must calculate 
 that increase as the Bishop of Natal has done, what 
 ought to have been their number at the Exodus ? It 
 is a plain question of the rule of three. If 160 give 
 3, what will 270 give? The answer is, just 5 and a 
 fraction. 
 
 On the other hand, however, taking another starting 
 point, (for the whole mystery lies in it,) and other data 
 furnished by the history, but applying again the self- 
 same principle, you may make the Israelites at the 
 Exodus more than a hundred millions of grown-up 
 men above twenty years of age ; and I shall show you 
 again how. When Jacob was about eighty years of age 
 he had not a single son upwards of twenty years of age. 
 Nay, probably, he had not a son of any age. But thirty- 
 three years after, when Joseph was twenty-two, he 
 had eleven sons, all upwards of twenty years of age. 
 Well, from that period when Joseph the youngest of 
 the eleven sons was twenty-two, and when several of 
 the sons of Jacob must have had infant children of 
 their own, on to the time of the Exodus, there would be 
 seven periods of thirty-three years each. Now, say- 
 ing nothing as to the greater likelihood of young men 
 
Number of the Israelites. 45 
 
 between twenty and forty years of age having numer- 
 ous families compared with an old man of eighty, all 
 I say is, that God was able, if he pleased, to continue 
 the same rate of increase to the sons and their descen- 
 dants, which Jacob their father had enjoyed, down to 
 the period of the Exodus. And if he had done so, 
 what would have been the number of adult men then ? 
 To make the calculation simpler, let us give up one of 
 the eleven sons of Jacob, and suppose there had been 
 only ten ; then you can count the number as easily as 
 you can count your ringers. The ten sons of Jacob, 
 would, in the first period of thirty-three years, have 
 had one hundred sons above twenty years of age. 
 
 These in the 2d period would have had - - - 1000 
 
 These in the 3d period - - 10,000 
 
 These in the 4th period 100,000 
 
 These in the 5th period a million 
 
 These in the 6th period 10 millions 
 
 And these in the 7th period - - - 100 millions. 
 
 And observe, these 100 millions are all sons of one 
 generation, and all above twenty years of age. By 
 leaving out Jacob at first, and all the fathers after- 
 wards we have been speaking only of the sons, up- 
 wards of twenty years old, produced in each period of 
 thirty- three years. So that if you take in the fathers and 
 grandfathers who may have been alive at the time of 
 the Exodus, I know not how many millions more you 
 must add to this number of adult men, probably 
 8 or 10 millions at least. But keeping by the num- 
 ber of 100 millions, that is more than 166 times what 
 
46 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Moses tells us they were, — namely, 600,000 men 
 above twenty years of age, able to go forth to war. 
 
 And what now are we to say of Bishop Colenso's 
 5000 warriors, as the largest number of Israelites at 
 the time of the Exodus which the narrative warrants 
 us to believe in 1 (for by another calculation he brings 
 them down to thirteen or fourteen hundred.) One or 
 two other remarks may be made on it. Bishop Colenso 
 believes the narrative of the first chapter of Exodus. 
 At least he reasons from it, when it suits his purpose, 
 in support of his own conclusions. Now, what does 
 it tell us of the growth of the Israelites in Egypt 1 
 It tells us that between the death of Joseph and the 
 birth of Moses the children of Israel increased so 
 rapidly that Pharaoh and the Egyptians became 
 alarmed, and took measures to check their growth. 
 Eirst, they made their lives bitter with hard bondage ; 
 but that would not serve the purpose — for " the more 
 they were afflicted, the more they multiplied and 
 grew." Next, Pharaoh sought to persuade the Hebrew 
 midwives to kill every Israelitish man-child at the 
 time of his birth; but neither would that serve the 
 purpose of the Egyptians — for " the midwives feared 
 God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded." 
 And next, the king of Egypt sent forth his decree — 
 the most barbarous, the most cruel, the most fiendish 
 decree we read of in all the history of our lost and 
 miserable world — (that of Herod, to kill all the chil- 
 dren of Bethlehem, was nothing to it) — the decree, 
 namely, that " every son born to the Israelites should 
 
Number of the Israelites. 47 
 
 be cast into the river." Well, what awful increase 
 was it, according to Bishop Colenso, that drove Pharaoh 
 and his people to such extremities? What was it 
 that so alarmed the greatest monarch and greatest 
 nation of the time ? Let us see. That increase was 
 before the birth of Moses, who was of the bishop's 
 third generation, and must therefore have been wit- 
 nessed in the second generation ; and what was the 
 number of the adult males of Israel then ? Just 243 ! 
 Yes, according to the calculations of this arithmetical 
 bishop, Pharaoh must have been deprived of all his 
 propriety and self-possession, and goaded to monstrous 
 injustice and cruelty, by the fact that there were 243 
 peaceful and unarmed shepherds in his dominions, 
 whose alarming numbers he could by no means keep 
 down ! ! 
 
 And even this is not all. The same context, from 
 which the bishop draws arguments when it suits 
 his purpose, tells us that the land of Goshen even 
 then was " filled " with the children of Israel. Now, 
 the land of Goshen may be stated, roundly, to have 
 been about 100 miles in length by 50 in breadth, and 
 therefore to have contained 5000 square miles. Sup- 
 pose now that 7 be added to the 243, so as to make 
 the number of the Israelites 250, the result will be 
 that the land was "filled with them," when a single 
 grown-up Israelite was to be found in every 20 square 
 miles ! 
 
 Such are the absurdities to which the Bishop's 
 calculations have reduced him — to which, at least, 
 
48 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 faith in his calculations would reduce us. And I 
 leave it now to every one to say for himself whether 
 this difficulty about the number of the Israelites at 
 the Exodus be not a difficulty of the Bishop's own 
 creation 1 
 
 True, it has been felt by others also; but never, 
 I will be bold to say, by any reader of the Bible 
 who firmly believed in God's promises to Abraham 
 and Jacob, or in his covenanted providence to their 
 seed. "No one believing these, and keeping them in 
 mind, and knowing that "whatsoever pleaseth the 
 Lord that cloeth He in heaven, and earth, and in the 
 sea, and in all deep places," can have any difficulty in 
 the matter. He will rest in the plain statements of 
 Scripture until it can be shown that they have been 
 either altered or interpolated ; and he will remember 
 that throughout all Scripture these statements have 
 been repeated and appealed to as true. Thus Moses 
 said to the Israelites themselves, forty years after the 
 Exodus, when their numbers were nearly the same : 
 " The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and be- 
 hold ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multi- 
 tude : the Lord God of your fathers make you a thou- 
 sand times as many more as you are, and bless you as 
 he has promised you."* Again, the Psalmist says : 
 " He increased His people greatly in Egypt, and made 
 them stronger than their enemies, "t And so in other 
 Scriptures, not forgetting the testimony of the apos- 
 tle : " Therefore sprang there even of one, and him 
 * Deut. i. 10 ; x. 22. f Ps. cv. 24. 
 
Number of the First-born. 49 
 
 as good as dead, as many as the stars of the sky in 
 multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea-shore 
 innumerable."* 
 
 The preceding remarks will apply to other arith- 
 metical difficulties in Bishop Colenso's volume, such as 
 those found in the numbers of theDanites andLevites.f 
 
 But it is time to pass to another of the Bishop's 
 self-created difficulties ; and the next I propose to 
 notice, which is even more glaringly of his own mak- 
 ing than that which we have considered, relates to the 
 " number of the first-borns in Israel, compared with 
 the number of the adult males." This, like the former, 
 is a difficulty on which he lays great stress, and as to 
 which he notices and answers, and, as he thinks, re- 
 futes what has been said by others. You will at once 
 perceive what the Bishop's difficulty is from the fol- 
 lowing paragraphs, which contain his exposition of 
 it:— 
 
 " All the first-born males, from a month old and upwards, of 
 those that were numbered, were twenty and two thousand two 
 hundred and threescore and thirteen. Num. iii. 43. 
 
 " Let us see what this statement implies, when treated as 
 a simple matter of fact. For this purpose I quote the words 
 of Kurtz, iii., p. 209 : — ' If there were 600,000 males of 
 twenty years and upwards, the whole number of males may 
 be reckoned at 900,000, [he elsewhere reckons 1,000,000,] in 
 which case there would be only one first-born to forty-two 
 [forty-four] males. In other words, the number of boys in 
 every family must have been on the average forty-two? 
 
 tl This will be seen at once if we consider that the rest of 
 
 * Heb. xi. 12. t See Appendix, Note A. 
 
 D 
 
50 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 the 600,000 males were not first-borns, and, therefore, each 
 of these must have had one or other of the 22,273 as the first- 
 born of his own family, — except, of course, any cases where 
 the first-born of any family was a daughter, or was dead, of 
 which we shall speak presently. 
 
 "And these were not the first-born on the father's side, as 
 Michaelis supposes, so that a man might have many wives 
 and many children, but only one first-born, as was the case 
 with Jacob himself. They are expressly stated to have been 
 the first-born on the mother's side — ' all the first-born that 
 openeth the matrix,' Num. iii, 12. So that, according to the 
 story in the Pentateuch, every mother of Israel must have had 
 on the average forty-two sons !" 
 
 Now, though no absolute impossibility, it is cer- 
 tainly a very improbable thing, that every mother in 
 Israel bad on the average forty-two sons. But from 
 what does this conclusion arise? Solely from the 
 explanation which the Bishop gives to the expression, 
 a first-born son. He refuses to confine this expression 
 in this case to the rising generation — those who were 
 still children in the houses of their parents — and con- 
 tends that it must include all who had ever been first- 
 born sons, to whatever generation they belonged. He 
 argues that children, fathers, grandfathers, and great 
 grandfathers, if still alive, and if they had, in their 
 younger days, been the first-born of their own parents, 
 must be included here. No wonder, then, that the 
 mothers must have had so many sons, if fathers, grand- 
 fathers, and even great-grandfathers are to be in- 
 cluded in the number.* 
 
 * If any should fail to see that this is really the effect of 
 
Number of the First-born. 51 
 
 The Bishop virtually takes up this objection to his 
 explanation of the term first-born, for he answers the 
 allegation that no heads of families were included 
 among the first-born who were to be redeemed, but 
 only their children. And what does he say to it 1 
 His answer is that this is a mere assumption, not 
 warranted by anything that is found in the Scripture. 
 Now, let us grant for a moment that it is a mere 
 assumption : it is no more so than his own interpre- 
 tation of the term Jlrst-born is. Scripture does not 
 expressly tell us of what generation the first-born that 
 were to be redeemed were. It was enough that those 
 should know this who had to number them — it was 
 enough that they should understand whether they 
 were to number first-born children of the rising 
 generation alone, or those of former generations also. 
 But I contend that the former is the natural meaning 
 of the expression, and the only natural meaning 
 which in the circumstances it could bear. For the 
 term first-born is plainly a relative term. It means 
 the first-born of some father and mother, or some 
 family : and in this case, when they were to be re- 
 deemed, it must be limited to the first-born of existing 
 families. Take in the father and grandfather of an 
 
 the Bishop's explanation of the term first-born, they may 
 perhaps see it thus : — The number of the first-borns, accord- 
 ing to the explanation, determines the number of mothers ; 
 then the whole number of males is divided among these 
 mothers as sons, including, of course, fathers, grandfathers, 
 &c, and their own husbands also. 
 
52 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 existing family because they had been first-borns in 
 their own day, and you run into absurdity and non- 
 sense. For whose first-born is the head of a family 
 now, his father being dead, and his father's family 
 dispersed 1 Is he his own 1 Is he the first-born of 
 his own house % Or suppose a first-born father re- 
 siding in his first-born son s house, and that first-born 
 son having, like his ancestor Jacob, four wives, each 
 of whom has had as yet but one son ; here are six 
 males in one house with none besides but the mothers, 
 and all of them are first-borns ! Whose first-born was 
 the father ? Who was to redeem all these 1 Or how 
 was the redemption to be accomplished in such a 
 case 1 It would be easy to ask many such like 
 questions, founded on the Bishop's interpretation. 
 
 But let us return to Scripture. The Bishop says 
 that the view we take is unwarranted by anything to 
 be found in Scripture. I deny this. I say that Scrip- 
 ture clearly enough defines who were meant by the 
 first-born that were to be redeemed, and does so in 
 the very verse following that which he has cited to 
 support his own view of the matter. He cites for 
 this purpose Num. hi. 12 : now, if he had read on, 
 he would have found in the 13th verse both the 
 reason for the redemption of the first-born, and a 
 sufficient indication of the persons who were meant. 
 That verse reads, " Because all the first-born are 
 mine : for on the day that I smote all the first-born 
 in the land of Egypt, I hallowed unto me all the 
 first-born of Israel, both man and beast : mine they 
 
Number of the First-born. 53 
 
 shall be : I am the Lord." Now all I have to ask 
 as to this hallowing of the first-born is, Was it to 
 have the power of an ex post facto law ? Was it to 
 go back and include all that ever had been first-born 
 in former generations — fathers, grandfathers, and 
 great-grandfathers in Israel ? Or was it to include 
 only those who were first-borns on the day mentioned 
 — ?'. e. t first-borns of the then rising generation ; and 
 then, afterwards, the first-borns of all future genera- 
 tions 1 Most certainly the latter is the only rational 
 interpretation of that verse ; and it clearly defines 
 the class of persons who were to be numbered as first- 
 borns, and therefore redeemed. 
 
 Accordingly, as if to show more unquestionably 
 that children or young persons only were meant, 
 they were to be numbered " from a month old and 
 upwards." And further, if anything could add to 
 the certainty of this conclusion, it would be the 
 fact that these first-born of Israel, who were hal- 
 lowed to God on the day of Egypt's doom, are set 
 over against the first-born of Egypt, who were then 
 destroyed, and must be supposed therefore to have been 
 of the same class, the same age. And who were included 
 in the first-born of Egypt on that awful night of the 
 Lord"? Were fathers, and grandfathers, and great- 
 grandfathers, as well as children, involved in the 
 terrible catastrophe of that night ? By no means : 
 many a father in Egypt may have been a first-born in 
 his day, but it was not he, but his first-born that 
 perished. Pharaoh, for instance, had been, in all 
 
54 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 probability, the first-born of his father, seeing he 
 succeeded to the throne ; but Pharaoh himself did 
 not die, but only his first-born son. Tor " it came to 
 pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the first- 
 born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of 
 Pharaoh that sat upon the throne, to the first-born 
 of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all 
 the first-born of cattle." 
 
 Well, this question as to the meaning of the term 
 first-born, in this connection, being, we trust, satis- 
 factorily settled, the question remains, What effect 
 has it upon the Bishop's calculations ? And the 
 answer is, that it has a most material effect. He cal- 
 culated the proportion of the first-born to the whole 
 number of males of all ages, 900,000 or a million, 
 when he should have taken their proportion to the 
 number of male children, or young persons of the 
 rising generation, say 300,000, at the utmost. We 
 can, of course, but guess the number ; but this we 
 reckon a sufficiently high estimate. And that would 
 at once reduce the number of sons, which each mother 
 in Israel, of that generation at least, required to have, 
 from 42 to 14; a very important reduction evidently, 
 for there is no improbability in the supposition that 
 mothers in Israel would often have that number of 
 sons. 
 
 Then, if we suppose polygamy to have less or more 
 prevailed in Israel at this time — that also would reduce 
 the proportion of the first-born. Bishop Colenso 
 says, " No ; " for he contends, in opposition to 
 
Number of the First-born, 55 
 
 Micliaelis, a man of infinitely more knowledge on 
 such subjects than he can pretend to, that polygamy- 
 would have no effect, because the first-borns spoken 
 of are expressly stated to have been those on the 
 mother's side — "all the first-born that openeth the 
 matrix," (Numbers iii. 12). But there is another 
 question that must be asked and answered, before this 
 can sustain his conclusion, namely, What mothers 
 must be supposed to be meant ? Whether those only 
 who were the proper, legitimate wives of their hus- 
 bands, according to the original and only Divine 
 marriage law ; or, wives and concubines also % We 
 contend that the former alone are to be supposed ; 
 for to suppose God to have hallowed to himself the 
 sons of the latter class of mothers — making them 
 equally a part of His own peculiar inheritance, and 
 therefore to be redeemed — would be to suppose Him 
 to have given a direct and solemn sanction to the 
 violation of His own law ; which, we may be sure, He 
 would not do. He tolerated polygamy, as He did 
 slavery, but He did not sanction it. He never set 
 the seal of His approbation upon it. We know of no 
 instance in the Abrahamic family in which the son 
 of a concubine inherited the temporal rights and 
 honours of the first-born ; and much less can we 
 suppose that such a son would, be advanced to the 
 spiritual dignity, the priesthood : and that, we must 
 remember, was really the question here ; for these 
 first-borns being redeemed, the tribe of Levi were to 
 take their place. 
 
56 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 But not to enlarge, I would only remind you 
 further on this point, that there is an express law 
 of Moses which seems to settle this question as 
 to the effect of polygamy. It is contained in Deu- 
 teronomy xxi. 15-17, and may be stated shortly 
 thus: that when a man had two wives, one loved 
 and the other hated (like Eachel and Leah), and 
 when his eldest son was the child of the latter, he 
 should have no power to transfer the birth-right to 
 the son of the former. JSTow if God, by Moses, re- 
 quired His people to act on this principle, may we 
 not safely conclude that he would first establish the 
 principle by acting on it himself? It seems plain, 
 then, that polygamy would undoubtedly tend to 
 diminish the number of first-borns that were to be 
 redeemed, in comparison with the number of other 
 sons. Three mothers in a family, for instance, would 
 require to have only about four and a-half sons each 
 (Bishop Colenso's chosen rate) to give fourteen sons 
 for one first-born. 
 
 There are other considerations that might have 
 been adduced on this subject, to show how unsound, 
 or at least unsafe, the calculations of the Bishop in 
 reference to it are. He himself allows for cases in 
 which the first-born might be dead. In other cases, 
 the eldest child of a family would be a daughter ; and 
 then, probably at least, there would be no first-born 
 son to be redeemed in the family at all. Nor is it 
 presumptuous to add, that there may have been pecu- 
 liar causes in operation among the Israelites, to 
 
The Numbers Compared with the Land. 57 
 
 diminish the proportion of the first-horns referred to, 
 of which we know nothing. Bishop Colenso reasons 
 as if the grand ohject and design of Scripture were to 
 give us information on subjects of this description — 
 statistical information — while nothing can be more 
 certain than that these subjects are introduced only 
 incidentally, so far as necessary for higher ends ; and 
 therefore that the information thus given is neither 
 complete, nor in all cases very clear. How, indeed, 
 could it have been so, unless the Bible histories had 
 been a thousand- fold more extensive and minute than 
 they are 1 — But I have said enough, I trust, to show 
 that the difficulty in regard to the number of the 
 first-born which Bishop Colenso has found in the 
 Pentateuch, and of which he tries to make so much, 
 is mainly of his own creation, and that it need not 
 stumble any one who has confidence in Jesus Christ 
 as the " Faithful and true Witness," himself " the 
 First-born among the many brethren," — " the Begin- 
 ning" also and "First-born from the dead, who in all 
 things has the pre-eminence." 
 
 I shall only in the present lecture notice, and that 
 very shortly, a third difficulty relating to the numbers 
 of the Israelites as spoken of in the Pentateuch : 
 " the number of the Israelites as compared with the 
 extent of the land of Canaan." This is a difficulty 
 not only of Bishop Colenso's own creation, in the 
 sense in which I use the expression, but apparently 
 an entirely original one. I know of no author who 
 
58 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 has started it but himself. Of its character I shall 
 leave you to judge, after it has been stated and 
 exposed. 
 
 The passage on which the Bishop founds it is 
 Exod. xxiii. 27-30, containing the following promise 
 of Jehovah to His people : "I will send my fear be- 
 fore thee, and I will destroy the people to whom thou 
 shalt come ; and I will make all thine enemies turn 
 their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets 
 before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the 
 Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee. / will 
 not drive them out before thee in one year ; lest the 
 land become desolate, and the beast of the field multi- 
 ply against thee. But by little and little I will drive 
 them out from before thee, until thou be increased, 
 and inherit the land." Now what does Bishop 
 Colenso make of this ? He takes "the whole land as 
 divided among the tribes in the time of Joshua, in- 
 cluding the countries beyond the Jordan," and argues 
 that, as it contained only 11,000 square miles, and as 
 the Israelites were "more than two millions of people," 
 their country would be as densely peopled as the 
 agricultural counties of England — Norfolk, Suffolk, 
 and Essex — and twenty times more so than the colony 
 of Natal. And as neither England nor Natal is in 
 any danger of being overrun by wild beasts, how can 
 it be believed that there was any such danger in the 
 case of Canaan 1 These are not the Bishop's words, 
 but they are a fair statement of his argument against 
 the credibility of the Mosaic narrative — in this case 
 
The Numbers Composed with the Land. 59 
 
 against the credibility of the words of Jehovah him- 
 self. 
 
 Now mark carefully how this difficulty arises. It 
 has no foundation in Scripture, but only in Bishop 
 Colenso's mutilation of Scripture. He does not 
 quote the whole statement on the subject, but stops 
 short before he comes to the verse which contains the 
 definite description of the territory referred to. That 
 verse, the 31st, says, "And I will set thy bounds from 
 the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and 
 from the desert unto the river; for I will deliver the 
 inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou 
 shalt drive them out before thee." Here is the de- 
 scription of the promised territory to which the pre- 
 vious verses referred ; and surely common honesty, 
 not to speak of that supreme devotion to truth which 
 Bishop Colenso so frequently professes, demanded that 
 this verse should have been quoted ; for when it is 
 considered, his objection is without the shadow of a 
 foundation. What was the extent of the territory 
 thus promised to the Israelites ? I am prepared to 
 prove that instead of ll,000j it must have contained 
 about 56,000 square miles : that is more than five 
 times the extent which the Bishop allows. All this 
 territory was not possessed by Israel in the days of 
 Joshua. It was never fully subdued or occupied by 
 them till the days of David. But this was the extent 
 of the land promised to them — first to Abraham, and 
 now again to Moses — and, therefore, that to which 
 the words of Jehovah, on which Bishop Colenso 
 
60 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 founds his difficulty, referred. We cannot, of course, 
 say whether he knew this or not; but for his own 
 sake, and his reader's sake, he should have gone on 
 and quoted the whole passage. For, notice the 
 strange complexion of his argument: 'Because the 
 Israelites, in the days of Joshua, were perfectly able 
 to people a fifth part of the promised land, so as to. 
 keep it clear of wild beasts, therefore the promise 
 that they should not receive the whole land at once, 
 lest they should not be able so to people it, is incred- 
 ible : ' in other words, ' The begun, literal fulfilment of 
 the Divine promise is a clear demonstration of the 
 falsehood of that promise.'' Such is the logic of this 
 calculating and critical devotee of "the Truth," by 
 which he endeavours to persuade Christian men that 
 the books of Moses are an incredible romance, and 
 the authentication of them by Jesus Christ an ignor- 
 ant mistake.* 
 
 * It is plainly ridiculous to suppose the Israelites, in the 
 days of Joshua, equally able to destroy wild beasts out of 
 their land as the inhabitants of England or the colonists of 
 Natal of the present day. The latter possess fire-arms, 
 horses, and other means of clearing a country and keep- 
 ing it clear of wild beasts, of which the former had none. 
 Palestine also supplied a much more complete and extensive 
 cover for wild beasts than either England or the colony of 
 Natal. And from this cause, doubtless, the Israelites seem 
 to have been unable to keep even the small portion of the 
 promised land, which they possessed from the beginning, 
 completely free of wild beasts. Eor how often in all the Old 
 Testament history do we read of these beasts being found in 
 
Conclusion. 61 
 
 In conclusion, let me exhort you then to cleave to 
 the testimony of Jesus Christ on this subject, and on 
 all subjects, whoever may gainsay or endeavour to 
 falsify it. Especially let me exhort you to come to 
 Him as a Saviour, that you may obtain eternal life 
 through Him, and may have that strongest and best 
 of all inducements to repose and rejoice in all His 
 words. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that you 
 may be saved. And for this purpose you must be- 
 lieve in the writings of Moses also. How forcibly is 
 this stated in the text. " Had ye believed Moses," 
 said Christ to the Jews, "ye would have believed me ; 
 for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writ- 
 ings, how shall ye believe my words'?" This holds 
 true of us as well as the Jews. We cannot believe 
 in Jesus Christ — we cannot know Jesus Christ — 
 without believing the writings of Moses. The person 
 of Christ, the office of Christ, the work of Christ, as 
 an atoning Saviour, can never be well understood 
 without the light cast on them by the writings of 
 Moses. The Pentateuch is the basis not only of the 
 Old Testament, but also of the New, and to lose our 
 faith in it is to let go all Christian faith and hope, 
 and fall back into the darkness of heathenism, or into 
 the blackness of darkness of universal scepticism. 
 
 the land ? Samson, David, David's chief heroes, and others, 
 are celebrated for their single-handed encounters with lions, 
 bears, and other wild beasts. Solomon speaks of "the lions' 
 dens and mountains of the leopards" as existing in his day : 
 and so in other Scriptures. 
 
LECTUKE III * 
 " The word of the Lord is tried." — Ps. xviii. 30. 
 
 One thing that is not unlikely to render Bishop Col- 
 enso's volume very imposing and misleading in the 
 case of multitudes, is the great deference and devotion 
 to Truth which its author affects. Professions like 
 the following are of frequent occurrence in the pre- 
 face and other parts of the volume : — " Our duty 
 surely is to follow the Truth wherever it leads, and to 
 leave consequences in the hands of God. God's will 
 be done. The law of Truth must be obeyed." Now, 
 besides that Bishop Colenso is already self-convicted 
 of one of the most treacherous violations of the law of 
 Truth that can easily be conceived — that of occupying 
 a position in which, he solemnly binds himself to 
 maintain and teach a creed which he disbelieves and 
 repudiates — besides this, there seems to be something 
 in the peculiar constitution or temperament of his 
 mind that renders such professions of devotion to Truth 
 almost ludicrous. Let him take up any Scriptural 
 subject, however true, and grand, and venerable in 
 itself, his idiosyncrasy immediately leads him to turn 
 aside from what is true, and grand, and venerable in 
 it, and concern himself with something questionable, 
 
 * Delivered January 25, 1863. 
 
Institution of the Passover. 63 
 
 or difficult, or inconceivably little, which he has 
 found or fancied in the inspired narrative in reference 
 to it. He is especially prone to this, if he can thereby 
 introduce any process of arithmetic or of mensuration 
 into the interpretation of the Word of God. 
 
 That in saying this I neither misrepresent nor cari- 
 cature him, will be evident when I tell you what he 
 says of the institution of the passover. Here three 
 grand subjects naturally present themselves, sufficient 
 to interest if not to solemnize any ordinary mind: 
 1st, The redemption of Israel, which the passover 
 was designed to commemorate, the greatest event 
 of its kind in all the history of our world; 2d, The 
 commemorative festival itself, which has been and 
 continues to be observed by the Jews from the days 
 of Moses even until now ; which was observed also 
 by the God-man and his little family on that event- 
 ful night in which he was betrayed, and which, on 
 this account, has in the sacred season of Easter left 
 its memorial among almost all the nations of Christ- 
 endom. And then 3dly, there was the faith displayed 
 by Moses in appointing, and the Israelites in observ- 
 ing, the passover, to celebrate a redemption which was 
 still future. This was so remarkable a display of 
 faith in God, that it has obtained a place on that 
 noble monument of the achievements of ancient faith, 
 the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews : 
 " Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprink- 
 ling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born 
 should touch them." 
 
64 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 But what does Bishop Colenso make of the Mosaic 
 narrative concerning the institution and observance of 
 the passover 1 ? Why, passing over all these things, 
 as if he had not the faintest glimmering of either 
 their truth or their importance, he sets himself to 
 show that that narrative must be an incredible fiction. 
 And how % First, by a contemptibly shallow and per- 
 verse, if not dishonest, criticism, he makes the direc- 
 tions given by Jehovah for the observance of the 
 passover to have been given the same day on which 
 the feast was to be observed : so that there could be 
 only twelve hours (for the Bishop is very definite as 
 to the time) for the circulation of the intelligence 
 among all the people, and for all necessary pre- 
 parations for the observance. The criticism is to this 
 effect — Because Jehovah, in giving his commands 
 to Moses, says, " I will pass through the land of 
 Egypt this night, and smite all the first-born in 
 the land of Egypt, both man and beast" — there- 
 fore the command must have been given on the 
 same day (why not the same night 1) on which the 
 passover was to be observed. Now, to say nothing 
 more on the point, I have to mention that there are at 
 least half-a-dozen of instances in the same chapter in 
 which the same expression in the original occurs, and 
 in which it must be and is interpreted as meaning, 
 not the same day or night on which the thing was 
 spoken, but the same day or night which had already 
 been spoken of, — the self-same day or night, as our 
 translators have rendered it, which had already been 
 mentioned in the preceding part of the narrative. 
 
Institution of the Passover. 65 
 
 But this is only the first step of the Bishop's demon- 
 stration of the falsehood of the Mosaic narrative. He 
 next numbers the lambs which the Israelites must have 
 required for the keeping of the passover, which he 
 makes 150,000 ; and this he does, not because of 
 there being any difficulty in their finding so many 
 lambs, but solely that he might calculate how many 
 sheep they must have possessed, which he makes two 
 millions ; — not that there is any great difficulty in 
 supposing that two millions of pastoral people might 
 have two millions of sheep, but this calculation was 
 necessary that he might measure the ground required 
 for grazing so many sheep. And here we are regaled 
 with reports from sheep farmers all the way from 
 Australia and New Zealand, as well as Natal, inform- 
 ing us how many sheep may be grazed upon an acre 
 of land. And all for what purpose 1 For the sole 
 purpose, apparently, of proving that when the Divine 
 command was given for the observance of the pass- 
 over, many of the Israelites would be too far scattered 
 over the land of Goshen feeding their sheep, to make 
 it possible for them, in the space of twelve hours, to 
 be warned and collected for the observance of the 
 feast. Now, was there ever such laborious trifling 
 heard of before ? Much that is childish and inane 
 is to be found in books of biblical criticism and in- 
 terpretation ; but I do not believe that, since that 
 science began, there was anything ever written and 
 printed to match, or at least to outmatch, this speci- 
 men. Yet this is of a piece with all that the Bishop 
 E 
 
66 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 says of the passover and the Exodus, and indeed of 
 almost all other matters brought before us in his 
 volume. 
 
 The directions in regard to the passover must have 
 been conveyed to the Israelites at least four days before 
 its observance ; for the passover-lambs were to be 
 selected on the tenth day of the month — the 
 observance being on the fourteenth. But the pro- 
 bability is (a probability suggested at least by the 
 narrative)* that they were given at the beginning of 
 the month — thus giving the Israelites twelve days, 
 instead of twelve hours, to prepare both for the 
 observance of the feast, and for the Exodus from 
 Egypt, which was immediately to follow. Eor let it 
 be remembered that from the day when the Passover 
 was commanded, the day and hour for the flight 
 from Egypt also were fixed. — On the morning after 
 the Passover the Israelites were to leave their various 
 dwellings, and to hasten to a common rendezvous, 
 namely, Kameses, which was situated about the centre 
 of the land of Goshen. — And we may easily conceive 
 what a people, thirsting for liberty, sighing for liberty, 
 straining, "like greyhounds in the leash," for the 
 moment of release, might do in twelve days, in pre- 
 paration for liberty. Bishop Colenso makes it a 
 difficulty where they would get tents in the wilderness. 
 Surely twelve days were sufficient to enable every 
 family to provide itself with a tent, if indeed the 
 Israelites generally would not be so provided already^ 
 * Ex. xii. 2 ; Kitto's Pict. Palest., &c. 
 
Preparations for the Exodus. 67 
 
 especially considering the simple construction of an 
 Oriental tent — a few stakes and cords with a piece of 
 coarse cloth. It is a still greater difficulty with him 
 how they would carry their tents. But surely twelve 
 days were sufficient to allow them to bring home, 
 from any part of the land, as many camels and oxen, 
 and other beasts of burden, as would be necessary for 
 the purpose, and so have all things so prepared by the 
 day before the passover, as to require the shortest 
 possible time for lading the beasts and setting out, 
 next morning. But there was another difficulty still : 
 How could the Israelites, summoned, as the Bishop 
 says, at midnight, at a moment's notice, do what they 
 were commanded to do, namely, borrow, or ask, jewels 
 of gold and silver, and raiment from the Egyptians, 
 and so spoil the Egyptians 1 To which we answer 
 again, twelve, or even two or three days, afforded 
 plenty of time for doing this. And let it be 
 remembered that this command, at least, the Israelites 
 had received at the very commencement of the contest 
 between Moses and Pharaoh, perhaps twelve months 
 before the Exodus. 
 
 But, passing from these things, permit me to men- 
 tion a fact which would greatly aid the Israelites in 
 all these preparations, and in many other points of 
 view. It is a fact which, I think, can be clearly 
 established from the inspired narrative, though no 
 commentator, so far as I have observed, has noticed 
 it, that the two last and heaviest plagues of Egypt 
 were inflicted in immediate connection with each 
 
68 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 other. The three days of supernatural darkness, 
 putting a stop to all labour and energy among the 
 Egyptians, and filling them with profoundest terror, 
 immediately preceded the night of the destruction 
 of the -first-born. There was no interval between 
 them : the last of these days of darkness and dismay 
 ushered in the night of still more tremendous dark- 
 ness and sorrow. And how would this circumstance 
 operate ? It would obviously allow all Israelites that 
 might be in the service of the Egyptians, or that 
 might be occupied in any public works throughout 
 the land of Egypt, to return to their own families, 
 two or three days before the Passover, so as to be all 
 present at the feast, and ready for the flight. Nay, it 
 would not only set them at liberty, but drive them 
 home ; for, as there was light in all the dwellings 
 of the Israelites, every one who possibly could, whether 
 Israelite or Egyptian, would forsake the abodes of 
 darkness, and take refuge in the habitations of light. 
 And there is another part of the history which this 
 fact may sufficiently explain. In the third chapter 
 of Exodus, it is said, "That every woman shall 
 borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth 
 in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and 
 raiment : and ye shall put them upon your sons," &c. 
 Now, there is a difficulty here in seeing how the 
 Israelites could have Egyptian ladies — as is evidently 
 taken for granted — women who had jewels of gold 
 and silver and fine raiment in their possession — 
 sojourning with them in their houses. But the three 
 
The Exodus. 69 
 
 days of darkness immediately preceding the night of 
 the Passover sufficiently explains the matter. For 
 nothing could he more likely than that Egyptian 
 women, even the most wealthy and delicate of them, 
 who had any friends among the Israelites, would, 
 during these days of darkness, he glad to take up their 
 residence in the houses of the Israelites. — But this hy 
 the way. 
 
 The Bishop's next difficulty on this subject is to un- 
 derstand how the Israelites could he Drought from all 
 parts of Goshen to Barneses, and then how they 
 could march from Eameses to Succoth, all, as he says, 
 on the same day 1 Here are his words : — 
 
 " We are required to believe that, in one single day, the 
 order to start was communicated suddenly, at midnight, to 
 every single family of every town and village, throughout a 
 tract of country as large as Hertfordshire, but ten times as 
 thickly peopled ; — that, in obedience to such order, having 
 first ' borrowed ' very largely from their Egyptian neighbours 
 in all directions, (though, if we are to suppose Egyptians 
 occupying the same territory with the Hebrews, the extent of 
 it must be very much increased,) they then came in from all 
 parts of the land of Goshen to Rameses, bringing with tbem 
 the sick and infirm, the young and the aged ; further, that, 
 since receiving the summons, they had sent out to gather in all 
 their flocks and herds, spread over so wide a district, and had 
 driven them also to Rameses ; — and, lastly, that having done 
 all this, since they were roused at midnight, they were started 
 again from Rameses that very same day, and marched on to 
 Succoth, not leaving a single sick or infirm person, a single 
 woman in childbirth, or even a ' single hoof,' Exod. x. 26, 
 behind them ! This is, undoubtedly, what the story in the 
 
70 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 book of Exodus requires us to believe. (Exod. xii. 
 31-41, 51.)" 
 
 Now all this we confidently deny. The story of 
 Exodus requires us to believe nothing of this. It is 
 a pure romance, manufactured by ignorance or infi- 
 delity. What the book of Exodus and the other 
 books of Moses lead us to believe is this : that on the 
 morning after the passover, the Israelites, having all 
 things previously prepared, started from their various 
 dwell ings for the general rendezvous, which was Eameses . 
 This was on the morning of the fourteenth day, say at 
 sunrise ; for as the Jews counted their days from 
 sunset to sunset, the evening of the fourteenth day 
 preceded the morning of that day. I shall suppose 
 many of them to have had a greater distance to travel 
 to Eameses than Bishop Colenso does — say fifteen or 
 twenty miles. Moses himself, being in the metro- 
 polis of Egypt on the night of the passover, would 
 have about twenty-five miles to travel in order to 
 reach Eameses. Let us give them all, then, six or 
 seven hours for this journey, they would all be assem- 
 bled in and around Eameses by noon, or early in the 
 afternoon of the fourteenth day. Allowing several 
 hours for rest, and for receiving further instructions, 
 all would be prepared, without either difficulty or 
 confusion, to commence the journey from Eameses to 
 Succoth at sunset, the beginning of the fifteenth day, 
 which is the very time specified in the books of 
 Numbers and Deuteronomy. Eor in the one it is 
 said that "they journeyed from Eameses to Succoth on 
 
The Exodus. 71 
 
 the^ morrow after the Passover," i. e., the fifteenth of 
 the month ; and in the other, " That they left Egypt 
 at the going down of the sun."* 
 
 The first collective journey, then, was a night 
 journey; and they would reach Succoth, which was 
 perhaps twelve or fifteen miles from Eameses, by the 
 morning of the fifteenth day. We need not wonder 
 at their being made to march by night. They were 
 well acquainted with the country, and, besides the 
 pillar of fire which began from that time to guide 
 them by night, they had the full moon shining on 
 their path. They were in haste also, and, all things 
 considered, it would be a manifest advantage to them 
 to journey during the coolness of the night. And 
 who can doubt that on the first night of their march, 
 as the Psalmist says, " God brought forth His people 
 with joy, and His chosen with gladness." He says, 
 also, as if to rebuke beforehand some of the dreams of 
 Bishop Colenso and others, " He brought them forth 
 also with silver and gold ; there was not one feeble 
 person among their tribes." f Infidels may believe 
 this latter statement or not, as they please ; but there 
 it stands, under the sanction of Divine inspiration, 
 and all who have confidence in God's word and power 
 will believe it, though all the infidels and infidel 
 bishops in Christendom were combined to deny it — 
 •" The word of the Lord is tried." 
 
 But there is one thing more to be noticed before 
 leaving this subject of the Exodus. What Bishop 
 
 * Num. xxxiii. 3 ; Deut. xvi. 6. f Ps- cv., 37, 43. 
 
72 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Colenso has said of the sheep and cattle will be 
 noticed, so far as necessary, afterwards. I notice 
 now only what he says of the people. And here 
 again are his words : — 
 
 "And now let us see them on the march itself. If we 
 imagine the people to have travelled through the open desert, 
 in a wide body, fifty men abreast, as some suppose to 
 have been the practice in the Hebrew armies, then, allowing 
 an interval of a yard between each rank, the able-bodied 
 warriors alone would have filled up the road for about seven 
 miles, and the whole multitude would have formed a dense 
 column more than twenty-two miles long, — so that the last of 
 the body could not have been started till the front had 
 advanced that distance, more than two days' journey for 
 such a mixed company as this." 
 
 Now is not this most astounding 1 But it all 
 originates out of the Bishop's self-willed purpose to 
 have the Israelites ranked up in military fashion, 
 "fifty men abreast." Truly there was no need, and 
 there would be little thought among them, of this 
 orderly and finical arrangement. They had a wide 
 and open country before and around them, and could 
 spread themselves as far as they pleased on either 
 hand. Or they had the valley of the bitter lakes 
 extending al] the way they had to journey to the 
 wilderness, and forming an easy and prepared path 
 for them. 
 
 But let us gratify the Bishop by forming them 
 into one dense column : and this may be of some use 
 to ourselves by showing us in what manner they 
 might possibly be arranged when they had to pass 
 
The Exodus. 73 
 
 through the Red Sea. Take the Bishop's numbers, 
 two millions of people, men, women, and children. 
 Allow them 100,000 camels for the conveyance of 
 women and children. Allow them further, 100,000 
 oxen for the carriage of tents and other luggage. And 
 allow them still further, 200,000 asses for the con- 
 veyance of old men, and anything else you please. I 
 should think that a fair and liberal allowance. Now 
 I am prepared to show, that all this mass of men, 
 women, and children, and beasts of burden, allowing 
 room for free motion, would not occupy more space 
 than two-thirds of a square mile. That is, form 
 them into a column two-thirds of a mile in breadth, 
 then they would extend to only one mile in length ; 
 or form them into a column one-third of a mile in 
 breadth, then they would extend to only two miles 
 in length ; or, once more, form them into a column 
 one-sixth of a mile, i. e., less than three hundred yards 
 in breadth, then the column would not be more than 
 four miles in length. And where, then, is the diffi- 
 culty of seeing the possibility of this journey of the 
 Israelites out of Egypt, and the perfect credibility of 
 the inspired narrative concerning it? Remember 
 that the enterprise was God's. It was of His plan- 
 ning, and His performance. Neither Moses nor the 
 Israelites could ever have taken a step in it without 
 Him. But He had determined, by means of it, to 
 glorify His own name throughout all ages ; and so He 
 conducted and accomplished it by His mighty hand 
 and His outstretched arm. And was He not able % 
 
74 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 "Who is like unto thee, Jehovah, among the 
 gods 1 Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, 
 fearful in praises, doing wonders'? Thou in thy 
 mercy hast led forth thy people which thou hast 
 redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy strength 
 to thy holy habitation. Jehovah shall reign for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 In the foregoing remarks I have said all that I 
 think necessary in answer to three chapters of Bishop 
 Colenso's book ; those on the institution of the pass- 
 over, the march out of Egypt, and the Israelites 
 dwelling in tents. These, with many others of his 
 difficulties, may all be ranged under the first head we 
 specified, namely, difficulties which are of his own 
 making. For though few of them are properly speak- 
 ing original, yet all of them are set in so exaggerated 
 a form by this so-called Christian bishop, that they 
 derive almost all their force from his mode of present- 
 ing them. And this is perhaps the most melancholy 
 feature of the volume. For think for a moment of a 
 man sworn to maintain and defend the whole volume 
 of inspiration, and still voluntarily remaining under 
 the obligation of his oath, putting forth evidently all 
 his strength to demonstrate the falsehood of one of 
 the most important sections of that volume ; and 
 not only so, but suppressing some facts, misrepresent- 
 ing others, and imagining others, to render this demon- 
 stration the more plausible : all the while he speaks 
 of himself as a devotee of Truth, and sheds crocodile 
 tears, or at least utters pious sighs and groans, over the 
 
Sheep and Cattle in the Desert 75 
 
 pain lie is likely to give to narrow but sincere-minded 
 believers in divine revelation, — yes, and prays to Al- 
 mighty God " to bless his feeble effort to advance the 
 knowledge of His Truth in the world." What is to 
 be thought of a man like this, or of his Scripture diffi- 
 culties ? 
 
 I now go on to consider one or two of those diffi- 
 culties, in regard to which, though not entirely of his 
 own creation, he has ignored or rejected obvious con- 
 siderations which go far to lessen or remove them. 
 And the first of these which I take up, is that " con- 
 cerning the sheep and cattle of the Israelites in the 
 desert." I cannot state the difficulty in the Bishop's 
 own words, for the subject occupies no fewer than 
 sixteen pages of his volume, and there is no one 
 paragraph in which the substance of it is stated. But 
 the main elements of his argument are these ; — that 
 the Israelites had many flocks and herds ; that though 
 we read of a miraculous provision for the people we do 
 not read of any for the flocks and herds ; that we are 
 led to believe that all the sheep and cattle of the 
 Israelites always accompanied them in their journeys, 
 and were always near them; and, finally, that we 
 have no reason to believe that any change has taken 
 place on the state of the wilderness since then ; — the 
 conclusion from all which being, of course, that the 
 flocks and herds of the Israelites could not possibly 
 be supported for forty years, or even one year, in the 
 wilderness ; and therefore the Mosaic record is not 
 
76 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 true. In support of these things the Bishop quotes 
 copiously from Canon Stanley and others, on the 
 present state of the wilderness of Arabia, and endea- 
 vours to refute all that they have said in vindication 
 of the Mosaic history. 
 
 Now I do not deny that there is a real difficulty 
 here by which a sincere mind might be for a time 
 stumbled when its attention was turned powerfully 
 to it. But such a mind would soon discover the 
 sophistry, or at least the weakness of this as an objec- 
 tion against the truth of the narrative. It would see 
 that it is an objection altogether founded on our ignor- 
 ance. i "We have not been told, and therefore do not 
 know, where and how the sheep and cattle of the 
 Israelites were fed; we may not even be able to conceive 
 how they could be fed in the circumstances; and there- 
 fore we are to conclude they could not be fed.' That 
 is the whole pith of the argument ; and it is plainly 
 a most unsound and dangerous one. I am sure no 
 rational man, no infidel even, would pledge a month's 
 or a week's income on its validity. And ought he then 
 to reject Scripture and so pawn the interests of his im- 
 mortal soul on the security of such reasoning as this 1 
 The sincere mind would soon reflect also that if God 
 provided daily by such a stupendous miracle as that 
 of the manna for the wants of the people, no fear but 
 that some way or other he would provide suitably for 
 their cattle too. Doth God take care of sheep and 
 oxen 1 Yes, verily — He cares for all his creatures. 
 
Sheep and Cattle in the Desert 77 
 
 ; The insect that with tiny wing 
 Just flits along one summer's raj, 
 The floweret that the breath of spring 
 Wakes into life for half a day, 
 The smallest mote, the slenderest hair, 
 All feel our common Father's care." 
 
 If, then, a miracle had been needed for the support of 
 the cattle of the Israelites a miracle would have been 
 wrought. He that says, "the beasts of the field shall 
 honour me, the dragons and the ostriches, because I 
 give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, 
 to give drink to my people, my chosen," — He certainly 
 would not have permitted his people's flocks and herds 
 to perish, when He himself had led them into the 
 wilderness, for want either of food or drink. And if 
 the intelligent believer were asked, Why then have we 
 not been told all about the way in which the cattle 
 were provided for? — his answer would be ready : That 
 Moses had something else to tell us, and something 
 far more important and necessary for us to know, 
 than how two millions of sheep and oxen were fed in 
 the wilderness. When we understand what God did 
 for and with his people themselves, we can leave all 
 that concerned their cattle to Him, or even to Moses, 
 who, we are not to forget, had been a shepherd for 
 forty years in that same wilderness. 
 
 Well, but these reflections of the sincere believer 
 in scripture furnish no answer to Bishop Colenso — as 
 they are not designed to do. What then have we to 
 say to his allegations ? We answer, we do not admit 
 
78 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 all his postulates or premisses. There are two of them 
 especially which we impugn, and which he must 
 demonstrate much more conclusively than he has done 
 before his argument can have any weight whatever : 
 namely, 1st, that all the flocks and herds of the Israel- 
 ites always accompanied them in all their journeys, 
 and were never separated from them ; and 2d, that 
 no change has taken place on the wilderness of Arabia 
 from the days of Moses till now. It belongs to him 
 to prove, not to us to disprove, these allegations ; 
 but that it may be seen that they are not beyond ques- 
 tion, we shall make a few observations on them. 
 
 It has perhaps been very generally taken for 
 granted by commentators and others, that the flocks 
 and herds of the Israelites accompanied them in all 
 their wanderings, mixed up, so to speak, with their 
 armies and encampments ; that they left Egypt in one 
 body with the people, passed with them through the 
 Eed Sea, journeyed with them to Sinai, and remained 
 with them there for nearly twelve months, before the 
 Mount. This I say has been commonly supposed by 
 commentators, and doubtless acquiesced in by readers ; 
 but the Sacred Eecord is not responsible for it ; and 
 a little reflection will show that it is untenable. No 
 doubt the Israelites had some sheep and oxen, and 
 other beasts of burden always with them, for this is 
 both required and proved by the charge given to 
 Moses at Sinai, (which, by the way, is the only scrip- 
 tural proof of his allegation which the Bishop supplies,) 
 viz : — " neither let the flocks nor herds, (or, as it may 
 
Sheep and Cattle in the Desert. 79 
 
 be read, the sheep and oxen), feed before that Mount." 
 But this is a very different thing from supposing that 
 all their flocks and herds, amounting as Bishop 
 Colenso calculates, to two millions at the least, were 
 there. Whether they could have been fed there or not, 
 it is next to certain that there would not have been 
 room for such a number of sheep and oxen in the 
 wilderness of Sinai. So far as we know anything of 
 it, that wilderness was a small plain at the foot of 
 Sinai, enclosed by lofty precipices and mountains, and 
 not more than two square miles in extent.* When we 
 consider, then, the room necessary for the encampment 
 of two millions of people, and for the tabernacle and 
 other purposes, we may be quite sure that there 
 would be no room there for two millions of sheep and 
 oxen also. 
 
 The major portions of the flocks and herds, then, 
 must have been somewhere else ; and though, we do 
 not know where they were, we may be quite sure 
 that they would be sent by Moses to those places, 
 far or near, where they were most likely to find pas- 
 ture, No man knew better than he where such places 
 would be found at all seasons of the year; and he had 
 all the wilderness of Paran, as well as all the region 
 of Horeb, in his choice — a space of probably not 
 less than 15,000 square miles, or about equal to the 
 half of Scotland and its isles. Surely that was range 
 enough for two millions of sheep and oxen, or even 
 for several times that number. 
 
 * Robinson's Bib. Res., vol. i. Sect. 3. 
 
80 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 But, says Bishop Colenso, If the flocks and herds had 
 been so dispersed, " they would surely have required to 
 be guarded by large bodies of armed men, from the 
 attacks of Amalekites, and Midianites, and others." 
 Well, out of 600,000 men able to go forth to war, 
 the Israelites could have spared a pretty sufficient 
 guard, if necessary ; but where is the proof that this 
 was necessary 1 Moses had fed the flocks of Jethro 
 throughout all this region for forty years, and we do 
 not read of him having always a guard of armed men 
 with him. 
 
 But it may be said that, Whether armed men 
 were necessary or not, such a dispersion of the cattle 
 of the Israelites, must have required, for the pur- 
 pose of feeding them, many of the Israelites them- 
 selves to be dispersed also, and how is this con- 
 sistent with the narrative? We answer that the 
 narrative does not forbid this ; but if it did, even 
 this was not necessary — for the Israelites had others 
 to perform this service for them. For, remember 
 what the sacred narrative says concerning both the 
 Israelites and their cattle when they left Egypt : 
 " And the children of Israel journeyed from Eameses 
 to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that 
 were men, besides children. And a mixed multitude 
 went up also with them ; and flocks and herds, even 
 very much cattle." * 
 
 Now, who composed this "mixed multitude" which 
 accompanied the Israelites out of Egypt, and is 
 * Exodus xii. 37, 38. 
 
Sheep and Cattle in the Desert 81 
 
 so closely associated with their flocks and herds? It 
 cannot, perhaps, be said with absolute certainty who 
 they were • but, bating a slight difference in the 
 pointing, the original word for mixed, here, is the 
 same as that repeatedly employed in Scripture for 
 the " mingled people that dwelt in the desert," — that 
 is, the wandering Arabs or Bedawin, as they are now 
 commonly called. They dwelt in the wilderness then, 
 as they do now. They were doubtless found in great 
 numbers then, as now, in Egypt, and on the borders 
 of Egypt — ever ready also to return to their home in 
 the desert, when a sufficient motive or opportunity 
 was afforded them. And may we not warrantably 
 conclude then, that this "mixed multitude" that left 
 Egypt along with the flocks and herds of the 
 Israelites, was composed, in great part at least, of 
 Arabs 1 And if we do, we see at once how the great 
 body of the Israelitish cattle could be guided and fed 
 in the desert, without the attendance of many of the 
 Israelites themselves. These Arabs, and other aliens 
 (as the same word also signifies) may have been the 
 herdsmen of the Israelites, and could follow their 
 charge, wherever it might roam, throughout that wide 
 and pathless wilderness which was their own home. 
 And it may be mentioned as some corroboration of 
 the supposition — that they, with the main body of the 
 flocks and herds of the Israelites, on leaving Egypt, 
 went at once into the wilderness of Paran, and 
 remained there all the time the Israelites were at Sinai 
 — that we never read of this mixed multitude again 
 F 
 
82 The Pentateuch Vindicated,. 
 
 till the Israelites left Sinai, and pitched in the wilder- 
 ness of Paran.* 
 
 Let it be observed, that we do not say that this is 
 the true explanation of the manner in which the 
 flocks and herds of the Israelites were guarded and 
 fed in the wilderness. We are not called on to do so. 
 We mention it as a possible way ; and this is all that 
 is necessary to meet Bishop Colenso's objection. 
 
 But here comes in the second of the Bishop's pos- 
 tulates which we dispute. He says : "It cannot be 
 pretended that the state of the country through which 
 the Israelites travelled has undergone any material 
 change from that time to this;" — the conclusion 
 being, of course, that as it could not support so 
 numerous flocks and herds now, neither could it sup- 
 port them then. And here he quotes a variety of 
 passages of Scripture to support both his premisses 
 and his conclusion ; for Scripture is always true, as 
 was already remarked, when it serves Ms purpose. 
 ^Now I hold it a good maxim, when we find infidels 
 quoting Scripture in support of their infidelity, always 
 to suspect some " cantraip " or juggle in the case. It is 
 like seething a kid in its mother's milk ; or like 
 Satan quoting Scripture in support of a temptation. 
 And what is the best way of acting in the case 1 
 Plainly, to look well at the Scripture quoted — to 
 
 * Num. xi. 4. The word for " mixed multitude " in this 
 verse, is different from that in Ex. xii. 38 ; but the most 
 learned commentators, regard it as referring to the same 
 body ; Ges. in verb. ; Rosenm., Dathe, Clarke, &c., in he. 
 

 Sheep and Cattle in the Desert. 83 
 
 examine it carefully. Let us then do so here ; and it 
 is necessary to look only at one of the Bishop's Scrip- 
 ture proofs ; for they are substantially repetitions of 
 one another. 
 
 The Bishop, as usual, quotes only part of the 
 passage, the part that suits him ; but we shall quote 
 the whole. It is found in Num. xx. 1-5, and reads 
 thus : " Then came the children of Israel, even the 
 whole congregation, into the desert of Zin, in the 
 first month : and the people abode in Kadesh ; and 
 Miriam died there, and was buried there. And there 
 was no water for the congregation : and they gathered 
 themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. 
 And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, 
 Would God that we had died when our brethren died 
 before the Lord ! And why have ye brought up the 
 congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we 
 and our cattle should die there 1 And wherefore have ye 
 made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us into this evil 
 place 1 it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or 
 of pomegranates ; neither is there any water to drink." 
 Now what is to be said of this proof that the wilder- 
 ness was then, as it is now, incapable of supporting so 
 many flocks and herds as the Israelites must have 
 possessed for forty years, or even one year ? 
 
 We answer (1st), That the passage relates to the 
 "first month " of— what year ? — the fortieth and last 
 year of the Israelites' abode in the wilderness ; and 
 if, therefore, it prove anything, it must prove that, for 
 thirty-nine years, the flocks and herds had not died 
 
84 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 for want of food. (This note of time was not very 
 suitable to the Bishop's purpose, and was left out.) 
 — Again (2d), The passage relates only to a particular 
 and small corner of the whole wilderness of Arabia — 
 that called the " desert of Zin." This is the district 
 now called Wady El-Arabah, lying between the wil- 
 derness of Paran and the land of Edom, the most barren 
 and desolate part of the whole region. We may believe 
 the worst that can be said of it. But the very fact 
 that the Israelites complained so loudly and bitterly, 
 only here, sufficiently proves that they had no such 
 reason for complaint during all the thirty-eight years 
 since they had left Sinai and sojourned in the wil- 
 derness of Paran. (This notice of the place was as 
 little suitable to the Bishop's purpose as that of the 
 time, and it too was left out.) — But observe, lastly, 
 that these complaints of the Israelites, and those 
 which followed so long as they remained in this dis- 
 trict, were so provoking to Jehovah, and therefore, we 
 may presume, in some points of view, so certainly un- 
 reasonable and sinful, that on account of them He sent 
 the plague of fiery serpents on them, as we learn from 
 the next chapter; which again sufficiently shows that 
 this was a peculiar and exceptional case, proving noth- 
 ing either as to the state of the whole wilderness, or 
 as to the ivhole period which the Israelites had now 
 passed in it. 
 
 And here, too, we may see the reason why Moses 
 and Jeremiah speak of the wilderness in the manner 
 they have done, in the other passages quoted by 
 
Sheep and Cattle in the Desert. 85 
 
 Bishop Colenso. The former, in Deut. viii. 13, calls it 
 " a great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery 
 serpents and scorpions, and drought, where there was 
 no water." And the latter speaks of it (Jer. ii. 6), as 
 " a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drought and 
 of the shadow of death ; a land that no man passed 
 through, and where no man dwelt." There might he 
 other portions of the wilderness to which these 
 description belonged as well as the desert of Zin ; but 
 this being the one spot more particularly spoken of 
 in the record, to which they applied, — and these 
 passages obviously referring to that quoted from the 
 twentieth chapter of Numbers, — Bishop Colenso had 
 no right to say of them, as he does, that they describe 
 generally the whole wilderness in which the Israelites 
 sojourned. 
 
 In conclusion, on this subject, some facts may be 
 mentioned, which go to show that the vast tract of 
 table land that forms the central and larger portion 
 of the wilderness of Arabia, and the greater part of 
 which was known by the name of Paran, was by no 
 means so sterile formerly as it is now. And I would 
 remind you, first, that water is the source of all 
 fertility, and that there are many places in these 
 Arabian deserts in which water is to be found by 
 digging a little beneath the surface. Hence the 
 many references to this in the history of the patri- 
 archs, and that, too, as to parts of this very wilder- 
 ness. So that possibly labour and skill may be all 
 that is necessary to render it habitable and procluc- 
 
86 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 tive. — Again, great changes have, since the time 
 of Moses (if, at least, we are to believe his re- 
 cords) come over all the surrounding countries ; 
 and why not over the wilderness also 1 Idumea, to 
 the east, was then inhabited by a numerous and 
 powerful nation ; but now it is utterly desolate and 
 deserted. The southern districts of Canaan and 
 Philistia, which lay to the north of it, were then 
 also thickly peopled and fertile ; but what are they 
 now ? — little better than a wilderness of sand. And 
 even the land of Goshen, which bordered it on the 
 west, though still the best of the land of Egypt, is 
 far from being in our day what it seems to have been 
 when the tribes of Jacob dwelt in it. — Above all — 
 (and here we have the authority of Bishop Colenso 
 himself; whether a better authority than that of Moses 
 I leave you to judge) — the wilderness of Paran itself 
 was then the dwelling-place of numerous and power- 
 ful nations. For he says, that if the cattle of the 
 Israelites had been so dispersed as we have supposed, 
 they would have required to be guarded, by large 
 bodies of armed men, from the attacks of the Amale- 
 Jcites, and Midianites, and others. Now we know 
 that the Amalekites, " the first of nations," were a 
 numerous and strong people inhabiting that wilder- 
 ness, having flocks and herds of " sheep and oxen and 
 asses and camels." The Midianites also, who dwelt 
 there and elsewhere, were a numerous and wealthy 
 people, having cities, and goodly castles, and hundreds 
 of thousands of cattle. The Kenites, too, inhabited 
 
The Assembly of the Congregation, 87 
 
 some parts of the same wilderness, " having their nest 
 in the rock;" and they too had abundance of flocks 
 and herds. In short, the whole region seems in former 
 times to have been less or more thickly peopled by 
 pastoral tribes and nations. But what is it now ? 
 Barely sufficient, according to Canon Stanley, to afford 
 sustenance for the herds of 6,000 Bedawin, who con- 
 stitute the present population of the peninsula — that 
 is, of the whole Arabian desert.'"' 
 
 Let us now proceed to consider another of Bishop 
 Colenso's difficulties in the Pentateuch, coming under 
 this head, namely — difficulties in regard to which he 
 rejects or ignores obvious considerations, which go 
 far to lessen or remove them. Let us consider that 
 which relates to the size of the court of the Taber- 
 nacle, compared with the number of the congregation. 
 
 The Bishop first quotes sundry passages of Scrip- 
 ture, to show that Jehovah commanded Moses to 
 gather the congregation together unto the door of the 
 Tabernacle ; and that they were so assembled. He 
 
 * The author has long been of opinion that it is of the 
 northern part of this wilderness that it is said, Gen. xxvi. 12, 
 " Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same 
 year an hundred fold." He hesitated to mention this, in 
 delivering his lecture, because he had never met with any 
 author who took the same view, and there was no opportunity 
 of proving it. Since then, he has found the same opinion 
 strongly stated and supported in Dr. Stewart's book, entitled, 
 "The Tent and the Khan," pp. 207-212. Dr. Stewart 
 travelled over the whole wilderness, from Sinai to Beer- 
 sheba. 
 
88 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 next argues that the expressions "the congregation," 
 " the whole assembly," and such like, must mean the 
 whole people, or at least the 600,000 adult men; and 
 then, by a variety of calculations, endeavours to show 
 the impossibility of their being so gathered, seeing the 
 court of the Tabernacle, when thronged, could only 
 have held 5000 people. His conclusion is, that "it 
 is inconceivable how, in these circumstances, ' all the 
 assembly,' the l whole congregation,' could have been 
 summoned to attend ' at the door of the Tabernacle,' 
 by the express command of Almighty God." 
 
 What is to be said of this startling difficulty 1 We 
 answer, Let us take a similar case. Our word com- 
 mons has, we know, a primary and natural significa- 
 tion : it means the common people, the whole nation, 
 exclusive of the aristocracy. But it has also a con- 
 ventional signification, meaning the representatives of 
 the people — the members of the Commons' House of 
 Parliament. Now suppose I should select from some 
 historian a number of passages, in which the word is 
 used in the first sense, and then fix attention particu- 
 larly on one passage, in which all the Commons, or the 
 whole Assembly of the Commons, were said to have 
 been convened "in their own house," or "their own 
 chamber," you can easily see what a difficulty — what an 
 objection to the veracity of the historian — I could 
 thus get up. I could get the dimensions of the 
 chamber of the Commons, and show that it could not 
 possibly contain more than, say, a thousand persons. 
 I could then number the people, and show that they 
 
The Assembly of the Congregation. 89 
 
 must have amounted to five, or six, or seven millions 
 of able-bodied men ; and I could conclude with a 
 self-satisfied flourish, ' It is inconceivable how all the 
 commons — the whole assembly of the commons — 
 could have been convened in any such chamber, or 
 any chamber, or house, whatever, that ever was in 
 erected.' 
 
 Now this, I apprehend, is precisely what Bishop 
 Colenso has done, in this chapter of his book. He 
 has ignored or forgotten the consideration that a re- 
 presentative body may bear the same name with those 
 whom it represents, and be spoken of as, to all ordinary 
 intents and purposes, the same. Nay, he has worse 
 than forgotten it ; he has sought, ignorantly, I hope, 
 but cunningly, I fear, to exclude this consideration, by 
 distinguishing the whole congregation from the elders, 
 or heads of the people, so as to prevent the idea from 
 rising in the reader's mind that this expression, " the 
 congregation," or "the whole congregation," could ever 
 mean a representative assembly. Now it could easily 
 enough be shown, from various passages of the Pen- 
 tateuch and the book of Joshua, that besides the 
 elders of Israel, or the princes, as they are also called, 
 who were the heads and representatives of the chief 
 families, there was another class called the " heads of 
 houses," who represented smaller divisions of the 
 people, and who, along with the elders, constituted 
 the representatives or delegates of the nation. Thus 
 in the 24th chapter of Joshua it is said, (v. 1, 2), That 
 Joshua "gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, 
 
00 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, 
 and for their judges, and for their officers, and they 
 presented themselves before God. And Joshua said 
 unto all the people," &c. The meaning is evidently 
 that, in addressing these representatives of the people, 
 Joshua virtually addressed all the people. That this 
 has been the view taken by the most learned writers 
 on Hebrew antiquities, I might quote passages to 
 show, from such books as " Michaelis on the Laws of 
 Moses," " Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth," &c. But 
 
 1 shall content myself with one or two statements 
 from "Kitto's Cyclopaedia," by an Oxford scholar, still 
 living, I presume. He says, "The words which stand 
 at the head of our article, to express the national con- 
 gregation (i. e,, the Hebrew words for congregation, 
 assembly, &c), sometimes imply, (1), A meeting of the 
 whole mass of the people ; sometimes, (2), A congress 
 of deputies." And then explaining the composition 
 of this congress of deputies, he adds, " In Numbers 
 i. 1 6 we read of persons called, not the renowned of 
 the congregation, as it is in our version, but those 
 wont to be called to the congregation. In the 16th 
 chapter they are more explicitly styled chiefs of the 
 congregation who are called to the convention. While 
 in Exodus xxxviii. 25 occurs the phrase, those de- 
 puted to the assembly, which exactly describes dele- 
 gated persons." And then the same author goes on 
 to describe the various classes of persons composing 
 this representative assembly, when they met, how 
 they were summoned, and so on. 
 
The Assembly of the Congregation. 91 
 
 It is unnecessary, however, to enter farther into 
 these details. What Bishop Colenso ignores or rejects 
 on this question, is the common, the universally 
 understood principle of representation, by which the 
 expression, "the congregation," or "the whole assembly 
 of the congregation," might come to signify only a 
 few hundreds of delegates or representatives of the 
 Israelitish people. We cannot, of course, tell how 
 many they were. But suppose that every ruler of a 
 thousand had a seat, as we would say, in this House 
 of Commons, then, taking in also the elders and other 
 ex officio members, the whole won Id not j)robably 
 amount to more than between 600 and 700, a very 
 suitable number evidently both for being assembled 
 at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation, and 
 for being addressed, at one time, by Moses or by 
 Joshua. 
 
 But whatever might be their precise numbers, such 
 is the answer I would give to this difficulty. And I 
 would remind you that this principle of personal re- 
 presentation, and also another principle, that of sym- 
 bolical representation, were well understood among the 
 Israelites. The fact is, their whole religion may be 
 said to have been founded on these two principles; 
 and they were brought before them and acted on 
 almost every day. Permit me to remind you of an 
 instance of this, which could easily be set in such a 
 light as to present as formidable a difficulty — as great 
 an impossibility — as any to be found in Bishop Col- 
 enso' s book. — When the covenant between Jehovah 
 
92 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 and Israel was ratified at the foot of Sinai, Moses, we are 
 told, took half the blood of the sacrifice which had 
 been offered and sprinkled it on the altar. Then, 
 having read the book of the covenant to the people, 
 and received their assent to it, he took the remaining 
 half of the blood and sprinkled it on the people, say- 
 ing, " Behold the blood of the covenant, which the 
 Lord hath made with you concerning all these words." 
 In the epistle to the Hebrews we are expressly told 
 that Moses " sprinkled all the people " But how is 
 this credible 1 " All the people " are commonly 
 reckoned at two and a-half millions. Suppose them 
 to be drawn up in ranks, each rank containing 2,500 
 persons ; and allowing two feet, as the Bishop does, 
 to each person, every rank would be nearly a mile in 
 length, and there would be 1000 ranks in all. Now, 
 to sprinkle all the people with the blood of the cove- 
 nant, Moses would require to go along the whole 
 length of every rank, and sprinkle each person as he 
 passed — that is, he would require to walk a thousand 
 miles ; and how was it possible that he should do so in 
 a single day 1 Why, at the very least, he would re- 
 quire a month or six weeks ; and how, then, can this 
 story about the sprinkling of the blood of the cove- 
 nant be believed % Nay, let us suppose that all the 
 people means only the 600,000 adult men: still there 
 would be 240 ranks, and Moses would require to 
 walk 240 miles before he could sprinkle them, which 
 would take him at least a week or ten days. Now, 
 here is a problem or puzzle, if you like so to call it, 
 
The Israelites Armed. 93 
 
 as good and well-founded, I think, as any of the 
 Bishop of Ratal's. And what is the solution 1 The 
 reader will find it, on a careful and intelligent perusal 
 of the narrative, by observing that Moses performed 
 the work of sprinkling the people on the principle of 
 symbolical representation. The altar being the re- 
 presentative of Jehovah, he erected twelve pillars to 
 represent the twelve tribes of Israel, and the sprink- 
 ling of these, which could evidently be performed in 
 a few minutes, was considered as the sprinkling of the 
 people. And this was one of the most important and 
 solemn of all the transactions of the Israelitish 
 history. 
 
 I shall now call attention shortly to the only diffi- 
 culty which I propose to bring under the third head 
 which I have specified — real difficulties, from which 
 Bishop Colenso draws unwarrantable conclusions. It 
 is that which he grounds on the Israelites being said 
 to be " harnessed," or armed, when they left Egypt. 
 The Bishop's objection is sufficiently brought out in 
 the following paragraphs of his book : — 
 
 " The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of 
 Egypt. Exod. xiii. 18. 
 
 "The word D^Dfl, which is here rendered 'harnessed,' 
 appears to mean ' armed ' or ' in battle array,' in all the other 
 passages where it occurs. Thus, Josh. i. 14, ' But ye shall 
 pass before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valour, 
 and help them.' So, Josh. iv. 12, 'And the children of 
 Eeuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Ma- 
 nasseh, passed over armed before the children of Israel, as 
 
94 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Moses spake unto them,' And, Jud. vii. 11, 'Then went he 
 down, with Phurah, his servant, unto the outside of the armed 
 men that were in the host.' It is possible also that the He- 
 brew word D^'n which occurs in Num. xxxii. 17, and is 
 
 • ••. > 
 
 rendered ' armed ' in the English version, but which Gesen- 
 ius derives from &k|l"I, 'to make haste,' and renders 'hasten- 
 ing ' or ' in haste,' may be a corruption from D^'lpn by the 
 
 accidental omission of a letter. 
 
 "It is, however, inconceivable that these down-trodden, 
 oppressed people should have been allowed by Pharaoh to 
 possess arms, so as to turn out at a moment's notice 600,000 
 armed men. If such a mighty host, — nearly nine times as 
 great as the whole of Wellington's army at Waterloo, (69,686 
 men, Alison's History of Europe, xix. p. 401), — had had arms 
 in their hands, would they not have risen long ago for their 
 liberty, or, at all events, would there have been no danger of 
 their rising? Besides, the warriors formed a distinct caste 
 in Egypt, as Herodotus tells us, ii. 165, 'being in number, 
 when they are most numerous, 160,000, none of whom learn 
 any mechanical art, but apply themselves wholly to military 
 affairs.' Are we to suppose, then, that the Israelites acquired 
 their arms by ' borrowing ' on the night of the Exodus ? 
 Nothing whatever is said of this, and the idea itself is an 
 extravagant one. But, if even in this or any other way they 
 had come to be possessed of arms, is it conceivable that 
 600,000 armed men, in the prime of life, would have cried 
 out in panic terror, 'sore afraid,' Exod. xiv. 10, when they 
 saw that they were being pursued ?" 
 
 The Bishop goes on throughout the chapter turning 
 the objection in all ways, so as to sustain his conclu- 
 sion, which is of course that this statement in Exodus 
 xiii. 18 is one reason for rejecting the whole Penta- 
 teuch. 
 
The Israelites Armed. 95 
 
 Now, on this point I maintain, first, that no man 
 can now prove that the Israelites, when they went 
 out of Egypt, were not more, or less, possessed 
 of arms. Bishop Colenso says, " that it is inconceiv- 
 able that these down-trodden and oppressed people 
 should have been allowed by Pharaoh to possess arms, 
 so as to turn out at a moment's notice 600,000 armed 
 men." No doubt of it ! Neither the historian nor 
 any other author, I presume, ever said that they were 
 " allowed by Pharaoh to possess arms " to this or to 
 any other amount. Nevertheless they might possibly 
 possess a considerable quantity of arms, without 
 either the allowance or the knowledge of Pharaoh, 
 We know how common it is for oppressed nations, 
 when looking forward to freedom, to obtain posses- 
 sion of arms without their oppressor's knowledge ; 
 and though there was less need of such a provision 
 iii this case, seeing Israel's emancipation was to be 
 effected by divine power and not by human prowess, 
 no one can now demonstrate that that provision was 
 not made. 
 
 But again, secondly, granting that the Israelites 
 were not "armed" in the proper sense of the ex- 
 pression, it cannot be shown that the historian meant 
 to say they were. The word translated " harnessed " 
 in the verse in question, is a word of very doubtful 
 signification. Its etymology is not known, and it is 
 only from the meaning of supposed cognate words 
 in Arabic that Gesenius concludes that it signifies 
 " eager, active, brave, ready prepared for fighting." 
 
96 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 He gives other interpretations, but this, he says, 
 best suits the context and the structure of the 
 language, Now, as to the structure of the language 
 I shall say nothing ; but as to suiting the context, 
 in this passage at least, every one can judge for 
 himself. And when he does so, he will find that as 
 "great men are not always wise," learned men are 
 not always prudent or pertinent in their reasons ; for 
 it would be difficult to imagine any meaning less suit- 
 able to the context than this. The context is, " And 
 it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, 
 that God led them not through the way of the Phil- 
 istines, although that was near ; for God said, Lest 
 peradventure the people repent when they see war, 
 and they return to Egypt : but God led the people 
 about, through the way of the wilderness of the Eed 
 Sea." — Then follows the statement in question, "And 
 the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the 
 land of Egypt." Now, put in the explanation which 
 Gesenius says "suits the context," in place of the 
 word " harnessed," and you make the historian flatly 
 contradict, not himself only, but God also. God is 
 almost expressly made to say that the people were not 
 prepared for war ; yet the historian adds (if this be 
 the meaning of the word), that " they went up eager, 
 active, brave, ready prepared for fighting." It may 
 be added that our translators have, in all the instances 
 in which the word occurs, put another meaning in 
 the margin, and not always the same meaning, — thus 
 showing how doubtful they were of its import. And 
 
The Israelites Armed. 97 
 
 similar marks of its obscurity are found in other ver- 
 sions. The Septuagint renders it " in the fifth gen- 
 eration." Another version interprets it "marshalled 
 in five divisions," and another " by fifties," meaning, 
 probably, not by fifties in a rank, but by fifties under 
 different leaders — " the captain of fifty and his fifty," 
 as is said elsewhere. 
 
 I maintain, lastly, on this subject, that no candid 
 scholar, or reader anxious to find out the truth, 
 would, in these circumstances, build a serious argu- 
 ment on this word. No man who has not a sinister 
 end in view, or a foregone conclusion to support, would 
 draw from it any conclusion whatever, save that the 
 meaning of the word is not known. And what then 
 are we to think of Bishop Colenso, who makes this 
 word one of the pillars of the tremendous conclusion, 
 that a large portion of that volume on which the 
 faith, and hope, and religion of all Christendom are 
 based, is not to be believed 1 
 
 In regard to the difficulty of the Israelites getting 
 arms in the wilderness, the bishop says, " We must 
 suppose that the whole body of 600,000 warriors were 
 armed, when they were numbered (Num. i. 3) under 
 Sinai. They possessed arms, surely, at that time, ac- 
 cording to the story. How did they get them, unless 
 they took them out of Egypt?" We answer that 
 there is no necessity of supposing anything of the 
 kind. The passage (Num. i. 3) says not one word 
 about arms. But if we should suppose the Israelites 
 were all or most of them armed then, and suppose, 
 G 
 
98 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 also, that they did not bring their armour out of 
 Egypt, what was to hinder them from making it in 
 the wilderness ? Bishop Colenso has not formally 
 challenged their ability to make the tabernacle and 
 its furniture ; and if they could make them, what 
 was to hinder them from making swords, spears, 
 shields, and other pieces of the rude and simple kinds 
 of armour then in use ? It is amazing how much 
 this man of minute and searching arithmetic trusts 
 occasionally to the force of broad, bold, unwarranted 
 assertions. He evidently has, as the late Dr. Chalmers 
 would have said, great confidence in the gullibility of 
 the public. 
 
 I make one other remark on the doubtful word, 
 on which this objection is based. I do not make it 
 as an answer to Bishop Colenso, but merely as 
 indicating a possible way out of the real difficulty 
 which this word creates. I warn you also that the 
 observation is entirely conjectural, and has no higher 
 claim to your regard than that of a mere possibility. 
 It -is that, possibly, the word rendered " harnessed " 
 in this verse may, in course of transcription, have 
 undergone some change. If two of its letters had in 
 any way changed places (which sometimes happened 
 in writing Hebrew as it does in printing English) 
 then the original word would have been one that sig- 
 nified " rejoicing."* So that the meaning of the state- 
 ment would have been, " And the children of Israel 
 went up out of the land of Egypt rejoicing." And 
 
 * d™k> for n^Dn 
 
Conclusion. 99 
 
 that, plainly, is a meaning which well suits the con- 
 text, and all the circumstances, besides being expressly 
 attested by the Psalmist, (Ps. cv. 43 :) "And he brought 
 forth his people with joy, and his chosen with glad- 
 ness," or singing. 
 
 In conclusion, the text assures us that " the word of 
 the Lord is tried." The meaning is, that it is pure, 
 " refined as silver is refined, and tried as gold is tried." 
 It is all precious metal, without dross, without alloy. 
 " For the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver 
 tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." 
 And what is our duty, then, in reference to it*? 
 Plainly to value it, to trust in it, and lay it up in our 
 hearts. It is better than gold, yea, than much fine 
 gold, and happy is he in whom it dwells richly. But 
 let us also see that we understand it rightly. Though 
 pure as it comes from God, it may become mixed with 
 error or falsehood as it dwells in our minds. There 
 can be no doubt that there is in many minds a vast 
 mass of false interpretation and unfounded inference 
 encrusting, so to speak, the word of God. Let us get 
 quit of this, for it is both deceitful and dangerous 
 matter. And for this purpose let us study the word 
 more carefully, and ask and depend upon the guidance 
 of the great Teacher, the Holy Spirit, to lead us to the 
 true meaning, and all the meaning of Scripture ; for 
 it is that only which will enable us to resist tempta- 
 tion, and " stand perfect and complete in all the will 
 of God." 
 
LECTURE IV.* 
 
 Num. xii. 7, 8. — " My servant Moses is faithful in all my 
 house : wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak evil of 
 my servant Moses ?" 
 
 Heb. iii. 5, 6. — "And Moses verily was faithful in all his 
 house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which 
 were to be spoken after ; but Christ as a son over his own 
 house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence 
 and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." 
 
 In the preceding lectures we have considered the 
 most formidable of Bishop Colenso's objections to the 
 historical credibility of the Pentateuch, which come 
 under the three heads specified. There may be others 
 capable of being brought under the same heads, but 
 they are neither so important nor so imposing as those 
 we have noticed ; and as we never proposed to enter 
 into all his quibbles, we pass them over for the pre- 
 sent, t But there are two very formidable-looking 
 difficulties yet to be considered, which cannot well be 
 placed in any of our categories. In one aspect they 
 may be said to belong to all, but in another, to none 
 of the three ; and I propose therefore to devote the 
 present lecture entirely to them. They are the first 
 
 * Delivered Feb. 8, 1863. i See Appendix, A, B, C. 
 
The Genealogies of Scripture. 101 
 
 and the last in Bishop Colenso's volume ; and the 
 position which he has assigned to them, as well as 
 the language he employs, seems to indicate that he 
 esteems them among the most important of all. Not 
 only so, but, if we may judge by the frequency with 
 which both, and especially the first, have, since the 
 publication of his volume, been referred to by others, 
 they are among those which are most likely to make 
 a lasting impression on the public mind. 
 
 The first is that in regard to the family of Judah, 
 which is found in the catalogue of the names of those 
 who went down to Egypt with Jacob, contained in 
 Gen. xlvi. I beg to introduce it with a few observa- 
 tions on the genealogical tables and lists of names, 
 contained in Scripture generally. And I remark first, 
 
 That the inspired men did not frame these genealo- 
 gies, and are therefore not responsible for the difficulties 
 or apparent discrepancies to be found in them. JSTo 
 one, I presume, imagines that these lists of names 
 were communicated to them by divine revelation. The 
 inspired men found them framed to their hand, and 
 brought down by tradition or by the public and 
 private registers of the Jewish tribes and families. 
 They were led by the Spirit of inspiration to copy so 
 much of these records as served the purposes which 
 they had in view; and all that they were responsible 
 for was, to give an accurate copy so far as they went. 
 This is plainly all they had to do in the matter. 
 
 I remark secondly, That in their original state the 
 Jewish genealogies must have been unchallengeably 
 
102 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 correct. For, as legal documents, and as involving the 
 highest interests and honour of the tribes and families 
 to which they belonged, they must have been con- 
 structed and preserved with the utmost care, and, when 
 published, must have been open to the challenge and 
 correction of every individual who had an interest or 
 who felt an interest in the matter. This also is un- 
 questionable ; and it ought to give us confidence in 
 these genealogies, provided we have no reason to think 
 that they have been tampered with since. 
 
 The third remark I make is, that at the same time 
 no portions of Scripture were so liable, in the nature of 
 things, to become dark and unintelligible to us and to 
 all readers of other times. Why 1 For very obvious 
 reasons. We know not the principles on which these 
 genealogical tables were constructed. We cannot now 
 trace the operation of the very peculiar laws and customs 
 of Jewish society, as embodied in these records ; and 
 even the different names given in different genealogies 
 to the same individual, as well as the same names to 
 different individuals, are apt to lead us astray. Thus 
 with the most perfect accuracy in the documents 
 themselves, there may be to our minds the greatest 
 obscurity in them, or an appearance of the most inex- 
 tricable confusion. 
 
 And what, then, is the practical lesson which these 
 remarks convey 1 ? Plainly that we may, most ration- 
 ally, confide in the general truth of the genealogies of 
 Scripture, even when we cannot harmonize them, or 
 solve the difficulties which may be found in them. 
 
The Family of Judah. 103 
 
 Take the genealogies of Christ, for instance, contained 
 in the first chapter of Matthew's and in the third 
 chapter of Luke's gospels. To harmonize these has 
 always been a hard or impossible task to the Biblical 
 scholar, I know not whether any unexceptionable 
 way of doing so has ever been discovered. But ought 
 this to stumble or distress the mind of any sincere 
 believer in the inspiration of the Word of God ? Not 
 for a moment. These genealogies were doubtless 
 copied from public and authentic documents, existing 
 in the archives of the Jewish nation, or of the royal 
 family. They were published when, had they been 
 challengeable, they could have been and ivould have 
 been challenged by thousands. This is enough to 
 prove their original accuracy; and it only confirms 
 that proof to add that, so far as known, they never 
 were challenged until the principles on which they 
 were constructed, and the peculiarities of law and cus- 
 tom which they embodied, had been lost sight of by 
 those who challenged them, or become altogether 
 unknown. 
 
 The truth and importance of these remarks will be 
 illustrated in some measure by the difficulty, to the 
 consideration of which we now proceed, — that in 
 regard to "the family of Judah." That difficulty is 
 shortly this : — That in the list of the names of those 
 who went down with Jacob to Egypt (Gen. xlvi. 8-27), 
 the names (Hezron and Hamul) of two of the grand- 
 children of Judah, who could not then have been 
 born, are found. Yet you cannot leave out these 
 
104 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 names, or consider them as interpolated afterwards, 
 for you cannot, without them, make up the list of 
 sixty-six persons, which are said, both there and else- 
 where, to have gone down to Egypt with Jacob. 
 
 Such is the difficulty — the apparent discrepancy to 
 be found in this part of the Pentateuch ; and what 
 are we to say in reference to it 1 I answer, that the 
 difficulty may be solved, I think, in a single sentence ; 
 but it will take a good deal of explanation to show 
 that solution to be sound and scriptural : and I beg 
 to be allowed, therefore, to enter somewhat minutely 
 into the subject. It is not necessary to quote from 
 Bishop Colenso's volume, for I have little or nothing 
 to say against his way of stating the difficulty. 
 Generally speaking, his premisses are sound, his cal- 
 culations unquestionable, and his answers to Kurtz, 
 Hengstenberg, and others, unanswerable. I do not 
 mean, of course, that I assent to his conclusions ; but 
 merely to say that his data and calculations are correct, 
 and that his answers to former solutions, appear to be 
 so. The solution which I propose has not, so far as I 
 know, been before given ; and being anxious to give 
 it fully, I prefer to state the whole story with which 
 the difficulty is connected, as I understand it. That 
 story, as recorded in the thirty-eighth chapter of 
 Genesis, is not a very pleasant or morally pretty 
 one ; but for the sake of truth we must be content 
 to look at it for a little. 
 
 The story is this : When Judah, the fourth son of 
 Jacob, was about twenty years of age, he married the 
 
The Family of Judah. 105 
 
 daughter of Shuah, a Canaanite, and by her had 
 (in three successive years, we may suppose,) three sons 
 named Er, Onan, and Shelah. When Er, the first- 
 born, became marriageable (which we cannot suppose 
 would be in less than sixteen years after his father's 
 marriage, and when Judah, therefore, would be about 
 thirty-six years of age), he was married to Tamar : 
 but "he was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and 
 the Lord slew him." In other words, he died sud- 
 denly, without having a child. According to the 
 levirate law of marriage, which then prevailed, and 
 of which I shall afterwards have occasion to speak, 
 Tamar, his widow, was, probably after some interval, 
 given to his brother Onan to wife ; but he also died 
 suddenly, without issue. Tamar was then directed 
 by Judah to remain in widowhood in her father's 
 house till Shelah, his third son, was grown ; which 
 she did : but afterwards, finding or suspecting that 
 the requirements of the levirate law were not com- 
 plied with, she, by a stratagem, entrapped Judah him- 
 self, and by him had the twin sons Pharez and Zarah. 
 We might be tempted here to speak of the disgusting im- 
 purity and villainy of these transactions ; but we forbear. 
 Our present business is not with the moral character, 
 but with the facts and times of these occurrences ; 
 and it is very obvious, that when these two sons of 
 Judah, by Tamar, were born, their father could not 
 be less than thirty-nine years of age. And therefore, 
 at the time of the going down to Egypt, when Judah 
 was certainly not more than forty-two, these children 
 could not be more than about three years old. 
 
106 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Now one of them, Pharez, was the father of Hezron and 
 Hamul, whose names appear in the list of those who 
 came out of Jacob's loins, and who came with him to 
 Egypt. But how could that be 1 These children of 
 Pharez, and grandchildren of Judah, could not be 
 born till twelve or thirteen years at least after the 
 migration to Egypt; and how, then, could their 
 names be reckoned among the sixty-six who went 
 down to Egypt with Jacob 1 My answer is, that the 
 names of Hezron and Hamul are not reckoned 
 among the sixty-six ; they are only mentioned paren- 
 thetically, for a reason that can be easily explained ; 
 and that the names that are reckoned to make up the 
 sixty-six are those of Er and Onan, the dead sons of 
 Judah. For though they themselves were dead, their 
 names were still alive ; i. e., they had still the power 
 and privilege of founding families in Israel, and were 
 still "written," therefore, "among the living" in 
 Jacob. This is the answer which I propose to sup- 
 port, and I shall do so as briefly as seems consistent 
 with perspicuity. 
 
 1. Permit me to remind you how great an honour 
 it was always esteemed to have a living name in 
 Israel — a name, that is, enrolled in the genealogies of 
 the tribes and families, and preserved to all genera- 
 tions. Eor, besides that the continuance of the 
 inheritance in a man's family depended on this, it 
 secured him also a kind of immortality on earth. 
 His name was remembered as one of the builders of 
 the house of Israel. Hence the blessing of having 
 
The Family of Judak 107 
 
 many sons ; hence the curse of being " written child- 
 less j" and hence also the figurative language about 
 being "blotted out," or "not blotted out," from the 
 book of the living. And this honour, it should be 
 remarked, would be especially cared for in the earlier 
 days of the Israelitish people ; for then the great, the 
 chief families were being founded, almost all of which 
 bore the names of the grandchildren of Jacob, who 
 went down with him to Egypt, as may be seen in the 
 26th chapter of the book of Numbers. 
 
 2. Let me remind you, next, of the various ways 
 by which an Israelite might secure this honour of 
 having a living name, even after his own death. 
 The first and most direct way was, of course, by 
 having one or more sons to represent him, to inherit 
 his property, and to build up his house and name. 
 
 Another way was, if the deceased had daughters 
 only, by these daughters, as heiresses, being married to 
 husbands of their own kindred, and their husbands 
 taking the name, and being written as the sons, of 
 their deceased father-in-law. Of this we have an 
 appropriate illustration in the case of the daughters of 
 Zelophehad, spoken of in the 27th and 36th chapters 
 of Numbers. 
 
 But there was a third way in which a man's 
 name might be preserved and numbered among the 
 living, after his death : namely, by a younger brother 
 or kinsman marrying his widow, and raising up seed 
 to him. This was what is called the levirate marriage 
 law, of which we have many illustrations in Scripture. 
 
108 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 We have a memorial of it, for instance, in the ques- 
 tion which the Sadducees put to Christ, touching the 
 resurrection, when they proposed the hypothetical 
 case of seven brothers who had married one woman, 
 and died childless. We have an illustration of it 
 also, I need hardly remind you, in the beautiful story 
 of the book of Euth ; and in it we are expressly told 
 that the design in view in the marriage of Euth to 
 the kinsman of her first husband was, " to raise up 
 the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the 
 name of the dead be not cut oif from among his 
 brethren." * The law of Moses on the subject, also, 
 was express and pointed : " If brethren dwell together, 
 and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of 
 the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger : 
 her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take 
 her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an hus- 
 band's brother unto her. And it shall be, that the 
 first-born which she beareth shall succeed in the name 
 of the brother which is dead, that his name be not 
 put out of Israel :" literally, "that his name be not 
 blotted out from Israel." f 
 
 But the story which we have repeated from the 
 38th chapter of Genesis is the most impressive of all 
 the illustrations of the operation of this law, and of 
 its design. It shows us, besides, that the law was 
 not originated by Moses, but existed long before his 
 day; it existed among the Canaanites, as well as 
 the Israelites, and was probably one of those tyrant- 
 * Euth iv. 10. f Deut. xxv. 5, 6. 
 
The Family of Judah. 1 09 
 
 customs (arising, as Michaelis thinks, out of the prac- 
 tice of polygamy) which no lawgiver can at once put 
 down, but which he can only regulate and modify. 
 The law is said to prevail still among the Mongols of 
 Tartary and China, among whom also polygamy is 
 rampant. 
 
 3. But without enlarging, I have now only to remind 
 you further how, by virtue of this law, Er and Onan, 
 the dead sons of Judah, had a " living name " in 
 Israel, or had a right to be named among the foun- 
 ders of the first and chief families of the nation, to 
 record the names of whom was the very object of the 
 list in the 46th chapter of Genesis. — Er and Onan had a 
 very peculiar kind of right to this ; for Pharez and 
 Zarah, the sons of Judah by Tamar, stood in a 
 very peculiar relation to them. Let us confine 
 our attention to Pharez. By the law of nature he 
 was the son of Judah ; but by the levirate law he 
 may be said to have been the grandson of Judah, 
 being the son of his daughter-in-law. And so in re- 
 gard to the two dead brothers — Pharez, by the law 
 of nature, was their younger brother, but by the levi- 
 rate law he was their son, being the son of their 
 wife. This, however, gave the dead brothers only a 
 4ouble claim to have their names raised up, or pre- 
 served alive, through him. And accordingly it was 
 so ; for Pharez, instead of being the founder of one 
 family in Israel, became the founder of three distinct 
 families : as we read in the 26th chapter of Numbers. 
 His two eldest sons, Hezron and Hamul, founded the 
 
110 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 families of the Hezronites and Hamulites; and then 
 the other sons of Pharez bore his own name, and con- 
 stituted the family of the Pharzites. Thus, I contend, 
 the two dead sons of Judah were afterwards, through 
 Hezron and Hamul, founders of families in Israel, 
 and therefore, though dead, their names were not 
 blotted out, but were to be counted among the sixty- 
 six that went down with Jacob to Egypt. 
 
 And hence, too, the reason why Hezron and Hamul, 
 though not then born, were parenthetically men- 
 tioned, though not counted, in this list of sixty-six 
 names. It was through them that the dead sons of 
 Judah afterwards secured their legal and acknow- 
 ledged right. And here I may remark, by the way, 
 that the construction of the verse that contains their 
 names agrees with this supposition — that they were 
 not to be counted, but were only mentioned as in a 
 parenthesis : a fact which Bishop Colenso has either 
 not noticed or has designedly suppressed ; for in 
 quoting the verse he changes its construction. The 
 verse reads thus in our translation, which is perfectly 
 literal : " And the sons of Judah, Er, and Onan, and 
 Shelah, and Pharez, and Zarah : but Er and Onan died 
 in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Pharez were 
 Hezron and Hamul." The Bishop leaves out the sub- 
 stantive verb toere in this last clause, and so makes it 
 a continuation of the preceding sentence, whereas it 
 is a completely distinct and, as we have said, virtually 
 a parenthetical sentence. It does not mean that 
 Hezron and Hamul went down to Egypt with Jacob, 
 
The Family of Judah. Ill 
 
 or were then born, but only that they were the sons 
 of Pharez ; and this is mentioned because, according 
 to the levirate law, they were to be reckoned the sons 
 of Er and Onan, and became afterwards the founders 
 of families in their names, or as their representa- 
 tives.* 
 
 As Bishop Colenso has constrained us to look more 
 narrowly than we might have been inclined into this 
 somewhat indelicate piece of family history, it may 
 not be unprofitable, before leaving it, to ask, How 
 does the bishop's own theory of the origin of the 
 Pentateuch appear in the light of this piece of his- 
 tory ? What does this whole story about the family 
 of Judah suggest in regard to the Bishop's theory ? 
 We must wait, of course, till his second volume ap- 
 pears before we can certainly know what that theory 
 is ; and I speak now, therefore, subject to correction 
 from the second volume when it appears. But so far 
 as I understand his theory, it is this : That some 
 learned Jew of later times (the times of the kings, 
 or even later) wrote the Pentateuch as a sort 
 of Eomance, which he did not intend people to 
 believe, but wrote it from floating legends, for the 
 glorification, doubtless, of the Jewish nation, or its 
 great men. This theory, it is true, does not seem very 
 self-consistent ; but let that pass. Perhaps the in- 
 consistency may lie in our misapprehension. But 
 what ideas, I ask, must this romancing Jew have had 
 
 * See Appendix D. 
 
112 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 of the glory of Iris nation and of its great men, when 
 he fancied, and wrote, and laid before his readers, in 
 the sacred name of Jehovah, this gratuitous piece of 
 impurity and offensiveness 1 — and, it was gratuitous in 
 him to record it, if he was not, both by a regard to 
 truth and by the constraints of the spirit of inspiration, 
 compelled to do so. For I do not believe that a viler 
 or more disgusting scandal is to be found degrading the 
 origin and blackening the escutcheon of any honour- 
 able family, or any distinguished name, that has ever 
 found a place in history, whether sacred or profane. 
 
 And observe, this scandal affected the honour (as the 
 author, if he lived in the time of the kings of Judah, 
 must have known) of the very greatest and most re- 
 nowned men of the Jewish nation. For from this 
 very family of Judah, and from that branch of it 
 which sprung out of his incestuous marriage with 
 Tamar — including all the names of which we have 
 been speaking — sprang David and Solomon, and all 
 the kings and great men of the house of David. 
 From it, too, the author must have known (if he knew 
 anything at all of the higher aspirations and hopes of the 
 nation) David's son and Lord, "Messiah the Prince," 
 was expected to descend. And was it then for the 
 glorification of these kings and great men, that the 
 mind of this learned Jew conceived, and his hand 
 penned, this romantic piece of family history? Is 
 that a very credible theory 1 ? Will the Bishop get 
 any person of common sense or common reflection to 
 believe that 1 I hope not — not at least in England 
 
The War on Midian. 113 
 
 or Scotland. He liad better carry such theories to 
 Natal, where they were born, and civilize or amuse 
 his Zulu Kaffirs with them ; or he might carry them 
 to the banks of the Suttlej and test, by means of 
 them, the admirable wisdom of his " Sikh Gooroos." 
 He has certainly done a very questionable thing for 
 himself as well as others, in ventilating them on 
 British soil.* 
 
 I come now to the last of Bishop Colenso's objec- 
 tions to the credibility of the Pentateuch of which I 
 propose to speak in these lectures — that relating to 
 the war on Midian. As it is the last in the Bishop's 
 volume, it may be supposed to have been regarded by 
 him as a very conclusive one. Yet it is so vague and 
 inconclusive, that it is surprising that any man, on so 
 momentous a question as the historical truth of the 
 Pentateuch, should have risked his reputation for 
 candour and common sense, by speaking of it as the 
 Bishop does. He has a double objection to the in- 
 spired narrative on this point — the one ethical, the 
 other arithmetical. In other words, he regards the 
 events recorded as both morally incredible and physi- 
 cally impossible. 
 
 It may be proper to look at the alleged physical 
 impossibility first, — the account of which may be 
 
 * After perusing the Bishop's second volume, the author 
 finds nothing so essentially erroneous in the above remarks 
 as to require either their correction or withdrawment. The 
 Bishop's theory as to the origin of the Pentateuch is noticed 
 in the following lecture. 
 
114 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 given shortly thus : From the death of Aaron (re- 
 corded in the 20th chapter of Numbers) to the 
 day when Moses commenced his addresses to Israel 
 in the plains of Moab (which addresses occupy the 
 greater part or the whole of the book of Deuteronomy), 
 Dr. Colenso calculates that only six months elapsed. 
 Now, during that interval the book of Numbers re- 
 cords such a variety of wars, journeys, and other 
 events to have taken place, that they could not pos- 
 sibly, in his estimation, be crowded into the space of 
 six months. Accordingly, giving a month to this, 
 and a fortnight to that, and another month to this 
 other event, he fills up the six months before he has 
 gone over much more than half the catalogue of re- 
 corded events ; and one of those which he is thus 
 obliged to leave out is the war on Midian, which, 
 therefore, of course, as it must have taken a month 
 or six weeks for itself, never took place. This is the 
 physical or arithmetical objection. 
 
 Now, without looking at all into the accuracy of 
 these calculations, it must be remarked, that this is 
 certainly a very summary and cavalier mode of treat- 
 ing so ancient and important a history as that of the 
 Pentateuch, and proving it untrue. Treated in this 
 way, it seems very doubtful if any history whatever, 
 even of the most recent events, could stand the test, 
 and be believed. For the test itself, like a piece of 
 India rubber, may be made what you please. It 
 makes one feel as if it were but trifling to notice such 
 cavils. Yet I make one or two remarks on this 
 point : — 
 
The War on Midian. 115 
 
 1. Bishop Colenso has neither proved, nor sought 
 to prove, that all the events recorded in the hook of 
 Numbers, after the account of Aaron's death, took 
 place during the six months referred to. No history 
 can always record events precisely in the order in 
 which they occur ; and a number of instances could be 
 given in which the Mosaic history departs from that 
 order. Indeed, the time of the very first of the 
 events spoken of (the war with Arad the Canaanite) 
 to which the Bishop allows a whole month, is a doubt- 
 ful or disputed point. In all probability that war 
 did not take place at that time at all; and thus a 
 whole month out of the six is saved. 
 
 2. It by no means follows that, because Bishop 
 Colenso, who certainly was not present, thinks that 
 this or the other event would occupy a month or 
 fortnight, therefore it did so. Neither he nor we 
 can be good judges of how much time would be 
 required for any specified transaction. 
 
 3. The time for the transactions recorded in the 
 last chapters of Numbers did not necessarily termin- 
 ate when Moses began to address the people in the 
 plains of Moab. The period commonly allowed for 
 those addresses contained in the book of Deuteronomy 
 is five weeks ; and what hindered Israel from carry- 
 ing on war or performing any other of the recorded 
 transactions at the same time % 
 
 4. But finally, and chiefly, I remark that several of 
 the events referred to, to which Bishop Colenso al- 
 lows successive periods, may have taken place con- 
 
116 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 temporaneously. There was nothing to prevent them 
 happening at the same time. The war with Og the 
 king of Bash an, for instance, and the expedition 
 against Midian, for each of which the Bishop demands 
 a month or six weeks, might both be conducted at 
 the same time with a third event, or series of recorded 
 events, which happened in the plains of Moab. The 
 scene of one of these wars lay to the north, and that 
 of the other to the south or east, of the plains of 
 Moab. In the one case the armies of Israel were 
 doubtless led by their usual captain, Joshua ; in the 
 other, Ave are expressly told, they were led by Phine- 
 has, the son of Eleazar the priest. In the expedition 
 against Midian only 12,000 men were engaged — a 
 thousand from each tribe — and that surely left a suf- 
 ficient force, out of 600,000 men able to go to war, to 
 carry on another war at the same time. Look at 
 America at the present moment. The Northern 
 States have never been able to bring a much larger 
 army into the field at one time than 600,000 men, 
 and yet how many separate expeditions and wars do 
 they carry on at the same time ; — wars in Virginia, 
 in Kentucky, in Tennessee, at various points on the 
 banks of the Mississippi, and I know not in how 
 many other far separated places. And what was to 
 hinder the Israelites from doing something of the 
 same kind ? 
 
 Thus, I think, Bishop Colenso's arithmetical diffi- 
 culty ou this subject may be shown to be entirely 
 unfounded : his physical impossibility vanishes away 
 
The War on Midian. 117 
 
 like so many of his other objections, having neither a 
 sound basis to stand on, nor a plausible pretence to 
 support it. But what is to be said of his ethical 
 objection — the incredibility of the story of the war 
 on Midian, morally considered % " Ay, there's the 
 rub." Had there been no ethical difficulty, I doubt 
 very much whether we should ever have heard of the 
 arithmetical one. But the immorality and cruelty of 
 the war on Midian has always been a pet subject with 
 the deist and infidel. Listen to the coarse and bold 
 language of one of these in regard to it. Falsely as- 
 suming that Moses and not God was the author of 
 that expedition, he was not ashamed to rank Moses, 
 on account of it, among the "most detestable of vil- 
 lains that ever disgraced the name of man." Our 
 bishop does not go this length. He — 
 
 " Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
 Just hints a fault, and hesitates dislike." 
 
 Or rather, I should say, he altogether absolves Moses 
 from the villainy involved in the transaction by deny- 
 ing the credibility of the history. The expedition 
 and its results, whoever commanded it, would be as 
 black in his estimation as they could be in any 
 man's; but he, 
 
 "With hated hreath, and whispering thankfulness" 
 
 declines to believe that they ever took place. Let us 
 quote his words : — 
 
 "But how thankful we must be, that we are no longer 
 obliged to believe, as a matter of fact, of vital consequence 
 
118 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 to our eternal hope, the story related in Numbers xxxi., 
 where we are told that a force of 12,000 Israelites ■ slew all 
 the males of the Midianites, took captive all the females and 
 children, seized all their cattle and flocks (72,000 oxen, 61,000 
 asses, 675,000 sheep), and all their goods, and burnt all their 
 cities, and all their goodly castles,' without the loss of a single 
 man, — and then, by command of Moses, butchered in cold 
 blood all the women and children, ' except all the women- 
 children, who have not known a man by lying with him.' 
 These last the Israelites were to ' keep for themselves.' They 
 amounted, we are told, to 32,000, v. 35, mostly, we must suppose, 
 under the age of sixteen or eighteen. We may fairly reckon 
 that there were as many more under the age of forty, and 
 half as many more above forty, making altogether 80,000 
 females, of whom, according to the story, Moses ordered 
 48,000 to be killed, besides (say) 20,000 young boys. The 
 tragedy of Cawnpore, where 300 were butchered, would sink 
 into nothing, compared with such a massacre, if, indeed, we 
 were required to believe it. And these 48,000 females must 
 have represented 48,000 men, all of whom, in that case, we 
 must also believe to have been killed, their property pillaged, 
 their castles demolished, and towns destroyed, by 12,000 
 Israelites, who, in addition, must have carried off 100,000 
 captives (more than eight persons to each man), and driven 
 before them 808,000 head of cattle (more than sixty-seven 
 for each man), and all without the loss of a single man ! 
 How is it possible to quote the Bible as in any way con- 
 demning slavery, when we read here, v. 40, of 'Jehovah's 
 tribute' of slaves, thirty-two persons?" (Pp. 143, 144.) 
 
 Now, passing over all questions about the inferen- 
 tial numbers here mentioned, though some of them 
 appear to be greatly exaggerated ; and passing over, 
 likewise, all other exaggerations of statement or of col- 
 ouring by which the author endeavours to make the 
 
The War on Midian. 119 
 
 picture as hideous and black as possible, — I would 
 call attention only to three things in this paragraph : — 
 I. An invidious, and one can hardly help fearing, 
 a dishonest misrepresentation of the sacred narrative. 
 This is contained in the last sentence : "How is it 
 possible to quote the bible as in any way condemning 
 slavery, when we read here of Jehovah's tribute of 
 slaves, thirty-two persons ? " Now I ask any person 
 of common intelligence to say if that sentence is not 
 plainly designed to insinuate that the bible makes 
 Jehovah the approver and abetter of slavery, because it 
 speaks of Jehovah's tribute of slaves. No one can 
 for a moment doubt that this is both its meaning and 
 design. Well, I ask further, if Bishop Colenso would 
 have had any plausible ground for this insinuation if 
 he had exjDlained that, by Jehovah's tribute, was 
 meant that portion of the spoil which was, by law, to 
 be given to the priests. Most certainly he would 
 not : and yet this is the whole meaning of the phrase. 
 The priests had, both by consuetudinary and divine 
 law, a right to share in all the wealth of the nation. 
 They lived by the altar, and what was God's was 
 theirs, and what was theirs was God's. "Jehovah 
 was their inheritance;" for they had no other pro- 
 perty or means of support. And Bishop Colenso 
 doubtless knew this as well as we do, for it is stated 
 in the very next verse after that which he cites. He 
 cites v. 40, and in v. 41 it is said, "And Moses gave 
 the tribute which was Jehovah's heave-offering unto 
 Eleazar the priest, as the Lord commanded Moses." 
 
120 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Now what can be said of this way of " handling the 
 Word of God?" Is it not "deceitful?" Is it not 
 shameful 1 Besides, if the God of the bible approves 
 of slavery, why is Bishop Colenso a believer in Him 1 
 "Why is he a Christian 1 Why is he a missionary 
 bishop ? Why does he labour for the diffusion of 
 this pestiferous book among his beloved Zulus, or any 
 other class of heathens, who, according to him, are 
 safer without it, and can only be injured by possess- 
 ing it 1 For the New Testament must be held to 
 approve of slavery just as much as the Old. It sup- 
 ports everything approved of in the Old Testament, as 
 divine, and, in the circumstances, worthy of God. It 
 says, " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, 
 and is profitable ;" " the law is holy, just, and good." 
 And may it not be added, that if Bishop Coleuso 
 seriously entertains such ideas of the bible, both Old 
 and New Testaments, why does he remain in a church 
 professedly founded on the bible, and take his share 
 of the illegitimate wealth or spoil of that church 1 
 Let him no longer touch it, for it is polluted : it 
 smells of slavery and blood, and all manner of evil. — 
 I mean that it does so, just because it is founded on 
 the bible, and the bible, according to him, does so. 
 
 2. Notice next the scandalous comparison which, 
 in the above paragraph, the Bishop makes between 
 the divinely commanded slaughter of the Midianites 
 and the tragedy of Cawnpore. The latter, he says, in 
 which "300 were butchered, would sink into nothing, 
 compared with such a massacre, if, indeed, we were 
 
The War on Midian. 121 
 
 required to believe it." It is plain that the massacre 
 is the same, whether we believe it or not. Our be- 
 lieving or not believing will alter neither the fact nor 
 the moral character of the fact. The Pentateuch re- 
 cords it, and the whole bible approves of it — there 
 can be no doubt of that. But why this far-fetched 
 comparison with the tragedy of Cawnpore 1 Do you 
 not see 1 That treacherous and infamous villain, the 
 Nana Sahib, butchered in cold blood only 300 men, 
 women, and children; whereas Moses, "the man of 
 God, who was faithful in all his house," ordered about 
 120,000 to be massacred, most of them in cold blood 
 also! The mutinous and treacherous Sepoys of India, 
 the worshippers of the bloody Siva and Kali, plun- 
 dered and killed only 300 ; but the Israelites, the 
 worshippers of Jehovah, the God of the bible, plun- 
 dered and killed 120,000, besides carrying about a 
 fourth of that number into captivity and slavery, and 
 "all without the loss of a single man ! !" 
 
 The Bishop seems to think that this last circum- 
 stance adds to the moral as well as the natural 
 incredibility of the Bible story, seeing he calls atten- 
 tion to it repeatedly. Certainly it ought to have 
 the very opposite effect on any Christian mind, or 
 the mind of any man who believes in miracles ; for 
 what was it but God's seal on this enterprize, as 
 approved of and commanded by Him? What was 
 it but a signal, though by no means singular, miracu- 
 lous interposition of the God of battles, designed 
 to teach his people confidence in Him, as on their 
 
122 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 side, and so to prepare them for the great enterprize 
 on which they were just about to enter — the conquest 
 of Canaan, and the extermination of God's enemies, 
 the Canaanites? The Israelites were doing God's work 
 in this war on Midian, and what wonder then that 
 they should enjoy God's effectual protection, and re- 
 turn from the enterprize not only laden with spoil, 
 but free from loss, and filled, as they were, with won- 
 der, and gratitude, and joy? 
 
 3. But lastly, there is also in the above paragraph an 
 unprincipled suppression of truth. When treating of 
 the moral character of this war, Bishop Colenso ought 
 not to have kept out of view all reference to the 
 origin or cause of the war. The moral character of 
 all wars must be judged of from this point of view ; 
 but though the reason of this war is plainly enough 
 recorded, Bishop Colenso's book does not, so far as I 
 have observed, contain the most distant allusion to it. 
 And yet he must have examined the chapters in 
 which this reason is repeatedly alluded to with micro- 
 scopic care, for it was from them that he derived his 
 arithmetical objection. What was the origin of this 
 expedition against this particular tribe of Midianites, 
 for its utter destruction? The following is a brief 
 summary of what may be known concerning it from 
 the Mosaic history : 
 
 " Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages 
 of unrighteousness," when returning from his vain 
 attempt to curse Israel, stopped by the way among 
 the Midianites who dwelt on the borders of Moab, 
 
Origin of the War on Midian. 123 
 
 and who are, on this account, also called Moabites. 
 Filled with envy against Israel, because he had 
 lost the reward which Balak had promised him, and 
 prompted, doubtless, also, by the inspiration of the 
 devil, he advised the Midianites to tempt the Israel- 
 ites to participate in an idolatrous and licentious fes- 
 tival to their god, Baal-peor. They complied with 
 his advice, and so seduced many Israelites into an 
 open and unblushing apostacy from Jehovah, in con- 
 sequence of which 24,000 of them perished. A prince 
 of Israel also led a princess of Midian into the camp 
 of Israel, and there, in the very presence of Jehovah, 
 in his holy place, perpetrated those idolatrous and 
 abominable crimes against which Jehovah, by Moses, 
 had so often and earnestly warned his people. 
 
 This was the origin of the war on Midian, and it may 
 be said, therefore, to have been a war directly designed 
 to support the supremacy of Jehovah among his own 
 people and in his own house, as well as to preserve 
 that people from utter apostacy and ruin. It was 
 undertaken both for the honour of God and the exis- 
 tence of his people, and was, beyond all question, a 
 just and holy war. It was just as to its origin, being 
 provoked by the Midianites themselves, — it was holy 
 as to its end, being necessary for the preservation of 
 the Church and cause of God. It was, therefore, 
 conducted by Phinehas the priest, accompanied with 
 the "holy instruments,'-' the silver trumpets, which the 
 priests alone used. It was authoritatively commanded 
 by Jehovah, and was to be the last act of the holy, 
 
124 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 and honourable, and wonderful life — the almost super- 
 human life — which Moses, the man of God, had lived, 
 but which was now about to close with an equally- 
 wonderful death. " Avenge the children of Israel of 
 the Midianites," said Jehovah to him, " and afterward 
 shalt thou be gathered to thy people."* 
 
 And what now is to be said of the incredible im- 
 morality and cruelty of this war ou Midian 1 or, rather, 
 what is to be said of the man who is not ashamed to 
 say that if we were (as we undoubtedly are) required to 
 believe it, the massacre of Cawnpore would sink into 
 nothing in comparison ? It would appear as if Bishop 
 Colenso's anxiety to prove the Pentateuch untrue had 
 so deprived him of all moral sense, that he can discern 
 no difference between the righteous judgments of the 
 Supreme Poller of the world, and the criminal actions 
 of the vilest miscreants that breathe in that world. 
 
 Is he prepared to say that Jehovah had no right to 
 command this war, or that it is incredible that, in the 
 circumstances, He should have done so? This would 
 only prove that he knows nothing of the God of the 
 bible, and that consistency requires of him to reject 
 the whole bible and its teachings. Yes, and those of 
 all providence and all history also. For in what better 
 a position is he placed, by merely disbelieving the 
 history of the war on Midian 1 Is this the only de- 
 struction of human life, or "massacre," — to use his own 
 word, — which he has ever heard of, which Jehovah, 
 the God of the bible commanded, or even permitted 1 
 * Numbers xxxi. 2. 
 
Origin of the War on Midian. 125 
 
 Has he never heard of the divinely commanded exter- 
 mination of the Canaanites? Perhaps he does not 
 believe in this, more than in the war on Midian. Has 
 he not then heard of the deluge 1 I know he does 
 not believe in its universality ; but does he not be- 
 lieve in it at all, or in the destruction of human life 
 by God's own hand, that took place in it 1 Or does 
 he not believe in the catastrophe of Sodom and Go- 
 morrah, and the destruction of life that took place in 
 it 1 Or what does he make of all the wars, famines, 
 and pestilences that have been in the world, commis- 
 sioned of the God of providence, or permitted by him, 
 to destroy human life ? Or what of the reign of dis- 
 ease and death from the beginning even until now % 
 Does he deny these, or deny them as the work of a 
 righteous God on account of sin 1 And if not, why 
 does he yet think it incredible that God should 
 send Israel to destroy these impure idolaters, the 
 Midianites, and that Israel should obey 1 — especially 
 when it is remembered that the provocation given by 
 these Midianites was at once against Israel and the 
 God of Israel. 
 
 Whatever be Bishop Colenso's opinions on such 
 subjects, let us gratefully remember that this and 
 all the other "wars ot the Lord" — wars against the 
 Amalekites, the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Philis- 
 tines, the Moabites, and others, — were undertaken for 
 the maintenance of God's sovereignty and his people's 
 existence. They were preparations also for the com- 
 ing of Christ and the universal diffusion of the gospel 
 
126 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 salvation. The question lying at the foundation of all of 
 them was, whether "JEHOVAH, the Most High God, 
 the possessor of heaven and earth," should reign — reign 
 first over Israel, and ultimately over all the families 
 of the earth, — or whether the race of man — fallen and 
 guilty and depraved man — should universally be given 
 over to the tender mercies of that enemy and destroyer 
 who had subjected them to his own will — the author of 
 sin and death. Had these wars never taken place, 
 humanly speaking, Bishop Colenso would never have 
 been a Christian missionary to the Zulus, or to any 
 other heathen nation ; for there would have been no 
 gospel to preach, no gospel salvation to send to them. 
 The Son of God would never have appeared in our 
 world, or "died for our offences, and risen again for our 
 justification." Our Christian faith and hope would 
 never have existed ; and the universal world would 
 still have been sitting " in darkness and the shadow 
 of death." The Mosaic history unfolds the great first 
 steps of preparation for the coming of Messiah, and 
 the Mosaic law was a symbolical foreshadowing of 
 his work and salvation.* 
 
 * It has given satisfaction to the author to find the above 
 sentiments supported by two English churchmen, neither of 
 whom will be suspected of either bigotry or fanaticism. 
 Canon Stanley, in his recent work on "The Jewish Church," 
 quotes with approbation the following paragraph from the 
 sermons of the late Dr. Arnold on the " Wars of the Israel- 
 ites." "The Israelites' sword, in its bloodiest executions, 
 wrought a work of mercy for all the countries of the world. 
 
Origin of the War on Midian. 127 
 
 Whatever Bishop Colenso and other unbelievers, 
 then, may think of these wars, the whole bible ap- 
 proves of them, and every lover of the bible and 
 sincere worshipper of the God of the bible — the God 
 and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — will rejoice in 
 them — rejoice in them not for their own sake, or the 
 sin that rendered them necessary, but for the end in 
 view, and the good that has come out of them. Hence 
 the manner in which these " wars of the Lord " were 
 celebrated, and the destruction of His enemies prayed 
 for in those war-songs of Israel, which are still war- 
 ranted to be sung in the Church of England, and in 
 other Christian churches. 
 
 " Do to them as to Midian, 
 Jabin at Kison strand, 
 
 They seem of very small importance to us now, those per- 
 petual contests with the Canaanites and the Midianites, and 
 the Ammonites and the Philistines, with which the books of 
 Joshua, and Judges, and Samuel are almost filled. We may 
 half wonder that God should have interfered in such quarrels, 
 or have changed the course of nature in order to give one of 
 the nations of Palestine the victory over another. But in 
 these contests, on the fate of one of these nations of Pales- 
 tine, the happiness of the human race depended. The Israel- 
 ites fought not for themselves only, but for us. It might 
 follow that they should thus be accounted the enemies of all 
 mankind, — it might be that they were tempted by their very 
 distinctness to despise other nations ; still they did God's 
 work, — still they preserved unhurt the seed of eternal life, 
 and were the ministers of blessing to all other nations, even 
 though they themselves failed to enjoy it." — Stanley's Jewish 
 Church, pp. 254, 255. * 
 
128 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 And Sisera who at Endor fell, 
 As dung to fat the land. 
 
 That men may know that thou, to whom 
 
 Alone doth appertain 
 The name Jehovah, dost most high 
 
 O'er all the earth remain." 
 
 How could Bishop Colenso sing or invite others to 
 sing this, any more than lie can require of others the 
 solemn declaration that they " unfeignedly believe all 
 the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment ? " And if he cannot, how can he remain a 
 bishop, or even a member of any Christian church, 
 that authorises this and such like songs " to be sung 
 in churches'?" 
 
 But in conclusion, let me again remind you that 
 the Pentateuch is the very foundation of the Gospel, 
 and Moses the faithful servant and companion of 
 Christ, and witness for Christ. You cannot deny the 
 one without denying the other. You cannot contra- 
 dict or malign Moses, or falsify his history, without 
 departing from and dishonouring Christ. Moses, as 
 Christ's servant, was faithful in all his house, "for a 
 testimony of those things which were to be spoken 
 after " — spoken by Christ himself and his apostles ; 
 and Christ and his apostles, therefore, in turn, give 
 their testimony to Moses, as to those things which 
 were spoken by him before. You cannot dissolve this 
 partnership between Christ and Moses, without apos- 
 tatising from Christ and overturning the whole super- 
 structure of Divine revelation. And if you do that, 
 
Conclusion. 1 29 
 
 then you cease to be of Christ's " house," or God's 
 " house " — " being aliens from the commonwealth of 
 Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, 
 having no hope, and without God in the world " — 
 " Whose house are we, if we hold fast the con- 
 fidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the 
 end." 
 
LECTUKE V.* 
 
 Exod. vi. 2, 3. — " And God spake unto Moses and said unto 
 him, I am Jehovah : and I appeared unto Abraham, unto 
 Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty 
 (El-Shaddai) ; but by my name Jehovah was I not known 
 to them." 
 
 The second part or volume of Bishop Colenso's book 
 is by no means so imposing as the first. Owing 
 mainly to the matter with which it is filled, it will 
 certainly fail to make the same impression upon the 
 public mind ; and it may perhaps go some length to 
 diminish the effect which the first produced. In it 
 we have few or none of those telling processes of 
 arithmetic and mensuration which, until the data on 
 which they are founded and the principles on which 
 they are conducted are closely examined, are so well 
 fitted to confound and stumble the mind of the 
 reader. Nor is there such an array of apparent dis- 
 crepancies and physical impossibilities brought forward 
 to demonstrate the falsehood of the Mosaic records. 
 
 There are, indeed, two chapters of the second vol- 
 ume appropriated to what the Bishop calls " signs of 
 later date in the Pentateuch ; " but they are princi- 
 pally occupied with real or apparent anachronisms 
 * Delivered March 8, 1863. 
 
Bishop Colenso's Second Volume. 131 
 
 and other indications of a later hand than that of 
 Moses, — which have often been, or may easily be, ac- 
 counted for by the consideration that inspired men of 
 after times may have been led to introduce them, for 
 the purpose of explaining and adapting the Scriptures 
 more perfectly to readers of their own times. Ezra, 
 for instance, — whom both Jewish and Christian tradi- 
 tion mention as the collector of all the books of the 
 Old Testament written before his own day, and who 
 is described in the inspired volume itself as " a ready 
 scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of 
 Israel gave him, and of the words of the command- 
 ments of the Lord, and of his statutes to Israel," — may 
 have introduced by divine authority many of those 
 explanatory notes which we find, both in the Penta- 
 teuch and other books of Old Testament history.* 
 But even if these apparent anachronisms had not this 
 high origin, and could be accounted for only as un- 
 warrantable interpolations of uninspired transcribers, 
 they would no more derogate from the antiquity and 
 authenticity of the sacred books than the similar 
 interpolations, found in the New Testament and 
 in all ancient writings, detract from their authenticity 
 and value. So that these chapters of Bishop Col- 
 enso's book, however much they may display the 
 animus of their author and his determination to leave 
 no stone unturned in order to the destruction of the 
 authority of Moses and of the confidence of Christians 
 
 * Prideaux, Connexion, Pt. 1, B. 5. 
 
132 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 in the whole bible, have very little novelty and still 
 less power. 
 
 The volume is chiefly occupied with arguments and 
 criticisms, designed to prove that more than one 
 author were employed in the production of the Penta- 
 teuch, and that none of them could have lived long 
 before the age of David. In this attempt the Bishop 
 founds mainly on the fact, that in some parts of the 
 Pentateuch the Hebrew term Elohim,, i.e., God, is 
 alone used for the Deity, while in other parts Jehovah, 
 (which in our version is rendered Lord) and Jehovah- 
 Elohim, i.e., Loed God, are also used as the name of 
 the Supreme Being. He enters, accordingly, into a 
 minute and laborious criticism of Hebrew words, and 
 also gives tabular expositions of the iise of the Divine 
 names in the Psalms of David, to show that the term 
 Jehovah was only coming into familiar use in the 
 Psalmist's day ; and so tries to reach the conclusion 
 which we have stated. Now, such an argument is at 
 once too flimsy and too misty to produce a great or 
 permanent impression on most readers. It may amuse 
 the Hebrew scholar, and, it may be, even profit him, 
 by leading him to deeper investigations on such sub- 
 jects, but it can never convince or impress the mind 
 of the ordinary reader of the Bible. Not one in a 
 thousand could comprehend it ; nor, if he could, would 
 any sincere inquirer after truth see any power in it to 
 gainsay the ordinary evidence of the unity, antiquity, 
 and genuineness of the law of Moses. 
 
 In these circumstances I might have passed by the 
 
Bishop Colensos Theory. ^133 
 
 second volume altogether. For even though I had 
 supposed the task necessary and myself competent for 
 it, certainly to enter on a long and minute criticism 
 of Hebrew words would be a very unsuitable work 
 for a course of public lectures like this. But there 
 are one or two things in the volume which are plain 
 and palpable enough — which can easily be understood 
 by any Christian audience, and are also the most 
 important things in it; for if they can be shown to be 
 false, then I apprehend all the Bishop's labour comes 
 to nothing, and his whole argument, like a house of 
 cards, falls to the ground. 
 
 The first of these more important things in the 
 second volume which I notice, is the conclusion to 
 which the Bishop comes, or, in other words, his theory 
 in regard to the authorship of the Pentateuch. To 
 this I made reference in last lecture, stating what, 
 before having read the second volume, I understood 
 it to be, — namely, that some Jewish author of the 
 times of the kings, or later, had written the Penta- 
 teuch as a sort of romance, and that it was not meant 
 by him to be believed as true history. I now find 
 that the Bishop's theory is in no essential respect 
 better, and, in some points, much worse than this 
 representation of it; and I think it may be safely 
 pronounced to be one of the most daring, impudent, 
 and absurd impositions that ever was attempted, at 
 least under the name of truth, and by a self-styled 
 devotee of the truth, to be palmed on the Christian 
 
1 34 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Church, or a Christian public. What is it? It is 
 that the prophets Samuel, and Nathan, and Gad were 
 the chief writers of the first four books of the Penta- 
 teuch and the book of Joshua, and that " the book of 
 Deuteronomy was written about the time of Josiah, 
 and, as some suppose, by the hand of the prophet 
 Jeremiah." Now observe how widely this theory 
 operates to undermine and overturn not the authority 
 of the Pentateuch merely, but our confidence in other 
 parts of the Old Testament Scriptures also. For in 
 aiming his blow at Moses, Bishop Colenso by it 
 strikes down also all confidence in Samuel, Nathan, 
 Gad, and Jeremiah, and, indeed, in all the Old Testa- 
 ment prophets. For if these holy and inspired men 
 could be supposed to forge the Pentateuch, and pub- 
 lish their forgery under the name of Moses, nay, 
 under that of Jehovah himself, what other piece of 
 villany or falsehood were they not fit for ? And what 
 confidence can be any longer placed in any inspired 
 prophet or man of God 1 
 
 But are we not misrepresenting the Bishop's aim 
 or words 1 I answer : Of his aim we say nothing — it 
 is apparently an inscrutable mystery. But I shall let 
 you hear his own words. — In the early part of his 
 volume he introduces the name of Samuel only cauti- 
 ously and tentatively. He has a chapter headed thus : 
 "Was Samuel the Elohistic writer of the Penta- 
 teuch?" But in the course of his argument he waxes 
 more confident, and gives his " concluding remarks " 
 thus : — 
 
Bishop Colensos Theory. 135 
 
 " The preceding investigations have led us to the conclu- 
 sion that the Pentateuch most probably originated in a noble 
 effort of one illustrious man, in an early age of the Hebrew 
 history, to train his people in the fear and faith of the Living 
 God. For this purpose he appears to have adopted the form 
 of a history, based upon the floating legends and traditions 
 of the time, filling up the narrative, we may believe, — per- 
 haps to a large extent, — out of his own imagination, where 
 those traditions failed him. In a yet later day, though still, 
 probably, in the same age, and within the same circle of 
 writers, the work thus begun, which was, perhaps, left in a 
 very unfinished state, was taken up, as we suppose, and car- 
 ried on in a similar spirit, by other prophetical or priestly 
 writers. To Samuel, however, we ascribe the Elohistic story, 
 which forms the groundwork of the whole, though compris- 
 ing, as we shall show hereafter, but a small portion of the 
 present Pentateuch and book of Joshua — in fact, little be- 
 sides about half of the book of Genesis and a small part of 
 Exodus. 
 
 " It would seem that large additions were made to this 
 unfinished historical sketch of Samuel by his disciples, Nathan 
 and Gad, or by some other prophetical or priestly writers of 
 that and the following age ; and these included the principal 
 Jehovistic portions of Genesis, as well as the greater part of 
 the present books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. But 
 though, as we believe, these portions of the Pentateuch were 
 written, the history, when carefully examined, gives no sign 
 of the Pentateuch itself being in existence in the age of 
 Samuel, David, or Solomon, — much less of the Levitical laws 
 being in full operation, known, honoured, revered, obeyed, even 
 quoted or referred to, — as the contents of a book, believed to 
 be Mosaic and Divine, would certainly have been, at least, 
 by the most pious persons of the day. We shall have occa- 
 sion hereafter fully to discuss this question, and see how far 
 the actual historical facts, which may be gathered from the 
 books of Samuel and Kings, and the writings of the Prophets, 
 
136 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 tend to confirm the above conclusions. The book of Deu- 
 teronomy we have partly shown already, and shall show 
 more fully, as has been said, in Part III., to have been written 
 in a still later age." (Pp. 368-370.) 
 
 What tlie Bishop has partly shown, or said, already 
 concerning the book of Deuteronomy is found in this 
 sentence, (p. 359), u The book of Deuteronomy was 
 written about the time of Josiah, and, as some sup- 
 pose, by the hand of the prophet Jeremiah." 
 
 Now what do you think of this, ye Christian men 
 and women ? Nay, what do you think of it, ye 
 learned scholars and commentators on the books and 
 laws of Moses, of all Christian lands, and of all past 
 Christian times 1 — Ye reformers and fathers of the 
 Christian Church ? — Ye evangelists and apostles of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ 1 — And you, too, ye Jewish 
 rabbis and talmudists? and ye kings, priests, and pro- 
 phets of the law itself? Here is a Christian bishop 
 come from Zulu-land to tell you that all of you have 
 been under a grievous illusion — a gross and shameful 
 mistake. Ye have been supposing that the Penta- 
 teuch was written by Moses, and has been in exist- 
 ence since his day. Ye have all been reading it, and 
 some of you commenting on it, under that hallucina- 
 tion j and all your faith and hope have rested, so far, 
 on this foundation. But Bishop Colenso, writing in 
 the nineteenth century of the Christian era, tells you 
 that you have been, all of you, in a complete and 
 manifest error. The Pentateuch began to be written 
 by Samuel ; his "unfinished historical sketch" came, 
 
Bishop Colensds Theory. 137 
 
 as was natural, into the hands of "his disciples, 
 Nathan and Gad, or some other prophetical or priestly 
 writers of that and the following age," who made 
 "large additions" to it; but when and by whom the 
 work was completed, and when the Levitical laws first 
 came into full operation, and were " known, honoured, 
 and obeyed, even quoted or referred to, as the contents 
 of a book believed to be Mosaic and Divine," — all 
 this is yet a mystery, and you must wait for the 
 Bishop's third volume to have the mystery opened up. 
 Now what answer are we to give to this ? In one 
 aspect it may be truly said to be unanswerable ; for 
 it involves such astounding statements, and demands 
 such an amount of credulity on the part of the reader, 
 that one can only wonder at the amazing effrontery of 
 the writer. I have sometimes thought, when reading 
 this second volume, that surely, after all, the jocular 
 hypothesis of an eminent writer in Good Words must 
 be the true one, viz., that the object of Bishop 
 Colenso's book must be to ridicule, by carrying to 
 the length of utter absurdity, the so-called art of the 
 "higher criticism," by which German rationalists 
 have of late been endeavouring to overturn all Scrip- 
 ture history and doctrine. But then, the Bishop's 
 apparent sincerity and professed devotion to truth, 
 and especially the anomalous and painful position in 
 which his book places him, soon dispel this idea, and 
 bring back the question, "What, for the sake of truth 
 and common sense, is to be said of the Bishop's theory 
 as to the origin and authorship of the Pentateuch?" 
 
138 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Now one answer, I think, might he, that it is inco- 
 herent and self -destructive. It is so at least morally 
 considered ; for it makes the Pentateuch to have 
 originated in " a noble effort of one illustrious man 
 to train the Hebrew people in the fear and faith of 
 the living God" — which noble effort consisted in his 
 writing and publishing a villanous forgery in the 
 name of that God. Under the guise of a true history 
 of the words and deeds of that true and living God, 
 in the times of the fathers of the Hebrew people, he 
 published a lying fable, framed " to a large extent," 
 at least, " out of his own imagination ;" and this the 
 Bishop calls a noble effort to train men in the fear 
 and faith of the God of truth. "What injustice he 
 does to the supposed author or authors of this effort, 
 I shall notice by and by ; but in the meantime, how 
 obviously is the theory incoherent and self-destructive 
 morally considered. 
 
 Again, the Bishop's theory is contradicted by all 
 Scripture. Throughout all Scripture, the Pentateuch 
 is spoken of as " the law of Moses ; " never as the 
 writing of Samuel, Nathan, or Gad. And here, per- 
 haps, we might have adduced Samuel himself as giv- 
 ing implicit testimony to the previous existence and 
 authority of the law of Moses ; but as his own hon- 
 esty and truth are in question, we may pass over him 
 and call other witnesses : and the first we call is King 
 David. He was intimately acquainted with all the 
 three prophets, Samuel, Nathan, and Gad, and must 
 have known whether they wrote the Pentateuch, or 
 any part of it. And what does he testify 1 
 
Bishop Colensds Theory. 139 
 
 When on his death-bed, giving his last solemn charge 
 to his son Solomon, he speaks of " the statutes, and 
 commandments, and judgments, and testimonies of 
 God, as written in the law of Moses ; * but never 
 does he speak of them as written by his contem- 
 poraries, Samuel, Nathan, and Gad. In his Psalms, 
 also, how many references have we to the same thing, 
 as then well known, universally admitted, and fit to 
 be rehearsed in the public praises of God. In the 
 1 03d Psalm he says, that " Jehovah made known his 
 ways unto Moses, and his acts unto the children of 
 Israel." In the 105th Psalm, which is commonly 
 ascribed to him, we have an epitome of the history of 
 the patriarchs, and the Exodus, as contained in the 
 Pentateuch, and the conclusion of it is, that God 
 gave his people "the lands of the heathen, and they 
 inherited the labour of the people that they might 
 observe his statutes, and keep his laws ;" which evi- 
 dently implies, that God's statutes and laws had been 
 given before Israel entered into Canaan. 
 
 Solomon, also, in his noble prayer at the dedica- 
 tion of the temple, repeats the testimony of his father 
 David : and he, too, was well acquainted at least 
 with Nathan and Gad, and must have known whether 
 they or Samuel had any hand in writing the Penta- 
 teuch. Speaking before God, appealing to the high 
 and holy one of Israel — in the most solemn of all 
 conceivable acts of devotion — he acknowledges the 
 
 * 1 Kings ii. 3. 
 
J 40 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 faithfulness of God to every word " of all his good 
 promise, which he had promised by the hand of 
 Moses, his servant," and prays that the Lord their 
 God would be with Israel, "as he had been with 
 their fathers," and " incline their hearts unto him, to 
 walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, 
 and statutes, and judgments, which he commanded 
 their fathers.' 1 '' * In this passage Solomon has a plain 
 reference to Deut. xii. 10, 11, and supplies a flat con- 
 tradiction to the substance of Bishop Colenso's state- 
 ment, quoted above, about the existence of the Penta- 
 teuch, and the knowledge of the Levitical laws in 
 Solomon's days. And besides this, we have in the 
 history of Solomon the recorded fact, that when "the 
 ark of the covenant of the Lord" was placed in the 
 temple, " there was nothing in it save the two tables 
 of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when the 
 Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, 
 when they came out of the land of Egypt "f — a 
 plain evidence that the history of the Exodus was 
 then Written and believed in, and the ark considered 
 as a visible monument of its truth. 
 
 Passing over intervening testimonies, let us come 
 down to the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah. At the 
 one period we find " the brazen serpent that Moses 
 had made " still existing ; but it was now destroyed, 
 because it had become a temptation to idolatry ; and 
 Hezekiah is said to have followed the Lord, and 
 " kept his commandments, which the Lord com- 
 * 1 Kings viii. 56-58. f 1 Kings viii. 5. 
 
Bishop Colenso's Theory. HI 
 
 manded Moses."* Hezekiah also kept a great passover, 
 " such, as liad not been kept since the time of Solo- 
 mon ;" and it is particularly mentioned that, in keep- 
 ing it, "the priests stood in their place, after their 
 manner, according to the law of Moses, the man of 
 God."f At the other period, the reign of Josiah, 
 we read of the finding of the " Book of the Law in 
 the house of the Lord," — probably the very copy 
 written by the hand of Moses, and commanded by 
 him to be laid in or by " the side of the ark of the 
 covenant of the Lord, that it might be there for a 
 witness " against Israel. J Accordingly, it is expressly 
 called, in another place,' " a book of the law of the 
 Lord, by the hand of Moses." § Josiah also kept a 
 great passover, even greater than that of Hezekiah, 
 observing all things, " as it is written in the book of 
 Moses ; so that there was no passover kept in Israel 
 like it from the days of Samuel the prophet ; neither 
 did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover 
 as that which Josiah kept." || 
 
 Passing again over the many references to the his- 
 tory and law of Moses contained in the books of Ezra 
 and Nehemiah, and several of the Old Testament pro- 
 phets, I remind you only farther of the language of 
 Malachi, the last of the prophets : — " Eemember ye 
 
 * 2 Kings xviii. 4, 6. f 2 Chron. xxx. 13-16. 
 
 X 2 Kings xxii. 8-16 ; Deut. xxxi. 24-29. 
 \ 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14, margin. See also Dathe, Booth- 
 royd, &c. 
 
 II 2 Chron. xxxv. 12, 18. 
 
1 42 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto 
 him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and 
 judgments."* 
 
 And so we come down once more to the testimony 
 of Jesus Christ and his apostles. For they too 
 have not once only, but again and again borne wit- 
 ness to Moses as the writer of the whole Penta- 
 teuch or Law, and as giving in it the words, the testi- 
 monies and the laws of God. il Did not Moses give 
 you the law," said Christ to the Jews, " yet none of 
 you keepeth the law."f "The law was given by 
 Moses," said the evangelist John, " but the grace and 
 truth came by Jesus Christ. "J And said the whole 
 assembly of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, 
 "Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach 
 him, being read in the synagogue every Sabbath 
 day."§ 
 
 But enough ; I feel almost ashamed of repeating 
 these proofs of the authorship of the Pentateuch in 
 the hearing of an assembly of professing Christians. 
 But the unspeakable audacity of the Bishop of Natal 
 has compelled me ; and I think they are more than 
 sufficient to show that his theory is contradicted by 
 all scripture, and has been framed and published in 
 shameless defiance of all scripture. 
 
 Further, Bishop Colenso's theory involves supposi- 
 tions altogether incredible. It involves the supposi- 
 tion, for instance, that the Levitical law, with all its 
 
 * Mai. iv. 4. f John vii. 19—23. 
 
 t John i. 17. \ Acts xv. 21. 
 
Bishop Golensos Theory. 143 
 
 unnatural, unmeaning, expensive, and burdensome 
 ritual (for that ritual was both unnatural and un- 
 meaning, if it was not " Mosaic and Divine "), must 
 have been someway, no one can now tell how, im- 
 posed upon the self-willed and stiff-necked Jewish 
 nation, after it had reached the very zenith of its 
 power and grandeur, and when neither Divine autho- 
 rity nor ancestral prescription required them to sub- 
 mit to it. This, if necessary, could easily be shown 
 to be an insuperable objection to the Bishop's theory 
 — even though it had been otherwise unobjectionable. 
 But without dwelling on it, I go on to remark,* 
 
 Lastly, that this theory is most injurious to the 
 fair fame of the holy prophets and distinguished men 
 of God, to whom the Bishop ascribes the author- 
 ship of the Pentateuch. Of course he cannot mean 
 that Samuel, Nathan, and Gad were under the in- 
 spiration of the Spirit of God when they wrote 
 their " contributions " to the Pentateuch, for if they 
 were, then not only would the whole Mosaic his- 
 tory (contrary to Bishop Colenso's whole argument) 
 be true, but it would be more wonderful and divine 
 than on the supposition that Moses wrote it. Every 
 fact, and incident, and truth which that history con- 
 tains, must, in that case, have been revealed to Samuel, 
 Nathan, or Gad by direct revelation from heaven, 
 which, if Moses wrote it, was not at all necessary. 
 But there was no inspiration in the case ; and yet 
 these men profess to record the acts of God, to give 
 * Appendix, E. 
 
144 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 the vwrds of God, and to reveal the authoritative 
 laivs of God. They do it on their own authority in 
 the name of Moses. But Moses himself, so far as we 
 can know, may be a mere name, and all his personal 
 history a fable. We have no evidence, even of his 
 existence, save through these men and their " unhis- 
 torical" romance. And even supposing the real ex- 
 istence of Moses, what is their conduct but the taking 
 both of God's name and Moses' name in vain — mak- 
 ing use of them to support a wicked imposture ? Yes, 
 according to this Christian bishop, Samuel and his 
 two disciples were wicked impostors, and are to be 
 classed, not as the bible classes them with holy men 
 of God, but with the basest of deceivers and villains. 
 
 I have perhaps spent more time on the Bishop's 
 theory of the origin of the Pentateuch than it de- 
 serves : let us now come to the second of the more 
 important matters which his volume contains — per- 
 haps the most important matter in his whole book — 
 for it lies at the foundation of the Bishop's whole 
 theory about the Elohistic and Jehovistic writers of 
 the Pentateuch. Not only so, it seems to lie also at 
 the foundation of a controversy which has long ex- 
 isted in Germany between rationalist and orthodox 
 divines, as to the origin and composition of the Pen- 
 tateuch, which, conducted as it has hitherto been, 
 is not likely to be soon settled. It relates to the use 
 of the name Jehovah in the Pentateuch, and more 
 especially in the book of Genesis, and may be sum- 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 145 
 
 ciently brought before you in the following extracts 
 from the Bishop's volume. After quoting our text 
 and context, he writes (Pp. 230-232) :— 
 
 " The above passage cannot, as it seems to me, without a 
 perversion of its obvious meaning, — the meaning which 
 would be ascribed to it by the great body of simple-minded 
 readers, who have never had their attention awakened to the 
 difficulties, in which the whole narrative becomes involved 
 thereby, — be explained to say anything else than this, that 
 the name, Jehovah, was not known at all to the patriarchs, but 
 was now for the first time revealed, as the name by which 
 the God of Israel would be henceforth distinguished from all 
 other gods. 
 
 "So Professor Lee admits, who in his Hebrew Lexicon 
 explains the word Jehovah to be — the most sacred and 
 unalienable name of God, unknown, however, to the patri- 
 archs ; it is not, therefore, more ancient in all probability than 
 the time of Moses. 
 
 "And so Josephus writes, Ant. ii. 12. 4 — Wherefore God 
 declared to him (Moses) his holy name, which had never 
 been discovered to men before. 
 
 " But then we come at once upon the contradictory fact, 
 that the name, Jehovah, is repeatedly used in the earlier 
 parts of the story, throughout the whole book of Genesis. 
 And it is not merely employed by the writer, when relating 
 simply, as an historian, in his own person, events of a more 
 ancient date, in which case he might be supposed to have intro- 
 duced the word, as having become, in his own day, after hav- 
 ing been thus revealed, familiar to himself and his readers ; 
 but it is put into the mouth of the patriarchs themselves, as 
 Abraham, xiv. 22, Isaac, xxvi. 22, Jacob, xxviii. 16. 
 
 " Nay, according to the story, it was not only known to 
 
 these, but to a multitude of others, — to Eve, iv. i, and Lamecb, 
 
 v, 29, before the Flood, and to Noah, after it, ix. 26, — to 
 
 Sarai, xvi. 2, Rebekah, xxvii. 7, Leah, xxix. 35, Rachel, 
 
 K 
 
146 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 xxx. 24, — to Laban also, xxiv. 31, and Bethuel, xxiv. 50, 
 and Abraham's servant, xxiv. 27, — even to heathens, as 
 Abimelech, the Philistine king of Gerar, his friend, and his 
 chief captain, xxvi. 28. And, generally, we are told that, as 
 early as the time of Enos, the son of Seth, ' then began men 
 to call upon the name of Jehovah,' iv. 26, though the name 
 was already known to Eve, according to the narrative, more 
 than two centuries before. 
 
 "The recognition of the plain meaning of Exodus vi. 2-8, 
 such as that quoted above from Professor Lee (a writer of 
 undoubted orthodoxy), would be enough at once to decide 
 the question as to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. 
 If the name originated in the days of Moses, then Moses 
 himself, certainly, in writing the story of the ancient Patri- 
 archs, would not have put the Name into their mouths, much 
 less into those of heathen men, nor could he have found it so 
 ascribed to them in an older document. Professor "Lee's 
 view, therefore, would require us to suppose that, if Moses 
 wrote the main story of the Exodus, and of his own awful 
 communications with God, as well as the Elohistic portions 
 of Genesis, yet some other writer must have inserted the 
 Jehovistic passages. But then it is inconceivable that any 
 other writer should have dared to mix up, without any dis- 
 tinction, his own additions with a narrative so venerable and 
 sacred, as one which had actually been written by the hand 
 of Moses. The interpolator must have known that the older 
 document was not written by Moses, and had no such sacred 
 character attached to it." 
 
 The Bishop then goes on to argue that the ordinary 
 modes of reconciling these discrepancies, as found in 
 Kurtz, Kalisch, Hengsteriberg, &c, are entirely un- 
 satisfactory, in which I agree with him. The truth 
 is, so far as I am aware, no tolerable solution of this 
 difficulty has ever been given; and it may seem there- 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 147 
 
 fore in no small degree presumptuous in me, even 
 to attempt to do what so many deeply learned divines 
 have failed to do. But the explanation which I pro- 
 pose to give does not require much learning either to 
 give it or to judge of it. It may have, and perhaps 
 has, been seen by many a simple-minded believing 
 reader of the bible, who never had the opportunity of 
 making it public — who never knew even of the learned 
 dust that has been raised around the question by 
 divines. And as the Bishop of JSTatal has challenged 
 such simple-minded readers of the bible to say what 
 they think of this difficulty, it is as one of these that 
 I presume to take up the challenge and answer him. 
 I do so the more readily that I believe that there are 
 hundreds here who, without knowing one word of 
 Hebrew, may, by a little attention and the careful 
 study of their English bibles, fully satisfy themselves 
 whether the explanation be a sound and satisfactory 
 one or not. I shall give it as shortly as possible in a 
 few propositions. 
 
 My first proposition is, that there can be no 
 doubt whatever that the term Jehovah was known 
 as an appropriate and personal name of the one liv- 
 ing and true God, from the very beginning. This 
 proposition, I think, must be at once admitted by all 
 " simple-minded" believers in Divine revelation. I 
 ground it not only on the fact that in the inspired 
 narrative the name Jehovah is put into the mouth of 
 Eve, and Lamech, and Noah, and Abraham, and 
 others, but also on the meaning of the term itself. 
 
148 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 That meaning is almost universally allowed, as indeed 
 it is virtually explained in Scripture to be, the self- 
 existent, unchangeable, and eternal Being. And if so, 
 then the appropriateness of the term as a name of the 
 Supreme Being, the Creator of all things, is a direct, 
 and immediate, and obvious deduction of reason itself. 
 Even a child might draw this inference ; for however 
 great be the mystery involved in the self- existence 
 and eternity of God, no one can refuse or help seeing 
 and believing the corollary, that the great First cause 
 of all other beings must Himself be uncaused, self- 
 existent, and eternal, — i.e., He must be Jehovah — He 
 who was, and is, and is to come. 
 
 This, then, I think, is abundantly clear, and so cer- 
 tain that, though all the learned divines of Christen- 
 dom were to assert that Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, 
 &c, were ignorant of the name Jehovah as applicable 
 to the Deity, we would be warranted, as rational men 
 and believers in Scripture, to dissent from them, and 
 say they must be under a mistake. 
 
 My second proposition is, that it is equally certain 
 that the Divine person who appeared visibly to the 
 patriarchs, and conversed with them, and entered as 
 the representative of Jehovah into covenant with 
 them, did not take the name Jehovah to himself — 
 did not make himself known, or enter into covenant 
 with them, by this name. This is also undoubtedly 
 certain. It is implied indeed in the very language 
 of our text, which originates the difficulty ; in which 
 this divine person says (Exod. vi. 3), "I appeared 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 1^9 
 
 unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the 
 name of God Almighty (El-Shaddai) ; but by my 
 name Jehovah was I not known (made known) to 
 them." The same thing is evident also from the 
 record in Genesis. Thus the name by which this 
 divine person calls himself in Gen. xvii. 1, 2, 
 when he " appeared " to Abraham and entered into a 
 covenant with him, was not Jehovah, but God Al- 
 mighty, or El-Shaddai : "I am the Almighty God, 
 walk before me and be thou perfect, and I will make 
 my covenant between me and thee, and I will multi- 
 ply thee exceedingly." Eead the whole chapter, 
 and mark particularly that this w r as a visible ap- 
 pearance of a Divine person to Abraham ; and that 
 the communications which followed between God 
 and the patriarch were sensible and oral. Accord- 
 ingly, we are told that at the conclusion of these 
 communications (verse 22), the Divine person "left off 
 talking with him, and God went up from Abraham." 
 Our proposition is supported also by other instances, 
 in which this revealed God is spoken of as the cove- 
 nant God of the patriarchs. In Gen. xxviii. 3, when 
 Isaac conveys the covenant blessing to Jacob, he uses 
 the covenant name only, and says, " God Almighty 
 (El-Shaddai) bless thee and make thee fruitful," &c. 
 In Gen. xxxv. 9-11, we are told that God appeaked 
 unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-Aram, 
 and blessed him ;" and that the name again used was 
 the covenant name, God Almighty (El-Shaddai), 
 
1 50 The Pentateuch Vindicated, 
 
 and so in various other instances.* How plain is it, 
 then, that the covenant name by which God was 
 made known to the patriarchs, and by which especially 
 that Divine person, who "appeared" visibly to them 
 and entered into covenant with them,, was made 
 known to them, was not Jehovah but El-Shaddai. 
 And T need hardly remind you here of the importance 
 of a name in such transactions as covenants. The 
 names of the two parties not only tell between whom 
 a covenant is made — not only identify the parties — 
 but contain also the chief pledges for the fulfilment of 
 its promises. They are, like the name in a promissory- 
 note in mercantile affairs, the measure of the security 
 of the blessings promised in the covenant. 
 
 But not to dwell on this, my third proposition is, 
 that the Divine person who "appeared" to the 
 patriarchs and entered into covenant with them by 
 the name El-Shaddai, and who " appeared " to Moses, 
 and entered into covenant with Israel by the name 
 Jehovah, was the Second person of the Godhead — the 
 Lord Jesus Christ in his pre-existing nature and con- 
 dition as God. This proposition is the hinge on 
 which our explanation of the difficulty before us turns, 
 and I beg your attention to it. There can be no doubt 
 among intelligent Christians that Christ, in his pre- 
 existing nature, was the Divine person who "ap- 
 peared " to Moses at the bush, and styled himself the 
 I AM, who also, on the occasion referred to in the pas- 
 sage now before us, revealed his name Jehovah to Moses, 
 * Gen. xliii. 14 ; xlviii. 3 ; xlix. 25. 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis, 151 
 
 and who, by this name, entered into covenant with 
 Israel at Sinai. Though there were no other proof of 
 this than Christ's own words, " Before Abraham was 
 I am," they would suffice. But Scripture is full of 
 proofs of this truth ; and it is a truth most surely be- 
 lieved by all who intelligently believe in Him, who 
 was the " King and Holy One in the midst of Israel," 
 their Eedeemer, and Lawgiver, and Lord — " God over 
 all, blessed for ever." * 
 
 Now, if Christ was the Divine person who appeared 
 to Moses and revealed His name Jehovah to him, it 
 follows plainly from His own words, that He was also 
 the person who appeared to the patriarchs by the name 
 El-Shaddai, and entered into covenant with them 
 by that name. He expressly says so (Exod. vi. 3), 
 and it must be true ; and there is abundance of other 
 evidence for the same thing. But I shall only quote 
 at present the language of Jacob when blessing the 
 sons of Joseph in Egypt. He said, " God, before 
 whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, did walk, 
 the God who fed me all my life long unto this day, 
 the Angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless 
 the lads," &c. Now here is a Divine person, and 
 evidently El-Shaddai, the covenant God of Abra- 
 ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, called also an Angel or 
 Messenger : and who was he 1 and whose messenger was 
 he ? Plainly the Second person of the Godhead, who, in 
 his mediatorial office and relations, is the servant or 
 
 * See the author's Opinions concerning Jesus Christ, second 
 Edition, p. 169 if. 
 
152 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 messenger of the First person, and is called also, in 
 various parts of Scripture, " the Angel of Jehovah," 
 " the Angel in whom was God's name," " the Angel of 
 the covenant;" of whom the prophet Hosea speaks 
 when he says of Jacob, " He took his brother by the 
 heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power 
 with God; yea, he had power over the Angel and 
 prevailed ; he found Him in Bethel, and there He 
 spake with us ; even Jehovah, God of hosts, Jehovah 
 is his memorial." 
 
 Supposing these things to be admitted, I come now 
 to the fourth and last proposition whicli I have to 
 state, which contains my solution of the difficulty now 
 before us. It is this, That though from the beginning 
 the name Jehovah was known as that of the Eternal 
 Deity — the invisible and incomprehensible God, it teas 
 not knoion to be a name belonging also to the visible 
 representative and Angel of God, the second person 
 of the Godhead, till both at the bush and in Egypt 
 the secret ivas revealed to Moses. I state the propo- 
 sition as fully and plainly as I am able, in order that 
 every one may understand it, and be prepared to 
 test it. I believe that it accounts completely for the 
 manner in which the name Jehovah is used in Gene- 
 sis, and removes entirely the difficulty on which 
 Bishop Colenso and others build their theory in re- 
 gard to the origin and authorship of the Pentateuch, 
 or at least of the book of Genesis. I think that it 
 adds great strength to the ordinary belief that Moses, 
 and he alone, wrote the book of Genesis ; and it dm- 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 153 
 
 plies that he must have written it after the appear- 
 ance of Christ to him at the bush, and after the 
 revelation of His name Jehovah to him in the land 
 of Egypt. I think, moreover, that it is the only ex- 
 planation which easily harmonises with that belief, and 
 removes all difficulty from it. 
 
 But how is this proposition to be clearly and con- 
 vincingly proved 1 I answer, leaving the intelligent, 
 Christian reader to go fully into the examination 
 .of the matter for himself, I shall make a few re- 
 marks, showing more distinctly what the question to 
 be settled is, and how it may be so. 
 
 And first, there are two ways in which the name 
 Jehovah is used in Genesis, and, indeed, in all the 
 historical parts of Scripture : first, by the historian in 
 his own narratives, as when he himself says, ' Jehovah 
 did or said this or that ;' and secondly, in his reports 
 of the language of others, when he puts the name 
 into their mouths, and makes them use it. In the 
 one case, evidently, the historian himself alone is re- 
 sponsible for the use of the term, and from that use 
 we may learn what he knew of its application, or how 
 he understood it, when he wrote his narratives. In 
 the other case, again, if at least the historian has 
 accurately reported the language of others, we may 
 learn what they, and those to wJiom they spoke, knew 
 of the meaning or application of the name. For in- 
 stance, if "the angel of Jehovah, the angel of the 
 Covenant," in speaking to the patriarchs, called him- 
 self Jehovah ; or if the patriarchs, addressing Him, 
 
154* The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 or speaking concerning Him, to any of their fellow- 
 men, designated Him. by this name, then- we would 
 conclude that they knew it to belong to Him — to be 
 His name ; but if they never used it with reference 
 to Him, we must necessarily conclude that they did 
 not know that it belonged to Him. 
 
 Well, these things being kept in mind, I have to 
 remark again, That the name Jehovah occurs in the 
 first way, or narratively, one hundred and sixteen 
 times in the whole book of Genesis, and sixty-nine 
 times in that part of it (chapters xii. — 1.) which 
 contains the history of the patriarchs. Confining our 
 attention to the latter, seeing the question chiefly 
 relates to patriarchal times, if you examine these 
 sixty-nine instances, you will find that Moses, in his 
 narrative, uses the name Jehovah indiscriminately, 
 both for the invisible and omnipresent God, who was 
 never seen, and for that angel of God — that visible 
 person of the Godhead, who often appeared and con- 
 versed with men. One or two instances of this will 
 suffice to make the matter both clear and certain. 
 Let us take first the narrative concerning the appear- 
 ance of this angel to Hagar in the wilderness, Genesis 
 xvi. 7-14 : — 
 
 " And the angel of Jehovah found her by a fountain of 
 water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. 
 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence earnest thou ? and 
 whither wilt thou go ? And she said, I flee from the face of 
 my mistress Sarai. And the angel of Jehovah said unto 
 her, Eeturn to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her 
 hands. And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, I will 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 155 
 
 multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not he numbered 
 for multitude. And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, 
 Behold, thou art with child, and shalt hear a son, and shalt 
 call his name Ishmael ; because Jehovah hath heard thy 
 affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be 
 against every man, and every man's hand against him ; and 
 he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she 
 called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou God 
 seest me : for she said, Have I also here looked after him 
 that seeth me? Wherefore the well was called Beerlahai-roi ; 
 behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered." 
 
 Here the word Jehovah occurs, narratively, four 
 times in the expression " the angel of Jehovah," and 
 once by itself. It occurs also once in the reported 
 language of the angel. Now, in the first four in- 
 stances, it is given evidently to the invisible person 
 of the Godhead, from whom the angel came — whose 
 angel he was ; while in the sixth instance it is given 
 to the angel himself. " Hagar," we are told, " called 
 the name of Jehovah that spake to her, Thou God 
 seest me (or the visible God)* Thus in this one 
 passage the name Jehovah is given by Moses to both 
 persons of the Godhead spoken of — both the Father 
 and the Son. 
 
 Another and still more perspicuous instance of the 
 same double use of the name occurs in the 19th chap- 
 ter of Genesis, where in one verse you have it applied 
 both to the visible and invisible persons of the God- 
 head. In the narrative of the destruction of Sodom, 
 &c, it is said (v. 24), "Then Jehovah rained upon 
 
 * El Roi, the visible God. See Boothroyd, Dathe, &c. 
 
156 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from 
 Jehovah out of heaven." In the first instance here 
 the name is evidently given to that Divine person 
 who appeared to Lot, and said to him (v. 22), " Haste 
 thee, escape thither (i. e., to Zoar), for I cannot do 
 anything until thou be come thither." But in the 
 other instance it is as evidently given to that Divine 
 person who was invisible — who was in heaven : the 
 one rained fire and brimstone from the other out of 
 heaven — the one was the visible agent, the other the 
 invisible source or author of this terrible, but righte- 
 ous and holy, judgment of God. 
 
 Such are two specimens of the manner in which 
 the name Jehovah is used in the narrative of Genesis, 
 by the historian himself. And they are sufficient to 
 show that, when Moses wrote that narrative, the 
 secret which is said to have been hid from the patri- 
 archs had already been revealed to him — that he now 
 knew that the name Jehovah belonged to that "angel of 
 God," that " visible God,' 1 who made himself known 
 to the patriarchs as El Shaddai. Whether any other 
 inferences than this may be deducible from this use 
 of the name by Moses, I shall not at present stay to 
 inquire ; but this inference, if Moses was indeed the 
 writer of Genesis, is abundantly evident and alto- 
 gether unquestionable. 
 
 But let us turn to the reported use of the name Jeho- 
 vah, and see what inferences are deducible from it. In 
 this way the word occurs, I think, forty- nine times in 
 all in the book of Genesis, and forty-six times in that 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 157 
 
 part which contains the history of the patriarchs ; and 
 in not one of these instances, so far as I can judge, is it 
 used as the name of that visible person of the God- 
 head, that angel of God, who conversed with the pat- 
 riarchs, and appeared to Moses at the bush. I wish 
 to speak here subject to correction; for it is not always 
 easy to perceive, at first sight, who is the person 
 spoken of by the name ; but so far as I have been 
 able to examine and judge, this is the fact : In re- 
 ported speech, in the book of Genesis, there is not 
 one instance in which the name Jehovah is employed, 
 whether by the patriarchs or by those conversing with 
 them, to designate the "Angel of the covenant," — 
 the Angel of the bush. And if so, the inference seems 
 unavoidable, that the patriarchs did not know that 
 the name belonged to Him. They knew that it be- 
 longed to the " Most High God, the possessor of 
 heaven and earth" — the invisible and omnipresent 
 Deity — but they did not know that it belonged also 
 to that representative and messenger of God who 
 "appeared" to them, and conversed with them, and 
 entered into covenant with them. They knew Him as 
 FA Shaddai, but they did not know Him by His name 
 Jehovah. 
 
 Leaving it to the reader to go over these forty-six or 
 forty-nine instances of the reported use of the name Je- 
 hovah in Genesis, let us notice only one or two to show 
 what was at least the general usage in regard to it. 
 And the very first instance that occurs in the history 
 of the patriarchs is very explicit. It is found in the 
 
] 58 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 14th. chapter of Genesis in the language which Abram, 
 when returning from the discomfiture of the confede- 
 rate kings, addressed to the King of Sodom (v. 22, 
 23), "I have lifted up my hand unto Jehovah, the 
 most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 
 that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe 
 latchet, and that I will not take anything that is 
 thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram 
 rich." Now it is quite obvious that Jehovah here 
 means the omnipresent and invisible God, that being 
 in whose name men swear, and to whom all vows are 
 directly addressed. No commentator, so far as I 
 know, has disputed this, or thought of disputing it. 
 
 Other two instances of the reported use of the 
 name Jehovah are found in the following chapter, 
 when Abram says (v. 2), " Jehovah God (or rather, 
 Lord Jehovah ; for the first name is Adonai), what 
 wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the 
 steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus V 
 And again (?;. 8), "Jehovah God (Lord Jehovah), 
 whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this land ?" 
 In these instances it is again obvious that the Divine 
 person addressed was the first person of the Godhead, 
 the hearer of prayer. It has sometimes been sup- 
 posed, indeed, that the expression, "the word of the 
 Lord," in this context, refers to the personal Word of 
 God, the second person of the Godhead, and that the 
 passage relates therefore to a visible appearance of the 
 angel of Jehovah ; but this is certainly a mistake, 
 seeing we are expressly told that it was "in a vision" 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 159 
 
 that the word came, — not in a sensible manifesta- 
 tion, but in a " vision of the night, when deep sleep 
 falleth on men." As in the case of the prophets, 
 then, the coming of the word of the Lord must be 
 understood as meaning the receiving of a revelation 
 from God ; and independently of this, it is plain from 
 the whole narrative that no visible appearance of a 
 Divine messenger, and no sensible or oral communi- 
 cations by that messenger, were made to Abram. 
 And this has been the opinion of at least the general- 
 ity of commentators.* 
 
 But without examining more instances of the re- 
 ported use of the name Jehovah, at present, let us 
 adduce two passages which go far to demonstrate that 
 the patriarchs did not know this name to belong to 
 the angel of Jehovah, the person of the Godhead, 
 who appeared to them and conversed with them. 
 The one is Gen. xviii. 1-33, in which we have an 
 account of this Divine person appearing to Abraham, 
 along with two created angels, partaking of Abra- 
 ham's hospitality, promising him a son, and inform- 
 ing the patriarch of his design in regard to the 
 destruction of Sodom ; in it we have also Abraham's 
 intercession for Sodom. Now if you read this whole 
 chapter attentively you will find the following strik- 
 ing attestations of what we maintain in regard to the 
 use of the name Jehovah : — 
 
 1st. That the historian, in his own narrative, uses 
 the name seven times as the name of the Divine per- 
 * See Clarke, Dathe, Rosenm, Kurtz, &c. 
 
160 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 son who had appeared to Abraham, and conversed 
 with him.* 
 
 2d1y. That this Divine person himself is reported 
 to have used the name three times, but not as his 
 own name, but the name of Him, the invisible God, 
 whom he represented, and in whose name he spoke :t 
 and 3dly. That Abraham, in addressing this Divine 
 person, does not use the name Jehovah even once. 
 Abraham certainly knew Him to be a Divine person ; 
 for he calls Him by another Divine title, Adonai, he 
 describes Him as " the judge of all the earth," he 
 speaks to Him as having the power to save or destroy 
 Sodom, and he describes himself as but " dust and 
 ashes before Him ; " but he never addresses Him as 
 Jehovah. In all the five instances he addresses Him 
 as Adonai, my Lord. And what, then, can we conclude 
 from this, but that Abraham did not know Jehovah 
 to be His name. Moses knew it when writing his 
 narrative; for to him the secret had then been re- 
 
 * See w. 1, 13, 17, 20, 22, 26, 33. 
 
 t See vv. 14, 19 — That the Divine speaker did not mean 
 himself in these verses is obvious from this, that Abraham 
 did not so understand him. Had the patriarch understood 
 him to appropriate the name Jehovah to himself, it would 
 have been utterly unaccountable and inconsistent with all 
 the other words and all the character of the patriarch, that 
 he should have refused Him the honour of addressing Him 
 by that name. And that the name is here given only to 
 the First person of the Godhead, the invisible Jehovah, has 
 been the prevailing, I suppose, the uniform understanding 
 of commentators. 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 161 
 
 vealed. But Abraham did not know it, when making 
 his intercession, for to him the secret had not been 
 revealed. 
 
 The other passage to which I call your attention is, 
 if possible, still more clearly demonstrative of the 
 same thing. It is that which relates to the remark- 
 able encounter of Jacob with the same Divine person, 
 the visible God and angel of God, at Peniel. If we 
 read carefully the whole of the thirty-second chapter 
 of Genesis, we find these things in it: 1st. That 
 Jacob had that same day, on the same spot, presented 
 a prayer to God — to the invisible God, to whom 
 prayer is made — in which he used the name Jehovah. 
 " Jehovah, who saidst unto me, Eeturn unto thy coun- 
 try and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with 
 thee. . . . Deliver me, I pray thee, out of the hand 
 of my brother," &c. 2dly. It was when Jacob was 
 evidently waiting for an answer to this prayer (for 
 he could not leave the spot until he had some answer 
 from God), that the "man," the "angel," the " God," 
 came to him, and " wrestled with him till the break- 
 ing of the day." Jacob well knew this man to be 
 God, or a Divine person, for he called Him God, 
 and entreated Him for a blessing. " He called the 
 name of the place Peniel (i. e., the face of God) ; for 
 (he said) I have seen God, face to face, and my life 
 is preserved." But not only did he not call Him 
 Jehovah, but, as if for the very purpose of showing 
 us that Jacob did not know that this was His name, 
 we are told that he asked of the Divine wrestler to 
 L 
 
162 The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 tell him His name, and that his petition was refused. 
 " Tell me, I pray thee," said the patriarch, " thy 
 name;" but the only answer was, "Wherefore is it 
 that thou dost ask after my name 1 And He blessed 
 him there." 
 
 Now what can possibly be inferred from this? 
 again, but that the patriarchs did not know that 
 the name Jehovah belonged to this Divine person 
 that " appeared " to them — this visible God, and 
 angel of God % They knew that it belonged to the 
 invisible and omnipresent Deity ; they were in the 
 habit of praying to Him every day by this name ; 
 thy conversed about Him as their God — their cove- 
 nant God, through His representative — by this name. 
 Even heathens who had intercourse with them knew 
 that this was their name for the supreme Deity ; but 
 they did not know that the same name belonged to 
 him who was His angel and representative also. 
 They did not know what was the peculiar per- 
 sonal name of that angel ; unless it was El-Shad- 
 dai, by which name he had entered into covenant 
 with them, on Jehovah's behalf. Now this was the 
 very person who appeared to Moses, at the bush, and 
 in Egypt, and revealed His name Jehovah to him 
 there, and said, " I appeared to Abraham-, and Isaac, 
 and Jacob as El-Shaddai, but by my name Jehovah 
 was I not made known to them.''''* 
 
 Such, then, is the explanation which I propose of 
 * Appendix, F. 
 
The Name Jehovah in Genesis. 163 
 
 the difficulty which Bishop Colenso says, in his pre- 
 face, " is really the pivot, as it were, on which the 
 whole argument (of his second volume) turns ;" and 
 if this explanation be sound, that whole argument, of 
 course, falls to the ground — it has no fixed point — no 
 Archimedean fulcrum to rest on, and the Bishop's 
 bold attempt to move the world must prove a 
 miserable failure. I am not sufficiently learned to 
 know whether this explanation has ever before been 
 given ; but whether it has or not will not affect its 
 soundness, nor alter its importance if it be sound. 
 And it is the only one I have seen, I think, which a 
 simple-minded reader of the Bible is able at once 
 clearly to understand, and thoroughly test for himself. 
 Let me only add, in conclusion, that it beautifully 
 harmonises with the character and history of Him — 
 the blessed Redeemer of men — to whom it relates. 
 His manner has always been to veil his glory in order 
 to the revelation of his grace— in order that men 
 might experience first his wonderful condescension and 
 grace, and so have full confidence in him ; and then 
 to reveal his majesty and glorious name, to them 
 that believed in him, afterwards. In former ages 
 He concealed His Divine glory under the angelic 
 form ; in the fulness of the time, He veiled it in 
 human flesh ; but afterwards He was declared to be 
 the Son of God with power; and now, by all who 
 believe, He is seen and known to be, "the Alpha and 
 the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and 
 the last," " God over all, blessed for ever." 
 
1 6-i The Pentateuch Vindicated. 
 
 And this explanation also agrees with the whole 
 method of Divine providence and grace to sinful man; 
 for it suits the nature and condition of man. For 
 man, the sinner, 'to have close intercourse, at first, 
 with the unveiled, the awful Majesty of heaven and 
 earth — with the Eternal and Incomprehensible Deity, 
 known as such, is impossible. His " terror would 
 make man afraid" — His "unsufferable" majesty would 
 overwhelm and destroy man's frail and imperfect 
 nature — His holiness and wrath against sin, would 
 consume man's spirit. But He comes to man with 
 His proposals of amity, and promises of good, and 
 displays of love, in His representative — that repre- 
 sentative who, though one with Him in nature, is 
 able to conceal his glory, and tabernacle with man on 
 earth. And then, when He has gained man's heart, 
 and bound him to Himself by a " perpetual covenant 
 which shall not be forgotten," He strengthens him, 
 by His spirit, "with all might in the inner man," that 
 he may come boldly to that throne on which both 
 the Eternal Father and the Eternal Son sit, and may 
 have free, full, and unhampered fellowship both 
 " with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." 
 Then is man "filled with all the fulness of God," and 
 secured in the enjoyment of holy happiness in God 
 with Christ for ever and ever. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 
 The Exodus in the Fourth Generation, and the 
 Families of Dan and Levi, §c. 
 
 Bishop Colenso, however unmindful of the promises of 
 God to Abraham concerning the great multiplication of 
 his descendants, lays great stress upon the intimation in 
 Gen. xv. 16, as to the time of their return to Canaan : " But 
 in the fourth generation they shall come hither again : for 
 the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." This is the 
 foundation of all his calculations as to the numbers of the 
 Israelites at the Exodus, and at the entrance into Canaan. 
 He interprets the word generation here as meaning descent 
 from father to son, and rigidly insists on all the families of 
 Israel having, during their sojournings in Egypt and the 
 wilderness, passed through only four descents. Now there 
 can be no doubt that this is often the meaning of the word 
 Dor ; and in this meaning the intimation made to Abra- 
 ham was sufficiently fulfilled by the fact that some men of 
 the fourth descent from those who went down to Egypt, 
 entered into Canaan with Joshua, as for instance Eleazar, 
 who was of the fourth descent from Kohath the son of Levi, 
 and others. But the word is used also in various other senses, 
 as age, class, and the' period of an ordinary lifetime, or the 
 
166 Appendix. A. 
 
 persons living during that period — a man's contempor- 
 aries. It is used in the first of these senses in the expres- 
 sion " from generation to generation.'''' It is used in the 
 second in the phrase, " the generation of the righteous ," and 
 such like. And it is used in the third sense, when the 
 generation of some individual is spoken of ; as in Exod. i. 
 6, " Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that genera- 
 tion" i. e., the contemporaries of Joseph in Egypt; Isa. 
 liii. 8, " Who shall declare his generation?'''' i.e., the con- 
 temporaries of Messiah (Brown, Boothroyd, Henderson, &c.) ; 
 Mat. xxiv. 34, " This generation shall not pass away till all 
 these things be fulfilled," i.e., the men then living, or the 
 contemporaries of Christ. (See also Gen. vii. 1 ; Judges 
 ii. 10 ; Psalm xii. 7, &c.) 
 
 In the intimation made to Abraham, the word is 
 understood by some in the first sense, as meaning an 
 age, or the period of a hundred years, and the verse is 
 regarded as repeating what is said in the 13th verse of 
 the chapter, "Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land 
 that is not theirs, and shall serve them ; and they shall 
 afflict them four hundred years." But it seems more 
 natural to consider the word in the last sense, and thus 
 understand the promise, " In the fourth life-time " — the 
 fourth period of an ordinary life, " they shall come hither 
 again." This period in Moses' time was reckoned seventy 
 years, Ps. xc. 10, "The days of our years are threescore 
 years and ten." And this accordingly was the precise 
 period which Joseph lived in Egypt, referred to in Exod. 
 i. 6 ; and the period also which elapsed between the birth 
 of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem, referred to in 
 Mat. xxiv. 34. Taking, then, seventy years as the measure 
 of the generations referred to in Gen. xv. 16, the promise 
 ,was accurately fulfilled. For the third generation or 
 
Appendix. A. 167 
 
 period of seventy years, from the going down to Egypt, 
 expired five years before the Exodus ; and it was " in the 
 fourth generation" that Israel entered into Canaan. 
 
 But how many descents the families of Israel may have 
 gone through in that time, who can tell? We have no- 
 thing to guide us safely in estimating their number, and it 
 is mere presumption to attempt to do so. Judah married 
 at twenty ; his sons Er and Onan married at a less age, 
 and would, if they had lived, have had children before the 
 migration. Indeed, Pharez was in one sense, as we have 
 seen (Lect. 4), their son, and Judah's grandson, thus giv- 
 ing two descents in less than forty-two, say thirty-nine, 
 years. Now, at the same rate, the thirteenth generation or 
 descent from Judah would have come out of Egypt, and 
 the fifteenth have entered into Canaan. Asher stood in 
 nearly the same position with Judah. He must have been 
 about forty at the going down to Egypt, and he had 
 grandchildren then, Heber and Malchiel (Gen. xlvi. 17). 
 At the same rate, the thirteenth generation of his descend- 
 ants would be born at the time of the Exodus, and the 
 fifteenth at that of the entrance into Canaan. Joseph, too, 
 was not far behind his brothers in this respect. Before he 
 died, he "saw Ephraim's children of the third (his own of 
 the fourth) descent. At the same rate, the ninth genera- 
 tion would be born before the Exodus, and the tenth 
 long before the entrance into Canaan. 
 
 But what useful purposes can these calculations serve ? 
 They are mere hypotheses, and can tell us nothing as to 
 the facts. And the same holds true of the number of chil- 
 dren the different patriarchs had. Dan had but one son at 
 the migration, and, so far as the record informs us, he 
 had no more children. Well, at the same rate, however 
 many descents had intervened, he would have had but one 
 
168 Appendix. A. 
 
 son of the same descent at the Exodus, and no more at 
 the entrance into Canaan. But the record tells us also 
 that he had at the Exodus 62,700 grown-up sons ; and at 
 the entrance into Canaan, 64,400. And if we accept its 
 statement in the one case, why not in the others? We 
 have as good authority for believing that he had 62,700 
 descendants at the Exodus, as that he had but one son at 
 the migration. Are these numbers incredible ? According 
 to Bishop Colenso they are ; but according to Christian 
 faith and common sense, they are not. The Bishop says, 
 " In order to have had this number born to him, we must 
 suppose that Dan's one son, and each of his sons and grand- 
 sons must have had about eighty children of both sexes." 
 Why they must have been of both sexes he has not conde- 
 scended to explain. But if we suppose that Dan's one son 
 had, by the time of the Exodus, not only "sons and grand- 
 sons," but descendants of the tenth descent, then he and 
 his children would, throughout these descents, have re- 
 quired to multiply at a less average rate than three arid 
 a-half sons each, to have 62,700 sons upwards of twenty 
 years of age. Even in eight descents (of twenty-seven 
 years each) the Danites would have reached this number 
 of adult men, at little more than Bishop Colenso's chosen 
 rate of four and a-half sons each. And what is incredible, 
 then, in the number of the Danites, even though the de- 
 scendants of Dan's one son were nearly double those of 
 Benjamin's ten ? At Benjamin's rate, Dan's one son (sup- 
 posing nine generations of twenty-four years each) would, 
 at the Exodus, have had more than a thousand millions of 
 male descendants. 
 
 But though the record gives only one son to Dan at the 
 time of the going down to Egypt, and therefore makes only 
 one family of Danites at the Exodus, that does not forbid 
 
Appendix. A. 169 
 
 Dan's having had more sons or daughters in Egypt. He 
 would then be probably forty-one or forty-two, and might 
 have many sons and daughters. As it seems to have been 
 a rule in Israel that the number of chief families should 
 never be more nor less than seventy, in memory of the 
 seventy names at the migration, these younger children of 
 Dan would not be admitted among the fathers of families, 
 but would be reckoned as belonging to that of their eldest 
 brother; according to the principle laid down by Jacob 
 when he adopted and blessed the sons of Joseph. Gen. 
 xlviii. 5, 6, " Thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which 
 were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came 
 unto thee into Egypt, are mine ; as Reuben and Simeon, 
 they shall be mine. And thy issue, which thou begettest 
 after them, shall be thine, and shall be called after the 
 name of their brethren.' 1 '' So Dan's issue, which he begat 
 after the migration to Egypt, would be called after the 
 name of their brother. And, for anything we know, he 
 might ultimately have as many, or even more sons than 
 even Benjamin. 
 
 The same principles apply to the families and the num- 
 bers of the Levites. Bishop Colenso reduces their number 
 at the first census to 44 instead of 8580, as they are stated 
 to have been in Num. iv. 48. We cannot enter into the 
 examination of the reasonings by which he does so ; but 
 the following considerations are sufficient to overturn 
 them : — " Levi was forty-three years old at the migration 
 to Egypt, when he had already three sons — Gershon, Ko- 
 hath, and Merari, and no daughter, But from his birth 
 to that of Moses (his grandson by the mother's side), are 
 178 years, which must be shared between Levi's age at the 
 birth of Jochebed (the mother of Moses) and that of 
 Jochebed at the birth of Moses. If the latter were sixty- 
 
170 Appendix. A. 
 
 five years, the former will be 113 (i.e., Levi would have a 
 daughter seventy years after the migration.) Is it then at 
 all probable that he had three sons and no daughters at 
 forty -three — no son or daughter for seventy years, and 
 then one daughter at the close of that long interval ? All 
 probability seems to lie the other way, — viz., that both 
 sons and daughters were born to him during the earlier 
 part of these seventy years. Their absence in the list (of 
 the sons or families of Levi) is no objection, because the 
 words of Jacob, quoted above, furnish a distinct key to the 
 genealogical reckoning. Any later-born sons of Levi, and 
 any sons-in-law from the household who might marry 
 elder sisters of Jochebed, would be ranked under one of the 
 three ' heads of the fathers of the Levites ' — Gershon, Ko- 
 hath, and Merari." — Birk's " Exodus of Israel ," p. 154. 
 
 The very same process might, and naturally would, be 
 exemplified in the subsequent descents of the Levites ; but 
 it is unnecessary to enter into the detailed results. As was 
 remarked in Lecture 4th, the principles on which the Jew- 
 ish genealogical tables were constructed are both obscure 
 and intricate, and for us to challenge the plain statements 
 of the history because we cannot now fully understand 
 these principles, or to conclude that the phrase the " heads 
 of the fathers of the Levites according to their families" 
 (Exod. vi. 25), means all the members of these families, is 
 mere puerility or gross presumption. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance, that while the average 
 number of each of the other tribes of Israel, both at the 
 Exodus from Egypt, and the entrance into Canaan, was 
 more than 50,000 men above twenty years of age, the num- 
 ber of the Levites was only 22,000 at the one census, and 
 23,000 at the other, and these of all ages, from a month old 
 and upwards: making the number of the Levites much 
 
Appendix. B, 171 
 
 less than a third of the average number of the other tribes. 
 How is this to be accounted for ? It is impossible to tell, 
 unless we should suppose, either that, by later marriages, 
 the Levites had fallen a generation or two behind their 
 brethren, or that by avoiding polygamy, they had been 
 less prolific. Both of these suppositions seem to receive 
 some countenance from Scripture : the one from the fact 
 that the leading f amilies of the Levites passed through onl 
 four or five generations in more than 250 years ; and the 
 other from the terms in which the prophet Malachi con- 
 demns the priests and Levites of his day in contrast with 
 those of early times. (Mai. ii. 4-16). It would be a dis- 
 couragement of polygamy that the tribe chosen for the ser- 
 vice of religion should have shunned the practice of it ; 
 and there would also be, in that case, a beautiful agree- 
 ment between the number of the Levites and the number 
 of the first-born for whom they were substituted. All the 
 " godly seed" of Levi, and all the legitimate " first-born" 
 of Israel, "from a month old and upward," were, at the 
 time of the substitution, almost precisely equal. (Num. 
 iii. 39, 43. 
 
 B. 
 
 The Number of the Priests and their Duties, fyc. 
 
 No chapters of Bishop Colenso's volume, perhaps, are 
 more characterised by ignorance, puerility, or apparent 
 disingenuousness, than those which relate to the number 
 of the priests, their duties, and the provision made for them 
 "in the wilderness." We cannot enter minutely into 
 his objections, or answer them individually. The fol- 
 
1 72 Appendix. B. 
 
 lowing considerations are sufficient to show their ground- 
 
 lst. The Levitical laws, though given in the wilderness, 
 were not intended to come into full operation there. This 
 is obvious from such passages as these, Num. xv. 2 ; Deut. 
 iv. 5, 14 ; v. 31 ; xii. 8, 9 : all indicating that the Leviti- 
 cal system was to come into full operation only when the 
 Israelites had come to "their rest and to the inheritance 
 which the Lord their God was about to give them" — " the 
 land whither they were going to possess it." 
 
 Accordingly, when the law was given, and the Taber- 
 nacle set up, they had the prospect of entering in a few 
 months into Canaan ; and it was only in consequence of 
 their rebellion at Kadesh that this prospect was not ful- 
 filled: the suspension of the promise, of course, leading 
 to a corresponding suspension of the observance of the 
 Levitical laws. 
 
 2d. In point of fact, the Levitical laws generally were 
 not, and could not be, observed in the wilderness. One 
 obstacle was that the Tabernacle and the Altar were fre- 
 quently being removed from place to place — this render- 
 ing, for the time, sacrifice impossible. Another obstacle 
 was the neglect of circumcision, which of course entailed, 
 necessarily, the neglect of all the other parts of the law 
 in the case of the uncircumcised. And Moses expressly 
 intimates that in the wilderness little or no observance of 
 the law took place, Deut. xii. 8. Although the term the 
 Camp is used in some of the laws, it does not follow that 
 the whole system was made for, and was observed in, the 
 wilderness. That was the present name for the holy place, 
 the dwelling of the holy people, and applied to the holy 
 city afterwards. Hence the language of the Apostle: Heb. 
 xiii. 13, 14, " Let us go forth therefore to him without the 
 
Appendix. B. 1 73 
 
 camp, bearing his reproach ; for here we have no continu- 
 ing city : " where camp and city plainly mean the same 
 thing. 
 
 3d. In whatever work the priests had to perform in the 
 wilderness, at the time of the second passover, for instance, 
 they had the assistance of more than 8000 Levites, who 
 were consecrated for the very purpose (Num. vii. 6-21), 
 " I have taken the Levites," said God, " for all the first- 
 born of the children of Israel. And I have given the 
 Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons, to do the service of 
 the children of Israel, in the tabernacle of the congrega- 
 tion." Bishop Colenso (apparently with the design of 
 excluding this service of the Levites), after stating that the 
 priests were only three, Aaron and his sons, quotes the 
 language, "Aaron and his sons keeping the charge of the 
 sanctuary, for the charge of the children of Israel ; and 
 the stranger that cometh nigh shall he put to death." (Num. 
 Hi. 10, 38.) But he has not quoted or noticed the similar 
 language which shows that the Levites were not "stran- 
 gers" in the sense there meant, but were bound by their 
 very office to " come nigh." " When the tabernacle setteth 
 forward, the Levites shall take it down ; and when the 
 tabernacle is pitched, the Levites shall set it up ; and the 
 stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death," (Num. i. 
 51). This partial and improper way of quoting and inter- 
 preting Scripture, which is only to be recognised by care- 
 ful examination (for it is cunningly concealed), is one of 
 the worst and most painful features of the Bishop's book. 
 And to this may be added his presumptuous casting oif, 
 save when they supply materials for challenging the Pen- 
 tateuch, the authority of the two books of Chronicles. 
 
174 Appendix. C. 
 
 a 
 
 Moses and Joshua addressing all Israel. 
 
 Bishop Colenso, in bringing under one objection the 
 addresses of Moses to all Israel on the plains of Moab 
 (Deut. i. 1 ; v 1), and the reading of the blessings and 
 curses of the Law, in the days of Joshua, at G-erizim and 
 Ebal (Josh. viii. 30-35), has unquestionably blended to- 
 gether two things of exceedingly different character. The 
 one was doubtless intended chiefly for the instruction and 
 warning of the Israelites. It was a work which would 
 occupy many days, and which would best be performed by 
 Moses in the representative assembly which stood for all 
 Israel (See Lect. 3); and it is simply absurd to suppose 
 that all the people, "with the women and children" (as 
 the Bishop evidently wishes it to be understood), were 
 gathered together to hear the whole book of Deuteronomy 
 recited to them. Besides, vast bodies of the u 600,000 
 warriors " would then be engaged in warlike expeditions, 
 and though all who pleased might be present, the assem- 
 blies probably Would not amount to more than could 
 easily hear the great and good lawgiver giving his parting 
 counsels and warnings — " his eye being yet undimmed, 
 and his natural force unabated. 1 ' Accordingly we have, in 
 Deut. xxix. 10-15, an intimation which naturally implies, 
 that while all were present virtually or representatively, 
 all were not present literally. " Neither with you only do 
 T make this covenant and this oath ; but with him that 
 standeth here with us this day, before the Lord our God, 
 and also with him that is not here with us this day." 
 
 The other event, again, viz., the reading of the blessings 
 
Appendix. C. J 75 
 
 and curses in the days of Joshua, might properly be 
 described as a great solemnity, designed rather to impress 
 the imagination and fill the memory of the beholders, 
 than to give instruction. It was a grand review of the 
 nation, and a renewal of the covenant of Sinai, made 
 probably before the great body of the people was dis- 
 persed over the country to their various localities. It 
 had been fore-appointed by Moses, and all necessary 
 directions had been given as to the manner in which 
 the appointment should be fulfilled (Deut. xxvii. 1-26). 
 The people would be well prepared for it, being in- 
 structed beforehand as to the whole proceeding, so that 
 probably little would depend upon their hearing dis- 
 tinctly the voice of the readers — for it was not Joshua 
 himself, but the priests, the Levites, that were to read 
 the law, and charge the people to obey it. Besides, 
 stones were to be set up, with the law inscribed on 
 them, that the people might read as well as hear. It 
 is impossible, indeed, to say precisely what was written on 
 these stones, or for what purpose they were set up. And 
 it is equally impossible to say what " the words of the law, 
 the blessings and the cursings," were which were read to 
 the people. But supposing the stones to have contained 
 a summary of what was read, and to have been set up in 
 various places all along the declivities of the mountains, 
 we can easily perceive how the whole assembly would be 
 prepared to give intelligently its loud and sublime u Amen," 
 like " the sound of many waters," to each blessing and 
 cursing, as soon as it was read. 
 
 These amens, in all probability, constituted the chief 
 element, the essence and grandeur of the event. "The 
 Mishna informs us that they were given alternately 
 to the blessing and the curse : the priest turning first 
 
176 Appendix. C. 
 
 towards Gerizim said, 'Blessed be the man that maketh 
 not any graven image,' &c. ; and having received the 
 response, he then turned towards Ebal and said, ' Cursed 
 be the man who maketh a graven image,' &c. ; and so 
 on of the rest." And if this was the manner of pro- 
 cedure, "it is impossible to conceive a ceremony more 
 simply and yet solemnly grand" (Pict. Bible), while at 
 the same time nothing of the kind could be conceived 
 more easily accomplished — provided always we do not con- 
 sider it necessary to suppose that " all that Moses com- 
 manded Joshua to read before all the congregation of 
 Israel, with the women and the little ones," was the 
 whole of the laws of Moses, or even the whole of the book 
 of Deuteronomy. This and other things on which Bishop 
 Colenso insists as necessary to " the literal accuracy of the 
 Scripture narrative " are unworthy of a moment's regard. 
 
 The following description of the whole transaction and 
 scene, from Kino's Pictorial Palestine, may be of use to 
 the reader : — '-' It is difficult for the mind of man to con- 
 ceive a ceremonial more truly grand than that whereby 
 the far-seeing Legislator had provided that the people 
 should once more, before they took possession of then- 
 inheritance, declare their solemn acceptance of those insti- 
 tutions which had been given to them, and bindingly 
 oblige them so to adhere to them. And if Moses, who 
 was never himself in the promised land, had surveyed 
 its whole extent, or the extent of the whole world, for 
 a site most fitting for this great transaction, one could 
 not have been found more appropriate than the twin 
 mounts — the fair and fertile Gerizim, and the blasted 
 Ebal, with the long, narrow, and beautiful valley by which 
 they are separated. Here, in the first instance, were set up 
 the large stones, which being covered with plaster, after 
 
Appendix. D. 177 
 
 the Egyptian fashion, were written over 'very plainly' 
 with the principles of the law, that the people there 
 assembled might be fully aware of that to which they 
 were about to declare their obedience. Their sacrifices 
 were offered upon a large altar, built upon Mount Ebal, of 
 unhewn stone, according to the law. The ark, attended 
 by priests, remained in the valley below, while on each 
 side, up either mountain, stood the thousands of Israel, 
 none being wanting, from the chiefs, the judges, and the 
 Levites, to the women, the children, and the stranger. 
 "All were there.* In that vast audience, six tribes, 
 Eeuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali, stood 
 upon the barren Ebal, to pronounce the curses of the law 
 upon the wrong-doer and the disobedient ; and six, Simeon, 
 Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin, upon the 
 pleasant Gerizim, to pronounce its blessings upon the well- 
 doer and the obedient. And as each clause of cursing or 
 of blessing was pronounced, there rose, with one vast 
 rushing voice from the living hills, the AMEN, ' So be it,' 
 by which that vast multitude declared their assent to the 
 announced conditions." 
 
 D. 
 
 The Family of Judah, and Chief Families of Israel. 
 
 In his second volume, Bishop Golenso acknowledges 
 the omission of "were" in the sentence referred to in 
 the fourth lecture (p. 110), and thus confirms our remarks 
 
 * This is hardly correct, for only a small portion of the tribes of Reuben, 
 Gad, and the half of Manasseh had crossed the Jordan, and many belong- 
 ing to the other tribes might be necessarily absent likewise. 
 M 
 
178 Appendix. D. 
 
 about his changing the construction. But he still holds 
 to his objection, and endeavours to mystify the ques- 
 tion involved by asking, Why the two grandsons of 
 Asher are mentioned in the list, (Gen. xlvi. 17) ? The 
 answer is easily given, and tends to support our solu- 
 tion of the difficulty in the case of Hezron and Hamul. 
 1st. These grandsons of Asher are not introduced in the 
 same way as those of Judah. They are not mentioned 
 parenthetically, but as really being among those who 
 went down to Egypt with Jacob. 2d. There is no diffi- 
 culty in supposing them to have been born in Canaan. 
 Asher, their grandfather, was only a year or two younger 
 than Judah, and might easily have grandchildren at 
 the time of the migration ; for had Er or Onan lived and 
 had children, Judah himself would then have had grand- 
 children six or seven years old. But Judah could not 
 have grandchildren by his son Pharez, who was himself 
 then only three or four years old. Pharez, indeed, as we 
 have seen, was both a son and grandson of Judah ; but 
 there was no such peculiarity in the family of Asher. It 
 may be added, as confirmatory of another remark we 
 have made, that these grandchildren of Asher are seen, 
 from Num. xxvi., to have been founders of chief families in 
 Israel, as all were whose names went down to Egypt — with, 
 at least, the exception of a few names which, during the 
 interval between the going down to Egypt, and the census 
 taken on the plains of Moab (Num. xxvi) had become ex- 
 tinct, and been " blotted out." 
 
 It would be a somewhat profitable exercise for an ac- 
 curate biblical student to endeavour to make out from 
 Scripture a complete list of the u families" or clans 
 — the larger divisions of the tribes — of Israel, on the 
 supposition mentioned in the lecture, and apparently sound, 
 
Appendix. D. 
 
 179 
 
 that their number was always preserved the same (70) as 
 that of the names at the going down to Egypt. There 
 are difficulties to be encountered in doing this — chiefly in 
 the way of showing what families were constituted to stand 
 for the names of Jacob himself, his daughter Dinah, and 
 his grand-daughter Serah, and also to supply the place of 
 those names which had in the interval become extinct. 
 No fewer than twelve of these substituted families seem to 
 have been taken from the descendants of Joseph — his two 
 sons having been raised to be the heads of tribes. Five or 
 six were constituted from among the Levites, and so of others. 
 (See Birk's Exod. of Israel). A list of the families spoken of 
 in Num. xxvi., to the number of fifty-seven, will be found 
 in the Notes to Bagster's Comprehensive Bible. 
 
 The following is the summation of the "names" that 
 went down to Egypt with Jacob, as given in Gen. xlvi. : — 
 
 Jacob's eleven sons and one daughter, 
 
 12 
 
 Reuben's sons, 
 
 4 
 
 Simeon's sons, 
 
 6 
 
 Levi's sons, 
 
 3 
 
 Judah's sons (including Er and Onan), 
 
 5 
 
 Issachar's sons, 
 
 4 
 
 Zebulun's sons, .... 
 
 3 
 
 Gad's sons, .'..., 
 
 7 
 
 Asher's sons, daughter, and grandsons, 
 
 7 
 
 Dan's son, 
 
 1 
 
 Naphtali's sons, .... 
 
 4 
 
 Benjamin's sons, .... 
 
 10 
 
 The number that went down with Jacob, 66 
 
 Then adding Jacob, Joseph, and his two sons, 4 
 
 The whole family of Jacob, not including wives, 70 
 
180 Appendix. E. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that in the Acts of the Apostles 
 (chap. vii. 14), Stephen makes the whole kindred of Jacob 
 that went down to Egypt to be seventy-five persons. This 
 number, doubtless, excludes Er and Onan, and includes the 
 wives of Jacob's sons who were alive, i.e., ten: for if we 
 take Er and Onan from the sixty-six, and add Jacob him- 
 self, then the numbers are 66 — 2 + 1 + 10=75. And this 
 agrees with the history so far as it guides us ; for of the 
 eleven sons' wives we read only of the death of Judah's. — 
 (Gen. xxxviii. 12). 
 
 E. 
 
 The Bishop's Theory as to the Origin of the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 The Bishop of Natal, we suspect, in undertaking to 
 show, in this third volume, how the books of Moses came 
 into existence, on his own theory, has undertaken a task 
 too great even for his strength and genius. He says, 
 virtually, that "if we will lay aside our own modern no- 
 tions (and take Ms, of course) of what Samuel ought to 
 have been, and ought to have done," we will easily under- 
 stand the matter. We suspect we will require also to lay 
 aside our modern notions of what the Israelitish nation has 
 always been ; and not only so, but of what human nature 
 in all its families is, and has been, — and of what reason is, 
 and common sense, and a great many other things, on 
 which, if he be right, we have all been egregiously wrong. 
 Let us look at the work he proposes to accomplish in his 
 third volume. 
 
 There are plainly only two ways in which we can con- 
 
Appendix. E. 181 
 
 ceive the books of Moses — containing as they do not 
 only a history, but a code of civil and religious laws, — 
 could have been, after the days of Samuel, imposed upon 
 the Jewish nation. Either the civil and religious system 
 they were designed to support must have been in existence 
 previously, and Samuel's purpose in writing the Penta- 
 teuch would be simply to give an account of its origin, 
 and of the reasons why the laws and ordinances of that sys- 
 tem ought to be observed ; or, the Pentateuch, written by 
 him and his disciples, must have been designed to originate 
 the system, as well as to give reasons for it, and to impose it 
 for the first time on the Jews. Now on the first of these 
 hypotheses what must the Bishop do ? 
 
 Plainly, he must first of all account for the origin of the 
 Jewish system before the days of Samuel. How did so 
 peculiar and artificial a ritual (to speak only of the religi- 
 ous part of the system) come into being ? If Samuel was 
 inspired, and has given in the Pentateuch a true account 
 of its origin, so that, after all, the book, though not 
 " Mosaic," is " Divine," and the religious system taught 
 in it, both "Mosaic and Divine," then (as we have 
 already said) the Pentateuch is only a more wonderful 
 book than if Moses had written it, and all that Bishop 
 Colenso says of it as u not historically true" must fall to 
 the ground. But if Samuel and his fellows were not in- 
 spired, and have not given a true account of the origin of 
 the Jewish law, then Bishop Colenso has two other things 
 to do : he must show first when and how that law, with 
 all its strange, unnatural, unmeaning, and most oppressive 
 ritual originated, and came to be observed by the Jews ; 
 and next, how a false account of its origin came afterwards 
 to be received by them as true. To suppose the Levitical 
 system in existence before the Pentateuch, only shifts the 
 
1 82 Appendix. K 
 
 question as to the origin of the system to an earlier time; it 
 does not account for that origin. Bishop Colenso, therefore, 
 if he choose this alternative, must account rationally for all 
 its rites and ceremonies. He must tell us how, and when, 
 and why circumcision, for instance, came to be practised, 
 the Sabbath and sabbatical year observed, the passover and 
 the other festivals kept, and such unnatural, and unmean- 
 ing, and excessively troublesome rites, as purification from 
 defilement caused by contact with the dead — (a rite opposed 
 to all the obvious dictates of nature, the tenderest affec- 
 tions of the human heart, and to all social order and con- 
 venience) — came to be introduced. The question here is 
 not, How a simple and inexpensive, yet cruel and bloody 
 religion like those of the Druids and the Hindoos might 
 grow up? They can be accounted for as the offspring of a 
 dark and guilty conscience, and of a depraved and devil- 
 possessed heart. But here we have a religion to account 
 for totally diverse from these, and from all that human nature 
 ever taught — " a yoke of bondage" utterly intolerable, and 
 yet without a single feature of cruelty, or impurity, or devil - 
 ishness. The Jewish religion was irksome, severe, and in- 
 tolerably burdensome only to its observers ; to all others, so 
 far as it permitted connection with others, it was just and 
 even merciful. It permitted no human sacrifices — no 
 hecatombs of human captives to be immolated on its altars. 
 It imposed itself by force on none but those who were born 
 under its covenant and law ; and it taught, by all its moral 
 precepts and influences, love to God and love to man as the 
 end and essence of all religion. It was a severe, holy, 
 mysterious system, having no root in ordinary human 
 nature, — and if not divine, it is altogether unaccountable. 
 But even supposing Bishop Colenso could, on his own 
 theory, account for its existence before the days of Samuel, 
 
Appendix. E. 183 
 
 how is lie to account for the reception of a forged history 
 of its origin afterwards. Here another and almost equally- 
 formidable difficulty meets him. For he must show how 
 Samuel and his coadjutors could persuade the Jewish 
 people, not indeed to receive a new religion, but to be- 
 lieve that they and their fathers had for generations 
 been observing that religion for reasons which they had 
 never before heard of. He must show how a proud and 
 self-conceited and self-willed people could be brought 
 to receive a forged Pentateuch, telling them that circum- 
 cision was the sign of a covenant, — the passover the me- 
 morial of a redemption, — the Sabbath a commemoration 
 of a creation work, — and all their other observances in like 
 manner connected with a past history, of which they had 
 either never before heard, or never heard at least as con- 
 nected with their national and traditional ceremonies. 
 And we rather think that the Bishop will find it a some- 
 what difficult task to show all this on rational principles, 
 or so as to convince rational men. 
 
 But Bishop Colenso seems inclined to adopt the other 
 alternative, as to the origin of the Jewish law, and to under- 
 take to show how Samuel and his fellows not only forged 
 the Pentateuch, but also framed and imposed the law. He 
 says : — 
 
 " If we will lay aside our own modern notions of what 
 Samuel ought to have been, and what he ought to have done, 
 and merely regard him as a great statesman and lawgiver, 
 imbued from his childhood with deep religious feelings, and 
 having early awakened in him — we cannot doubt, by special 
 Divine Inspiration — the strong conviction of the distinct per- 
 sonal presence of the Living God, — if we think of him as 
 anxiously striving to convey the momentous truth, with which 
 his own spirit was quickened, to the young men of his school, 
 
184 Appendix. E. 
 
 whom he had taken into closer intimacy with himself, and 
 whom he hoped to influence for the permanent welfare of the 
 whole community, — then the measures, which, it seems, he 
 took for the purpose, will appear to be very natural, and 
 quite undeserving to be styled an ' impudent fraud.' 
 
 " It is well known that the authors of most of the great 
 early legislations of antiquity, as of those which are attributed 
 to Minos, Lycurgus, and Numa, being actuated by the purest 
 desire for the welfare of their countrymen, sought to attach 
 authority to their lessons and laws, by representing them 
 as revealed supernaturally, or, at least, as divinely approved. 
 Of course, as we have said, the notion that Samuel also 
 adopted this plan, of referring the institutions which he wished 
 to enforce, to the direct revelation of the Divine Being, — 
 though he did not profess to have received them himself, but 
 represented them as made of old to the fathers or leaders of 
 the Hebrew people, to Abraham or Moses, — is quite at vari- 
 ance with the ordinary notion of the Divine origin and 
 infallible authority of this part of the Scriptures, and with 
 the modern conceptions which are formed of the nature of 
 inspiration and the proper aim and object of Scripture writers. 
 But the results of our investigations compel us to the conclu- 
 sion that either Samuel himself, or some other writer of 
 that age, did adopt it." 
 
 Now, on this supposition, the Bishop's task will only be- 
 come more stupendous and difficult than before. He must 
 show how Samuel and his disciples easily and speedily accom- 
 plished what, on the orthodox view, God and Moses found it 
 very difficult to accomplish, notwithstanding all the miracu- 
 lous judgments and mercies of the One, and all the meekness, 
 patience, power, and wisdom of the other. He must show 
 how the Jewish people could be persuaded to receive a new 
 religion (of the character of the Jewish religion) for the 
 first time, as well as for reasons which they had never before 
 
Appendix. E. 185 
 
 heard of ; and not only so, but persuaded to believe also 
 that they and their fathers had been from time immemorial 
 observing that religion when they had not. On this very 
 subject another bishop, — one of a different stamp from 
 Bishop Colenso — has said, " Can any one suppose it 
 possible that a book of statutes might be now forged, or 
 could have been forged at any time, for England or Scot- 
 land, and imposed upon the people for the only book of 
 statutes that they and their fathers had ever known? 
 Since the world began has there been a book of spurious 
 statutes, and these, too, multifarious and burdensome, im- 
 posed upon any people as the only statutes by which they 
 and their fathers had been governed for ages ? Such a 
 thing is impossible." (Bp. Gleig's Introd. to Stackhouse.) 
 And it is more obviously impossible, also, when these 
 statutes are of a religious character, and imply the setting- 
 up of a new, complex, and mysterious worship, whether of 
 a known or " unknown God." 
 
 And this is not all. Bishop Colenso, in the hints he has 
 given of the way in which, on his theory, the Pentateuch 
 and the Jewish laws originated, talks glibly of many things 
 which, on that theory, could have no existence. He 
 says : — 
 
 " When Samuel had once set the example of this mode of 
 composing the early history of the Hebrew people, it was, of 
 course, most easy and natural for his disciples in a later age 
 to follow him, more especially if, as we may very well sup- 
 pose, the unfinished manuscript was left in their hands by 
 their dying master, with the permission, or even the injunc- 
 tion, to complete and perfect it to the best of their power. 
 The establishment of the Divine service at the tabernacle in 
 David's time, and at the temple in Solomon's, would give oc- 
 casion for additions to be made of a ceremonial and ritual- 
 
186 Appendix. E. 
 
 istic character ; and, perhaps, for a succession of years, such 
 accretions might grow to the original document in the hands 
 of the priests. Yet is there no sign that the laws thus laid 
 down were published for general information, and actually 
 enforced by the best of kings, or voluntarily obeyed by those 
 kings themselves or by the most devout of their people. The 
 Levitical laws seem rather to have served as a directory for 
 the priests in the discharge of their duties in the temple," &c. 
 
 Now it is easy for him thus to take for granted, the 
 existence of the tabernacle, and the temple, and the tem- 
 ple service, and the priests, and so on. But whence did 
 they all come, and what were they, on his theory ? We 
 know all about them, and about their origin, on the sup- 
 position that the Pentateuch is Mosaic and divine; but 
 when " we lay aside our own notions " to take the Bishop 
 of Natal's, we know nothing either of their existence, or 
 origin, or object. What was the tabernacle, on his theory? 
 And whence came it ? Did it fall from heaven, like the 
 image of Diana of the Ephesians ? or did it spring up in a 
 night from the earth, like Jonah's gourd ? And whence 
 were the priests that ' ' served the tabernacle ? " According 
 to " our own modern notions," the law created the priests; 
 but according to Bishop Colenso's notions, the priests, like 
 the tabernacle, existed before the law, and must have 
 come into existence, and had their work prescribed in 
 some other way ; and to establish his theory, he must tell 
 us all about their origin, and history, and work. 
 
 Especially, whence came Solomon's temple, the most 
 costly, the most gorgeous, the most wonderful structure ever 
 reared by human hands — if, indeed, it was reared by human 
 hands ? If the Pentateuch is Mosaic and divine, we know 
 again all about its origin and design ; and how David's piety, 
 and Solomon's youthful zeal and great wealth, led to its erec- 
 
Appendix. E. 187 
 
 tion, for the honour of God and the fulfilment of his com- 
 mand given to Moses. But if the Pentateuch is neither 
 Mosaic nor divine, and if it was not in existence " in the 
 age of Samuel, David, or Solomon" — or if the Levitical 
 laws were not then in full operation, "known, honoured, 
 revered, obeyed,'''' we are necessarily all at sea as to the 
 origin and object of Solomon's temple, — how the Jews could 
 have been induced to bestow their labour in building it, and 
 what was the nature of the service performed in it. Can it 
 be that, after all, the Mohammedan notion is the true one, 
 that Solomon built the temple by the aid of Genii, armies 
 of whom he had at his command ? But even this notion 
 allows that it was reared " in lieu of the tabernacle of 
 Moses," and supposes, therefore, the truth of the Mosaic 
 history, and the antiquity of the Mosaic law. We are at 
 our wits' end, and must wait the Bishop of Natal's third 
 volume to have all these, and a hundred other questions, 
 solved by some algebraic or other process, of which this 
 mathematical Bishop alone knows the method ! For cer- 
 tainly it is not by the same reason that leads us to be- 
 lieve that two and two make four that we can reach their 
 solution. 
 
 But to conclude, how singular — how marvellous — how 
 almost sublime, is the self-sufficiency of this man of Natal ! 
 What is the reason or common sense of mankind, that 
 it should stand for a moment in the way of his theo- 
 ries ? And he is at least consistent here : for having pro- 
 nounced the knowledge of the Son of God erroneous, and 
 His testimony a lie, he need not hesitate to set aside as 
 foolish the reason and common sense of all nations and 
 generations of men ! ! 
 
188 Appendix. F. 
 
 F. 
 
 The use of the name Jehovah in Genesis. 
 
 In making some additional remarks on the use of the 
 name Jehovah in Genesis, the author intermeddles not with 
 the question of the origin of what are called the Elohistic 
 and Jehovistic portions of that book ; such as Gen. i. — ii. 3, 
 and Gen. ii. 3 — iii. 24. He has no doubt that these and 
 other peculiarities of language in different parts of the 
 book are capable of being explained in consistency with 
 the unity and Mosaic authorship of the whole. The only 
 question with which he concerns himself, at present, is, 
 How can the use of the name Jehovah in Genesis be ex- 
 plained consistently with the statement in Exodus vi. 3 ? 
 And he wishes to answer this question so as to satisfy any 
 intelligent and thoughtful, though unlearned, reader of the 
 Bible. For if he can do so, he will have removed what 
 Bishop Colenso allows to be the very foundation and 
 "pivot" of the whole argument of his second volume. 
 
 In further supporting and illustrating the answer given 
 in the text of the Fifth Lecture, the author would take the 
 liberty of stating — 1st, The difficulty itself ; 2d, Some of 
 the ways of removing the difficulty proposed by commen- 
 tators ; and, 3d, The way now proposed, — in language sub- 
 stantially the same as he employed, several years ago, when 
 he had occasion to explain Exodus vi. 3 to his own con- 
 gregation. 
 
 "I. The difficulty — which is quite apparent: God 
 here (Exod. vi. 3) says to Moses, ' I am Jehovah, and I 
 appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by 
 the name of God Almighty ; but by my name Jehovah 
 was I not known to them.' Now, in the book of Genesis, 
 we have this name Jehovah used as frequently as any other 
 
Appendix. F. 189 
 
 name of God, or more so. And we have it too, not only 
 as employed by the historian in his own narrative, but as 
 employed by the patriarchs here mentioned, and others of 
 their times and before their times, as a well-known name 
 of God. Eve employs it, for instance, at the birth of Cain, 
 saying (Gen. iv. 1), ' I have gotten a man from Jehovah.' 
 Lamech employs it at the birth of Noah, saying (Gen. v. 
 29), " This same shall comfort us concerning our work and 
 toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah 
 hath cursed." And Noah employs it in the blessing of 
 Shem, saying (Gen. ix. 26), " Blessed be Jehovah the God 
 of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. " In like manner, 
 through all the history of the patriarchs we find the name 
 of constant occurrence. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob 
 use it not only when praying to God, but also when speak- 
 ing of God to their fellow-men ; and not only they but all 
 around them, who had any intercourse with them, seem to 
 have been equally well acquainted with it. We find it put 
 into the mouths of Sarah, and Rebekah, and Rachel, and 
 Leah. We find it used by Abraham's servant, and Laban, 
 and Abimelech, king of Gerar, and others. Now, if the 
 language of all these persons has been correctly reported 
 by the historian, it is plain that the name Jehovah itself 
 must have been known in the days of the patriarchs ; and 
 not only so, but that it must have been known to them also 
 as the name of their God, the only living and true God, 
 the God in whom they believed, and whom they worshipped 
 and feared. And what then is to be said of the assertion 
 of the text, " I appeared to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob 
 by the name of God- Almighty ; but by my name Jehovah 
 was I not known to them." The contradiction between 
 this assertion and the conclusion which one must draw 
 from the book of Genesis, appears to be as direct, as explicit, 
 
190 Appendix. F. 
 
 and unquestionable as any contradiction can well be ; and 
 how then is this contradiction to be removed, and the 
 inspired volume shown to be in harmony with itself ? 
 
 "II. To this I answer, that commentators have en- 
 deavoured, in various ways, to remove the contradiction. 
 Some have proposed to give the latter part of the verse 
 an interrogative form, so as to reverse its meaning — 
 thus, And was I not also known to them by my name 
 Jehovah ? This question would mean that God was known 
 to the patriarchs by the name Jehovah, and would thus 
 make the statement of Exod. vi. 3 perfectly harmonious 
 with the book of Genesis. But though a possible, this is a 
 very unsatisfactory way of removing the difficulty. It is 
 not a natural way, but destroys the natural and evidently 
 designed antithesis between the two clauses of the verse, 
 going far to divest both of them of any distinct or obvious 
 meaning. 
 
 " Again, it has been supposed by others that, as the book 
 of Genesis was doubtless written after the time of this 
 communication to Moses, the name Jehovah is used by him 
 in it by anticipation. That is to say, though the patri- 
 archs did not know the name, Moses, who knew it, makes 
 them speak as if they did. He speaks, and makes them 
 speak of the Divine being from his own point of view, and 
 not from theirs. Now this is a good and sufficient ex- 
 planation of the matter, so far as Moses himself uses the 
 name in his own narrative ; but it is no explanation at all 
 so far as he puts it into the mouths of the patriarchs or 
 others. It is rather but another way of saying that Moses 
 does not report the language of the patriarchs correctly, 
 and that therefore, so far as that language is concerned, 
 his record is not true, and not divinely inspired. If Abra- 
 ham did not know the name Jehovah as a name of the 
 
Appendix. F. 191 
 
 Divine Being, it is perfectly certain that he never used it 
 as Moses reports him to have done, in his address to the 
 king of Sodom (Gen. xiv. 22), "I have lift mine hand 
 unto Jehovah, the most high God, the possessor of heaven 
 and earth." And so of other cases in which the name is 
 used by the patriarchs and others. And thus the truth 
 and inspiration of the writings of Moses would necessarily 
 be brought into question. We could no longer, if this was 
 true, confidently believe in them as the Word of God. 
 
 " Other interpreters have supposed that it is not the name 
 Jehovah itself, but the meaning of the name, that the 
 patriarchs are here said not to have known. They knew 
 the word, and that it was a name of God ; but they did 
 not know the truth concerning God, which was designed 
 to be conveyed by that word. More especially, it is said, 
 they did not know God as the Being who alone is the 
 living God, — or as the Being whose words are immut- 
 able, and who brings to pass the things which He hath 
 promised, — or the Being who is engaged in the develop- 
 ment of salvation, and who manifests himself in it, and 
 conducts it with absolute certainty to the desired result. 
 Such a revelation of God, it is said, was reserved for the 
 days of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt. But this 
 very mystical way of explaining the difficulty is (if I 
 understand it rightly) as little satisfactory as any. So 
 far as the meaning of the name Jehovah is concerned, 
 Abraham knew it, I have no doubt, as well as Moses, 
 or any created mind could. We are told that, when he 
 planted a grove in Beersheba, he called there on the 
 name of Jehovah, the everlasting God. Here, I ap- 
 prehend, you have an interpretation of the meaning of 
 the name Jehovah, and doubtless of that in which Abra- 
 ham understood it — the everlasting or eternal God — the 
 
192 Appendix. F. 
 
 Almighty Being who was, and is, and is to come. And 
 even if that name meant, as is said, the Being who 
 alone is the living God, — or whose word is immutable, — 
 or who reveals himself in the accomplishment of sal- 
 vation, — it would be difficult to find any one who 
 gave better evidence than "the father of the faithful," 
 that he knew God in this way. Otherwise the apostle 
 gives too high a colouring to the conduct and faith of 
 Abraham, when he says (Rom. iv. 17-21) that " Abraham 
 believed in God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth the 
 things that be not as though they were. Who against 
 hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of 
 many nations, according to that which was spoken, So 
 shall thy seed be. He staggered not at the promise of God 
 through unbelief ; but was strong in faith, giving glory to 
 God ; and being fully persuaded that, what he had pro- 
 mised, he was able also to perform." And again (Heb. xi. 
 17-19) : " By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered 
 up Isaac : accounting that God was able to raise him up 
 even from the dead ; from whence also he received him in 
 a figure." 
 
 " III. Having thus stated some of the ways in which 
 it has been proposed to remove the difficulty in the 
 text, I shall now state, as briefly as possible, what I appre- 
 hend to be the true way of doing so. And here two things 
 are to be noticed, — 1st, That the two names of God spoken 
 of in the text are those which were expressly mentioned in 
 the two covenants referred to. In the covenant made with 
 Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, as recorded in the 17th 
 chapter of Genesis, the name which the Divine party cove- 
 nanting took to himself was not Jehovah, but God Al- 
 mighty (El-Shaddai) ; but in the covenant which was 
 now about to be made with Israel at Sinai, the same Divine 
 
Appendix. F. 193 
 
 party was to enter into it by the name Jehovah. Hence 
 says he, in the sixth and seventh verses of this chapter, 
 " Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah, 
 and I will bring yon out from under the burdens of the 
 Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I 
 will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great 
 judgments : and I will take you to me for a people, and I 
 will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am Jeho- 
 vah your God" &c. And hence also the decalogue was 
 given in this name, and the words of Moses at the ratifica- 
 tion of the covenant of Sinai were spoken in this name, 
 and, in a word, all the sanctions and appointments of the 
 old dispensation were founded on the fact or truth that 
 Jehovah was the God and king of Israel. This remark 
 goes some length to remove the difficulty of the text, by 
 showing in what sense God was, and in what sense he 
 was not, known to the patriarchs by his name Jehovah. It 
 was not by this name that he made himself known to them 
 as their covenant God, or entered into covenant with them. 
 But the remark does not completely remove the difficulty, 
 or satisfy all the exigencies of the case. For we find the 
 patriarchs occasionally using the name Jehovah, apparently 
 at least, as that of their covenant God ; and the question 
 remains, therefore, if this were all that was meant in the 
 statement of the text, how could they do so ? " 
 
 "I go on to remark,— -2d, That the speaker here, I 
 apprehend, was a different person of the Godhead from 
 Him whom the patriarchs knew by the name Jehovah. — 
 I merely announce this idea as apparently the only full 
 and satisfactory solution of the difficulty before us. I can- 
 not pretend, however, at present to demonstrate its sound- 
 ness, which could only be done by a minute and laborious 
 investigation of the use of the name Jehovah in Genesis. 
 
 N 
 
194 Appendix. F. 
 
 The probability of its truth, however, is evident at first 
 sight. We know that the same person of the Godhead who 
 now spoke to Moses in Egypt — the Angel of the bush, who 
 entered into covenant with Israel at Sinai — had entered 
 into covenant with their fathers, as the representative of 
 the invisible Jehovah, by the name God Almighty. He 
 was the Divine person by whom all the providence and 
 grace of God in past ages had been conducted. Now, if it 
 could be shown that the patriarchs did not know the name 
 Jehovah to belong to Him, personally considered, and that 
 tins was first revealed to Moses at the bush, — then plainly 
 we would have a complete and satisfactory explanation of 
 the words, " I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by 
 the name of God- Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was 
 I not made known to them „"' At the same time we would see 
 that this name Jehovah, though unrevealed, belonged to Him. 
 by right of nature. Though unknown it was not less His, 
 and He might say of it (Exod. iii. 15), " This is my name 
 for ever, and this is my memorial to all generations." 
 
 The author is now prepared to enter into the investiga- 
 tion, thus stated to be necessary, and to show that the idea 
 above announced is both sound and satisfactory as an ex- 
 planation of Exodus vi. 3. He has done so already to some 
 extent in the lecture ; but the nature and limits of a public 
 discourse did not allow him to do so fully ; and he would 
 now therefore supplement what has been there said by a 
 citation of the passages in Genesis in which the name 
 Jehovah occurs in reported speech. 
 
 Before doing so, however, it might have been desir- 
 able to discuss the interesting but difficult question, 
 Whether the patriarchs had any knowledge of the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity, or at least of a plurality of persons 
 
Appendix. F. 195 
 
 in the Godhead ? It has been denied that they had (Kurtz, 
 O. Cov., vol. ii., p. 106) ; and it may be allowed that, so 
 far as appears, they had no distinct or authoritative revela- 
 tion of the doctrine. This doctrine, like that of the atone- 
 ment, and that of " life and immortality," has been brought 
 fully and clearly to light only by the gospel. But it may 
 be doubted whether the patriarchs had not such a know- 
 ledge of the Divine nature, and the Divine works, as may 
 have led them to some conception of the doctrine in ques- 
 tion. Abraham, for instance, could speak of the Divine 
 Being as "Jehovah, the most high God, the possessor of 
 heaven and earth" which titles obviously imply the eternity, 
 immensity, invisibility, and incomprehensibility of the 
 Divine nature. But he knew, at the same time, of a person 
 who often appeared to men, to whom Divine names and 
 honour and worship belonged, who exercised the power and 
 authority of the supreme Being, being " the judge of all 
 the earth," and before whom he felt himself to be "but 
 dust and ashes," (Gen. xviii. 27). He necessarily thought 
 of this visible person — this " angel of Jehovah," as a real, 
 living, intelligent being and agent, distinct from the in- 
 visible Jehovah, whom He represented, whose messages He 
 bore, and whose counsels He performed. And the only 
 question that remains seems to be, could he follow out 
 these conceptions to the conclusion that the angel of Jeho- 
 vah must be possessed of the same nature with Jehovah 
 himself — "the same in substance, equal in power and 
 glory?" Or was he left, through the dimness of his 
 knowledge, and perhaps also the prevailing tendencies 
 of the time, to think of the angel of Jehovah as a 
 being of some inferior, though very exalted nature, 
 to whom, as His representative and agent, Jehovah 
 had conveyed some of His own honour and glory? It 
 
196 Appendix. F. 
 
 is perhaps impossible for us to answer this question ; but 
 whatever answer were given to it, it would still remain 
 perfectly credible that the patriarchs (without a distinct 
 and explicit revelation on the point) did not know that the 
 highest and most distinctive name of the Divine Being — 
 the incommunicable name Jehovah — belonged to the angel 
 of Jehovah ; and if they did not certainly know this, they 
 could not and would not give it Him. It wa£ a "secret 
 thing " in their day, the revelation of which was reserved 
 for their children, in the days of Moses, when the angel 
 himself revealed it, and made it sure for ever to all who 
 are " of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." 
 
 But leaving this question, let us now consider in what 
 manner the name Jehovah is used in Genesis — whether it 
 is ever given in the reported speech of the patriarchs or 
 others to the angel of Jehovah, " the visible God," who 
 appeared to them, conversed with them, and entered into 
 covenant with them, by the name El-Shaddai. The his- 
 torian, in his own narratives, we have already seen, 
 gives the name both to the invisible Jehovah, and to the 
 visible angel of Jehovah; and it is only the usage in 
 reported speech that remains to be investigated ; i. e., in 
 the forty-nine instances in which it so occurs in all the 
 book of Genesis. 
 
 Now of these, nine occur in communications made to the 
 patriarchs, either by God himself or by an angel from 
 heaven. These are first worthy of our examination ; for 
 if in any such communication the name Jehovah had been 
 distinctly used of the angel of the covenant, then plainly, 
 from the time of that communication, the patriarchs would 
 have known that the name belonged to Him. He would 
 henceforth have been known to them by that name. But 
 in none of these instances is the name given to Him, or 
 
Appendix. F. 1 97 
 
 any indication given that it belonged to Him. It is 
 always used of the invisible God ; as will be seen by read- 
 ing the passages, and reflecting on the circumstances in 
 which the divine communications contained in them were 
 made. They are the following : 
 
 1st Class. 
 
 1. Gen. xv. 7. u And he said unto him, I am Jehovah., 
 that Drought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this 
 land to inherit it.''' 1 This was said to Abraham when "the 
 word of the Lord came to him in a vision," and would cer- 
 tainly be understood by the patriarch as the voice of the 
 invisible God — " the most high God — the possessor of hea- 
 ven and earth." And it has, accordingly, generally been 
 so explained by commentators. It gave no indication, 
 therefore, that the name Jehovah belonged to any other. 
 
 2. Gen. xvi. 11. u And tJie angel of Jehovah said unto 
 her {Hagar), Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a 
 son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because Jehovah 
 hath heard thy affliction.'''' Here the speech is that of the 
 angel of Jehovah, but it is clear that in using the name 
 Jehovah he does not speak of himself, but of Him whose 
 angel he was. And accordingly, though Moses calls him 
 Jehovah, Hagar does not ; she calls him (v. 13) El-Roi, 
 the visible God: "And she called the name of Jehovah 
 that spake unto her, Thou God seest me (or, the visible 
 God) ; for she said, Have I also here looked after him that 
 seeth me; " or, Bid I not see him here visible by me ? — 
 (Boothroyd''s Trans.) 
 
 3. Gen. xviii. 13, 14. " And Jehovah said unto 
 Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I bear 
 a child, which am old ? Is any thing too hard for Jeho- 
 vah? At the time appointed I will return unto thee 
 
198 Appendix. F. 
 
 according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son." 
 Here again the speaker is the angel of Jehovah, the visible 
 God, who partook of Abraham's hospitality, and sat and 
 conversed with him under the tree ; but it is obvious, 
 again, that in using the name Jehovah he was not under- 
 stood by Abraham to be speaking of himself, but of the 
 invisible God whom he represented. Accordingly, in all 
 the conversation which follows, as in that going before, 
 Abraham never addresses him by that name, but always 
 by the title Adonai, my Lord ; which clearly certifies that 
 Abraham did not know him to be Jehovah. And the 
 same remark applies to the following two instances: — 
 
 4, 5. Gen. xviii. 17-19. " And Jehovah said, Shall I 
 hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abra- 
 ham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all 
 the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I 
 know him, that he will command his children and his house- 
 hold after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, 
 to do justice and judgment ; that Jehovah may bring upon 
 Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.' 1 '' 
 
 6, 7. Gen. xix. 13. " For we will destroy this place, be- 
 cause the cry of them is waxen great before the face 
 of Jehovah, and Jehovah hath sent us to destroy it." 
 This is the language of the two angels who came to 
 Lot, in Sodom, before the destruction of the city. It 
 can only be interpreted in accordance with the foregoing 
 instances, as giving the name Jehovah to the invisible God. 
 Accordingly Lot, when he afterwards addresses the Divine 
 angel, whom the historian calls Jehovah, "the visible God," 
 does not call him Jehovah, but Adonai (v. 18.) 
 
 8. Gen. xxii. 15-17. " And the angel of Jehovah called 
 unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By 
 myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah ; for because thou hast 
 
Appendix. F. 199 
 
 done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only 
 son; that in Messing I will bless thee" &c. Here the 
 speaker is the angel, and he speaks also in the first 
 person. But he does not speak his own words. The 
 phrase, u saith Jehovah" implies that he speaks for 
 another, and that other, the being whom Abraham had been 
 wont to know by the name Jehovah. The prophets 
 were accustomed to speak in the same way — not always 
 using thus formally the above phrase, thus : "I have sworn 
 by myself. The word is gone out of my mouth in right- 
 eousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee 
 shall bow, and every tongue shall swear." There was no 
 more indication, therefore, that the name Jehovah belonged 
 to the angel, than that this high honour and worship be- 
 longed to the prophet. 
 
 9. Gen. xxviii. 13. — u And, behold, Jehovah stood above 
 it (the ladder) and said, I am Jehovah, the God of Abra- 
 ham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land whereon 
 thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seedy There 
 can be no difficulty in seeing the application of the name 
 Jehovah here. Besides that the communication was made 
 in a dream, and not by a visible or outward manifestation 
 of a Divine person, our blessed Lord has virtually inter- 
 preted the dream to us (John i. 51), making the ladder a 
 shadow of himself in his mediatorial office and relations, 
 and of course, therefore, making the Divine person that 
 was seen above it, not himself, but the Father — Him be- 
 tween whom and sinful man he is the only mediator — to 
 whom he is the only medium of access. 
 
 It appears evident, then, that in all this class of pas- 
 sages, in which the name Jehovah is used in Divine com- 
 munications made to the patriarchs, or to others of 
 their day, there is not a single instance in which it is 
 
200 Appendix. F. 
 
 given to the angel of the covenant, the angel of the 
 bush, who said to Moses, "/ appeared to Abraham, and 
 Isaac, and Jacob, by the name El-Shaddai, but by my name 
 Jehovah was I not known to them.' 1 '' 
 
 It is worthy of remark, however, that in some of these 
 Divine communications, Jehovah calls himself the God of 
 the patriarchs ; so that it need not surprise us that in their 
 devotions and reported speeches, we find them using that 
 name as the name of their God. Either on the ground of 
 such communications as the above, from the invisible 
 Jehovah himself, or on the understanding that the 
 angel of the covenant, who called himself El Shaddai, 
 was the representative and agent of Jehovah, they 
 could plainly claim the latter as their God, though they 
 did not know that the same name belonged to the former. 
 This requires to be kept in mind in considering the fol- 
 lowing class of passages, in which, in prayer to God, or 
 other acts of devotion, the patriarchs and others use the 
 name Jehovah. The number of such passages is nineteen ; 
 and little more is necessary than to transcribe them, with- 
 out comment : — 
 
 2d Class. 
 
 1. Gen. iv. 1. — '"Eve conceived and bare Cain, and said, 
 I have gotten a man from Jehovah." 
 
 2. Gen. v. 29. — "He called Ms name Noah, saying, This 
 same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our 
 hands, because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed." 
 
 3. Gen. ix. 26. — "And he said, Blessed be Jehovah God 
 of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.'''' 
 
 4. 5. Gen. xv. 2, 8. — u And Abraham said, Lord Jehovah, 
 what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward 
 of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus ■?" "And he said, 
 
Appendix. F. 201 
 
 Lord Jehovah, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit 
 (this land)?" 
 
 6. Gen. xxii. 14. — " And Abraham called the name of 
 that place Jehovah-Jireh, as it is said unto this day, In 
 the mount of Jehovah it shall be seen.' 1 ' 1 
 
 The proper translation of the phrase Jehovah-Jireh is 
 Jehovah will provide, the allusion being to the words of 
 Abraham to Isaac (v. 8). And in like manner the pro- 
 verb which had thence originated, and remained to the 
 days of the historian, is to be understood in the same 
 way; "In the mount of Jehovah it will be provided" — 
 provision will be made. 
 
 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Gen. xxiv. 12, 27 (twice), 42, 44.— In 
 all these passages Abraham's servant prays to or blesses 
 "Jehovah, the God of his master Abraham," for direction 
 in the choice of a wife for Isaac when he was sent to Me- 
 sopotamia on this errand. In them all, therefore, the in- 
 visible God, the hearer and answerer of prayer, is alone 
 thought of and spoken of. 
 
 12. Gen. xxvii. 27. — "And he came near and kissed him, 
 and he (Isaac) smelled the smell of his (Jacob's) raiment, and 
 said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which 
 Jehovah hath blessed." 
 
 13, 14. Gen. xxviii. 16, 20, 21. — ■" And Jacob awaked 
 out of his sleep, and he said, Surely Jehovah is in this place, 
 and I knew it not. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God 
 will be with me and keep me in this way that I go, and will 
 give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come 
 again to my father's house in peace, then shall Jehovah be 
 my God." 
 
 It is obvious that Jacob must be here understood to use 
 the name Jehovah in the same application in which it had 
 already been used, in the address of God to him ; and it 
 
202 Appendix. F. 
 
 can hardly be doubted that this was the reason why he 
 esteemed the place so " dreadful," and so nearly con- 
 nected with heaven. It was " the most high God, the pos- 
 sessor of heaven and earth," who had there spoken to him, 
 and though the vision was not really objective, but 
 entirely subjective, the feelings of the patriarch were 
 natural, and his words expressive of these feelings intelli- 
 gible and appropriate. It is probable that Jacob would 
 not have been either so surprised or fearful had a visible 
 manifestation of the angel of Jehovah been made to him : 
 and, at any rate, had he now given the name Jehovah to 
 this angel, he would not have required to say to him after- 
 wards (Gen. xxxii. 29), " Tell me, I pray thee, thy name." 
 Jacob knew the personal name of the invisible and eternal 
 God, but not of the visible angel of God. 
 
 15, 16, 17. Gen. xxix. 32, 35 ; xxx. 24.— These pas- 
 sages need not be transcribed. They are instances in 
 which the wives of Jacob use the name Jehovah, when 
 acknowledging and praising Him at the birth of their sons. 
 We cannot doubt, then, that they used it in the same way 
 as Eve did. And there is not the slightest indication that 
 they employed it as the name of the angel of Jehovah, the 
 angel of the covenant. 
 
 18. Gen. xxxii. 9. — "And Jacob said, God of my 
 father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Jehovah, 
 who saidst unto me, Return unto thy country and to thy 
 kindred, and I will deal well with thee,''' 1 &c. It was in a 
 dream, as we learn from chap. xxxi. 2, 11, that Jehovah 
 had said to Jacob, "Return to thy country and kin- 
 dred," &c, and though Jacob himself understood these 
 words to have been conveyed by the ministry of the 
 angel of God, he regards them plainly as the words 
 of the invisible and eternal God himself, and now there- 
 
Appendix. F. 203 
 
 fore he applies to Him in prayer. Had it been other- 
 wise, Jacob could not have needed, the following night, to 
 ask the angel's name. And all this is confirmed by the 
 last instance, which occurs in the last and death-bed prayer 
 of the same patriarch. 
 
 19. Gen. xlix. 18. — I have waited for thy salvation, 
 Jehovah. There can be no doubt to whom this prayer of 
 the dying patriarch was addressed. And let it only be 
 added here, that as in all these prayers and devotions the 
 patriarchs and others spoke to, or of, the invisible, omni - 
 present God, and gave him the name Jehovah, while they 
 never used that name when speaking to " the visible God," 
 the angel of God, there can be little doubt that when they 
 employed the name in conversation with men, they thought 
 only of the Being to whom they gave it in prayer. — This 
 brings us then to the last class of passages, — viz., those in 
 which the name Jehovah occurs, in the reported speech of 
 the patriarchs and others to one another. 
 
 3d Class. 
 
 The passages of this class, which are twenty-one in 
 number, it is unnecessary to transcribe. Some of them 
 have already been noticed, others of them come under ex- 
 planatory remarks which have already been made; and 
 there is not one of them which can be, or, so far as the 
 author knows, has ever been, interpreted as giving the 
 name Jehovah to the angel of God, who appeared to Moses 
 at the bush, and used the language of Exod. vi. 3, u I am 
 Jehovah, and I appeared to Abraham, and Isaac, and 
 Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah 
 was I not made known to them.' 1 '' The reader should exa- 
 mine them for himself. They are : — Gen. xiv. 22 ; xvi. 2, 
 
2(M Appendix. F. 
 
 5 ; xix. 14 ; xxiv. 3, 7, 31, 35, 40, 48 (twice), 50, 51, 56 ; 
 xxvi. 22, 28, 29 ; xxvii. 7 ; xxx. 27, 30 ; xxxi. 49. 
 
 The proposed solution of the difficulty founded on Exod. 
 vi. 3, then seems to be demonstrated ; and by it all theories 
 founded on the supposed late introduction of the name 
 Jehovah are swept away. They have no foundation. It 
 may be added that this solution is in accordance with, and 
 confirmatory of, the great pillar of the Christian faith — 
 the doctrine of the supreme and eternal divinity of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. The manner, also, in which this doc- 
 trine was revealed to the Old Testament Church, according 
 to this solution, beautifully harmonizes with that in which 
 the divinity of the man Christ Jesus was revealed to the 
 New Testament Church. In the one case he revealed him- 
 self first as an angel, and conversed with men; in the other, 
 he appeared as a man, and tabernacled on earth. In the 
 one case, he trained the believing patriarchs and others to 
 familiarity with him, confidence in him, and perfect reli- 
 ance on his words as the angel of God, before he made 
 himself fully known to them as God. And it was so also 
 in the other case. The disciples of Jesus knew him first 
 as the man with whom God was, and the prophet by 
 whom God spake ; and they had perfect confidence in him, 
 without fear, before he was revealed to them as one with 
 the Father. Had they known him from the beginning to 
 be " the Lord from heaven," " God over all," his presence 
 would have been a terror to them ; but instead of this it 
 was a protection and joy to them — sinful men though they 
 were, and knew themselves to be — and the thought of his 
 going away from them became their greatest trouble. 
 
 But, as in the Old Testament age Christ revealed the 
 fulness of his Divine glory before Old Testament Scripture 
 began to be written, and to the first writer of Scripture, 
 
Appendix. F. 205 
 
 namely Moses, — so, in the New Testament age, He revealed 
 his true and supreme divinity to his apostles and disciples, 
 and brought them thoroughly to understand and acknow- 
 ledge it, before New Testament Scripture began to be 
 written. On the night in which He was betrayed, He 
 brought them to this conviction, John xvi. 29-31, — it was 
 renewed and confirmed by His resurrection from the dead, 
 John xx. 28 ; Rom. i. 4, — and it was established undeniably 
 and for ever to their deepest consciousness and faith, by His 
 ascension into heaven, and by the gifts and marvels of 
 Pentecost, " The pillar and ground of the truth, and 
 confessedly great is the mystery of godliness ; God was 
 manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,, 
 believed on in the world, received up into glory." 
 
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 LIFE FOR GOD; 
 
 EXEMPLIFIED IN THE CHARACTER AND CAREER OF 
 NEHEMIAH. 
 
 By the Eev. WILLIAM EITCHIE, Dunse. 
 Crown 6vo, cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 THE CLOSER WALK; 
 
 OR, THE BELIEVER'S SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 By HENEY DAELING, D.D. 
 
 With Preface by the Eev. George Smeaton, Professor of 
 
 Theology, New College, Edinburgh. 
 
 18mo, cloth limp, price Is. 6d. 
 
 PLAIN WORDS TO A YOUNG COMMUNICANT. 
 
 By J. W. ALEXANDEB, D.D., New York. 
 18mo, cloth, price 6d.,