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 A HANDBOOK 
 
 OF 
 
 BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
A HANDBOOK 
 
 OF 
 
 BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 REASONABLE SOLUTIONS OF PERPLEXING 
 THINGS IN SACKED SCRIPTURE. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 REV. ROBERT TUCK, B.A. (LoxD.), 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY,' 'FIRST THREE KINGS OF ISRAEL,' 
 'A<;E OF THE GREAT PATRIARCHS.' 
 
 ' ... In which are some thing-* hard to be 'inderstooJ.' 
 
 ., ; ' ST. PETER, 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 THOMAS WHIT TAKER, 
 2 AND 3, BIBLE HOUSE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IT has been the duty and privilege of the Editor of this ' Handbook ' 
 for the last twenty years to study closely those portions of Holy 
 Scripture which are likely to be used as lessons, sermon-subjects, or 
 illustrations, by Sunday-school teachers and ministers. In the course 
 of study note has been taken of all passages which seemed to present 
 special difficulties. These have been treated, in various ways, in 
 Sunday-school and other magazines, and in books ; but it has been 
 thought advisable to deal with these difficulties in a more systematic 
 manner, and to put at the command of the intelligent reader and 
 especially of the reader who has not ready access to expensive Biblical 
 works a suggestive and reasonable explanation of every perplexity, 
 or at least of every class of perplexity. 
 
 In selecting the topics for treatment, it has been borne in mind 
 that all readers of the Sacred Word do not find difficulties in the 
 same things. Effort has been made to adapt the selection of topics 
 to all kinds of open and inquiring minds ; but it has always been 
 assumed that the inquirer is sincere and reverent, anxious to find a 
 satisfactory explanation, and not sceptically pleased by making 
 difficulties bigger than they are, and by refusing to recognise the 
 reasonableness of solutions that are offered. 
 
 The treatment of subjects is in no case elaborate or complete. A 
 suggestive style has been kept throughout. Explanations are offered 
 for careful consideration : they are intended to start thought, and not 
 to satisfy it. The purpose of the work will be fully accomplished if 
 the reader finds a more acceptable solution of any difficulty than it 
 provides. The work will be misused if it is made the basis of heated 
 and sectarian controversy. It has been prepared for the quiet and 
 thoughtful student, and makes no provision of weapons for the 
 polemic. 
 
 371546 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 Nothing is suggested that is unfamiliar to advanced students of 
 God's Word. But there has been much gain by the Bible Revision, 
 and Bible criticism, of recent years, which ought to become the 
 common knowledge of the people. This ' Handbook ' may aid in 
 making the advanced knowledge of the college the possession even 
 of the Sunday-school class. And the Sacred Book is best honoured 
 by the fullest and best knowledge of its contents, and of its original 
 associations. 
 
 Footnotes and references to learned authors have been avoided. 
 The books referred to, in the paragraphs, are for the most part such 
 as may be found in every good library ; and readers who desire to 
 study any subject further will easily discover the works that will give 
 them efficient help. 
 
 Quotations are made from other authors with a threefold object 
 in view : (i) To support the explanation that is suggested by due 
 authorities. (2) To suggest other explanations than that which 
 seems most acceptable to the writer of the paragraph. And (3) to 
 relieve the sense of freshness and strangeness which may be caused 
 by some of the solutions that are offered. There are many cases in 
 which the explanation will occasion surprise, and even resistance. In 
 such cases the support of some honoured and trusted name will 
 ensure that the suggestions made are, at least, calmly and candidly 
 considered. 
 
 May our readers find, in the study of this * Handbook/ what we 
 have found in the preparation of it, an ever-enlarging knowledge of, 
 and an ever-deepening reverence for, that Word which, * inspired of 
 God, is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for 
 instruction which is in righteousness : that the man of God may be 
 complete, furnished completely unto every good work.' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION ...... i 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTES : . . . . ,11 
 
 1. ON MORAL DIFFICULTIES . . . .II 
 
 2. ON EASTERN CUSTOMS AND SENTIMENTS . . l8o 
 
 3. ON THE MIRACULOUS ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE . . 396 
 
 4. ON THE RELATIONS OF MIRACLE TO NATURE . . 402 
 
 5. ON DEFINITIONS OF MIRACLE .... 403 
 
 6. ON THE VALUE OF MIRACLES AS EVIDENCE . . 404 
 
 7. ON THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD AND HIS APOSTLES 
 
 CONSIDERED AS EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY . 505 
 
 8. ON THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD CONSIDERED AS 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF HIS MISSION . . . 508 
 
 9. ON THE MANIFESTATION OF MIRACULOUS POWER AT 
 
 SPECIAL TIMES . . . . . 509 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES RELATING TO MORAL SENTIMENTS. 
 OLD TESTAMENT . . . . . 15 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT . . . . . -145 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES RELATING TO EASTERN CUSTOMS AND 
 SENTIMENTS. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT ...... 183 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT . . . . . -346 
 
 SECTION III. 
 DIFFICULTIES RELATING TO THE MIRACULOUS. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT . . . . . .407 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT . . , . . . 511 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE Roman Emperor, Diocletian, found it impossible to uproot 
 Christianity unless he could destroy the Christian books. His ex- 
 perience has been repeated in the succeeding generations, and 
 whenever unusual energy has been shown in attacks upon the 
 Christian system, the stress of battle has gathered round the great 
 Christian Book. 
 
 This age is regarded as, in a special sense, a sceptical age ; but its 
 peculiarity seems rather to be that the distinction between those who 
 ittack, and those who defend, the Christian Faith is confused, and 
 Christianity is now too often wounded in the house of its friends. 
 The spirit of scepticism is spread far more widely, and its evil influ- 
 ence is more generally felt, than many of us have yet recognized. 
 Questioning, not in a simple and intelligent spirit of inquiry, but in a 
 self-confident spirit of doubting, is now too often treated as a sign of 
 nental vigour ; and instead of the open attacks on God's Word, on 
 he possibility of a book-revelation, and on the nature and claims of 
 nspiration, such as our fathers had to meet, the too-prevailing fashion 
 >f our times is, by assumptions of superior critical, scientific, and 
 listorical knowledge, and by a scarcely veiled satire, to show up the 
 ;o-called untruthfulness and untrustworthiness of much that is con- 
 ained in God's Word. The pitched battle of former times is ex- 
 banged for a very trying guerilla warfare. We have not so much to 
 lefend the Bible as a whole as to wrestle for possession of the details 
 )f every book, and well-nigh every chapter. 
 
 i 
 
ii INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 The air is full of objections to the contents of our Bible, exaggera- 
 tions of the difficulties which modern readers find in it, and mis- 
 representations of its meanings and teachings. These things are 
 freely heard in homes and society, in workshop, warehouse, and mill, 
 as well as in workmen's clubs and debating societies. They are 
 circulated in the literature provided for the working classes and the 
 young, as well as for those who lay claim to cultured intelligence. 
 
 Precisely what is needed, therefore, in our times is a fair, clear, and 
 reasonable reply to the various objections made against the teachings 
 of the Bible, and a satisfactory explanation of those difficulties which 
 a thoughtful reader finds in it. 
 
 For the great majority of Bible-students such calm and reasonable 
 explanations will prove of more practical value than any kind of 
 dogmatic assertions or arguments that defend Holy Scripture for the 
 sake of particular creeds, and lead into the heated spheres of religious 
 controversy. The removal of felt difficulties by the application ot 
 modern knowledge of Eastern customs and sentiments, by using 
 wisely the results of recent travels and researches in Bible lands, by 
 treating the Bible as a book composed under human conditions, 
 though with an all-controlling Divine inspiration, and by bringing 
 good common-sense and ' sweet reasonableness ' to bear upon the 
 actions of men who were placed in difficult circumstances, and lived 
 in ancient times, will materially aid in restoring and establishing the 
 general confidence in the Bible, as indeed the Word of the living 
 God, the Revelation of His will to men, the treasure-trust of every 
 age, and the all-sufficing rule of faith and of conduct, of religion and 
 of morals, for all humanity. 
 
 The Handbook of Biblical Difficulties is not intended to be an 
 elaborate and abstruse treatise, suited only for the learned few. It 
 is designed to meet the needs of the ever-enlarging classes that are 
 benefiting by the modern improved methods of education, and arc 
 culturing an inquiring disposition, which would know the ' why ' and 
 ' wherefore ' of everything, even of things revealed. 
 
 Throughout the work hearty loyalty to the Inspiration of the 
 Scriptures will be maintained, and all subjects introduced for con 
 sideration will be treated with becoming reverence, and with a con 
 
INTRODUCTION. iii 
 
 stant endeavour to find and set forth those higher moral and spiritual 
 teachings that may be in them. But it will be always kept in view 
 that, as God was pleased to use human minds for the presentation of 
 His truth and will, so He is now pleased to use human minds for the 
 understanding and unfolding of His will. Knowledge of life, of 
 men's motives, of politics local and national, of history, of human 
 character, and of Bible lands and times, will often suggest simple 
 and probable explanations that readily remove the difficulties of 
 which the foes of God's Word are disposed to make so much. 
 
 Anything like the manufacture of difficulties is carefully avoided ; 
 and only such are treated as are suggested in modern sceptical 
 literature, or naturally suggest themselves to thoughtful readers. 
 
 Some difficulties must of necessity be insoluble under our present 
 conditions of knowledge and of mental faculty ; but some of these 
 concern subjects which Biblical criticism and research will, by-and-by^ 
 satisfactorily explain ; and others are matters of purely human specu- 
 lation, which we have forcibly associated with God's Word, but are 
 not, properly speaking, matters of present Divine Revelation ; and 
 these no ingenuity of man can successfully deal with. However 
 valuable and interesting men's thoughts on such matters may be, 
 they are separate and distinct from God's Revealed Word, which 
 must never be made responsible for men's arguments or theories on 
 purely speculative subjects. 
 
 Sometimes, in this work, a solution is suggested which only fairly 
 well meets the difficulty with which it deals ; but in such cases it should 
 be borne in mind that no assertion is made concerning the all- 
 sufficiency of such solutions. There are instances in which all that 
 can possibly be done is the lightening of the pressure of a difficulty 
 by showing that a reasonable explanation can be offered. 
 
 The divisions of the topics of necessity involves some measure of 
 repetition, as the same general principles must be applied to different 
 cases. But this will not be found a disadvantage in a book which, 
 in part, takes a cyclopaedic form. 
 
 Throughout the work a calm and dispassionate tone is preserved. 
 The object aimed at is instruction and suggestion, the direction of a 
 thoughtful and prayerful consideration to some of the hindrances 
 
 I 2 
 
iv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that stand in the way of a full confidence in, and free practical use 
 of, God's Holy Word, that Word which ' holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 II. 
 
 THE VIEW OF THE INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, ON 
 WHICH THE FOLLOWING EXPLANATION OF DIFFICULTIES 
 ARE BASED. 
 
 It is not possible within the limits of an introductory chapter to 
 attempt an essay or treatise on the general subject of Inspiration. It 
 will suffice for our purpose to record, as simply as possible, the points 
 of interest which have come plainly to view out of the varied contro- 
 versies of recent years, and to fix attention on such as have gained, 
 or are gaining, general acceptance. 
 
 The older view, more or less correctly known as the doctrine or 
 Verbal Inspiration, is thus stated by Dr. Knapp : * Inspiration is an 
 extraordinary Divine agency upon teachers while giving instruction, 
 whether oral or written, by which they were taught what and how 
 they should write or speak.' Those who thus defined inspiration 
 fully recognised that God operated on the minds of men in a variety 
 of different ways ; sometimes by audible words, sometimes by direct 
 inward suggestions, sometimes by the Urim and Thummim, and 
 sometimes by dreams and visions. God moved and guided His 
 servants to write things which they could not know by natural means, 
 or led them to write the history of events, which were wholly or 
 partly known to them by tradition, or by the testimony of their con- 
 temporaries, or by their own observation or experience. But the 
 variety in the form and manner of the Divine influence detracted 
 nothing from its certainty. The writers were preserved from error, 
 and influenced to write just so much, and in such a manner, as God 
 saw to be best. 
 
 Round this mode of representing the fact and truth of the Divine 
 Inspiration the controversies of recent generations have been waged, 
 with the result that now five distinct theories are presented, and 
 
INTRODUCTION, v 
 
 belief in any one of these five is regarded as compatible with 
 membership in the Orthodox Christian Church. Archdeacon Farrar 
 gives these theories in brief and sharply-defined terms. 
 
 1. The organic^ mechanical, or dictation theory. It holds that 
 every sentence, every word, nay, even every syllable, letter, and 
 vowel-point of Scripture had been divinely and supernaturally im- 
 parted ; that the authors of the various books, known and unknown, 
 had no share in their composition ; they were but the amanuenses 
 and instruments, ' not only the penmen, but the pens,' of the Holy 
 Spirit being not even the active recipients, but the mere passive 
 vehicles of that which, through them, but with no co-operation of 
 their own, was imparted to mankind. According to this theory, the 
 Bible is in every text absolutely supernatural, transcendently Divine. 
 
 2. The dynamic or power theory. It holds that Holy Scripture 
 was not ' dictated by,' but ' committed to writing under the guidance 
 of,' the Holy Spirit. While recognising the Divine energy, it does 
 not annihilate the human co-operation. The truths are inspired by 
 the Holy Spirit, the words and phrases are the result of the writer's 
 own individuality; the material is of God, the form is of man. 
 According to this theory, the Bible is throughout human, as well as 
 throughout Divine. 
 
 3. The theory of Illumination, understanding that word to suggest 
 various degrees of inspiration. Some distinguish between the grace 
 )f superintendency, the grace of elevation, the grace of direction, and 
 :he grace of suggestion. According to this theory, the Bible is 
 Divine, but in different degrees. 
 
 4. The theory of essential, as distinguished from plenary inspira- 
 ion. It holds that the Bible contains the word of God, that it is the 
 ecord of a Divine revelation, and the authors were inspired by the 
 rloly Spirit ; but it confines this inspiration to matters of doctrine, 
 norality, and faith. The accidental allusions of Scripture, and its 
 )assing phrases, need not be treated as inspired. According to this 
 heory, the Bible is only Divine in matters of faith. 
 
 5. The theory of ordinary inspiration. It holds that the action of 
 he Holy Spirit, as exercised in the inspiration of Scripture, is not 
 f enerically distinct from the ordinary influence of that Holy Spirit 
 
vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 upon the heart and intellect of all Christian men, which all admit to 
 be analogous to it. Each book and passage of Scripture must be 
 tested by its inherent consistency with that which we learn of God's 
 will from His revelation of Himself, above all in the life of Christ. 
 According to this theory the Bible is inspired, but not always 
 miraculous. 
 
 (For fuller explanations of these theories, see articles in 'Bible 
 Educator,' vol. i., pp. 205, 206.) 
 
 From this statement of modern opinions it will be seen within 
 what wide limits orthodox thought may now range. In an eclectic 
 spirit the following work is based upon the measure of truth there 
 seems to be in all these theories, while jealously preserving the 
 central truth, that a special Divine fitness was given to the various 
 writers, and a special Divine guidance directed the gathering together, 
 and preserving, of these sacred books. 
 
 In relation to the particular -study of ' Biblical Difficulties,' certain 
 features of the Book have been set in prominence. Brief notice may 
 be taken of the following : 
 
 i. The individuality of the agents employed is plainly impressed 
 on their several works. The style of this man and that is evidently 
 retained in their compositions ; and when this fact is thought out, it 
 comes to view that the measure of knowledge of each writer, his very 
 modes of thinking, and the personal meaning he attaches to particular 
 words, are kept and used. A writer never loses his individuality by 
 becoming an inspired writer; and what he writes must, in part at 
 least, be judged by the application of ordinary literary rules and 
 standards. This point is kept in view, and many difficulties con- 
 nected with composition and language find their solution in the light 
 of it. 
 
 ' The employment of the human mind as the agent, and of humar 
 language and writing as the instruments, necessarily involves r 
 measure of fallibility in the record of the revelation. It ought 
 indeed, to be distinctly borne in mind that there is no necessary, 01 
 even reasonable, connection between a man's being the subject of t 
 special Divine communication and his subsequent universal infalli 
 bility ; nor can we have the assurance of such infallibility unless w< 
 
INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 could insure, not only the presence of the Divine Spirit in the man, 
 but also the absence of everything else.' 
 
 2. Seeing that man is endowed with faculties by Nature, which 
 enable him to search out and know everything connected with 
 Nature necessary for his individual welfare, and for the welfare of the 
 race ; and seeing that such ' searching out ' is a necessary condition 
 of his intellectual and social development, it is unreasonable for him 
 to expect, and it would be injurious for him to receive, an infallible 
 revelation on matters of science, observation, philosophy, or history. 
 And the Bible never assumes that it bears any such character. Dr. 
 Angus says : i We must not expect to learn anything from Scripture, 
 except what it is, in a religious point of view, important for us to 
 know. Some seek the "dead among the living" (as Lord Bacon 
 phrased it), and look into the Bible for natural philosophy and 
 human science.' 
 
 But it follows from this that the ancient books of our Scripture 
 contain the ethical, scientific, social, and governmental notions of the 
 ages in which they were severally written ; and that very much 
 recorded in the Bible must be seen in the light of ancient sentiments 
 and early limitations of knowledge. By the application of this prin- 
 ciple many Bible difficulties find satisfactory solution. 
 
 3. In the sphere of morals man is placed under two serious dis- 
 abilities. By his very constitution he is made dependent on God for 
 the distinctions between right and wrong ; and by his own attempt at 
 self-rule, and consequent experience of evil and its consequences, he 
 has blinded himself so that he confuses the distinctions which God 
 sets before him. In the sp ere, therefore, of morals and religion, 
 where man is especially weak, there is pressing need for an infallible 
 Divine revelation, which can guide with authority man's conduct and 
 opinion. 
 
 It is reasonable, therefore, to expect moral and religious counsels 
 and truths at the heart of historical events, and of incidents associated 
 with individuals ; and a surface Bible difficulty is often removed when 
 we can see the higher moral and spiritual purpose for which the 
 events are recorded. 
 
 4. Remarks will be found elsewhere on the progressive character of 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the Divine Revelation, and on the distinction between the truth and 
 the setting that truth may need for its adaptation to a particular 
 people, at a particular time. 
 
 5. It is only necessary further to call to mind that the Bible cannot 
 fail to retain the impressions made by the editing of its various con- 
 tents, and its translation from one language into another. Words in 
 different languages are not always precise equivalents, and effective 
 relief of difficulties in Bible expressions is often gained by consulting 
 the translation into another tongue. 
 
 Without more closely denning a theory of inspiration, in view of 
 the treatment pursued in this * Handbook of Biblical Difficulties,' it 
 may be said that a human element is recognised in the Bible, as we 
 have it ; that this human element is the main cause of the perplexities 
 which earnest and devout persons find in studying it ; that these 
 human errors may be discovered and corrected by human skill, and 
 with the aid of human knowledge ; that the removal of difficulties 
 will only make the pure revealed will of God shine out with fuller, 
 clearer rays ; and that a faithful effort to correct the human mistakes 
 in God's Word, and to relieve it of burdensome perplexities, can be 
 made consistently with a most reverent love for it as the one, only, 
 and all-sufficient revelation of God's will, of God, of man, of sal- 
 vation, of faith, and of duty, for the entire human race. 
 
 A. J. Scott suggestively writes : ' There is, then, anterior to Scrip- 
 ture, a manifold revelation of God. Of this, Scripture is a history 
 and an exposition. We have seen how it recounts and expands the 
 Divine manifestations in creation, in providence, in miracles, in 
 human conscience, in inspired thoughts, words, and works. We lose 
 the lesson of great part of the Bible if we regard it merely as an 
 inspired and authoritative announcement to us noiv ; not historically, 
 as recording, for our example, the condition of human spirits under 
 the power of Divine inspiration of old.' 
 
 And Isaac Taylor has the following fine passage on the Bible, 
 which is well worthy of being commended to the attention of our 
 readers : 'As a human work, as a collection of ancient treatises, 
 letters, and histories, composed by almost as many authors as there 
 are separate pieces, it is plainly liable to all the ordinary conditions 
 
INTR OD UCT1ON. ix 
 
 of other ancient literature ; and not merely to the critical, but to the 
 logical conditions that belong to the products of the human mind ; 
 and, of course, when categorically interrogated for its evidence in 
 relation to certain abstract positions, derived, not from itself, but 
 from a variable theological science, will yield not a few apparent 
 contrarieties. This would be the case even were the Bible the work 
 of a single author. But the Bible claims no respect at all as an 
 authority in religion, unless it be received as, in the fullest sense, a 
 Divine work. As such it must have its peculiar conditions, and the 
 most important of these spring from the fact that the Scriptures 
 contain true information, explicit or implied, concerning more 
 systems than one, and more orders of causation than one. . . . The 
 harmony of the various portions will never come within the range of 
 the methods of human science ; for human science is drawn from 
 one system only, and is vague and imperfect, even in relation to that 
 one system.' 
 
 An unconscious testimony to the uniqueness may we not say to 
 the Divine inspiration of the Bible is recorded by Reville, an 
 advocate of French Rationalism, in an essay in the c Revue des Deux 
 Mondes.' * One day the question was started in an assembly, What 
 book a man condemned to a life-long imprisonment, and to whom 
 but one would be allowed, had better choose to take into the cell 
 with him ? The company consisted of Catholics, Protestants, philo- 
 sophers, and even Materialists, but all agreed that his choice would 
 fall only on the Bible.' Surely a distinguished tribute to the Bible 
 a tribute not merely to its intellectual excellence, but also to its 
 religions importance. 
 


 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 DIFFICULTIES RELATING TO MORAL SENTIMENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 THE so-called ' moral difficulties ' of the Old Testament Scriptures 
 are, to a very large extent, created by those who cannot recognise 
 that Divine revelation has been given to men in stages, with an 
 evident progression towards completeness, and in each stage with 
 precise adaptation to the associations and the capabilities of the age. 
 The truth of the ' accommodation ' of Divine revelation to the times 
 in which it is given, and to the circumstances and associations and 
 mental capacities of the people to whom it is addressed, Bible readers 
 have gravely hesitated to receive. It is now, however, becoming a 
 more familiar truth, and it is found to be practically efficient for the 
 removal of some of the most perplexing Old Testament difficulties. 
 
 One of the most cautious and judicious writers of the modern 
 school of religious thought is the late Frederic Myers, M.A., of 
 Keswick. He says : ' Not only is there progression in the revelation 
 of the Bible, but also accommodation. By accommodation is meant 
 not merely the use of sensible images and purely human expressions 
 in the conveyance of spiritual ideas, or of types and symbols, and 
 parables and allegories, in the exhibition or explanation of invisible 
 realities ; but more than this, namely, the temporary permission and 
 sanction of existing modes of thought and feeling with regard to 
 religious truth and duty, which were not merely inadequate but 
 partially untrue, and which it was intended subsequently to supersede 
 by fuller revelations. The earlier anthropomorphic representations 
 of Deity are of this kind ; and, indeed, throughout the whole law of 
 Moses, God is spoken of in terms which require a translation into 
 other language with which the later revelations have furnished us 
 
12 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 before we can heartily accept them as Divine. It is only, indeed, on 
 this principle of accommodation that we can learn willingly to 
 associate some portion of the Hebrew Scriptures with the revelations 
 of the Gospel of Christ 
 
 ' And when we turn from the region of Truth to that of Morality, 
 we find this assumption still more necessary. We find the polygamy 
 of the Patriarchs and of David and of Solomon, and the warrior 
 spirit of the Judges, and many acts of treachery and of cruelty, 
 from Jael to Jehu, sanctioned rather than rebuked by prophetic 
 communications. 
 
 ' For of all the difficulties which present themselves in our reading 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, by far the most urgent is the contradiction 
 which we feel between much of the spirit which was there sanctioned 
 and approved, and that which is the first commandment of the New. 
 This has been so frequently and so forcibly felt by many in all ages 
 by the most pious, as well as by the less so that it has been a 
 constant subject of difficulty and discussion. In the earliest ages of 
 the Church this was so much the case that the Old Testament was 
 supposed by many to have had an origin the most opposed to 
 Divine. ... So long as the principle of progression and accom- 
 modation in God's revelations is not recognised but rejected, there 
 will always seem to some a certain measure of reasonableness and 
 healthy moral instinct in the distaste which is felt towards much of 
 the spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures. In such case no explanations 
 or expositions will fail to remove the first impressions conveyed by 
 the fact of the slaughter of the Canaanites being said to be in its 
 details the command of the Most High; nor will enable us to 
 reconcile with the later revelations of Deity the other suggestions 
 and approvals which we find ascribed to God in the histories of 
 several of the Judges ; or the commands which were given, and the 
 spirit which was exhibited, by several of the most conspicuous of the 
 prophets. The execrations of several of the Psalms ever have 
 appeared, and ever will appear, incongruous with that peculiar spirit 
 which the Christian is to be of, while many of the habits 
 and practices and views of the most approved of old time will 
 obviously not bear to be transferred to our conception of any New 
 Testament saint. So long as we are not permitted to believe that 
 God gave precepts of Duty and revelations of Truth to his people of 
 old only as they could bear them, and tolerated the co-existence and 
 commingling of much darkness of the natural man with the special 
 illuminations of His Spirit, so long we cannot but contrast, and 
 contrasting pronounce in many parts as contradictory, the spirit of 
 
DIFFICULTIES AND MORAL SENTIMENTS. 13 
 
 the kingdom which was of this world and the spirit of that kingdom 
 which was not of this world the spirit of a Joshua, a Samson, or an 
 Elisha with the spirit of a Peter, a John, or a Paul.' 
 
 The moral difficulties dealt with in this section concern either (i) 
 :he imperfect sentiments of a particular age; or (2) questions of 
 :asuistry, or the exceptions which must be made to moral rule under 
 pressing exigencies ; or (3) the infirmities and errors of those who 
 nay, on the whole, be called good ; or (4) the difficulties created by 
 inthropomorphic and anthropopathic representations of God. 
 
 It is not usually found an easy thing to distinguish carefully 
 Detween the great foundation moral laws which God has prescribed 
 for man as man, and for man in his more personal and family rela- 
 :ions, and those bye-laws which man has himself arranged for the 
 ordering of society and the relations of the several nations, and 
 vvhich may be, more or less, excellent adaptations of the Divine laws, 
 but must be in precise adjustment to the sentiments and circum 
 stances of each particular age and people. God may approve of 
 nan's bye-laws for the age and condition, but we must not assume 
 nore than a temporary and conditional approbation. Many of the 
 permitted things of the Old Testament are allowed because of their 
 igreement with man's accepted bye-laws, and not because they are 
 ibsolutely right. 
 
 The questions of casuistry are so many and so subtle as to have 
 Become the basis of a science. Under some circumstances all 
 noralists admit that the laws of truthfulness may be relaxed ; the 
 prisoner may deceive to get out of his dungeon; the general may 
 deceive to gain an advantage in war. So far as universal sentiment 
 illows a departure from moral rules for the preservation of life and 
 lonour, this excuse may be applied to the actions of the men and 
 <vomen of the Old Testament. 
 
 It is not always sufficiently recognised that, in using men as the 
 igents for carrying out His purposes, God employs moral beings, who 
 Dut character into the method of their obedience. God orders the 
 :hing, but man finds the particular way of doing it. And so God 
 nay approve and reward the thing done, while at the same time He 
 nay disapprove the way in which it was done, and even punish the 
 igent for the sin in his method of doing it. An illustration of this 
 nay be found in the story of the violent Jehu. 
 
 Historical truthfulness, it should be observed, does not involve 
 inlimited and uncritical commendation. An older notion was, that 
 iverything narrated in Holy Scripture of good men must somehow 
 )e good, and painful efforts were made to find excuses for what were 
 
14 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 manifestly faults, failings, and sins, and should be simply called by 
 their right names. The direct relation of Scripture to the teaching 
 of morals comes out in nothing so impressively as in the fact that the 
 character and conduct of the persons introduced are fully and 
 honestly detailed. In the ordinary biographies of gifted and good 
 people we always have one-sided pictures. The human faults are 
 hidden or slurred over, and palliated. The effort of many biographers 
 is to present a fancy picture of a life on which lies no stain ; and so, 
 in the ordinary biography, there may be much intellectual teaching, 
 and much inspiration to seeking after high and noble attainments, 
 but there is seldom direct moral teaching. Exactly the opposite is 
 true of the Scriptures. Their mission is moral ; so they give us the 
 men as they really were, and expect us to call their moral failings by 
 their right names, and to learn from their sins as well as from their 
 virtues. 
 
 Only one point more need be noticed. The severities of Eastern 
 and ancient methods in dealing with individuals under kingly tyran- 
 nies, and with cities and armies in war-times, create constant sur- 
 prise and offence. But two things should be kept in mind: (i) the 
 small value that has always been put on life in Eastern countries; and 
 (2) that the sentiment of humanity in relation to war is almost en- 
 tirely a product of our highly civilized and peace-loving age. Even 
 in the times of our grandfathers, horrible deeds were done in India 
 and Spain, at the sack of conquered cities, against which the senti- 
 ment of their age did not greatly revolt, and which even now seem to 
 us but the weak side of heroic deeds. In view of such things it 
 should not be difficult for us rightly to regard the harrowing details of 
 ancient warfare. * 
 
 Writing of Jael's dreadful and treacherous deed, Dr. Arnold, of 
 Rugby, says : ' The spirit of the commendation of Jael is that God allows 
 largely for ignorance where He finds sincerity ; that they who serve 
 Him honestly up to the measure of their knowledge are, according to 
 the general course of His providence, encouraged and blessed ; that 
 they whose eyes and heart are still fixed on duty and not on self are 
 plainly that smoking flax which He will not quench, but cherish 
 
 rather until it be blown into a flame Right and good it is 
 
 that we should condemn the acts of many of those commended in 
 the Old Testament, for we have seen what prophets and righteous 
 men for many an age were not permitted to see ; but no less right 
 and needful it is that we should imitate their fearless zeal, without 
 which we, in our knowledge, are without excuse ; with which they, 
 by their unavoidable ignorance, were even in their evil deeds 
 blessed. 
 
DIFFICULTIES RELATING TO MORAL 
 SENTIMENTS. 
 
 God represented as employing a Lying Spirit. 
 
 I KINGS xxii. 22, 23 : 'And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit 
 in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt entice him, and shalt 
 prevail also ; go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying 
 spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets ; and the Lord hath spoken evil con- 
 cerning thee.' (Rev. Ver.} 
 
 Difficulty. How can we conceive of God as using untruthful and 
 evil agencies for carrying out of His purposes ? 
 
 Explanation. We should distinctly see that this is part of a 
 vision granted to Micaiah, and is in no sense intended to be a 
 description of what had actually taken place in the upper world. 
 Apologues, fables, parables, and visions are misused when they are 
 treated as literally descriptive. It is characteristic of the Eastern 
 mind that nqthing can be stated in plain, prosaic, logical terms. The 
 Eastern is always carried away with the desire to ' make a picture of 
 t,' but no importance attaches to the figures and situations of the 
 oicture, beyond the power they may have in carrying to other minds 
 :he point, the fact, the truth with which the speaker may be dealing. 
 In this vision we must be very careful not to force meaning into 
 vhat is mere setting, mere background. 
 
 Dean Stanley brings out the true points of this speech of Micaiah's. 
 In the vision which he describes, we feel that we are gradually 
 Irawing nearer to the times of the later prophets. It is a vision 
 vhich might rank amongst those of Isaiah or of Ezekiel. . . . Above, 
 le sees the God of Israel on His throne, as the kings on their thrones 
 )efore the gate of Samaria. His host, as theirs, is all around Him. 
 There is a glimpse into the truth, so difficult of conception in early 
 iges, that even the Almighty works by secondary agents. Not by 
 
16 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Himself, but by one or other of His innumerable hosts ; not by these 
 indiscriminately, but by one, to whom is given the name of 'the 
 spirit.' Not by any sudden stroke of vengeance, but by the very 
 network of evil counsel which he has woven for himself, is the King 
 of Israel to be led to his ruin. The imagery of the vision of Micaiah 
 is the first germ of the prologue of Job, and conveys the same exalted 
 glance into the unseen guidance of good and evil by the same over- 
 ruling Hand.' 
 
 The ' Speaker's Commentary ' supports the view taken in the first 
 paragraph. ' It may be doubted whether we ought to take literally, 
 and seek to interpret exactly, each statement of the present narrative. 
 Visions of the invisible world can only be a sort of parables ; reve- 
 lations, not of the truth as it actually is, but of so much of the truth 
 as can be shown through such a medium. The details of a vision, 
 therefore, cannot safely be pressed, any more than the details of a 
 parable. Portions of each must be accommodations to human modes 
 of thought, and may very inadequately express the realities which 
 they are employed to shadow forth to us.' 
 
 When the passage is thus relieved of any directly historical or 
 descriptive features, there yet remains the difficulty that God appears 
 to be working out His purposes by the use of evil agencies. 
 
 God is often said in Scripture to do what we are to understand 
 Him as permitting and overruling. He who is supreme Governor of 
 the world has to deal with the fact that there are evil forces, products 
 of man's self-will, working in the world, and that much of human 
 conduct is due to the incitement of these evil forces. Ambitions, 
 selfishnesses, deceptions, malice, revenge, conceit, and similar evil 
 things are the keys to men's actions and to men's influence on their 
 fellows. He who proposes to rule the world to righteous issues 
 cannot be indifferent to these things ; He cannot at once resist them, 
 consistently with His purpose of securing the moral recovery of the 
 world by moral means. He can so far accept them, and use them 
 or overrule them to the outworking of His ends, making the wicked- 
 ness, as well as the wrath, of men praise Him. 
 
 What God can thus righteously do may be apprehended by observ- 
 ing the methods which parents and school-teachers find it necessar> 
 sometimes to adopt. In the family or the school certain evil in 
 fluences are known to be at work, but the parent or teacher does no 
 think it wise to interfere for a time. In effect they say, 'Let the 
 evil work itself out into open shame and calamity. Let the evil shov 
 itself in its natural consequences.' We see no wrong in parents anc 
 teachers thus using and overruling existing evil forces. 
 
GOD EMPLOYING A LYING SPIRIT. 17 
 
 In the case of Ahab we have indeed the further difficulty of a lying 
 spirit being spoken of as a person in the Divine employ. But, with- 
 out attempting to deal with the vexed question of the personality of 
 the so-called Satan, it may be remarked that this allusion should be 
 interpreted by the conception, common to all religions recognising 
 the terrible existence of evil in the world, of a spiritual power of evil 
 (called euphemistically ' the spirit ') overruled to work out the judg- 
 ments of God. The absolute subordination of such spirits of evil in 
 every notice of them in the Old Testament precludes all danger of 
 the monstrous dualism of so many Eastern religions. 
 
 The point to keep in mind is, that Ahab was a man actually under 
 the Divine sentence, but his sentence was to be executed in the 
 ordinary way of Providence, and not by a special visitation. If, 
 through the vision of Micaiah, we are permitted to see the course and 
 working of those providences, it is that Ahab and his people might 
 fail to see Divine judgment in what would look so much like a mere 
 accident of the battle-field. Jezebel's dreadful death would not be 
 misunderstood; but Ahab's more ordinary death might be. So we 
 must be plainly shown that it also was a carrying out of the Divine 
 sentence on the man whose covetous soul was stained with the blood 
 of the innocent. 
 
 Ewald gives the above explanation in the following sentences : 
 Micaiah, c in unmistakable language, designated the spirit of the 
 false prophet as the Divine instrument for deluding and seducing 
 Ahab into the impending war. The cause of Ahab's being seduced 
 into marching on the expedition in which he is doomed to fall, is, in 
 the last resort, Jahveh Himself, against whom he has so deeply erred. 
 But, as the best instrument for that purpose, Jahveh employs the 
 spirit, consequently the spirit of the false prophets. From these truths 
 arises the grand representation in i Kings xxii. 19-23, which in vivid- 
 ness and power rivals that in Job i. 6, etc., and yet only carries into 
 further detail the briefer utterance of Isa. xix. 14.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth says : ' God punishes Ahab by means of his 
 own sin. He " chooses " Ahab's " delusions " as the means of Ahab's 
 destruction, and makes Ahab's own backslidings to reprove him. 
 Ahab had preferred lies to Him who is the Truth ; and He who is the 
 Truth will make the lies which Ahab prefers to be the instruments 
 of punishing him who love them, and of avenging the cause of Him 
 who is the Truth.' 
 
 Matthew Henry gives the following wise warning to the readers of 
 this narrative : ' The matter is here represented after the manner of 
 men. We are not to imagine that God is ever put upon new counsels, 
 
i8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 
 or is ever at a loss for means whereby to effect His purposes, nor that 
 He needs to consult with angels, or any creature, about the methods 
 He should take, nor that He is the author of sin, or the cause of any 
 man's either telling or believing a lie.' 
 
 The Assassination of Eglon. 
 
 JUDGES iii. 15, 20, 21 : ' But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, 
 the Lord raised them up a saviour, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a man 
 left handed .... And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. And 
 he arose out of his seat. And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the sword 
 from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.' 
 
 Difficulty. This assertion that Ehud's act was done in fulfilment 
 of a Divine commission strangely 'confuses our minds concerning the 
 shameful wickedness of all assassinations, but more especially of treach- 
 erous ones. 
 
 Explanation. As in so many other cases, we must distinguish 
 in this record between the actual facts that took placeand the senti- 
 ment entertained about those facts at the time, or when, a little later, 
 they were reviewed and recorded by the author of our Scripture nar- 
 rative. So far as the Bible is a book produced under ordinary human 
 conditions, we must treat it as we do other books. We always en- 
 deavour to distinguish between the facts which an author may give 
 and the opinions about those facts which he may think it right to 
 express. We accept his facts, but we may possess clearer light and 
 fuller knowledge, and, in consequence, we may have quite different 
 opinions about the facts. 
 
 Writing about Ehud with the sentiments of that age, and with the 
 special ideas and prejudices of a Hebrew, the author of this book of 
 Judges gives us both historical facts and his opinions about them. 
 But we, knowing more fully the mind of God, and having His fuller 
 revelation, cannot but criticise his opinions. We see no signs of a 
 special commission to assassinate given by God to Eglon. Patriotism 
 produces such deliverers over and over again in the world's history. 
 No one ventures to assert that any Divine direction was given to Brutus, 
 who assassinated Julius Caesar, or to Charlotte Corday, who assassi- 
 nated Marat. 
 
 Treachery and assassination can never be else than grievously 
 offensive to God. It is crime against man, against social order, and 
 against His rule ; and no circumstances can possibly make assassina- 
 tion a right or a good thing. All that we can say is, that He who 
 overrules both men's evil and men's good can make even the results 
 of men's treachery and murder work towards the fulfilment of His 
 
THE ASSASSINATION OF EGLON. 19 
 
 gracious purposes. Ehud may have thought himself swayed by a 
 Divine impulse ; a delivered people may have put a glamour round 
 his act, and spoken of it as religious as well as patriotic ; but nothing 
 can prevent our calling his deed what it really was a foul, treacherous, 
 and dreadful murder. The wickedness of it no sort of explanation 
 should be permitted to relieve. 
 
 Kitto well says : ' We cannot praise his achievement, nor sympathize 
 with it, attended as it was by circumstances of barbarity and deceit. 
 But some allowance may be made for the views, different from ours, 
 but into which human nature is still prone to relapse, of the obliga- 
 tion or rights of patriotic enthusiasm.' 
 
 Starke says : ' Ehud kills Eglon, the tyrant of Israel ; yet he is not 
 properly a murderer, but only a warrior. However, it is better to 
 conquer as Othniel and Gideon conquered. He did it, not for private 
 revenge, nor from fanaticism, but for the just freedom of Israel and its 
 religion. God raised him up, but yet the Word of God does not 
 approve his deed. He was a deliverer of Israel, but there hangs a 
 shadow, nevertheless, over his official activity. Therefore, no mur- 
 derous passion can appeal to Him. By Him no tyrant-murder, no 
 political assassination, is exculpated.' 
 
 This subject is very wisely and suggestively treated by Lord Arthur 
 Hervey, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, in a note in the ' Speaker's 
 Commentary.' ' Many commentators defend Ehud's action in stabbing 
 Eglon on the ground of his having a direct command from Almighty 
 God to do so, which, they would argue, justified the action in the 
 same way as the execution of a legal sentence is justified by the 
 authority of a State. But this is in every sense most unsafe and un- 
 warrantable ground to take. The true solution of the difficulty seems 
 to lie in distinguishing between two wholly distinct things God's 
 providential government of the world and God's moral law. God 
 providentially brings about His own purposes by the good actions of 
 men, by their bad actions, and by actions of all the various shades 
 between good and bad (Gen. xxvii. 9, 10, etc. ; 1. 20 ; Acts ii. 23). 
 But this has nothing whatever to do with the right or wrong of such 
 actions. That is decided solely by God's immutable moral law. In 
 judging, however, of the nature of an action in its relation to the 
 agent, there are many considerations which must greatly modify our 
 judgment. Acts of violence or cunning, for instance, done in an 
 age when the whole human society applauded such acts, when the 
 best men of the age thought them right, and when men were obliged 
 to take the law into their own hands in self-defence, is a very different 
 thing from the same acts done in an age when the enlightened con- 
 
 2 2 
 
20 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 science of men generally condemn them, and when the law of the 
 land and the law of nations give individuals adequate security. The 
 
 application of these principles to Ehud's history is obvious 
 
 We can admire Ehud's faith and courage and patriotism without being 
 blind to those defective views of moral right which made him and 
 his countrymen glory in an act which in the light of Christianity is a 
 crime. It is remarkable that neither Ehud nor Jael are in St. Paul's 
 list in Heb. xi. 32.' 
 
 It is interesting to find Ehud's act almost precisely repeated in 
 modern history. LEstoile, quoted by Guizot in his ' History of 
 France,' tells of the assassination of Henry III. of France by the 
 Dominican monk Jacques Clement, who had provided himself with a 
 commission from a friend of the King. 'On Tuesday, Aug. i, at 
 8 a.m., the King was told that a monk desired to speak with him. 
 The King ordered him to be admitted. The monk entered, having 
 in his sleeve a knife, unsheathed. He made a profound reverence to 
 the King, who had just got up, and had nothing but a dressing-gown 
 on, and presented him despatches from the Count de Brienne, saying 
 that he had further orders to tell the King privately something of im- 
 portance. Then the King ordered those who were present to retire, 
 and began reading the letter. The monk, seeing his attention en- 
 gaged, drew his knife from his sleeve, and drove it right into the 
 King's small gut, below the navel, so home that he left the knife in 
 the hole.' 
 
 Elisha's Practical Joke. 
 
 2 KINGS vi. 19 : 'And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is 
 this the city : follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek.' 
 
 Difficulty. Was not such practical joking quite unworthy of a 
 prophet of the Lord ; and in carrying it out did not ElisJia speak 
 untruthfully! 
 
 Explanation. Mattheiv Henry gives the best suggestion towards 
 the true estimate of this incident. He says : ' They thought to make 
 a prey of him ; but he made fools of them, perfectly played with them, 
 so far was he from fearing them or any damage by them.' Under 
 certain circumstances playfulness may be the best spirit in which to 
 meet a difficulty. Nothing gives confidence, and removes fear in 
 time of danger, like the cheerful, merry spirit. That is one of the 
 lessons taught us by the career of Samson, who lived at a time 
 when the Philistines were crushing the very heart out of the people 
 of Israel. Samson helped them to laugh at the Philistines, on whom 
 
ELISHA' S PR A CTICAL JOKE. 2 1 
 
 lie played tricks, and the laugh relieves fear. In much the same 
 way the King of Israel was at this time fearing the Syrians, and 
 Elisha did an important thing by turning the laugh upon them. 
 Witnessing for Jehovah, it was needful that he should show his 
 absolute confidence in the Divine defence. He could not show it 
 more effectually than by actually playing with the army which had 
 come to take his life. 
 
 The incident may be further explained from another point of view. 
 The King of Syria had been trying stratagems, so Elisha only pays 
 him back with his own coin, and wins the triumph over him by 
 adopting his own methods. The King of Syria planned secret 
 ambush again and again, but of his schemes Elisha duly informed 
 the King of Israel. Then the Syrian sent secretly to spy out where 
 Elisha was, and having found his temporary lodging, by a swift night- 
 march surrounded the place, and thought to seize his person. It 
 was a trick. It might well have caused fear : it did in the case of 
 the servant. Elisha met stratagem by stratagem ; instead of waiting 
 for the army to seize him, he went boldly out to them, as if he were 
 the head man of the village, told them they had come to the wrong 
 place, and he would guide them to the man whom they sought. 
 
 The untruthfulness of Elisha's words can only be excused by the 
 universally recognised permissions of a state of war. Efforts have 
 indeed been made to show that Elisha kept within the bounds of 
 strict truth ; that his home was not at Dothan, but at Samaria, to 
 which place he led the army. It is better, however, to accept the 
 narrative as it stands, without such questionable explanations. 
 Untruth has been held by all moralists to be justifiable towards a 
 oublic enemy. Where we have a right to kill, much more have we 
 i right to deceive by stratagem.' 
 
 Apart from the miraculous feature of the story the strange delusion 
 vhich came over the Syrians, like a mental blindness we can 
 Mainly see that they were outwitted ; and the playful manner in which 
 :his was done was in harmony with the homely spirit of Elisha, and 
 effective in removing from the nation all fear of its irritating and 
 [uarrelsome neighbour. The narrative also helps us to realize the 
 /ery important truth, that God is never limited in His methods; He 
 :an save by many or by few ; in stern ways of destruction, or in 
 ighter ways of playful stratagem, if so He pleases. 'Nothing is too 
 lard for the Lord.' 
 
22 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The Gibeonite Wiliness. 
 
 JOSHUA ix. 3, 4 : ' But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had 
 done unto Jericho, and to Ai, they also did work wilily, and went and made as if 
 they had been ambassadors.' 
 
 Question. How was it that Joshua was deceived with such a very 
 transparent device^ and acted with so little consideration! 
 
 Answer. Because he trusted to his own judgment, and did not 
 seek counsel from God. The lesson of the narrative is precisely this 
 that even the man of God is weak when he ' follows the devices 
 and desires of his own heart,' and fails from that constant, immediate, 
 and direct reference of all things to God which is the essential 
 characteristic of his life. Joshua had to learn, by a humiliating ex- 
 perience, the very lesson which our Lord taught His disciples : 
 * Without Me ye can do nothing.' 
 
 It seems that the ' situation and character of Gibeon placed it in 
 an exceptional position. Planted at the head of the Pass of Beth- 
 horon, and immediately opposite the opening of the Pass of Ai, it would 
 have been the next prey on which the Israelite host would have 
 sprung. Their device is full of a quaint humour which marks its 
 antiquity.' 
 
 Thomson, the author of ' Land and Book,' writes thus about this 
 incident : * Gibeon is situated on an isolated and rocky hill of 
 moderate elevation, with plains, valleys, and higher mountains all 
 around it. Remains of ancient buildings, tombs, and quarries in- 
 dicate a large and important city These old Gibeonites did 
 
 indeed " work wilily " with Joshua. Nothing could be better calcu- 
 lated to deceive than their devices. I have often thought that their 
 ambassadors, as described in the narrative, furnish one of the finest 
 groups imaginable for a painter ; with their old sacks on their poor 
 asses, their wine-bottles of goat-skin, patched and shrivelled up in 
 the sun, old, rent, and bound up ; old shoes and clouted upon their 
 feet ; old garments, ragged and bedraggled, with bread dry and 
 mouldy the very picture of an over-travelled and wearied caravan 
 from a great distance. It is impossible to transfer to paper the 
 ludicrous appearance of such a company. No wonder that, having 
 tasted their mouldy victuals, and looked upon their soiled and travel- 
 worn costume, Joshua and the elders were deceived, especially as 
 they did not wait to ask counsel at the mouth of the Lord.' 
 
 It is quite possible that the stratagem by which Joshua seized Ai 
 suggested to the Gibeonites their device. They resolved to meet 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CANAANITES. 23 
 
 craft with craft. Joshua played with dangerous weapons. Others 
 could use them against him, and we may well suppose that the 
 bitter humiliation which came from the deception of these Gibeonites 
 made him resolve henceforward to use only straightforward agencies. 
 The expression used in the Hebrew is * they, too, did work wilily,' 
 as if they had designedly imitated Joshua's own method. 
 
 The Mission of the Canaanites left in the Land. 
 
 JUDGES ii. 21, 22 : 'I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them 
 of the nations which Joshua left when he died ; that by them I may prove Israel, 
 whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers did 
 keep it, or not.' 
 
 Difficulty. Surely this decision of God's provides the Israelites 
 with a reasonable excuse for their subsequent idolatries. They might 
 fairly plead that their God had determined to leave temptation and evil 
 in their midst. 
 
 Explanation. There is scarcely any subject which is so difficult 
 to state with precision and clearness as that of the possibility of 
 God's changing His plans and methods of working. Yet, if He is 
 to adjust His dealings to men of variable wills it is plain that a course 
 of action resolved on in view of one set of men's circumstances must 
 be altered if those circumstances are altered. We do not see that 
 adjustments of decisions and plans in our family life involve any un- 
 truthfulness or uncertainty or untrustworthiness in parents ; we rather 
 look upon such readjustments as signs of parental wisdom. The 
 Divine foreknowledge can make no real difference. Whatever God 
 may absolutely know, His conduct at any given time must be regulated 
 by the circumstances of the time. 
 
 The Israelites, therefore, would have no right to excuse themselves 
 or their idolatries and corruptions by the plea that God had changed 
 His plans in relation to them, and the new plans had put them under 
 serious disability, unless they could show that they had never changed 
 towards Him. If they had so changed, then the new conditions 
 might be no more than wise and necessary readjustments. 
 
 The whole force of the narrative goes to the urging of the fact that 
 Israel had changed first, and because there were new conditions there 
 must be new arrangements. 
 
 That the new relations were both wise and necessary can be 
 readily shown. The allegiance of the people to Jehovah had become 
 a matter of uncertainty. Their profession of allegiance remained, 
 indeed, what it had been ; but the expression of that allegiance, in 
 
24 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 obedience to the Divine commands, was, to say the least, rendered 
 very doubtful. But it must be settled; and settled not by words 
 uttered under the excitements of a great national assembly, but by 
 the Divine observation of the conduct and the spirit of daily life. 
 Then there must be testing. Testing can only come through tempta- 
 tion to evil. Evil and good must be plainly put before men, and 
 their decision must be demanded. This may, however, be one 
 single great act of decision or a continued series of acts. In this 
 particular case God required a series of testings ; and, by leaving 
 the idolatrous Canaanites in close daily association with Israel, put 
 evil and good before the people, asking their daily decision which they 
 would choose. 
 
 If the allegiance of moral beings, who have once fallen, is to be 
 efficiently tested, it can only be by the actual presence of temptation 
 to evil, which compels a constant moral decision. It is the further 
 mystery of the Divine wisdom that what is designed as a test may 
 become the instrument of Divine punishment, and so the vindication 
 of the Divine claims. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth adds another thought. * God in His mercy 
 overrules evil for good. He commanded the Israelites to root out 
 the Canaanites. Israel disobeyed the command ; and God's next 
 purpose is, that good may be derived by Israel from them, that the 
 faith, patience, and steadfastness of Israel may be tried and exercised 
 by them, arid so may receive a reward.' 
 
 Abraham's Prevarication. 
 
 GENESIS xii. 11-13 : ' Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister : that it may be \vell 
 with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee.' 
 
 Question. Can such an incident be recorded in Scripture for our 
 imitation ? 
 
 Answer. It is too easily assumed that what has been preserved 
 in the Bible concerning the actions of good men must all be good ; 
 and so very unworthy efforts have been made to explain or to excuse 
 what can neither be explained nor excused, but must be accepted as 
 failures and faults. We do not expect living good men to show a 
 record absolutely free from blame ; and we need look for no faultless 
 stories concerning the good that are dead. A man may be an 
 example in many things, and a warning in some things. Scripture 
 histories are truthful records : they differ from common histories and 
 biographies in having a distinctly moral intent ; so they do not slur 
 over or hide moral failings, but present them, assuming that we have 
 
ABRAHAM'S PREVARICATION. 25 
 
 standards by which all incidents and actions must be appraised. In 
 Holy Scripture we plainly see that the ' best men are but men- at the 
 best.' Old Testament saints are compassed by infirmity, and are 
 foils that set off the unique glory of the Man, Christ Jesus, who was 
 * holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.' We are not, 
 therefore, called upon to approve of the conduct of Abraham in this 
 instance, if it offends the sense of the truthful and the trustful which 
 has been given us by the regenerating Spirit. 
 
 The sin of Abraham appears to have been a failure in that very 
 "aith for which he is so specially commended. He had not confi- 
 dence in God that He would preserve both himself and Sarah from 
 :he perils to which they would be exposed by going among the 
 icentious Egyptians. Because his trust failed him, he was set upon 
 :rafty devices, and out of the shame they brought him learned 
 mother lesson of faith. 
 
 But Abraham's conduct is not usually judged with fairness and 
 competency of knowledge. It is readily assumed that he hit upon 
 his deception hastily, under pressure of fear; but chapter xx. 13 shows 
 hat Abraham made a definite arrangement with Sarah, when they 
 eft Haran together, that in this way they would meet the perils 
 diich Sarah's unusual beauty might place them in. On two occa- 
 ions the scheme was tried, but exactly how it appeared to Abraham 
 nd his wife the wisest plan to adopt only a better knowledge than 
 ^e have of the sentiments and customs of the age could explain 
 D us. 
 
 Kitto gives some help. It appears that an Eastern king may take 
 ossession of the sisters or daughters of a subject at his pleasure, 
 burning handsome presents as dowries for them. The persons so 
 iken would undergo a process of purification in the harem, which 
 sually lasted for some months (see Esther ii. 12). But to take a 
 lan's wife from him against his will would be such an outrage as 
 /en the Oriental habit of submission to despotic authority would 
 ot long endure. 
 
 Abraham's device seems to have been intended merely to gain 
 me. Such was the beauty of Sarah that there was grave reason to 
 
 ar the report of her would at once reach the king of any country 
 i which they might sojourn, and, with :* high-handed tyranny, 
 
 braham's life might be taken for her sake. Letting her go to the 
 irem as his sister involved no immediate risk for her, and gave him 
 ne to take measures for securing her return to him. 
 
 ' In this practical difficulty Abraham's faith failed. He fell back 
 pon "devices," and lost his trust. The man who is consciously in 
 
26 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Divine hands need not plan and plot, need not devise and 
 equivocate ; he may simply follow the Divine lead with assurance 
 of perfect safety. ' 
 
 Craft is the weak side of the strong Abrahamic race ; the evil into 
 which their characteristic quality runs. Their caution and skill in 
 retaining what they possess, which makes the Jews good bankers and 
 money-lenders, made them suitable for the Divine purpose as de- 
 positaries of the primary religious truths, and their conservators until 
 the fulness of times should come. But caution easily degenerates 
 into craft and guile. In Abraham we find traces of the evil which 
 comes out prominently in Jacob. 
 
 ' Such a mixture of faith and weakness, of trust in God in abandon- 
 ing so much and trust in worldly policy for preservation in a foreseen 
 danger, cannot but make us feel how much of infirmity there was in 
 a character otherwise so noble.' 
 
 The ' Speaker's Commentary ' draws this conclusion : ' We see in 
 the conduct of Abram an instance of one under the influence of 
 deep religious feeling and true faith in God, but yet with a conscience 
 imperfectly enlightened as to many moral duties, and when leaning 
 to his own understanding suffered to fall into great error and sin. 
 The candour of the historian is shown by his exhibiting in such 
 strong relief the dissimulation of Abram as contrasted with the 
 straightforward intregrity of Pharaoh.' 
 
 Some effort has been made to give undue value to the fact that 
 what Abraham wished said was absolutely true. This indeed was 
 the patriarch's own excuse. Sarah was his half-sister. But we 
 must not blind ourselves to the fact that he intended to deceive ; wher 
 he said, 'she is my sister,' he distinctly meant them to understanc 
 ' she is not my wife.' It was a case of untruth fulness, not by th( 
 assertion of what is false, but by the concealing of what is true, S( 
 as designedly to leave a false impression. 
 
 The Entire Destruction of the Canaanite Population 
 
 JOSHUA viii. 26-28 : ' For Joshua drew not back his hand, wherewith h 
 stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of A 
 .... So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation, unt 
 this day.' 
 
 Question. Is not such terrible sternness in strange contradiction i 
 the mercy inculcated elsewhere in the Bible> and even to the instincts i 
 nature ? 
 
 Answer. A reasonable, calm, and careful consideration of th 
 subject will lead us in three directions. It must be first asked, wh; 
 
DESTRUCTION OF CANAANITE POPULATION. 27 
 
 were the prevailing customs of the time in relation to conquered 
 countries ? Then it may be shown that the national condition of the 
 Canaanites called for an overwhelming national judgment. And the 
 outworking of Jehovah's purpose concerning His people necessitated 
 the cleansing of the land they occupied from all idolatrous associa- 
 .ions. 
 
 On the first point, it may suffice to observe that the killing of all 
 .he men, or even of all the population, of a conquered town was the 
 :ommon practice in war. On the ' Moabite Stone,' for instance, 
 King Mesha says : ' I fought against the city (Ataroth, of the tribe of 
 Jad), and took it, and slaughtered all the men, to please Chemosh, the 
 , r od of Moab.' ' I took the town Nebo (from Israel), and put to 
 he sword all its inhabitants, seven chiefs of the tribes .... the 
 vcmen and the children ; for Chemosh had uttered a curse against 
 t.' It might even be urged that Joshua's immediate slaughter of the 
 )eople was merciful in view of the prevailing customs of the age. The 
 bllowing is taken from a boastful inscription recording the deeds of 
 he Assyrian King, Assur-Nasir-Pal, who reigned from B.C. 885 to 
 ;.c. 860 : 
 
 ' They brought me word 
 That the city of Suri had revolted .... 
 Chariots and army I collected. From the rebellious nobles 
 I stripped off their skin and made them into a trophy. 
 Some I left in the middle of the pile to decay ; 
 Some I impaled on the top of the hill, on stakes. 
 I flayed many within view of my land, and 
 Arranged their skins on the walls. 
 I brought Ahiyababa to Nineveh. I flayed him and 
 Fastened his skin to the wall.' 
 
 How directly the estimate formed of actions done in war-times de- 
 ends on the public sentiments prevailing at the time may be brought 
 ome to those who are fifty or sixty years of age, if they recall the 
 npressions they had in early life of the terrible scenes of siege and 
 attle in India and in Spain, and contrast the very different sen- 
 ments with which they now read the siege of Badajoz, the conquest 
 f Mexico, or the horrors of warfare in India. Dr. Geikie well says : 
 The humanity of our day has been attained only by the develop- 
 lent of right feelings through thousands of years, and implies a public 
 mtiment which the world in Joshua's days, and for ages after, was 
 holly unable to comprehend or accept.' 
 
 But we can regard this destruction of the Canaanite population 
 om higher standpoints. It is necessary, however, for us to keep 
 ;ry clearly before us the distinction between the Divine judgment on 
 dividuals for their personal sins and the Divine judgment on public 
 
28 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 bodies for corporate sins, and on nations for national sins. Judgments 
 on nations as such must take national forms, and must be wrought 
 out by such agencies as depressed trade, drought, famine, pestilence, 
 or war things that affect masses of men, and not merely isolated in- 
 dividuals or families. 
 
 It will be freely admitted that the Canaanit.e nations might come 
 into Divine judgment ; that such judgment might decree their 
 extermination ; that the agency employed might be an invading 
 army ; and that this invading army might be the Israelite one. The 
 Canaanites were themselves only sojourners on the soil of Palestine. 
 They only held it for a while during good behaviour. And the 
 only question which really needs to be settled is this: Have we sufficient 
 evidence that the ' iniquity of the Canaanites was full,' and that 
 therefore judgment must take so severe a shape, and could be no 
 longer delayed ? 
 
 As proof that this was their condition we have the very remarkable 
 fact that a premonitory warning had been given to the Canaanites 
 more than four hundred years previously, in the utter destruction of 
 the Cities of the Plain. There, under specially favourable circum- 
 stances, the horrible vices and corruptions of the Canaanites had 
 reached a ripeness which made further delay of judgment impossible. 
 After those four hundred years had passed the condition of the 
 Canaanite population had become, in daring and utterly abominable 
 iniquity, what Sodom had been. Apart, therefore, from any con- 
 sideration of the precise agency used, the utter destruction of the 
 corrupt nation was the inevitable judgment of God. Jericho, the 
 first city utterly destroyed, was the local seat of the worship of 
 Ashtoreth, the consort of Baal, its very name meaning the City ol 
 the Moon, which was the symbol of that goddess. Hence it 
 represented all that was foulest and most revolting in the heathenisrr 
 of the Canaanites. ' The heathenism of Palestine and Syria was sc 
 foul and degrading in every sense, that there is no state, even al 
 this time, which would not put it down, if necessary, by the severesi 
 penalties. Its spread to Rome was bewailed 1500 years later b) 
 the satirists of the day as a calamity marking the utter decay of the 
 times.' 
 
 The other consideration almost requires a treatise. The descen 
 dants of Abraham had been selected by God to preserve in the work 
 the first and foundation-truths of the Unity, Purity, and Spirituality 
 of God. It was therefore necessary that He should aid them ir 
 preserving these truths by surrounding them with all possible helpfu 
 circumstances, by removing from them all mischievous and imperil 
 
DESTRUCTION OF CANAANITE POPULATION. 29 
 
 ling influences. His design was to cleanse Palestine of all its 
 idolatries, idolatrous symbols and relics, and of all its corrupt people, 
 so as to provide a cleansed land, in which His people might safely 
 Iwdl. 
 
 Now the preservation of these foundation-truths was for the whole 
 vorld's sake, through all the ages ; and from this point of view it 
 eems but a very small thing that these mere sections of the 
 Danaanite race should be sacrificed for the whole world's good. 
 7 rom one point of view, they were righteously judged for their 
 lational abominations. From another point of view, they were 
 acrificed to the permanent and eternal well-being of the whole 
 mman race. 
 
 The Israelites failed to carry out fully the Divine purpose. They 
 ^ft relics of Canaanite idolatries and immoralities in the land, 
 nd the result of their neglect brings plainly to view the wisdom 
 nd necessity for the wholesale destruction which had been com- 
 manded. 
 
 The highest 'mercy' often has to take form as 'judgment. 7 
 Also unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for Thou renderest to 
 very man according to his work.' (Psalm Ixii. 12.) 
 
 Jephthah's Vow, and its Fulfilment. 
 
 JUDGES xi. 30, 31, 34-40 : ' Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house 
 meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be the 
 ord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." 
 
 Difficulty. Did Jephthah really offer up his daughter, and must 
 c conceive of God as accepting such a sacrifice T 
 
 Explanation. Two views of this incident have been taken; 
 ese, with their reasons, may be first stated, and then a solution 
 lich may be regarded as satisfactory can be presented. 
 Dr. Hewlett takes the view that Jephthah did not slay his daughter 
 
 sacrifice, but that he separated her from her usual intercourse 
 th human society, and consecrated her wholly to the service of 
 xl. This conclusion rests upon a special reading of verse 31 : 
 'hus shall it be, that that which cometh forth of the doors of my 
 use to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of 
 nmon, shall be to the Lord, andJI will offer Him a burnt offering.' 
 .-ad in this way, the suggestion is that the vow of Jephthah included 
 D acts : the first that of devoting the favourite and trusty servant, 
 
 o might come out to meet him, or even his only, his beloved 
 ;ld to the service of the Lord ; and the second, that of offering a 
 
30 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 burnt-offering as a thanksgiving, as the law provided in such circum- 
 stances (Lev. vii. 12-16). The conclusion further rests on the 
 consideration that human sacrifices were forbidden by the law : alsc 
 on the fact that Jephthah could have gained relief from a singular 01 
 rash vow by the payment of a fine (Lev. xxvii. 1-4). And Dr. Hew 
 lett thinks the custom of the daughters of Israel was, four times t 
 year to go and converse with the daughter of Jephthah the Gil 
 eadite. 
 
 What has recently become known concerning human sacrifices ii 
 the earlier times adds much strength to the arguments of those whc 
 on the other hand, think Jephthah actually offered his daughter as 
 burnt offering. Dr. Kitto, after carefully weighing all that can b 
 said on either side, comes to the following conclusion : ' Wher 
 therefore, we are told that ' Jephthah did with his daughter accorc 
 ing to his vow,' we, in full recollection of all the ingenious explani 
 tions which have been produced, and which we regret that our spac 
 does not allow us to examine, see no alternative but to conclud< 
 although we would gladly avail ourselves of any fair ground of escaj 
 from that conclusion, that he offered her up in sacrifice. This is tf 
 sense conveyed by the ancient versions, and by the text of our ow 
 It is also the statement of Josephus, though he is prone to extenua 
 or suppress that which he holds to be not for the honour of r 
 nation ; while, at the same time, he considers it as a deplorab 
 mistaken and unlawful act. 
 
 Stanley and Ewald support the idea of a literal burnt offerir 
 The latter says : * The Gileadite hero, in the fervour of his wra 
 against the Ammonite king and his zeal for Israel, had vow 
 to sacrifice to Jahveh whatever on his victorious return should fi 
 meet him from his own house. His thought was probably of a he 
 of cattle, or at most of slaves : not that his young daughter and 01 
 child would be the first to meet him. But, on his prosperous reti 
 to Mizpah, forth comes his daughter first from his house, leading 1 
 maidens of the city with dance and song, in celebration of 
 victory. Fearfully is avenged upon the father and ruler the thoug 
 less vow of the soldier of a brutalized age. No Levite or other s; 
 arises to give a different direction to his conscientious resolve, fo 
 is evident that his contemporaries, also trained to barbarism, c 
 sidered the precious sacrifice to be appointed by a higher necessit) 
 fall for the sins of the fatherland. And when such a belief perva 
 even the best, the courage which shrinks not from acting or suffei 
 in obedience to it must be accounted greatness of soul j and equ 
 so on both sides, Even so it is here. Not without bitter grief, 
 
JEPHTHAH 1 S VOW AND ITS FULFILMENT. 31 
 
 ill of resolve, and proud that she should be the sacrifice demanded 
 y Jahveh to save her country, this worthy daughter of a hero, after 
 ewailing her virginity for two months on the mountains among her 
 :>mpanions, accepts the sacrificial death from the hands of her own 
 ther, who in her sacrifices all that is dearest to him.' 
 The 'Iliad' of Homer has a story helpfully like this of Jephthah. 
 iomeneus, of Crete, purchased from Poseidon a prosperous home- 
 ard voyage by the vow to oblige and sacrifice to him whatever should 
 st meet him in his own land. He was consequently obliged to 
 crifice his own son, but was punished by the gods with a plague, 
 id by his fellow-citizens with banishment. 
 
 The most recent study of Jephthah is by Van Lennep, and this is 
 
 interesting and suggestive, that it may be given in full. * Many of 
 
 e ancient heathen offered human victims to their gods. The 
 
 icenicians and the Moabites burned their children to Moloch, and 
 
 e Hebrews repeatedly fell into this form of idolatry (Jer. xxxii. 35 ; 
 
 :ek. xx. 31). Even the polished Greeks were very anciently 
 
 dieted to the same superstition. These cruel rites have long ago 
 
 ^appeared from the lands of the Bible ; but mementos of the 
 
 actice are occasionally met with. Such is a part of the ceremony 
 
 letting the water of the Nile into the canals. The Arabic history 
 
 Ben Ayas contains the following incident, which has probably some 
 
 indation in truth : The Muslim conqueror of Egypt, Amroo, was 
 
 ced permission by the people of that country, at the time of the 
 
 ing of the Nile, to propitiate the river by the offering of a human 
 
 :rifice ; for, said they, " It is our custom on the i3th of the month 
 
 ooneh (June yth) to select a young and handsome virgin; we 
 
 ry her away by force from her parents, and throw her into the Nile 
 
 the spot consecrated to this ceremony." Amroo forbade the cruel 
 
 i, and, instead of the virgin, cast into the Nile a paper, on which 
 
 : Caliph Omar had written a prayer to God to furnish the water of 
 
 river. 
 
 Human sacrifices, indeed, still exist; but they are mostly confined 
 the interior of Africa, whose climate and deserts render it difficult 
 access to the influence of civilization. The existence of human 
 rifices is recognised in the Pentateuch by the provision made for 
 ngular vows," which required the commission of murder. In all 
 es of this nature, money was to be paid instead, according to age 
 I sex. The story of Jephthah and his daughter shows how great 
 asion existed for such a law. The Israelite hero was evidently 
 orant of the legal provision made to meet his case. He lived in 
 very region east of the Jordan where human sacrifices were 
 
32 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 most common, and where Moloch was the ruling Deity. Jephthal 
 was a freebooter, a highway robber ; he had neither priest no; 
 prophet to guide him. His daughter herself was ready to die " For 
 asmuch as the Lord had taken vengeance upon his enemies, even th( 
 children of Ammon." And so, after two months' delay, " he did witl 
 her according to his vow." His family perished ; for she was hi 
 only child, and " had known no man." The extraordinary characte 
 of the occurrence produced a deep impression upon the Israelites 
 which was maintained by the yearly celebration of the day. I 
 became a warning to the Hebrews against rash vows ; and yet sue 
 an immolation of a daughter is far better than the heathen practice c 
 giving her up to the obscene service of the idol temple, or even t 
 the seclusion of a convent, Christian only in name.' 
 
 In further illustration of the view, that Jephthah actually orTere 
 his daughter as a sacrifice, Bishop Hervey, in the ' Speaker's Commei 
 tary,' adds, * If the words, " shall surely be the Lord's," had stoc 
 alone, Jephthah's vow might have been understood like Hannah's 
 But the words which follow preclude any other meaning than th; 
 Jephthah contemplated a human sacrifice. This need not, howeve 
 surprise us, when we recollect his Syrian birth and long resideru 
 in a Syrian city, where such fierce rites were probably common. Tt 
 Syrians and Phoenicians were conspicuous among the ancient heathe 
 nations for human sacrifices. Porphyry, quoted by Eusebius, sayf 
 1 The Phoenicians, in all great emergencies of war, or famine, < 
 drought, used to designate by vote one of their nearest and deare 
 as a sacrifice to Saturn ; and their descendants, the Carthaginiar 
 sacrificed their finest children to the same god.' Eusebius al 
 mentions the annual sacrifice of a virgin to Minerva at Laodicea 
 Syria. In 2 Kings iii. 27 there is a notable example in the saorifi. 
 of his eldest son by the king ofMoab, Gregory Nazianzen accuses ti 
 Emperor Julian of offering human sacrifices, and throwing the bodi 
 into the Orontes in Syria. The worship of * the gods of Syria and t 
 gods of Zidon is mentioned in Jud. x. 6 as prevalent among t 
 Israelites at this time ; and the transfer, under such circumstances, 
 Jehovah of the rite with which the false gods were honoured is ji 
 what one might expect. The circumstance of the spirit of the Lc 
 coming on Jephthah (verse 29) is no difficulty, as it by no mes 
 follows that because the Spirit of God endued him with supernatu 
 valour and energy for vanquishing the Ammonites, He therefore a 
 endued him with spiritual knowledge and wisdom.' 
 
 The arguments in favour of an actual sacrifice decidedly p 
 ponderate. The other explanation could only have been suggest 
 
JEPHTHAHS VOW, AND ITS FULFILMENT. 33 
 
 by a desire to relieve the Bible of even a seeming approval of human 
 sacrifice. But the Scriptures give us truthful records, without imply- 
 ng the commendation of what is recorded. No hint is given of the 
 Divine acceptance of this dreadful burnt offering, or of Jephthah 
 hrough it. There is nothing to commend in Jephthah save the 
 ternness of his zeal, the vigour of his energy, and his firmness in 
 :eeping to his word. 
 
 It is fatal to the idea that the daughter was separated to the service 
 f Jehovah, that no hint of such female dedications is given in 
 cripture, and no provision for such persons was made in the Mosaic 
 conomy. Such a notion could never have entered Jephthah's head. 
 We have no instance of females being devoted to celibacy ; and if 
 lis girl were so devoted, she needed not to ask delay in order to 
 ewail her lot.' Matthew Henry remarks that 'probably the reason 
 hy it is left dubious by the inspired penman whether he sacrificed 
 er or no was that those who did afterwards offer their children might 
 ot take any encouragement from this instance.' Dean Stanley with 
 
 keener sympathy, cleverly remarks : ' Then comes the awful end, 
 om which the sacred writer, as it were, averts his eyes. " He did 
 ith her according to his vow." In her the house of Jephthah 
 ecame extinct.' 
 
 The Prophetic Curse on the Site of Jericho. 
 
 JOSHUA vi. 26 : * And Joshua charged them with an oath at that time, saying, 
 irsed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho : 
 th the loss of his firstborn shall he lay the foundation thereof, and with the loss 
 his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it ' (Rev, Ver.}. 
 
 Difficulty. Is not such a curse on a mere thing or place an 
 pression of human vengeance, on which we cannot suppose the Divine 
 proval to rest ? 
 
 Explanation. Seeing we are taught by signs, symbols, and 
 ^nts, as well as by written or spoken words, we may recognise that 
 >d uses such signs and events for His gracious purposes. Our 
 rd sealed the Divine approval of teaching by events when He 
 sed the fig-tree, which was a symbol of the hypocrite. If the city 
 Jericho was the representative or symbol of something, then the 
 vine dealing with it may have been the.holding forth of some truth, 
 the permanent good of passing generations ; and this appears to be 
 ; explanation of the remarkable curse. Jericho, as the first city of 
 naan taken by the Israelites, was made a representative for ever of 
 ; judgment that must always come upon those who live in defiance 
 God, and in self-willed corruption of life. The bare site of Jericho 
 
 3 
 
34 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 was for ages to impress this lesson : l It is a fearful thing to fall into 
 the hands of the living God.' 
 
 Kitto says : ' This course, of making a monument of a conquered 
 and destroyed city or building, by solemnly interdicting the restora- 
 tion thereof, has not a few parallels in ancient history. Thus the 
 Romans made a decree full of execration against any who should dare 
 at any future time to rebuild Carthage, which had been their rival in 
 empire, and the situation of which was so advantageous as to create 
 the fear that it might be restored. Similar imprecations were 
 pronounced by Agamemnon against such as should rebuild Troy, anc 
 by Croesus against those who should restore Sidene, " according tc 
 ancient custom," says Strabo, by whom the fact is reported.' 
 
 The ' Speaker's Commentary ' has a suggestion intended to meet th( 
 difficulty that Jericho seems to have been inhabited soon after its de 
 struction ; and it shows that the idea of a new city having been buil 
 near, but not exactly on, the old site is a mere imagination. The ' Com 
 mentary ' says that the word translated * buildeth ' is one distinctly 
 meaning 'buildeth the fortifications,' and with this as its eviden 
 meaning the word is repeatedly used in the Moabite inscription 
 * Joshua then speaks in the text as a warrior. He lays a ban on th 
 re-erection of those lofty walls, which had bidden defiance to God' 
 host, and been by God's signal interposition overthrown. The plaii 
 import of i Kings xvi. 34 is, that Kiel, the Bethelite, reckless of th 
 prophecy recorded in our text, began and completed the circumvalk 
 tion of the city a second time. It is obvious that Hiel did not foun 
 a new city, but only fortified an existing one.' 
 
 Joshua himself gave Jericho to the Benjamites, and it was inhabite' 
 in the time of the Judges (see Jud. iii. 13^2 Sam. x. 5). 
 
 Uzzah's Sin and Judgment. 
 
 2 SAMUEL vi. 6, 7 : ' And when they came to the threshing-floor of Naco 
 Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it ; for the ox( 
 stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smo 
 him there for his error ; and there he died by the ark of God ' {Rev. Ver. ). 
 
 Difficulty. Uzzah evidently meant well ; how is it that God d, 
 not recognise and accept his good intentions ? 
 
 Explanation. God may be pleased to teach other men ii 
 pressive lessons through His providential dealings with individua 
 What happens to a man may be vicarious. Though in measu 
 related to his sin, its explanation may be found rather in the influen- 
 exerted on others as a warning. This we can see, and readily adm 
 
UZZAH' S SIN AND JUDGMENT. 35 
 
 n relation to punishments that stop short of death ; but the irremedi- 
 .ble character of death creates difficulty. A man may seem to be 
 lestroyed for the sake of others. 
 
 Our age has lost the impressive sense of God's absolute right in 
 tian, which was a characteristic of Eastern and Hebrew thought. 
 ^he right of kings to the property and life of their subjects was 
 ransferred to God ; and it was understood that man must be ready 
 o serve God in death as well as in life. 
 
 The sin for which Uzzah died was David's ; and Uzzah was a 
 icarious sufferer. He died to awaken David to the importance of 
 *act obedience to God's injunctions. He was an example of dis- 
 bedience in touching the Ark, for which the stumbling of the oxen 
 eemed a good excuse. The example, and the judgment following, 
 pened David's eyes to see his disobedience in putting the Ark on a 
 art, when God had commanded that it should only be carried on the 
 loulders of the Levites. 
 
 God did recognise the good intentions of Uzzah, and we must 
 learly distinguish between the temporal judgment on his failing in 
 ^remonial obedience, and the eternal judgment which comes on 
 ilful^sin. But it was important that a solemn, impressive lesson 
 lould at this time be learned, to the effect that good intentions can 
 ever excuse failures in obedience. Man may persuade himself that 
 >me way which he devises is better than God's way for him ; but it 
 in never be accepted : man must simply obey. Come what may 
 t the Ark fall still Uzzah must not touch it. So regarded, Uzzah's 
 idden*death is one of the most impressive Bible teachings on the 
 scessity for exact obedience a lesson which we need quite as much 
 David did. 
 
 Dr. Edersheim says : ' The arrangements which David had made 
 r the transport of the Ark differed in one most important particular 
 Dm those which God had originally prescribed. According to 
 od's ordinance (Numb, iv.) the Ark was only to be handled by the 
 svites for symbolical reasons nor was any other even to touch it 
 lumb. iv. 15). Moreover, the Levites were to carry it on their 
 oulders, and not to place it in a waggon. But the arrangements 
 lich David had made for the transport of the Ark were those of the 
 athen Philistines when they restored it to Israel (i Sam. vi. 7), not 
 ose of the Divine ordinance. If such was the case on the part of 
 e king, we can scarcely wonder at the want of reverence on the 
 rt of the people. It was a question of the safe transport of a sacred 
 ssel, not of the reverent handling of the very symbol of the Divine 
 2sence.' 
 
 32 
 
36 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Kitto says : ' It was necessary, for His own honour, for the welfan 
 of His people, and for the integrity of the institutions He had com 
 mitted to them, that the Lord should rigidly exact a proper am 
 ordained reverence for the sacred symbols. If at all necessary 
 there was never an occasion in which it could be more so than on thi 
 great public solemnity.' 
 
 Bishop Sanderson has a very valuable note : * This inadvertency o 
 Uzzah, notwithstanding the innocence of his intention, brought dowi 
 the Divine vengeance on his head, which struck him with presen 
 death, before the whole assembly of the people, as the punishment o 
 his presumption. And by this severe stroke upon the first violater o 
 the law, God impressed a dread upon the hearts of men, and gave ; 
 sanction to His commands that no man should attempt, upon an_ 
 pretence whatever, to act in defiance of His law, or boldly to dispens 
 with what God has established.' 
 
 Samson's Sensuality. 
 
 JUDGES xvi. I : ' And Samson went to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and wer 
 in unto her.' 
 
 Question. Can we suppose that the things Samson did met wit 
 the Divine approval ? 
 
 Answer. No hint of any such approval is given in the Scriptur 
 records, and no such approval is implied in the fact that successe 
 were permitted to attend his extraordinary adventures. 
 
 Attention needs to be often drawn to the fact, that the Divine a] 
 probation of a man does not involve the favourable regard of ever 
 action of the man, or of every event in the man's life. In these da) 
 we frequently find marked genius associated with marked frailtie 
 Men who are remarkable for mental, poetical, or artistic gifts ai 
 sometimes morally weak, and the weakness not seldom takes the fon 
 of unrestrained passion and sensual indulgence. Humanity finds, ho^ 
 ever, no difficulty in recognising and accepting the fruits of tf 
 poetical genius of Byron and Shelley, while it expresses the uttermo 
 disgust at the moral looseness of both these men. And we can we 
 understand that God can accept the faithfully^ used physical strengt 
 of Samson, withoutjany kind of approval of his sensuality. 
 
 There is this further to be said : In estimating all persons wl 
 occupy public positions in God's service, we must distinguish betwet 
 their official and their personal goodness. A man may be a goc 
 servant, but a bad man ; a good officer, but evil in private life. Ar 
 in Scripture we find some men are set before us for imitation of the 
 
SAMSON'S SENSUALITY. 37 
 
 >ersonal virtues, while others are only to be imitated so far as they 
 .xecuted with earnestness and skill some public duty. The mission 
 >f Samson is difficult to understand, but it is quite clear that he is 
 :ommended only for the public and national influence for good which 
 ie exerted. 
 
 The notion commonly entertained that men of unusual bodily 
 ize are usually also unduly strong in bodily passion, has been fixed 
 Dr us in the nursery tale of the Giant Blue Beard. Sensuality 
 eems to have been the imperilling side of Samson's great bodily 
 trength. 
 
 It is curious to notice that Samson's great deeds are more or less 
 
 irectly connected with his sensual practices ; and when we observe 
 
 is story carefully we find that he did not deliver Israel, or even 
 
 ttempt to deliver it. There is nothing patriotic about his deeds of 
 
 rowess ; all is strictly personal, and much of what is told us belongs 
 
 ) the 'revengeful.' Perhaps Samson's life and mission are only to 
 
 e explained as we realize the abject and hopeless condition of the 
 
 jraelites in his time. Their arms had been taken away ; Philistines 
 
 eely overran the country, and the two nations seenuin a sense to 
 
 ive blended. All hope had faded out of the souls of the Israelites 
 
 lere was the quiet gloom of a settled despair over all the land. 
 
 It is only said that Samson ' began to deliver Israel ;' and his work 
 
 :ems to have been to lift up the national spirit by raising the laugh 
 
 jainst the Philistine enemy. Perhaps the coarseness and the practical 
 
 king which were so characteristic of him were just the thing to 
 
 ake the Israelites despise their enemy. Samson's wild pranks 
 
 Duld be talked over, and laughed over, at every evening meal, and a 
 
 icerier and more hopeful spirit in the people would prepare the way 
 
 r future active efforts to regain the national liberty. There have 
 
 :en times in the history of all nations when wit, satire, ballad, and 
 
 en practical joking, have been the first agencies in national revival. 
 
 3d, who overrules the wrath of man, has been pleased to overrule 
 
 e playfulness of men. Only we require to see that the use of such 
 
 ings as public forces in no way involves the Divine acceptance of 
 
 e persons who put forth those various powers. 
 
 In support of this line of explanation two or three trustworthy 
 
 :imates of Samson's character and mission are given. 
 
 Dealing with the fact that Samson accomplished so little in con- 
 
 ction with the national deliverance, Kit to says : ' This can only be 
 
 counted for by his great destinies having been marred by his vices 
 
 d indiscretions, which incapacitated him from acting efficiently as 
 
 i leader of the people. It seems to us that the people were com- 
 
38 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 pletely justified in withholding their confidence from him. A mere 
 slave of the senses like him, who could repeatedly sacrifice or en 
 danger the most important interests to a woman's sigh, was not one 
 into whose hands the elders and warriors of Israel could entrust theii 
 lives and fortunes. He has left a name which is at once a mirack 
 and a byword, a glory and a shame.' 
 
 Referring to his being the first Nazarite, Dean Stanley says : ' It is 
 one of the many distinctions between the manners of the East anc 
 West, between ancient and modern forms of religious feeling, that the 
 Jewish chief whose position most nearly resembles that of the foundei 
 of a monastic order should be the most frolicsome, irregular, unculti 
 vated creature that the nation ever produced. Not only was celibac) 
 no part of his Nazarite obligations, but not even purity of life. He 
 was full of the spirits and the pranks, no less than of the strength, o 
 a giant.' 
 
 Ewald makes the following very searching remarks on the probabl( 
 influence on Samson of the vow : ' So long as the vow is only a sacree 
 force constraining the soul from without, it can never have full free 
 dom of action and development, but must rather relax in one direc 
 tion the powers which in another are unnaturally strained. Samsor 
 keeps his vow of abstinence from intoxication, but is all the weake 
 and wilder with regard to the love of woman, as if he could hen 
 make up for the want of freedom elsewhere ; and by a singular spor 
 of chance, or rather by the secret revenge of a heart warped by th< 
 vow, his love is always excited by women of that very race which th< 
 vow urges him to combat with all the might of his arm, and 01 
 whose men the weight of his iron strength always falls at the righ 
 time.' 
 
 Jealousy as ascribed to God. 
 
 'ExODUS xx. 5 : * For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquit 
 of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation < 
 them that hate me.' 
 
 Difficulty. Do not our associations with the word 'jealous ' mal 
 it altogether an unsuitable word to apply to God ? 
 
 Answer. The word ' jealous ' is used in two closely related, bu 
 very distinct, senses. In the one sense it means suspicion, appreher 
 sive of rivalship ; uneasy under the fear that another may or ha 
 engaged the affections of one whom we love. This is our mo$ 
 familiar association with the word, but in these senses it cannc 
 possibly be applied to God. 
 
 The other shade of meaning may be expressed by the terms ' cage 
 

 JEALOUSY AS ASCRIBED TO GOD. 39 
 
 Dr anxious for one's rights or claims; hence, watchful, vigilant; 
 ' solicitous for the name or character of ;' * vindicating the honour 
 of.' In this sense the word may be applied to God. 
 
 If the necessity for what is called anthropomorphism and anthropo- 
 pathism, or the revelation of God to man, under the figures of man's 
 actions and feelings, were better understood, we should be able to 
 admit that natural feelings, which in man may be both right and 
 wrong, may, in their right forms, be applied to God ; and then we 
 should have no difficulty in fixing proper associations with the word 
 jealous ' when we applied it to God. 
 
 * Anthropomorphic expressions are those which attribute to the 
 Creator the bodily faculties of man ; and anthropopathic are those 
 which attribute to the Infinite Spirit the mental affections and 
 mssions of man. In one case God is spoken of as having eyes, as 
 nclining His ear, as stretching forth His arm, as uttering His voice, 
 md sometimes as shouting (Jer. xxv. 30) or blowing a trumpet 
 Zech. ix. 14), also as riding on a cherub, and flying upon the wings 
 )f the wind (Psalm xviii. 10). In the other case He is represented 
 is being jealous, as hating, as repenting, as taking vengeance, 
 :tc.' 
 
 F. W. Robertson says : ' Only through man can God be known ; 
 >nly through a perfect man perfectly revealed.' 
 
 Woolwrych says : ' In Numbers v. we read of " a spirit of jealousy ' 
 :oming upon a man about his wife, and also of an "offering of 
 ealousy." This explains in what sense God is said to be jealous, the 
 ntimate relation, corresponding to the marital one, between Him 
 md His people, being referred to. The godly zelos with which St. 
 ^aul was jealous over the Corinthians (2 Cor. xi. 2), points in the 
 ame direction, and zelos is the Septuagintal rendering of kinah, 
 he Hebrew word alone translated "jealousy " in the Old Testament.' 
 
 The point which needs to be clearly apprehended is, that while the 
 erm * jealousy ' commonly bears a bad meaning, it does not necessarily 
 mply evil passion. It may be right for a man to be jealous. He 
 ught to be jealous of his treasure, his trusts, his good name, those 
 ie loves, etc. Then we have a right and good meaning attaching to 
 he word, which may be in our minds when we apply it to God. 
 
40 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Jael's Treachery. 
 
 JUDGES iv. 17-22 ; v. 24-27 : 'Blessed above women shall Jael be, the wife of 
 Heber the Kenite.' 
 
 Difficulty. Was notJaeTs act in every way dishonourable and 
 disgraceful ; and is it not surprising to find that she is so highly 
 praised? 
 
 Explanation. If we were called to estimate Jael's conduct upon 
 strictly human principles, ordinary society rules of right and wrong, 
 we should be compelled to visit it with unqualified condemnation. If 
 we judge it by the laws of God, ' Thou shalt do no murder,' ' Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' we must count her to have been a 
 wicked woman. If we regard her act in the light of the claims of 
 hospitality recognised in her country, we must call her conduct 
 treacherous and disgraceful. But her act is to be judged from a 
 special point of view. At that time God was working for the deliver- 
 ance of His people, by giving certain individuals special and sudden 
 impulses. Such an impulse came upon Jael. It was a Divine 
 impulse in the sense of being the providential way in which Sisera's 
 death was to be secured ; but the manner in which the thing was 
 done was Jael's own device, and for it she alone stands responsible. 
 No Divine directions came to her as to the method in which the 
 slaughter was to be effected. There is no difficulty in recognising the 
 Divine hand in the death of Sisera. No difficulty in admitting that 
 God may use a woman for effecting the death, as He used Deborah 
 for inciting to the battle. The details of Jael's plan breathe the 
 spirit of an age with whose violence it is impossible for us to 
 sympathise. 
 
 The praise given to Jael is purely patriotic ; it indicates the 
 national sentiment about her act, but it in no way carries any Divine 
 approval of her methods. Bad men and bad women may serve the 
 Divine purposes ; good men and good women may work out the 
 Divine plan in wilful and unworthy ways. It should be understood 
 that God overrules and uses what we should never expect Him to 
 approve; just as, still, a country often benefits from the results 
 of conduct, on the part of her soldiers and statesmen, of which she 
 cannot possibly approve. Jael, following a Divine impulse, became 
 the executor of God's judgment on Sisera. Jael did her work in a 
 way which seems to us needlessly cruel and wicked. 
 
 This line of explanation is taken by Dr. Waterland : * It can 
 scarcely be doubted that Jael had some Divine direction or impulse 
 

 JAELS TREACHERY. 41 
 
 o stir her up to do what she did. The enterprise was exceedingly 
 x)ld and hazardous ; and one would think that, had she been left to 
 icrself, she would have been content to let Sisera lie there, till Barak, 
 vho was then pursuing him, should come up and surprise him. The 
 esolution she took has the marks of being from the extraordinary 
 land of God. In this view all is right ; and the objector will not be 
 ible to prove that there was any treachery in it. We ought to obey 
 jod rather than man ; and all obligations to man cease when 
 >rought into competition with our higher obligations towards 
 k)d.' 
 
 It would be a dangerous doctrine to advance nowadays, that we 
 yere to follow all inward impulses, and recognise them as coming 
 rom God. In Jael's days, when revelation was incomplete, God did 
 vork in that method ; but now we have the written Word and the 
 ndwelling Spirit, and must not trust ourselves to the control of 
 m pulses. 
 
 Van Lennep notes that Jael was a Kenite, belonging to a nomadic 
 ribe, and had wandered into Canaan. He says : ' The Arab is 
 assionate, and under the influence of anger or hatred will sometimes 
 reak the laws of hospitality, and even trample upon the most solemn 
 aths.' 
 
 Capt. C. R. Conder makes a very curious suggestion, one to which 
 nly his name could give any reasonableness or probability. ' The 
 ue reason for Jael's act is probably to be sought in Sisera's entering 
 le tent at all. There are instances in later history in which a 
 efeated Arab has sheltered himself in the woman's apartments, but 
 ach an infringement of Eastern etiquette has always been punished 
 y death : and it is not impossible that in revenge for such an insult 
 ael seized the iron tent-peg, and drove it, with the mallet used to 
 x the tent to the ground, through Sisera's brain.' 
 
 Langjs account of this incident forcibly presents the character of 
 le sudden impulse with which Jael was seized and carried away. 
 Between Heber the Kenite and Jabin there was peace ; the 
 lenite therefore had not shared the oppression under which Israel 
 iffered. Consequently, Sisera could hope to find in his tent a little 
 ist from the fatigue of his long-continued exertions. Securer still 
 as the shelter of the woman's tent. In that of Heber he might have 
 ared the violence of Barak ; the tent of a woman no one enters with 
 ostile purpose. He seems first to have made inquiries. She meets 
 im with friendly mien, invites him urgently, and quiets his appre- 
 ^nsions. Sisera is not incautious. He proceeds to ask her for 
 rink, pleading thirst. She gives him of her milk. It is an ancient 
 
42 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Oriental practice, common to all Bedouins, Arabs, and the inhabitants 
 of deserts in general, that whoever has eaten or drunk anything in the 
 tent is received into the peace of the house. The Arab's mortal 
 enemy slumbers securely in the tent of his adversary, if he have 
 drunk with him. Hence Saladin refuses to give drink to the bold 
 Frank knight, Reinald of Chatillon, because he wishes to kill him. 
 Sisera thinks that he may now safely yield to sleep. Only he feels 
 that he ought first to instruct Jael how to answer any pursuers thai 
 may come. How did he deceive himself! Sisera is made to knov\ 
 the demon-like violence of a woman's soul, which, when it breaks 
 loose, knows no bounds. True, Jabin is at peace with Heber. Bui 
 Jael's race and its history have from time immemorial intergrowr 
 with those of Israel. Israel's freedom is her freedom ; Israel's glor) 
 her glory. How many women have been dishonoured and carriec 
 away as booty by Sisera ! (chap. v. 30). Shall she be idle, when the 
 tyrant gives himself up into her hands ? What if she saves him i 
 Will it not be treason on her part against the ancient covenant witl 
 Israel ? Will he not, by virtue of his vigour and skill, collect fresh 
 troops, and threaten Israel anew ? Shall it be said Jael saved the 
 enemy of the people among whom she lived as among brothers, tc 
 their destruction ? The conflict in which she finds herself is great 
 and none but a great and powerful soul could end it as she does 
 She will not allow him to escape as he will do, if she refuse t( 
 harbour him ; and yet, she can harbour him only to destroy and tha 
 not without doing violence to ancient popular custom. She make 
 her decision. She scorns the reward which Sisera's safety migh 
 perhaps have brought her. She takes the nobler object int( 
 consideration the freedom of a kindred nation and the older righ 
 preponderates. A ruthless warrior stands before her, the violator of i 
 thousand laws of right, and all hesitation vanishes. She has m 
 sword with which to hew the oppressor down, and seizes the terribl< 
 weapon of womanly cunning, before which no law can stand 
 Besides, it has been noticed, even in modern times, that in general th< 
 women of those regions care less about the rights of hospitality thai 
 the men. Burckhardt in his wanderings had personal experience o 
 this.' 
 
 * Jael would be regarded as a patriotic heroine, whose daring ha' 
 secured to Israel the fruits of their victory. The morals of that earl 
 age were not sufficiently enlightened to understand that treachery am 
 assassination are never justifiable, however good may be the end ii 
 view. In ancient days no close moral analysis was applied to acts o 
 which the general tendency was approved as right and beneficial.' 
 
DA VIUS D Y1NG INSTR UC TIONS. 43 
 
 David's Dying Instructions. 
 
 i KINGS ii. 5-9, 26-46 : ' Let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace.' 
 
 Question. Can any reasonable excuse be made for the revengeful 
 pirit manifested by David in his last hours ? 
 
 Answer. Judging David from the Christian standpoint, no 
 ixcuse can be found : we read the records with the utmost grief and 
 madness. There was nothing in the aged king of the ' mind of 
 Christ.' 
 
 But that is not a fair standpoint from which to form our judgment. 
 : We must not expect Gospel morality from the saints of the Old 
 Testament.' These last utterances are official, not personal, and as 
 such must be estimated. David is not a private individual giving 
 nstructions to his son, but a king, an Eastern king, a theocratic king, 
 giving instructions to his heir. It had been a part of his kingly duties 
 to act as ' avenger ' in blood-feuds. When the old tribal and Mosaic 
 ideas of the Goel, or Blood Avenger, passed away, the public magis- 
 irate, who in early times was the king himself, took up the avenger's 
 duty. It should be observed that David makes no mention of the 
 iilling of Absalom, because, though that act was committed in cold 
 Dlood, it belonged to the time of war, and so found its excuse. The 
 tilling of Abner and Amasa were deliberate murders, and for these 
 nurders Joab's life was forfeit. It was David's public duty to 
 ivenge the slaughtered men, and clear the guilt of blood from the 
 and. 
 
 This kingly duty, however, David had neglected. He had not 
 iared to touch Joab. Perhaps, in view of Joab's great services, he 
 lad given him pardon for his life and reign ; but as the protection 
 )f the old manslayer was limited to the life of the High Priest, so 
 David's promise of personal safety extended only to the end of his 
 eign. Partly because he felt he had neglected his duty, and partly 
 Because he recognised that the guilt of blood would lie on the land 
 ind call down Divine vengeance, David gave this charge to his son. 
 
 We should not have thought it strange if David had ordered Joab 
 o be brought to trial for the murder of Abner and Amasa after his 
 leath, on the ground that, as a matter of clemency, the trial had 
 >een postponed during his reign. But what is recorded is precisely 
 he same thing, only the Eastern king acts without any formal trial ; 
 loes directly what the process of law now does. 
 
 These explanations will prepare the way for the following extracts 
 :mbcdying the opinions of well-known Biblical writers. 
 
44 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Dr. Porter says : 'It seems to me that for a long period David 
 was guided in his acts by worldly policy, rather than a strict sense of 
 justice. He was more influenced by the fear of man, and a short- 
 sighted desire to promote his own interests, than by the glory of God, 
 and a regard for that holy law which He had revealed for the govern- 
 ment of His people. Blood, " innocent blood," had been shed. The 
 land was polluted by it. According to the theocratic principle, the 
 guilt was chargeable against the land, and the punishment might at 
 any moment be executed (see Num. xxxv. 31-33). At the close of 
 his life, David was roused to a sense of his neglect of this imperious 
 duty. The kingdom was in peril. Divine vengeance was impending 
 over it. He was then too weak to carry out the law. He was at 
 the point of death ; but, as the representative of the Divine Lawgiver 
 and Judge, he pronounced sentence upon the criminals, and charged 
 his heir and successor to carry it out. In this there was no "cold- 
 blooded revenge." There was strict, though somewhat tardy, 
 justice.' 
 
 Prof. Ewald writes : ' It was said that, upon his dying bed, David 
 had recommended the successor he had already named not to let 
 Joab's grey hair descend unscathed into the underworld, because he 
 had taken base revenge on the two great generals, Abner and Amasa, 
 had shed the blood of war in the midst of peace, and had stained 
 himself over and over with the blood of the noble, " from the girdle 
 about his loins to the latchet of the shoes upon his feet." If, how- 
 ever, our present customs render the very notion of such a commis- 
 sion offensive to us, we must recollect that in that primitive age of 
 the monarchy, the king possessed the power of protection which had 
 formerly belonged to the sanctuary, so that everyone whom he had 
 promised to spare was secure of his life. But we may further re- 
 member that this right of asylum expired with the king's death, as it 
 had formerly done at the end of the High Priest's life, and that con- 
 sequently, if the king had for any reason pardoned a criminal, this 
 personal forbearance extended only to the death of this individual 
 king, and could in no way bind his successor. The actual undeniable 
 guilt was regarded as still there, in spite of a sovereign's temporary 
 lenity, so that a new king was not necessarily held to any promise of 
 indulgence made by his predecessor ; nay, it was rather esteemed his 
 duty at length to eradicate the uneradicated guilt, and free his royal 
 house from the obligation of punishment.' 
 
 Dr. Barry says : ' The charge as to Joab has a certain righteous- 
 ness in it. David could not probably since Joab's knowledge of his 
 great crime (in the murder of Uriah, the Hittite) he dared not 
 

 DA VWS D YING INSTR UCTIONS. 45 
 
 )unish him as he deserved The more recent and shameful 
 
 nurder of Amasa was simply one of revenge and ambition, because 
 .\masa had been put in Joab's place ; yet David, broken in spirit, 
 iocs not dare to blame it, and quietly acquiesces in the resumption 
 }y Joab of the dignity conferred on the murdered man. That these 
 :rimes should be punished by a king whose hands were clean, and 
 vho owed Joab nothing, was perhaps just, certainly within the letter 
 )f the law ; though clemency might have spared the old and now 
 alien warrior, who had at least served David ably with long and 
 aithful service.' 
 
 Prof. Rawlinson gives the following valuable note : ' David had 
 lever formally pardoned Joab, and indeed it may be questioned 
 .vhether by the law there was any power of pardoning a murderer 
 see Num. xxxv. 16-34; Deut. xix. 12). The utmost that the king 
 :ould do was to neglect to enforce the law. Even in doing this 
 le incurred a danger. Unpunished murder was a pollution to the 
 and, and might bring a judgment upon it, like the famine which had 
 )een sent a few years before this on account of Saul and of his 
 )loody house, "because he slew the Gibeonites " (2 Sam. xxi. i). 
 Dr the judgment might fall upon the negligent monarch, or his house, 
 is punishment fell on Eli and his house, for not chastising the 
 vickedness of his sons (i Sam. iii. 13). 
 
 ' The general explanation applies also to the case of Shimei, whose 
 in was the public one of rebellion ; he being the head of Saul's 
 )arty, and only too likely to lead another revolt as a new king was 
 :oming to the throne. His treason, for which the penalty was death, 
 lad been condoned by David, but the promise of protection naturally 
 :eased at the king's death.' 
 
 Gideon's Vengeance. 
 
 JUDGES viii. 16, 17: 'And he took the elders of the city, and thorns of the 
 wilderness and briers, and with them he taught the men of Succoth. And he 
 >rake down the tower of Penuel, and slew the men of the city.' 
 
 Question. Was not the vengeance of Gideon extravagant ', un- 
 easonable, and beyond any justification from the existing conditions ? 
 
 Answer. We not unfrequently find in Holy Scripture that 
 nen have gone beyond their Divine instructions, and executed the 
 )ivine will in ways of their own devising. The Divine approbation 
 ften rests on the thing done when there can be no approbation of 
 he manner in which the thing was done. In this way such men as 
 ehu are at once approved and condemned. It should also be re- 
 lembered that in times of victory national excitement is raised to so 
 
46 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 uncontrollable a pitch that even peace-loving men are carried away 
 to approve of violent and vengeful deeds. 
 
 The execution of the open enemies of Israel may be regarded as 
 fair by the universal laws of war ; but Gideon punished, in this extreme 
 way, those who had only withheld succour from his fainting army, and 
 taunted him that he was boasting before he had won his success. 
 These men of Succoth and Penuel deserved some severe humiliation ; 
 but Gideon's measures were extreme ones, and cannot on any principle 
 be commended. We can but recognise the contrast between those 
 times of wild self-assertion and these times of milder and nobler 
 sentiments, in which we are taught that * vengeance belongeth unto 
 God.' 
 
 Exactly what Gideon did to these people, who showed such in- 
 humanity and want of patriotism, it is very difficult for us to under- 
 stand from the terms of the description. Possibly, as an example, 
 the elders of these towns were scourged or threshed, with these 
 lacerating thorn bushes ; but the wording suggests that the thorns 
 and briers were laid over the men, and then harrows dragged them 
 until they tore the poor victims to death. 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar reminds us that every man is largely influenced 
 by the spirit of the age in which he lives, and that in the East to this 
 day there is a far greater indifference to the value of human life than 
 there is in Europe ; and far greater insensibility to the infliction of 
 pain. ' It was only by slow degrees that (as we can trace in the 
 writings of their prophets and historians) the Jews learned that deeper 
 sense of humanity which it was certainly the object of many precepts 
 of the Mosaic law to inspire.' 'The ruthlessness of the punishment 
 which Gideon threatened to inflict belongs to the wild times in which 
 he lived, and the very partial spiritual enlightenment of an imperfect 
 dispensation. It is no more to be held up for approval or imitation 
 than his subsequent degeneracy, while, at the same time, Gideon 
 must, of course, be only judged by such light as he had.' 
 
 Moses' Marriage to an Ethiopian Woman. 
 
 NUMBERS xii. I : * And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the 
 Cushite woman whom he had married : for he had married a Cushite woman.' 
 
 Difficulty. Did not Moses break his own laws in thus marrying 
 a foreigner ? 
 
 Explanation. If we are to understand that the wife here referred 
 to is a second one, distinct from the daughter of Jethro, and taken 
 by Moses during his first wife's life, he certainly broke his own laws. 
 

 MOSES'S MARRIAGE. 47 
 
 id set the people a mischievously bad example. But there is no 
 Dod reason for assuming that such a slur rests on Moses character, 
 'he Cushite woman referred to is the daughter of Jethro, who, after 
 somewhat prolonged absence, had recently been restored to him, 
 nd who excited the jealousy of Miriam and Aaron by limiting their 
 ifluence with their brother. 
 
 When Moses married Jethro's daughter he was under ordinary 
 ibal rules of marriage, and in no sense under Jewish rules, which 
 ere only revealed to him long years afterwards. Some tribes refuse 
 > allow marriage outside the bounds of the tribe ; but other tribes 
 squire the wives to be selected from related jribes. Moses had not 
 larried an Egyptian woman, which might have been regarded as 
 oubtful, and likely to injure his patriotism, but a member of a desert 
 ibe, very similar to that to which he himself belonged. So, accord- 
 ig to the law and custom prevailing at the time, his marriage was 
 erfectly regular. 
 
 The Authorised Version creates needless difficulty by translating 
 i the a.bove verse ' because of the Ethiopian woman.' The Revised 
 "ersion corrects this by translating a Cushite woman ; and we know 
 lat there was an Arabian as well as an African Cush. Jethro'c 
 ibe, dwelling in Arabia, was properly classed as Cushite. 
 
 As authorities for the above explanation the following extracts are 
 iven. Jamieson says : * Arabia was called in Scripture the land of 
 '.ush, because its inhabitants were descendants of that son of Ham. 
 'he occasion of this seditious outbreak on the part of Miriam and 
 aron against Moses was the great change made in the government 
 y the seventy rulers, and also their irritating disparagement of his 
 ife, who, in all probability, was Zipporah, and not a second wife he 
 ad recently married. Miriam and Aaron were jealous of Zipporah's 
 ,'latives, through whose influence the innovation was first made.' 
 
 Matthew Henry , in his quaint way, says : * Others think they 
 uarrelled with Moses because of Zipporah, whom, on this occasion, 
 icy called in scorn an Ethiopian woman, and who, they insinuated, 
 id too great an influence upon Moses in the choice of these seventy 
 ders. Perhaps there was some private falling out between Zipporah 
 id Miriam, which occasioned some hot words, and one peevish re 
 action introduced another, till Moses and Aaron came to be in- 
 rested.' 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that while all the principal Biblical 
 riters mention the possible identification of Zipporah, for the most 
 irt they favour the idea of a second wife, and Zipporah's death, 
 hey labour to show that the Mosaic law prohibited intermarriage 
 
48 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 only with the Canaanites, and left the Israelites free to marry wit 
 the daughters of Moab, Gush, or Ethiopia. This will be found di; 
 cussed in a paragraph on * Solomon's Egyptian Wife.' The explanatio 
 suggested above is simple and natural, and fully meets all the r< 
 quirements of the case. 
 
 Samuel slaying Agag. 
 
 i SAMUEL xv. 33 : ' And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord : 
 Gilgal.' 
 
 Question. How can such a terrible act as this be justified 1 
 
 Answer. Effort has been made to relieve the incident of som 
 of its horror by assuming that Samuel committed Agag to som 
 executioner, who carried out the dreadful sentence that Samuel wt 
 commissioned to deliver. But the first impression left by the recor 
 should be preserved. Raised by the excitement of the hour to extn 
 ordinary strength, Samuel executed the Divine judgment on Aga^ 
 and so carried home to Saul the conviction of his sin in failing t 
 carry out exactly the commission entrusted to him. 
 
 Man is very willing to obey God if he may put his own limitation 
 and qualifications upon the obedience. But such obedience ca 
 never be anything but an offence to God. Man must obey God ju< 
 as God commands. Exact, unquestioning obedience is so absolute! 
 essential as the foundation of morals and character, that even a seen 
 like this of the killing of Agag may be necessary to get it fixed on th 
 mind of a king, of a nation, and, through the Bible, of the world. 
 
 The form of the incident is painfully Eastern. It belongs to 
 sphere in which human life was imperfectly valued, and in which th 
 sovereign rights of kings and, therefore, much more of the King c 
 kings was recognised ; but we may fairly regard it as the scrikin 
 dramatic teaching of the all-important truth, that if man proposes t 
 obey God, he must obey thoroughly and precisely. 
 
 Divine judgment had been given against Agag. Saul, as Jehovah 
 captain, was appointed agent for the execution of the Divine decree; 
 In mere wilfulness Saul chose to spare this condemned king. The 
 in the most public and impressive way it must be shown that ma 
 can never successfully resist God. God's prophet shall do whs 
 God's captain had failed to do. We should carefully observe ths 
 Samuel acted officially, and in his terrible deed there is no trace c 
 mere personal feeling or personal revenge. 
 
 The * Speaker's Commentary ' has the following note : ' Samu( 
 thus executed the devotion which Saul had violated and so bot 
 
SAMUEL SLAYING A GAG. 49 
 
 saved the nation from the guilt of a broken oath, and gave a final 
 example to Saul, but apparently in vain, of uncompromising obedience 
 to the commandments of God. There is something awful in the 
 majesty of the prophet rising above and eclipsing that of the king.' 
 
 Kitio, after urging that Samuel executed Agag himself, adds : 
 1 Samuel might deem it an honour to execute with his own hand the 
 full judgment which had been neglected by the man to whom the 
 sword had been entrusted. If it be urged that this act is contrary to 
 the idea of Samuel's character which his previous history has con- 
 veyed, the answer is, that mild natures like his are often, when 
 thoroughly roused into high excitement, capable of stronger deeds 
 than men of habitually harsher temper.' 
 
 Dean Stanley says : ' The terrible vengeance exacted on the fallen 
 king by Samuel is the measure of Saul's delinquency. The ferocious 
 form of the offering of Agag belongs happily to an extinct dispensa- 
 tion. But its spirit reminds us of the famous saying of Peter the 
 Great, when entreated in a mortal illness to secure the Divine mercy 
 by the pardon of some criminals condemned to death : " Carry out 
 the sentence. Heaven will be propitiated by this act of justice." ' 
 
 An Early Application of the Lex Talionis. 
 
 JUDGES i. 6: 'And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their 
 .numbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table : as I have 
 lone, so God hath requited me.' 
 
 Question. Is there any ground for the opinion of Adoni-bezek^ 
 'hat God makes men suffer in the very way in which they have made 
 ither men suffer ? 
 
 Answer. All that can be said is, that there are, undoubtedly, 
 etributive providences ; but no number of such cases can be col- 
 ected sufficient to establish ' retaliation ' as an ordinary method of 
 Divine procedure. When such cases occur, and judgment takes the 
 orm of retaliation, the attention of men is arrested, and an undue 
 mportance is likely to be attached to the incidents. Men's love of 
 he sensational even leads them to manufacture such cases, and force 
 ircumstances to fit the theory concerning them which they have 
 ishioned. The great majority of God's judgments are not retributive ; 
 ut He is free to choose that method if, in any case, it can serve His 
 .igh moral purpose, and produce, in any given age, a healthy impres- 
 ion of the evil 01 sin. 
 
 Very few of the cases of retribution which are recorded will bear a, 
 trict and dispassionate examination. Facts are often set in the forms 
 
50 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 and relations which will serve to support a preconceived theory, and 
 their strictly truthful relations are kept out of sight. Science has 
 done this great good to morals and religion : it has taught that facts 
 must be carefully studied as facts, apart from the bias of any theories 
 or doctrines. Only when the actual facts are known can they be set 
 in relation to existing doctrine. 
 
 'It was an ethical maxim, extensively accepted among ancient 
 nations, that men must suffer the same pains that they have inflicted 
 on others. The later Greeks called this the Neoptokmic Tisis, from 
 the circumstance that Neoptolemus was punished in the same way in 
 which he had sinned. He had murdered at the altar, and at the 
 a'ltar he was murdered. Phaleris had roasted human beings in a 
 brazen bull, and the same punishment was inflicted on himself.' 
 
 There was nothing novel in the punishment inflicted either by or 
 upon Adoni-bezek. It was quite what he would expect to suffer if 
 he were defeated and taken prisoner. Dr. Farrar says : * This kind 
 of punishment was not uncommon in ancient days. The cutting off 
 of the thumbs would prevent a man from ever again drawing a bow, 
 or wielding a sword. The cutting off of his great toes would deprive 
 a man of that speed which was so essential for an ancient warrior, 
 that " swift-footed " is, in Homer, the normal epithet of Achilles/ 
 
 Retributive punishments of this kind are not recognised in modern 
 legislation, and Moses admitted them as a step towards the modifying 
 of the terrible blood feuds which were characteristic of the early times 
 and races. But it is singular to notice how the old sentiment lingers 
 still in men's minds, so that we have great satisfaction in hearing of 
 cases wherein Providence deals the blow to men which they have 
 dealt to others ; or, to use the familiar expression, ' a man is hoist 
 with his own petard.' 
 
 F. Jacox says : * The early ballads of almost every literature delight 
 in these retributive surprises. So fond is popular history of teaching 
 this sort of philosophy by examples, that examples to the purpose are 
 widely accepted which are yet not historical.' 
 
 Achan's Family sharing in his Judgment. 
 
 JOSHUA vii. 25, 26 : 'And all Israel stoned him with stones ; and they burned 
 them with fire, and stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great 
 heap of stones, unto this day.' 
 
 Question. On what principles can such sharing of the innocent 
 with the guilty in Divine judgments be explained and justified ? 
 
 Answer. Some writers have endeavoured to relieve the narra- 
 tive of its difficulty by arguing that only Achan himself and his 
 
A CHAN'S FAMILY SHARING IN HIS JUDGMENT. 51 
 
 property were destroyed, and that his family were brought into the 
 valley only to witness the impressive scene. Adam Clarke takes this 
 view, and so does Geikie. Two things seem to support it: (i) The 
 grammar of the narrative is involved, and it is difficult to distinguish 
 precisely what was done to him (Achan) and to them (his family, or, 
 perhaps, only his property). (2) The very distinct law laid down by 
 VIoses (Deut. xxiv. 16), ' The fathers shall not be put to death for the 
 Children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers ; 
 :very man shall be put to death for his own sin.' 
 
 There seems to have been some difference in the mode of execu- 
 
 ion, as applied to Achan and to his family ; in some way the special 
 
 .haracter of the guilt of Achan was indicated, but there is really no 
 
 ufficient ground for assuming that the family was spared. Two 
 
 hings are decisive against that notion : (i) Phinehas, pleading with 
 
 he Eastern tribes, who were supposed to have committed a trespass 
 
 n building their ' witness-altar,' said : { Did not Achan, the son of 
 
 'erah, commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all 
 
 he congregation of Israel ? and that man perished not alone in his 
 
 liquity.' It is clear that the point of this pleading is lost if Achan 
 
 id not drag down his family with him in his destruction (Josh. 
 
 xii. 20). And (2) in a most significant way the line of Carmi is 
 
 .opped with Achan (or Achar) in the list given in i Chron. ii. 7. And 
 
 ic historian is careful to explain how it was that Achan left no 
 
 imily : ' he transgressed in the thing accursed.' 
 
 Some who accept the fact that all Achan's belongings were destroyed, 
 
 q)lain by the assumption that his family must have been privy to, 
 
 id so have shared, his guilt. But this rather turns the difficulty 
 
 dde than fairly meets and explains it. The narrative sets forth with 
 
 ;ry distinct prominence the fact that Achan's sin brought punish- 
 
 ents and calamities which could not be limited to himself, which, 
 
 deed, would not have been limited to himself if only he, as the 
 
 )usehold head and the breadwinner, had been taken away : even 
 
 at must have involved family disabilities the burdens oi the 
 
 .dow and the fatherless. 
 
 It might be sufficient to say that the sharing of families in the 
 >nsequences of the sins of the heads of families was, and still is, an 
 tablished sentiment and custom in the East. And the legislative, 
 ilitical, and social ideas of an age must be on the level of the age. 
 oses found this prevailing sentiment, and the utmost he could do 
 is to limit and quality its operation. 
 
 But it may further be said, that in this case a special announce- 
 snt and threatening had been made, and, in face of it, with 
 
52 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 unusual daring Achan had done his daring deed. Therefore a 
 special example was needed. Joshua treated the possession of these 
 spoils from Jericho as bringing Achan and his family into co-partner- 
 ship with the people of Jericho, and so they came under the ban r 
 which involved their entire destruction. 
 
 But it is possible to treat the subject more efficiently by showing 
 that, in such cases, terrible as they seem from modern human points 
 of view, human law and sentence do but illustrate and conserve the 
 natural order, the divine constitution of society, which still includes 
 families in the material consequences of parents' sins ; communities 
 \i\ the penalties following on the sins of society leaders ; and 
 lationsin the judgments brought on by the follies and transgressions 
 of statesmen and of kings. 
 
 Scientific and philosophical teachers are nowadays finding out for 
 us, and showing to us, the importance, in relation to the moral 
 education of humanity, of what they call the ' solidarity of the race, 
 the way in which one man is linked with another in the bearing ol 
 race-burdens. But in this they are only illustrating the well-knowr 
 Bible principle, that * if one member suffers, all the members suffei 
 with it.' 
 
 The punishments of guilt would not be effective in convincing m 
 of the real hatefulness and terribleness and corrupting influence o 
 evil, if they were strictly limited to the wrong-doer : they would no 
 make adequate impression on the feeling of the race. So Goc 
 stamps the exceeding evil of sin by saying to the sinner, 'Yoi 
 cannot keep the consequences of your transgression to yourself 
 they will smite your wife; they will wound your innocent children 
 they will leave corrupting influences on your generation.' 
 
 So, in the case now before us, Achan suffered penally r , and Achan': 
 family suffered vicariously. 
 
 As giving authority to this explanation, the note from Ellicotf 
 Commentary may be quoted : ' All were evidently destroye< 
 together. For any other sin but this, Achan must have suffere- 
 alone. But, in this case, warning had been given that the man wh 
 took of the accursed thing, or cherem, would be an accursed thing lik 
 it, if he brought it into his house (Deut. vii. 26), and would make th 
 camp of Israel cherem also (Josh. vi. 18); and thus Achan's whol 
 establishment was destroyed, as though it had become part c 
 Jericho. It is not necessary to assert that the family of Achan wer 
 accomplices. His cattle were notso, and yet they were destroyed. . . . 
 The severity of the punishment must be estimated by the relation ( 
 Achan's crime to the whole plan of the conquest of Canaan. If th 
 
THE FATE OF THE DECEIVED PROPHET. 53 
 
 destruction of the Canaanites was indeed the execution of the Diune 
 vengeance, it must be kept entirely clear of all baser motives, lest 
 nen should say that Jehovah gave His people licence to deal with 
 
 .he Canaanites as it seemed best for themselves The gratifica- 
 
 ion of human passions may not be mingled with the execution of 
 he vengeance of God.' 
 
 The Fate of the Deceived Prophet. 
 
 I KINGS xiii. 11-32 : * Forasmuch as them hast been disobedient unto the motith 
 )f the Lord .... thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers' 
 Rev. Ver.\ 
 
 Difficulty. Should -not the judgment of God, in this case, have 
 'alien rather on the deceiver than on the deceived ? 
 
 Explanation. God's lessons for men come in part through 
 lis judgments, and we may say especially through His judgments on 
 lis own people, through His ways of dealing with His own servants. 
 They are a spectacle unto men. If we are right-hearted servants, we 
 hall be willing for others to be taught, even through and by means 
 >f our sufferings. 
 
 Now one most essential lesson for humanity is this : God requires a 
 trict, precise, minute, and entire obedience of His commands. 
 Vhen He speaks, man must do at once, exactly and without ques- 
 ioning, what He orders. He must be even obeyed in the precise 
 ray He directs. It is not enough for man to obey, but to choose his 
 wn times and ways. To teach this lesson God shows that He will 
 ot pass over even small failures from obedience in His trusted and 
 onoured servants. 
 
 This is the meaning of the incident of the deceived prophet. He 
 liled in completeness and precision of obedience, and he must be 
 lade a public monument, for the warning of that age and of all ages. 
 'wo things are clearly set forth in the narrative : (i) The prophet 
 om Judah was commanded to reprove Jeroboam for his imperfect 
 bedience. Jeroboam tried to think himself, and to persuade others, 
 lat he was doing Jehovah's will, but he was doing it in his own way 
 -his own wilful way ; and that can never be acceptable. (2) The 
 rophet had definite and distinct instructions (see verse 17), and this 
 :ade disobedience without excuse. God could not pass by the 
 rophet's failure in obedience, when that prophet was actually on a 
 
 ission for the reproving of the king's failure in obedience. 
 
 Thus much seems quite clear, but the grave difficulty relates to the 
 irt taken by the old prophet of Bethel. He should be regarded as 
 
54 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the Providential agency for the testing of the other prophet's 
 obedience. And this view should suffice. All virtue must come 
 under testings. Jeroboam tested the prophet by offering him food, 
 and the prophet withstood the test. The temptation came again in 
 more subtle guise, through one who professed to be a fellow-prophet ; 
 and the man yielded, though he might have said, ' You speak 
 confidently enough, but I must carry out precisely the instructions 
 which God has given directly to me.' We may be sure that the old 
 lying and deceiving prophet came under Divine judgments, but we 
 are not told them, simply because the narrative is not concerned with 
 God's judgments on deceivers^ but with God's judgments on imperfect 
 obedience a much more needed and much more searching 
 lesson. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth says : ' If the man of God from Judah had 
 been spared, the effect of his warning against the sin of Jeroboam 
 would have been almost lost. He returned to Bethel ; he communi- 
 cated with the old man, the prophet, who dwelt there. He did this, 
 although he had declared publicly at Bethel to Jeroboam that he was 
 forbidden by God to eat there (verses 8, 9). Thus he made it easy 
 for the king to say, that the man of Judah was not a person to be 
 trusted, and that he had lied in what he had spoken against the 
 altar ; or that, if he was a man of God, communion with the dwellers 
 at Bethel was not a thing unpleasing to Him ; and God's own cause 
 was at stake.' 
 
 On the old prophet at Bethel Wordsworth further says : 'God 
 dealt with the old prophet of Bethel as He had dealt of old with 
 Balaam. This old man was a prophet ; but, like Balaam the prophet, 
 he "held the truth in unrighteousness ;" he felt that the mission of 
 the man of Judah against the altar at Bethel was tantamount to a 
 condemnation of himself: he desired to weaken the effect of that 
 censure ; he wished to appear to be on good terms with the man ol 
 Judah ; he cared little whether he involved him in ruin ; he allured 
 him back to Bethel by a profession of prophetical sanctity, and by a 
 pretence of an angelic message ; he did this, although he well knew 
 that he was thus setting himself against the command of the Lore 
 Himself. And he seemed almost on the point of defeating God'.' 
 good purposes, and of blasting His merc.iful design in sending tht 
 prophet from Judah to Bethel. But at this critical point Goc 
 Himself interfered. He did with this old prophet as He had clom 
 with Balaam before (Num. xxii. 5 ; xxiii. 5). He caught him in hi* 
 own snare ; he made him the instrument of declaring the prophet'.' 
 sin and God's righteousness ; He put a word into his mouth, whicl 
 
THE FATE OF THE DECEIVED PROPHET. 55 
 
 He constrained him to utter (verses 20-22). He was a prophet who 
 sinned against God, and sold himself to the Evil One. But God 
 still used him as a prophet, and overruled even his sin for the 
 triumph of His own power and for the display of His own 
 glory.' 
 
 Dean Stanley says of this old prophet : * The motives of the 
 prophet of Bethel are so obscurely given in the sacred narrative, and 
 so differently related by Josephus, as almost to defy our scrutiny. 
 He seems to be one of those mixed characters, true to history and 
 human nature, which perpetually appear amongst the sacred persons 
 of the Old Testament ; moved by a partial wavering inspiration ; 
 aiming after good, yet failing to attain it ; full of genuine tender 
 admiration for the prophet, of whose death he had been the unwilling 
 cause, the mouthpiece of truths which he himself but faintly under- 
 stood.' 
 
 The incident is recorded as a warning against sins of disobedience in 
 things that seem of small importance. Burder recalls an illustration 
 of similar severity in punishing in exactness in public obedience. 
 The Athenians put their ambassadors to death on their return from 
 Arcadia, though they had faithfully performed their business, simply 
 because they came by another way than that which had been 
 prescribed to them. 
 
 Joshua's sending Spies to Jericho. 
 
 JOSHUA ii. I : ' And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out of Shittiin two men as 
 spies secretly, saying, Go view the land, and Jericho.' 
 
 Difficulty. Can secret and deceptive work ever be right in tht 
 sight of God? 
 
 Explanation. From the higher standpoint of Christianity, and 
 in the line of our Lord's teaching, that our intercourse with each 
 other should be simply * Yea, yea,' * Nay, nay,' we may say that 
 private and personal acts of secrecy and deception never can be ac- 
 ceptable in the sight of God. And even under the earlier dispensa- 
 tion, schemes, subtleties, and deceptions in private life, and inter- 
 course between man and man, never meet with Divine commenda- 
 tion. 
 
 But things may be necessary for the ordering of society, and for 
 the abnormal relations of nations, which cannot be permitted in 
 private life. The distinction between the two conditions may be 
 thus stated. Over private and personal relationships God's rules hold 
 control. But the conditions of society and the relations of nations 
 
5 6 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 are adjusted by man, who tries, more or less sincerely and success- 
 fully, to adapt to varying conditions the rules of God. But man finds 
 exigencies arise which seem to demand a temporary suspense of the 
 higher laws of truth and charity, and all ages have recognised that 
 such special exigencies are found in times of war. It is the gravest 
 accusation that can be brought against war, that, for the conduct- 
 ing of it efficiently, man finds he must suspend the great moral 
 laws. 
 
 The employment of spies and the arrangement of ambushes and 
 stratagems can only be commended if the war undertaken be in itself 
 righteous. War, serious evil that it is, may be used by God for His 
 great purposes, just as He uses other evil things plague, famine, 
 pestilence, and the wrong-doings of men ; but while He is pleased to 
 use war, under its human conditions, we need not assume His 
 approval of the spirit shown in it, or the things done. 
 
 It is a remarkable thing that, in the record of sending out these 
 spies, it is made quite plain that Joshua acted according to the good 
 judgment of the skilful general, and not by express Divine direc- 
 tion. 
 
 All that can be said in approval of Joshua's act is expressed by 
 Lange: 'The use of human prudence, with all trust in Divine Pro- 
 vidence, is not only allowable, but often also a binding duty. Joshua 
 ought not, in his position as a general, to enter into a strange and 
 hostile land without having explored it first.' 
 
 An Evil Spirit from God. 
 
 i SAMUEL xvi. 14, 15: ' Now the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, 
 and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servants said unto 
 him, Behold now an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.' 
 
 Difficulty. Must God be thought of as employing evil spirits ? 
 
 Explanation. The ancients were not able to distinguish cases 
 of mental disease, of mania or epilepsy, from cases of devil-posses- 
 sion. Their unscientific explanation of idiocy and madness is not to 
 be accepted by us as inspired truth. Scripture gives truthfully the 
 ideas entertained in a particular age, but Divine inspiration does not 
 guarantee correctness in matters of medical science. 
 
 As cases of mental disease, these so-called possessions of evil 
 spirits are to be treated in the same way as cases of bodily disease. 
 We can quite readily receive the truth that diseases affecting the body 
 are sent by God, and used by Him for judgment and correction ; 
 and we ought to find no difficulty in apprehending that diseases 
 
AN EVIL SPIRIT FROM GOD. 57 
 
 affecting the mind are sent and used by Him in the same way. The 
 evil spirit from God afflicting King Saul was an obscure form of 
 mental disease, in its natural features being a result of the exaggeration 
 of the king's self-will, and of his annoyance at his will being success- 
 fully resisted. 
 
 On the existence of evil spirits, and the senses in which they are 
 subordinate to God, and used for the fulfilment of His purposes, a 
 treatise might be written, and some special features of the subject 
 will be found treated in other paragraphs. It may suffice in this case 
 to support the view that Saul's was a case of mania or mental 
 disease. 
 
 Some writers translate the word * an evil or melancholy spirit.' 
 Matthew Henry says : ' The devil, by the Divine permission, troubled 
 and terrified Saul by means of the corrupt humours of his body and 
 passions of his mind. He grew fretful and peevish and discontented, 
 timorous and suspicious, ever and anon starting and trembling. He 
 was sometimes, says Josephus, as if he had been choked or strangled, 
 and a perfect demoniac by fits. This made him unfit for business, 
 precipitate in his counsels, the contempt of his enemies, and a burden 
 to all about him.' 
 
 BisJiop Wordsworth says : * Saul became melancholy, gloomy, 
 irritable, envious, suspicious and distracted, as a man wandering about 
 in the dark.' 
 
 Ellicotfs Commentary says : ' It was a species of insanity, fatal 
 alike to the poor victim of the malady and to the prosperity of the 
 kingdom over which he ruled.' 
 
 Jamieson says : * His own gloomy reflections the consciousness 
 that he had not acted up to the character of an Israelitish king the 
 loss of his throne, and the extinction of his royal house, made him 
 jealous, irritable, vindictive, and subject to fits of morbid melancholy.' 
 
 Kitto says : * The mind of this prince, not in his best fortunes 
 strong, gradually gave way beneath the terror of these thoughts, the 
 certainty of his doom, and the uncertain shapes in which it appeared. 
 He sank into a deep melancholy, which being regarded as a Divine 
 judgment, it is said that "an evil spirit from the Lord troubled 
 him." 1 
 
58 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES, 
 
 Rahab's Untruthful Answer. 
 
 JOSHUA ii. 4, 5 : 'And the woman took the two men, and hid them ; and she 
 said, Yea, the men came unto me, but I wist not whence they were : and it came 
 to pass about the time of the shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men 
 went out ; whither the men went I wot not : pursue after them quickly, for ye 
 shall overtake them.' 
 
 Difficulty. Are we to understand that the commendation of Rahab 
 includes approval of her deception ? 
 
 Explanation. The commendation of Scripture applies wholly 
 to the faith in God, of which her conduct was a vigorous expression, 
 and it implies no acceptance of the particular words and deeds, which 
 are simply recorded as historically true. A man may do a wrong 
 thing in a right spirit ; and then God will graciously accept the spirit 
 while He must condemn the thing. And so a man may do a right 
 thing in a wrong spirit. Then God may be pleased to use the bad 
 man's right thing, while He condemns the bad man. 
 
 From the point of view of the king and people of Jericho, Rahab's 
 action was traitorous. Judged by ordinary rules of morality, she was 
 a liar and a deceiver. But from the point of view of Jehovah's 
 supreme claims over all kings and people, her act was one of faith 
 wrong still in modes, and only right in its supreme aim. 
 
 The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 31) distinctly declares 
 the acceptance of Rahab to have rested on the faith in God, which 
 her actions showed. ' By faith Rahab the harlot perished not with 
 them that were disobedient, having received the spies with peace/ 
 (Rev. Ver.) 
 
 The case of Rahab, however, opens up for consideration one of the 
 most perplexing questions of casuistry : How far does stress of cir- 
 cumstances relieve moral obligations? Does personal danger remove 
 the guilt of lying for the sake of self-preservation ? Does a state of 
 war alter the claims which one man naturally has upon his brother, 
 and suspend, as between the parties at war, the claims of the moral 
 law? 
 
 All nations, in all ages, answer these questions in the affirmative. 
 Christianity, however, affirms that the state of war is wrong. Christi- 
 anity refuses to loosen moral claims for any set of circumstances ; 
 and teaches that men must suffer, and men must die, in unswerving 
 loyalty to the Yea which is Yea, and the Nay which is Nay. 
 
 But we may not judge the earlier ages of the world, when men were 
 only gradually discovering the true magnificence of the moral law as 
 an all-sufficient standard of conduct and relations, bv the Christian 
 
RAHAB'S UNTRUTHFUL ANSWER. 59 
 
 standard. As Christians we must condemn Rahab's untruthfulness. 
 As reasonable readers of history, who understand that the moral 
 education of the race has been carried on from small beginnings 
 through progressive stages, we can find explanations and excuses for 
 her, and even say that her conduct was not thought wrong when 
 judged by the men of her time. 
 
 W. H. Groser says : ' Rahab's protection of the spies has been 
 stigmatized as traitorous, and her concealment of them as a piece of 
 lying and deceit. But as to the first, it is evident that she was con- 
 vinced that the cause of Israel was that of the true God, to oppose 
 which would have been the greater sin. And as to the deception 
 which she practised, there is no need to defend that which is nowhere 
 commended in itself. Rahab is not praised for \\Q? falsehood, but for 
 her faith ; although many Christian moralists, beside Paley, would 
 defend deception in word and deed, when practised to save life.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth meets this difficulty in a very wise and satis- 
 factory manner. ' Rahab was guilty of a falsehood ; but here is an 
 evidence of the truth of the history ; her moral infirmity is not con- 
 cealed or extenuated, although she had been received into the family 
 of God's people, and was dwelling in Israel, when the Book of Joshua 
 was written. Rahab had been brought up among idolaters, who 
 have little regard for truth ; and she lived in Jericho, one of the 
 greatest cities of Canaan. It was not to be expected that, all at once, 
 she would become a lover of truth, and would think it sinful to 
 employ an artifice to attain a good end. Her case was like that of 
 the Egyptian midwives, who told a falsehood to Pharaoh in order to 
 save the lives of the male children of Israel (Exod. L 17, 21). In 
 both cases God was " not extreme to mark what was done amiss," 
 but graciously accepted their acts of faith and mercy, although they 
 were sullied and blemished by human infirmity ; and thus He gently 
 led them on to higher degrees of virtue; and with the spirit of 
 obedience and trust, which the midwives and Rahab evinced, they 
 would hardly fail to attain those higher degrees, when they were more 
 fully conversant with His Law the Law of Truth as well as of Love.' 
 
 The gist of the matter may be expressed in the following very 
 forcible sentence : ' The Divine standard of sin and holiness never 
 varies ; but the standard of man's conscience, even when faith is a 
 dominant principle in the character, may vary to a very considerable 
 degree. In Jesus Christ "all that believe are justified from all things ;' J 
 but "by the deeds 01 the law," no one.' (Rev. C. H. Waller, M.A.) 
 
60 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Gideon's Sin in the Matter of the Ephod. 
 
 JUDGES viii. 27 : ' And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, 
 even in Ophrah : and all Israel went a whoring after it there; and it became a 
 snare unto Gideon, and to his house ' (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Question. What was this article, that Gideon made^ and why 
 was making it wrong ? 
 
 Answer. The ephod was a linen tunic, worn by the High Priest 
 as his characteristic vestment. In later times it seems to have been 
 worn by all the priests. But when Gideon lived it was worn by the 
 High Priest only, and by him to hold the richly jewelled breastplate, 
 when he inquired of God by Urim and Thummim. 
 
 Two things seems to have influenced Gideon, (i) The priests at 
 Shiloh had shown no interest in his mission, and he felt, therefore 
 alienated from them. (2) He had himself received direct communi- 
 cations from God. When he returned successful, and with a large 
 spoil of jewels, the idea was suggested to his mind that he could now 
 be independent of the priests, and have an ephod and breastplate of 
 his own, by means of which he could directly appeal to God. We 
 are to understand the ephod he made as including all the parapher- 
 nalia for inquiring of God. 
 
 The sin of Gideon was the sin of Jeroboam. He took the arrange- 
 ment of the religious affairs of the nation into his own hands, and 
 acted upon what appeared to be expedient, not in view of what was 
 right. Both Gideon and Jeroboam had a certain measure of good 
 intention ; but good intentions can never excuse wilfulness. * He 
 was reprehensible for setting up this schismatical ephod, and the 
 sacred historian meant to attribute the fall of his house to this 
 particular sin.' 
 
 Dr. Farrar, remarking on the ephod being put in Gideon's own 
 city, Ophrah, says : ' This gives us a clue to Gideon's motive. Shiloh, 
 the national sanctuary, was in the precincts of the fierce tribe 
 of Ephraim, and Gideon may have been as anxious as Jeroboam 
 afterwards was to keep some direct hold on the nation's worship, as 
 one of the secrets of political power. It was the endeavour to 
 secure and perpetuate by unworthy political expedients a power 
 which he had received by Divine appointment.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth draws out the lesson of the incident in this 
 way : * Gideon's history is a warning that it requires more than a 
 good intention to make a good act ; and that the examples 01 the best 
 of men are not a safe guide of conduct, and the better the man is, the 
 worse will be the consequences of bad acts done by him/ 
 
DAVID'S DECEPTION OF THE PHILISTINES. 61 
 
 J3ishop Hall remarks : ' Gideon meant well by his rich ephod, yet 
 this act set all Israel a-whoring. God had chosen a place and 
 service of His own : and when the wit of man will be over-pleasing 
 God with better devices than His own, it ends in mischief.' 
 
 David's Deception of the Philistines. 
 
 I SAMUEL xxvii. II, 12: 'And David saved neither man nor woman alive, to 
 bring them to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did David, and % 
 so hath been his manner all the while he hath dwelt in the country of the 
 Philistines. And Achish believed David, saying, He hath made his people Israel 
 utterly to abhor him ; therefore he shall be my servant for ever.' 
 
 Question. Can we be required to approve of David's action 
 towards Achish ? 
 
 Answer. No, we are not. It properly arouses our indignation, 
 and calls for our reprobation. We may find some explanations of his 
 conduct, when it is judged from a purely prudential point of view ; 
 but we can find no excuses for it. It was wrong as deception. It 
 was wrong as the self-willed shaping of his own circumstances. It 
 was wrong as an utter failing from trust in God. But the first verse 
 of the chapter clearly informs us that it was a time of hopelessness 
 and despair with David really a time of backsliding ; and we have 
 the record preserved for us of the sad mistake he fell into, and the 
 shame he brought upon the name of religion, when thus for a while 
 he ' followed the devices and desires of his own heart.' These are 
 not the actions of David the pious, but of David the apostate, and 
 they cannot in any sense be fairly charged upon his religion, or made 
 into a charge upon religion in general. They are recorded as 
 warnings of the peril to which the good man is exposed if, even in a 
 time of despondency, he lets self-will get the mastery. 
 
 Canon Spence says : * This year and four months spent with 
 Achish were among the darkest days of David's life. He was sorely 
 tried, it is true ; but he had adopted the very course his bitterest foes 
 would have wished him to select. In open arms, apparently leagued 
 with the deadliest foes of Israel ; like an Italian condottiere, or captain 
 of free lances in the middle ages, he had taken service and accepted 
 the wages of that very Philistine city whose champion he once had 
 slain in the morning of his career. At last his enemies at the court 
 of Saul had reason when they spoke of him as a traitor. From the 
 curt recital in this chapter, which deals with the saddest portion of 
 David's career, we shall see that while he apparently continued to- 
 make common cause with the enemies of his race, he still used his 
 power to help, and not to injure, his countrymen ; but the price he- 
 
62 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 paid for his patriotism was a life of falsehood, stained, too, with deeds 
 of fierce cruelty, shocking even in those rough, half-barbarous 
 times/ 
 
 Referring to David's wholesale slaughterings at this time, Canon 
 Spence asks : ' Was it not these acts of ruthless cruelty which left on 
 this king's hands the stain of blood which rendered them unfit in 
 after-days to build the House of the Lord he longed so passionately 
 to erect ?' 
 
 Dr. Geikie says : * That one who could compose such psalms as 
 his should be capable of habitual deception, and unrestrained 
 slaughter, even of women and children, only illustrates the low moral 
 standard of the age, and the strange contradictions of human nature. 
 Spiritual development such as his, in an age so rude, crafty, and 
 bloodthirsty, is in itself a miracle of which the only explanation is 
 that he owed it to Divine inspiration.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth says : * The sacred historian does not disguise 
 from the reader, that David resorted to unworthy shifts and pre- 
 varications, and to acts, it may be, of cruelty. Such were the results 
 of his want of trust in the Divine providence, and failure to rely upon 
 God.' 
 
 The Slaughter of the Baal Worshippers. 
 
 2 KINGS x. 18-28; comp. xi. 17, 18 : 'Jehu said to the guard and to the 
 captains, Go in, and slay them ; let none come forth.' 
 
 Question. Are we required to approve of the methods in which 
 mm carry out the Divine judgments ? Must we think of God as 
 
 pleased withjehiis treachery ? 
 
 Answer. God always deals with men as free agents, who can put 
 quality and character into the things which they are commanded to 
 do. When He employs material forces to execute His judgments, 
 disease, famine, tempest, earthquake, etc., He keeps the entire 
 control of them in His own hands. Such things can manifest no 
 individuality, and so no moral quality. When God employs man, in 
 ways of war or judicial punishment, He leaves them in a measure 
 free to devise methods, and to manifest personal character and 
 motive in their methods. If this be fairly apprehended, it will become 
 clear that, in many cases, God can approve, and even reward, a man 
 for the thing done, when He must disapprove, and even punish a man 
 for, the spirit and manner in which he has done it. This considera- 
 tion enables us to limit the Divine approval to the execution of the 
 Divine judgment on the foreign Baalites, who had alienated Jehovah's 
 people from their allegiance ; and at the same time to explain why 
 
SLAUGHTER OF THE BAAL WORSHIPPERS. 63 
 
 God judged Jehu, and his posterity for the self-seeking, the treachery, 
 and the undue violence with which he did Jehovah's work. He was 
 praised for his zeal, but not for his subtlety. 
 
 In excuse for Jehu, all that can be urged is, that such terrible 
 destructions are characteristic of Eastern lands at times when 
 reigning dynasties are changed. His dreadful massacre of the 
 Baal-worshippers can be paralleled by the slaughter of the Janissaries, 
 and other terrible tragedies in the modern history of the East. 
 
 Dean Stanley writes: 'The character of Jehu is not difficult 
 to understand, if we take it as a whole, and consider the general 
 impression left upon us by the Biblical account. He is exactly one 
 of those men whom we are compelled to recognise, not for what is 
 good or great in themselves, but as instruments for destroying evil 
 and preparing the way for good ; such as Augustus Caesar at Rome, 
 Sultan Mahmoud II. in Turkey, or one closer at hand in the revolu- 
 tions of our own time and neighbourhood. A destiny, long kept in 
 view by himself or others inscrutable secrecy and reserve in carrying 
 out his plans a union of cold remorseless tenacity with occasional 
 bursts of furious, wayward, almost fanatical, zeal ; this is Jehu, as he 
 is set before us in the historical narrative, the worst type of a son of 
 Jacob the " Supplanter," as he is called, without the noble and 
 princely qualities of Israel the most unlovely and the most coldly 
 commended of all the heroes of his country ' (Hosea i. 4). 
 
 The following estimate of Jehu's act is given by Prof. Rawlinson: 
 ; Objectively considered, the slaughter of the servants of Baal was in 
 perfect harmony with the law; but, subjectively, the motive which 
 nfluenced Jehu was thoroughly selfish. The priests and prophets of 
 Baal in Israel, as depending entirely on the dynasty of Ahab, the 
 <ing who had originally introduced the Baal-worship, might prove 
 dangerous to Jehu. By exterminating them he might hope to secure 
 ;he whole-hearted allegiance of the party that stood by the legitimate 
 worship. His maintenance of the cultus established by Jeroboam 
 'verse 29) proves that he acted from policy rather than religious 
 seal.' 
 
 The Lawfulness of Laying Ambush. 
 
 JOSHUA viii. 2 : * Set thee an ambush for the city behind it ' (Rev. Ver.) . 
 
 Difficulty. Why did God in this case order Joshua to adopt 
 measures of human expediency ? Could He not have given success to the 
 irmy in open fight ? 
 
 Explanation. Joshua had to deal with a people who were difi- 
 icartened and even demoralized. A second straightforward attack 
 
64 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 on Ai would have made too great a demand on the faith and 
 obedience of the army. As a matter of mere human prudence it was 
 better to try another method, and one which divided the host, occu- 
 pied the attention of the soldiers, demanding secrecy, endurance, and 
 promptitude. 
 
 Stratagem and ambush, however, belong to comparatively un- 
 civilized times and methods of warfare. Common sentiment now 
 regards them as dishonourable, and, except in cases of uttermost 
 necessity, no general would now take unfair deceptive advantage of 
 his enemy. We may only say that ambush was a lawful method of 
 warfare in the times of Joshua ; it suited the Eastern character ; it 
 belonged to the guilefulness of the Israelite race, and the require- 
 ments and permissions of the God and King of Israel could reason- 
 ably be on the level of the public sentiment. 
 
 Whether ' ambush ' is lawful in any given case must be decided by 
 the circumstances of the case. War is an unnatural relation for 
 brethren of the one human family to be in ; and it is safer to treat 
 everything connected with it as abnormal. We can never discover 
 what is right or what is wrong for our ordinary and proper human 
 associations by the study of things done in war-times. The whole 
 thing cometh of evil, and is stained through and through with 
 evil. 
 
 We can only say that God enters into existing human conditions, 
 low and base though they may be, in order that He may overrule 
 them to the accomplishment of His high and gracious moral ends in 
 the final well-being of the race. 
 
 Reverting to the narrative, the practical wisdom of the ambush 
 may be clearly shown. It seems that the town of Bethel was suffi- 
 ciently near to render aid to Ai. It was in the rear, less than two 
 miles off, and was at least a shelter to which the men of Ai might fly 
 if they were defeated. As a matter, therefore, of military prudence, 
 it was necessary to mask Bethel, and this was done by sending men 
 round about to secure the valley between the two towns. Then, 
 Bethel being secured, the men of Ai could be drawn forth by one 
 party and their retreat cut off by another. Except for the scheme to 
 deceive the soldiers of Ai by seeming to flee before them, Joshua's 
 plan may be regarded as a display of military science, and not as a 
 mere stratagem. 
 
 There is some confusion in the numbers of the soldiers who were 
 employed in carrying out Joshua's scheme, but a very simple explana- 
 tion removes all difficulty. Thirty thousand was the number selected 
 by Joshua for the enterprise. These were sent away from the camp 
 
GOD'S INFLUENCE ON HEATHEN PEOPLES. 65 
 
 to make a night march towards Ai : five thousand of these were 
 specially charged to go round the west side of Ai, between that city 
 and Bethel ; while the rest took up position on the north of the city. 
 All was ready when the morning came ; the five thousand behind the 
 city were not discovered, and the King of Ai naturally thought that 
 the large host in front of him was the only army with which he had 
 to deal. Joshua evidently took a position on the hills, from whence 
 his signal of the uplifted spear could be observed by the sentinels of 
 the five thousand. 
 
 God's Influence on Heathen Peoples. 
 
 JOSHUA xi. 20 : ' For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, to come against 
 Israel to battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favour, 
 but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.' 
 
 Question. Is this to be regarded as a statement of facts } or an 
 expression of the opinion of the writer ? If it represents facts, does it 
 not remove the guilt of these kings ? 
 
 Answer. If we found such a statement in any ordinary book of 
 history, we should have no difficulty in recognising in it the attempted 
 explanation of the writer of the history. The verse is evidently in- 
 serted as a note ; and we have first to see how far such an opinion 
 fits into the prevailing sentiments of the age, and then how far it 
 finds expression for those deeper relations of God to human actions 
 and affairs which should be recognised in all ages. 
 
 It seems to have been a peculiarity of the Hebrew mind to regard 
 God as doing what we think of God as permitting. We can distin 
 guish between God's ruling and overruling, between God's acting 
 and controlling other men's acting. But these distinctions were too 
 subtle for the Hebrew mind. The Israelites had to preserve the 
 truths of God's unity, of His absolute control over all things and all 
 beings, of His omniscience, omnipresence, and supreme authority ; 
 and in their efforts to preserve these truths, they stated, without due 
 qualifications, the Divine relations with self-willed nations and 
 kings. 
 
 In the passage now before us, we should simply see an Eastern and 
 Hebrew form of expressing the fact of God's overruling even the 
 wilfulness of men ; but under its figures we may find the permanent 
 fact of the Divine dealing with individuals and communities. His 
 judgments may take effect on the minds as well as on the bodies or 
 circumstances of men. When ihey take effect on mind and will and 
 judgment, exerting a blinding, bewildering, or hardening influence, 
 actual calamities follow as the natural result. Too often men only 
 
 5 
 
66 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 recognise the calamities, and they fail to see that the Divine judgment 
 came first on the mind, the will, or the heart. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that the explanation now given has 
 been found so universally acceptable that it has been embodied in a 
 proverb, * Quern Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ' ' Whom God 
 would destroy He first dements.' And clearing away some of the 
 difficulty of God's 'hardening hearts,' Moses says of Sihon, King of 
 Heshbon, * The Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his 
 heart obstinate.' The similar expressions used of the Egyptian 
 Pharaoh are explained in other paragraphs. 
 
 The passage on which we are now commenting does not assert the 
 guilt of these kings in attacking Israel. Their sin was quite distinct 
 from their relations with Israel. It concerned the corruptions, 
 idolatries, and violences of their past lives, and their coming against 
 Israel and being destroyed is all summed up as belonging to their 
 judgment, and not to their guilt. First delusion, then masterful self- 
 will, and then overwhelming calamity ; but delusion as well as 
 destruction a direct Divine judgment. 
 
 It may be added that the word translated ' harden ' would be more 
 correctly rendered * strengthen ' (LXX. xar/tf^y<ra/). 
 
 There is a good note in Lange : 'That their ruin serves to glorify 
 God is self-evident ; only the matter should not be so understood as 
 it is by Calvin, who, while not denying indeed the guilt of the 
 Canaanites, still leaves in the background the judicial providence of 
 God revealing itself in their hardness of heart, and speaks only of 
 God's having made a way for his decree by 'hardening the un- 
 godly.' 
 
 The Mistake of keeping Mistaken Vows. 
 
 I SAMUEL xiv. 24, 44, 45 : ' And the men of Israel were distressed that day ; 
 but Saul adjured the people, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food until 
 it be evening, and I be avenged on mine enemies.' ' And Saul said, God do so 
 and more also, for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan. And the people said unto 
 Saul, Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation Li Israel ?' 
 (Rev. Ver.} 
 
 Difficulty. To what extent may altered circumstances, or increased 
 ijnowleJge, be allowed to influence the keeping of our vows or the fulfil- 
 ment of our promises ? 
 
 Explanation. Eastern people made much more of vows and 
 solemn pledges than we do. In this age of writing, all promises and 
 agreements are properly drawn out, signed, and witnessed. They are, 
 therefore, made quietly and calmly, and upon all due consideration, 
 
THE MISTAKE OF KEEPING MISTAKEN VOW'S. 67 
 
 and the precise fulfilment of them can therefore be rightly and legally 
 enforced. 
 
 But in ancient times and Eastern lands documentary pledges were 
 unusual, and vows publicly uttered and heard by witnesses took their 
 place. It was therefore most important that a public sentiment con- 
 cerning the irrefragible character of such vows should be established, 
 more especially if they were uttered by persons in authority. But 
 there was always the danger of such vows being made hastily, upon 
 insufficient or incorrect information, without due consideration, or 
 upon an impulse of good feeling which had no adequate support 
 from good judgment. 
 
 Still, the importance of maintaining the sentiment that a vow made 
 would certainly be fulfilled, led kings and leaders to keep promises 
 which circumstances proved to have been unwisely made. In such 
 cases we must judge of their action in the light of its influence upon 
 their age ; but the higher Christian light makes quite clear our duty 
 in relation to promises made upon imperfect knowledge or inadequate 
 representations. All such promises may be broken, and they may be 
 better broken than kept. The case is unquestionable, if the fulfil- 
 ment of the promise will do some positive wrong, or be contrary to 
 the spirit of righteousness and charity which should rule in Christian 
 hearts. 
 
 From the Christian standpoint there is no hesitation in saying that 
 Jephthah should have broken his vow, and before God was wrong in 
 fulfilling it. And there is even less hesitation in saying that Herod 
 was condemned before God for keeping a vow made .under sensual 
 excitements, which brought round the peril of one of God's faithful 
 servants. Darius was right in breaking the vow, or law, of the Medes 
 and Persians respecting Daniel, when God so plainly showed how 
 rash and how malicious the securing of that law had been. ' 
 
 The case now before us is recorded to show that vows made in a 
 rash and self-willed spirit are not binding. It is quite plain, on the 
 face of the narrative, that Saul had not sufficient information, that he 
 acted rashly, and in a self-willed spirit : and it was most unreasonable 
 that the national triumph should be checked, and the national hero 
 sacrificed, because Saul spake unadvisedly with his lips. If the 
 consequences could have fallen entirely on Saul, who made the vow, 
 it might have been well for him thus to learn humility and prudence ; 
 but the people were right in demanding the humiliation of the king 
 as the utterer of a foolish vow, rather than the sacrifice of the king's 
 son by the keeping of a rash and wicked pledge. 
 
 Vows calmly made upon due consideration ought to be as binding 
 
 52 
 
68 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 as legally attested deeds. But promises made hurriedly, or upon 
 deceptive or insufficient information, cannot be absolutely binding. 
 A man is always at liberty to withdraw a promise which has been 
 unfairly or hurriedly obtained. 
 
 Dante has the following lines in * Paradise,' v. 63-68. 
 
 ' Take, then, no vow at random ; ta'en in faith, 
 Reserve it ; yet not bent, as Jephthah once, 
 Blindly to execute a rash resolve. 
 Whom better it had suited to exclaim, 
 " I have done ill," than to redeem his pledge 
 By doing worse.' 
 
 Human Sacrifices. 
 
 GENESIS xxii. 2 : 'Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even 
 Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a burnt 
 offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.' 
 
 Difficulty. Can God be conceived of as desiring the sacrifice of 
 human life ? 
 
 Explanation. It is specially stated that what God did on 
 this occasion was done for the precise purpose of tempting or testing 
 the Patriarch : and it may well have been that God required an act 
 which Abraham felt was unlike Him, and unworthy of the thoughts 
 he had hitherto cherished concerning Him. His faith and obedience 
 were therefore tested by the very fact that he could not see the right- 
 ness of what he was required to do. In the ordinary scenes of home 
 and business we should see nothing wrong in a parent or a master 
 giving a command which he did not mean to enforce, but designed 
 only to be a means of testing the spirit of a child or a servant. A 
 simple illustration may be found in the Christian master who required 
 his apprentice to come to work on the Sunday. That command 
 seemed to the Christian apprentice most unworthy of his Christian 
 master. But it effectively tested whether that youth would serve God 
 rather than man when man's commands conflicted with God's. No 
 one would say that such a master committed a moral wrong by thus 
 making himself out to wish what he did not really wish, for the sake 
 of testing the youth. And so, we need not think of God as intimating 
 any desire for human sacrifices because He tried our father Abraham's 
 obedient trustfulness by making a strange request. 
 
 But it should further be noticed that human sacrifices are altogether 
 unfamiliar, and even utterly revolting to us, although they were fami- 
 liar enough to Abraham. Our increased knowledge of Bible lands 
 and times has brought us proofs of the prevalence of the custom in 
 
HUMAN SACRIFICES. 69 
 
 very various countries, some of them countries with which Abraham 
 must have been acquainted. 
 
 Knobel says that 'human sacrifices, especially of children, were 
 customary among the pre-Hebraic nations of Palestine, among the 
 kindred Phoenicians, among their descendants, the Carthaginians, 
 among the Egyptians, among the tribes related with Israel, the 
 Moabites and Ammonites, who honoured Moloch with them. They 
 appear also in the Aramaic and Arabian tribes, but were forbidden 
 by the Jewish law.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie shows that the old Accadians, or early Turanian in- 
 habitants of Chaldaea, the region from which Abraham came, had 
 adopted the practice of human sacrifice long before Abraham's time. 
 He gives the following old Accadian inscription : * In the month 
 Sivan, from the first day to the thirtieth, an eclipse failed, (and) the 
 crops of the land were not prosperous. When tne God of the Air 
 (atmosphere) is fine, (then there is) prosperity. On the high places 
 the son is burnt.' 
 
 Nothing better can be said on this incident than the following 
 sentences of F. W. Robertson : ' Abraham lived in a country where 
 human sacrifices were common ; he lived in a day when a father's 
 power over a son's life was absolute. He was familiar with the idea ; 
 and just as familiarity with slavery makes it seem less horrible, so 
 familiarity with this as an established and conscientious mode of 
 worshipping God removed from Abraham much of the horror that 
 we should feel.' 
 
 Limitation of Judgment to the Sinner. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY xxiv. 16 : ' The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, 
 neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers ; every man shall be put 
 to death for his own sin.' 
 
 Difficulty. How can this be reconciled with such cases as those oj 
 Korah and Achan^ where the families appear to have been executed with 
 the guilty fathers ? 
 
 Explanation. This passage is a part of the rules given to 
 judges and magistrates for the ordering of their decisions and sen- 
 tences. As magistrates can only deal with crimes so far as they are 
 brought home to the criminals by adequate testimony, and as magis- 
 trates must never act upon suppositions and assumptions, and have 
 nothing to do with motives, their sentences must concern the indi- 
 vidual criminal alone. A magistrate has nothing to do with the 
 family connections of a prisoner. He is not a judge to deal with 
 families ; his work is absolutely restricted to the individual. 
 
70 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 But God, the Supreme Ruler, is concerned with families, with men 
 set in association as citizens of one city, or members of one tribe or 
 nation. God can do what no man may do or can do. He can punish 
 the individual for individual transgression ; the family for family sins 
 committed in its name by its head; and the whole city, tribe, or 
 nation for iniquities done by its officials and representatives and 
 leading people. Family judgments may affect the family for genera- 
 tions, as did the judgment on Eli's house. National judgments may 
 fall on successive generations of the race. 
 
 The distinction, then, is this : Man has no right to include in his 
 judgments anyone but the criminal himself. God, dealing with kinds 
 of sin and relations of sin which are beyond men's apprehension, can 
 give sentence upon families, generations, and nations. ' Though God, 
 the sovereign Lord of life, sometimes visits the iniquity of the fathers 
 upon the children, especially when the sin is idolatry, and when He 
 deals with nations in their national capacity, yet He does not allow 
 men to do so.' 
 
 This direction to the Hebrew judges was the more necessary, be 
 cause amongst other Oriental nations the family of a criminal was- 
 commonly involved in his punishment, as we see in the case of 
 Haman (Esther ix. 13, 14), and in the case of Daniel's accusers 
 (Dan. vi. 24). 
 
 Jeremiah's Cursings. 
 
 JEREMIAH xx. 14, 15 : ' Cursed be the day wherein I was born : let not the day 
 wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings 
 to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee ; making him very glad.' 
 
 Difficulty. Is it possible to regard such intense expressions as 
 these as uttered sincerely ; and, if sincere, could any man be justified fa 
 cherishing such feelings ? 
 
 Explanation. They were sincere to the particular mood of 
 feeling ; but the mood of feeling was a wrong and a bad one. It re- 
 presents what has been wisely called 'a passionate outbreak of human 
 infirmity.' With this passage may be compared the answering passages 
 in Job iii. 3 ; x. 18. Keil thinks that 'Job's words are more violent 
 and passionate, and more directly directed against God than 
 Jeremiah's.' 
 
 It is evident that verses 14-18 are so different in tone and character 
 to the passage preceding them, that they must be regarded as forming 
 a distinct fragment belonging to the same period, and placed in its 
 present position by Jeremiah himself, or by the first editor of his 
 prophecies. Ewald suggested that their more natural place is be- 
 
JEREMIAHS CURSINGS. 71 
 
 tween verses 6 and 7. Grotius thinks the language may be that of 
 Pashur, against whom Jeremiah had uttered a severe denunciation. 
 Umbreit thinks the verses are merely inserted here by the prophet as 
 a mirror in which we behold the image of his deeply wounded spirit, 
 previous to his obtaining the deliverance from the Lord, which he 
 had just celebrated. Henderson remarks that similar utterances of 
 stiong feelings of grief, in which the day of one's birth is execrated, 
 are so common in the East, that we may well allow the originality of 
 the prophet's language. 
 
 Thomson, in * Land and Book,' gives a very common-sense explana- 
 tion of such extravagant cursings. Referring to the cursing of Gilboa 
 by David, because Saul and Jonathan had perished on it, he says : 
 * David's poetical imprecation had no more influence upon the moun- 
 tain, or on the clouds, than had Job's malediction upon the day of 
 his birth ; nor was either expected to produce any such malign effects. 
 Similar expressions of profound sorrow or of deep displeasure are 
 common in the East, and are found elsewhere in the Bible. The 
 thought is natural, and who is there that has not indulged it ? The 
 child vents its displeasure upon its rattle ; the boy strikes the stone 
 against which he stumb'es ; the man curses adverse winds, and every 
 senseless thing that annoys him, resists his will, or thwarts his 
 plans.' 
 
 We have here a true expression of Jeremiah's mental condition ; 
 but of his state of mind there is no indication of the Divine approval, 
 For a while he fluctuated between trust in God and despair. To be 
 in such a state of mental conflict was not in itself wrong : wrong 
 would come if the prophet had given way to the despair. We should 
 always carefully distinguish between ' doubting ' and ' giving way to 
 doubting.' 
 
 Calvin, however, ' condemns the prophet for using such words, and 
 says he was guilty of serious sin and contumely agains.t God in thus 
 cursing the day of his birth ; but so far excuses him that it was not 
 for worldly trouble, such as that which raised Job's anger, but because 
 the Word of God was set at nought.' 
 
 The * Speakers Commentary ' adds : * Yet the form of the expres- 
 sion is fierce and indignant. Possibly Jeremiah did imagine that he 
 had neither met with that outward respect, nor with that measure of 
 success, and even of acceptance with God, which had encouraged 
 other prophets. No miracle had ever given proof of his authority to 
 speak in Jehovah's name ; no prediction had as yet been verified. 
 Such thoughts were wrong and sinful, and the impatience of Jeremiah 
 is that, part of his character which is most open to blame. Though 
 
72 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 we admire him as a man who, in spite of opposition from without, 
 and the despondency of his own natural disposition, always did his 
 duty, yet he attains not to the level of the teaching of the New 
 Testament. Still less does he reach to that elevation which is set 
 before us by Him Who is the perfect pattern of all righteousness. 
 Our Lord was a prophet Whose mission to the men of His generation 
 equally failed, and His sorrow was even more deep. But it broke 
 forth in no imprecations. " Jesus beheld the city, and wept over it, 
 saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day " 
 (Luke xix. 41, 42).' 
 
 Dean Plumptrc says : ' The question whether we are to blame or 
 palliate such utterances, how far they harmonize with Christian feel- 
 ing, is one on which we need not dwell long. It is enough to note 
 (i) that while we cannot make for them the half-evasive apology 
 which sees in Jeremiah's prayers against his enemies, and in the im- 
 precatory psalms, prophecies rather than prayers, they indicate the 
 same temper as those psalms and prayers indicate when taken in their 
 natural sense, and so help us to understand them ; and (2) that in 
 such cases, while we give thanks that we have the blessing of a higher 
 law, and the example of a higher life, we are not called upon to 
 apportion praise or blame. It is enough to reverence, to sympathize, 
 to be silent.' 
 
 Saul's Over-Anxious Haste. 
 
 I SAMUEL xiii. 8, 9 : ' And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that 
 Samuel had appointed : but Samuel came not to Gilgal : and the people were 
 scattered from him. And Saul said, Bring hither the burnt offering to me, and 
 the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.' 
 
 Question. Do not the exigencies of the occasion fairly excuse this 
 self-willed act of Saul's ? 
 
 Answer. No exigencies can excuse determined disobedience to 
 recognised authority ; but every act should be judged in the light of 
 its surrounding circumstances, and in view of the character which 
 such an act serves to reveal. It may be suspected that a man is 
 wilful, unrestrained, and really self-seeking, but it may be years before 
 he does anything which shows up his bad character, and gives us no 
 doubt of his untrustworthiness ; and the revealing act may be a very 
 small and simple matter a * straw,' which nevertheless suffices to 
 show 'in which way the wind blows.' Samuel had his fears about 
 Saul, who was disposed to over-estimate his office as king, and tried 
 to get free of the obligations and limitations properly belonging to 
 him as only the prince or vicegerent of Jehovah, the true King of 
 
SA UL'S O VER-ANX1O US HASTE. 7 3 
 
 srael. But Samuel could say nothing and do nothing until Saul, by 
 ome overt acts, plainly showed his masterful spirit. 
 
 The position in which Saul was placed was certainly a very trying 
 me. 'The panic which pervaded all Israel was every hour thinning 
 he host Saul had gathered round him at Gilgal. The martial king 
 onged for a chance of joining battle ; and this he was forbidden to 
 lo until the seer had offered sacrifice and publicly inquired of the 
 ^ord ; and the day passed by, and Samuel came not. An attack on 
 he part of the Philistine army, encamped at no great distance, seemed 
 mminent, and Saul's forces were rapidly melting away.' There is no 
 occasion for assuming that the king claimed the rights and did the 
 iuties of the priests himself. A king is often said to do what his 
 servants do in his name and at his command ; but of such acts he 
 Dears the full responsibility. 
 
 Canon Spence gives the following valuable note in ' Ellicotfs Com- 
 mentary'''. * On this memorable occasion the king plainly told Samuel 
 that, though he would gratefully receive any help which the prophet 
 of the Most High could and would bring him, still, in an emergency 
 like the present, sooner than run any risk, he preferred to act alone, 
 and, if necessary, to go into battle without Divine consecration and 
 blessing. The danger at this juncture was imminent ; to ward it off, 
 he considered that the direct Divine intimation which he allowed he 
 had received through Samuel must be disregarded. Acting upon this 
 persuasion, he set it aside, acting according to the ordinary dictates 
 of worldly prudence. He must, in his action at Gilgal, either have 
 forgotten or disbelieved the story of the Joshua conquest, and of the 
 single deliverances under the hero Judges, when the Glorious Arm 
 fought by the people, and splendid successes were won in the face of 
 enormous odds through the intervention of no mortal aid. Saul 
 might have been, and was, a valiant and skilful general, but was no 
 fitting viceroy of the invisible King in heaven, Who required from 
 him before all things the most ardent, unquestioning faith. Saul and 
 his house, it is too clear, would only rule the Israel of God according 
 to the dictates of their own haughty will.' 
 
 Dean Stanley skilfully brings out the precise point of Saul's failure 
 on this occasion, and shows how this act became a revelation of his 
 character : ' Of all the checks on the dangers incident to the growth 
 of an Oriental monarchy in the Jewish nation, the most prominent 
 was that which Providence supplied in the contemporaneous growth 
 of the prophetical office. But it was just this far-reaching vision of 
 the past and future which Saul was unable to understand. At the 
 very outset of his career Samuel, the great representative of the pro- 
 
74 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 phetical order, had warned him not to enter on his kingly duties til 
 the prophet should appear to inaugurate them, and to instruct hin 
 in them. It would seem to have been almost immediately after hi 
 first call that the occasion arose. The war with the Philistines wa 
 impending. He could not restrain the vehemence of his religiou 
 emotions. As king, he had the right to sacrifice. Without a sacrific 
 it seemed to him impossible to advance to battle. He sacrificed, an< 
 by that ritual zeal defied the warning of the prophetic monitor. I 
 was the crisis of his trial. He had shown that he could not undei 
 stand the distinction between moral and ceremonial duty, on whici 
 the greatness of his people depended. It was not because he sacr; 
 ficed, but because he thought sacrifice greater than obedience, tha 
 the curse descended upon him.'* 
 
 Putting away Strange Wives. 
 
 EZRA x. 17 : 'And they made an end with all the men that had married strang 
 women by the first day of the first month.' 
 
 Question. Was not the removal of so many women and childre 
 to want, struggle, and misery, a far greater evil than retaining thei 
 in contradiction to the spirit of Mosaic regulations? 
 
 Answer. We must always carefully distinguish between an exac 
 and truthful account of events that have happened and the Divin 
 approval of the things that have been done. Very serious difficultie 
 are created by the too generally approved sentiment, that if a thin 
 is recorded in Scripture we are to understand that it, and its doen 
 were acceptable to God. The sentiment needs only to be thus plainl 
 stated, and its incorrectness and unworthiness are at once revealec 
 Scripture is inspired as a truthful record ; we must study its contenl 
 in the light of its declared principles, and we must compare scriptui 
 with scripture, if we would form a right judgment of the moral qualit 
 of actions done. 
 
 No doubt Ezra acted according to his light, and in view of wh< 
 he understood God's law to require. But if we judge his action i 
 our larger light, we cannot fail to see that he tried to remove a con 
 
 * A peculiarity in the arrangements made for going to war in anciei 
 times helps further to explain the pressure put upon Saul. There was no state 
 army in those days, but each tribe furnished a contingent of soldiers ; these we. 
 men taken from their daily work for a limited time, and each man furnished hin 
 self with the necessary food for his few days' absence from home. When his tin 
 expired, and his food was exhausted, he would feel at liberty to return home, 
 is said that the people 'followed Saul trembling,' and that he saw they we 
 ' getting scattered from him.' Putting these expressions together, we may assun 
 that the delay in joining battle was causing so many desertions that the soldie 
 left were trembling at the prospect of war under such disadvantageous conditions 
 
PUTTING AWAY STRANGE WIVES. 75 
 
 iratively small wrong, by doing a much greater wrong The lar- 
 iating to the marriage of strange wives was a doubtful one; its 
 -ecise application cannot be assured ; it had for many long years 
 sen practically annulled, and its revival at this particular time was 
 needless cruelty to the many women who had been brought into 
 latrimonial bonds without any knowledge of wrong-doing. If nny- 
 ody was punished, Ezra should have punished the men, not the poor 
 omen and children. It is very significant that no prophet-voice 
 rought the command of God to put away the wives, and the narrative 
 ontains no indication whatever of the Divine pleasure in the act. It 
 as done as an outburst of pious zeal, but it was zeal without know- 
 idge and without wisdom. 
 
 The ' Speaker's Commentary' admits that, 'according to the letter 
 f the law, marriage with the Canaanite nations was alone forbidden; 
 >ut it came to be generally felt that the principle of the prohibition 
 xtended to all neighbouring idolaters.' We must not, however, 
 hus readily confound what ' people felt ' with what ' God required 
 .nd commanded.' 
 
 Dean Stanley gives such an estimate of Ezra and Nehemiah as 
 eformers as enables us to estimate correctly the value of such a 
 ;cheme as this of putting away the foreign wives, permitting us to class 
 t among acts of fanaticism rather than of faith. ' Ezra and Nehemiah 
 for in some respects they are inseparable) are the very impersona- 
 .ions of that quality which Goethe described as the characteristic by 
 .vhich their race has maintained its place before the judgment-seat of 
 G^od and of history the impenetrable toughness and persistency 
 A'hich constitute their real strength as the reformers of their people. 
 Reformers in the noblest sense of that word they were not. There 
 is not, as in the first or second Isaiah, as in Jeremiah or Ezekiel, a 
 far-reaching grasp of the future, or a penetration into the eternal 
 principles of the human heart They moved within a narrow, rigid 
 sphere. They aimed at limited objects. They were the parents of the 
 various divisions which henceforth divided Palestine into parties and 
 sects. They were by the same paradox according to which it is truly 
 said that the Royalist Prelates of the English Restoration originated 
 Nonconformity the parents of the Samaritan secession. They in 
 augurated in their covenants and their curses that fierce exclusiveness 
 which in the later years burned with a ' zeal not according to know- 
 ledge ' in the hearts of those wild assassins who bound themselves 
 together with a curse not to eat bread or drink water till they had 
 slain the greatest of their countrymen (Actsxxiii. 21) of those zealots 
 who fought with desperate tenacity with each other and with their 
 
76 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 foes in defence of the walls which Nehemiah had raised. But withi 
 that narrow sphere Ezra and Nehemiah were the models of goo< 
 reformers. They set before themselves special tasks to accomplish 
 and special evils to remedy, and in the doing of this they allowe< 
 no secondary or subsidiary object to turn them aside. They aske< 
 of their countrymen to undertake no burdens, no sacrifices, whicl 
 they did not themselves share. They filled the people with a ne\ 
 enthusiasm, because they made it clear that they felt it themselves.' 
 Dean Stanley's judgment of the instance of overdone zeal whicl 
 we are now considering is so full and so wise that we cannot with 
 hold it, especially as we find so few other Bible writers deal fairl; 
 with the difficulties which the narrative suggests. Ezra * was a scrib 
 first and a priest afterwards. The Temple was an object of hi 
 veneration. But it was nothing compared to the " Law." And thi 
 vehemence of his attachment to it is the more strongly brought ou 
 by the comparatively trivial, and in some respects questionable 
 occasion that called it forth. It was the controversy which, fron 
 this time forward, was to agitate in various forms the Jewish com 
 munity till its religious life was broken asunder its relation to th( 
 heathen population around. It may be that at that time the larger 
 nobler, freer views which belonged to the earlier and also to the late 
 portion of the Jewish history were impossible. There had not beei 
 the faintest murmur audible when the ancestors of David once am 
 again married into a Moabite family, nor when David took amongs 
 his wives a daughter of Geshur; nor is there a more exuberan 
 Psalm than that which celebrates the union of an Israelite king will 
 an Egyptian or Tyrian princess. Even if the patriarchal alliance o 
 Abraham with the Egyptian Hagar or the Arabian Keturah, or th( 
 marriage of Moses with the Midianite or the Ethiopian, provoked i 
 passing censure, it was instantly and strongly repelled by the loftiei 
 tone of the sacred narrative. Nor is there in the New Testament i 
 passage more redolent of acknowledged wisdom and charity than thai 
 in which the Rabbi of Tarsus tolerates the union of the heather 
 husband and the believing wife. Nor are there more critical incident 1 
 in Christian history than those which record the consequences which 
 flowed from the union of Clovis with Clotilda, or of Ethelbert with 
 Bertha. But it was the peculiarity of the age through which the 
 religion of Israel was now passing, that to the more keenly strung 
 susceptibilities of the nation every approach to the external world 
 was felt as a shock and pollution. The large freedom of Isaiah 
 .... was gone ; the charity oi Paul, and of a Greater than Paul, 
 had not arisen. The energy of Deborah and of Elijah remained . 
 
PUTTING AWAY STRANGE WIVES. 77 
 
 t for the present generation it was destined to fight, not against a 
 lei oppressor or an immoral worship, but against the sanctities of 
 mestic union with their neighbour tribes dangerous, possibly, in 
 3ir consequences, but innocent in themselves. We are called upon 
 bestow an admiration, genuine but limited, on a zeal which reminds 
 of Dunstan and Hildebrand, rather than of the Primitive or the 
 .forming Church. 
 
 ' All these had taken strange wives, and some of them had wives 
 whom they had children.' With these dry words Ezra winds up 
 s narrative of the signal victory which he had attained over the 
 .tural affections of the whole community a victory doubtless which 
 ;d its share in keeping alive the spirit of exclusive patriotism and 
 uncompromising zeal that was to play at times so brilliant and at 
 nes so dark a part in the coming period of Jewish history, but 
 riich, in its total absence of human tenderness, presents a dismal 
 mtrast to that pathetic passage of the primitive records of their 
 ce, which tells us how, when their first father drove out the foreign 
 mdmaid with her son into the desert, it ' was very grievous in his 
 ght,' and ' he rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a 
 ater-skin, putting it on her shoulder, and the child ;' and how * God 
 eard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out 
 f heaven.' 
 
 Kitto says : * There is no question that such a wholesale divorce 
 iroughout the land is repugnant to our notions, and appears to us 
 wfully, if not needlessly, severe. We are not bound to consider 
 lat because this was done by Ezra it was absolutely right. There 
 lay have been something in it of that overstraining of the law to 
 hich the Jews, after the captivity, became prone; and it may be 
 .iat this example, under the authority of a personage so deservedly 
 enerable as Ezra, tended to furnish a precedent for that readiness m 
 dvorcing their wives, for which the Jews were, in our Lord's time, 
 .otorious. It is clear to us that Moses meant only to interdict inter- 
 aarriages with the devoted nations of Canaan; and, in extending the 
 nterdiction to all foreigners, a step was taken towards that rigorous 
 nterpretation of the law which began from this time to prevail, and 
 vrhich can only be explained by the aversion and profound dread 
 vith which idolatry was regarded by the Jewish people after the 
 :aptivity. 
 
HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The Law of the Divine Mercy. 
 
 I KINGS xxi. 29 : ' And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, s 
 ing, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbl 
 himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days ; but in his son's days \ 
 I bring the evil upon his house.' (See another paragraph on this passage, d'eal 
 with the transference of Ahab's judgment to his descendants, p. 80.) 
 
 Question. Is the Divine mercy to be regarded as dependent on , 
 moral condition of individuals ? 
 
 Answer. Ahab, as the King of Israel, represented the rebelli 
 of the nation against Jehovah, the true King of Israel ; and t 
 rebellion brought from Jehovah a call to national repentance, anc 
 threatening of national judgments if the people did not repent. I 
 the doubt might arise, whether God would be merciful if the nati 
 did change its mind, and return from its idolatrous and wickecl wa 
 How, in those days, could such a doubt be met better than by setti 
 before the people a prominent case as a specimen and illustratio 
 Let the ca^e be that of the chief person in the realm. Let everybo 
 .see how God will deal with Ahab. He sinned grievously in t 
 matter of Naboth. Special threatenings of Divine judgment car 
 upon him. He humbled himself before God : and God did respoi 
 to his better mind, and was gracious to hold over awhile the thre, 
 ened judgments. In this way God established the fact of His suprer 
 anxiety concerning the * right mind/ the good moral character ; sho 
 ing the production of such character to be the end and purpose 
 His judgments, and plainly indicating that the judgments need nev 
 descend, if the desired end can be accomplished apart from thei 
 All Divine threatenings and judgments are necessary means to secu 
 definite ends. They are never used if the ends can be otherwi 
 attained. The judgments need never fall, if the threatenings suffic 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth, observing that Ahab's repentance was onlysupt 
 ficial and temporary, inquires whether the purposes of God, Who h; 
 just before denounced the heaviest woes on Ahab, could be change 
 by such a show of repentance as that. As an answer the Bishop sugges 
 that God ' deals with men exactly as they deal with Him ; He met 
 to them according to their own measure.' God's dealings with Ah; 
 were exactly proportioned and adjusted to Ahab's own conduct. 1 
 a. temporary and superficial repentance, God adapted a punishmer 
 modified by certain temporary and local incidents. He gave him 
 promise of a prorogation of temporal punishment in this world, bi 
 He gave him no promise of remission of future and eternal punis 
 inent, which is the proper penalty of sin, God thus showed that H 
 
'BORROW OR ^BEG: 79 
 
 ies not overlook any effort, however feeble, toward repentance. He 
 compassionate and merciful; 'He cherishes the least sparks of 
 todness in anyone.' If a real contrition is manifested in act, then 
 e, Who does not despise even the slightest external symptom of 
 pentance, will certainly accept and reward it. 
 
 * Borrow' or 'Beg/ 
 
 EXODUS iii. 21, 22 : ' And I will give this people favour in the sight of the 
 jyptians : and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty : 
 it every woman shall ask of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneih in her 
 mse, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment : and ye shall put them 
 >on your sons and upon your daughters ; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians ' (Rev. 
 er.). The Auth. Ver. reads * borrow.' 
 
 Difficulty. Can this receiving without any intention of returning 
 ' explained or justified by any customs of the age, or special circum- 
 ances connected mith the events thus foretold to Moses? 
 
 Explanation. The apparent dishonesty of thus 'borrowing' 
 :id intending to keep has been made much of by those who attack 
 te morality of the Old Testament ; but the Revisers have now sealed 
 le very satisfactory explanation which has often been given, that the 
 ord translated 'borrow' really means 'ask' or 'beg'; and so the 
 sraelites in fact received these jewels as gifts, and not as loans ; the 
 latter being perfectly honourable and straightforward on both sides. 
 
 But as such lavish presentations of household property seem very 
 trange to our modern and Western notions, the incident may be 
 arefully studied in the light of our knowledge of ancient times and 
 Eastern lands. 
 
 It should be remembered that Moses had demanded liberty for the 
 eople of Israel to go three days' journey into the desert districts, in 
 rder to hold a great festival in honour of Jehovah, their God. This 
 /as the distinct form of their demand, and this was what the Egyptian 
 eople understood them to wish. But when the Orientals go to 
 estiva], they always put on their best dresses and jewels. They 
 ;ould quite understand the request of the Israelite women for jewels 
 .nd raiment to go to their festival in ; and though, if the request had 
 jeen made before the plagues and the death of the first-born had 
 mmbled and affrighted the Egyptian women, they would have 
 efused it,, and probably added insults ; with their children dead in 
 heir houses, and in their alarm at what possible calamities might 
 ,till hang over them, they were glad enough to give jewels and any- 
 hins; else, if only these dreadful Israelites could be got rid of out of 
 .he land. 
 
8o HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Some writers, as Kitto, think the Israelites may have been directe 
 to ask that the payment of what was due to them might be made 
 light and valuable articles, suitable for convenient carriage in tl 
 approaching journey. But this cannot be accepted, because tl 
 demand was made, not by the men of those who employed them i 
 the brickyards and the fields, but by the women of the Egyptis 
 women ; and the gift of the jewels was made under the impulse 
 the excitement produced by the universal death of the first-bor: 
 which would fill the women with passionate and unrestrained grief. 
 
 One point of difficulty remains. Hebrew women would only ha\ 
 access to comparatively poor Egyptian women ; then how came sue 
 women to be possessed of such jewels and rich clothing ? As thei 
 are no banks in the East where money can be safely stored, it is quit 
 customary for those who have saved to invest their savings in jewel 
 which are easily carried about ; and the safest place for the keepir 
 of these jewels is on their wives' persons : an Eastern married woma 
 is usually overloaded with jewellery ; * the wife of a tradesman, or of 
 dragoman, is often in possession of bracelets and collars of gol 
 which in Europe would indicate wealth or high station.' 
 
 ' Asking for presents is a common practice in the East, and persor 
 who were quitting their homes to set out on a long journey throug 
 a strange country would have abundant excuse, if any had bee 
 needed, for soliciting aid from their richer neighbours.' 
 
 Transference of Divine Judgment to Descendants. 
 
 I KINGS xxi. 29 : ' Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring th 
 evil in his days ; but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house.' 
 
 Question. Can the righteousness of God, in thus removing t) 
 judgments on a man's sins to his children, be vindicated ? 
 
 Answer. The sin which Elijah denounced was not the privat 
 sin of an individual, but the public sin of a ruler. The murder c 
 Naboth was not a private assassination, but an execution through th 
 abuse of the forms of public law. It was also the act of Ahab 
 house a family act, which the mother devised and carried through 
 and the father virtually approved by accepting what was gained by i 
 Elijah deals with it, therefore, as a dynastic sin, which must be nu 
 by a dynastic punishment. 
 
 With the personal punishment of Ahab Elijah is not so much cor 
 cerned as with the judgment of Ahab's house, or dynasty, whos 
 iniquity was now abundantly illustrated ; this last public injustic 
 made their ' cup run over.' A man is punished for his sins as e> 
 
TRANSFERENCE OF DIVINE JUDGMENT. 81 
 
 pressions of his character ; a family is punished for the sins of its 
 father and head ; and a kingdom is punished for the sins of its ruler, 
 who is regarded as its representative. Unless we can clearly see the 
 distinction between race judgments, national judgments, dynastic 
 judgments, and personal judgments, very much of the Divine dealing 
 with men must seem to us confused and confusing. 
 
 Judgment must come on families and on communities for the world's 
 sake, as part of the moral training of the race. And no better warn- 
 ing of the evil of sin can be given than is found in the fact that a 
 man cannot keep his sin to himself. If he sins as a father, he involves 
 his children. If he sins as a king, he involves his people. In no 
 other way could God so effectually show the evil of sin to the mass 
 of humanity. 
 
 Elijah's curse bore relation to the sin of the royal house, so it fell 
 on the royal house. But the son on whom it fell was in full sym- 
 pathy with the schemes and spirit of Ahab's dynasty, and fully main- 
 tained its traditions. And it should be carefully noticed, that all 
 race judgments and national judgments are limited to events hap- 
 pening in this earth's sphere. Nothing is told us concerning the 
 relations of God to bad kings in the eternal world. There they are 
 but men, and motive, will, intention, are all duly appraised. 
 
 There is a difficulty as to the fulfilment of Elijah's curse on Ahab 
 and on his son, which the ' Speaker's Commentary ' efficiently removes. 
 (See verse 19; and 2 Kings ix. 26.) 'It may be asked, How was 
 this prophecy fulfilled, since the dogs licked Ahab's blood, not in 
 Jezreel, but in Samaria ? (i Kings xxii. 38). The answer seems to 
 be that the prophecy had a double fulfilment. The main fulfilment; 
 was by the casting of the dead body of Jehoram into Naboth's plot 
 of ground at Jezreel, where, like Naboth's, it was left for the dogs to 
 eat (2 Kings ix. 25). This spot, which was just outside the city wall, 
 and close to a gate, was probably the actual scene of Naboth's exe- 
 cution. Here, " in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth,'' 
 did dogs lick Ahab's blood, that is, his son's blood, the execution 
 of the full retaliatory sentence having been deferred to the days of 
 his son, formally and explicitly, on Ahab's repentance. But, beside 
 this, there was a secondary fulfilment of the prophecy, when, not at 
 Jezreel, but at Samaria, the actual blood of Ahab himself, notwith- 
 standing the promise made him en his repentance, was licked b/ 
 dogs (i Kings xxii. 38), only in a way that implied no disgrace.' 
 
 The point of the explanation given above, that God deals with 
 dynasties by inflicting dynastic judgments, may be further illustrated 
 by such passages as i Kings xiii. 34 ; 2 Kings x. 30, etc. 
 
 6 
 
82 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Sojourn in Moab, and Wives of Moab. 
 
 RUTH i. i, 3, 4, 5 : ' And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn 
 in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. And Elimelech, 
 Naomi's husband, died : and she was left, and her two sons. And they took them 
 wives of the women of Moab. And Mahlon and Chilion died also, both of them.' 
 
 Difficulty. Did not Elimelech sin in going to Moab, and his sons 
 sin in marrying women of Moab ? And were not the calamities which 
 came judgments on their sins? 
 
 Explanation. There seems to be good reason f<?7 thinking that 
 the sojourn in Moab was a matter of sheer necessity, the best possible 
 action in circumstances of extreme difficulty. It was not the best 
 thing, that would have been to have waited on God, and waited for 
 God, in a time of sore need and perplexity. But it was the next 
 best thing, especially when, for the sake of the flocks and herds, 
 something must be done at once. We need not assume, on Elime- 
 lech's part, a wilful disobedience, but only a failure from the higher 
 trust in God, which is always for men a difficult attainment. He 
 was wrong by pressure of necessity, rather than in wilfulness. 
 
 S. Cox, the well-known expositor, meets the question, Why did 
 Elimelech select Moab for his sojourn ? * The usual resort of the 
 clans of Canaan and its vicinity in time of famine was Egypt. Why, 
 then, did not Elimelech, like his great forefathers, either go or send 
 down to Egypt for corn ? 
 
 * The probability is that he would have sent or gone if the road to 
 Egypt had not been closed. All the notes of time in the Book of 
 Ruth imply that it was while the venerable but miserable Eli was 
 judge that Elimelech resolved to leave his ancestral fields : and while 
 Eli was judge there was perpetual war with Philistia. When the 
 Philistines heard that the tribes of Israel were oppressed by famine, 
 they would be sure to guard the high road to Egypt, in order to pre- 
 vent their famishing foes from procuring supplies from the vast public 
 granaries of that opulent and powerful empire.' 
 
 * Was it wrong of Elimelech to abandon his native land, in order 
 to sojourn with Moab until the famine was past ? No doubt it was 
 wrong ; and what made it wrong, according to the Old Testament 
 standard, was that he was abandoning his place among the elect 
 people to sojourn among the heathen, whose social life, whose very 
 worship, was unutterably licentious and degrading. If it were right ol 
 him to abandon his place, it would not have been wrong for all Beth- 
 lehem, nay, for all Judah ; and then how could the Divine purpose 
 concerning Israel have taken effect ?' 
 
SOJOURN IN MOAB, AND WIVES OF MOAB. 83 
 
 As to the young men, they do not seem to have married until after 
 their father's death, and this suggests that they knew he would dis- 
 approve of such an idolatrous connection, for the daughters of Moab 
 were peculiarly obnoxious to the faithful Israelites. No Israelite 
 might marry a Canaanite (Deut vii. 3) ; and no Moabite could be 
 received into the congregation (Deut. xxiii. 3). The first evil of 
 going into the heathen country was followed by the worse evil of 
 intermarrying with the heathen Moabites. 
 
 But we need to be very careful in attempting to fix calamity as 
 judgment on individual sin. Our Lord taught us that this is never 
 our province, and that we can seldom, if ever, do it wisely. There 
 can be little doubt that the writer of this book thought both Elimelech 
 and his sons to blame, and held * the calamities which fell on him 
 and his house to be a judgment on his sin.' It is interesting to 
 note that the Targum on verse 4 reads thus : ' They transgressed the 
 commandment of the Lord, and took foreign wives from among the 
 daughters of Moab.' We see in this story that personal and family 
 sins are within the Divine cognizance, and are surely punished, in the 
 Divine providence, by family calamities. 
 
 David's Treatment of Mephibosheth. 
 
 2 SAMUEL xix. 29 : 'And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more 
 of thy matters ? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.' 
 
 Difficulty. Did not David, by this decision, recognise and reward 
 unfaithfulness and injustice ? 
 
 Explanation. At first sight there does seem some indication 
 of an impatient and unreasonable temper. Ziba, it seems, was the 
 means of bringing the fact of the existence of Mephibosheth to the 
 knowledge of David; but, as the prince was helplessly lame, he cou 1 
 not personally manage the estates which David restored to him, so 
 Ziba was appointed his farm-steward, with an agreement that half the 
 produce of the estates was to be forwarded for the support of the 
 young prince at Jerusalem ; the other half would be required for the 
 expenses of working the estate, and for the support of Ziba. This 
 was altogether an equitable and reasonable arrangement, and should 
 have proved quite satisfactory to Ziba. 
 
 Either the necessities of Ziba's family, or an accession of the spirit 
 of ambition and greed, or the fact that a favourable opportunity for 
 becoming suddenly rich presented itself, led Ziba to attempt the 
 deception of David, and the misrepresentation of his master, at the 
 time of Absalom's rebellion. Meeting David as he fled from Jeru- 
 
 62 
 
84 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 sal em, Ziba, with a skilful affectation of loyalty, told the king the 
 shameful lie that his master had stayed in Jerusalem in the belief that 
 he would be made king, now David had fled. Excited and anxious 
 as David was, such news would greatly embitter him ; and so, without 
 waiting for any proofs, he rewarded the fawning, unfaithful Ziba with 
 the gift of all the possessions of the unfortunate prince. Ziba gained 
 his end, but it remained to be seen whether he could keep what he 
 had gained. 
 
 It should be observed that, in connection with the overthrow of 
 Absalom, David acted very weakly. The rebellion would have been 
 successful, humanly speaking, but for the energy of Joab. After 
 Absalom's death David was for some time in a moody condition, 
 from which he was only roused by Joab's plain and almost fierce 
 language. In the scenes of the restoration we can see that the supreme 
 idea of David was just to let things be as they were before the re- 
 bellion, and he wanted all connected with it to be forgotten as speedily 
 as possible ; it was a passage in his history which he would gladly close 
 up and hide away, and never even be reminded of again. In this 
 spirit he dealt with Shimei and Ziba Met things be just as they 
 were.' 
 
 Mephibosheth was not likely to allow himself to lie under the 
 reproach of Ziba ; but there was an abjectness about his approach to 
 David which must have annoyed David, and disposed him to close 
 a painful scene without attempting to decide who was right and 
 who was wrong. The words he used simply mean, ' Don't quarrel 
 over the matter. I can't bear any disputing. Justice will be done if 
 you and Ziba resume your old relations, and you have half the 
 produce of the estates, as you did before this sad rebellion.' It 
 should be clearly seen that Ziba did not retain what he had gained 
 by his wrong-doing. He was put back into his old position as a 
 steward ; and had the misery of feeling that he had really injured no 
 one but himself, by his shameful and ambitious plot. 
 
 It must be admitted that good expositors see in this incident signs 
 of the grave weakness of David, and a sad instance of successful 
 villainy. 
 
 Dr. Geikie writes : * It seems strange that David, so able in many 
 respects, should have been so simple in others. Fresh calumnies 
 had evidently again prejudiced him against the son of his old friend, 
 who, instead of obtaining his grandfather's lands in full, and seeing 
 the slanderer justly punished, was dismissed with the restoration of 
 only half of his patrimony, Ziba receiving the other. Thus does sue- 
 cessful villainy often flourish, and modest merit suffer at the hands ot 
 
DA VI&S TREATMENT OF MEPHIBOSHETH. 85 
 
 unprincipled audacity, even under a prince anxious to do justice to 
 all. So far as the brief notice left of the incident goes, David had 
 little to be proud of in his treatment of the son of such a matchless 
 friend.' 
 
 Dr. F. Gardiner, in 'Ellicotfs Commentary] says that 'either 
 because David had still some doubt of the real merits of the case, or 
 more probably because he was unwilling, for political reasons, to 
 offend Ziba, he resorts to that half-way and compromise course which 
 was both weak and unjust/ 
 
 But such estimates of David's act are based on the assumption 
 that David gave one-half of the property of Mephibosheth over to the 
 possession of Ziba, whereas the fact seems to be that he did but 
 restore the original agreement. This is mentioned in 2 Sam. ix. 10. 
 * Thou, therefore, and thy sons, and thy servants shalt till the land 
 for him, and ' r bou shalt bring in the fruits, that thy master's son may 
 have food to eat' Knowledge of Eastern customs assures the ex- 
 ceeding probability that the amount for Mephibosheth was fixed at 
 half-produce, or half the land, as it is called. This is made quite 
 plain by the following explanation : 
 
 ' The ancient way of tenancy nor is it yet quite disused was that 
 of occupying the land, and giving the proprietor a certain annual 
 portion of the fruits of it. Sometimes the tenant paid one-half of the 
 annual produce, and such, in the judgment of the best critics, was 
 Ziba to Mephibosheth, as he had before been to Saul. So that Ziba, 
 having half the fruits for his labour, had, in effect, half the land. 
 Upon Ziba's misinformation, the whole was given to him (as the con- 
 fiscated property of a rebel); David now revokes that grant, and 
 restores his first decree; for the words plainly refer to a former 
 decree, now re-established, whereby Saul's estate was divided between 
 Mephibosheth as proprietor, and Ziba, as having half its fruits for the 
 labour of cultivation.' 
 
 The Imprecatory Psalms. 
 
 PsALM cix. 20 : ' Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and 
 of them that speak evil against my soul.' (See verses 1-19, and also Psalm v. 8-10, 
 vii. 11-17, xxxv., Iviii. 10, Ixix.). 
 
 Question. Can any explanation relieve our feeling that such a 
 spirit of personal revenge was utterly unworthy of one who professed to 
 be a godly man 1 
 
 Answer. The relief we find most satisfactory comes from 
 observing that, in all these cases, we have the free outpouring of a 
 man's feelings and wishes to God, in a time of great excitement; and 
 
86 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 not the outpouring of curses upon, or even in the hearing of, the 
 man's enemies. It is characteristic of the Divine love that it wants 
 our perfect confidence and openness. We must be just ourselves 
 be it a bad mood or a good mood that we are in when we come 
 before God. And here we find David in a bad mood, and he could 
 not do a wiser thing than just speak out all the dreadful things of his 
 passion to God. That would soon bring him relief, and when all was 
 uttered out he would return upon kindlier and better feelings. These 
 so-called imprecatory psalms have for us this most valuable mission : 
 they teach us that, in the infinite patience and gentleness of our 
 heavenly Father, He permits His children to open out their whole 
 hearts to Him, and tell Him their complaints, their troubles, and 
 even the revengeful feelings they may be cherishing. So we do not 
 see in these psalms any requests, only the passionate outpouring of 
 a heart overwhelmed with the cruel treatment it has received. Read 
 in this way, the burden of associating such curses with a godly man 
 is entirely removed. 
 
 But very different explanations have been given by Biblical writers, 
 and some notes of these may be added. 
 
 The 'Speaker's Commentary' says : 'The Psalmist, contemned and 
 despised by those to whom he had done good, and by whom he had 
 been cursed often and persecuted to death, betakes himself at first to 
 prayer as his single refuge ; then addresses himself to God, with 
 Whom is vengeance, and hurls back the curse, which his foes had 
 imprecated upon him, upon themselves with a fire and energy which 
 seem to some surprising in this divine collection of hymns. But is a 
 Christian spirit to be expected always in the Psalms ? Would the 
 words of Christ have been uttered (Matt. v. 43, 44, etc.) if the spirit 
 which animated the Jewish people, and is exhibited not unfrequently 
 in their annals, had been always that which He came to inculcate ? 
 Under the Old Covenant, calamity, extending from father to son, 
 was the meed of transgression ; prosperity, vice versa, of obedience ; 
 and these prayers of the Psalmist may express the wish that God's 
 providential government of His people should be asserted in the 
 chastisement of the enemy of God and man.' 
 
 This view is supported by Jennings and Lowe : ' Regarded from a 
 Christian point of view, the animosity of the Psalmist does indeed 
 appear extravagant and sinful. But if it be read with due considera- 
 tion of the real religious and moral status of the Jew, we shall find 
 no occasion to evade the natural meaning of this psalm of impre- 
 cation. The Mosaic revelation lays much less stress upon the duty of 
 forgiveness than the Gospel does ; and, moreover, the hostile attitude 
 
THE 1MPRECA TOR Y PSALMS. 87 
 
 which the Jewish nation had perforce to assume towards the entire 
 Gentile world was not likely to engender a submissive or forbearing 
 spirit in the victims of either public or private oppression. But it 
 would be unfair to ascribe the imprecations of this psalm altogether 
 to feelings of mere resentment. Pious indignation at the triumph of 
 evil must here be recognised a? one, if not a chief, incentive.' 
 
 Dean Perownt follows on the same lines : * Terrible as these de- 
 nunciations undoubtedly are, to be accounted for by the spirit of the 
 Old Dispensation, not to be defended by that of the New, still let us 
 learn to estimate them aright This is the natural voice of righteous- 
 ness persecuted. These arc the accents of the martyr, not smarting 
 only with a sense of personal suffering, but feeling acutely, and hating 
 nobly, the triumph of wickedness.' 
 
 The earlier ideas of the psalm are well represented by St. Angus line : 
 * These words of this psalm are not spoken by the impulse of vin- 
 dictive passion, but from the calmness and clearness of Divine 
 omniscience, which sees and declares what is future as if it were 
 present, and which announces that God's justice will certainly inflict 
 what they who provoke it and trifle with it deserve and bring on 
 themselves. But let not any man therefore abuse such language as 
 this into a plea for rendering evil for evil, which Christ forbids us to 
 do. What is here declared is not uttered from the feelings of an 
 accuser who wishes for the punishment of his adversary, but from the 
 deliberate wisdom of a judge who loves equity and maintains it. The 
 former renders evil for evil ; but the latter, even when he punishes, 
 does not render evil for evil, but he administers what is just to the 
 unjust ; and what is just is always good, and what is good is always 
 pleasing and an object of desire. The just Judge does not punish 
 for love of anyone's misery, which would be to render evil for evil ; 
 but He punishes for love of justice, and in this sense renders good 
 for evil. Therefore, in reading this psalm, let us be warned again 
 that blind self-adulation which presumes that God will not be true to 
 His own word, and will not punish the guilty ; and let us not hence 
 derive a plea for our own vindictive passions, as if it were not a sin 
 to render evil for evil. But let us listen to what this divine psalm 
 teaches us ; and in the words of its malediction, pronounced on the 
 wicked, let us see a Divine prophecy of the certain punishment of 
 sin, and let us contemplate God administering His own everlasting 
 laws with exact retributive justice.' 
 
 4 Ellicotfs Commentary ' does not regard the psalm as having a 
 personal character. ' Whatever its origin, whoever the original object 
 of the imprecations, it is certain that they become public, ecclesias- 
 
S8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 tical, national. It is quite possible that from the first the writer 
 spoke in the name of the persecuted nation against some oppressive 
 heathen prince, such as Antiochus Epiphanes.' 
 
 A modern effort to get rid of the difficulty, which was started by 
 Kennicott and Mendelssohn, has been made by Mr. Taylor^ in his 
 work ' The Gospel in the Law.' He supposes the words of the psalm 
 not to be uttered by the Psalmist, but to be merely cited by him as 
 the words of his enemies directed against himself. We have only at 
 the end of verse 5 to supply the word ' saying,' which is so commonly 
 omitted in Hebrew before quotations, and all that follows to the end 
 of verse 19 may be regarded as the malediction of the Psalmist's 
 enemies. This view, however, has not met with much favour. 
 
 The Lord's Enmity against Amalek. 
 
 EXODUS xvii. 8, 16 : Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim. 
 . . . For he said, Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with 
 Amalek from generation to generation.' Literally, * He said, Because [a] hand 
 [is] on the throne of the Lord, a war of the Lord against Amalek from generation 
 to generation/ (See margin.) 
 
 Question. Wherein lay the aggravation of the sin of Amalek 
 which made necessary so severe a judgment? 
 
 Answer. Two explanations may be given of this incident One 
 is well expressed in the following notes from the 'Speaker's Com- 
 mentary' arid ' Ellicotfs Commentary': 
 
 ' The attack upon the Israelites was made under circumstances, at 
 a time and place, fully explained by what is known of the peninsula. 
 It occurred about two months after the Exodus, towards the end of 
 May or early in June, when the Bedouins leave the lower plains in 
 order to find pasture for their flocks on the cooler heights. The 
 approach of the Israelites to Sinai would of course attract notice, and 
 no cause of warfare is more common than a dispute for the right ot 
 pasturage. The Amalekites were at that time the most powerful race 
 in the peninsula, which from the earliest ages was peopled by fierce 
 and warlike tribes, with whom the Pharaohs, from the third dynasty 
 downwards, were engaged in constant struggles. It may be conjec- 
 tured that reports of the marvellous supply of water may have 
 reached the natives, and accelerated their movements. On this 
 occasion Amalek took the position recognised in the Sacred History 
 as the chief of the heathens (Num. xxiv. 20), the first among the 
 heathens who attacked God's people, and as such marked out for 
 punishment (see i Sam. xv. 21), especially merited by them as de- 
 
THE LORD'S ENMITY AGAINST AM ALE K. 89 
 
 'cendants of the elder brother of Jacob, and therefore near kinsmen 
 )f the Israelites.' 
 
 Prof. Rawlinson, in ' EUicotfs Commentary? says : ' The Ama- 
 ekites had not been previously (except in the anticipatory notice of 
 Genesis xiv. 7) mentioned as a nation. They early became the pre- 
 iominant people in the Sinaitic peninsula. Though Edomites, they 
 ire always regarded as a distinct race, and one especially hostile to 
 Israel (ver. 16). Their present hostility was not altogether unpro- 
 voked. No doubt they regarded the Sinaitic region as their own, 
 ind as the most valuable portion of their territory, since it contained 
 heir summer and autumn pastures. During their absence in its 
 nore northern portion, where there was pasture for their flocks after 
 he spring rains, a swarm of emigrants had occupied their best lands, 
 md threatened to seize the remainder. Naturally they would resent 
 he occupation. They would not understand that it was only tem- 
 porary. They would regard the Israelites as intruders, robbers 
 persons entitled to scant favour at their hands. Accordingly, they 
 iwooped upon them without mercy, attacked their rear as they were 
 ipon the march, cut off their stragglers, and slew many that were 
 * feeble, faint, and weary " (Deut. xxv. 17, 18). They then encamped 
 n their neighbourhood, with the design of renewing the struggle on 
 he next day. It was under these circumstances that Moses had to 
 nake his arrangements. Amalek's sin was that, after all the signs 
 md wonders which had shown the Israelites to be God's peculiar 
 people, he braved God's displeasure by attacking them. To this 
 mdacity and contempt of Jehovah's power he added a cruel pitiless- 
 icss, when he fell upon the rear of an almost unarmed host at a time 
 tfhen they were " faint and weary." ' 
 
 But Dr. J. L. Porter, in his addition to Kitto's chapter on 
 Rephidim, best brings out the aggravation of the sin of these 
 Amalekites, and adds a point of importance, which the other writers 
 ;eem to have missed. He thinks Rephidim was in Wady esh-Sheikh, 
 #hich falls into Feiran after sweeping round northwards in a semi- 
 :ircle from the base of Mount Sinai. It forms the only practicable 
 ipproach from the westward to that mountain. In Wady Feiran 
 here was one of the largest fountains in the whole peninsula. At 
 Rephidim there was no water, and Moses was commanded to ' go on 
 Before ' with the elders, and ' smite the rock in Horeb.' 
 
 ' The attack of the Amalekites appears to have followed immedi- 
 itely the miracle of the smitten rock ; and as it was begun by an 
 attack upon the rear of the Israelites upon " all that were feeble 
 Dehind thee, when thou wast faint and weary " it would seem pro- 
 
9 o HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 bable that it took place when the able-bodied men had gone forward 
 with Moses and the elders to procure water. This throws new light 
 upon the incident. The people were taken by surprise, and the 
 Amalekites gained a temporary advantage. 
 
 ' It is usual to connect the Amalekites with Wady Feiran, and to 
 represent the battle as a brave attempt on their part to defend the 
 paradise of their desert home. But this is without any satisfactory 
 evidence. The home of the Amalekites was away upon the borders 
 of Palestine, and it is questionable whether they had ever any posses 
 sions among the mountains of Sinai. Why, then, did they attack the 
 Israelites ? It would seem that they knew of the intention of the 
 people to invade Canaan. They were watching their movements. 
 When they saw them encamp at Rephidim, they feared they were 
 about to advance northwards. Consequently, they embraced wha 1 
 they deemed a favourable opportunity, swept down through the 
 passes from the northern plateau, and attacked them in the rear 
 thinking thus to destroy them by one bold stroke/ 
 
 The point of the judgment on Amalek was that Israel should neve; 
 make any league with this nation, but ever regard the Amalekites a; 
 irreconcilable enemies, doomed to ruin. Probably the severity o 
 the judgment is in part due to the fact that this was the first hostile 
 attack on Israel, and a profound impression needed to be producec 
 on other tribes, which would keep them from attempting to checl 
 the Israelite progress. 
 
 The Slaughter of the Baal Prophets. 
 
 I KINGS xviii. 40 : ' And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal 
 let not one of them escape. And they took them : and Elijah brought them dow 
 to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.' 
 
 Question. Was this terrible slaughter in any sense necessary t 
 the vindication of Jehovah as God, which was the mission entrusted t 
 Elijah ? 
 
 Answer. It was, as the matter would be regarded in that agt 
 and in accordance with prevailing national and religious sentiment. 1 
 The life of proved deceivers of the people was fairly forfeited 
 Elijah's life would most certainly have been taken if he had failed t 
 bring down the fire : and the mere fact of the Baal representative 
 being numerous does not affect the justice of their execution. The 
 were destroyed by the sudden indignation of the people, whic 
 Elijah directed. It was a case of Lynch Law, with a clear basis c 
 natural justice. 
 
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE BAAL PROPHETS. 91 
 
 This may suffice for a general answer, but it is possible to be much 
 ore precise in the explanation of the incident, which certainly seems 
 reveal a sanguinary disposition in Elijah. Dean Stanley fully 
 ters into the spirit of the scene, and this gives the best defence of 
 ijah's act. Things done in the impulse of high excitement ought 
 t to be judged as if they were the deliberate decisions of the quiet 
 d judicial hour. * Elijah was now the ruler of the nation. His 
 >rd was law. In that sudden revulsion of feeling " the wheel had 
 me full cycle round." The persecutors became the victims. The 
 ophets of Baal were seized ; they were swept away by the wild 
 altitude. Elijah himself led them down the mountain slopes to 
 e gorge of the Kishon. As Phinehas, as Samuel, before him, so 
 ijah now took upon himself the dreadful office of executioner/ 
 If Jehovah is King of the country, and His claim is acknowledged, 
 en He needs to have an executioner to carry out His kingly indig- 
 .tion against those who had refused His authority and persecuted 
 is servants. 
 
 It may further be suggested that it was advisable, for the people's 
 ke, to make the influence of Baalism in the land henceforth difficult, 
 lere would be a rebound from the excitement of the Carmel scene, 
 d of this the Baal prophets would make skilful occasion to revive 
 eir power. And we may add that, under the theocracy, a prophet, 
 rectly commissioned by Jehovah, had the right to step in and 
 ecute Jehovah's laws whensoever the king failed in his duty. 
 As this is an unusually involved and perplexing subject, three 
 ssages may be given, which gather up the above points of explana- 
 >n, and enforce them with the authority of judicious and trusted 
 iters. 
 
 Kitto says : ' The appeal of Elijah was to the people. He called 
 >on them to inflict, then and there, upon these ringleaders of the 
 :ople in idolatry, the punishment which the law denounced, and 
 ch as would have been inflicted upon himself had the victory been 
 i their side ; and the king seems to have been too awe-stricken to 
 terfere. From the character of Elijah, we have no doubt that he 
 ecuted this act of blood heartily, and with entire satisfaction. It is 
 >t for us to vindicate him. The only question is, Was this in 
 cordance with the law, and with the spirit of the times? It 
 rtainly was. And Britons, not so much as fifty years ago, per- 
 rmed under their own laws, with perfect peace of mind, upon far 
 5s heinous offenders, the deadly executions which we now regard 
 .th horror. If, then, in looking back upon the last generation, we 
 ake allowance for this great change of law and sentiment within so 
 
92 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 short a time, we must needs make the same allowance in surveyi 
 the more remote, and less refined, age in which Elijah lived.' 
 
 This statement respecting the severities of British law of fifty ye? 
 ago is well illustrated by a passage from Lord Lytton's life of 1 
 father, the well-known novel-writer, Bulwer Lytton : ' The numt 
 of persons executed in the seven years from 1819 to 1825 was 55 
 Their offences were as follows : Arson and other wilful burning 
 property, 10. Burglary, 128. Cattle-stealing, 2. Maliciously killing, 
 Forgery and uttering forged instruments, 62. Horse-stealing, s. 
 Housebreaking in the daytime and larceny, 9. Larceny in dwellir 
 houses to the value of forty shillings, 27. Secreting and steali 
 letters containing bank-notes, 5. Murder, 101. Shooting, stabbir 
 and administering poison with intent to murder, 30. Rape, 31. Ri 
 (remaining assembled with rioters one hour after the Riot Act h, 
 been read), i. Robbery from the person on the highway and oth 
 places, 95. Sacrilege, 2. Sheep-stealing, 29. Unnatural offences, i 
 High treason, 5. From these figures it appears that, of all t 
 persons who were hanged in England between the years 1819 ai 
 1825 inclusive, less than one-Jiff h were guilty of the crime to whi 
 capital punishment is now confined? 
 
 But the most remarkable illustration of the change which circui 
 stances make in the public estimate of general executions and seen 
 of slaughter is given by Dean Stanley in his lecture on the extermir 
 tion of the Canaanites : ' In the late Indian Mutiny, at the tir 
 when the belief in the Sepoy atrocities (since exploded) prevail 
 throughout India, it will be in the memory of some that letters we 
 received from India, from conscientious and religious men, containi 
 phrases to this effect. " The Book of Joshua is now being read 
 church. It expresses exactly what we are all feeling. I never befc 
 understood the force of that part of the Bible. It is the only ru 
 for us to follow." I do not quote this sentiment to approve of 
 I quote it to show that what could be felt, even for a moment, 1 
 civilized Christendom now, might well be pardoned, or even coi 
 mended, in Jewish soldiers three thousand years ago.' 
 
 Dr. Henry Alton, writing in ' The Bible Educator' says : * T 
 slaughter of Baal's priests is to be justified only on theocratic pri 
 ciples. Thus Moses more than once put idolaters to death. Elij; 
 demanded their death in the name of the Mosaic law (Exod. xxii. 2 
 Deut. xiii. 6-10; xvii. 1-7). They were not merely false teache 
 and imposters, but traitors and rebels against the national govei 
 ment. It was part of Ahab's guilt that he had not done the sarr 
 Probably the excitement of the people would have made it impossit 
 
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE BAAL PROPHETS. 93 
 
 ;ave them, even had it been lawful to do so. It is freely admitted 
 t under any other than a theocratic government such a slaughter 
 the priests of a false religion would have been both a crime and 
 lunder according, that is, to our modern notions ; but then, in 
 ness to those who have done such things, it should be re- 
 mbered that such notions are scarcely three centuries old. 
 ither Christendom, paganism, nor infidelity has long learned how 
 ch greater and more effectual moral victories are than physical 
 ermination.' 
 
 Dr. Barry's note, in * Ellicotfs Commentary / is as follows : * This 
 hless slaughter of Baal's prophets, as a judgment on their idolatry 
 i perversion of the people, belongs alike to the fierce righteousness 
 the character of Elijah, and to the spirit of the Old Law (see, for 
 imple, Deut. xiii. 6-18 ; xvii. 2-7). The law was adapted to 
 ; " hardness of men's hearts." In the imperfect moral and religious 
 ucation of those times, it did not recognise the difference between 
 )ral and political offences punishable by human law and the 
 igious sin or apostasy which we have been taught to leave to the 
 igment of God alone ; and it enjoined an unrelenting severity in 
 * execution of righteous vengeance, which would be morally im- 
 >ssible to us, who have been taught to hate the sin, and yet spare, 
 far as possible, the sinner.' 
 
 Schemes for securing Wives for Benjamin. 
 
 JUDGES xxi. 14 : 'And Benjamin came again at that time ; and they gave them 
 ves which they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead : and yet so they 
 fficed them nol ' 
 
 Difficulty. Does not such a dreadful story of atrocity and blood- 
 ed dishonour the pages of God's Holy Word ? 
 
 Explanation. The object of the narrator seems to be to give a 
 vid picture of the society of that age, as introductory to the appoint 
 ent of a king, whose authority should suppress such disorders, 
 ut a further object may be discerned. He shows that, even in a 
 me of such anarchy, God was watching over the nation, and would 
 Dt permit one section of it to be entirely rooted out. The singular 
 ling is that the overruling Providence worked its purpose through acts 
 f violence and treachery; the same kind of evil-doing that threatened 
 ic destruction of a tribe securing its recovery and restoration. 
 
 The key to the compiler's object in such an unveiling of the horrors 
 f the age is found in the closing sentence of the book, verse 25 : 
 In those days there was no king in Israel : every man did that which 
 
94 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 was right in his own eyes.' The disorders of the time arose from t 
 want of some strong central authority. 
 
 The mission of such records in God's Word is one of suprei 
 importance. The tendency of each age, and especially of later ag 
 is to overpraise humanity, and proclaim man's goodness, so that 
 really needs no redemption. The resistance of that tendency is fou 
 in the simple records of history. Put nations under the very b 
 influences, give them every possible advantage, and then let moi 
 governmental, and religious restraints go loose for a while, and t 
 corruptions of men run riot, and produce anarchy, violence, a 
 bloodshed, such as was seen in the days of the Judges. Histo 
 sacred and profane, is the testimony to the truth of human depravi 
 The race needs each individual needs a Redeemer to deliver, a 
 a King to rule in righteousness. 
 
 The story connected with the above passage is briefly as follows : 
 In consequence of a terrible wrong done by a man of Benjamin, t 
 other tribes had united in solemn vow to secure its annihilate 
 Benjamin fought bravely, but was at last defeated by a stratage 
 and only 600 men managed to escape destruction out of soi 
 27,000; the female inhabitants and the children being ruthlessly \ 
 to the sword. Presently some remorse seized the rest of the tribt 
 but action seemed impossible, because the vow taken included 
 pledge that no man should give his daughter to wife to a man 
 Benjamin. Wives could only be found for these 600 Benjamites 
 some sort of stratagem, some scheme by which the letter of th 
 oath could be kept, while in actual fact it was broken. Such n 
 vows always imperil sincerity and straightforwardness. We om 
 never to pledge what we will do in the future, because circumstam 
 may arise which compel other conduct than we had resolved upc 
 In respect of vows and pledges, it may be said that they ought ne^ 
 to be taken, because * sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof/ 
 
 Four hundred wives were obtained by an expedition against Jabe 
 gilead. As these did not suffice, -by a pious fraud the 200 men 1 
 were encouraged and permitted to seize at will the young Israel 
 women who were dancing at one of the religious feasts. Th( 
 daughters were not given so the oath was kept. They w< 
 obtained and so the needs of the Benjamites were met. Such 
 story enforces our Saviour's command, 'Swear not at all.' 'T 
 guilt of breaking a guilty vow is only the original guilt of ever havi 
 made it.' 
 
DIVINE JUDGMENT ON MOSES. 95 
 
 Divine Judgment on Moses. 
 
 NUMBERS xxvii. 12-14 : 'And the Lord said unto Moses, Get thee up into this 
 .ountain of Abarim, and behold the land which I have given unto the children of 
 ;rael. And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, 
 ; Aaron thy brother was gathered : because ye rebelled against my word in the 
 ilderness of Zin, in the strife of the congregation.' 
 
 Difficulty. Surely this is a needlessly severe judgment on a com- 
 aratively trivial fault, committed under extreme provocation. 
 
 Explanation. The moral estimate of a fault must take into 
 ccount the position of influence and authority which the person who 
 ommits it may occupy. It is in this light only that the seriousness 
 f Moses's failing can be properly estimated. His action dishonoured 
 ehovah in the eyes of the people ; and, therefore, in a very public 
 nd impressive way, the fact must be declared that sin never goes 
 /ithout punishment, even if it is committed by God's most trusted 
 ervants. God was teaching this people, Israel, by signs ; and even 
 he great Moses must himself be held up before them as a sign for 
 heir warning against disobedience in small things. 
 
 The incident to which reference is made is recorded in Numbers xx. 
 i-i3. The thing most prominent in it is certainly Moses' giving 
 vay to temper, and * speaking unadvisedly with his lips ' (Psa. cvi. 
 J3), and angrily smiting the rock twice. A passionate impulsiveness 
 vas the weakness in the noble character of Moses. He learned to 
 estrain it, but on this occasion he gave way. Now Moses was the 
 xie man who not only gave to men the will of God, but also, in his 
 )wn intercourse with men, showed them the character of God. This 
 nakes the failure of Moses of such supreme importance. Men were 
 jetting their ideas of Jehovah very largely from the spirit, character, 
 and relations of Moses. Then how false a view of God was pre- 
 sented by such impetuosity, passion, and calling of bad names, as is 
 recorded in Numbers xx. 10, n. It was not that Moses failed in 
 faith, but he did not maintain that close reliance on God which would 
 have enabled him to keep calm, and act wisely, even in circumstances 
 of most extreme provocation. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth thinks the sin of Moses consisted in two 
 things : i. In calling the people's attention to himself as if he were 
 the author and donor of the gift of water, and saying, 'Must we 
 fetch you water out of the rock ?' thus assuming to himself the power 
 of bringing the water out of the rock, instead of raising their eyes to 
 God, who vouchsafed to give the water through his ministry and 
 instrumentality A.nd 2, in smiting the rock twice literally, with 
 
96 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 two strokes, in his impatience, as if the water was to be elicited b 
 the application of man's strength, and not by God's word, when h 
 was commanded to speak to it once. He thus showed want of faith 
 and was guilty of disobedience; and he sinned in these respect 
 publicly, in the eyes of the people committed to his charge by God/ 
 The simple note in the * Speaker's Commentary ' says all that reall 
 needs to be said on the subject. 'In fact, the faithful servant c 
 God, worn out by the reiterated perversities of the people, at las 
 breaks down ; and, in the actual discharge of his duty as God 
 representative before Israel, acts unworthily of the great functio 
 entrusted to him. Thus Moses did not " sanctify God in the eyes c 
 the children of Israel." Aaron might have checked the intemperat 
 words and acts of Moses, and did not. Hence God punishes bot 
 by withdrawing them from their work for Him, and handing over it 
 accomplishment to another.' 
 
 Laban's Duplicity. 
 
 GENESIS xxix. 26 : ' And Laban said, It is not so done in our place, to give th 
 younger before the firstborn ' (Kev. Ver.}. 
 
 Question. Was Laban's deceitful scheme in any sense justifie 
 by the customs of the country ; or did his excuse only add insult i 
 injury 1 
 
 Answer. Several things connected with Arab marriage custom 
 need to be understood before we can estimate fairly the incident 
 narrated in this chapter. In the East the bride is always, in a sense 
 purchased : the applicant for her has to bring rich presents, an 
 bargain with the relatives of the bride. This is illustrated in the cas 
 of Isaac's marriage to Rebekah. Isaac did not go to negotiate fo 
 her himself. Isaac's father sent a confidential servant, and with hir 
 handsome presents. By this servant the matter was arranged wit 
 the family of Rebekah. Jacob, however, had no property, so coul 
 make no presents ; he could only offer his personal services. 
 
 It is not generally known that it is still the custom among th 
 Arabs to prefer a relative as the husband of a daughter ; or that, o 
 giving a moderate dowry, the elder cousins can claim the elde 
 daughters in marriage, and the younger cousins the younger daughter; 
 According to this custom, Jacob, being a second son, had a reco^ 
 nised claim to Rachel, the younger daughter. The Rabbins have 
 very curious tradition, which shows the prevalence of the idea c 
 cousinly alliance ; they say that Leah's eyes were weak fror 
 weeping, because Esau, the elder cousin, had not come to marry he; 
 
LA BAN'S DUPLICITY. 97 
 
 The deception practised upon Jacob was easily managed, because 
 in the East the bride is always brought to the bridegroom closely 
 veiled. The veil covers the whole body, and is far larger than that 
 ordinarily worn. Now-a-days the bride's veil is usually red. No doubt 
 the sisters were nearly alike in size, figure, voice, etc., which helped 
 to carry through the deception. It is clear, however, that Leah must 
 have been a willing party to the fraud, if she did not actually 
 suggest it. 
 
 The marriage festival usually lasted a week (Judges xiv. 12), and 
 to have forsaken Leah during this period would have been to offer 
 her an insult which her brothers must have avenged. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether there was any such custom as Laban 
 refers to ; and if there had been, he was bound in honour to have 
 mentioned it when Jacob negotiated for Rachel. The only hint of 
 such a custom we can hear of is given by Lane, who says that in 
 Egypt a father objects to marry a younger daughter before an elder. 
 Inglis says, 'The apology of Laban that the younger sister could 
 not be married before the elder, according to the custom of the tribe, 
 cannot be admitted. A baser fraud and a more cruel injury it was 
 impossible to inflict on any man, which no subsequent act could 
 repair. It was not Jacob only, but his own daughter Rachel, whose 
 happiness he sacrificed to his covetousness.' 
 
 Jamieson remarks that * this is too much the way of the people of 
 the East still. The duty of marrying an elder daughter before a 
 younger, the tricks which parents take to get off an elder daughter 
 that is plain or deformed, and in which they are favoured by the long 
 bridal veil that entirely conceals her features all the wedding-day, and 
 the prolongation for a week of the marriage festivities among the 
 greater sheikhs, are accordant with the habits of the people in Arabia 
 and Armenia in the present day.' 
 
 God's Purpose working through Samson's Wil- 
 
 fulness. 
 
 JUDGES xiv. 4 : ' But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the 
 Lord ; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the 
 Philistines had rule over Israel.' (Rev. Ver.} 
 
 Question. Does God's overruling of man's wilf nines s and dis- 
 obedience for the accomplishment of His purposes in any sense relieve or 
 lighten the sin of such wilfulnessl 
 
 Answer. There is a sort of uncertain sentiment prevailing that 
 it does, and that a man's wrong-doings will not bring him under 
 Divine judgment if, in any special way, God overrules and uses the 
 
 7 
 
98 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 wrong done. But only a little consideration is necessary in order to 
 dispel such a notion, which is indeed directly opposed to Scripture 
 teaching. God's providence is the supreme direction of all events 
 and actions to the accomplishment of high, wise, gracious, Divine 
 purposes, but it in no way interferes with the character of events or 
 the quality of actions. Man is responsible for his conduct in the 
 light of the laws of truth and righteousness and duty which have 
 been revealed to him, and with that responsibility God's supreme 
 overrulings, in the large interests of humanity, in no way inter- 
 fere. 
 
 There is nothing to commend in this conduct of Samson's. He 
 acted throughout in sheer wilfulness. He resisted right and wise 
 parental advice. He broke well-known Mosaic rules. He brought 
 all concerned in the matter into trouble. But, accustomed to trace 
 in everything the great providential workings, the writer of this record 
 sees, even in such wilfulness, a link in a chain of events that issued 
 at last in national deliverance. 
 
 He would be a strange God indeed who could only control and 
 use the good things done by men. It is the glory of Jehovah that 
 His knowledge and power cover the whole life of every man ; and 
 we must all work towards the fulfilment of His purpose by our evil 
 as well as by our good ; but this can never alter the fact, that for our 
 evil there is due punishment, and for our good due reward. 
 
 Kitto expresses very simply the point on which the answer to this 
 difficulty should rest : ' It is worthy of note, that when Samson grew 
 up, all the attachments which he successively formed were to females 
 of the Philistines the power that held Southern Israel in bondage. 
 No daughter of his own people appears to have gained his attention 
 at any time. There was, as intimated, a Providence in this, that 
 therefrom might result circumstances which should bring him intc 
 collision with the Philistines, disgraceful and disastrous to them.' 
 
 If the expression, ' for he sought an occasion,' can be applied tc 
 Samson (and this is certainly the more natural way of reading the 
 passage, though good commentators prefer to think that Jehovah is 
 meant), then the verse is relieved of all its difficulty, for we are tc 
 understand that Samson sought these Philistine alliances, not on the 
 impulse of sensual passion, but in loyalty to his mission, and as the 
 best mode of doing that life-work which had been entrusted tc 
 him. His parents did not understand that he was thus acting ir 
 order to make occasions for quarrel which should issue in nationa 
 deliverance. 
 
 All that can be said on the expression, * it was of the Lord,' is thai 
 
THE EVIL OF USURY. 99 
 
 in this marriage God was overruling the course of events to the 
 furtherance of His own designs. He makes even the weakness and 
 fierceness of man redound to His praise. It is the strong sense of 
 the Divine rule which we find even in heathen writers, so that, in the 
 very opening lines of Homer, we find the poet saying * that amid all 
 the crimes and passions of men the counsel of Zeus was being ac- 
 complished.' 
 
 The Evil of Usury. 
 
 NEHEMIAH v. 7 : ' Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the 
 nobles and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, everyone of his 
 brother. And I held a great assembly against them.' (Rev. Ver.) 
 
 Question. What constitutes usury ; and is the lending of money 
 en security and interest of necessity and always an evil ? 
 
 Answer. It may be possible to recognise the very serious social 
 evil into which the people had fallen in Nehemiah's time, and the 
 importance of stern legislative dealings with the evil, and yet we may 
 have no clear views of the limitations under which the lending of 
 property should be put. 
 
 In the dealings of God's people among themselves they were to be 
 guided by a distinct rule. * If thou lend money to any of my people 
 that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither 
 shalt thou lay upon him usury' (Exod. xxii. 25). But, singularly 
 enough, usury towards strangers was tolerated (Deut xxiii. 20). By 
 the term ' usury ' is commonly understood an unlawful profit. Perhaps 
 the idea in the word may be thus expressed : it is such an exaction, 
 by way of security and interest, as puts in peril the principal. 
 
 Some advanced Socialists in these days earnestly contend that no 
 man is justified in taking interest on loaned money. But common 
 sense replies, that ' It seems as lawful for me to receive interest for 
 money, which another takes pains with, improves, but runs the risk 
 of in trade, as it is to receive rent for my land which another takes 
 pains with, improves, but runs the hazard of in husbandry.' 
 
 Before God, the evil of usury must be the getting of our personal 
 advantage out of the poverty and distress of others, which is opposed 
 to the Divine ideas of charity, brotherliness, and mutual consider- 
 ation. To make any terms based on the distress of another is always 
 unlovely in God's sight. To get possession of a neighbour's estate, 
 by foreclosing mortgages made in times of temporary distress, was 
 to sin against the spirit, and indeed the actual terms, of the Jewish 
 covenant 
 
 Volney says that the ordinary rate of interest in Syria, in his time, 
 
 72 
 
TOO HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 was twenty per cent., and such percentage always imperils the prin- 
 cipal. Money may be lent on interest still, providing the person 
 borrowing the money is able to use it so as to secure a better return 
 than he has to give in interest. Usury begins as soon as interest 
 must be paid out of principal, because the borrower cannot earn 
 with the money the amount of interest demanded 
 
 Ewald explains that ' whoever possesses external property, and 
 makes a diligent use of it, finds it increase under his hands. It is 
 therefore no more than fair that such a possession, if borrowed for a 
 time by another, whether merely in consequence of indigence or in 
 order to extend his business therewith, shall be returned by him to 
 its owner along with a corresponding increase. Thus even property, 
 money, or anything else, which is lent to another, bears fruit for its 
 owner, grows, sometimes most luxuriantly, and increases for his benefit 
 with greater or less rapidity.' 
 
 But the evil of this among the ancients was that the per centage 
 of the interest was entirely left to the freewill of individuals. The 
 rate varied much, but was for the most part extravagant, and this 
 often led to a cruel oppression of the poorer classes, and conse- 
 quently to dangerous disturbances of the public peace. A debtor 
 was regarded as completely at the mercy of the creditor, almost as 
 his bondsman and subject. We must remember that every family in 
 Israel ought properly to have possessed its hereditary estate, and in it 
 the means to support life decently ; and, further, that such a nation 
 at first formed a compact unity and a close brotherhood, especially 
 towards other races subjugated by it. We cannot, then, be surprised 
 that the law, rather than suffer the pernicious usages which existed 
 Elsewhere, preferred trying to abolish all taking of interest whatever. 
 
 David's Treatment of Moab. 
 
 2 SAMUEL viii. 2 : ' And he smote Moab, and measured them with the line, 
 making them to lie down on the ground ; and he measured two lines to put to 
 death, and one full line to keep alive.' (Rev. Ver.) 
 
 Question. How can such deliberate cruelty be reconciled with the 
 commendation of David as a man after ' Gods own heart* ? 
 
 Answer. It is necessary first to know precisely what he did ; 
 then to estimate fairly the provocations under which he acted ; and 
 then to set his conduct alongside that of other conquerors of cities 
 and peoples in his time and in Eastern lands. 
 
 David did with an Eastern quaintness what is nowadays done, 
 and regarded as righteous doing, in connection with the mutinies of 
 
DA VID'S TREA TMENT OP MOAB. 101 
 
 regiments or rebellions of peoples. It is recognised as right that 
 there should be some public and deliberate vindication of outraged 
 authority and broken vows ; and so, in a regiment, every tenth 
 man is put to death ; and, in a revolt, a certain determined propor- 
 tion of rebels. The sentiment is that the lives of the entire regiment, 
 or the members of the rebellion, are forfeited, and that it is a merciful 
 limitation of strict justice to execute the few as representative of the 
 whole. 
 
 David's act was precisely of this order ; but, as he lived in the 
 fierce Eastern climes, his merciful limitation of judgment did not go 
 far enough to seem very gracious to us. He made his prisoners 
 and it is important to remember that these were soldiers in arms 
 lie close together on the ground; the space they occupied was 
 measured off in three parts ; and it is significantly said that those on 
 a ///// third were spared. The cruelty is at once relieved when we 
 see that the scheme bore no relation to the inhabitants, and has to 
 be judged entirely according to the rules and customs of warfare. 
 
 It has been pointed out that the Mosaic rules, under which David 
 was bound to act, were very severe ; and that a man a judge or a 
 king is not personally chargeable with cruelty when he firmly 
 carries out the laws which all recognise as binding. The law of 
 Moses had enjoined that if a city yielded when summoned, the lives 
 of the inhabitants were to be spared, tribute being imposed on the 
 community. If, however, it resisted, * every male was to be put to 
 death ' ; the women and children led off as slaves ; the place sacked ; 
 and its cattle and all the plunder shared among the conquerors 
 (Deut. xx). So, if it be assumed that the whole of the male inhabi- 
 tants were made to lie on the ground, still, in sparing a ' full third,' 
 David leaned to the side of mercy. 
 
 Goodness in motive, spirit, and character must be the same 
 thing in every age and clime. But goodness, finding expression in 
 conduct and relations, must vary with the sentiments, customs, and sur- 
 roundings of particular times. To judge David's conduct aright, we 
 must see him in the setting of his age, and not force him to go into a 
 framing of our own age. 
 
 We do not actually know what provocations Moab had given 
 David, but his dealing with them is certainly the punishment of some 
 act of treachery. We know that he had been on such friendly terms 
 with Moab as to seek in that country refuge from Saul, and a place 
 of safety for his parents. It is a Jewish tradition that the King of 
 Moab had broken the trust which David had reposed in him, and 
 put to death the aged parents confided to his charge. Probably 
 
102 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Moab had treacherously taken advantage of David's temporary 
 failure in his Syrian wars, and tried to cut off his retreat ; and so they 
 must learn by such a terrible vengeance. 
 
 God's praise is of David's character as a man, and not of his pre- 
 cise conduct as a military leader or as an irresponsible Eastern 
 king. 
 
 * Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth.' 
 
 EXODUS xxi. 23-25 : ' But if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for 
 life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, 
 wound for wound, stripe for stripe.' 
 
 Question. Does not this stern rule support the idea that a man 
 may take vengeance of his neighbour ? 
 
 Answer. We are distinctly to understand that these are not 
 directions for the ordering of private conduct and relations, but in- 
 structions to judges and magistrates as to principles on which their 
 judgments should be made and their sentences given. They are, 
 indeed, better suited for the tribal life of ancient Israel than to the 
 city life of modern times ; but the principles of restitution, and of 
 making a man suffer what he has wilfully made others suffer, are 
 quite just in every generation and in every society. 
 
 It must be clearly seen that a lawgiver can only modify, and im- 
 prove upon, the sentiments of justice which actually prevail among 
 his people. He would wholly fail of his purpose if he introduced 
 principles of justice and methods of judgment with which they were 
 unfamiliar. Moses could qualify and adapt the prevailing tribal 
 notions, especially in this respect that he could moderate their 
 fierceness and severity. It was a great work to take the avengement 
 of wrong out of the hands of sufferers or their immediate friends, and 
 put it into the hands of publicly appointed officials. These magis- 
 trates would have to work on the old lines, but in a calm and judicial 
 spirit. 'Eye for eye' does but, with the figurativeness of Eastern 
 language, express the principle that, as far as may be possible, repara- 
 tion of all injuries wilfully done must be publicly demanded. This 
 principle might healthily be made more prominent in the judicial 
 decisions of modern times. 
 
 ' This law, of suffering like for like (the jus talionis\ has its root in 
 a simple conception of justice, and is found in the laws of many 
 ancient nations. It was ascribed to Rhadamanthus ; it was recog- 
 nised in the laws of Solon, by the ancient Indians, and by the 
 Thurians. It appears to be regarded in this place as a maxim for 
 
*EYE FOR EYE, TOOTH FOR TOOTH: 103 
 
 the magistrate in awarding the amount of compensation to be paid 
 for the infliction of personal injury. The sum was to be as nearly as 
 possible the worth in money of the power lost by the injured person. 
 This view appears to be in accordance with Jewish tradition.' 
 
 (For further Scripture references see Gen. ix. 6; Lev. xxiv. 19-21 ; 
 Deut. xix. 21.) 
 
 Prof. Rawlinson, in Ellicotfs Commentary p , says : ( It is a reason- 
 able conjecture that the law of retaliation was much older than 
 Moses, and accepted by him as tolerable, rather than devised as 
 rightful. The law itself was very widely spread. There is, prima 
 fade, a semblance of exact rectitude and equality about it which cap- 
 tivates rude minds, and causes the adoption of the rule generally in 
 an early condition of society. Theoretically, retaliation is the exactest 
 and strictest justice ; but in practice difficulties arise. How is the 
 force of a blow to be measured ? How are exactly similar burns and 
 wounds to be inflicted ? Is eye to be given for eye when the injurer 
 is a one-eyed man? And, again, is it expedient for law to multiply 
 the number of mutilated citizens in a community ? Considerations of 
 these kinds cause the rule to be discarded as soon as civilization 
 reaches a certain point, and tend generally to the substitution of 
 a money compensation, to be paid to the injured party by the 
 injurer.' 
 
 Cruickshank says : ' We have heard a slave argue for his emanci- 
 pation on the score of the accidental loss of an eye in his master's 
 service, from the recoil of a branch of a tree, and appeal to a tradi- 
 tionary law which entitles him to this compensation.' 
 
 4 It is a curious illustration of the decayed sentiment prevailing in 
 the time of our Lord, that the Pharisees had invented a scale of 
 money payments in lieu of the sufferings enjoined by the law. As in 
 our own Middle Ages, a tariff of fines was constructed for each per- 
 sonal injury for tearing the hair, for a cuff on the ear, a blow on the 
 back, spitting on the person, taking away an under-garment, un- 
 covering the head, and the like. The value of a hand, or foot, or an 
 eye was computed by the depreciation it would have made in the 
 value of a slave. A blow on the ear was variously set at the fine of 
 a shilling or a pound ; a blow on the one cheek, at two hundred 
 zuzees ; on both cheeks, at double. To tear out hair, to spit on the 
 person, to take away one's coat, or to uncover a woman's head, was 
 compensated by a fine of four hundred zuzees.' 
 
io 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Jephthah's Argument. 
 
 JUDGES xi. 24 : ' Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth 
 thee to possess ? So whomsoever the Lord our God hath dispossessed from before 
 us, them will we possess.' 
 
 Difficulty. Do not the words of Jephthah imply a recognition of 
 equality between Chemosh and Jehovah ; or, at least, assume Chemosh 
 to be a real God ? 
 
 Explanation. In order to argue a disputed point fairly, the 
 disputants must have a common platform. It is often necessary to 
 assume an agreement, and the one arguer must, for the sake of argu- 
 ment, accept temporarily the other's position. This is just what we 
 have before us in this passage. Jephthah is not arguing the relative 
 claims of Chemosh and Jehovah, but, for the occasion, accepting the 
 fact that the national gods bless national enterprise, he fairly enough 
 urges that the King of Ammon would have held fast his right to all 
 territory Chemosh had given him upon conquest, and what he 
 claimed for himself he must allow to Israel ; for Jehovah, Israel's 
 God, had given to them the territory now in dispute. Jephthah's 
 opinion of Chemosh, whatever it might be, would on this occasion 
 have been out of place, and even offensive. 
 
 But this explanation will appear more satisfactory if the details of 
 a somewhat unfamiliar story are given. 
 
 It seems that a certain portion of Gilead that bounded by the 
 Arnon on the south, by the Jabbok on the north, by the Jordan on 
 the west, and by the wilderness on the east, and forming the terri- 
 tories of Reuben and Gad had in some far-distant time belonged to 
 Moab. Before Israel had anything to do with it, Sihon, King of the 
 Amorites, had conquered it and made it a part of his kingdom. Now 
 the Israelites were commanded not to take any tenitory of the 
 Moabites and Ammonites, but they were to extirpate, and take the 
 lands of, all Canaanites and Amorites. They could enter into no 
 disputes about the absolutely original owners of the soil, and, finding 
 this particular territory under the rule of Sihon, they were justified in 
 conquering and appropriating it 
 
 About the time of Jephthah the power of the Ammonites and 
 Moabites had increased under some vigorous rulers, and the Israelites 
 east of Jordan were fast sinking into mere roving shepherds. This 
 was a good opportunity for asserting claims to the lands occupied by 
 Gad and Reuben, and following such claims up by warlike enterprises. 
 In the emergency, Jephthah was sought for as the most likely leader 
 
JEPHTHAH' S ARGUMENT. 105 
 
 f a movement to resist the encroachment. Jephthah takes no place 
 nong good and God-fearing men, and we should not think for a 
 loment of taking religion from him, or allowing him to express for 
 3 right religious beliefs. He was the wild leader of a band of rough 
 ien who, living on the border-land, had proved his prowess in some 
 3tty conflicts with the Ammonites. When called to head a more 
 rneral movement of the Israelites, he began with an effort to settle 
 ie dispute about the territory by peaceful negotiations. Answering 
 ie Ammonite king, who declared the disputed land was his, Jephthah 
 ses the following arguments : i. The territory was not, in fact, taken 
 ther from Moab or Ammon, but from Sihon, King of the Amorites. 
 his was proved by appeal to the historic records preserved in the 
 ook of Deuteronomy. 2. It is universally recognised that purchase 
 om the last owner, and conquest from the last possessor, gives 
 juitable rights. 3. Length of possession gives competent title. And 
 Balak, who lived nearer the time of conquest, and was a powerful 
 ing, did not venture to dispute the right of possession ; and it was 
 treasonable to revive obsolete claims now. The worst that need be 
 lid of Jephthah is given in the following sentences by Dr. Geikie : 
 Contact with Moab and Ammon, and the worship of their sanguinary 
 }ds along with Jehovah, or in His stead, had given Jephthah a creed 
 i which zeal for God was darkly mingled with heathen ideas bor- 
 >wed from the rights of Chemosh, whom he seems to have recognised 
 
 > in some sense a true divinity.' 
 
 Human Appeals to Conscious Integrity. 
 
 PSALM xxvi. i : 'Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity : I 
 ive trusted also in the Lord without wavering.' (Rev. Ver.) 
 
 Question. Can a man know l the plague of his own heart] and 
 /, with a true humility and sincerity, speak to God of his personal 
 tegrity ? 
 
 Answer. If a man is consciously sincere, and fully purposed to 
 :rve God, he may, and he ought to say so to God, on fitting 
 :casions. Difficulty is created in this case, by our adding to the 
 ord ' integrity ' ideas which are in no sense essential to it. Integrity 
 simply 'wholeness of purpose and intention'; 'genuineness'; 
 soundness.' The man of integrity is the vessel without a crack, 
 lat will ring clear. The word integrity does not mean ' moral 
 arfection,' for that no man in his senses can claim ; and to ask God 
 
 > judge us on that basis is to invite a certain condemnation. In- 
 grity means uprightness of heart, soundness of purpose, conscious 
 
io6 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 sincerity of intention. The idea of the word may be illustrated b 
 the description given of Job, who was * perfect and upright, one the 
 feared God, and eschewed evil.' Perfect here meaning ' singh 
 hearted,' 'simple,' 'not wilfully or consciously committing sin 
 Upright describes the general tone and character of Job's relation 
 with his fellow-men. 
 
 The dictionaries give the word as derived from the Latin integrita, 
 and meaning ' state of being entire or complete ; wholeness ; mon 
 soundness ; honesty ; uprightness ; unimpaired or genuine state 
 purity; incorruptness. 
 
 But it does seem strange to us that David should thus stan 
 before God, and appeal to what he calls his * righteousness' and h 
 'integrity.' It is usually regarded as a self-evident and foundatio 
 truth, that man has no righteousness of his own. The best things i 
 man are bad. ' All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we a] 
 all as an unclean thing.' But however efficient as representing or 
 side of truth, this is only one side ; and we should be able also t 
 recognise that there is some good Sense in which a man can be sai 
 to have a personal righteousness before God. We have actual 
 known and lived with persons of whom we always think and speak ; 
 men and women of integrity, right-hearted, sincere, and righteou 
 Our Lord distinctly assumed that men could have a personal righteou 
 ness, when He said, ' Except your righteousness shall exceed tl 
 righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees ye can in no case ent< 
 into the kingdom of heaven/ 
 
 It may, however, be said that David miserably failed from righteou 
 ness. He did ; and yet there is the most marked distinction betwec 
 his failure and that of King Saul. Saul failed altogether, and ft 
 away from God, because his sins were sins of will; neither heart n 
 life were right in the sight of God. David stumbled, but did n 
 utterly fall, because the will in him was only forced to consent 
 sin, and sprung back to God directly the force of bodily passion th 
 held it down was removed. David failed in the body-sphere ; b 
 Saul failed in the soul-sphere. 
 
 Jennings and Lowe take a different view. 'The most promine 
 feature in this Psalm is the writer's confidence in his own piel 
 Such self-confidence is eminently characteristic of the Hebrt 
 religion. Its assertion will be repugnant only to those who expe 
 the Hebrew poets to write in accordance with the higher teaching 
 Christianity.' 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF AMALEK. 107 
 
 The Destruction of Amalek. 
 
 I SAMUEL xv. 2, 3 : * Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which 
 malek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up 
 5m Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, 
 id spare them not ; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and 
 eep, camel and ass.' 
 
 Difficulty. Can such a command have been given by Him whom 
 e know as ' merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and of great 
 'ndness ' ? 
 
 Explanation. There is, perhaps, no difficulty in God's Word 
 lore perplexing than this one, and the best that can be said about it 
 ill not do more than relieve the strain upon our feeling in relation 
 > it. From present-day points of view, and in the light of modern 
 nowledge and sentiment, it is nearly impossible to vindicate the ways 
 f God with Amalek. But we are bound to read the story, not in the 
 ght of modern days, but according to the prevailing sentiments 
 nd practices of the age when such events occurred. The total 
 estruction of tribes and races was then a commonplace, now it is 
 ach a horrible idea that it could not be endured in connection with 
 ny civilized community. 
 
 The best suggestion of explanation perhaps is, that God occupied 
 ne place, in relation to Israel, of supreme King, actually presiding 
 ver national affairs. We have had occasion to show that Scripture 
 ften represents God as speaking and acting like a man ; we should 
 jrther see that He is often represented as speaking and acting like a 
 ing, and, as the only kings Eastern people knew were irresponsible 
 ings, even like such a king. If the Israelites thought of God as their 
 Cing, they could only think Him such a King as those they were 
 amiliar with in the nations around. 
 
 Now, as matter of diplomacy, kings had often to reserve the avenge- 
 nent of national insults until the fitting opportunity arrived, and so 
 ehovah delayed the vindication of His people from the insults of 
 Vmalek. And we should also notice that the Eastern notion of 
 >lood-revenge, which required the death of the murderer or insulter, 
 vhen applied to nations involved the death or total destruction of the 
 ;uilty race. In case of blood-feud the extermination of a tribe 
 natches the death of the individual ; and the justice which approved 
 .uch death of the individual for individual sin could not reasonably 
 )bject to the destruction of a race, or tribe, for united tribal or 
 lational sin. Whatever had been done by Amalek was done by it as 
 i people, and upon Jehovah, Israel's King, rested the duty of avenging 
 he wrong. 
 
io8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 In this direction a hopeful explanation is possible, but the furthi 
 suggestions of prominent and judicious commentators may be given 
 
 The people of Amalek roamed freely through the deserts whic 
 lie between Southern Judaea and the Egyptian frontier. As a ra< 
 allied to the Israelites, that people ought to have had nothing 
 fear from them ; but, in a most dastardly and treacherous way, tl 
 Amalekites had attacked the rear-guard of Israel, as the host w 
 toilsomely climbing up the passes toward Sinai. On that occask 
 they were indeed defeated and driven back, but for this cowardl 
 unprovoked attack they were solemnly doomed to destructic 
 (Exod. xvii. 8, 14 ; Num. xxiv. 20). 
 
 Canon Spence regards Amalek as cherem, or put under the ba 
 1 Whatever was " put under the ban " in Israel was devoted to Go 
 and whatever so devoted could not be redeemed, but must be slai 
 Amalek was to be looked on as accursed ; human beings and catt 
 must be killed ; whatever was capable of being destroyed by fi 
 must be burnt. The cup of iniquity in this people was filled u 
 Its national existence, if prolonged, would simply have workc 
 mischief to the commonwealth of nations. Israel here was simp 
 the instrument of destruction used by the Almighty. It is vain 
 attempt in this and similar transactions to find materials for tl 
 blame or for the praise of Israel. We must never forget that Isra 
 stood in a peculiar relation to the unseen King, and that this natic 
 was not unfrequently used as the visible scourge by which the / 
 Wise punished hopelessly hardened sinners, and deprived them 
 the power of working mischief. We might as well find fault wi 
 pestilence and famine, or the sword those awful instruments 
 Divine justice, and, though we often fail to see it now, of Divir 
 mercy.' 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary suggests that this expedition by Sa 
 against Amalek was not made without fresh provocation, and refe 
 to chapter xiv. 48 : ' Probably some incursion was made, simil 
 to that described in chapter xxx., upon the south country at a tin 
 when they thought the Israelites were weakened by their contes 
 with the Philistines, since they are described as " those that spoih 
 Israel." ' 
 
 Dr. Edersheim says : ' Looking back upon it from another stage 
 moral development and religious dispensation, and in circumstanc 
 so 'different that such questions and duties can never arise, and th 
 they seem immeasurably far behind, as the dark valley to tl 
 traveller who has climbed the sunlit height, or as perhaps even 
 and phases in our own early history, many things connected wi 
 
HARDENING PHARAOH'S HEART. 109 
 
 e " ban " may appear mysterious to us. This accommodation of 
 e law to each stage of man's moral state, together with the con- 
 LUOUS moral advancement which the law as a schoolmaster was 
 ;ended to bring about, and which in turn was met by progressive 
 relation, renders it impossible to judge of a Divine command by 
 ing to put it as to our own times, and as applicable to us. If we 
 t forward the finger-hand on the dial of time and the clock still 
 ikes the old hour, we must not infer that the clock is out of order, 
 :t rather that we have unskilfuily meddled with it.' 
 famieson gives a succinct, and practically efficient, explanation in 
 e following note : * Being a people of nomadic habits, they were 
 plundering and dangerous as the Bedouin Arabs, particularly to 
 e southern tribes. The national interest required, and God, as 
 'ing of Israel^ decreed, that this public enemy should be removed.' 
 
 Hardening Pharaoh's Heart. 
 
 EXODUS iv. 21 : ' And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest back into 
 >ypt, see that thou do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in thine 
 tnd ; but I will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go.' 
 
 Question. Did not this hardening of the heart, by making 
 'haraoh insensible to good influences, remove his responsibility ? 
 
 Answer. This is the first mention of the hardening, and it 
 lould be carefully noticed that it is in the nature of a prophecy, 
 i order to prepare Moses for the difficulties and seeming failures 
 at will attend his mission, God gives him an anticipatory view of 
 le providential order, and shows him what will presently happen in 
 ic regular course of events. Moses quite understood that God did 
 ot harden Pharaoh's heart to begin with. The hardening came about 
 > the usual and providential judgment on persistent self-willedness ; 
 nd Moses is told about it beforehand, so that he may be able wisely 
 y meet the circumstances to which the hardening may lead. 
 
 We find it difficult to realize what, in fact, is a very simple thing, 
 lat God's foreknowing what will happen does not add anything to 
 ic ordinary course of cause and effect. God overlooks all, and 
 nows the end from the beginning. He can tell how men will act 
 i every complicated situation in life. But God's knowledge is not 
 ne of the agencies which influence men's actions. He may be 
 leased to show Moses what Pharaoh would presently do, and what, 
 i response to Pharaoh's self-willedness, He would have to do ; but 
 :ie regular course of affairs would go on, unaffected either by what 
 rod knew or by what He was pleased to tell Moses. 
 
no HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 This appears to be a sufficient answer and explanation, but we ma 
 add others which have commended themselves to honoured writers. 
 
 The fullest and most careful examination of this subject that w 
 have met with is given by Bishop Wordsworth, and we present th 
 explanation to our readers first, because it supports, and harmonize 
 with, the view we have already taken. Wordsworth paraphrases th 
 verse 2 1 thus : ' Because he will, as I well know, resist all My counsel 
 and defy My power, and sin against My reproofs and chastisement: 
 and will reject all My warnings, and turn My spiritual food into poisor 
 and My grace into licentiousness, therefore I will punish him by witl 
 drawing My grace from him, and by giving him over to a reprobat 
 mind.' To Theodoret is due the familiar figure 'that as the sam 
 heat of the same sun moistens wax and hardens clay, so the sam 
 grace of the same God has the effect of softening some and hardenin 
 others, according to the temper of their hearts.' 
 
 It appears that three distinct Hebrew words are translated, in th 
 Scripture narrative, by the one word 'hardened.' (i) Chazak, whic 
 signifies actively, to bind together. (2) Cabad, to be heavy ; and, i 
 the hiphil form, to make heavy; to resist sullenly, with proud an 
 stupid obstinacy. (3) Kashah, to be hard, and to make hard. Th 
 following table is given as exhibiting the process of obduracy in th 
 case of Pharaoh : 
 
 Prophecy, Chazak, Ex. iv. 21. ' I will harden his heart.' 
 
 Kashah, vii. 3. ' I will harden Pharaoh's heart.' 
 
 History. Chazak, 
 
 Cabad, 
 
 Chazak, 
 
 Cabad, 
 
 Chazak, 
 
 Cabad, 
 Cabad, 
 
 vii. 13. Literally, as Sept- and Vulg., ' Pharaoh's heai 
 resisted.' 
 
 vii. 14. * Pharaoh's heart is hardened.' 
 
 vii. 22. ' Pharaoh's heart was hardened.' 
 viii. 15. ' Pharaoh hardened his heart.' 
 viii. 19. ' Pharaoh's heart was hardened.' 
 viii. 32. ' Pharaoh hardened his heart.' 
 
 ix. 7. ' Pharaoh's heart was hardened.' 
 
 Thus, then, it appears that it is said seven times that Pharaoh's hear 
 was hardened, or that Pharaoh hardened his heart. And not till the, 
 is it said that 
 
 Chazak, Ex. ix. 12. ' The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart' 
 
 But this was not till he had been abandoned even by his owi 
 magicians, so that his obduracy was now most wilful. 
 
 Cabad, Ex. ix. 34. ' He (Pharaoh) hardened his heart.' 
 Chazak, ,, ix. 35. ' The heart of Pharaoh was hardened.' 
 Cabad, ,, x. i. ' The Lord said, I have hardened his heart, am 
 the heart of his servants.' 
 
 But even then he might have repented, for his servants did repen 
 (see ch. x. 7). 
 Pharaoh would not repent : and then came the heavier aggravatior 
 
HARDENING PHARA OH 'S HEART. 1 1 1 
 
 Divine judgment ; and it is observable that it is now said four 
 nes (with the stronger word Chazak\ ' The Lord hardened Pharaoh's 
 jart* (see ch. x. 20, 27 ; xi. 10; xiv. 8). Pharaoh's will was therefore 
 *e. God's foreknowledge had no constraining influence on Pharaoh's 
 mduct towards God, but had a directing influence on God's conduct 
 id language towards him. God's foreknowledge does not cause any- 
 ing to be, no more than man's remembrance causes anything to have 
 en. 
 
 The Speakers Commentary remarks that * Calamities which do 
 )t subdue the heart harden it. The hardening itself is judicial and 
 st, when it is a consequence of previously formed habits. The 
 ason why the action of God, rather than the character of Pharaoh, 
 
 dwelt on in this passage would seem to be that it was necessary to 
 istain the spirit of Moses and the people during the process of 
 /ents, which they were thus taught were altogether foreseen and 
 redetermined by God.' 
 
 Francis Jacox, in his Secular Annotations, ii. 238, gives some 
 iteresting illustrations. 'It is written that Pharaoh hardened his 
 eart, and this again and again ; as well as, and we may be sure to 
 il intents and purposes antecedently to, the fact that the Lord hard- 
 ned Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh would have it so. Judicial blindness 
 at in after a time ; but first there had been cause shown in Heaven's 
 hancery court. The infatuation was beyond remedy. The ossifica- 
 on of the heart involved in its progress and development paralysis 
 f the brain. Dementation was now the precursor of perdition. 
 
 ' It is those who do not like to retain God in their knowledge that 
 re said by the apostle to be by God given over to a reprobate mind, 
 t is of those who distinctly and emphatically have pleasure in 
 nrighteousness that he says, 'And for this cause God shall send 
 lem strong delusion, that they should believe a lie/ which dementa- 
 on should involve their doom. They grope in the dark without 
 ght, and He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man. 
 
 " For wicked ears are deaf to wisdom's call, 
 And vengeance strikes whom Heaven has doomed to fall," 
 
 ays the Homeric Odysseus ; and again 
 
 ** For Zeus infatuates all, and all believe a lie.'* 
 hid in another place we see Athene, 
 
 " Cloud with intellectual gloom 
 The suitors' soul, insensate of their doom." 
 
 in the " Iliad " again, we have the Trojans given over to welcome 
 atal counsel. 
 
ii2 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 " The shouting host in loud applauses joined, 
 So Pallas robbed the many of their mind ; 
 To their own sense condemned ! and left to choose 
 The worst advice, the better to refuse." 
 
 ' Cicero, in his account to the people of Rome of the Catiline coi 
 spiracy, alleged that the conspirators must needs be under a divir 
 and judicial infatuation, and could never have acted as they had dor 
 if the gods had not confounded their senses. 
 
 * It is with a sort of rage at the inaptitude of King James II 
 (of England) that his sometime adherent, Colonel Esmond, thinks 
 his melancholy story. " Do the Fates deal more specially with kin^ 
 than with common men ? One is apt to imagine so, in considerir 
 the history of that royal race, in whose behalf so much fidelity, s 
 much valour, so much blood were desperately and bootless 
 expended." 
 
 'To another class of reprobate minds apply Sir Henry Taylor 
 lines, the truth of which is signally enforced by every police cou 
 register and Newgate Calendar : 
 
 " That Providence, which makes the good take heed 
 To safety and success, contrariwise 
 Makes villains mostly reckless. Look on life, 
 And you will see the crimes of blackest dye 
 So clumsily committed, by such sots, 
 So lost to thought, so scant of circumspection, 
 As shall constrain you to pronounce that guilt 
 Bedarkens and confounds the mind of man. 
 Human intelligence, on murders bent, 
 Becomes a midnight fumbler ; human will, 
 Of God abandoned, in its web of snares 
 Strangles its own intent." ' 
 
 Prof. Rawlinson, in his recent work on 'Egypt and Babylon 
 gives an estimate of the character of Menephthah, the Pharaoh of th 
 Exodus, which materially helps us towards the understanding of th 
 Scripture narrative. ' He is an oppressor as merciless as either of hi 
 predecessors, as deaf to pity, as determined to crush the aspiration 
 of the Hebrews by hard labour. To this harshness and cruelty c 
 temper he adds a remarkable weakness and vacillation. He seem 
 to have been deficient in personal courage, and grossly and abnoi 
 mally superstitious.' 
 
 M. Lenormant begins hi account of Menephthah by observing 
 * Moreover, he was neither a soldier nor an administrator, but on< 
 whose mind was turned almost exclusively towards the chimeras c 
 sorcery and magic, resembling in this respect his brother, Kha-m-uas 
 The book of Exodus is in the most exact agreement with historica 
 truth when it depicts him as surrounded hj riest-magicians, witl 
 
LA WS CONCERNING AMMONITE AND MOABITE. 1 1 3 
 
 whom Moses contends in working prodigies, in order to affect the 
 mind of Pharaoh/ 
 
 The Egyptian monuments confirm three leading features in the 
 character of Menephthah, his superstitiousness, his want of courage, 
 and his weak, shifty, false temper. Weak men are often hopelessly 
 stupid and stubborn at times ; and it is a common mistake of such 
 men to mistake stubbornness for strength. 
 
 The explanation of Pharaoh's hardened heart may be summed up 
 in a brief sentence. ' God did not make Pharaoh sin, but He had ta 
 punish him for it. From righteous retribution for obdurate impeni 
 tence there is no escape.' 
 
 * Aye ! when them hast drained a swallow's milk, and 
 Seen rocks bear olive nuts, the sand pomegranates yield, 
 A harder task to try thy vaunted force remains 
 To shield a wicked man from retribution's pains/ 
 
 From an Oriental Poem. 
 
 Laws concerning the Ammonite and Moabite. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY xxiii. 3, 6 : 'An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the 
 assembly of the Lord ; even to the tenth generation shall none belonging to them 
 enter into the assembly of the Lord for ever. . . . Thou shalt not seek their 
 peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever.' 
 
 Difficulty. Does not such an injunction give the Divine sanction 
 to a spirit of hatred and revenge ? 
 
 Explanation. We may not put our limitations on the forms 
 that Divine judgment may take. The continuous enmity of a neigh- 
 bouring race was the form which the Divine judgment on Ammon 
 and Moab took. Viewed from this side, no difficulty is created. 
 But it may be asked whether the influence of such cherished enmity 
 by Israel was not injurious to it, as nourishing evil sentiments and 
 feelings. In reply, it may be urged that the enmity was public and 
 national, and in no way private and personal. We can best represent 
 the distinction by calling to mind the English sentiment concerning 
 the French three-quarters of a century ago. Publicly nation hated 
 nation ; but privately and individually mutual kindnesses were shown. 
 Race hatreds must be distinguished from personal hatreds; and 
 these race hatreds have an important influence on the movements, 
 relations, uprisings and downfallings, of nations. The evil oi revenge 
 comes out when it is the feeling animating individual against indi- 
 vidual. Race feeling concerns an ideal, not a person. 
 
 Saalschutz, quoted in ' Speaker's Commentary/ remarks that this 
 law forbids only the naturalization of those against whom it is directed. 
 It does not forbid their dwelling in the land ; and seems to refer 
 
 3 
 
ii 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 lather to the nations than to individuals. It was not understood, at 
 any rate, to interdict marriage with a Moabitess.' 
 
 Further indications of the relations in which Israel should stand to 
 the Moabites and Ammonites are given in Deut. ii. 9, 19 : 'Distress 
 not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle. . . . When 
 thou comest nigh over against the children of Ammon, distress them 
 not, nor meddle with them/ So we understand that the injunctions 
 given amount to this only : Keep separate from Moab and Ammon ; 
 do not in any way interfere with them, and do not let them in any 
 way interfere with you. It must, however, be recognised that subse- 
 quent events greatly embittered the race relations. 
 
 Jamieson explains the passage, and the connection in which it 
 stands, thus : * To "enter into the congregation of the Lord " means 
 either admission to public honours and offices in the Church and 
 State of Israel, or, in the case of foreigners, incorporation with that 
 nation by marriage. The rule was, that strangers and foreigners, for 
 fear of friendship or marriage connections with them leading the 
 people into idolatry, were not admissible till their conversion to the 
 Jewish rule. But some parts were excluded from the full rights and 
 privileges of citizenship. Among these were Ammonites and 
 Moabites for without provocation they combined to engage a sooth- 
 sayer to curse the Israelites, and further endeavoured, by ensnaring 
 them into the guilt and licentious abominations of idolatry, to seduce 
 them from their allegiance to God, and thereby make them forfeit 
 the privileges of their national covenant. The offence of the Am- 
 monites and Moabites was an aggravated one. It was not only a 
 denial of common hospitality and kindness to strangers and pilgrims, 
 but it was a scheme of premeditated villainy, indicating deep malice 
 and inextinguishable hatred. Their exclusion, therefore, as avowed 
 public enemies, was perpetual and immutable.' 
 
 The Sin of Numbering the People. 
 
 2 SAMUEL xxiv. i : ' And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against 
 Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah.' 
 
 I CHRONICLES xxi. I : 'And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David 
 to number Israel.' 
 
 Difficulty. Which account of the source of the suggestion to 
 number the people is to be accepted ; and why^ if taking census was right 
 at other times ; was it wrong on this particular occasion ? 
 
 Explanation. It is necessary first to be sure of the precise 
 renderings of these two verses, and then to remember that we have 
 in them the personal opinion and judgment of two different historians 
 
THE SIN OF NUMBERING THE PEOPLE. 115 
 
 of the same events : and the statements should be compared as 
 opinions, and not as inspired explanations of the true causes. We 
 can accept the facts, and use our own judgments on the opinions, 
 testing the explanations offered by the general principles and truths 
 revealed in the Scripture. We need not assume that the Divine 
 inspiration ensures the absolute correctness of historians' sentiments 
 and reflections. The fact that these two opinions so vitally differ 
 suggests that we may choose between them, or form a sounder and 
 more Scriptural judgment respecting the matter, in dependence on 
 the leading and teaching of God's Holy Spirit. 
 
 The word Satan would have been more correctly translated an 
 adversary ; and the sentence in Samuel would be more correctly 
 rendered, * One moved David against them.' The simple historical 
 fact seems to be that one of the courtiers pressed this evil advice on 
 the king ; and the Bible writers properly see in such a man a tempter, 
 an adversary, a Satan ; and they as properly recognise, in all the con- 
 sequences that follow, the outworking of Divine judgments. In this 
 instance the adversary is treated as a Divine agency used for the 
 testing of God's people by temptation to sin. If we fully accept the 
 idea of the Divine education and training of men, it will be no diffi- 
 culty to us that times of moral trial should be found, and subjection 
 to evil enticements should form part of the Divine plan. We know 
 that God tries and tests us by things, and it should not be difficult 
 for us to realize that He may try and test us by persons. This is, 
 indeed, our most subtle and most severe form of testing. 
 
 We may not separate any of the things happening to us in life from 
 the Divine purpose and overruling. AVhat we call evil is properly 
 seen as part of the Divine agency for our moral culture. Divine 
 overrulings do not change the character or quality of things, but they 
 directly affect the result of things. All life is probation. We are 
 being moulded in righteousness. So we find that even these strange 
 Satanic temptations serve gracious Divine purposes in the individual 
 man ; and when we cannot see this, we may see that they serve 
 gracious Divine purposes in the warning and teaching of others, 
 and that some of us may even, as David, stumble unto falling, 
 vicariously. 
 
 The narrative does not clearly and explicitly state what David's, 
 idea was in thus commanding a census to be made. Probably he 
 desired to know the numbers of the people of his kingdom, as it had 
 been extended by successful war ; but this he wished rather for his 
 own self-glorying than for national purposes. It was an act of self- 
 will, and it failed from full loyalty to the theocratic idea, which had 
 
 8* 
 
n6 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 been so well maintained during David's reign. In just this lay its sin 
 and mischief. Dean Stanley calls the taking of this census 'an 
 attempt not unnaturally suggested by the increase of his power, but 
 implying a confidence and pride alien to the spirit inculcated on the 
 kings of the chosen people. The apprehension of a Nemesis on any 
 overweening display of prosperity, if not consistent with the highes* 
 revelations of the Divine nature in the Gospel, pervades all ancient, 
 especially all Oriental, religions.' And Ewald says : ' The only satis 
 factory explanation of this measure is that it was intended as the 
 foundation of an organized and vigorous government, like that of 
 Egypt or Phoenicia, under which the exact number of the houses and 
 inhabitants of every city and village would have to be obtained, so as 
 to be able to summon the people for general taxation. But it is well 
 known what a profound aversion and what an instinctive abhorrence 
 certain nations, ancient and modern, harbour against any such design, 
 which they dimly suspect, not perhaps without good reason, is likely 
 to result in a dangerous extension of the governing power, and its 
 encroachment on the sanctity of the private home.' 
 
 Why God's wrath was kindled against the nation at this particular 
 time is not told us, but the most reasonable supposition is, that it was 
 connected with the national share in the rebellion of Absalom. And 
 the suggestions of the court-officer, who in effect became an adversary, 
 may very well have been that it was absolutely necessary to get the 
 kingdom organized, and properly under control, so as to prevent such 
 a surprise as had been effected by Absalom. 
 
 The mere taking of a census could not be in itself a wrong, since 
 it was even required (Exod. xxx. 12). See also Num. i ; xxvi. 
 
 As illustrative of the sentiment that still prevails respecting an 
 official numbering of the people, Van Lennep says that no census, 
 properly speaking, is ever taken in the East, but the taxes are assessed 
 upon the households. A record is kept of all who have reached the 
 age of eighteen, and are, therefore, deemed capable of bearing arms ; 
 they are often spoken of as so many guns or muskets. 
 
 Solomon's Marriage to Pharaoh's Daughter. 
 
 I KINGS iii. I : * And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and 
 took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David.' 
 
 Difficulty. How could a king of Israel marry an Egyptian 
 princess without violating a fundamental law of the Mosaic economy, 
 and bringing on himself the judgment of God ? 
 
 Explanation. It is customary to reply to this question that 
 Solomon required the princess to become a proselyte to Mosaism, 
 
SOLOMON'S MARRIAGE. 1 1 7 
 
 md that in this way he avoided the application to himself of the 
 Vlosaic rule. In support of this view it is contended that he is never 
 eproved for this alliance ; that among the idolatries introduced 
 luring his later reign there is no trace of the Egyptian system ; and 
 hat the expression used in Psalm xlv. 10 seems to indicate that this 
 princess did change her religion. 
 
 On the other side may be urged that Solomon had married an 
 \mmonitess woman before this, one Naamah (see i Kings xi. 42 ; 
 tiv. 21 ; 2 Chron. xii. 13), who became the mother of Rehoboam. If 
 :herefore seems necessary to inquire whether we have properly under- 
 stood the applications, and limitations of application, of the Mosaic 
 rule. It will be well for us to have the passages embodying the law 
 fully before us. 
 
 Exodus xxxiv. 12, 16, reads as follows in the Revised Version : 
 ' Take heed to thyself lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants 
 of the land whither thou goest . . . and thou take of their daughters 
 unto thy sons, and their daughters go a-whoring after their gods, and 
 make thy sons go a-whoring after their gods.' So far as this passage 
 is concerned, the objection is clearly to the races occupying Canaan 
 at the time of the Israelite invasion, and to them alone. This com- 
 mand does not, even by inference, exclude marriage with the women 
 of distant and separate nations. It is designed to prevent a certain 
 particular form of evil the subtle introduction of that Canaanite 
 idolatry, against which, in all its forms, the severest judgments of 
 God were denounced. 
 
 Deuteronomy vii. i, 3, reads thus : 'When the Lord thy God shall 
 bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall 
 cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and 
 the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, 
 and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou . . . 
 thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them ; 
 neither shalt thou make marriages with them ; thy daughter thou 
 shalt not give unto his son ; nor his daughter shalt thou take unto 
 thy son.' It is evident that the rule, as expressed in this passage, is 
 as strictly limited to the Canaanite races of Palestine as was the 
 former passage. Neither gives us any comprehensive rule applicable 
 to all other nations : both deal entirely with the degraded races who 
 at one particular period occupied Canaan. 
 
 Then, if we look at the actual history of the Jewish race, we shall 
 find no such strict law of marriage limitation within the race as we 
 have imagined to exist. Joseph, without rebuke, married a daughter 
 of Potipherah (Gen. xli 45). Moses married a wife of Midian 
 
n8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 (Exod. ii. 21), and possibly a second wife of Ethiopia (Num. xii. i). 
 He is, indeed, for this reproached by Miriam and Aaron ; but their 
 objection lay against the influence of the woman, and not against the 
 fact that she was a Cushite. (We think the person referred to was 
 Zipporah, Moses' only wife, who was an Arabian Cushite.) Salmon 
 married Rahab of Jericho, and Boaz married Ruth of Moab. David 
 seems to have felt free to ally himself thus with his neighbouring 
 kingdo.ms. 
 
 There is, indeed, a specific permission of alliance with distant 
 nations in marriage, which has been too little noticed. In Deut. 
 xx. 10-14 are found instructions as to what Israel should do when 
 they are called to besiege and take the city of an enemy : ' When the 
 Lord shall deliver it into thine hand, thou shalt smite every male 
 thereof with the edge of the sword ; but the women, and the little 
 ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil 
 thereof, shalt thou take for a prey unto thyself.' And then it is sig- 
 nificantly added : * Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are 
 very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But 
 of the cities of these peoples . . . thou shalt save alive nothing that 
 breatheth.' 
 
 It does not appear, therefore, that Solomon broke any Mosaic law 
 by marrying Egyptian or other princesses. The complaint made in 
 his later years is not of his marrying the wives, but of his giving way 
 to the evil influence of the wives. 
 
 If careful attention be paid to the distress of the returned captives, 
 for whom Ezra sought to legislate (Ezra x. i-io), it will be seen that 
 it was not occasioned by their marrying strange or foreign women, 
 but by their marrying women of the people of the land ; this being 
 recognised as the precise limit of the Mosaic prohibition. 
 
 The only other passage to which we need refer is Nehemiah 
 xiii. 26. Nehemiah, translating freely the term ' people of the land/ 
 assumed the prohibition to include the women of Ashdod, of Ammon, 
 and of Moab ; but there is no authority for his particular recognition 
 of the sphere of the law. And when referring to Solomon, Nehemiah's 
 point is that these foreign wives proved a snare to Solomon : they 
 ' caused him to sin.' 
 
 On the whole, it seems safe to assert that neither rule nor custom 
 made Solomon's marriage to the Egyptian princess a forbidden thing, 
 and that we have failed to observe the very precise limitation of the 
 marriage injunctions given by Jehovah to His people. 
 
 While treating of this subject we may add the Rev. George Raw- 
 limoris latest note on the identification of this princess : * There is 
 
SOLOMON'S MARRIAGE. 119 
 
 lothing surprising in the willingness of a Pharaoh of the twenty-first 
 lynasty to give a daughter in marriage to the foreign monarch of a 
 icighbouring country. Even in the most flourishing times the kings 
 >f Egypt had been willing to form matrimonial alliances with the 
 Ethiopian royal house, and had both taken Ethiopian princesses for 
 heir own wives, and given their daughters in marriage to Ethiopian 
 nonarchs. The last king of the twentieth dynasty married a " princess 
 )f Baktan," a Syrian or Mesopotamian ; and even the great Rameses 
 named a Hittite. According to i Chronicles iv. 18, there was one 
 Pharaoh who allowed a daughter of his to marry a mere ordinary 
 Israelite. To " make affinity" with a prince of Solomon's rank and 
 position would have been beneath the dignity of few Egyptian 
 -nonarchs ; it was probably felt as a highly satisfactory connection 
 Dy the weak Tanite Pharaoh, whose daughter made so good a 
 match. 
 
 * With which of the Tanite monarchs it was that Solomon thus 
 allied himself is uncertain. M. Lenormant fixes definitely on Hor- 
 Pasebensha, or Pasebensha II., the last king of the dynasty ; but an 
 earlier monarch is more probable. Solomon's marriage was early in 
 his reign (i Kings iii. i), and he reigned forty years (ch. xi. 42), 
 during the last five or ten of which he would seem to have been con- 
 temporary with Shishak (ch. xi. 40). When he ascended the throne, 
 the king who reigned in Egypt was probably either Pasebensha I. or 
 Pinetem II. Unfortunately, these monarchs have left such scanty 
 remains that we know next to nothing concerning them.' 
 
 The Right and the Wrong of making Vows. 
 
 i SAMUEL i. ii. : 'And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou 
 wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine hand- 
 maid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and 
 there shall no razor come upon his head.' 
 
 Question. Since a vow is a making of terms and conditions with 
 God, can it ever be becoming to a dependent creature ? 
 
 Answer. Vows are wholly unsuitable under the present Christian 
 revelation ; but they formed a fitting part of a system which promised 
 material and temporal rewards to obedience and virtue. The Divine 
 acceptance of vows implies Divine condescension to the imperfect 
 sentiments of an age. 
 
 It has been remarked that vows are characteristic of this particular 
 age of the Judges. Samson and Samuel were put under the Nazarite 
 vow ; oath was taken in the Benjamite war (Jud. xxi. 5) ; Jephthah 
 made vow (Jud. xi. 30) ; so did Hannah ; and so did Saul (i Sam. 
 
120 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 xiv. 24). According to the law given in Numbers xxx. 6-8, a wife had 
 no right to make a vow of such a nature as Hannah's without the 
 concurrence of her husband ; and if it were made, he might disallow 
 it if it did not meet with his approval. 
 
 In the case of ' vows ' we observe the same principle working which 
 applies to blood-revenge, domestic slavery, practice of retaliation, etc. 
 None of these things are original in the Mosaic institutions ; they are 
 all previously existing customs, which could not wisely be resisted, 
 and so were taken up into the Mosaic system, modified, and adapted 
 to new national conditions. So they all represent, as they appear 
 among the Jews, a compromise adopted because the absolute best 
 could not at the time be attained. It is very important that we 
 should bear this in mind. For the hardness of the people's hearts 
 Moses suffered a great many things which he could not fully 
 approve. 
 
 'The practice of making vows that is, of incurring voluntary 
 obligations to the Deity on fulfilment of certain conditions, such as 
 deliverance from death and danger, success in enterprises, and the 
 like is of extremely ancient date, and common in all systems of 
 religion. The earliest Bible mention of a vow is that of Jacob.' * The 
 Law, therefore, did not introduce, it only regulated, the practice of 
 vows.' 
 
 Dean Stanley refers to the frequent use of vows as falling in with 
 the wild usages of the time of the Judges, and as having a direct 
 affinity with Phoenician customs. ' One memorable instance of a 
 Phoenician vow has been handed down to us, so solemn in its origin, 
 so grand in its consequences, that even the vows of the most sacred 
 ages may well bear comparison with it. The impulse from his early 
 oath, which nerved the courage and patriotism of Hannibal from 
 childhood to age in his warfare against Rome, may fitly be taken as 
 an illustration of the feeling which, in its highest and noblest forms, 
 led to the consecration of Samson and Samuel, and, in its unautho- 
 rized excesses, to the rash vows of the whole nation against the tribe 
 of Benjamin, of Jephthah against his daughter, of Saul against 
 Jonathan. These spasmodic efforts after self-restraint are precisely 
 what we should expect in an age which had no other mode of steady- 
 ing its purposes amidst the general anarchy in which it was enveloped ; 
 and accordingly in that age they first appear, and within its limits 
 expire.' 
 
 It is only as ' efforts after self-restraint ' that we can regard them as 
 ever acceptable to God. They are private covenants, in which a man 
 gets for himself the moral help of being under a pledge ; but his need 
 
CO UNSELS OF DECEPTION. 1 2 1 
 
 ' getting such a moral help always implies a certain consciousness of 
 oral weakness. The Christian ought not to need any such bolster- 
 g up of his purposes and endeavours ; it should be enough for 
 m that ' he can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth 
 
 m 1 
 
 Counsels of Deception. 
 
 I SAMUEL xvi. 2 : And Samuel said, How can I go ? if Saul hear it, he will 
 11 me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to 
 crifice to the Lord.' 
 
 Difficulty. Can such a direction to deceive possibly have been 
 'ven by One who is spoken of as ' a God of truth and without 
 liquity ? 
 
 Explanation. Samuel had to deal with a man who was virtually 
 isane, and the ordinary rules of straightforward dealing cannot be 
 pplied to such persons. Their foibles must be met, and every effort 
 mst be made to avoid irritating them. Saul, at this time, was in a 
 lost depressed and suspicious mood. His mind was quite off the 
 alance, and it was necessary to treat him in such a way as not to 
 Kcite his mania. From God's merciful treatment of the insane, we 
 annot reasonably take up a reproach against Him, or find models 
 >r our relations with people who are in their right minds. 
 
 Samuel could honourably adopt a device which sufficiently explained 
 is movements, and kept back inquiries as to his more secret pur- 
 oses. He could fairly take precautions for his own life. And the 
 evice suggested was one so simple that no one could possibly be in- 
 ired by carrying it out. Properly and precisely speaking, no one 
 as deceived by it ; all that it did was, check inquiry and suspicion. 
 *.s we can clearly see that such an innocent adaptation to circum- 
 :ances would be quite consistent and proper in a truth-loving man, 
 nd would only be regarded as a sign of practical wisdom, we ought 
 ot to find any difficulty in admitting that such a suggestion might 
 ome from the truthful God. So long as men of various infirmity and 
 rnorance have to come into earthly relations, such wise adjustments 
 all be necessary. There are times to hide as well as times to 
 eveal. 
 
 ' The jealous suspicion of Saul watched the prophet so closely that 
 e could only venture to go to David's town driving a heifer before 
 im, as if his errand had been to sacrifice.' 
 
 Some writers look upon this appeal of Samuel to God as a sign of 
 is human infirmity. Since God had sent him on this mission, he 
 night have been quite sure that He would protect him in its 
 xecution. 
 
122 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The ' Speaker's Commentary ' explains the appearance of duplich; 
 sanctioned by Divine authority, and shows that it ' was the purpose o 
 God that David should be anointed at this time as Saul's successor 
 and as the ancestor and type of His Christ. It was not the purpos< 
 of God that Samuel should stir up a civil war by setting up David a; 
 Saul's rival. Secrecy, therefore, was a necessary part of the transaction 
 But secrecy and concealment are not the same as duplicity 2J\& falsehood 
 Concealment of a good purpose, for a good purpose, is clearly justifi 
 able e.g., in war, in medical treatment, in State policy, and in th< 
 ordinary affairs of life. In the Providential government of the world 
 and in God's dealings with individuals, concealment of His purpose 
 till the proper time for its development, is the rule rather than tht 
 exception, and must be so. There is, therefore, nothing in the leas 
 inconsistent with truth in the occurrence here related.' 
 
 Kitto mentions that some Jewish writers explain the taking of the 
 heifer for sacrifice by supposing that there had been a man slain ir 
 the neighbourhood, and that as it was not known by whom the crimt 
 had been committed, Samuel, to whom such a case would naturallj 
 be referred, went to sacrifice a heifer according to the law as laic 
 down in Deuteronomy xxi. 
 
 The Command to vex the Midianites. 
 
 NUMBERS xxv. 17, 18 : 'Vex the Midianites, and smite them ; for they vex yoi 
 with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Beor, and ii 
 the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, which wa 
 slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor.' 
 
 Difficulty. This appears to be a Divine commendation of th*. 
 principle of * returning evil for evil] which our Lord Jesus Chris, 
 taught us to regard as a wicked and mischievous principle. 
 
 Explanation. It is necessary to distinguish between a principle 
 which is of universal application to individuals, and the relations o 
 individuals, and a principle which may be temporarily set aside ir 
 public and national relations, under sufficiently important considera 
 tions ; and if we are fairly to judge what are adequate considerations 
 we must carefully estimate the customs and sentiments of the age ir 
 which it is judged right to set the general principle aside. 
 
 In the case now before us, Moses had, under the Divine direction 
 to deal with a matter of singular difficulty. Unable to hinder tht 
 Israelites from advancing towards Canaan, the Moabites anc 
 Midianites united to corrupt the people of Israel by enticing tht 
 men to attend the lascivious feasts and sacrifices of their nationa 
 gods, hoping thereby to bring down on Israel the crushing judgments 
 
THE COMMAND TO VEX THE MIDIANITES. 123 
 
 Jehovah. It was a very subtle and very dangerous scheme, and 
 a sad extent it seems to have succeeded. But when the judgment 
 d fallen, and the vindication of Jehovah had been made, it was 
 jnd necessary to create a public sentiment, in relation to these 
 npters, which would henceforth prevent their exercising any 
 rrupting influence. They must be regarded as public enemies, 
 d the memory of their wicked enticements must henceforth keep 
 rael separate from them. 
 
 The term that is used, 'vex the Midianites,' recalls the act of 
 linehas, who personally dealt with a case of immorality which was 
 ought into the camp ; and the idea seems to be that the people 
 ould see to cleansing the corrupting influence away by personally 
 Baling with cases of evil, as Phinehas had dealt with these two, 
 mri and Cozbi. Baumgarten expresses this, in the following 
 ntence : * In order that the practical zeal of Phinehas against sin, 
 r which expiation had been made for the guilt, might be adopted 
 f all the nation.' 
 
 It is singular that Midian, and not Moab, should be singled out 
 r this judgment ; but from Numbers xxii. 4, 7, we learn that 
 [idian was confederate with Moab in resisting Israel ; and we are 
 d to understand that Midian took the more prominent part in the 
 sidious scheme for securing the ruin of Israel by idolatry and 
 eruption. 
 
 The Divine command to smite the Midianites, and so execute the 
 ivine judgments on their iniquity, was obeyed as narrated in 
 lapter xxxi. 
 
 Wordsworth says : * The sin of the Midianites was greater (than 
 lat of the Moabites), because they were the posterity of faithful 
 .braham, and as such ought to have feared and obeyed Abraham's 
 rod, and to have loved His people, their own kindred ; and they 
 ad sufficient opportunities of knowing God and His works in Egypt 
 ad the wilderness/ 
 
 Matthew Henry says : ' Moses, though the meekest man, and far 
 om a spirit of revenge, is ordered to " vex the Midianites, and 
 ,nite them." We must set ourselves against that, whatever it is, 
 'hich is an occasion of sin to us, though it be a right eye or a right 
 and that thus offends us. This is that holy indignation and revenge 
 r hich godly sorrow worketh (2 Cor. vil n). God will certainly 
 ackon with those that do the devil's work in tempting men to 
 
i2 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Jehu's Mission as Executioner. 
 
 2 KINGS x. 7, etc. : * And it came to pass, when the letter came to them, tha 
 they took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets 
 and sent him them to Jezreel.' 
 
 Difficulty. If God employs an agent as His executioner, /< 
 what extent must He be regarded as responsible for the way in whict 
 the agenfs work is done ? 
 
 Explanation. This difficulty can be best met by considering 
 what is recognised as right and wrong in the ordinary executions o 
 common law. So long as the sense of mankind demands capita 
 punishment for some particular crimes, there must be executioners 
 But such men occupy a strictly official position, and the Governmen 
 is responsible for the efficient carrying out of the law-penalty, am 
 for nothing more. But it is quite conceivable that the executione 
 may do his work in a bungling way ; he may cause needless suffer 
 ing ; he may be coarse and heartless ; he may show persona 
 animosity, or personal favouritism, in the doing of his duty ; but thi 
 common sense of a country recognises that the Government i 
 responsible for none of these things, and that the executioner ma; 
 himself be punished for his ways of carrying out his instructions 
 He may be drunk at his work, and then he is dismissed as a penalty 
 But the sentence was still a righteous sentence, which the Govern 
 ment was bound to see carried out. 
 
 Now we may see how this applies to the case of Jehu. Capita 
 sentence on the royal house of Ahab had been pronounced, quit( 
 independently of Jehu, by the supreme over-Lord, the Judge anc 
 King of Israel. At the appointed time, Jehu was selected as th( 
 executioner of the capital sentence. The choice was manifestly ar 
 excellent one. Jehu had precisely the qualities of energy, promptitude 
 and secrecy that fitted him for the work of national executioner 
 He was not a religious man, and he accepted the commission simpb 
 in his loyalty to Israel's over-Lord. 
 
 So far as God is concerned in the matter, if we may speak of Hirr 
 as we speak of an earthly king or Government, His responsibility 
 was limited to the passing of a righteous sentence, and the selectior 
 of a suitable agent for carrying the sentence into effect. On Jeht 
 alone rests the responsibility for the methods in which he fulfilled hi; 
 duty. In those methods we see the terrible brutality characteristk 
 of the age ; and the spirit of the rough soldier, only too familial 
 with bloodshedding, and miserably deficient in his estimate of the 
 value of life. Jehu may be praised for fulfilling his commission 
 
JEHU'S MISSION AS EXECUTIONER. 125 
 
 he must be severely blamed for the way in which he did it. 
 ceptions, cruelties, needless sweeping away of innocent with guilty, 
 ther God nor good men can approve. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth compares Henry VIII. of England as a 
 yal Reformer like Jehu. 'Much that he did, especially in the 
 .rthrow of the usurped dominion of the Bishop of Rome, and in 
 eheading superstition," as Richard Hooker expresses it, was 
 :eptable to God, and received a reward and blessing from Him, 
 lough the motives by which he was swayed, and also some of his 
 ions, could not be otherwise than offensive, like those of Jehi% to 
 j God of holiness and truth.' 
 
 Dean Stanley's estimate of Jehu's character will help in impressing 
 
 i distinction which we have endeavoured to make between what 
 
 did and the way in which he did it. ' The character of Jehu is 
 
 t difficult to understand, if we take it as a whole, and consider the 
 
 neral impression left on us by the Biblical account. He is exactly 
 
 ie of those men whom we are compelled to recognise, not for what 
 
 good or great in themselves, but as instruments for destroying evil, 
 
 d preparing the way for good, such as Augustus Caesar at Rome, 
 
 titan Mahmoud II. in Turkey, or one closer at hand in the revolu- 
 
 >ns of our own time and neighbourhood. A destiny, long kept in 
 
 aw by himself or others inscrutable secrecy and reserve in carry- 
 
 g out his plans a union of cold, remorseless tenacity with occa- 
 
 )nal bursts of furious, wayward, almost fanatical zeal ; this is Jehu, 
 
 he is set before us in the historical narrative, the worst type of a 
 
 >n of Jacob the " supplanter," as he is called, without the noble 
 
 id princely qualities of Israel the most unlovely, and the most 
 
 )ldly commended, of all the heroes of his country.' 
 
 Kitto supports the view we have given in the following sentences : 
 
 fehu had been commissioned to execute the Lord's judgment upoi? 
 
 ie house of Ahab; and his relentless nature concurred with his 
 
 wn interest in giving the widest possible interpretation to his com- 
 
 lission ; while he was careful, in every fresh deed of blood, to 
 
 eclare himself the Lord's avenger, who did but execute the orders 
 
 iven to him. No doubt, he was the appointed minister of delayed 
 
 idgment ; but we cannot fail to see that he used his commission for 
 
 ie purpose of sweeping away from his path all those from whose 
 
 engeance, or hate, any disturbance might, even by remote construc- 
 
 .on, be apprehended to his future reign.' 
 
 Rev. J. C. JBall, writing in ' Ellicott's Commentary,' notices that 
 lie word, in the passage before us, translated slew, really means 
 utchered or slaughtered. ' The way in which the writer speaks of 
 
126 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 this massacre " they took the king's sons, and butchered seven 
 persons " shows that he did not sympathize with Jehu's deeds 
 blood.' 
 
 The Destruction of the Fifties. 
 
 2 KINGS i. 10 : 'And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I b< 
 man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fif 
 And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.' 
 
 Difficulty. This looks like a use of miraculous power to secure t 
 prophet's personal safety \ and in such a use of his power he surely cant, 
 be justified. 
 
 Explanation. We may settle it at once that the power to c 
 down the fire could not have been used for Elijah's personal safet 
 That would not have been, in the eyes of God, a sufficient occasi< 
 for such a miracle. The explanation of the incident must be foui 
 in Elijah's official position. He was the public defender of t 
 supreme claims of Jehovah in his generation. He was Goc 
 champion-soldier, and the incident before us now is strictly a batt 
 and must be treated according to the sentiments and rules of tim 
 of war. 
 
 Remove, for a moment, the miraculous features of the story, and 1 
 it be that the captain, with his fifty, leads a forlorn hope against : 
 enemy standing at bay in some strongly fortified position. Let th 
 first fifty be cut to pieces, let a second fifty be cut to pieces, ai 
 public sentiment would see nothing unusual : only splendid herois 
 on the part of such soldiers ; but no cruelty, no wickedness, on tl 
 part of the equally noble defenders. 
 
 It is easy to see how this applies to Elijah, who stood at bay, ai 
 used the particular forces at his command for the resistance of tl 
 enemies of Jehovah, for whom he fought. If Ahaziah chose to p 
 his soldiers against miraculous forces, that was his concern, and he mu 
 not be surprised at overwhelming consequences. 
 
 Regarding the incident from a somewhat different point of view, 
 may be urged that it occurred under the reign of a new king 
 Israel ; and the question was, whether the great moral impressio 
 produced by the fire-scene on Carmel, in the latter part of Ahal 
 reign, were to be wholly lost by the open insult offered to Jehov; 
 by the new king, in passing by Jehovah's prophet, and seeking .- 
 oracle from the god of Ekron. 
 
 As supreme King of the country, Jehovah could never permit ope 
 and public insults to pass by unnoticed. But Ahaziah proceedc 
 from insult to violence. Ahaziah proceeded to force, and sent 
 strong guard to seize Eliiah j and he must consequently learn, in 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FIFTIES. 127 
 
 ry striking and impressive way, that no man can contend with 
 hovah and prosper. The captain and his men are simply con- 
 ived as instruments of a will opposing itself to Jehovah. The use 
 the fire-agency did but significantly recall the overwhelming fire- 
 ;n of Carmel, and re-affirm the supreme claims of Jehovah. 
 The 'Speaker's Commentary' in part supports this view. 'Ahaziah 
 d, as it were, challenged Jehovah to a trial of strength by sending 
 band of fifty to arrest one man. He must have thought that though 
 ijah, because of his miraculous gifts, could not be taken by a few 
 an, a band of fifty could overpower him. Consequently God was 
 allenged to show His might. ... In Elijah the spirit of the law 
 is embodied in its full severity. Over some prophets the coming 
 cond covenant seems in some sort to project its shadow. It is 
 herwise with Elijah. His zeal is fierce ; he is not shocked by 
 ood ; he has no softness and no relenting. If the warning at Horeb 
 id the meaning which we have supposed, he did not permanently 
 ofit by it. He continued the uncompromising avenger of sin, the 
 elder of the terrors of the Lord, such exactly as he had shown him- 
 if at Carmel. He is, consequently, no pattern for Christian men ; 
 it his character is the perfection of the purely legal type. No true 
 tiristian, after Pentecost, would have done what he did now. But 
 lat he did, when he did it, was not sinful. It was but executing 
 rict, stern justice.' 
 
 Indicating the moral purposes which were to be served by the 
 cident, Kitlo says : ' The awful destruction by fire from heaven 
 at is, we suppose, by lightning at the word of Elijah, of the two 
 st parties sent to apprehend him must have tended powerfully to 
 ipress upon the nation the fact that the Lord still asserted His right 
 reign over them, and would be known to them in His protesting 
 dgments, since they would not know him in His mercies. Elijah's 
 icerfully going with the third party, the leader of which approached 
 m with humble entreaties, must have suggested that the door to 
 ose mercies was still open to all who becomingly approached it. 
 his was practical preaching, of the kind that this people could most 
 .sily understand.' 
 
 Jamieson states his explanation very clearly. * Any appearance of 
 uelty that there is in the fate of the two captains and their men will 
 : removed, on a full consideration of the circumstances. God 
 iing the King of Israel, Ahaziah was bound to govern the kingdom 
 cording to the Divine law : to apprehend the Lord's prophet, foi 
 scharging a commanded duty, was the act of an impious and 
 )torious rebel. The captains abetted the king in his rebellion ; and 
 ey exceeded their military duty by contemptuous insults.* 
 
128 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 Moses' Sin in breaking the Tables. 
 
 EXODUS xxxii. 19 : ' And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto th 
 camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing : and Moses' anger waxed hot, and h 
 cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.' 
 
 Question. Wherein lay the sin of this act? It seems rather to t 
 an expression of very natural, and very righteous, indignation. 
 
 Answer. It is not usually observed that the meekness ascribe' 
 to Moses was not * absence of passion,' but 'disinterestedness 
 genuine interest in others rather than in self. The fact appears to be 
 that the principal weakness in the character of Moses was his impuk 
 iveness his inability to control himself in moments of passion. I 
 this direction lay his * easily besetting sin'; and when he gave way t 
 this temptation he brought dishonour upon God, and his acts becam 
 sinful. We are too ready to suppose that passion may be admitte 
 as an excuse for wrong-doing, and we need the Divine reproof an 
 judgment of passionate Moses to convince us that God counts it a 
 evil thing for a man to lose his self-control, and a wrong thing fc 
 him to act when his self-control is lost. 
 
 We have several cases illustrating this weakness of Moses. Rouse 
 by the sight of the Egyptian's oppression, he passionately slew an 
 buried him. As in the passage before us, excited beyond enduranc 
 by the sight of the calf, he dashed down the tables. And later on, h 
 was so annoyed with the continual murmuring of the people that h 
 roughly smote the rock to bring forth water for them, and unworthil 
 forgot himself so far as to call the people names. In him we plainl 
 see that evil is evil, and passion is passion, in good people as well a 
 in bad. These things must be called by their right names whereve 
 they are found, and must be corrected by adequate punishments, eve 
 in the best of people. Moses cannot be spared the proper judgmer 
 on his moral failure. 
 
 Matthew Henry takes the view that Moses broke the tables i 
 order to convince the Israelites that they had forfeited and lost th 
 favour of God. 'Though God knew of their sins, before Mose 
 came down, yet He did not order him to leave the tables behind hin 
 but gave them to him to take down in his hand, that the peopl 
 might see how forward God was to take them into covenant wit 
 Himself, and that nothing but their own sin prevented it ; yet He pt 
 it into his heart, when the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, t 
 break the tables before their eyes (as it is in Deut. ix. 17), that th 
 sight of it might the more affect them, and fill them with confusior 
 
MOSES' SIN IN BREAKING THE TABLES. 129 
 
 when they saw what blessings they had lost. Thus, they being 
 guilty of so notorious an infraction of the treaty now on foot, the 
 writings were torn, even when they lay ready to be* sealed.' 
 
 George Rawlinson says : * In righteous indignation, but perhaps 
 with some revival of the hot temper which had led him astray in his 
 younger days/ 
 
 Jamieson sees a symbolical meaning in the act of Moses. ' The 
 arrival of the leader, like the appearance of a spectre, arrested the 
 revellers in the midst of their carnival, and his act of righteous indig- 
 nation, when he dashed on the ground the tables of the law, in token 
 that, as they had so soon departed from their covenant relation, God 
 would withdraw the peculiar privileges that He had promised them 
 that act, together with the rigorous measures that followed, forms one 
 of the most striking scenes recorded in sacred history.' 
 
 Wordsworth spiritualizes : ' The two tables were like the marriage- 
 contract between God and His Church, and these were broken by 
 her idolatry which is spiritual adultery. The Jews preserve a 
 memorial of the breaking of the tables by an annual fast on the iyth 
 Tamuz (July). 
 
 Obedience or Sacrifices. 
 
 I SAMUEL xv. 22, 23 : ' And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in 
 burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to 
 obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is 
 as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim.' 
 
 Question Does not such a declaration excuse the neglect of the 
 ritual and ceremonial aspects of religion ? 
 
 Answer. Only if the immediate application of Samuel's words 
 is unrecognised, and the necessity for words of vigour, firmness, and 
 almost exaggeration fails to be seen. Men roused to intense feeling very 
 properly speak strongly. Such times do not admit of careful quali- 
 fication of statement. Qualifications come in afterwards, and the 
 statements gain precision. A reprover ought to set out the sin for 
 which he reproves men in bold relief, fixing the attention wholly 
 upon the heinousness and ruinousness of it. Samuel would, on due 
 occasion, have qualified his statement, and shown that sacrifices 
 were required by God and were acceptable to Him, because these 
 found due expression for the spirit of obedience. He had now to 
 deal with a case in which a man tried to substitute mere ritual obser- 
 vance for heart-obedience, and openly excused his moral failure by 
 an appeal to his ceremonial faithfulness \ and the offence of such 
 things, in God's sight, must be clearly and impressively shown. 
 
 9 
 
1 3 o HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Tracing the growth of Samuel's thoughts respecting the worship 
 acceptable to God, Dr. Geikie remarks, ' The cessation of offerings 
 by the destruction of the sanctuary (at the close, of Eli's time 
 would soon suggest to a mind so imbued with the spirit of the lau 
 whether, after all, they were indispensable to the pure worship ol 
 God, or to a holy life. The formal would be felt wholly subordi- 
 nate in religion to the spiritual, and the highest fulfilment of the law 
 would present itself as that of the heart and life. This elevation of the 
 moral above the external, indeed, was the great characteristic of the 
 prophetic order of which Samuel was to be the founder, and the 
 permanent safeguard against the substitution of outward form for the 
 vitality of inner religion. The truest reverence for God is loving 
 obedience to His commands, and these were embodied in the Book 
 of the Law which Samuel had so deeply studied in Shiloh. The 
 ceremonial was, no doubt, prescribed in it, and had its place in the 
 religious economy. But it was outward at best. Far more vita 
 than ritual service was hearty loyalty to the ' Ten Words ' spoken b) 
 God from Sinai, of which the whole moral and spiritual teaching o: 
 the law was only the amplification. Israel could not have beer 
 separated from the nations merely to present formal offerings anc 
 sacrifices to Jehovah, or to pay Him external homage. They musi 
 have been thus set apart that, like Abraham, they should keep the way o 
 the Lord, to do justice and judgment, and obey His voice, and keej 
 His charge,, His commandments, His statutes, and His laws.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth well explains the figures employed in verse 
 23. ' The principle of this solemn sentence of Samuel is, that the 
 man who disobeys God, is virtually guilty of consulting familial 
 spirits, and of resorting to sorcery, instead of obeying God's will a.' 
 revealed in His Word; and that he is guilty of setting up idols ir 
 his own heart in the place of God, and in opposition to Him. He 
 who disobeys God is chargeable with infidelity and idolatry. Sau 
 had been chosen out of all the tribes of Israel by the Lord to be 
 king ; and, by disobeying the Word of the Lord, he, the king o: 
 Israel, the chosen servant of Jehovah, had been guilty of apostas) 
 from Him, and had consulted the familiar spirit of his own carna 
 wilfulness, and had bowed down before the idols which he had made 
 for himself 
 
 Wordsworth also quotes a fine saying from 5. Gregory, * In sacri 
 fices a man offers only strange flesh, whereas in obedience he offers 
 his own will' 
 
ELISHA'S CURSES. 131 
 
 Elisha's Curses. 
 
 2 KINGS ii. 24 : ' And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in 
 the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and 
 tare forty and two children of them.' 
 
 Difficulty. The provocation in this case does not seem to have been 
 sufficient to call forth curses^ or to require so dreadful a punishment. 
 
 Explanation. Some care is necessary in the examination of 
 this passage, so that we may first of all be sure that we know precisely 
 what happened. The word translated * little children ' rather means 
 * youths.' Their expression, 'thou bald head,' was extremely insolent 
 and offensive, according to Eastern notions. And though Elisha 
 cursed them, the actual agency of their punishment was an ordinary 
 Divine Providence. We may consider first wherein lay the sin of 
 these young men ; and then how far Elisha was justified in cursing 
 them. 
 
 Van Lennep gives us the best idea of the class of young men who 
 thus insulted the prophet ' No one who has travelled in the East 
 can have failed to notice the extreme lawlessness of a certain class of 
 boys and young men living on the outskirts of a town, especially 
 towards a Jew, a Christian, or an European who should happen to be 
 passing by alone or unprotected. Let him go, for instance, to the 
 castle hill of Smyrna, and, if it be a holiday, and the * boys ' (oghlans) 
 are out, he will perceive stones whizzing past him, and will hear the 
 shouts of " Frank," " Hat-wearer," " Giaour," rallying the rowdies of 
 the vicinity, and warning him to beat a hasty retreat.' 
 
 But however insulting and perilous such lawlessness might be, it 
 
 would not justify a man of God in cursing the ' boys.' We must 
 
 look more closely into the narrative. And it appears that Bethel was 
 
 3ne of the centres of Jeroboam's calf-worship. (This, indeed, has been 
 
 Df late years disputed, and another Bethel is proposed as Jeroboam's 
 
 :ity. But the old identification is still to be preferred) 'The choice 
 
 >f Bethel as the head-quarters of the calf-worship, the seat of a 
 
 ;rand temple built in opposition to that at Jerusalem, and of a royal 
 
 >alace, had at once flattered and enriched the inhabitants, and 
 
 lindled their fierce and interested hatred of those, who, like the 
 
 >rophets, denounced the royal action. The citizens had become, it 
 
 rould appear, almost the counterparts of the bigoted Mahommedans of 
 
 lafed or Nablus, who at this day insult and often attack any Christian 
 
 tranger who enters their limits, even the children cursing the 
 
 infidel " as he passes.' Compare the opposition headed by 
 
 )emetrius, at Ephesus, against Paul. We are to understand there- 
 
 92 
 
132 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 fore, that these ' boys ' did but violently express the hatred of the 
 townsfolk at Bethel against the Jehovah prophet ; and that Elisha 
 treated them, not as acting in mere wilfulness, but as expressing the 
 feeling of the citizens, whose hatred to him was really hatred to 
 Jehovah, whose name he bore. 
 
 Some see in their cry against Elisha a reference to the previous 
 translation of Elijah, but this is not likely. Their words simply 
 mean what we express by ' Get out, you ; get out.' Nor need we 
 suppose that Elisha was really bald. He only contrasted with 
 Elijah, who was a characteristically hairy man. Roberts^ who 
 illustrates the Bible so skilfully from Hindoo customs, says, * I was 
 not a little astonished in the East, when I first heard a man who had 
 a large quantity of hair on his head called a " bald head " ; and I 
 found, upon inquiry, it was an epithet of contempt. A man who has 
 killed himself is called " a bald-headed suicide "; and a stupid fellow 
 "a bald-headed dunce." It is asked concerning those who are power- 
 less, " What can these bald heads do ? " Call a man a mottiyan^ that 
 is, " a bald head" (though he may have much hair), and then abuse, 
 sticks or stones will certainly be your portion. Thus the epithet 
 implies great scorn, and is given to those who are weak or mean.' 
 
 Kitto brings out the heinousness of the sin of these ' boys.' 
 ' These youths were not accidently encountered : they did not happen 
 to be at their sports outside the town where the prophet passed, but 
 they " came out " of malice prepense "to meet " and insult him. Such 
 a purpose against the prophet must have been the result of their 
 ungodly training in that evil place, and must have had its roots in the 
 sneers and sarcasms which they had heard all their lives levelled at 
 the name and acts of Elijah. Him, surrounded as he was with 
 terrors, they would not have dared thus to insult and abuse ; but 
 from his comparatively meek and gentle successor, whom they had 
 never hitherto seen in any position of authority, they thought there 
 was nothing to apprehend, so that they could with impunity pour 
 forth the blackness of their hearts upon him. The offence, involving 
 as it did a blasphemous insult cast upon one of the Lord's most 
 signal acts (this supposes a designed reference to Elijah's translation), 
 made a near approach to what in the New Testament is called the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 No detailed explanation is given us of the terms of Elisha's curse. 
 We must not bring our modern associations with cursing and swear- 
 ing into the word. Elisha simply invoked the Divine judgment on 
 these wild and blasphemous and contemptuous youths. As if he 
 
ELISHA'S CURSES. 133 
 
 had said, * I will take no sort of vengeance on them for these insults : 
 the Lord Himself avenge me.' 
 
 It is a needless forcing of the narrative to assume that the she- 
 bears rushed out of the wood as soon as Elisha had spoken. The 
 simple fact appears to be that in the neighbourhood of the Wady 
 Suweinit there was a dense forest, the haunt of savage animals. 
 About this time two she bears, bereft of their young, and, as usual in 
 such cases, terribly wild, destroyed some forty-two of the town- 
 children, tearing and wounding, if not actually killing them all. This 
 calamity was associated by the people with Elisha's curse, and 
 regarded as its fulfilment. 
 
 As a sufficient moral reason for such a judgment at this particular 
 time, it may be urged, that if * an insult offered to Elisha, now just 
 appointed to be the successor and representative of Elijah, and bear- 
 ing his prophetic mantle, as the chosen prophet of the Lord, had 
 passed unnoticed, the idolaters of Bethel might have been hardened 
 in their idolatry, and the prophets and worshippers of the Lord 
 would have been discouraged.' 
 
 Judgment on Saul's House. 
 
 2 SAMUEL xxi. I : 'And there was a famine in the days of David three years, 
 year after year ; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord s,aid, It 
 is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites.' 
 
 Question. How can God be thus represented as keeping up the 
 memory of wrongs, and reserving His vengeance, when we, who are to 
 te like Him, are told not to let the sun go down upon our wrath ? 
 
 Answer. There are few incidents recorded in the historical 
 Scriptures so seriously perplexing as this one, and so difficult to 
 econcile with our notions of the Divine Being. Almost all that 
 an be said is, that the idea of retribution prevailed in ancient times 
 o an extent which we cannot realize, and was the common idea of 
 he working of Divine justice. Retributive providences were ex- 
 ected to clear away the guilt of blood, as the Avenger, or Goe'l, 
 leared it in yet earlier times. By the teachings of large national 
 nd public avengements God taught that * murder will out,' and 
 lat ' whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' 
 'he painful and dreadful form which such avengement took, we can 
 nly say, belonged to the manners of the time. 
 
 Professor Gardiner, D.D., in ' Ellicott's Commentary,' gives the 
 'earest and best note we have met with. * Two questions are often 
 sked in connection with this narrative : (i) Why the punishment of 
 
134 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Saul's sin should have been so long delayed ? and (2) why it should 
 at last have fallen upon David and his people, who had no share in 
 the commission of the sin ? The answer to both questions is in the 
 fact that Israel both sinned and was punished as a nation. Saul 
 slew the Gibeonites, not simply as the son of Kish, but as the king 
 of Israel, and therefore involved all Israel with him in the violation 
 of the national oath ; and hence, until the evil should be put away 
 by the execution of the immediate offender or his representatives, all 
 Israel must suffer. The lesson of the continuity of the nation's life, 
 and of its continued responsibility from age to age, was greatly 
 enhanced by the delay. Besides this, there were so many other 
 grievous sins for which Saul was to be punished, that it was hardly 
 possible to bring out, during his lifetime, the special Divine dis- 
 pleasure at this one.' 
 
 Matthew Henry sententiously says : ' Time does not wear out the 
 guilt of sin ; nor can we build hopes of impunity upon the delay of 
 judgments. There is no statute of limitation to be pleaded against 
 God's demands. God may punish when He pleases.' 
 
 We must carefully distinguish between judicial acts done in the 
 maintenance of public authority, and private feelings of resentment 
 and acts of vengeance. God, in Israel, is not an individual giving 
 expression to a sense of private wrong, but a King giving expression 
 to fitting vindication of national justice and righteousness; and 
 things are necessary and becoming in the official King, which would 
 be most unworthy in the private individual. 
 
 Jehoram's Anger. 
 
 2 KINGS vi. 31 : ' Then he said, God do so to me, and more also, if the head of 
 Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day.' 
 
 Question. Why did this king vent his anger upon the prophet? 
 
 Answer. Because he confounded the * agent ' with the 'cause '; 
 and was glad to shift the responsibility for the national distress from 
 off his own shoulders. Jehoram's neglect of God, and encourage- 
 ment of idolatry, were the real causes of the national calamity, 
 because these brought upon him and his people the Divine judgments. 
 He was really angry with God for punishing him ; and, as he could 
 not reach God, he proposed to spend his rage on God's servant. 
 Men oftentimes hide their anger against themselves by a show of 
 anger against somebody else ; but such hidings never hide the truth 
 from God. 
 
 So far as the Scripture narrative is concerned, we have no intima- 
 
JEHORAM'S ANGER. 135 
 
 tion that Elisha was, in any prophetic way, connected with this siege 
 and famine. It is assumed that he was commissioned to announce 
 it, so that the people might clearly see it as a judgment of God, and 
 not a mere calamity. But, possibly, Jehoram only argued that 
 Elisha, who had wrought so many miracles, could have given 
 deliverance in this case, if he had pleased. This is suggested by the 
 fretful expression used by the king (see ver. 33), ' What should I wait 
 for the Lord any longer ?' * Jehoram bursts into the prophet's 
 presence with a justification of the sentence he has pronounced 
 against him. " Behold this evil this siege with all its horrors is 
 from Jehovah from Jehovah whose prophet thou art Why should 
 I wait for Jehovah temporize with Him keep, as it were, on terms 
 with Him by suffering thee to live any longer ? What hast thou tc 
 say in arrest of judgment ?" ' 
 
 Jamieson explains the incident thus : * The horrid recital of this 
 domestic tragedy (ver. 29) led the king soon after to rend his garment, 
 in consequence of which it was discovered that he wore a penitential 
 shirt of hair cloth. It is more than doubtful, however, if he was 
 truly humbled on account of his own and the nation's sin ; otherwise 
 he would not have vowed vengeance on the prophet's life. The true 
 explanation seems to be that Elisha, having counselled him not to 
 surrender, with the promise, on condition of deep humiliation, of 
 being delivered, and he having assumed the signs of contrition 
 without receiving the expected relief, regarded Elisha, who had 
 proved false and faithless, as the cause of all the protracted 
 distress.' 
 
 Wordsworth is very severe on Jehoram. * Jehoram had sackcloth 
 on his loins, but not on his heart ; he mourned indeed for the famine, 
 but not for the cause of it, namely, his own sins and the sins of the 
 people; and instead of being penitent towards God, he is furious 
 against God's prophet.' 
 
 The Proverb of the Sour Grapes. 
 
 EZEKIEL xviii. 2 : ' What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the laud 
 of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are 
 set on edge ?' 
 
 Difficulty. Has the law of heredity \ which carries disabilities to 
 children from parental wrong- doing, a sufficient moral ptirpose to justify 
 it? 
 
 Explanation. It should be observed that, in this instance, a 
 false use is made of the doctrine of heredity. It is offered as an 
 explanation of suffering, which may excuse the sufferers from any 
 
136 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 charge of personal guilt. The carrying of disabilities on to the 
 children is, in the Divine order, arranged to make public impression 
 of the evil of sin, and to keep constantly before men's minds the 
 fact of the solidarity of the race, on which the social order is based. 
 This is the moral purpose which justifies it ; but the fact and truth 
 are used for immoral purposes when they are made to relieve the 
 sense of personal responsibility, and lead men to lose anxiety con- 
 cerning their own transgressions by charging all evil on the * father ' 
 or on the ' race.' 
 
 The circumstances under which Ezekiel urged his pleading should 
 be understood. * The situation of the exiled people was such as to 
 call for and suggest such instruction. The judgments, in the approach 
 of which they had long refused to believe, were at last making them- 
 selves too manifest to be overlooked. But the people were ready to 
 evade the lesson which they should have learnt, by having recourse 
 to the heathen principle of a blind fatality of retribution, which 
 offered no means of escape either to the nation or to individuals, and 
 so prevented consciousness of guilt and of responsibility. They had, 
 indeed, a certain apparent ground to rest upon in the Second Com- 
 mandment, where God declares that He " will visit the sins of the 
 fathers upon the children ;" but it was only apparent. Here God 
 enunciates that which He declared throughout the Law, and which 
 had been illustrated in the whole history of the people, that national 
 sins should be followed by national judgment. This did not, in fact, 
 interfere with the principle that each individual should be answerable 
 for his own conduct, and should be equitably dealt with, any more 
 than the fact that, in all times, temporal consequences of the acts of 
 a nation or of individuals extend beyond themselves and their own 
 times. The state of exile was intended to develop this principle, 
 and so the prophet of the captivity was led to anticipate in a re- 
 markable manner the sublimer morality of the Gospel.' (' Speaker's 
 Commentary.') 
 
 It is necessary that we should keep in mind ' the two-fold relation, 
 the individual and the federal, in which each man stands to his 
 Maker. It is in virtue of the federal relation that, on the one 1 .and, 
 as children of Adam, we are all born into the world with ?, pre- 
 disposition to sin, and, on the other, are all partakers of the benefits 
 of the redemption wrought out for us by the Second Adam. Under 
 the laws of nature it must necessarily come about that the children 
 shall suffer or enjoy in consequence of the uprightness or the sin of 
 their fathers. Yet more important, and prevailing above this federal 
 relation, is the attitude of each individual towards God. f y this 
 
SCREENING THE FIRST MURDERER. 137 
 
 through the reconciliation effected by the redemption of Christ, he 
 is brought into communion with God, and, becoming one with Christ, 
 is viewed and treated as a member of the body of the only begotten 
 Son. This does not hinder that the laws of nature shall still work 
 out their natural effects : we still must be subject to death, because 
 our first father sinned ; but it does bring about that all these natural 
 sufferings are transformed into higher blessings.'* (Dr. F. Gardiner.) 
 
 Screening the First Murderer. 
 
 GENESIS iv. 15 : And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth 
 Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a 
 sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him ' {Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Question. Why was not the foundation law of human society, 
 ' Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed] carried out 
 in the case of Cain ? 
 
 Answer. The law of murder was only thus distinctly stated as 
 the basis law of society as it was started afresh after the cleansing 
 Flood ; and it is altogether confusing to associate it with the condi- 
 tions and relations of the first human family. 
 
 The point which we require to see clearly is, that no law for the 
 punishment of a crime can be promulgated until the crime has been 
 committed. Nobody would understand what the crime was until 
 it had been wrought by some one. But, then, government must step 
 in to deal with something which has arisen imperilling the social 
 order. The first criminal creates the law that shall deal with the 
 particular crime ; but the first criminal may fairly urge that he was 
 unwarned, and so ought not to be the first to bear the penalty. 
 
 We act precisely on this principle in family life. There is no house- 
 aw concerning some kind of fault, because no member of the family 
 las committed it. But one of the boys does the wrong ; and at once 
 i law is made, with appropriate threat of punishment. But no parent 
 :ould fairly make the first sinner bear the penalty which he fixed only 
 ifter the sin was committed. It may be necessary to inflict some 
 mnishment, but not the severe one which was henceforth to exert a 
 ;raciously deterrent effect. 
 
 This should be applied to the case of Cain. He knew of no law 
 >f murder that demanded blood for blood. He did not even know 
 ,-hat the crime of murder was. As soon as his deed was done, 
 onscience awoke, it brought fear; fear took its universal form 
 
 * Two other paragraphs will be found in this section dealing with this subject 
 'om otln.r points of view. 
 
T 3 8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 dread of retaliation : ' As I have done, so somebody will do to me.' 
 God then established the law of murder, by accepting Cain's fear 
 that some one would slay him. It is as if He had said : * Yes ; blood 
 for blood shall be the universal murder-law. But since you were un- 
 warned, and gave the first example of the crime, you shall not be 
 also first example of the penalty.' Separation from society was the 
 punishment adapted to the sins of envy and passion into which Cain 
 had fallen ; but the precise penalty of murder was held over until 
 the next case, when, if a man killed his fellow, he could only do so 
 understanding his guilt, threatened with punishment, and braving 
 the penalty. 
 
 This explanation fairly faces a difficulty which the leading Biblical 
 writers either shirk or do not consider of importance. Only Lange 
 even states it, among those we have consulted ; but his treatment of 
 it seems very unsatisfactory. He says : ' We may ask, Why was not 
 the punishment of death imposed on Cain, as is demanded by the 
 later law (ch. ix. 6), instead of exile ? It is not a sufficient answer to 
 say that the parents of Cain could not execute such a sentence ; the 
 cherubim might have crushed him. But it becomes evident, already, 
 that the religious social death of absolute banishment from human 
 society constitutes the peculiar essence of the death-penalty.' The 
 unsatisfactoriness of such an explanation is shown by the historical 
 fact that Cain was not shut out from general society, but was the 
 founder of the chief families with which the old world was peopled, 
 and that from him came the progenitors of the world's arts and 
 music. 
 
 Natural Warmth for the Aged Sick. 
 
 I KINGS i. 2 : ' Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for 
 my lord the king a young virgin.' 
 
 Question. Can any explanations be given that may remove tke 
 sense of impropriety which is given us by this suggestion ? 
 
 Answer. The suggestion was made in strict accordance with the 
 medical ideas of those times, and might have been offered by the 
 physician of the court. We know well that one of the greatest diffi- 
 culties we have to contend with in nursing old people is deficiency 
 of circulation, involving coldness of the extremities. So we chafe the 
 hands, and put hot-water bottles to the feet. The Easterns used the 
 plan of laying a full-blooded healthy person beside the aged and sick 
 one, so that the natural warmth of the healthy one might be im- 
 parted to the colder one; and no more efficient plan could be 
 
NATURAL WARMTH FOR THE AGED SICK. 139 
 
 devised, though our feelings make difficulties in trying this method 
 which Eastern people would not realise. 
 
 As a great deal has been made of this incident by those who 
 desire to find opportunities for attacking the morality of the Bible, 
 several explanations of the Eastern custom, with good authorities, 
 may be presented. 
 
 Gadsby says : * The people of the East, who have beds, always 
 sleep in siparate beds; no two persons, not even man and wife, sleep- 
 ing together. I used, therefore, to wonder what Solomon meant 
 when he wrote, " If two lie together, there is heat ; but how can one 
 be warm alone ?" But there can be no doubt that he referred to the 
 custom, which was generally practised, of the aged and infirm having 
 young healthy persons with them in bed to keep them warm, and 
 even, as they suppose, to impart vital heat.' 
 
 Josephus tells us the arrangement was made by the advice of the 
 physicians. 
 
 A writer on Eastern customs says : ' This is by no means so un- 
 common a thing as people in England suppose. Men of seventy 
 years and upwards often take a young virgin for the same purpose as 
 David, and no other. It is believed to be exceedingly healthful for 
 an aged person thus to sleep. In the hot season he is kept cool, 
 and in the cold season warm, by sleeping with a young person : his 
 withered body derives nourishment from the other. Thus, decrepit 
 men may be seen having a young female in the house (to whom, 
 generally, they are not married), and to whom they bequeath a con- 
 siderable portion of their property.' 
 
 Jamieson gives a very full and precious account of the custom. 
 * In modern Palestine and in Egypt, the people, owing to the heat of 
 the climate, sleep each in a separate bed. They only departed from 
 this practice for medical reasons. The expedient recommended by 
 David's physicians is the regimen prescribed in similar cases still in 
 the East, particularly among the Arab population, not simply to give 
 heat, but " to cherish " ; as they are aware that the inhalation of 
 young breath will give new life and vigour to the worn-out frame. 
 The fact of the health of the young and healthier person being, as it 
 were, stolen to support that of the more aged and sickly is well 
 established among the medical faculty. And hence the prescription 
 for the aged king was made in a hygeian point of view for the pro- 
 longation of his valuable life, and not merely for the comfort to be 
 derived from the natural warmth imparted to his withered frame.' 
 
HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Jehovah-Sacrifice of Heathen Sailors. 
 
 JONAH i. 16 : 'Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offeied a sacri- 
 fice unto the Lord, and made vows.' 
 
 Question. In what sense could idolaters offer sincere sacrifice to 
 Jehovah ; and could such sacrifice be accepted ? 
 
 Answer. From the statement made in verse 5, we gather that 
 the crew of this ship was made up of men of various nationalities, as 
 indeed is the case with modern crews. It is a peculiarity of idolatry 
 that the forms under which the several deities are conceived and 
 represented are special to particular lands and nations; and the 
 untutored minds regard the distinct forms as separate deities, and 
 worship them as such. There seems, however, always to lie, as it 
 were at the back of thought, the notion of One great Spirit, and this 
 leads an idolatrous people to be jealous of their own form of appre- 
 hending and presenting Him, but at the same time tolerant of those 
 in other lands, who worshipped Him under other and different forms. 
 It does not seem that idolaters persecute one another. Their senti- 
 ment seems to be : ' This form is right for me, and that form may be 
 right for you.' 
 
 These sailors, therefore, would suppose Jonah to have a god, even 
 as they had. He was the god of the land of Palestine, and it was 
 now made evident to them that his power extended as far as this over 
 the sea that skirted the land. We need not suppose them to have 
 had any idea of the supreme claims and spiritual nature of Jehovah, 
 the God of the whole earth ; they had come into the power of the 
 *god of the land of Palestine, and, doing as they would have done to 
 any other national god whom they seemed to have offended, they 
 offered sacrifices of propitiation. The vows they made were such as 
 they would have made to any idol-god, pledging respect for the 
 national deity if they should ever visit the land again. 
 
 To assume that Jonah preached the claims of Jehovah to these 
 sailors is to read our own ideas into the story, and to forget that 
 Israel had at this time no call to missionary service. 
 
 As to the Divine acceptance of the sailors' sacrifice and vows, we 
 can only say that He who readeth the heart asks the sacrifice of sin- 
 cerity, and is really though all men do not know Him as such the 
 God of the whole earth, and He may have ' smelled a sweet and 
 acceptable savour ' that day. He who did accept the Ninevites who 
 1 repented ' in their own way, may also have accepted these earnest 
 sailors who * sacrificed ' in their own way. 
 
BATHSHEBAS CHILD FAVOURED. 141 
 
 Bathsheba's Child Favoured. 
 
 2 SAMUEL xii. 24, 25 : ' And she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon : 
 and the Lord loved him. And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet ; and 
 he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord.' 
 
 Difficulty. The favour shown to Solomon, and the consequent 
 setting aside of the other children of David, tends to lighten our estimate 
 of the moral fault of Bathsheba and David. 
 
 Explanation. In the instruction of humanity, in the revelation 
 of God to man, in what has been called the ' moral education of the 
 race,' it may be necessary that a very prominent instance should be 
 given of the truth that God fully restores when He freely forgives. 
 
 Exactly this man finds the utmost difficulty in realizing. In this 
 man is no measure of God, for man finds it nearly impossible to 
 restore either the punished or the forgiven to their former status. We 
 feel the surprise and the offence which the elder brother felt when 
 the prodigal was both forgiven and fully restored to his old son-place 
 and brother-place in the home. We know how to punish the criminal ; 
 we even know how to forgive him. But we cannot restore him ; we 
 are afraid to restore him ; it is beyond man to restore. 
 
 But restoration becomes the supremely important thing in the case 
 of a pious man who is overcome by passion, and backslides. We 
 feel at once that, if it were our own case, punishment could not 
 satisfy us forgiveness even would not satisfy us ; nothing could 
 satisfy us short of restoration to our old relations and privileges. 
 We should pray, just as David did on this very occasion, * Restore 
 unto me the joy of Thy salvation.' 
 
 Restored favour, without punishment, penitence, or forgiveness, 
 would tend to lighten our estimate of evil. But such restoration God 
 never gives, and He did not give in the case of David and Bathsheba. 
 Restored favour after punishment, penitence and forgiveness at once 
 gives a deeper sense of guilt and a more impressive sense of God's 
 mercy. It was such a restoration God granted in the case of David ; 
 and the acceptance of the child of the marriage as the king's heir 
 was a most gracious sealing of the restored relations. 
 
 As to setting aside the other sons of David by former marriages, 
 we need only be reminded that the law of succession by the eldest 
 son is the one with which we are familiar ; but it is not the universal, 
 it is even questionable whether it is the established, law in the East. 
 Certainly it was not the law in the Hebrew race. Isaac was not 
 eldest, nor was Jacob, nor was Moses, nor was David himself. So 
 
1 42 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 far as we can trace a rule in the matter, the dying patriarch or king 
 had the right of nomination from among his sons, and in exercising 
 this right he was assumed to have special Divine direction and in- 
 spiration. No wrong was done to the other sons by a Divinely 
 guided selection of a particular one. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth puts the point of the above explanation into a 
 sentence : * Solomon, in his name (peaceable), was a record of the 
 peace which God had restored to David's conscience.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie says: 'Loathing the sin he had committed, he 
 yearns after a better future, in which it will be seen how thoroughly 
 he has forsaken evil, and returned to a pure, just, and godly spirit 
 In the thirty-second Psalm the heavens begin to clear : he has con- 
 fessed his sin and forsaken it, and has found mercy. The bow on 
 the cloud shone out fully at last on the birth of a second son of 
 Bathsheba. David called his name Solomon ("the peaceful"), 
 perhaps in the belief that the gift of a child in the place of the one 
 that had died was a pledge of the fully restored favour of God.' 
 
 Lion Punishments. 
 
 2 KINGS xvii. 25 : ' And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that 
 they feared not the Lord : therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed 
 some of them. 
 
 Question. Is not the ordinary increase of wild animals in a 
 depopulated country here confounded with a special Divine judgment : 
 and does not the confusion indicate superstition rather than faith ? 
 
 Answer. We have in this passage the pious conclusion of the 
 Jewish writer given as correcting the idolatrous conclusion of the 
 heathen colonists. It is in fullest harmony with the Hebrew belief 
 in the unity and supremacy of Jehovah, that even the ordinary in- 
 cidents of life should be regarded as under the direct Divine over- 
 rulings. The Hebrew saw God everywhere, and working in every- 
 thing. He readily passed over the apparent, but really secondary, 
 causes as if they were not interesting to him, and let his mind rest 
 entirely on the great First Cause. From our modern points of view 
 we call the Hebrew 'unscientific.' But that conclusion is only the 
 result of a prevailing bias of a particular age, and the Hebrew 
 might fairly urge against us that we are limiting our vision to mere 
 agencies, and blinding our eyes to the real cause. 
 
 So far as the Scripture is a revelation of God to man, it is befitting 
 that everywhere and in everything God's relations and God's work- 
 ings should stand out prominently before us, and be adequately 
 impressed upon us. 
 
LION PUNISHMENTS. 143 
 
 The colonists regarded the increase of the lions, and their violence, 
 and daring depredations, as an indication that the god of the country 
 was offended by the neglect of his worship. This was true ; but it 
 was the truth as seen by their imperfect and distorted vision. We 
 call their view * superstitious/ but the writer of the Book of Kings 
 helps us to understand that it was true in substance, and super- 
 stitious only in form. The very simple and natural facts of the 
 case seem to have been that some time elapsed between the 
 carrying away of the people of Samaria and the re-occupying of 
 the district by the Assyrian colonists. As is quite usual in such 
 cases, the lions indigenous to the country had multiplied while the 
 district was uninhabited, and had become much more venturesome 
 and ravenous. The only point that need be considered as supporting 
 this explanation is the proof we have of the existence of lions in the 
 country. In earlier times we find many Scriptural references to this 
 animal, such as Judg. xiv. 5 ; i Sam. xvii. 34 ; 2 Sam. xxiil 20 ; 
 Prov. xxii. 13; xxvi. 13; and certain allusions made by Jere- 
 miah (xlix. 19 ; L 44), suggest that, even when the country was 
 well populated, lions lurked in the thick jungle on the banks of the 
 Jordan. 
 
 The Lord's Hate. 
 
 MALACHI i. 3 : ' And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage 
 waste for the dragons of the wilderness.' 
 
 Question. In what senses, and under what limitations, can the 
 word ' hate ' be properly applied to the feeling and action of the Divine 
 Being 1 } , 
 
 Answer. The general answer, which should suffice to explain 
 all the anthropopathic representations of God in the Old Testament, 
 is expressed in a sentence by Professor Henry Rogers : ' God speaks 
 to the heart of man in the language of its own emotions.' But Dean 
 Plumptre notices the extreme care with which the Scriptures correct 
 the tendency to misuse these anthropopathic representations : ' He 
 is patient, long-suffering, and full of tender mercies. He is stirred 
 to wrath and jealousy. He repents of what was in His heart He 
 pleads with His people, makes His acts dependent on their prayers, 
 smells the sweet savour of their sacrifice, or their deeds of love, and 
 so is propitiated and appeased. And yet here, too, there is the same 
 ever-recurring protest against pushing the parable too far against 
 ascribing to God any human feelings but those which are consistent 
 with the highest human excellence against thinking wickedly that 
 He is even such an one as ourselves. "The strength of Israel is 
 
i 4 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 not a man, that He should repent" (i Sam. xv. 29); "Are not My 
 ways equal, are not your ways unequal ?" (Ezek. xviii. 29) ; " Tojch- 
 ing the Almighty, we cannot find Him out" (Job xxxvii. 23). Man 
 is taught to see in his own emotions, when they are at their noblest, 
 that through which he may learn in some measure to find God.' 
 
 We find it much easier to realize to ourselves a weak kind of good- 
 ness than a strong kind of goodness. We estimate more worthily 
 the gentleness of Christ than His moral strength. And because of 
 this tendency of the Christian mind to unduly glorify the passive 
 virtues, all the strong qualities, the jealousies, wraths, hatings, in- 
 dignations, that are righteous possessions of noble natures have come 
 to be treated as altogether evil. One is surprised, and even shocked, 
 to hear it plainly stated that the good man ought to hate, ought to be 
 indignant, ought to be jealous ; and that, therefore, these things, so 
 far as they are right in man, as related to his fellow-man, may 
 properly represent high and noble qualities in God as related to 
 man. Yet the truth of this becomes quite plain as we fix our 
 thoughts upon it, and get ourselves free from the entangling of 
 cherished sentiment. 
 
 This explanation, however, though answering the question pro- 
 posed, does not relieve the difficulty of the expression reported by 
 Malachi. For that we must take note of the changed meaning of 
 the word ' hate.' Nowadays it means, * have a personal aversion 
 to ;' * regard with ill- will.' But when our Bible was translated, it had 
 a simpler and kinder meaning : ' love less ;' ' show less favour to.' 
 And this is the meaning of the word as used in Malachi. Moreover, 
 the subject treated of is not the Divine feeling towards the two 
 persons, Jacob and Esau, but the providential arrangements for the 
 location of the tribes of Jacob and Esau. A favourable heritage was 
 the lot of one ; an unfavourable and trying heritage was the lot of 
 the other. In a very similar way the fertility of England and 
 Scotland might be compared ; and, in the figurative language of 
 poetry, it might be said, * England has God loved, and Scotland has 
 He hated' or Moved less.' We should not misconceive such a 
 statement by supposing that any evil feelings towards Scotland (or 
 towards Edom) were indicated by the expression. 
 
 Sufficient illustration of the Scriptural use of the word ' hate,' as 
 meaning, ' love second,' ' love after,' and not as meaning ' dislike,' 
 * treat with aversion,' may be found in Deut. xxi. 1 5 ; Prov- 
 xiii. 24. 
 
FORMS WITHOUT MEANING. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Forms without Meaning. 
 
 MATTHEW iii. 15 :' But Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it now : for thus 
 it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' 
 
 Difficulty. There appears to be in this instance the example of 
 obeying a form which has, for the person concerned, no spiritual mean- 
 ing. 
 
 Explanation. All religious forms, rites, and ceremonies are 
 arranged for bodies of people not for individuals, and the precision 
 of the individual relation to them must always vary. We unite with 
 our nation in a public day of humiliation, but some of us do not even 
 approve of such days. We unite with our Church in publicly ac- 
 knowledging ourselves to be 'miserable sinners,' but some of us cannot 
 admit that such terms suitably describe us. We unite with the Chris- 
 :ian world in the observance of the Lord's Supper, and some of us 
 ire not at all sure that our Lord contemplated the founding of such 
 in ordinance. But in none of these cases may we regard the differ- 
 ng ones as insincere. There can be no common expression unless 
 nen are willing to sink their personal notions and feelings in order to 
 :omplete the unity of action. It is in the very nature of a fixed form 
 hat it cannot adjust itself to varieties of feeling; and yet masses of 
 )eople can only express themselves through fixed forms. 
 
 John's baptism was a national matter. It was the rite that ex- 
 messed the national repentance, and the national entrance into a 
 lew life. It was the beginning of a * new kingdom.' We are not 
 old that this or that man came to the baptism, but this and that 
 :lass, soldiers, common people, scribes, Pharisees, etc. It would 
 lave been no complete representation of the nation if the pious ones, 
 hose looking for the Messiah, had held aloof, regarding the baptism 
 f repentance as unsuitable for them. Jesus belonged to, and stood 
 Dr, this class in the nation. 
 
 In previous public acts of national penitence the good and the bad 
 lended. Joshua had not personally sinned in the matter of Achan, 
 >ut he put himself along with the people in his act of confession. 
 )aniel had held fast his integrity throughout his life, but he stands 
 long with the sinners, and speaks for them before God, saying. 
 
 10 
 
146 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 *We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done 
 wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Thy precepts and 
 from Thy judgments.' No one ever thought of suspecting Daniel of 
 insincerity in his joining in a repentance which did not apply to him- 
 self; and in the case of our Lord's baptism we have the same thing, 
 the good man heartily and sincerely sharing in a national and public 
 act, which did not strictly apply to himself. 
 
 Schenkel regards our Lord's submission to John's baptism as 
 vicarious. This is not, however, just the point we have been pre- 
 senting. It was simply a Jew's duty in that age, and our Lord saw 
 no reason why He should be an exception. The nation was with 
 regret for its past to step on to its new era. He spoke, through 
 this rite, His regrets along with His people. 
 
 Lange says that the act was solidary in its character that * social 
 righteousness drew Him down into the stream.' In this direction 
 lies the true relief of our difficulty, and the adequate explanation of 
 our Lord's action. * It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,' may 
 be restated thus * From whatever God has required of Israel as a 
 duty, I cannot withhold myself.' It would have been an overdoing 
 of individuality if Christ had held aloof from the public religious 
 form of his day ; and it is a very mistaken and mischievous over- 
 doing of individuality which nowadays leads men to withdraw them- 
 selves from common religious forms and rites, on mere pleas of 
 intellectual divergence. 
 
 Biblical writers do not usually discuss the point of difficulty as it 
 is stated in this paragraph. They concern themselves with the ques- 
 tion of the sinlessness of Christ, which is not brought before us by 
 the Scripture narrative. 
 
 De Pressense in part supports the explanation which we have pre- 
 sented. * The baptism of Christ was first of all designed solemnly to 
 inaugurate His ministry. It was on this account it was attended 
 with the remarkable circumstances which mark its importance. To 
 see in it only that in which it resembles an ordinary baptism, and to 
 pass by those points in which it differs, is to ignore its distinctive 
 features, and to be untrue to historical facts. John, the representa- 
 tive of the old covenant, is commissioned to proclaim, in the name of 
 the prophets and holy men whose legitimate successor he is, that the 
 new covenant has begun, and the promised Messiah is come. But 
 this kingdom of heaven, which is about to be set up on the earth, will 
 have for its subjects humble and sorrowful souls and contrite hearts. 
 The baptism of repentance is the affecting symbol of this whole dis- 
 pensation. Is it not fit that the King of a repentant people should 
 
FORMS WITHOUT MEANING. 147 
 
 Himself prepare the way ? Is He not identified with the race that 
 He comes to represent ? He who is to die for it, may He not for it 
 repent, and bear on His heart the burden of its moral miseries ? In 
 the Mosaic institutions, defilement was not confined to the defiled 
 person ; contact with such an one rendered purification necessary. 
 Here we have not simply contact with a fallen race ; there is the 
 most absolute union with it This mystery is the very basis of re- 
 demption, and it is not more difficult to admit it on the banks of the 
 Jordan than in the garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross.' 
 
 To this may be added the suggestive remarks of Rev. J. Stalker, 
 M.A. : * The baptism itself had an important significance for Jesus. 
 To the other candidates who underwent the rite it had a double mean- 
 ing ; it signified the abandonment of their old sins, and their entrance 
 into the new Messianic era. To Jesus it could not have the former 
 meaning, except in so far as He may have identified Himself with 
 His nation, and taken this way of expressing His sense of its need of 
 cleansing. But it meant that He, too, was now entering through 
 this door into the new epoch, of which He was Himself to be the 
 Author. It expressed his sense that the time had come to leave 
 behind the employments of Nazareth, and devote Himself to His 
 peculiar work.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre has the following sentence : ' It was meet that He 
 should fill up the full measure of righteousness in all its forms by 
 accepting a divine ordinance, even, perhaps, because it seemed to 
 place Him in fellowship with sinners.' 
 
 St. Paul's Depreciation of Marriage. 
 
 I CORINTHIANS vii. 8 : ' I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is 
 good for them that they abide even as I.' 
 
 Difficulty. How can this apostle's views on marriage be reconciled 
 with other teachings of the sacred Word ? 
 
 Explanation. Limitations of inspiration, as qualifying the 
 
 mthority of his advice, is declared by the apostle himself. So far as 
 
 oundation truths and first principles of moral duty from the Chris- 
 
 ian standpoint were concerned, St. Paul had a direct and sufficient 
 
 >ersonal inspiration, giving due authority to his teachings. So far as 
 
 ie was led, in response to the inquiries of the Churches in their 
 
 radical difficulties, to attempt an adjustment of these principles to 
 
 arious details of Christian conduct and relations, under passing 
 
 onditions of society, St Paul was dependent on observation, ex- 
 
 erience, knowledge, and good judgment even as other men. He 
 
 10 2 
 
I 4 8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 gave his advice it was wise advice for the time and the occasion ; 
 and it is of permanent value to us as illustrating the methods in which 
 the new Christian principles may appropriately gain their practical 
 applications. 
 
 If this distinction be temperately examined, it will be found to 
 exalt our idea of the inspiration of the apostles. As God does not 
 reveal matters of science, which man can find out by the use of his 
 faculties, so He does not inspire counsels on details of Christian 
 conduct, which renewed men ought to be able to settle for themselves 
 in each generation. 
 
 No advice concerning such things as marriage, slavery, methods of 
 government, or relations of masters and servants could be authorita- 
 tively given, as applicable to every nation or every age. We have in 
 St. Paul's remarks about marriage simply his own personal feelings 
 as a man separated to the work of preaching the Gospel, and un- 
 willing to enter into any such responsibilities as would fetter his 
 liberty for this work. He gives the advice of an enthusiast, and it is 
 advice only for those who can receive it He himself regards it as 
 given hopelessly, for he well knows the power of human passion, and 
 the workings of the natural laws that control the propagation of the 
 4pecies. Not all the apostles together could, if they would, alter the 
 human sentiment concerning marriage. At given times, and for 
 certain persons, marriage may be wisely avoided, and this is all 
 that St. Paul means and teaches. 
 
 Dr. Marcus Dods suggests some points which relieve the difficulty 
 of this Pauline advice. 'Paul had to speak about marriage as he 
 found it as it existed amongst those to whom he wished to be of 
 service. Hence he makes no allusion to that which among ourselves, 
 is the main argument for, or at least the common motive to, marriage, 
 viz., love. Marriage is here treated from a lower point of view than 
 it would have been had this letter been originally written for English- 
 men. In the marriages of the Jews and Greeks, love had, as a rule, 
 little or nothing to do. 
 
 * And not only had Paul to speak of marriage as he found it, but 
 he was here only giving answers to some special questions, and not 
 discussing the whole subject in all its bearings. There might be 
 other points which to his mind seemed equally important, but his. 
 advice not having been asked about these, he passes them by. His 
 advice proceeds not from any ascetic tendency, but from the practical 
 bias of his mind. He had no idea that marriage was a morally 
 inferior condition ; on the contrary, he saw in it the most perfect 
 symbol of the union of Christ and the Church. But he thought that 
 
CONDITIONS OF FINAL JUDGMENT. 149 
 
 unmarried men were likely to be most available for the work of 
 Christ, and therefore he could not but wish it were possible, though 
 he knew it was not possible, that all unmarried men should remain 
 unmarried/ 
 
 Conditions of Final Judgment. 
 
 MATTHEW xxv. 40 : c Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these My 
 brethren, even these least, ye did it unto Me.' Rev. Ver. 
 
 Difficulty. Can the one matter of personal charity be the basis on 
 -which every man is to be judged at the great Assize ? 
 
 Explanation. It seems probable that the Christian Church 
 has made a wider and more general application of our Lord's teaching 
 in this connection than He intended. The chapter has been regarded 
 as containing two parables and a descriptive passage the two parables 
 of the Virgins and the Talents, and the description of the scene of 
 the day of judgment. But thoughtful persons readily suggest that 
 the circumstances and events of the ' day of judgment ' cannot pos- 
 sibly be expressed in detail in human language ; all connected with 
 it must be beyond our present understanding, and can only be 
 suggested to us by figures of speech. Moreover, it is not in the 
 manner of Christ to attempt any descriptive unveilings of the 
 mystery of the future life. It would surprise us if Christ could be 
 shown to have indicated either the state of the redeemed in heaven, 
 or of the lost in hell, or the precise events of judgment, because it 
 was characteristic of Him that He touched these great themes only 
 with the suggestive figures of poetic language. He conveyed general 
 impressions ; He unfolded and illustrated great principles ; but con- 
 cerning the future He gave no bare facts. 
 
 A closer examination of this chapter brings to light that it contains 
 three parables, and not two ; and that what we have regarded as 
 a descriptive passage is really a parable, with its imagery taken from 
 the supposed scenes of the after-life. It has to be treated on the 
 same principles as the other parables, and the painting is only made 
 for the sake of the subject painted. We must not dwell in an exag- 
 gerated way on the details of the picture, but seek for the ' point of 
 impression,' for the sake of which the picture is painted, the parable 
 is given. 
 
 The chapter, along with the previous chapter, forms one of our 
 Lord's complete discourses. It was addressed precisely to His 
 disciples. It was designed to prepare them for the commotions, and 
 contentions, and calamities which were speedily coming upon them, 
 
150 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 and which would certainly have a testing power upon their Christian 
 profession. Our Lord, in His application, points out the three 
 things in Christian life concerning which they should be supremely 
 anxious, and warns them that, under temptation and pressure, they 
 may fail in one or the other of these. If they are to stand in the 
 testing times that are coming they must (i) keep alive their personal 
 piety ; they must (2) be ever faithful to the trusts committed to them ; 
 and (3) they must maintain the practical service of brotherhood and 
 helpfulness. The first is evidently the point of impression of the 
 parable of the Ten Virgins ; the second is the point of impression of 
 the parable of the Talents ; and the third is the point of impression 
 of the parable of the Judgment. 
 
 We do not therefore find in the passage any declaration of the 
 absolute condition of judgment at the great Assize, but the effective 
 illustration of the truth that active charity is one of the essential 
 features of Christian life, for which God will always look when He 
 comes to judge and appraise a man's career. Our Lord was con- 
 stantly teaching that a Pharisaic pride and satisfaction in pious senti- 
 ments was utterly suitable in His disciples. A key-note of His 
 teaching, one which He sets forth and illustrates in this parable, was 
 this ' If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.' This 
 parable of the Judgment is a pictorial enforcement of the duty of 
 practical godliness. It only need be added that comparatively small 
 and insignificant things are mentioned, upon the well-established prin- 
 ciple that * a straw shows how the wind blows,' and small things are 
 the best revealers of real character. 
 
 The Commendation of the Unjust Judge. 
 
 LUKE xviii. 6 : 'And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.' 
 
 Question. Does not our Lord's approval of what this unjust 
 judge did in this case put us in some peril of approving of this unjust 
 man ? 
 
 Answer. It does, if we assume that our Lord invented this 
 case as an illustration ; but it does not if we take the more natural 
 assumption that our Lord was describing a case which had actually 
 occurred, and occurred recently. If our Lord described a case, we 
 understand that He would describe it truthfully, and say the judge 
 was a bad man when he was bad. Difficulty has been made by 
 treating as a * parable ' what was an actual incident. 
 
 If we use facts for illustrative purposes, we are not at liberty to 
 alter facts ; nor are we bound to more of the fact than we use for 
 
THE COMMENDATION OF THE UNJUST JUDGE. 151 
 
 our purposes of illustration. We can illustrate good qualities from 
 bad men, and so could our Lord. Nobody misconceives us as praising 
 the men's general badness when we single out for notice some act 
 of cleverness, kindness, and wisdom. And so we should never force 
 our Lord's words to mean a general commendation of a man because 
 he did a right thing under a particular pressure. Our Lord would 
 not have so forcibly described the badness of this unjust judge, if He 
 wished us to approve of him. 
 
 Moreover, the judge is quite a secondary person in the narrative. 
 Our attention is fixed on the 'importunity' of the poor widow, and 
 this alone is commended to us. ' Lest they should grow slack, He 
 reminded His disciples that their whole frame of mind should be one 
 of habitual devotion, that they might not become faint-hearted, and 
 give way before the trials they might have to suffer, or at the seeming 
 delay in His coming.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre takes quite a fresh view of the passage. ' May we 
 not think that here, as elsewhere, there is an intentional assumption 
 by our Lord of a standpoint which was not His own, but that of 
 those whom He sought to teach. Even His disciples were thinking 
 of God, not as their Father, who loved them, but as a far-off King, 
 who needed to be roused to action. They called on Him in their 
 afflictions and persecutions, and their soul fainted within them, and 
 they became weary of their prayers. Might not the parable be 
 meant (i) to teach such as these that from their own point of view 
 their wisdom was to persevere in prayer, and (2) to lead them to 
 reconsider the ground from which they had started ? And the one 
 result would, in such a case, lead on almost necessarily to the other. 
 Prayer has a marvellous self-purifying power, and the imperfect 
 thoughts of God in which it may have had its beginning become 
 clearer as it continues. It is one of the ever-recurring paradoxes of 
 the spiritual life, that when we are most importunate we feel most 
 strongly how little importunity is needed.' 
 
 Trench says, ' None but the Son of God Himself might have ven- 
 tured to use this comparison. It had been overbold on the lips 
 of any other. For, as in the parable of the Friend at Midnight, we 
 were startled with finding God compared to a churlish neighbour, so 
 here with finding him likened to an unrighteous judge. Yet we must 
 not seek therefore to extenuate as some have been at great pains to 
 do, and by many forced constructions his unrighteousness ; but, on 
 the contrary, the greater we conceive that to have been, the more 
 encouragement does the parable contain, the stronger the argument 
 for persevering prryer becomes. If a bad man will yield to the mere 
 
52 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 force of the importunity which he hates, how much more certainly 
 will a righteous God be prevailed on by the faithful prayer which He 
 icves.' 
 
 The Sin of Forethought. 
 
 MATTHEW vi. 25 : ' Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, 
 \A hat ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall 
 put on.' 
 
 Question. Wherein lies the precise distinction between the duty 
 cf forethought and the sm of forethought ? 
 
 Answer. The confusion of two quite separate things is caused 
 by the one word being used with two distinct meanings. It is a 
 duty so to anticipate the future as to prepare ourselves for its duties 
 and emergencies. It is a sin to worry about the future, as if He 
 who has always provided would not be sure always to provide. But 
 the force of our Lord's counsel strictly applies to His disciples, and 
 not to everybody. He spoke to those who had received His 
 revelation of the Fatherhood and Fatherliness of God : to those in 
 whom He had striven to nourish the spirit of trustful children. 
 Children in homes, overshadowed by good fathers, may have all the 
 joy of thinking about and preparing themselves for the morrow ; they 
 may sing, as Jean Ingelow makes her fourteen-years-old girl 
 
 ' I wait for my story the birds cannot sing it, 
 
 Not one, as he sits on the tree.; 
 The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it ! 
 Such as I wish it to be.' 
 
 But it would be most dishonouring to their father, if they fretted, and 
 were anxious about the morrow, as if he would fail to arrange, pro- 
 vide, and keep. Jesus set a little child in the midst of anxious dis- 
 ciples, and glorified for ever child-trust when He said, ' Except ye be 
 converted, and become as this little child, ye cannot see the kingdom 
 of heaven.' 
 
 When the earlier versions of the New Testament into English were 
 made, the expression ' to take thought ' signified what we now mean 
 by such words as vexing, worrying, fretting, being anxious, full of 
 care, and the like. This is its meaning in our translation. But, like 
 many other words and phrases which have fallen out of common use, 
 1 taking thought ' has become obsolete. 
 
 Dr. S. Cox says, ' Forethought is no more forbidden than thought. 
 A wise man, a man with " discourse of reason," i.e., a man in whom 
 reason is not dumb and inert, must " look before and after." There 
 would be no unity in his life, no continuous development and activity, 
 
BLINDED MINDS. 153 
 
 no linking on of month to month, and year to year, if he did not 
 look forward and scheme for the future as well as the present. What 
 Christ forbids is so looking onward to to-morrow as to cloud to-day ; 
 so anticipating the future as to darken the present. And this is the 
 
 very point at which we commonly fail It is our needless fears, 
 
 our groundless anxieties, which undo us. Now it is from this per- 
 nicious habit of " borrowing trouble from the future," as though we 
 had not enough of it in the present, that Christ would save us. 
 41 Trust in God for the future," He says ; " do your duty to-day, and 
 leave to-morrow with Him. And let this trust be your tranquil 
 haven, your harbour of refuge, whenever the waves of care run 
 high."' 
 
 Blinded Minds. 
 
 2 CORINTHIANS iii. 14 : ' But their minds were hardened : for until this very 
 day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth unlifted. (Rev. 
 Ver.) (Compare : 2 THESS. ii. II.) 
 
 Difficulty. If men are stricken with incapacity by Divine judg- 
 ment, surely their personal responsibility must be taken away ? 
 
 Explanation. What has previously been said in relation to the 
 hardening of Pharaoh's heart, will be found to apply to this case. 
 A condition of hardened heart is a condition of judgment. It has 
 become no longer a question of the man's responsibility. God has 
 taken the man in hand ; he has been arrested, tried, sentenced, and 
 is actually undergoing judgment ; that judgment falling on his mind 
 and will. Properly speaking, the question of personal responsibility 
 can only apply to- a person who is free in society ; it does not apply 
 to a prisoner undergoing his sentence, and shut up in prison. The 
 only point which it may be difficult to admit is that God brings His 
 judgment on men, and on races, in this life. We have too readily 
 shifted all the Divine judgments into the world to come. 
 
 In the time of St. Paul, the Jews, as a race, were under Divine 
 penalties, and one form of penalty was a judicial blinding. The 
 Jews now still lie under the same disabilities, and, so far as the race 
 now existing is concerned, it is not responsible for its rejection of 
 Christ. Its state of antagonism to Christ is its race-judgment : it is 
 judicially deprived of all those privileges and blessings which the 
 knowledge of Christ as Messiah involves. 
 
 But we must distinguish between the responsibility of a race and 
 the responsibility of the individual to whom the claims of Christ may 
 be directly presented. His race-disability becomes to him personally 
 
154 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 only one of the arguments on one side of the question which he has 
 to decide. A man's private and personal responsibility cannot be 
 lost, even when the responsibility of the nation or race to which he 
 belongs has passed into judgment. 
 
 If this distinction should seem somewhat subtle, we ask for it a 
 careful and candid consideration, as we feel that it provides the key 
 to some of our most perplexing moral problems. Perhaps no subject 
 submitted to human consideration is more difficult to treat fairly, to 
 unwrap from its complications, and to judge in its true bearings, than 
 that of the relations of race-pecularities, race bias and prejudice, to 
 individual responsibility. We cannot escape from the influences of 
 heredity for good and for evil; we cannot excuse our personal 
 decisions by an appeal to hereditary disabilities : and in the case 
 of the blinded Jews, we may see simply an intense case of heredity, 
 which is, in reality, a case of race-judgment. 
 
 Tests of Sincerity. 
 
 MATTHEW xix. 21 : 'Jesus said unto him, If thou wouldst be perfect, go, sell 
 that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and 
 come, follow me.' 
 
 Difficulty. Our Lord appears to have put this young ruler to an 
 unreasonable strain ; and all tests of sincerity must be adapted to the 
 person tested. 
 
 Explanation. A. L. R. Foote, of Brechin, in a very sympathetic 
 consideration of this incident from the side of the young ruler, effi- 
 ciently meets the difficulty. ' We sometimes hear it said that the 
 sacrifice demanded of him was great, unfair, unreasonable as com- 
 pared, at any rate, with others. Natural sympathy is keenly awakened 
 in his behalf; and we ask, How should we like to have the same 
 sacrifice demanded of us ? And certainly, upon the mercantile theory 
 of salvation upon the principle of bargaining with God, and pur- 
 chasing eternal life with our own labours or our own liberality such 
 a sacrifice, if made at all, would be made with a grudge. But upon 
 the other principle, that eternal life is the free gift of God through 
 Christ, without any merit on our part on this principle there is no 
 surrender which the awakened soul will not willingly make in order 
 to obtain an interest in the Saviour. It was not his riches that stood 
 in the way of an entire surrender of himself to Christ, but his love of 
 them. And it was this that made the sacrifice of them so painful to 
 him. Had he been keeping his wealth in its own place not idolizing 
 it, not setting his heart upon it he would have been able to part 
 
TESTS OF SINCERITY. 155 
 
 with it without a pang ; in fact, it is more than doubtful if the actual 
 surrender would have been required of him at all. 
 
 * We are not to suppose that, when our Saviour said, " Yet one 
 thing thou lackest," He meant to intimate that this was the only thing 
 wanting to constitute that perfect legal righteousness on the footing 
 of which he might merit the high reward of eternal life ; this would 
 have been encouraging him in his delusions. In order to understand 
 such language, we must look at it from the side of the rule: 1 . Here, 
 the Saviour is again, as appears to us, taking him up very much on 
 his own ground. The case is put, you will observe, hypothetically, 
 as before " If thou wouldst be perfect." It is as if He had said, 
 "Thou aimest at perfection, and on the footing of this thou art 
 looking for eternal life ; thou indulgest the dream of human perfecti- 
 bility. Well, I will put thee here to the test : sell all that thou hast, 
 and give to the poor. What ! dost thou hesitate ? What, then, be- 
 comes of thy favourite doctrine of perfectionism ? Ah ! thy fond 
 idol is dashed to pieces, and by thine own hand, too ; and wilt thou 
 still indulge in such a golden dream ? Is this all the length thy 
 doctrine of human perfectibility can carry thee ?" If an important 
 qualification this if thou wouldst be perfect ! Who can fail to see 
 a delicate yet severe irony here ? The Saviour is not teaching the 
 doctrine of perfection in any sense here, but is trying to wean him 
 from a theory which was deeply rooted in his mind, and which was 
 exercising so prejudicial an influence over him.' 
 
 Regarded in this way, the strain put on this young ruler was not 
 unreasonable. The demand made was designed to break down the 
 wall in which he was encasing himself, and, strong as it was, it did 
 not prove strong enough to secure the end desired. His case re- 
 quired such a sifting, severe, trying method. 
 
 Farrar reads the character of the young ruler somewhat differently. 
 * Jesus gave him one short crucial test of his real condition. He was 
 not content with the commonplace ; he aspired after the heroical, or 
 rather thought that he did ; therefore Jesus gave him an heroic act 
 to do. 1 
 
 Dr. C. Geikic says : ' The demand, great though it seems, was 
 exactly suited to the particular case. It was a special test in a special 
 instance, though underneath it lay the unconditional self-sacrifice and 
 self-surrender for Christ required from all His disciples. It could 
 not fail to bring the young man to a clearer self-knowledge, and thus 
 to a wholly new conception of what true religion demanded. The 
 only way to lead him to a healthier moral state was to humble him 
 by a disclosure of weakness hitherto unsuspected. He had fancied 
 
156 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 himself willing to do whatever could be required ; he could now see 
 if he really were so. He had thought he cared for nothing in com- 
 parison with gaining heaven; he could now judge for himself if he 
 had not erred.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre skilfully relieves the apparent unreasonableness of 
 our Lord's demand. * It would be altogether a mistake to see in this 
 either an obligation binding on all seekers after eternal life, or even 
 what has been called " a counsel of perfection " a precept laying 
 down an indispensable condition for all who aim at its higher forms 
 and powers. It was strictly a remedy for the special evil which 
 hindered the young ruler's progress to perfection, applicable to others 
 so far only as their cases are analogous. It would be idle to deny 
 that there have been and are many such analogous types of character ; 
 and so far as anyone is conscious of being under the power of wealth 
 and its temptations, so far there is a call to some act asserting his 
 victory over those temptations, in the spirit, if not in the letter, of the 
 command thus given. But it is, we must remember, the spirit, and 
 not the letter, which is binding.' 
 
 Divisions caused by Christ. 
 
 LUKE xii. 51 : ' Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on the earth ? I tell 
 you, nay ; but rather division.' (Compare Matt, x. 34, 35.) 
 
 Difficulty. If Christ is the cause of division, the responsibility of 
 it must surely rest with Him, and not with us. 
 
 Explanation. It was a characteristic feature of our Lord's 
 teaching that He used 'paradoxes' for the purpose of awakening 
 thought. Great thought-leaders and teachers of new truth usually 
 recognise the value of ' paradox ' as an element of popular instruction. 
 By it we understand a sentiment or proposition seemingly absurd or 
 contradictory, yet true in fact, or at least suggesting the truth. It 
 may sometimes be the over-presentation of one side of truth, for the 
 very sake of starting criticism, and suggesting some other and neg- 
 lected side. Something of this kind we find in this passage. Our 
 Lord states a bold and striking fact : division and contention follow 
 on His coming: and He sets us thinking about the connection 
 between these two things. 
 
 It will be found that we are accustomed to use the word * cause ' 
 very inexactly. The philosophical meaning of the term is not the 
 popular meaning, and there are several differing senses in which a 
 person or an action can be spoken of as a cause. When one event 
 follows another, we very readily say that the earlier is the cause of 
 
DIVISIONS CAUSED BY CHRIST. 157 
 
 the later, when it may be nothing more than the antecedent, or one 
 link in a chain of causes. The result which follows our conduct may 
 be quite other than we desired, and in such cases we are the mere 
 'occasion' we are not the 'willing cause.' So in the case of our 
 Lord, divisions, family and social contentions, were the actual, the 
 historical results of Christ's coming; but these were not the ends 
 which Christ set before Himself these were not the results which 
 He desired. He was accidental cause, not willing cause, of such 
 things. He wills ' peace ' for man ; but His .will works in a disordered 
 world, and against man's will for himself, and the result is conflict. 
 What a man does, and what a man aims to do, are often quite dif- 
 ferent things \ but in common and popular language a man is fairly 
 said to be the cause of what actually results from his action. 
 
 It bears precise relation to the case of our Lord if we point out 
 that the divisions followed upon the fact that His manifestation of 
 Himself in the world differed so materially from the expectations of 
 Messiah which the Jews almost universally entertained. They looked 
 for a nobler Judas Maccabaeus ; Christ came as a ' man of sorrows 
 and acquainted with grief/ They wanted a leader who should break 
 off from their nation the Roman yoke. Christ came as One who 
 'bore their infirmities,' healed their diseases, and forgave their sins. 
 The difference was so great that it inevitably led to diversity of 
 opinion about Him, and heated dispute concerning Him. 
 
 ' The internal connection of the passage seems to be something 
 ike this. The imminent future is very critical. The object of Christ's 
 :oming was to awaken in men's minds a spiritual excitement which 
 arould disturb and divide the world, producing not peace, but a sword, 
 >o much so that He Himself would suffer in the course of the conflict 
 vhich His own teaching had aroused.' Speaker's Commentary. 
 
 Renan says that ' everything fertile (in results) is rich in wars.' And 
 ound by and through the very contentions which Christ's coming 
 nouses His kingdom of righteousness and peace comes on. 
 
 The Permanence of Evil. 
 
 REVELATION xxii. n : 'He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness 
 till; and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still ; and he that is righteous, 
 :t him do righteousness still ; and he that is holy, let him be made holy still.* 
 Rev. Ver.} 
 
 Question. Can it be argued from this passage that^ after the 
 estitution of all things, evil will still remain ? 
 
 Answer. It cannot be assured that the subject dealt with in 
 lis chapter is the * final restitution of all things.' It may even be 
 
158 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 fairly disputed whether the Book of Revelation is in any sense his- 
 torical. It is so manifestly a teaching by symbols and prophetic 
 figures, that we do not wisely associate with it a chronological order. 
 Its scenes may be synchronous in many cases, descriptive of what 
 occurs in different parts of the earth. It may even not be descriptive 
 at all, but suggestive of moral and immoral forces and of varying 
 Divine judgments. Without attempting to explain what the Book of 
 Revelation is (though we may deal with it in a subsequent section 
 of this work), we may with confidence affirm that the meanings of it 
 are too uncertain for us to build perplexing doctrines upon it. And 
 certainly, to conclude that evil will continue after the final issues of 
 the great redemption are reached, and to base that conclusion on 
 the passage now before us, would be wholly unwarranted. 
 
 Apart from preconceived and biasing notions, the reference of 
 the passage would seem to be a very simple one. John is bidden 
 not to * seal up the sayings of the prophecy of this book,' because 
 the time of closing up, though at hand, is not come ; and until it 
 does come, preaching and prophecy must be agencies working 
 amongst men. The evil will be going on in their evil, and need 
 warnings ; the good will be growing better through much struggle, 
 and so will need much encouragement. The very point is that there 
 is no fixity yet, and so for everyone there is hope. The passage is 
 really an echo of the parable of the Tares. ' Let both grow together 
 until the harvest/ even if it should seem to you that the harvest is 
 close at hand. The verse before us is rather a statement of fact than 
 a direction of conduct, or a prophecy of the future ; and this is indi- 
 cated by the correction of the Revised Version. 
 
 The results of the preached Gospel are always sucn as described 
 here : ' to some it is a savour of life unto life, to others of death unto 
 death ;' but we must go on preaching it, even if the apparent issue be 
 a confirming men in sin. 
 
 Bishop Boyd Carpenter takes a somewhat different view. * What 
 does the verse mean ? Does it mean that the time is so short that it 
 is hardly sufficient to allow of men reforming themselves so as to be 
 ready for their Lord, and that therefore the lesson is, Let those who 
 would be ready for Him remember that now is the day of salvation ? 
 This is the view adopted by some ; it contains a truth, but the 
 meaning of the verse seems more general. Is it not the declaration 
 of the ever-terrible truth, that men are building up their destiny by 
 the actions and habits of their lives ? " Sow an act reap a habit ; 
 sow a habit reap a character; sow a character reap a destiny." 
 The righteous become righteous; the godly become godly. So, 
 
TEACHINGS BY DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. 159 
 
 slowly but surely, may the power of being masters of our fate pass out 
 of our hands. It is in this law of our nature that the key to many of 
 the darkest problems of the future may lie ; and not without a solemn 
 declaration of this law does the Book of Revelation close.' 
 
 Teachings through Destruction of Property. 
 
 MATTHEW viii. 31, 32 : * And the devils besought Him, saying, If thou cast us 
 out, send us away into the herd of swine. And He saith unto them, Go. And 
 they came out, and went into the swine : and behold, the whole herd rushed 
 down the steep into the sea, and perished in the waters.' 
 
 Question. How can an incident which seems so contrary to the 
 spirit of Christ be explained ? 
 
 Answer. Several points must be made clear before we can 
 offer the explanation which seems to us most satisfactory, i. We 
 must recognise that our Lord was justified in teaching through 
 events and symbolic actions. 2. We must distinguish between the 
 cause of an event, and the immediate occasion of an event. 3. We 
 should try to understand the human limitations under which the 
 Divine Son was pleased to set Himself, so that, as a man, His con- 
 duct was not guided by omniscience of result. (There is no point 
 in relation to our Lord which we find it more difficult to get appre- 
 hended than the voluntary mental limitations to which He submitted 
 in order to become true man, verily one of us.) 4. We should know 
 the common sentiment of the times concerning swine, which were 
 the types of sensuality, as the fox is for us the type of cunning. On 
 this the following evidence, partly taken from Kalisch^ may be given : 
 * Swine are always spoken of in the Old and New Testaments with 
 horror and disgust ; partly on account of their dirty habits, the sup- 
 posed unwholesomeness of their flesh, their occasional carnivorous 
 ferocity, and, above all, their association with many forms of pagan- 
 ism. The unclean habits of the swine struck the Hebrews so strongly 
 that they gave rise to the saying, " The snout of the pig resembles 
 ambulant dirt." A man wallowing in the last and most disgusting 
 stage of drunkenness was compared with the swine.' 
 
 It is interesting to notice that this feeling was not peculiar to the 
 Jews. ' The Egyptians regarded the pig as hateful to sun and moon. 
 They deemed it so singularly contaminating by its uncleanness, un- 
 holiness, and all-devouring voracity, unsparing even of its own young, 
 and of men, that any person who had accidentally touched a pig was 
 obliged instantly to plunge into the water, dressed as he was. Swine- 
 herds, detested and disgraced, though of pure Egyptian blood, were 
 forbidden to enter any of the national temples, or to intermarry with 
 
160 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 any other class or caste; and the Egyptian priests, and all those 
 initiated in the mysteries, rigidly abstained from pork except on oce 
 solitary occasion.' 
 
 5. We require to have some general idea concerning the so-called 
 * devil-possessions ' of the time of our Lord ; and especially do we 
 need to consider carefully one view taken of them, which regards 
 them as cases of bodily passion, indulged until, gaining strength, the 
 passion subdues the will, and utterly degrades the man by its ruling. 
 Illustration can be taken from the passion of drink, but the view can 
 be applied to all other kinds of bodily indulgence and passion. A 
 man yields again and again to the desire for drink : every time the 
 resistance of his will becomes feebler, until at length the drink-demon 
 rules, and his triumph is the terrible mania which we know as 
 ' delirium tremens.' 
 
 An incident which occurred some years ago at Aldershot was very 
 suggestive in relation to the wild rushing of these swine in the 
 Gospel narrative. Under a terrible impulse of sexual excitement the 
 cavalry horses broke loose, stamped about the camp, then dashed off 
 into the country, leaping and tearing until many were killed and 
 others seriously injured. Had those horses been on the slope of a 
 sea they would have gone into the water just as these swine did. 
 
 We can now look at the entire incident. The point from which 
 our explanation starts is that this poor man was suffering from a 
 mania of sensuality, similar to 'delirium tremens' as a mania of 
 drink. This is very clearly and forcibly presented in the narrative 
 as given by Mark (ch. v. 1-8). The man had an * unclean spirit.' 
 He went about naked. (Luke says, ' For a long time he had worn 
 no clothes,' ch. viii. 27.) He was rude in his ways, and positively 
 dangerous to females and unpleasant to everybody. Recognising 
 this as his peculiarity, our Lord said, ' Come forth, thou unclean 
 spirit, out of the man.' The swine were the animal symbol of the 
 evil passion from which the man suffered, and whereby he was 
 enslaved. 
 
 Then part of our Lord's work of teaching, for this man, for His 
 disciples, and for the people around, might very properly include an 
 impressive exhibition of the abominableness of this spirit and passion. 
 They saw it in the suffering man ; it was well they should see it in the 
 beasts. The suffering man would be helped to realize the greatness of 
 his deliverance, as he saw the terrible havoc which the passion which 
 had mastered him made when it mastered the beasts. And we have 
 given us in the recorded story our most terrible warning against the 
 danger of giving way to sensual passion ; and a teaching from oui 
 
TEACHINGS BY DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. 161 
 
 Lord, which the great Apostle puts in formal language thus' That 
 every one of you should know how to possess the vessel of his body 
 in sanctification and honour.' * Ye are not called unto uncleanness, 
 but unto holiness/ 
 
 The actual destruction of the swine was no design of our Lord's. 
 It was what we call the accident of the occasion ; the result of the 
 stampede occurring on a steep hillside overhanging the lake. 
 
 Though we have not met with this view of the incident fully detailed 
 in any Bible writer, there are two passages in TrencJis chapter on the 
 miracle which may be taken as supporting it. ' It may have been 
 necessary for the permanent healing of the man, that he should have 
 an outward evidence and testimony that the hellish powers which 
 held him in bondage had quitted their hold. He wanted his deliver- 
 ance sealed and realized to him in the open destruction of his 
 enemies ; not else would he have been persuaded of the truth of that 
 deliverance, and that Christ had indeed and for ever set him free. 
 .... But, again, it may seem strange that the unclean spirits ask 
 permission to enter into the swine, yet no sooner have they done so 
 than they defeat their own purpose, destroying that animal life, from 
 which, if they be altogether driven, they have already confessed 
 they will be obliged to betake them to the more detested place of 
 their punishment. But it is nowhere said that they drove the swine 
 down the steep place into the sea. It is just as easy, and much 
 more natural, to understand that against their will the swine, when 
 they found themselves seized by this new and strange power, rushed 
 themselves in wild panic and fear to their destruction the foremost 
 plunging headlong down the cliffs, and the rest blindly following, 
 And be it that the creatures thus rushed themselves to their own 
 destruction, or were impelled by the foul spirits, does there not in 
 either case reveal itself herein the very essence and truest manifesta- 
 tion of evil, which evermore outwits and defeats itself, being as 
 inevitably scourged in the granting of its requests as in their refusal ; 
 which, stupid, blind, self-contradicting, and suicidal, can only destroy, 
 and will rather involve itself in the common ruin than not destroy.' 
 
 The Preaching of Envy. 
 
 PHILIPPIANS i. 15 *Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife.' 
 
 Question. Can preaching from altogether wrong motives be accept- 
 able to God, or effective in the salvation of men ? 
 
 Answer. This question does not fairly state the position which 
 the Apostle presents. Preaching from altogether wrong motives can 
 
 1 1 
 
1 62 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 neither be acceptable nor effective. But St. Paul is not dealing with 
 such a case, but with the much more difficult case of a mingling of 
 bad motives with good ones. The fact is, that no man acts from 
 absolutely simple and pure motives some strands of self-seeking, at 
 least, mingle with the best man's best work ; but the question is, 
 How far may the bad motive go without absolutely spoiling a man's 
 work in the sight of God ? St. Paul suggests the exercise of a large 
 charity. He is keen enough to see that ' envy and strife ' may be 
 almost presiding motives in some of the Christian preachers ; but 
 he is willing not to see this, if only it is plain that some purpose to 
 glorify Christ and save men also inspires them in their service. The 
 Apostle affords an example of that charity which he himself com- 
 mends for this, that it * thinketh no evil.' 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar removes the difficulty suggested by the Apostle's 
 references through a careful study of the connection in which the 
 passage stands. The Apostle is writing in a very confidential way to 
 the friends he loved so well at Philippi. He was at the time of 
 writing a prisoner, but they ' must not suppose that he was the apostle 
 of a ruined cause, or that his imprisonment was a sign that God's 
 frown was on his work, and that it was coming to nought ; on the 
 contrary, he wants them to recognise that his misfortunes have been 
 overruled by God, to the direct furtherance of the Gospel. . . . The 
 majority of the brethren had been stimulated by his bonds to a 
 divine confidence, which had shown itself in a yet more courageous 
 daring than before in preaching the Word of God. Some of them 
 preach Christ out of genuine goodwill ; but some, alas ! tell the story 
 of Christ insincerely, out of mere envy and discord. The former are 
 influenced by love to him, knowing that he is appointed for the de- 
 fence of the Gospel ; the latter announce Christ out of partisanship 
 with base motives, thinking to make his bonds more galling. Perhaps 
 the day had been when Paul might have denounced them in tones 
 of burning rebuke ; but he is already Paul the prisoner, though not 
 yet Paul the aged. He had learned, he was learning more and more, 
 that the wrath of man, even in a holy cause, worketh not the right- 
 eousness of God; he had risen, and was rising more and more, 
 above every personal consideration. What mattered it whether these 
 preachers meant only to insult him, and render his bondage yet more 
 galling ? After all, " in every way, whether with masked design or in 
 sincerity, Christ is being preached ; and therein I do, aye, and " 
 whatever angry feelings may try to rise within my heart "I will 
 rejoice." 
 
 It is thus that the Apostle first tramples on the snake of any mere 
 
NON-RESISTANCE. 163 
 
 personal annoyance that may strive to hiss in his sad heart, and crushes 
 it yet more vigorously with a determined effort if its hiss still tries to 
 make itself heard. He has attained by this time to a holy resigna- 
 tion.' 
 
 We can have had but an imperfect experience of life if we have 
 not met with men who are sincere in their service to Christ, but 
 envious or jealous of their fellow-men, and ever raising quarrels 
 among fellow-workers. We are easily tempted to regard those who 
 are unkind towards us as insincere and unfaithful towards Christ ; 
 but such an idea is not well founded, and we must freely admit that 
 Christ uses the service of men who are very unworthy in their human 
 relationships. 
 
 Non- Resistance. 
 
 MATTHEW v. 39: 'But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil.' Rev. Ver.: 
 * Resist not him that is evil.' 
 
 Difficulty. Social order cannot be maintained if a /ree field is 
 thus to be given to evil and evil men. 
 
 Answer. It should be observed that these counsels were given 
 precisely to the disciples of Christ to those who were to be race- 
 leaders first, and therefore model, members of the new kingdom. 
 Examples have to be made striking and impressive. The leaders in 
 all great movements have to be large, extravagant, almost exaggerated. 
 Principles to arrest popular attention must be presented without their 
 due qualifications bare, striking, looming large. 
 
 We see this quite plainly in the commonplace and ordinary affairs 
 of life. To recall the most familiar illustration, there is a delightful 
 extravagance, an entire absence of judicial qualification, in the 
 appeals and demands of temperance advocates or vegetarians. We 
 ought to find no difficulty in recognising that our Lord met the same 
 conditions, and laid down the laws of His new kingdom, and the 
 character and duties of its members, in strong, bold, forcible outline, 
 that should arrest attention and make due impression. The difficulty 
 felt in connection with these ' counsels of perfection,' as they have 
 been called, is greatly relieved when we see that they apply, not to 
 society (save as society gets leavened with the Christian principle), 
 but to those quickened with the new life in Christ, to His disciples 
 and to them just so far as they are 'race-leaders,' Mights in the 
 world/ 
 
 We are familiar with the fact that first men and women, leaders in 
 departments of morals, art, or philanthropy, do reach a perfection 
 
 II 2 
 
164 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 which others cannot attain ; we think of them as standards which in 
 spire commoner folk to nobler and higher things. We cannot all be 
 Raphaels, or Taulers, or Bernards, or Fenelons, or Florence Nightin- 
 gales ; but we can all be better because they were so good. And in 
 the same way our Lord sets the perfect ideal before His first disciples, 
 because they were to go forth into the world and be an inspiration to 
 men, moving them, drawing them up, to an altogether higher plane 
 of purity and charity. To them He says, ' Resist not evil,' that 
 through them He might establish among men mutual consideration 
 and goodwill, knitting men together in the joy of common service. 
 He begins with * Resist not evil,' because He well knew that if this 
 principle were thoroughly carried out in the world, there would soon 
 be no evil to resist. 
 
 But the point now insisted on is that our Lord was not, in this 
 sermon, giving rules relating to the social order, as it is at present 
 constituted. He gives rules for certain individuals for all, indeed, 
 who stand with those individuals, in a personal relation to Christ. 
 The rules can be applied to society as soon as society is composed 
 of such Divinely renewed men, and not before. But the presence 
 of Christian men in society, who are faithful to Christ's sublime 
 rules, raises the whole tone of society, and touches it with a new 
 gentleness. 
 
 A somewhat striking book has been written by a Russian nobleman, 
 giving an account of the entire change of his thought and life from 
 the moment of his accepting the rule ' Resist not evil ' as the absolute 
 law of his life and conduct So far as he is himself concerned, the 
 rule may be safely applied ; but he falls into the error of applying 
 the rule to everybody, whether they have the life in Christ or not. 
 Give us a man who believes in Christ, and this is the rule for him. 
 Give us a society made up of Christians, and leavened with the 
 Christian spirit, and this is the rule for such a society. We will urge 
 Christ's laws wherever men have been won to Christ's allegiance ; 
 but they cannot be applied where Christ's authority is not admitted. 
 
 It may be interesting and useful to summarize the various explana- 
 tions given of this so-called ' doctrine of non-resistance.' In passing, 
 we may note that the Apostle fully entered into the spirit of his 
 Master; for, pleading with Christians, he says, * Why do ye not 
 rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded ? And, advising the young 
 minister, who is to be the example of the Christian spirit, he says, 
 ' The servant of the Lord must not strive" 
 
 Olshausen says : * The idea of retaliation (jus talionis\ which is the 
 foundation of the law in general, is expressed in Exodus xxi. 24. But 
 
NON-RESISTANCE. 165 
 
 the Pharisees made such a use of retaliation, that it could not but 
 become a cloak for revenge and uncharitableness. Christ, on the 
 contrary, conceives the idea in the spirit of the purest love, and de- 
 rives thence the command of self-denial and resignation. " Eye for 
 eye, tooth for tooth," is an eternal law in the government of the 
 world ; but love takes the brother's fault on itself, and, by thus be- 
 coming like him, causes him to become like it. Thus, out of the 
 jus talionis love procures salvation and forgiveness, which is nothing 
 but retaliation reversed, and cannot, therefore, exist without the 
 Saviour's suffering. This conquering by succumbing is the essence 
 of the Gospel/ 
 
 Pressense takes the line of the explanation which we have suggested. 
 He says: 'After pointing out the conditions of entrance into His 
 kingdom, Jesus traces, in a few words, the noble mission of the new 
 Israel ; it is to be the light to lighten the world, and the salt to pre- 
 serve it from corruption. Then He declares the law of His kingdom, 
 showing that, far from destroying the old covenant, it truly accom- 
 plishes it, by supplementing all its imperfections. Instead of lessening 
 moral obligation, He extends it, carrying it into the inner region of 
 the heart. For the law of retaliation He substitutes the great com- 
 mandment of true charity, which returns benefits for injuries and 
 wrongs. This Divine principle puts to flight all the sophisms of 
 Pharisaic casuistry.' 
 
 The older view, which strove to adjust the command of Christ to 
 the exigencies of social order and government, may be represented 
 by the following passage from John Chrysostom : ' Let us suppose 
 that the law is entirely cast aside, that all fear of promised punish- 
 ment is done away with, that the wicked are left to live according to 
 their inclinations, without fear of punishment : adulterers, murderers, 
 thieves, and perjurers. Would not all be overthrown ? would not 
 houses, market-places, cities, lands, seas, the whole universe, be full 
 of iniquity ? This is obvious ; for if even the existence of laws, fear 
 and threats of punishment, cannot keep the evil-intentioned within 
 bounds, what would there then be to restrain men from evil deeds, if 
 all obstacles were removed ? What disasters would then rush in 
 torrents into the lives of men ! Cruelty does not lie in leaving the 
 wicked free to act as they please, but in letting the innocent man suffer 
 without defending him.' Chrysostom argues that the law, * Resist not 
 evil,' cannot be applied to the regular government of society. 
 
 Dean Plumptre puts the matter very skilfully into a few sentences. 
 * The principle is clearly and simply this, that the disciple of Christ, 
 when he has suffered wrong, is to eliminate altogether from his 
 
166 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 motives the natural desire to retaliate or accuse. As far as he him- 
 self is concerned, he must be prepared, in language which, because 
 it is above our common human strain, has stamped itself on the 
 hearts and memories of men, to turn the left cheek when the right 
 has been smitten. But the man who has been wronged has other 
 duties which he cannot rightly ignore. The law of the Eternal has 
 to be asserted, society to be protected, the offender to be reclaimed ; 
 and these may well justify though personal animosity does not 
 protest, prosecution, punishment.' 
 
 Lack of Knowledge limiting Guilt. 
 
 I CORINTHIANS ii. 8 : * Which none of the princes of this world knew : for had 
 they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.' 
 
 Difficulty. The Apostle seems to remove the guilt of those who 
 crucified Christ^ by presenting for them the excuse of their ignorance. 
 
 Explanation. When ignorance is mere disability, it must be 
 duly considered as qualifying moral guilt. When ignorance is wilful- 
 ness or indifference, it must be treated as increasing moral guilt. If 
 St. Paul was thinking of such Gentiles as Pilate, he might fairly urge 
 that their ignorance was disability, and formed a reasonable excuse 
 for their conduct If he was thinking of the Jewish leaders, he 
 might also fairly urge that their ignorance of Christ was wilfulness 
 and guilt, and formed an aggravation of their conduct. At any 
 given time a man is responsible for acting up to his light ; but it 
 must also be said that every man is responsible for the measure of 
 light which he has at any given time. An illustration may be found 
 in the conscience. That is man's inward light, but he is responsible 
 for the degree of its illumination. 
 
 The guilt of allowing legal forms to aid the malicious designs of 
 evil men and the guilt of the judicial murder of one known, and 
 admitted, not to be guilty of any crime worthy of death must rest 
 on Pilate ; but the precise guilt of putting the Messiah to death 
 cannot be charged on him, because about Messiahs he knew nothing. 
 
 Professor Radford Thomson says : ' When the Jews and the Roman 
 governor united in effecting the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, neither 
 party to the proceeding can be said to have understood and realized 
 what was being done. The enemies and murderers of the Prophet 
 of Nazareth saw neither the glory of His character and person more 
 han very dimly, nor the glory of His redemption in any measure at 
 all. Jesus Himself had declared, " They know not what they do ;" 
 and Paul here says that, had they known the counsels of God, they 
 
LACK OF KNOWLEDGE LIMITING GUILT. 167 
 
 would not have crucified Christ. This does not justify or excuse 
 their act, for they certainly knew that they were putting to a cruel 
 death One who was innocent and just.' 
 
 From the point of view of merely worldly policy, the crucifixion of 
 Christ was a profound mistake. Martyrdom never effects the objects 
 sought by the persecutors. It tends rather to glorify, in the popular 
 sentiment, the cause for which the martyrs died. * Not a single 
 calculation of those who compassed the Saviour's death was destined 
 to be fulfilled. Pilate did not escape the emperor's displeasure. 
 Caiaphas (John xi. 50) did not save Jerusalem. The scribes and 
 Pharisees did not put down the doctrine of Jesus.' 
 
 The rulers could only put Christ to death while deceiving them- 
 selves or deceived as to His character and claims. They could not 
 have put Messiah to death. The whole hope of their race centred in 
 Him. But for that very reason their feelings were the more intense 
 against a man of despised Nazareth, who claimed to be the Messiah, 
 and, they thought, dishonoured the very idea of the Messiahship by 
 His imposture. Had they known had they seen His glory, they too 
 would have bowed the knee to Him, and crowned Him with many 
 crowns. 
 
 The Law of Fair Wages. 
 
 MATTHEW xx. IO, II : 'They likewise received every man a penny. And 
 when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house.' 
 
 Question. Did the master act fairly in thus giving the same wage 
 for one hour's work as for ten hours' work? 
 
 Answer. The answer is, that the fact of a man's having entered 
 into an agreement with one man provides no adequate reason for 
 his acting even with extravagant generosity to another man. In 
 common life it is perfectly fair to keep the man to his terms who is 
 anxious to make terms, and at the same time to treat another man 
 with generosity who has trusted himself to our generosity. The key 
 to this parable is found in the fact that the labourers early engaged 
 insisted on an agreement ; those later engaged trusted the master to 
 give them what was right. The Master can therefore fairly plead, 
 ' Didst thou not agree with Me for a penny ?' A man is bound to 
 his debts and engagements, but there are no bonds that can bind a 
 man's charity. No doubt the parable was designed to check such 
 exaggeration of 'term-making' and 'wage- fixing* as is in our day 
 destroying the nobler and more trustful relations of capital and labour. 
 
 The connection in which the parable stands reveals the fact that it 
 was designed to check the undue confidence and the exaggerated 
 
1 68 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 hopes of those disciples who had been the first to follow Christ. 
 Dr. C. Geikic says : * Nothing could have been more fitted to check 
 any tendency to self-importance and pride, so natural in men raised 
 to a position so inconceivably above their original station. Nor was 
 there room, henceforth, for any mercenary thoughts, even of future 
 reward, for the discharge of their duty. They could not forget that, 
 though first to enter the vineyard of the new kingdom, they were yet, 
 so far, on a footing with all who should follow them, that the spiritual 
 worth of their work alone determined their ultimate honour. The 
 special reward promised by their Master was a free gift of God, no', 
 the payment of a debt, and depended on their own spirit and zeal.' 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar says : ' To impress upon them (the disciples, 
 still more fully and deeply that the kingdom of heaven is not a 
 matter of mercenary calculation or exact equivalent that there 
 could be no bargaining with the Heavenly Householder that before 
 the eye of God's clearer and more penetrating judgment Gentiles 
 might be admitted before Jews, and publicans before Pharisees, and 
 young converts before aged apostles He told them the memorable 
 parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. That parable, amid its 
 other lessons, involved the truth that, while all who serve God 
 should not be defrauded of their just and full and rich reward, there 
 could be in heaven no murmuring, no envyings, no jealous com- 
 parison of respective merits, no base strugglings for precedency, no 
 miserable disputings as to who had performed the maximum of 
 service, or who had received the minimum of grace.' 
 
 Dr. David Brown paraphrases the answer of the Master thus : 
 ' You appeal to justice, and by that your mouth is shut ; for the sum 
 you agreed for is paid you. Your case being disposed of, with the 
 terms I make with other labourers you have nothing to do ; and to 
 grudge the benevolence shown to others, when by your own admis- 
 sion you have been honourably dealt with, is both unworthy envy of 
 your neighbour and discontent with the goodness that engaged and 
 rewarded you in his service at all.' 
 
 The Fig-tree Curse. 
 
 MATTHEW xxi. 19 : ' And seeing a fig-tree by the wayside, He came to it, and 
 found nothing thereon, but leaves only ; and He saith unto it, Let there be no 
 fruit from thee henceforward for ever.' 
 
 Difficulty. This miracle appears to be an exception to our Lord's 
 rule, that no miracle should be wrought for His own personal ends. 
 This appears to be an expression of personal annoyance. 
 
 Explanation. All single actions done by men, if fairly con- 
 
THE FIG-TREE CURSE. 169 
 
 sidered, are climated in the light of the general character which 
 they have established. If we come upon a difficult incident, our 
 assumption should always be that the man in this case has acted 
 consistently with his known character ; and we should require very 
 clear and very sufficient proofs before we admit that the action is 
 exceptional, and standing in a painful contrast to the rest of his life. 
 
 This principle should guide our judgment of any difficult incident 
 recorded in the life of our Lord. We know Him. We begin every 
 consideration of a new event or action with the confidence that He 
 was self-restrained, He did not give way to passion, and He did not 
 please Himself. It is quite certain that we shall explain nothing in 
 His life satisfactorily unless our explanation runs in fullest harmony 
 with these characteristics. 
 
 A teacher and especially an Eastern teacher does his work by 
 actions as well as by words. Sufficient illustration of this is found in 
 the stories of the later Jewish prophets, who married wives, hid 
 girdles, made yokes, and did many other things as a part of their 
 prophetic work. So our Lord taught by actions. One day He took 
 a child, and set him down in the midst of the disciples. Another 
 day He walked on the waves. On another He permitted the swine 
 to destroy themselves. And in this incident of the barren fig-tree we 
 have another instance of teaching by action. 
 
 It may be also urged that the quick poetical faculty of our Lord, 
 and the quick spiritual faculty, led Him to discern symbols of spiritual 
 truths in everything, even in the simplest things. Everything could 
 be turned to some good account in the training of His apostles for 
 their great life-work. 
 
 It was the formal temptation presented to our Lord in the outset 
 of His mission that He should use His miraculous endowments for 
 His own supply, for His own comfort, for securing His own personal 
 ends. That temptation was then resisted and overcome. It recurred 
 again and again throughout His public life, but it was always re- 
 sisted, and there is no instance recorded in which, if the case be 
 fairly considered, He yielded to use miraculous gifts for personal ends. 
 
 The case of the barren fig-tree may look like it, but further study 
 of it brings to v\ew the fact that it bore directly on the spiritual 
 culture of the apostles, and had this for its designed end. At this 
 time every word and every act of our Lord was watched with intense 
 interest. It was a time when He might well put a significance into 
 every act. It was precisely the time in His ministry when He was 
 teaching by symbols by the triumphal entry, and the driving out 
 of the money-changers. The cursing of the fig-tree exactly fits 
 
iyo HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 into the mood and the manner of the period, and we naturally class 
 it with the symbolical instructions. Our Lord saw in it the type of the 
 boastful professor, the virtual hypocrite ; to Him it represented boastful 
 Pharisaism and self-satisfied Jerusalem, so He made it present the 
 further type of the hypocrite's doom, the Pharisee's judgment, and 
 Jerusalem's desolation. This, however, proved too hard for the 
 disciples at the time, so our Lord graciously gave them a simple 
 lesson from the fact that the tree had withered at the word spoken in 
 faith. It is not that mere surface-lesson, but the deeper one of His 
 symbolic act, which has come to the mind, and been stored as the 
 treasure of the Christian ages. 
 
 It is not in accordance with the design of this work that an elaborate 
 exposition of the incident should be given ; but the support of good 
 writers to the line of explanation offered may be added. 
 
 We naturally turn first to Trench, who suggestively says : ' A sym- 
 bolic action is done as real, as meaning something ; and yet, although 
 not meaning the thing which it professes to mean, is no deception, 
 since it means something infinitely higher and deeper, of which the 
 lower action is a type, and in which that lower is lost and swallowed 
 up ; transfigured and transformed by the higher, whereof it is made 
 the vehicle. What was it, for instance, here, if Christ did not mean 
 really to look for fruit on that tree, being aware that it had none ? 
 Yet He did mean to show how it would fare with a man or with a 
 nation, when God came looking from it for the fruits of righteousness, 
 and found nothing but the abundant leaves of a boastful yet empty 
 profession.' 
 
 Neander says almost all that need be said on the subject The 
 proper light in which to regard this act is its symbolical character. 
 * If the miracles generally have a symbolical import, we have in this 
 case one that is entirely symbolical. The fig-tree, rich in foliage, but 
 destitute of fruit, represents the Jewish people, so abundant in out- 
 ward shows of piety, but destitute of its reality. Their vital sap was 
 squandered upon leaves. And, as the fruitless tree, failing to realize 
 the aim of its being, was destroyed, so the theocratic nation, for the 
 same reason, was to be overtaken, after long forbearance, by the 
 judgments of God, and shut out from His kingdom. The prophets 
 were accustomed to convey both instructions and warnings by sym- 
 bolical acts ; and the purport of this act, as both warning and pre- 
 diction, was precisely suited to the time. But to understand Christ's 
 act aright, we must not conceive that He at once caused a sound tree 
 to wither. This would not be in harmony with the general aim of 
 His miracles ; nor would it correspond to the idea which He designed 
 
THE FIG-TREE CURSE. 171 
 
 to set vividly before the disciples. A sound tree, suddenly destroyed, 
 would certainly be no fitting type of the Jewish people. We must 
 rather believe that the same cause which made the tree barren had 
 already prepared the way for its destruction, and that Christ only 
 hastened a crisis which had to come in the course of nature. In 
 this view it would correspond precisely to the great event in the 
 world's history which it was designed to prefigure : the moral char- 
 acter of the Jewish nation had long been fitting it for destruction ; 
 and the Divine government of the world only brought on the crisis.' 
 
 The connection of the incident with some of our Lord's previous 
 teachings is skilfully presented by Dean Plumptre. ' From the lips 
 of one of like passions with ourselves, the words used by Christ 
 might seem the utterance of impatient disappointment. Here they 
 assume the character of a solemn judgment, passed not so much on 
 the tree as on that of which it became the representative. The Jews, 
 in their show of the " leaves " of outward devotion in the absence of 
 the " fruits " of righteousness, were as that " barren tree." But a 
 few weeks before (Luke xiii. 6), He had taken the fig-tree to which 
 " a man came seeking fruit and finding none " as a parable of the 
 state of Israel. Then the sentence, " Cut it down," had been delayed, 
 as in the hope of a possible amendment. Now, what He saw flashed 
 upon Him in a moment (if we may so speak) as the parable em- 
 bodied. . . . The sentence which He now passed on the tree, and 
 its immediate fulfilment, were symbols of the sentence and the doom 
 which were about to fall on the unrepentant and unbelieving people.' 
 
 Making Friends through Mammon. 
 
 LUKE xvi. 9 : ' And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends by means of the 
 mammon of unrighteousness ; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into 
 the eternal tabernacles.' (Rev. Ver.} 
 
 Question. If this is what it seems to be, a counsel of selfish 
 txpediency, is it not altogether unworthy of the Lord Jesus Christ 1 
 
 Answer. Our Lord's words are not to be taken seriously. We 
 need have no difficulty in accepting the fact that our Lord used 
 * irony ' as a method of instruction ; and a careful observation of the 
 connection in which this passage stands shows that our Lord was 
 searching out, humiliating, and almost raising the laugh against the 
 conceited and hypocritical Pharisees. In verse 14 it is carefully 
 noted, that ' the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these 
 things, and they derided Him,' evidently feeling the keenness of His 
 irony. 
 
 The ironical character comes out in the close of the sentence. We 
 
172 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 feel at once the absurdity of wealthy friends securing for us eternal 
 tabernacles ; and so we understand Christ to mean that ' making 
 friends for ourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness ' 
 is exactly what we should not do if we are His disciples. This unjust 
 steward is a warning in every sense, and not in any sense an example. 
 A warning most of all in this, that when he fell into trouble, he did 
 not trust God or wait upon Him, but set himself upon getting out of 
 his trouble by selfish, mean, and wicked expedients. The parable 
 becomes perfectly clear if thus the meaning is discerned which under- 
 lies its ironical form. 
 
 Hesitating to associate the ironical with Christ, as if it were in 
 itself something evil, Biblical writers labour very hard at harmonizing 
 this with other teachings of our Lord. A few specimens may be given. 
 
 Olshausen thinks the sense of the words is obviously this : ' Employ 
 the unrighteous mammon in making yourselves friends with as much 
 prudence as that steward did in the circumstances in which he was 
 placed.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre takes Christ seriously, and explains, 'The right 
 use of wealth in helping the poor, making men happier and better, 
 leading them to repentance and to God, will gain for us friends, 
 perhaps the very persons whom we have helped, perhaps the angels 
 of God who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, perhaps even 
 Christ and the Father, who will receive us into " everlasting habita- 
 tions." ' 
 
 The Speakers Commentary takes the view that our Lord here 
 commends kindness to the poor ; and it quotes Oosterzee in support. 
 
 Luther says: * It is a sermon on good works, and especially against 
 avarice, that men abuse not wealth, but therewith help poor and 
 needy people.' 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar thinks the parable was given 'to show the 
 disciples the necessity of care and faithfulness, of prudence and 
 wisdom, in so managing the affairs and interests and possessions of 
 this life as not to lose hereafter their heritage of the eternal riches. 
 With the supreme and daring paradox which impressed His divine 
 teaching on the heart and memory of the world, He urged them to 
 the foresight of a spiritual wisdom by an example drawn from the 
 foresight of a criminal cleverness.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie follows the line of those who see a commendation 
 of charity in the parable. c Fit yourselves, by labours of love and 
 deeds of true charity, as My followers, to become fellow-citizens of 
 the heavenly mansions, with those whose wants you have relieved 
 while they were still in life.' 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF PUNISHMENT. 173 
 
 The Christian Idea of Punishment. 
 
 2 CORINTHIANS ii. 6, 7 : 'Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which 
 was inflicted of many. So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and 
 comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch 
 sorrow.' 
 
 Question. Must the Christian idea of punishment be restricted to 
 Church relations, and to sins cognizable by the Church ; or may it be 
 applied to the common social and governmental relations of men ? 
 
 Answer. The Church is not the world ; and until it is its laws 
 and rules cannot be strictly applied beyond its own limits. But the 
 Church is the ideal society. It is what the world should be ; what 
 the world is to be. So its principles, its rules, its treatment of its 
 various members, are the ideal principles, rules, and dealings, which 
 ought to be widely known and accepted, and ought to regenerate 
 society. The Christian idea of punishment is the perfect idea ; but 
 it cannot be perfectly and universally accepted until the whole 
 relations of men are lifted up into the Christian plane. It is the 
 right, but the expedient must rule until men are ready for the right. 
 
 This general answer will be supported by the Christian idea of 
 punishment, as so finely given by F. W. Robertson, of Brighton. 
 * It includes, first, the reformation of the offender. This is the first 
 and most natural object of punishment ; and we infer it to have been 
 part of St. Paul's intention, because when this end had been attained, 
 he required that punishment should cease ; " Sufficient to such a 
 man is this punishment." Now herein consists the peculiar spirit ot 
 Christianity, that whereas the ancient system of law sacrificed the 
 individual to society, and feeble philanthropy would sacrifice society 
 to the individual, Christianity would save both. It respects the 
 decencies of life and its rights ; it says the injurer must suffer ; but 
 it says, too, he also is a living soul, we must consider him, we must 
 punish so that he shall be made not worse, but better. So it was 
 not only the dignity of the Corinthian Church that St. Paul thought 
 of : he thought also of the fallen, guilty state of his spirit who had 
 degraded that Church. He punished him that his spirit might be 
 saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 
 
 The second thing included in this idea is the purification of 
 society. Punishment was also necessary for this reason that sin 
 committed with impunity corrupts the body of men to which the 
 sinner belongs. This St. Paul declares in the First Epistle : " A little 
 leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Now the purification of society 
 
174 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 is effected partly by example, and partly by removal of the evil. 
 The discipline by which this removal was effected was called excom- 
 munication. At that time, apostolic excommunication represented 
 to the world God's system of punishment. I do not say that it does 
 so now, for the Church and the world have become so mixed, 
 Church and State so trench upon each other's functions, that we 
 know not where the division is. But I conceive that in early times 
 the Church discipline was representative of the true idea of punish- 
 ment : clearly St. Paul thought so. He did not think of extending 
 it beyond the Church ; for his idea of the Church was that of a pure 
 society in the world, representing what the world should be ; and so 
 he does not require this separation to be rigidly enforced with respect 
 to worldly men. For God judged those without, while the Church, 
 God's representative, judged and exhibited this principle of punish- 
 ment on those within. 
 
 * These two to reform, and to serve as an example are the only 
 views of punishment which are found in the popular notion of it 
 But if we think deeper on the subject, we shall find, I believe, that 
 there is another idea in punishment which cannot be lost sight of. 
 It is this that punishment is the expression of righteous indigna- 
 tion : God's punishment is the expression of God's indignation ; 
 man's punishment is the expression of man's indignation. There is 
 a right feeling in human nature which we call resentment : it exists 
 equally in the best and the worst natures ; although in the worst it 
 becomes malice. It existed in Christ Himself, for it is not a peculiarity 
 of fallen human nature, but it is an inseparable element of human 
 nature itself. Now let us mark what follows from this : Man is the 
 image of God : all spirits are of the same family. So there is some- 
 thing in God which corresponds with that which we call resentment, 
 stripped, of course, of all emotion, selfishness, or fury. 
 
 1 It is for this reason that we should strongly object to explain away 
 those words of Scripture, " the wrath of God " ; " God is angry with 
 the wicked every day " ; "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." 
 These sayings contain a deep and awful truth. God's punishment is 
 God's wrath against sin ; and is not merely the consequence of life- 
 less laws, but the expression of the feeling of a Living Spirit It 
 would be most perilous to do away with these words ; for if the wrath 
 of God be only a figure, His love must be but a figure, too. Such, 
 therefore, is the true idea of human punishment. It exists to reform 
 the offender, to purify society, and also to express God's and man's 
 indignation at sin.' Lectures on Corinthians. 
 
THE LA W OF FINAL JUDGMENT. 1 7 5 
 
 The Law of Final Judgment. 
 
 MATTHEW x. 15 : 'Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the 
 land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.' 
 
 Difficulty. Can it be right to make judgment depend on privilege ', 
 seeing that privilege is dependent on God's sovereign will^ and not on 
 anything man can do ? 
 
 Explanation. This difficulty rests on somewhat narrow and 
 dogmatic views of what the * final judgment ' is. The judgment ot 
 those to whom Christ has been offered may take cognizance simply 
 of the acceptance or rejection of the offer. But this condition 01 
 judgment cannot be applied to all mankind ; it cannot be made the 
 test of those who lived before Christ came, nor of those who have 
 lived and died, or do still live, without any knowledge of Him. Old 
 Testament Scriptures express the terms of universal judgment in the 
 words, * Thou renderest to every man according to his works.' And 
 New Testament Scriptures are in perfect harmony with the Old ; for 
 we are told that ' we must all appear before the judgment-seat of 
 Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body, 
 according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' 
 
 A notion has been allowed to grow up amongst us, and to get 
 established, that the results of final judgment are only two accept- 
 ance or rejection. Our minds are almost unable to admit that there 
 will be varieties, precisions, and adaptations in the judgments 
 announced. And yet our Lord clearly laid down the principle of 
 variety when He taught that those who knew not their Lord's will 
 should be beaten with few stripes. 
 
 In the variation and precision of the final sentences lies the 
 explanation of this difficulty, as it is above stated. If judgment were 
 not carefully adjusted to each case, due account of the circumstances 
 of each individual need not be taken. The sin of men is weighed 
 and considered in the light of their surroundings and their oppor 
 tunities. No man is responsible for his privileges or his disabilities, 
 any more than for his birth. What has to be discovered is the 
 character which finds, or has found, expression in conduct under such 
 and such circumstances ; and the all-wise God can duly appraise, and 
 fairly deal with, the precise measure and weight of guilt in each case. 
 Duly considering the moral g'uilt of Sodom and Gomorrah in the 
 light of their times and knowledge, and setting over against it the 
 moral guilt of the people of Palestine in the light of their times, 
 knowledge, and opportunities, it is clear to everyone that a heavier 
 condemnation ought to rest on the Christ-despisers of Palestine. 
 
1 76 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The moral trial of a varied race renewing itself through long 
 generations involves an infinite variety of testing conditions and cir- 
 cumstances. Some of these it pleases us to consider ' privileges,' and 
 others we call 'disabilities.' But they really are no more than various 
 conditions of moral trial, some causing lighter and some heavier 
 strain. Judgment will surely take into due account the various 
 degrees of strain, and, if we may use business terms, in every case 
 produce a ' net result/ 
 
 If we were explaining the text rather than meeting a difficulty, we 
 should point out that our Lord is not stating a fact, but illustrating a 
 principle, and using a strong figure in His illustration. As a fact, 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, as a nation, had already been judged, con- 
 demned, and appropriately punished ; and our Lord's reference to it 
 really amounts only to this : ' It shall be more tolerable for such a 
 sinner, or sinful people, as the Sodomites were, in the day of judg- 
 ment than for that city.' Sodom and Gomorrah, in fact, stand for 
 and represent a class. 
 
 Relation of Christianity to Slavery. 
 
 I CORINTHIANS vii. 20, 21 : ' Let each man abide in that calling wherein he 
 was called. Wast thou called, being a bond-servant ? care not for it : but if thou 
 canst become free, use it rather.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand from this that St. Paul recog- 
 nised slavery as a permissible social arrangement ? 
 
 Answer. Yes, this much must certainly be admitted, whatever 
 further difficulties may seem to be involved in the admission. The 
 horror of slavery is a Western, not an Eastern, sentiment. St. Paul 
 was not socially above the age in which he lived, and we cannot ex- 
 pect him to have fully seen how the great Christian principles of 
 equality, brotherhood, and charity would gradually come to change 
 social customs. The Bible nowhere attacks slavery ; but the Bible 
 reveals principles and truths which create a sentiment altogether 
 opposed to slavery, and must eventually destroy it from off the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 To deal with this question fairly, we must realize the very important 
 distinction between patriarchal and tribal slavery and the slavery of 
 civilized lands and times, such as that of Rome or the American 
 States. Patriarchal slavery is best represented by that personal rela- 
 tion in which his retainers stood to a Scotch lord or a feudal baron. 
 That was not an ideal relation, but it was not a hardship or a 
 degradation, And St. Paul deals with slavery from a distinctly 
 Eastern point of view. He must, however, have been also familiar 
 
RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO SLAVERY. 177 
 
 with the terrible condition in which the slaves of the Romans were 
 found. In view even of the suffering which led Onesimus to escape 
 from his master, St. Paul requires his return, his submission, and the 
 re-acceptance of his obligations. 
 
 The position which St. Paul took, and consistently held, appears 
 to us to have been this : Jesus Christ gives a new life to men a new 
 soul-life. He did not come to alter social relations, to change 
 governments, or to introduce a new order. He planted principles. 
 He revealed truths. He quickened life. Let the life grow into 
 power, and find expression, and it will surely correct social errors, 
 tone the spirit of governments, and bind men together in mutual 
 helpfulness and in the bonds of ' heavenly divine charity.' But do 
 not force it. Life wants freedom ; life wants time. Slavery and war 
 will both fade away, but only as men accept the principles and truths 
 af Christianity, and give room for the growth and the spread of its 
 influence in society. 
 
 St. Paul had to deal with this practical difficulty. The sense of 
 privilege and dignity, which those have who know the new life in 
 Christ, naturally makes them restless if their outward circumstances 
 ire those of inferiority and disability. The freeman in Christ Jesus 
 vould very naturally desire to be a freeman in daily life, free from 
 he bonds of any earthly master. Now, to take the very lowest 
 ;round, it would seriously imperil Christianity if it became manifest 
 hat the results of the spread would be a struggle of the slave-class 
 or freedom. The one plea which the early Christians could urge 
 gainst their enemies was, that their religion in no way interfered 
 vith business or society or government. It was an inner life, alto- 
 ;ether separate from the external life of association. 
 
 On the abstract wrong of slavery, and on the practical evils of slavery, 
 s we know it, we hold strong and decided views ; but it is quite un- 
 easonable for us to attribute such views even to the most enlightened 
 f Christian teachers. 
 
 Some very wise and suggestive remarks on this subject, and on 
 lat of war, are made by Professor IV. Griffiths, M.A. ' In the time 
 f our Saviour society was far from being in a position to do away 
 ith either slavery or war. Constituted as the Roman empire was, 
 could not have subsisted a single day without the support of the 
 -vord. Nor could the social fabric have escaped a shock bordering 
 a collapse, if the custom of holding property in man had been sud- 
 enly discontinued. And, since the Divine method of improvement 
 >r us is that of enlightened reform, not violent revolution the 
 volution of truth from within, not the convulsion caused by power 
 
 2 
 
178 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 working from without it vras necessary to suffer the evils of war and 
 slavery to go on afflicting the body politic, yet roughly holding its parts 
 together, until men should grow wise enough to adopt the only 
 rational means of internal welding and external defence. It would 
 be a mistake, however, to suppose that the Bible tolerated these insti- 
 tutions in the sense of letting them alone. Even Moses introduced 
 regulations for softening the hardships of slavery and abating the 
 horrors of war. And that the word of God is essentially opposed to 
 the enthralling of innocent persons, and to their wholesale slaughter 
 on the field of battle, is provable, not only from the general tenor of 
 revelation, and the spirit which it fosters, but also by the unequivocal 
 result of Scripture influence, when it becomes dominant and has 
 opportunity for full manifestation. Christianity has already chased 
 slavery out of its fairest domains, and is engaged in following up the 
 diabolical system to its last retreats. The abomination, as a recog- 
 nised custom, will soon be swept from the face of the globe.' 
 
 The Rev. T. T. Shore, M.A., deals fully with the attitude which 
 the Apostle of the Gentiles maintains towards the great question of 
 slavery. 'While there were many points in which ancient slavery 
 under the Greek and Roman governments was similar to what has 
 existed in modern days, there were also some striking points of dif- 
 ference. The slaves at such a place as Corinth would have been 
 under Roman law, but many of its harsher provisions would doubtless 
 have been practically modified by the traditional leniency of Greek 
 servitude and by general usage. . . . Still, the master could sell his 
 slave as he could sell any other species of property ; and such a state 
 of things was calculated greatly to degrade both those who trafficked 
 and those who were trafficked in, and was contrary to those Christian 
 principles which taught the brotherhood of men, and exalted every 
 living soul into the high dignity of having direct communion with 
 the Father. 
 
 ' How, then, are we to account for St. Paul, with his vivid realiza- 
 tion of the brotherhood of men in Christ, and his righteous intolerance 
 of intolerance, never having condemned this servile system, and 
 having here insisted on the duty of a converted slave to remain in 
 servitude ? 
 
 ' One point which would certainly have weighed with the Apostle 
 in considering this question was his own belief in the near approach 
 of the end of this dispensation. If all existing relations would be 
 overthrown in a few years, even such a relation as was involved in 
 slavery would not be of so great importance as if it had been regarded 
 as a permanent institution. 
 
RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO SLA VERY. 1 79 
 
 ' But there were other grave considerations of a more positive and 
 imperative nature. If one single word from Christian teaching could 
 have been quoted at Rome as tending to excite the slaves to revolt, 
 it would have set the Roman power in direct and active hostility to 
 the new faith. Had St. Paul's teaching led (as it probably would, 
 had he urged the cessation of servitude) to a rising of the slaves, 
 that rising, and the Christian Church which would have been iden- 
 tified with it, would have been crushed together. Rome could not 
 have tolerated a repetition of those servile wars which had, twice in 
 the previous century, deluged Sicily with blood. 
 
 'Nor would the danger of preaching the abolition of servitude 
 have been confined to that arising from external violence on the part, 
 of the Roman Government ; it would have been pregnant with danger 
 to the purity of the Church itself. Many might have been led, from 
 wrong motives, to join a communion which would have aided them 
 in securing their social and political freedom. 
 
 ' In these considerations we may find, I think, ample reasons for 
 the position of non-interference which the Apostle maintains in 
 regard to slavery. If men, then, say 'that Christianity approved of 
 slavery, we would point them to the fact that it is Christianity that 
 has abolished it. Under a particular and exceptional condition of 
 circumstances, which cannot again arise, St. Paul, for wise reasons, 
 did not interfere with it. To have done so would have been worse 
 than useless. But he taught fearlessly those imperishable principles 
 which led in after-ages to its extinction. The object of Christianity 
 and this St. Paul over and over again insisted on was not to 
 overturn and destroy existing political and social institutions, but to 
 leaven them with new principles. He did not propose to abolish 
 slavery, but to Christianize it ; and when slavery is Christianized, it 
 must cease to exist. Christianized slavery is liberty.' 
 
SECTION If. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES RELATED TO EASTERN CUSTOMS 
 AND SENTIMENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 IN no department of Biblical study has so much fresh knowledge of 
 permanent value been obtained in recent years, as in that of Bible 
 antiquities, including the manners and customs of Eastern races. 
 Missionaries, such as Thomson and Van Lennep, resident for many 
 years in Syria and Asia Minor, and Egypt, and other related 
 countries, have carefully observed the daily habits and the common 
 speech of the people, and kept their records for our use. Passing 
 travellers, trained to notice all national and geographical pecularities, 
 and skilled in collecting accurate information concerning the flora 
 and fauna of Bible lands, have given us their very varied and interested 
 accounts ; and practised writers have set all this new material in direct 
 relation to Bible texts, so that we have at command a vast storehouse 
 of illustration of Bible incidents and Bible expressions, and with their 
 help we can often gain fresh and eminently satisfactory explanations 
 of Bible difficulties. 
 
 As an indication of the good and helpful things that may be 
 obtained from modern literature, we give one instance from the Old 
 Testament and one from the New. 
 
 There is a figure used in Psalm Ixviii. 13, which must seem to a 
 Western, with ordinary Western associations, as extravagant, if not, 
 indeed, unnatural. The words of the passage are, ' Though ye have 
 lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered 
 with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. But Miss Whately, 
 in her * Ragged Life in Egypt,' describing some of the sights wit- 
 nessed from the flat roofs of the houses in Cairo, says : * The roofs 
 
INTROD UCTOR Y NOTE. 1 8 1 
 
 are usually in a great state of litter, and were it not that Hasna, the 
 seller of geeleh, gets a palm-branch and makes a clearance once ir 
 a while, her roof would assuredly give way under the accumulation 
 of rubbish. One thing never seemed cleared away, however, and 
 that was the heaps of old broken pitchers, sherds, and pots, that in 
 these and similar houses are piled up in some corner ; and there is 
 a curious observation in connection with this. A little before sunset, 
 numbers of pigeons suddenly emerge from behind the pitchers and 
 other rubbish, where they have been sleeping in the heat of the day, 
 or pecking about to find food. They dart upwards and career 
 through the air in large circles, their outspread wings catching the 
 bright glow of the sun's slanting rays, so that they really resemble 
 shining ' yellow gold ' ; then, as they wheel round, and are seen 
 against the light, they appear as if turned into molten silver, most of 
 them being pure white or very light-coloured. This may seem 
 fanciful, but the effect of light in these regions is difficult to describe 
 to those who have not seen it ; and evening after evening we watched 
 the circling flight of the doves, and always observed the same appear- 
 ance. It was beautiful to see these birds, rising clean and unsoiled, 
 as doves always do, from the dust and dirt in which they had been 
 hidden, and soaring aloft in the sky till nearly out of sight among 
 the bright sunset clouds.' 
 
 Miss Agnes G. Weld reminds us of an Eastern custom, which 
 very freshly and effectively illustrates the concern of the woman who 
 had lost one of her ten pieces of silver. (See Luke xv. 8-10.) 
 ' The women of Bethlehem, and of other parts of the Holy Land, 
 still wear a row of coins sewn upon their head-dress, and pendant 
 over their brows. And the number of the coins is very commonly 
 ten, as I, in common with other travellers, have ascertained by 
 counting. The custom reaches back far beyond the Christian era. 
 In all probability, therefore, it was not simply a piece of silver which 
 was lost out of her purse by the woman, but one of the ten precious 
 coins which formed her most precious ornament.' 
 
 Miss Lydia Von Finkelstein improves upon this by treating this 
 ornament as the distinctive mark of the married woman, and answer- 
 ing, in the Eastern woman's imagination, to our wedding-ring. The 
 ornament was so constructed that if one piece was lost the whole was 
 in danger of falling apart. It might be necessary to send it a long 
 distance, involving serious delay, to get a new piece fitted ; and while 
 the woman was without it, she would be unable to leave the house, or 
 to receive visitors, for fear of being seen without her sign of marriage. 
 This makes very reasonable her excessive anxiety in searching for 
 
i82 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the lost piece, and the joy she is represented as showing when the 
 piece was found. It seems that this particular ornament was com- 
 monly spoken of as the ' ten pieces.' 
 
 In this section of the ' Handbook ' only such passages are dealt 
 with as present difficulties to thoughtful readers, which may be 
 removed, or, at least, relieved, by some knowledge of ancient and 
 Eastern manners and customs, or by some aquaintance with the pre- 
 vailing sentiments of the Jewish people at some particular period in 
 their history. 
 
 The cases that are treated in this section are to be regarded as 
 specimens of the value and the use of such knowledge of Eastern life 
 and thought. It would not be possible, within reasonable limits, to- 
 attempt to deal with all the difficulties which may be included in 
 this class. It will suffice if sufficient instances are given to show 
 how the enlargement of our knowledge of Bible lands and times 
 at once relieves the Sacred Word of much that has been puzzling and 
 almost incomprehensible, and suggests the importance, to Bible 
 readers and Christian teachers, of studying all books that help to- 
 re-create the scenes and interests and characters of bygone ages. 
 The Old Testament, and much also of the New, can only be read 
 aright with the dictionary help of competent knowledge of the differ- 
 ing but ever-interesting East. 
 
 One case has recently come to our knowledge, in which accuracy 
 of knowledge of Eastern custom puts new force into a figure which 
 can be illustrated from ordinary everyday life. Hosea (ch. vii. 8) 
 speaks of Ephraim as * a cake not turned.' Dr. Lansdell> travelling 
 in Russian Central Asia, records the following : * Yakoob explained 
 to me how they bake the bread ; namely, by making cakes of dough 
 about the size and thickness of a captain's biscuit, and then, clapping 
 this on the side of the oven, where it sticks till one side is done, the 
 same process being repeated with the other side. Hence a half- 
 hearted person, as Ephraim, is a ' cake not turned.' 
 
DIFFICULTIES RELATED TO EASTERN 
 CUSTOMS AND SENTIMENTS. 
 
 King Og's Bedstead. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY iii. 1 1 : ' For only Og, King of Bashan, remained of the remnant 
 of giants ; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron ; is it not in Rabbath of 
 the children of Ammon ? Nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the 
 breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.' 
 
 Difficulty. i. Are not both the size of the bedstead and its manu- 
 facture of iron^ so unreasonable that the narrative must be regarded as 
 legendary ? 
 
 2. Hoiv did the bedstead come to be preserved in the Ammonite city 
 of Rabbath ? 
 
 Explanation. There is undoubtedly a constant tendency to 
 exaggeration in the reporting of things that are only remembered : 
 and we find that things with which we had to do in our childhood 
 seem in after-years bigger to us than they actually were. We are 
 often surprised when we can test our imagination, and our memories, 
 by the reality. This no doubt applies in an especial manner to such 
 stories of giants as affect the young and untrained imagination. 
 Making all due allowance for such a tendency to exaggeration, we 
 may see what evidence there is for the reasonableness of the figure 
 that is given to us of Og and his bedstead. 
 
 There is sufficient evidence of the existence of a gigantic race in 
 the district with which Og was associated. Under the name of 
 Rephaim they are mentioned in Gen. xiv. 5; xv. 20. But the 
 measurement of the so-called bedstead of Og does not give us a 
 precise idea of the size of the man. Taking the cubit at the ordinary 
 size, one foot and a half, the bedstead was an enormous one thirteen 
 and a half feet long and six feet wide. We may, however, reason- 
 ably suppose that it was much longer and wider than the body, and 
 
184 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 perhaps was purposely made to produce an exaggerated impression 
 of Og's size, as Leclerc tells us that Alexander the Great had the 
 beds of his foot-soldiers made larger than was necessary, in order to 
 impress the Indians with an idea of the extraordinary strength and 
 stature of his men. ( 
 
 The true explanation of the passage appears to be that it was the 
 sarcophagus, and not the bedstead, of Og which is referred to. He 
 was buried in an immense block of black basalt, a substance which 
 the Arabs still call iron, because it contained a large percentage of iron. 
 A man whose actual stature was from eight to ten feet might very 
 reasonably have a sarcophagus of fourteen feet length. Napoleon III. 
 is buried in a solid block of granite, which is not less than ten feet 
 long ; and Squire Eeckford, of Fonthill fame, lies in a similar size 
 block at the Lansdown Cemetery, Bath ; but both these were men 
 of quite ordinary height. Sir J. Chardin and other travellers have 
 observed the ancient tendency to make mummies and tombs far 
 larger than the natural size of men, in order to leave an impression 
 of wonder. 
 
 Kitto elaborately explains the ancient use of bedsteads made of 
 metal ; but as the original terrr.c, eres barzel, may without question 
 be rendered * a sarcophagus of basalt,' we may accept this very simple 
 and satisfactory solution of the difficulty. 
 
 It is hardly possible to account for the preservation of the sarco- 
 phagus at Rabbath. It is not unlikely that Og, when wounded in 
 battle, fled, and found shelter in Rabbath ; there he died, and was 
 buried in an honourable way, as a great king. The report of the 
 immense size of his sarcophagus might very readily have come to 
 the ears of the Israelites, and it would impress them with the 
 importance of the victory they had won over so mighty a giant and 
 so great a king. 
 
 The Speaker s Commentary remarks that * modern travellers have 
 discovered in the territories of Og sarcophagi as well as many other 
 articles made of the black basal*- of the country.' 
 
 The Divine Origin of Circumcision. 
 
 GENESIS xvii. 10 : ' This is My covenant, which ye shall keep, between Me 
 and you and thy seed after thee : Every man child among you shall be circum- 
 cised.' 
 
 Question. Are there not proofs of the adoption of this rite by 
 other nations beside the Hebrews, and independently of them t 
 
 Answer. There are reasonably good grounds for admitting the 
 use of this custom quite apart from the special injunction to Abra- 
 
THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF CIRCUMCISION. 185 
 
 ham ; but this may be freely admitted, if we properly apprehend the 
 Divine purpose in making it the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. 
 
 In a note to his interesting work, Hours with the Bible, vol. i., 
 p. 344, Dr. Cunningham Geikie gathers up the facts and arguments 
 on this point. ' Wilkinson has found proof of the practice of cir- 
 cumcision in Egypt as early as the fourth dynasty, that is long before 
 Abraham (vol. v., p. 318). There is also an instructive painting of 
 the time of the oppression of the Jews in Egypt, showing the mode of 
 performing the rite. Nearly all mummies, moreover, are circum- 
 cised (EberSy p. 233). The Jews circumcise on the eighth day ; the 
 Mahometans, properly on the thirteenth year, as the time when 
 Ishmael was circumcised. The rite has been found widely practised 
 where it might have been least expected, among the negroes of the 
 Congo and many African tribes, including the Caffres ; and also in 
 the Fiji Islands, among the Indians of Central America, the ancient 
 Mexicans, and other Indian races. Curiously, the Speaker's Com- 
 mentary (vol. i., p. 122) and Land and the Book (p. 590), not knowing 
 the evidence of the Egyptian monuments, suppose that the priests of 
 Pharaoh learned about circumcision from Joseph. The remark of 
 Michaelis is acute, that if Abraham had not already known about it, 
 more minute directions would have been given him. Ebers (p. 233) 
 says that in Egypt, as among the Hebrews, " uncircumcised " was 
 equal to " unclean " ; " circumcised," to " clean " or " pure." 
 
 The testimony of Herodotus is important, but his statements are 
 somewhat loose and unsatisfactory. He says that the Egyptians and 
 Ethiopians had circumcision from the most remote antiquity, so that 
 he cannot tell which had it first ; he mentions the Colchians as also 
 using it, and says that the Phoenicians and Syrians in Palestine 
 admit that they * learned this practice from the Egyptians ' 
 (Herod, ii. 104). It is. however, difficult to recognise precisely who 
 Herodotus refers to as the Syrians and Phoenicians. 
 
 Effort has been made to show that all other nations may have 
 derived the rite, directly or indirectly, from the Jews ; but this cannot 
 be sustained. It is most unlikely that other nations would allow such 
 an insignificant nation as that of the Jews to teach them any rites ; 
 certainly not any so offensive and so painful as this one. And the 
 historical facts plainly intimate that an existent custom was divinely 
 enjoined upon the Jews, with a view to the associations in which as 
 a nation they were to be placed. 
 
 For the Hebrew circumcision was not designed to separate God's 
 people from the Egyptians, but from the Canaanites, among whom 
 Abraham dwelt at the time of institution, and whose country Israel 
 
186 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 was ultimately to possess. We have sufficient evidence that the 
 Canaanite nations were not circumcised. ' One tribe of Canaanites, 
 the Hivites, were uncircumcised, as appears from the story of Hamor 
 and Shechem (Gen. xxxiv.). To the Philistines the epithet "uncir- 
 cumcised " is constantly applied. From the great unwillingness of 
 Zipporah to allow her son to be circumcised (Ex. iv. 25), it would 
 seem that the Midianites, though descended from Abraham by 
 Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2), did not practise the rite.' (Smith's Bib. 
 Diet.) 
 
 The idea that the Hebrew custom was borrowed from the 
 Egyptians is said by F. W. Newman, in Kittds Cydopcedia, to have 
 given much offence ; but he wisely adds : ' In truth the question 
 involves no peculiar difficulty ; it is only part of another far wider 
 inquiry. It is notorious that many other ancient nations had various 
 ceremonies and institutions in common with the Jews, and that the 
 Hebrew law is by no means in all points original. That sacrifice 
 pre-existed is on the surface of the Bible history. The same, how- 
 ever, is true of temples, tabernacles, priests, ever-burning fire, oracles, 
 etc. The fact has often been denoted by saying that the Jewish 
 institutions are a selection, revision, and re-enactment of an older 
 patriarchal religion.' 
 
 The analogy of the bow in the cloud, existent before, but consti- 
 tuted a divine sign and suggestion to Noah, may be applied to cir- 
 cumcision as enjoined on Abraham. 
 
 A brief explanation of the religious significance of the rite to the 
 Hebrews may be added. ' To Abraham and his posterity circum- 
 cision was an abiding sign of consecration to God, and of admission 
 into the congregation of Jehovah. The nations around them had 
 their distinctive forms of dedication to their idols, in the fanciful 
 trimming of their beards and hair, forbidden so strictly to the Jews 
 (Lev. xix. 27), and in the tattooing the sign of a god on the brow, the 
 arm, or the hand, as is still common in the East. But circumcision 
 was much more than this, for it presented the child or the man as 
 an offering to God a part of the body standing for the whole and 
 tacitly owned that even life was rightfully His, though redeemed by 
 so slight and typical a substitution. And though in later ages a 
 mark of division and narrowness, in the tents of the early Hebrews 
 it was only a much-needed and abiding badge of separation from the 
 degenerate races amidst which they lived, and of consecration to 
 Jehovah.' (Dr. C. Geikie.) 
 
BORING A SERVANTS EAR. 187 
 
 Boring a Servant's Ear. 
 
 EXODUS xxi. 5, 6 : 'And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, iry 
 wife, and my children : I will not go free : then his master shall bring him unto 
 the judges ; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post : and his 
 master shall bore his ear through with an awl ; and he shall serve him for ever.' 
 (See also Deut. xv. 17.) 
 
 Difficulty. Was not this x cruel and degrading custom, unworthy 
 of the Mosaic system ? 
 
 Explanation. The cartilage of the ear can be bored without 
 occasioning suffering. And the practice of boring the ear as a mark 
 of slavery is not peculiar to Mosaism ; it was quite a common one ki 
 ancient times, and observed in many nations. 
 
 The arrangement was made by Moses rather in the interests of the 
 servants than of the masters. A master might forcibly detain a 
 servant, demand his life-long service ; and if no public ratification of 
 bargains had been required, such a servant would have had no redress. 
 Some public act, and well-recognised mark, secured the rights of the 
 servants. The law said that no servant could be retained over six 
 years (ver. 2), unless a public ceremony took place before the recog- 
 nised officials in the city gate, where there would be many witnesses,, 
 and at that ceremony a permanent mark was made on the servant, 
 by his consent, and by the master's hand. Whether service so 
 secured lasted only until the jubilee year, or for the man's whole life, 
 does not appear from the context. 
 
 It should be remembered that, in those days, there were no legal 
 written documents, and therefore all legal proceedings were con- 
 ducted publicly before witnesses, as is illustrated in the negotiations 
 of Boaz (Ruth iv. 1-12). 
 
 An interesting illustration of marking ownership by the boring of 
 the ear may be met with on Dartmoor. The cattle from the neigh- 
 bouring farms are sent, at certain seasons, to graze on the open 
 unfenced moorlands. There they are placed in the charge of certain 
 herdmen, who receive a tax for each animal, and, on receipt of the 
 tax-money, bore the ear of the animal, inserting, and fastening to the 
 ear, a strand of wool. On certain occasions all the cattle are driven 
 together into an enclosed space or pound ; there they are examined, 
 and all found without the mark in the ear are charged with the tax. 
 
 Another illustration of sealing service by a ceremony may be found 
 in the recruit's public reception of a shilling from the recruiting sergeant. 
 
 The Psalmist uses this requirement of the ancient law as a figure 
 "or entire life-devotion to the service oi God. It may even express 
 :he full consecration of Messiah to His Father's will. (See Psalm 
 d 6; Heb. x. 5.) 
 
1 83 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Bind the Sacrifice to the Horns. 
 
 Ps\LM cxviii. 27 : ' Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of t 
 altar.' 
 
 Question. Does this require something fresh, or is there a reft 
 ence to some ordinary custom ? 
 
 Answer. The verse is differently translated by Luther, Tholuc 
 and others, who render ' adorn the feast with leaves,' or * bind on tl 
 feast-day branches,' as was usual on the feast of Tabernacles (Le 
 xxiii. 40). It may be observed that the heathen used to strew the 
 altars with green herbs and flowers, particularly vervain. The be 
 authorities, however, support the common interpretation ; but tl 
 meaning of the passage is variously given. 
 
 Speakers Commentary : l Bind the victim with cords, and lei 
 it to the altar, to the very horns, to one of which the victim w 
 fastened.' 
 
 Ainsworth : 4 Unto the horns, /.*., all the court over until yc 
 come even to the horns^. of the altar, intending hereby many sac: 
 fices or boughs.' 
 
 Delitzsch thinks the sacrifices were, on this occasion, so many th 
 they were tied up all over the priests' court, right up to the horns 
 the altar. The psalm was composed for the dedication of the Secor 
 Temple. 
 
 Matthew Henry says : * Bind the sacrifice with cords, that, beir 
 killed, the blood of it may be sprinkled upon the horns of the alta 
 according to the law ; or perhaps it was the custom (though we res 
 not of it elsewhere) to bind the sacrifice to the horns of the alta 
 while things were getting ready for the slaying of it.' 
 
 Jennings and Lowe say : * " Unto the horns " should be " as far as 
 What is meant by binding the sacrificial victim as far as the alta 
 horns is uncertain. The altar in Herod's Temple had, according t 
 the Mishnah, a number of brazen rings on the north side, to whic 
 the animals were secured. Presuming that such rings were arrange 
 one above another up to the projecting horns on the summit of tfc 
 altar, we might interpret this passage to mean that all oi" them, froi 
 the lowest upward, would have to be employed by reason of th 
 multitude of victims. But we do not know that there were sue 
 rings on the altar of Zerubbabel's Temple.' 
 
 Perhaps Bishop Wordsworth finds the most probable explanatio 
 of the passage. * The Hebrew word chag, translated sacrifice, literail 
 means a feast-day. Probably the word is adopted here, because th 
 expression is a figurative one. We do not hear that the sacrifice 
 
THE USE OF THE EPHOD. 189 
 
 re bound literally to the horns of the altar, on which the blood 
 s sprinkled (Ex. xxix. 16; Lev. iv. 7 ; viii. 15 ; ix. 9). Nor does 
 appear to have been possible that the immense number of victims 
 ered on the day of dedication (see Ezra vi. 17) could have been 
 bound. The Targum, indeed, explains the words as meaning, 
 Bring the sacrifice bound until it arrives at the horns of the altar." 
 it the sense seems to be : Bind the festival of dedication to the 
 ar of God that is, Let the joys of all Israelites be concentrated as 
 
 1 joys of one man in a great national act of thankful communion 
 d self-consecration to God. Let the people of God be no more 
 )arated from one another by schism, as they were by the severance 
 Israel from Judah ; let them no more be scattered, as they were in 
 ; Assyrian and Babylonish captivity ; but let them all be bound to 
 e centre of unity the altar of God.' 
 
 In view of this explanation of the expression as a figurative one, 
 ire is no need for inquiries concerning ancient customs of binding 
 :rifices to altars, or for the assumption that any new practice was 
 joined. The passage is best treated as a poetical figure. 
 
 The Use of the Ephod. 
 
 EXODUS xxviti. 6, 7 : ' And they shall make the ephod of gold, of blue, and of 
 pie, of scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cunning work. It shall have the 
 
 > shoulderpieces thereof joined at the two edges thereof, and so shall it be 
 led together.' 
 
 Difficulty. In the use of the Ephod was not miraculous virtue 
 
 ached to a thing ? 
 
 Explanation. The Ephod consisted of two pieces of cloth, 
 
 2 for the back, and the other for the front, joined together by 
 >ulder-straps. Below the arms, probably just above the hips, the 
 
 > pieces were kept in place by a band attached to one of the 
 ces. 
 
 Ewald very carefully describes the Ephod, and suggests both the 
 )ng and the right uses to which it was put. Writing of the high 
 est's robe, he adds : 'Over this long robe a short covering for the 
 mlders was worn, and this was the first thing which was distinc- 
 tly sacerdotal. It was a sort of short mantle, termed an Ephod 
 lame which originally signified the same as mantle or covering- 
 th, but which now occurs only in a sacerdotal sense. It simply 
 isisted of two shoulder-flaps, i.e., of cloth, without sleeves, which 
 'ered little more than the two shoulders, and did not hang down 
 ch below them either before or behind. It simply surmounted, 
 j an ornament, the long robe, from which it seemed almost in- 
 
190 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 separable. The two pieces of which it consisted, however, were no 
 separated somewhere under the shoulders, but on the breast anc 
 back. At the top, the ends were only slightly connected together 
 Below, however, they were held together by a girdle, which was 
 certainly very broad, and a main feature of the attire, and withou 
 which the state covering would not be assumed. It was different ir 
 kind from the girdle of the plain costume, and bore quite anothei 
 name ; it certainly had not the hanging ends, and resembled rathei 
 a mere broad band. A covering for the shoulders such as this migrr 
 also be worn by other priests . . . any priest, or even any mar 
 invested with sacerdotal dignity, might wear on his shoulders such i 
 garment made of plain linen. Somewhere about the middle, on ttu 
 front side of this covering for the shoulders, was attached the ba 
 which in later times has become the least comprehensible article of tru 
 high priest's adornment. This bag was the receptacle of the Urirr 
 and Thummim. . . . We know, from the early days when the oracl( 
 of the high priest was in great repute, not only that the lot was usec 
 to finally settle disputes, but that it was regarded as something 
 dependent on heavenly influence. Probably two or three pebbles o 
 different colours were shaken as lots in the " bosom," or bag, and one 
 of them drawn out.' 
 
 Eivald helps us to understand the Hebrew associations of th( 
 Ephod by his account of the Teraphim, or household images. These 
 domestic deities were employed from the earliest times to furnisr 
 oracles, so that the word Teraphim is absolutely identical witl 
 oracular divinity. For this purpose the first addition to the image 
 was an ephod, i.e., a magnificent robe put over the shoulders 
 having on its breast a casket containing the lots employed in deter 
 mining the oracle. In the second place, a kind of mask was placec 
 over the head of the image, in which the priest who was seeking tru 
 oracle probably had to perceive by sundry tokens whether the goc 
 was willing or not to give an oracle at all at that particular time 
 These masks alone made the image properly complete, and frorr 
 them the divinities received their name of Teraphim.' 
 
 The passages in which the use of the Ephod needs particular ex 
 planation are the following : Judges viii. 27, which narrates Gideon'* 
 making of an ephod, but which evidently means an image clothec 
 with an ephod. Judges xvii. 5, which says : ' The man Micah hac 
 an house of gods, and made an ephod and teraphim, and consecratec 
 one of his sons, who became his priest.' Here the ephod is clearl) 
 the equivalent of oracle. And i Sam. xxiii. 9, which tells of Davic 
 calling upon Abiathar to * bring hither the ephod,' evidently that he 
 
NEBUCHADNEZZAR S DREAM. 191 
 
 might inquire of it, as of an oracle. Sometimes * those that wear the 
 cphod ' is employed as a figure for the priestly, or consecrated, class. 
 It appears that in this God graciously met the common notions 
 concerning oracles, as modes of communicating the Divine will, but 
 put the oracular power into strict conditions, confining it to the high 
 priest, and to him as fully arrayed in his sacerdotal garments. Com- 
 pare, for illustration, the notion of the Pope's infallibility, ex cathedra. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's Dream. 
 
 DANIEL ii. 31 : ' Thou, O king, sawest. and behold a great image. This great 
 image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee ; and the form thereof 
 was terrible.' 
 
 Question. On what principle of interpretation can this image be 
 explained? 
 
 Answer. The first endeavour must be to understand it as a 
 Divine communication made to Nebuchadnezzar, and bearing direct 
 relation to himself and to his kingdom. Through the first and 
 immediate purpose of a prophetic revelation alone can we hope 
 to apprehend its final and more spiritual applications. 
 
 Rule vigorously describes the figure which Nebuchadnezzar saw, 
 4 Imagine the colossus towering erect and high, not in a temple, but 
 in an open field. The torso would be firmly upright, the arms close 
 to the sides, with the forearms laid on the thighs closed together, and 
 the hands resting on the knees. The throne would be a solid block 
 of iron or stone. The legs close or very near together, so as to be 
 in one piece of iron, and the feet of iron and iron mixed with clay. 
 There was a solemn air of united strength and majesty which no 
 figure less compactly seated could present. 3 
 
 To Nebuchadnezzar, with his extravagant notions of the grandeur 
 and stability of the kingdom of which he was the head, the vision was 
 a solemn warning, and an assertion of the superior authority and 
 power of the Most High God, who removes nations at His pleasure. 
 We can see three things which would impress the mind of the king. 
 i. It was then usual to symbolize the power of nations by a human 
 figure ; so the image would represent the Babylonian Empire. 2. 
 The succession of ages was represented by different metals, regarded 
 as characteristic of the genius or temper of the age ; so Nebuchad- 
 nezzar could understand that the immediately succeeding dynasties were 
 referred to, and he must have been depressed by the evident coming 
 deterioration of the empire down to clay. But (3) the point of his 
 trouble was the speedy destruction of the empire by some influence, 
 which was figured as a sione. This would be, to a Babylonian, sym- 
 
i 9 2 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 bolical of a destruction by that which was, to him, indestructible. 
 Every edifice, palace, and temple was almost entirely built of brick ; 
 stone was rare. Costly and magnificent as the buildings were, yet 
 from the very nature of their materials they could make but little 
 resistance to time and force. So this image, composed of composite 
 elements, could make no stand against that indestructible power 
 which ' smote to pieces.' 
 
 When the first reference to Nebuchadnezzar is firmly and clearly 
 fixed, and the Divine purpose to assert the Divine superiority and 
 absolute rule over all nations is recognised, some attempt may be 
 made to associate the history of the times with the parts of the 
 figure. It is only necessary to remark that, in too minutely fixing 
 prophetic details, the great primary objects of prophetic vision are 
 too often missed. We need to learn, in a thousand varied forms, the 
 lesson here taught the Babylonian king that no man, and no nation, 
 can ever lift itself above, or swing itself free from, the control of the 
 Most High God. The stone made without hands smashes to destruc- 
 tion all earthly creations that only declare the glory of man. 
 
 Offering Strange Fire. 
 
 LEVITICUS x. I : 'And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of 
 them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange 
 fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not.' 
 
 Difficulty. Precisely in what did the sin of these young priests 
 consist ? 
 
 Explanation. For the laws relating to the fire used for kindling 
 incense, etc., see Exod. xxx. 7-9 ; Lev. i. 7 ; vi. 12 ; ix. 24 ; xvi. 12. 
 The following suggestions have been made : i. The fire used by the 
 young priests was not taken from the altar. 2. The incense they used 
 was not mixed according to the law given in Exod. xxx. 34-38. 
 3. The incense was offered at unusual and unauthorized times. 4. 
 The young priests had lost their self-control through indulgence in 
 drink. This suggestion is based upon the fact that counsels respect- 
 ing the priests' use of wine follow immediately upon the narration of 
 this incident, as if they had been suggested by it. 5. Jamieson thinks 
 it involved their going into the Holy of Holies, and this only the 
 high priest might do. 6. Bishop Wordsworth says : * They were 
 exalted above measure, and tried to free themselves from the ordinary 
 rules of the priesthood ; and possibly their self-willed conduct was due 
 to the excitation of wine.' 
 
 Help towards an understanding of the incident may be found by 
 comparing it with two cases occurring in later periods. When David 
 
OFFERING STRANGE FIRE. 193 
 
 made a first attempt to bring up the ark to Jerusalem from the house 
 of Obed-Edom, Uzzah paid the penalty for failure in precise obedience 
 to the details of Divine command, and was suddenly smitten, to 
 warn David and his people that it can never be acceptable to God 
 for us to obey Him in our way. We must obey Him in His way, 
 and with exact and minute observance of His instructions. 
 
 The other case is that of Ananias and Sapphira, who were within 
 their rights in their mere act, but were wrong in heart, motive, and 
 purpose, and paid the penalty which surely follows upon self-willed- 
 ness and insincerity. 
 
 Uzzah, and Ananias with Sapphira, perished partly on account of 
 their sin, but partly also as a solemn public warning of the Davidic 
 and the early Christian Churches ; and the same appears to be true of 
 Nadab and Abihu. They were smitten for their sin, but they were 
 also smitten, as is pointed out in verse 3, in order that, before all the 
 people, God might be glorified ; as a sense of His demand for careful 
 tind precise obedience rested upon them. 
 
 There are no materials given us for a certain decision concerning 
 the formal act ot sin in Nadab's case. The explanations offered are, 
 at best, but guesses. We may be satisfied to know that it was some 
 evident informality, some failure to observe the authorised details of 
 ritual. 
 
 We can clearly see that, whether from the excitement of a long 
 and anxious public day, or from a too free use of wine, the young 
 men yielded to the temptation to self-importance and self-will. They 
 set what they thought best over against what God had commanded. 
 Whatever their particular act was, it revealed their spirit. They were 
 failing from the simple, trustful, unquestioning obedience which was 
 pledged in the Covenant. And their failure was so much the worse 
 because they were set in prominent positions, and should have been 
 examples. Their act dishonoured Jehovah before the people, and a 
 solemn vindication of God's claim to absolute obedience became 
 necessary. 
 
 The record has been kept to carry this lesson to us : Good moral 
 training of men or of children involves strong dealing with the first 
 and smallest defections from perfect obedience. Neither God nor they 
 Tvho, in their authority, ought to be like Him, can safely pass by wilful 
 disobedience in little things. 
 
T 9 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The Den of Lions. 
 
 DANIEL vi. 16 : ' Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, anc 
 cast him into the den of lions.' 
 
 Question. Are there any evidences, in Babylonish history, of t Jit 
 custom of keeping lions ? 
 
 Answer. Layard says that in Babylonia the lion was and still. 
 is common (Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 136, 271, 288); and pro 
 bably many were kept in dens in the parks or preserves attached to 
 the royal palaces. Smith's Biblical Dictionary says, ' The kings ol 
 Persia had a menagerie of lions. When captured alive they were put 
 in a cage (Ezek. xix. 9), but it does not appear that they were tamed. 
 In the hunting scenes at Beni-Hassan tame lions are represented as 
 used in hunting (Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt, iii. 17). On the bas- 
 reliefs at Kouyunjik a lion led by a chain is among the presents 
 brought by the conquered to their victors (Layard, Nineveh ana 
 Babylon, p. 138). 
 
 Kitto speaks of the punishment of casting into the lions' den as being 
 unique, so far as we know, and found only in Babylon. He adds, 
 ' It is remarkable, that the only piece of Oriental antiquity in which 
 anything like a lions' den appears, is in a coin of Babylon. One oi 
 the very few pieces of sculpture found at Babylon, however, repre- 
 sents a lion standing over the prostrate body of a man. An engraved 
 den also represents a man combating with or subduing two lions ; and 
 at Shus (Susa), not far from the tomb of Daniel, a bas-relief has been 
 found, representing two lions, each with a paw upon the head of a 
 man half-naked, with his hands bound behind him.' * The region of 
 the Lower Euphrates and the Tigris is now the most westerly part of 
 Asia in which lions remain. We, indeed, never saw one ourselves, 
 but we have conversed with those who did ; and we have seen the 
 tracts of their feet ; have been at the mouths of their dens, formed in 
 the mounds of ancient ruins of the age of Nebuchadnezzar, and 
 strewed all around with the bones and portions of the hides of sheep, 
 camels, and other animals ; and we have been present where their 
 roars were heard.' 
 
 No precise description of the dens in which lions were kept can be 
 obtained, but a general idea can be obtained from the following des- 
 cription of a lions' den at Fez, in Morocco, into which Jews and 
 State prisoners were often thrown. 'The lions' den was a large 
 quadrangular hole in the ground, divided by a partition into two 
 chambers. This partition has a door, which can be opened and shut 
 
1HE DEN OF LIONS. 195 
 
 from above. The keepers of the lions throw food into the one divi- 
 sion, and so entice the lions thither ; then they shut the door from 
 above, and clean the other division. The whole is under the open 
 sky, and is only encircled with a wall, over which people can look 
 down and in. The Sultan sometimes has men cast in.' 
 
 Possibly, if the den was of this kind, the sealed stone which was 
 set up may have been placed before the usual entrance of the 
 keepers. Their way of entrance might otherwise have been Daniel's 
 way of escape. 
 
 An interesting proof that lion-hunting was a royal sport in Assyria 
 is given by the late Mr. George Smith, who visited the Louvre, and 
 examined the Assyrian collection there. He writes : * In the 
 Assyrian hall, guarded by the great winged bulls at either entrance, 
 are also some sculptures of Assur-bani-pal the Sardanapalus of the 
 Greeks. One of them exhibits an adventure which happened to him 
 when hunting. The monarch and his attendants had gone forth in 
 chase of the king of beasts, when probably while they were beat- 
 ing for their game a lion rushed out of the cover, and sprang 
 toward the king. Assur-bani-pal, who had dismounted, met the 
 enraged animal single-handed, and taking hold of him by the ear, 
 ran his spear through the body, and despatched him. The scene is 
 depicted with great spirit, and the inscription over it reads as 
 follows : " I, Assur-bani-pal, by my courage on my feet, a powerful 
 lion of the desert by his ear grasped, and in the service of Assur and 
 Ishtar, the goddesses of war, with my spear I pierced through his 
 body.'" 
 
 The ancient Egyptians used to tame lions and employ them for 
 hunting purposes, and their monarchs are said to have been accom- 
 panied in battle by a favourite lion. 
 
 The Claim of the Daughters of Zelophehad. 
 
 NUMBERS xxvii. i-n : 'Why should the name of our father be done away from 
 among his family, because he hath no son ? Give unto us therefore a possession 
 among the brethren of our father' (ver. 4). 
 
 Difficulty. Can there properly be exceptions even to Divine 
 rules ?. 
 
 Explanation. Eastern people make much of the preservation 
 of the family name in a line of sons ; and Moses did but fit in 
 with received notions, when he made property in the Holy Land 
 descend only in the male line. It was a rule that usually worked 
 well, but it pressed in an exceptionally hard way in particular 
 cases. 
 
 132 
 
196 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 This case is one of great interest. Zelophehad died in the wilder- 
 ness, but not in any way of judgment upon his unfaithfulness to the 
 Covenant. If he had been one who took part, for instance, in the 
 rebellion of Korah, his daughters would have pleaded in vain against 
 the forfeiture of his property. Those daughters were placed in a 
 difficulty which was not complicated by any side considerations. 
 They simply had no brother to hold the family property, and 
 carry on the family name, and they were in peril of becoming 
 penniless, and dependent on charity, by the passing of their father's 
 property to another branch of the family. They were women of 
 energy and decision, and they pleaded for an exception in their case 
 to the ordinary working of Divinely appointed rule. 
 
 In view of the Eastern sentiment about women, their request 
 excites surprise. We cannot wonder that Moses felt he must take 
 the matter directly to God. The response was a gracious modifica- 
 tion of the Divine rule ; and an important step in the elevation of 
 women. 
 
 With permission to hold their father's estate these women stood in 
 the position of heiresses, and later rules for the marriages of such 
 persons are given in chapter xxxvi. Probably the person marrying 
 the eldest daughter would take the rights and name of the eldest son. 
 
 Fathers seem to have had the power to will portions of their 
 estates to their daughters, but Zelophehad had evidently been cut off 
 in some sudden way, without making proper arrangements for his 
 family, who were left in something of the disability of families now-a- 
 days, when a parent dies without leaving a will. 
 
 The response which Moses was authorized to make in this case 
 clearly illustrates that all rules, human and Divine, must be formu- 
 lated to meet the general condition. But human and Divine rules 
 must accept the special situations made by calamity, self-will, etc., and 
 so must have precise adaptations. In Divine as well as human 
 spheres the old saying is in great measure true, that 'Exceptions 
 prove the rule.' 
 
 The Use of Trees at a Siege. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY xx. 19, 20: * When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in 
 making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing 
 an axe against them : for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them 
 down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege. Only 
 the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy 
 and cut them down ; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh 
 war with thee, until it be subdued.' 
 
 Difficulty. Seeing that the wood of ordinary fruit trees is of 
 little use for building purposes, was this injunction necessary ? 
 
THE USE OF TREES AT A SIEGE. 197 
 
 Explanation. So great would be the demand for supplies of 
 wood in a prolonged siege conducted on ancient methods, that 
 there would be danger of the ruthless destruction of trees of every 
 kind. The framework, under the shelter of which the soldiers 
 fought, was made roughly of wood-work ; so were the battering rams ; 
 and also the towers, from the top of which stones and arrows could 
 be cast. As the purposes of the besiegers were only temporary any 
 kind of wood would do ; and in the excitement of warfare, soldiers 
 never stay to estimate the permanent value of the things they seize 
 and destroy. 
 
 Eastern people are more directly dependent for food upon the 
 fruit-trees than Western people are. The olive, vine, fig, etc., are 
 staple articles ; and the trees which bear such fruits are a long time in 
 coming to maturity. So the thoughtless destruction of them entails 
 suffering and distress for years after the siege is ended ; and the 
 conquerors may themselves have to bear the disability. 
 
 The passage has a special interest as illustrating the mercifulness 
 Df the Mosaic system, and the early recognition of the necessity for 
 nitigating the horrors and the evil consequences of war. It is but 
 .he loss of one year's labour if the harvest of the fields is swept away ; 
 )ut to destroy the matured fruit-trees is to destroy the harvests of 
 nany years. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth gives the literal translation of the passage thus : 
 ' When thou shalt besiege a city for many days in fighting against 
 t to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees by forcing an axe against 
 hem ; for thou shalt eat of them, and shalt not cut them down, for 
 nan is the tree of the field, to go from thy face to the siege ' * that 
 3, man, fed and strengthened by the fruit-trees, can go from thy 
 ace to the siege, and take the city, which the trees without man's 
 iclp cannot do, and he cannot help if he have not food.' 
 
 On the passage Wordsworth further says : * Perhaps the true 
 leaning is this : Thou art engaged, it may be, in besieging a city ; 
 nd thou art wearied with the siege, which has lasted a long time ; 
 et do not be thereby tempted to cut down the fruit-trees, for thou 
 halt eat of them ; they shall keep thee to continue the siege, and to 
 ring it to a successful issue ; and in this way, by supplying food, 
 lese fruit-trees will be of much more use than they would be by 
 eing used as timber in trie siege ; for the timber of trees is of little 
 se, if men faint in the siege for want of food, and cannot therefore 
 se the timber of the trees for any good effect.' 
 In India, and other warm countries, where the people live very much 
 i fruit, the destruction of a fruit-tree is considered a sort of sacrilege. 
 
198 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 The Day for waving the Harvest Sheaf. 
 
 LEVITICUS xxiii. II : 'And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be 
 accepted for you : on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.' 
 
 Difficulty. Was this a fixed day> or was it the day when the 
 yearns first-fruits were gathered? 
 
 Explanation. The matter is fully dealt with in the Speaker's 
 Commentary, and from it the following notes are taken. The 
 opinion of Wogue seems, on the whole, most worthy of acceptance. 
 
 ' The words " on the morrow after the Sabbath " denote the 
 1 6th Abib, the day after the first day of Holy Convocation, and this 
 was called the Sabbath of the Passover, or the Sabbath of Unleavened 
 Bread. The word "Sabbath" is similarly applied to the Day of Atone- 
 ment in verse 32. That the day in which the sheaf was offered was 
 the 1 6th of the month, and the "Sabbath" here spoken of was the i5th, 
 is in accordance with the LXX., Philo, Josephus, the Mishna, the 
 Targums, and the Rabbinists in general. The reason of the offering 
 being made on this particular day may have been that the catting of 
 the sheaf formed a part of the ceremony ; and, as the formal com- 
 mencement of the practical work of harvest (cf. Deut. xvi. 9), it was 
 less suitable for the day of Holy Convocation than for the first of the 
 days of less solemn observance, on which, according to Jewish tradi- 
 tion, ordinary work was permitted under certain limitations. There 
 has, however, been a difference of opinion regarding the day from 
 early times. The Karaite Jews, and the Sadducees before them, 
 held that the name Sabbath could denote nothing but the weekly 
 Sabbath, in this place as well as in verse 15. They therefore held that 
 the day here spoken of was the weekly Sabbath which happened to 
 fall within the week of the Passover. It has been imagined in recent 
 times that the commencement of the year and the time of the feast 
 were so arranged that the day of the Paschal Supper, the i4th of Abib, 
 and the last day of the feast, the 2ist, coincided with the weekly 
 Sabbath (Hitzig, Hupfeld, Knobel, Kurtz). On this hypothesis, the 
 sheaf was offered either on the 22nd of the month, after the conclu- 
 sion of the feast (Hitzig, Hupfeld), or on the ith that is, the first 
 day of Holy Convocation (Knobel, Kurtz). But this arrangement 
 would involve a disturbance of the year, which would end with a 
 broken week, and a still more serious dislocation of the Sabbath-day 
 by no means consistent with its peculiar sanctity, unless we adopt 
 the very unreasonable supposition that the Hebrew year consisted 
 of twelve months of exactly four weeks. Woue suggests that the 
 
PILLOWS AND ARMHOLES. 199 
 
 day of the ceremony was not determined with any fixed relation to the 
 Passover, but that it was the day following the Sabbath whenever 
 the barley happened to be ripe, according as the season was later or 
 earlier.' 
 
 Pillows and Armholes. 
 
 EZEKIEL xiii. 18 : *Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and 
 make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls.' 
 
 Difficulty. What strange customs are upbraided in this passage ? 
 
 Explanation. We note that the margin for 'armholes' is 
 'elbows'; and that the 'kerchiefs' are what we know as 'veils.' 
 
 The verse is part of a denunciation of faise prophetesses. Such 
 persons arose in the later and decaying days of Judaism, and their 
 existence as a class was a proof of national declension into heathen 
 usages. These prophetesses are here described by their characteristic 
 .appearance and rites. A peculiar kerchief or veil was worn to make 
 them seem more mysterious and awful : and women of different 
 height or stature put on these veils. Compare T. Moore's poem, in 
 La I la Rookh, the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan. 
 
 Some render the word ' pillows ' as * cases,' and suppose it refers to 
 cases of leather or parchment containing amulets or charms attached 
 to the sleeves. The word rendered ' armholes ' literally means 'joints 
 of the two hands,' but the same word is used in Jer. xxxviii. 12 
 for armpits, which seems to be also the meaning in the passage 
 before us. 
 
 The Speakers Commentary gives the three possible explanations : 
 * i. Most ancient interpreters, and many modern ones, have under- 
 stood the pillows and kerchiefs, or whatever else these words may 
 denote, as appliances to which the sorcerers had resort in order to 
 -attract notice. Among these interpreters there has been much differ- 
 ence whether pillows were used for padding or for ornament, or 
 whether amulets and charms were not the things put on whether 
 these pillows or charms were worn on the shoulder, the elbow, or the 
 wrist whether again they put on a peculiar head-dress, or a veil, or 
 a mantle, or even a band round the neck. But these questions, for 
 the solution of which we have no certain data, are really immaterial. 
 It is the purpose, not the exact nature, of the appliances with which 
 we have to do. 
 
 ' 2. Others taking the pillows and kerchiefs, or, as they would say, 
 .neck-cushions, to be used figuratively, conceive that here a rebuke is 
 intended to such as lull God's people to false security by whispering 
 peace where there is no peace. Thcodoret (quoted by Rosenmuller) 
 
200 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 well expresses this view. " By these words are reproved in a figure 
 smooth and easy addresses. For soft cushions for the neck or for 
 the arms bring indeed to the limbs which they support a certain kind 
 of rest and relief, and so smooth addresses, being at the same time, 
 false, for a season indeed tickle the ear, but in the end weaken and 
 distort the soul." But this explanation is forced and unnatural. 
 
 * 3. Hdvernick sees in the passage a reference, not to the modes o 
 divining, but to the licentious habits of these women luring men to 
 their ruin, like the strange woman in Prov. vi., vii. According to him 
 the pillows are the soft cushions which they arrange upon their beds 
 of luxury ; the kerchief s^ or rather ' veils/ are the rich attire with which- 
 they deck themselves to catch men.' 
 
 Wordsworth proposes an entirely new translation. ' Woe to the 
 women that sew coverings upon all joints of My hands ;' that is, ' who 
 muffle up the joints of My hands, when I stretch them out in retribu- 
 tion, and who endeavour to hide My arms, which I make bare to 
 punish My people.' 
 
 Gadsby, illustrating the passage, notes that in Eastern houses there 
 are often most luxurious arrangements made. ' Many indulge them- 
 selves by having soft pillows under their armpits, in addition to those 
 against the wall, when they " stretch themselves upon their couches." 
 These pillows, or cushions, are often made, sewn, by the women of 
 the harem.' Gadsby thinks the kerchiefs were 'charms', such as- 
 small shells strung together, and worn as amulets. 
 
 The Revised Version makes a small change in the first sentence 
 only, reading : ' Woe to the women that sew pillows upon all elbows ;' 
 putting in the margin, as an alternative reading, 'joints of the 
 hands.' 
 
 Jewish Conceptions of Cherubim. 
 
 GENESIS iii. 24 : ' And He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims,, 
 and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.' 
 
 Question. Are these beings to be conceived by the help of later and 
 fewish representations of cherubim ? 
 
 Answer. It is better to treat this passage as an instance of 
 symbolical teaching, and not attempt to fix a definite form and shape 
 to the beings introduced in it. Its use is to impress on the reader 
 the activity of that aspect of the Divine being which is revealed in 
 this judgment on our self-willed ancestors. These cherubs are the 
 active ministrants of the Divine justice. God vindicating Himself, 
 and guarding His Divine rights, is apprehended by man as cherubic 
 figures keeping the way of the tree of life. 
 
JEWISH CONCEPTIONS OF CHERUBIM. 201 
 
 This symbolic meaning appears later on as attached to these 
 beings. Figures of them were placed on either side of the cover of 
 the Ark, which was regarded as the 'mercy-seat.' It maybe said 
 that the original meaning of them, the meaning retained and adapted 
 in all later representations of them, was this they were the minis- 
 trants of that justice which ever guards God's mercy. 
 
 ' This at least is taught us by the cherubim guarding the way to 
 the tree of life. Paradise had been lost by sin ; but it was not gone 
 for ever. The tree of life, and the garden where it grew, were still 
 in full glory under the keeping of God, and of His holy angels. The 
 forfeited life is not irrecoverable ; but it can only be recovered 
 through fighting and conquest, suffering and death. There were 
 between it and man the ministers of righteous vengeance and the 
 flaming sword.' 
 
 Josephus says that 'no one can conjecture of what kind the 
 cherubim were/ God's throne is His mercy-seat; but He dwells 
 between the cherubim. Surely this is meant to impress on us that 
 His mercy is under the guardianship of His righteousness. 
 
 1 That the sacred tree of Assyria is sometimes guarded by genii is 
 a coincidence with the Bible narrative, which tells of God's placing 
 cherubim " before " Eden, " and a flaming sword, which turned every 
 way to keep the way of the tree of life." These mysterious beings 
 are often mentioned in Scripture. They covered the mercy-seat 
 with their outspread wings ; they were represented on the walls of 
 the Temple of Solomon, in the Holy of Holies, and they appear in 
 the visions of Ezekiel. The tradition of their presence in Eden 
 impressed itself deeply on the popular mind in Assyria, reappearing 
 age after age in such forms as the winged bulls with human faces, 
 which guarded the entrances to the Palace of Nineveh. "The 
 watchful bull, which protects the strength of my kingdom, and the 
 glory of my honour," says Esar-Haddon, in an inscription which refers 
 to one of them. Nor is it less striking that they bear the very name 
 of Cherubim or Kerubi, even the gates which they watched coming 
 in the end to be similarly called. That they were regarded as at 
 least symbols of mysterious higher existences, able to protect and 
 preserve what was put under their care, is evident from their place 
 being sometimes occupied by known divinities, and by the fact that a 
 bas-relief, representing the erection of one, under the direction of 
 King Sennacherib, bears on it, after the Divine symbol, the words, 
 the bull," "the god."' 
 
.302 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Coals of Juniper. 
 
 PSALM cxx. 4 ; * Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.' 
 Difficulty. What is meant by this expression, and how can it be 
 applied to the false deceitful tongue? (see verse, 2, 3.) 
 
 Explanation. The marginal reading treats verse 4 as an expo- 
 sition of what the influence of the * false tongue ' is, and proposes to 
 Tead, * It is as the sharp arrows of the mighty man, with coals of 
 juniper.' 
 
 Writing of the juniper, Thomson, Land and Book, p. 6n, says: 
 * What sort of juniper roots can be used for food is more than I can 
 discover or comprehend. They are excessively bitter, and nothing 
 but the fire will devour them. Burckhardt found the Bedawin of 
 Sinai burning them into coal, and says that they make the best char- 
 -coal, and throw out the most intense heat.' 
 
 As the arrows of a ' false tongue ' sharply pierce, so the coals of a 
 4 false tongue ' sharply burn. 
 
 Some writers treat verse 4 as an answer to the question, * What shall 
 foe done unto thee ?' and regard the * arrows' and the 'coals' as figu- 
 rative descriptions of the Divine punishments that must come upon 
 the slanderous tongue. This view may be given in the words of 
 Jennings and Lowe. 'The root of the broom (rethem, Hebrew, 
 rotheni) is still much used by the Arabs for charcoal ; it appears to 
 have been noted among the Hebrews as retaining heat longer than other 
 fuel : All (other) coals when they are quenched outside are quenched 
 inside, but these become quenched outside but not inside.' Ab. Ezra. 
 The conjunction of coals with arrows here does not warrant a 
 reference to malleoli, or flaming arrows ; rather, God is conceived of 
 <(cf. xviii. 12) as casting down actual coals of fire from heaven, upon 
 the heads of these persons.' This is quite the better, and more 
 probable, explanation. 
 
 The ' Cherem,' or Devoted Thing. 
 
 LEVITICUS xxvii. 28, 29 : ' Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall 
 devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field 
 of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed : every devoted thing is most holy 
 unto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed ; 
 but shall surely be put to death.' 
 
 Question. Can this law of devotemcnt reasonably excuse the de 
 .st ruction of human life? 
 
 Answer. While the sanctity of human life is the very foundation 
 of social morality, allegiance to God is a higher rule than it, and in 
 
THE I CHEREM; OR DEVOTED THING. 203 
 
 any case of conflict, human life must yield, rather than the allegiance 
 to God. This relation of the two great rules for humanity is but out- 
 wardly expressed in the law of ' devotement' 
 
 It is unfortunate that the term cursed, or a curse, should be used 
 for the devoted thing. The proper meaning of the cherem is that 
 which is cut off from common use, and given up, in some sense, 
 to Jehovah, without the right of recall or commutation. Any live 
 creature so devoted was to be put to death, as the only way in which 
 it could be given wholly life and all to Jehovah. 
 
 The expectation is, that every vow of devotement should be 
 seriously, thoughtfully, and reverently made, as an act of loyalty and 
 devotion to God. Such rash vows as were made by Saul after 
 Jonathan's victory, or by Jephthah in the matter of his daughter, 
 receive no Scripture commendations ; and differ altogether from the 
 destruction of the people of Jericho, or Samuel's hewing Agag in 
 pieces before the Lord. 
 
 This subject will be found treated in another section, as presenting 
 a moral difficulty. 
 
 The Trial of Jealousy. 
 
 NUMBERS v. 29, 30 : 'This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to 
 another, instead of her husband and is defiled : or when the spirit of jealousy 
 cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before 
 the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.' 
 
 Difficulty. Does not this arrangement involve the Divine 
 .approval of trial by ordeal ? 
 
 Explanation. It does. And it brings up before us several very 
 interesting and important considerations, such as : i. The necessity 
 for an adjustment of rules, punishments, and methods of judgment, 
 to the intellectual and social condition, and the moral sentiments, of 
 each particular age. Manifestly modes of administering justice should 
 not be the same in heathen, in tribal, in national, and in civilized 
 societies. And that may be permissible and best in a superstitious 
 -age, which could have no place at all in a scientific one. 2. The 
 degree in which the Mosaic system was dependent upon existing 
 customs, and, while adopting them, modified them, and corrected the 
 evil which was found, practically, to attach to them. (Another 
 instance of this is the Mosaic modification of the Eastern system of 
 committing the avengement of murder to the nearest relative of the 
 murdered man). 3. The way in which ' trial by ordeal ' has answered 
 its end, not by the test of the ordeal, but by the appeal it made to 
 the conscience of the person submitted to it. 
 
204 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 There is also the further interesting but subtle question of the 
 connection of the conscience with the nervous system, and so with 
 health and disease. 
 
 Jamieson has the following good and sufficient note on this trial 
 by jealousy. * Adultery discovered and proved was punished with 
 death. But strongly suspected cases would occur, and this law made 
 provision for the conviction of the guilty person. It was, however, 
 not a trial conducted according to the forms of judicial process, 
 but an ordeal through which a suspected adulteress was made to 
 go the ceremony being of that terrifying nature, that on the 
 known principles of human nature, guilt or innocence could not 
 fail to appear. From the earliest times, the jealousy of Eastern 
 people has established ordeals for the detection and punishment of 
 suspected unchastity in wives. The practice was deeply rooted as 
 well as universal. And it has been thought that the Israelites being 
 strongly biassed in favour of such usages, this law of jealousies was 
 incorporated amongst the other institutions of the Mosaic economy, 
 in order to free it from the idolatrous rites which the heathen had 
 blended with it.' 
 
 ' The process prescribed has been lately strikingly illustrated from 
 the Egyptian "Romance. of Setnau," translated by Brugsch, which 
 though itself comparatively modern (of the third century B.C.), yet 
 refers to the time of Rameses the Great, and may therefore well serve 
 to illustrate the manners and customs of the Mosaic period. " In 
 the story, Ptahneferka takes a leaf of papyrus, and on it copies out 
 every word of a certain magic formula. He then dissolves the 
 writing in water, drinks the decoction, and knows in consequence 
 all that it contained." See Smith, "Pent." i. 297, 298; "Revue 
 Archeol.," Sept., 1867, p. 161. This then, like several other ordi- 
 nances, was adopted by Moses from existing and probably very 
 ancient and widely spread institutions.' Espin. 
 
 High Places. 
 
 LEVITICUS xxvi. 30 : ' And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your 
 images. 
 
 Question. Is there not some uncertainty about the Divine dealings 
 with these high places ? Sometimes they are sternly denounced, but 
 sometimes they seem to have been permitted. 
 
 Answer. About the Divine will and law in the matter there can 
 be no question. The high places were such sources of peril and 
 temptation that the Jews needed to be guarded from all association 
 with them. But we have, in the actual government of men and 
 
HIGH PLACES. 205 
 
 nations, to distinguish carefully between what is legislatively perfect 
 and what is administratively practical. Absolute laws have to be 
 adjusted to the frailties of human life and social relations. And so 
 every nation finds that, under certain circumstances, some of its laws 
 cannot wisely be pressed. It cannot change the law, but it may 
 withhold the action of the law, and permit a seeming disobedience 
 which yet preserves the nation from more serious evils. We may see 
 that as God's rule was a direct rule of fallible men, of a frail, preju- 
 diced nation set in mischievous surroundings, He also may hold His 
 rules in abeyance, and permit what He cannot approve. This suffi- 
 ciently accounts for the Divine disregard of the latter customs respect- 
 ing the ' high places.' 
 
 It may be well to add, briefly, some account of what these were, 
 and now they came to be superstitiously regarded. Ewald says : 
 * The highest summits of the earth have always been deemed places 
 essentially sacred. The high places of the earth had something of 
 a sacred character even for the earliest Jahveism. Just because this 
 religion was utterly unable any longer to find and to hold fast its God 
 in any single earthly object which was visible and could be handled, 
 it was all the more eager and anxious to find the tokens of his 
 existence and activity, at any rate, in heaven and in all heavenly 
 phenomena, and therefore in the clouds which touch the highest and 
 holiest spots of earth. This was a primitive belief, which maintained 
 itself in Israel down to later days, and was not severely shaken until 
 the highest and most illustrious sanctuary of the nation was perma- 
 nently established on the but slightly elevated Mount Zion, before 
 which the incomparably higher peaks of the earth now seemed to 
 bow their heads for ever.' 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary says : ' There seems to have been a 
 widely spread tendency in early times to select hills as places for 
 public devotion. The spots which have the oldest religious associa- 
 tions in most regions are on elevated ground. The Acropolis and 
 the Capitol are examples. Most Druidical monuments are similarly 
 situated. The three altars built by Abraham at Shechem, between 
 Bethel and Ai, and at Mamre, appear to have been on heights, and 
 so was the Temple. 
 
 * The high places in the Holy Land may have been divided into 
 those dedicated to the worship of Jehovah (as memorial-places), and 
 those which had been dedicated to idols (under the older Canaanite 
 regime). It was contrary to the letter of the Law that sacrifices 
 should be offered at any place except the national sanctuary, whether 
 it was the Tabernacle at Shiloh or the Temple at Jerusalem. But 
 
206 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the restraint took effect only by degrees. The public worship of 
 Jehovah was still permitted at the high places even by kings who 
 desired to serve Him : 2 Kings xiv. 4; xv. 35 ; 2 Chron. xv. 17, 
 etc. It would seem as if there was a constant struggle going 
 on. The high places polluted by idol worship were, of course, to be 
 wholly condemned. They were probably resorted to only to gratify 
 a degraded superstition. The others might have been innocently 
 used for prayer and religious teaching as the synagogues were in a 
 later age. But the temptation appears to have been too great for 
 the temper of the people. They offered sacrifices and burnt incense 
 on them ; and hence, thorough reformers of the national religion, 
 such as Hezekiah and Josiah, removed the high places altogether ; 
 2 Kings xviii. 4 ; xxiii. 5.' 
 
 Dean Stanley's description of an ancient 'high place ' is too- 
 interesting to be withheld (Jewish Church, vol. ii., p. 408). 'Beside 
 the Temple worship at Jerusalem, had descended what may be called 
 the rural worship of the ' high places ' at Bethel, at Beersheba, at 
 Moriah, on the mountains of Gilead, at Ophrah, on the hills of Dan, 
 at Mizpeh and Ramah, on the top of Olivet, on Mount Carmel, at 
 Gibeon. They had been sanctioned by the Patriarchs, by Samuel, 
 by David, by Solomon, by Elijah, by Asa and Jehoshaphat, by Joash, 
 and the High Priest Jehoiada, by the four first books of the 
 Pentateuch, if not expressly, at least by implication (Gen. xii. 7, 8, 
 xxi. 13, xxii. 2, 4, xxxi. 54; Judg. vi. 25, xiii. 16; i Sam. vii. io r 
 ix. 12-19; 2 Sam. xv. 32). The 'high place,' properly so called, 
 though doubtless originally deriving its name from the eminence on 
 which it stood, was a pillar of stone, covered, like Mussulman tombs, 
 or like the sacred house of the Caaba, with rich carpets, robes, and 
 shawls. An altar stood in front, on which, on ordinary occasions, 
 oils, honey, flour, and incense were offered ; and, on solemn occa- 
 sions, slain animals, as in the Temple. Round about usually stood 
 a sacred hedge or grove of trees. Such a grove was allowed to stand 
 even within the Temple precincts. There was a charm in the leafy 
 shade of the oak, the poplar, and the terebinth, peculiarly attractive 
 to the Israelite and Phoenician devotion. 
 
 ' Innocent as these vestiges of ancient religion might seem to be, they 
 were yet, like the Golden Calves in the northern kingdom, and on 
 exactly similar grounds, inconsistent with the strict unity and purity 
 of the Mosaic worship, and had an equal tendency to blend with the 
 dark polytheism of the neighbouring nations.' 
 
 It may be suggested that as memorial places, serving to recall the 
 scenes of early history, the high places were permissible, and were 
 
TOWER OF THE FLOCK. 307- 
 
 religiously useful. So far as they were meeting-places convenient for 
 the assembling of the people of a district to engage in religious 
 worship, they might be invaluable, especially in unsettled times, when 
 few could venture to attend the feasts at Jerusalem. But so far as 
 idolatrous associations were retained in connection with them, or 
 incense and sacrifices were offered at them, they put in peril the 
 faith of the people in Jehovah, and stern laws respecting attendance 
 at them were promulgated. 
 
 Tower of the Flock. 
 
 MICAH iv. 8 ' And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter 
 of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion.' 
 
 Difficulty. Is this afgurative or a proper name 9 
 
 Explanation. Some writers treat it as a proper name, belong- 
 ing to a structure, or the old site of one, known as the * Flock- 
 Tower,' the same as the * Tower of Edar,' spoken of in Gen. xxxv. 21, 
 near the encampment of Jacob after the death of Rachel. ' It has 
 been assumed that it was a suburb of Bethlehem, and that its name 
 might have been identified with the abode of David's family, and 
 used as a symbol of the royal line.' 
 
 The term may, however, be regarded as a figurative and poetical 
 name for the fortress of Zion, the figure being taken from the 
 custom of erecting towers as shelters and watching-places for those 
 who are employed in guarding flocks. God's people are regarded as 
 a flock watched over from the Tower or Fortress of Zion. This 
 explanation is the one that may be preferred. ' The Flock-Tower is 
 an apt metaphor for the Great Shepherd of the elect people.' 
 
 A. Lapide says : 'The Tower of the Flock is the Church of Christ, 
 which had its origin in Jerusalem, and to which all nations are 
 gathered, so as to make one flock and one Shepherd' (John x. 16). 
 
 Fausset says, * that in large pastures it was usual to erect a high 
 wooden tower, so as to oversee the flock. The prophet Micah had 
 previously referred to Israel as a flock (ch. ii. 12), and it is but carry- 
 ing out the figure to regard the capital city as the tower for the 
 guarding of the flock.' 
 
 The Law concerning Seething a Kid. 
 
 EXODUS xxiii. 19 : ' Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.' (Se-:; 
 also Exod. xxxiv. 26 ; Deut. xiv. 21.) 
 
 Question. Why was a special law necessary upon such a matter ? 
 
 Answer. There must have been some existing practices, or 
 customs, which Moses regarded as mischievous because cruel, or 
 
208 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 because idolatrous ; and commentators have searched for intimation 
 of such customs. 
 
 Cudworth says : ' It was a custom of the ancient heathens, when 
 they had gathered in all their fruits, to take a kid, and boil it in the 
 dam's milk, and then, in a magical way, to go about and besprinkle 
 with it all their trees, and fields, and gardens, and orchards, thinking 
 by this means they should make them fructify, and bring forth fruit 
 again more abundantly the following year. Wherefore God forbade 
 His people, the Jews, at the time ot their ingathering, to use any 
 such superstitious or idolatrous rite.' The connection in which this 
 law is given makes this a valuable suggestion. The clause seems to 
 come in most abruptly, but the sentence before it is ' The first of 
 the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord 
 thy God.' When writing of the first-fruits and of the ingathering, 
 Moses seems to have been suddenly reminded of an idolatrous 
 custom which was associated with such times. 
 
 The connection of the passage, as found in Deut xiv. 21, shows 
 that the law was also treated as a rule of diet, and the precept may 
 have originated in the humane feeling of the Jews, and in that sense 
 of the fitness and propriety of things, which is indicated in the rules 
 which forbade the killing of a cow and its calf, or an ewe and its 
 lamb, on the same day ; the taking of an old bird with its nest 
 (Deut. xxii. 6, 7) ; the yoking of an ox and an ass together, etc. 
 
 Whether their explanation is the correct one or not, it may be im- 
 possible to say, but the Jews explain the precept as the prohibition 
 of a favourite dish of the Arabs. On this, Thomson writes, in Land 
 and Book, pp. 94, 95, as follows : ' The Arabs select a kid, fat and 
 tender, dress it carefully, and then stew it in milk, generally sour, 
 mixed with onions and hot spices, such as they relish. They call it 
 Lebn immti "Kid in his mother's milk." The Jews, however, will 
 not eat it. They say that Moses specifically forbade it in the 
 precept, Exod. xxiii. 19, which he repeated three times, and with 
 special emphasis. They further maintain that it is unnatural and 
 barbarous to cook a poor kid in that from which it derives its life. This 
 may have been one reason for the prohibition many of the Mosaic 
 precepts are evidently designed to cultivate gentle and humane 
 feelings; but "kid in his mother's milk" is a gross, unwholesome 
 dish, calculated also to kindle up animal and ferocious passions ; and 
 on these accounts Moses may have forbidden it. Besides, it is even 
 yet associated with immoderate feasting, and originally, I suspect, 
 was connected with idolatrous sacrifices. A great deal of learning 
 has been spent upon this passage by critics, to ascertain what the 
 
VALUE SET ON BIRTHRIGHTS. 209 
 
 law-giver referred to ; but after seeing the dish actually prepared, and 
 hearing the very name given to it which Moses employs, we have 
 the whole mystery explained. I have repeatedly tasted Lebn immu ; 
 and when well prepared, it has a rich and agreeable flavour.' 
 
 Value set on Birthrights. 
 
 GENESIS xxv. 31 : * And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.' 
 
 Question. What peculiar interest could attach to a biriJiright 
 that it could be worth selling or buying? 
 
 Answer. The incident becomes intelligible only through 
 acquaintance with Eastern and tribal sentiments and customs. No 
 such bartering of birthrights is conceivable in European countries ; 
 and it should be carefully noticed that the buying and selling of these 
 youths had no practical value unless in some way the exchange could 
 be ratified by securing also the patriarchal blessing. 
 
 The succession to the chieftainship of a tribe was, in every way, an 
 important matter. The hereditary principle was recognised, but it 
 seems to have been limited by the will of the reigning chief. In the 
 earlier times the birthright involved succession to the father in the 
 rule of the tribe ; claim to the paternal benediction ; a double portion 
 of the father's personal property; and the position of domestic priest. 
 In this particular instance two things gave special interest to the 
 birthright question, and account for Jacob's anxiety to secure the 
 succession: (i) the fact that Jacob and Esau were twin sons, and 
 (2) the fact that the covenant blessing was conceived to attach to the 
 birthright, for which notion there does not appear to be sufficient 
 ground. Jacob might be the one in the spiritual succession, and 
 the proper heir of the covenant, without being absolutely the first- 
 born son. 
 
 On the first of these facts Thomson, Land and Book^ p. 588, says: 
 ' In the case oi Jacob and Esau it is also to be remembered that they 
 were twins, born at the same time, and Jacob no doubt felt that his 
 brother had really no valid claims of precedence which should entitle 
 him to the inestimable blessings involved in this instance in the 
 question of birthright ; so also thought his mother/' 
 
 Both of the sons were in the wrong. Esau was wrong in under- 
 valuing the right which he seemed to possess. And Jacob was wrong 
 in overvaluing a right on which his covenant position in no sense 
 depended. Esau's indifference came, no doubt, in part from his wild 
 nature. He did not really care for the headship of a merely pastoral 
 
 14 
 
210 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 tribe; so we find that he founded a new tribe of enterprising and 
 warlike Arabs. His subsequent anger arose rather from the annoy- 
 ance of being so cleverly outwitted, than from any serious regret at 
 the losing of his tribal position and rights, which he was unfitted to 
 take up. 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary has a good note on this subject, from 
 which a few sentences may be taken. * It is doubtful what privileges, 
 the birthright carried with it in patriarchal times. In after-times a 
 double portion of the patrimony was assigned to the firstborn by law 
 (Deut. xxi. 15-17); but in the earliest days the respect paid to the 
 eldest son is very apparent ; and as the family spread out into a tribe, 
 the patriarchal head became a chieftain or prince. It also looks as if 
 the head of the family exercised a kind of priesthood. Then the- 
 father's chief blessing was given to his firstborn son. Above all, in: 
 the family of Abraham, there was a promise of peculiar spiritual 
 privileges, which, if not fully understood, would have been much 
 dwelt upon by believing minds .... Jacob had probably looked 
 with reverence on the spiritual promises, though with culpable 
 ambition for the personal pre-eminence of the firstborn. He and 
 Esau were twins, and it may have seemed hard to him to be shut out 
 from the chief hope of his house by one not older than himself, and 
 whose character was little worthy of his position. There may be 
 some excuse for his conduct, but the sacred history, whilst exposing, 
 the carnal indifferences of Esau, does not extenuate the selfishness of: 
 Jacob.' 
 
 Heathen Body- Markings. 
 
 LEVITICUS xix. 28 : ' Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead,, 
 nor print any marks upon you : I am the Lord.' 
 
 Difficulty. WJiy was the freedom of the people limited in such an 
 apparently indifferent matter ? 
 
 Explanation. In the management of a family, and in the 
 ordering of society, the question often arises, whether a thing that is 
 not wrong in itself can be permitted, because it leads to wrong under 
 particular circumstances, and is injurious in its influence upon others. 
 These body - markings, being heathen customs, exercised a great 
 influence on the ancient Eastern people, and they became serious 
 temptations to idolatry when the Israelites came into direct contact 
 with them. God would guard His people from idolatrous associa- 
 tions, and it was needful to guard against these in their more subtle,, 
 as well as in their more open, forms, 
 
HEATHEN BOD Y-MARKINGS. 211 
 
 It may be well to illustrate the character and extent of these 
 heathen customs of self-mutilation. 
 
 Burder says : 'The painting of the bodies of eminent personages, 
 or of others upon remarkable occasions, is known to have obtained 
 in countries very remote from each other. Our British ancestors 
 were painted, and Dampier, the celebrated voyager, brought over an 
 East Indian prince, whose skin was very curiously stained with 
 various figures. The wild Arabs adorn themselves in this manner, 
 according to HArvieux^ who tells us, among other things in his 
 description of the preparatives for an Arab wedding, that the women 
 draw, with a certain kind of ink, the figures of flowers, fountains, 
 houses, cypress-trees, antelopes, and other animals, upon all the parts 
 of the bride's body. This the Israelites were forbidden to do. 
 
 Van Lennep writes : * In some countries, particularly in Egypt or 
 Arabia, a species of tattooing is practised. Small figures in lines are 
 punctured, by means of seven needles tied together, upon the fore- 
 head, the cheeks, the lips, the chin, the arms, the middle of the 
 breast; the mark being rendered permanent by the insertion of 
 indigo, or other substances, which gave it a bluish tint. In Persia, 
 the ladies " curiously stain their fair bodies with a variety of fantastic 
 devices, not unfrequently with the figures of trees, birds, and beasts, 
 sun, moon, and stars. This sort of pencil-work spreads over the 
 bosom, and continues down as low as the navel, round which several 
 radiated figures are generally painted." ' 
 
 'It is not only the custom for mourners to let their hair grow long, 
 and wear it in a disorderly manner, but the bereaved in the East to 
 this day make cuts and incisions in their bodies in mourning for the 
 dead.' Dr. Ginsburg. 
 
 Pourtrayed with Vermilion. 
 
 EZEKIEL xxiii. 14 : ' For when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the 
 images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion.' (The Revised Version omits 
 the word when.} 
 
 Question. Is the prophet's description true to historical fact ? 
 
 Answer. 'The monuments of Nineveh, recently discovered, 
 show how the walls of its palaces were adorned with figures precisely 
 answering to this description. There is evidence that these sculp- 
 tures were highly coloured with vermilion, or rather red ochre.' 
 
 Writers on India state that the women who have prostituted them- 
 selves to the use of the temples are always dressed in crimson or 
 vermillion, and that the walls are covered with paintings of an 
 infamous character. 
 
 142 
 
2-M HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The colour vermilion was much used in decorating the beams 
 arid panels of houses. It was common among the Assyrians for 
 drawing images on the walls of temples, as testified by late dis- 
 coveries. Idols, according to an apocryphal writer, were painted 
 wkh vermilion (Wisd. xiii. 14). It was a pigment made of red ochre. 
 
 The prophet Ezekiel is here addressing the exiles, who were 
 familiar with these brightly coloured and attractive idolatrous 
 pictures, and were in grave danger of being allured, by means of 
 them, into idolatrous practices. Rude, high-coloured, exciting 
 pictures have, in all ages, been used as aids to immorality. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth says : ' The language of the prophet here is 
 very strong ; and some readers may recoil from it with horror and 
 aversion. It was doubtless designed to excite such feelings as these, 
 and has a solemn and seasonable warning, especially for times like 
 our own, when there seems to be a growing tendency towards a 
 sensual religion in lieu of a spiritual one, and to the scenic pomp 
 of creature worship and idolatry.' 
 
 The Burning Fieiy Furnace. 
 
 DANIEL iii. 6 : ' And whoso fallcth not down and \vorshippeth shall the same 
 hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.' 
 
 Question. Is there any historical evidence of this mode of execu- 
 tion ? 
 
 Answer. The Speakers Commentary gathers up the testimony 
 from the Assyrian monuments thus : * Saul Mugina, the king of 
 Babylonia, is recorded as rebelling against his brother Assurbanipal, 
 and making war with him. Saul Mugina was defeated and taken 
 prisoner. He was condemned to death, and, by the order of his 
 brother, was thrown into "a burning fiery furnace." The same fate 
 overtook Dunanu, who had uttered curses against the gods of 
 Assurbanipal, *' over a furnace they placed him, and consumed him 
 entirely." The celebrated " Inscription of Khorsabad " records burn- 
 ing and flaying as punishments inflicted on the king of Hamath and 
 his allies (E.C. 714), and a similar fate befell Assourlih (D.C. 712).' 
 
 Chardin (i7th cent. A.D.) says : * There are other modes of inflict- 
 ing the punishment of death (in Persia), on those who have violated 
 the police laws, especially those who have contributed to produce 
 scarcity of food, or who have used false weights, or who have disre- 
 garded the laws respecting taxes. The cooks were fixed on spits, 
 and roasted over a slow fire, and the bakers were cast into a burning 
 oven. In the year 1668, when the famine was raging, I saw, in the 
 
THE LA W OF LE VI RATE MARRIAGE. 213 
 
 royal residence in Ispahan, one of these ovens burning, to terrify the 
 bakers, and to prevent their taking advantage of the scarcity to 
 increase their gains.' 
 
 The custom is plainly recognised as an 'established one in .Jer. 
 
 XXIX. 22. 
 
 Ancient furnaces were made in large holes dug in the ground. 
 For cooking purposes these had stones in them, which long retained 
 the heat, upon which the food could be placed when the flames had 
 subsided. The mode of blowing such fires may be illustrated by the 
 following passage from Six Years in India, p. 93 : 'A Kuli came 
 and formed a little furnace close to the verandah, by lighting a very 
 small fire of charcoal, making a hole about two feet distant, for the 
 nose of his bellows, which were of the skin of a goat, with a slit at 
 the back which he alternately opened and closed, and connecting the 
 bellows and fire by a little underground passage.' 
 
 It is worthy of notice that this mode of punishment was peculiar 
 to the Babylonians, and is illustrated in the Chaldean legend of 
 Abraham's escape from Nimrod's furnace. When the kingdom 
 passed into the hands of the Persians, another mode of punishment, 
 as distinctly characteristic of them, was introduced, that, namely, .of 
 casting men alive into a den of lions. 
 
 The Law of Levirate Marriage. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY xxv. 5-10 : '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 per- 
 form the duty of an husband's brother unto her,' etc. 
 
 Difficulty. Did not the carrying out of this law involve senoiij 
 peril to family life and relationship ? 
 
 Explanation. The law was designed for a family system, which 
 recognised polygamy as permissible. Monogamy was the Divine idea 
 for the race, but the peculiar way in which various families live 
 together in the East, and form one household, make polygamy a pro- 
 tection against unbridled licence and passion. In Western lands 
 members of families on becoming wives, or on taking wives, remove to 
 new and separate dwellings ; but in the East married people remain 
 in the paternal dwelling, which is often composed of grandparents, 
 parents, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces ; 
 and some careful rules were needed for the due adjustment of the 
 marital relations of each member, and the preservation of the rights 
 and honour of all. 
 
214 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The land of Canaan was divided by lot to the several families com- 
 posing the tribes, and the portion of land allotted to a family was not 
 to be alienated from it, but was to be kept in the line of the firstborn 
 sons. 
 
 But cases of difficulty would be sure to arise ; exceptional cases in 
 which the ordinary working of the law could not be assured, and 
 some modified arrangement became necessary. Such a case is 
 brought before us in this passage. A man, eldest born of a family, 
 and so its heir, may marry and die, leaving no child to preserve his 
 name and enter into his rights. The widow would be in a deplorable 
 case ; taunted by the other women of the household because she had 
 no child ; despised by the men of the household because her failure 
 has imperilled the family estates ; but kept in the family, lest by 
 marrying a stranger there should rise disputes about her first 
 husband's property. Evidently, for her own sake, and for the sake 
 of the family, it was necessary that some arrangement should be 
 made for her within the family so that she might still hope to become 
 the mother of the family heir. The Levirate law was designed to 
 meet the difficulty. 
 
 It appears that the law is not peculiar to the Jews, but familiar to 
 Eastern nations. ' It is found in all essential respects the same 
 amongst various Oriental nations, ancient and modern, and exists at 
 present amongst the South African tribes; amongst the Arabians, 
 amongst the Druses, and amongst the tribes of the Caucasus.' It is 
 characteristic of tribal life that there is great jealousy of marriage out- 
 side the limits of the tribe ; and there is no sentiment against unions 
 of those closely related such as we cherish in Western lands. 
 
 For the operation of the law in ante-Mosaic times, consult the 
 narrative given in Gen. xxxviii. ; and for an interesting example in 
 the time of the Judges, see Ruth ii. 20; iii. 12, 13; iv. 1-12. 
 
 ' The root of the obligation here imposed upon the brother of the 
 deceased husband lies in the primitive idea of childlessness being a 
 great calamity, and extinction of name and family one of the greatest 
 that could happen. To avert this the ordinary rules as to inter- 
 marriage are in the case in question set aside. The obligation was 
 onerous, and might be repugnant, and it is accordingly considerably 
 reduced and restricted by Moses. It did not lie at all unless the 
 brethren "dwell together:" i.e. unless they were neighbours. The 
 surviving brother from a distant home was not to be expected to 
 fetch the widow, or perhaps widows and household, and take them to 
 himself. It would seem that the office in such cases devolved on the 
 next neighbouring kinsman ; or perhaps the term " brethren " (ver. 5) 
 
THE LA W OF LE VI RATE MARRIAGE. 215 
 
 is to be understood in its more general sense as equivalent to " kins- 
 men." ' Speaker's Commentary. 
 
 'No betrothal seems to have been necessary, and no marriage 
 ceremonies were observed ; it was a succession by divine right to the 
 wife, with all the possessions of the deceased to the child, who would 
 be the heir.' 
 
 Dr. Eadie says : * The purpose of the law was to preserve the strict 
 entail of property, and to guard the unity of the tribes. The con- 
 ditions plainly are : there must be property to which the expected 
 child shall "succeed." The brothers must occupy a contiguous 
 tract of territory " dwell together." The widow must not be past 
 the age of child-bearing, for the purpose of the marriage was to 
 "raise up" a son to the deceased brother's inheritance. 1 
 
 Dr. Cox gives some of the later Jewish modifications of the law. 
 * When there were several brothers, the Mishna states, that upon the 
 refusal of the eldest, application was to be made to the rest ; and if 
 none would comply, the first was obliged either to marry the widow, 
 or to submit to the prescribed indignity. By the Gemara, both the 
 obligation and liberty of marrying the wife of a deceased brother are 
 restricted to the eldest of the surviving brothers. By the practice of 
 the modern synagogue this part of the law is abolished by the rabbis 
 compelling their disciples to refuse compliance with the precept 
 The ceremony of release from the obligation is performed before three 
 rabbis and two witnesses, after the morning prayers in the synagogue. 
 The man puts on a shoe, and the woman repeats, " My husband's 
 brother refuses to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel ; he will 
 not perform the duty of my husband's brother." The brother says, 
 44 1 like not to take her." Then the woman unties the shoe with her 
 right hand, throws it on the ground, spits before him, and says : " So 
 shall it be done unto the man that will not build up his brother's 
 house ; his name shall be called in Israel, * The house of him that 
 hath his shoe loosed.'" The persons present then exclaim three 
 times, " His shoe is loosed." The woman then receives a certificate 
 from the chief rabbi, who declares her at liberty to marry another/ 
 
 Van Lennep tells us that, ' among Muslims generally, marriage with 
 a brother's widow is simply allowed, and the children born of such a 
 connection enjoy no special privilege. It is, however, worthy of 
 notice that the Mosaic law upon this subject is a mere repetition of a 
 " prior law " already existing among the patriarchs. The only trace 
 now left of such a law among other nations than the Jews is to be 
 met with in the customs of a race of Airican savages. Bruce relates 
 that among the Gallas, a warlike heathen people, neighbours and 
 
216 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 enemies of the Abyssinians, when the eldest brother dies leaving 
 younger brothers behind him, and a widow young enough to bear 
 children, the youngest brother of all is obliged to marry her ; but the 
 children of the marriage are always accounted as if they were those of 
 the eldest brother ; nor does this marriage of the youngest brother to 
 the widow entitle him to any part of the fortune of the deceased. 
 The ground of this law among the Galla tribes appears to have been 
 originally the same as led to the adoption of a similar practice by the 
 Hebrews, among whom the principle of inheritance became an 
 effectual means of preventing the too great accumulation of real 
 estate in an agricultural country, and the prevalence of pauperism. 
 For with those African savages, when a man becomes old, and unfit 
 for war, he is obliged to surrender his whole effects to his eldest son 
 who is bound to give him afimenr, and nothing else. These people 
 hold to the rights of primogeniture as strictly as did the Israelites in 
 the olden time, and the Arabs after them until Mohammed, and 
 among some tribes even to the present day ; but the Gallas carry it 
 so far that the eldest son inherits everything, giving to his brothers 
 and sisters only what their father had named as theirs at their birth, 
 with the increase of the same until the time of his death/ Bible 
 Lands and Customs , p. 543. 
 
 The Two Birds of the Healed Leper. 
 
 LEVITICUS xiv. 4-7 : 'Then shajl the priest command to take for htm that is 
 to be cleansed two birds ' (marg. ' sparrows ') ' alive and clean, and cedar-wood, and 
 scarlet, and hyssop : and the priest shall command that one 01 the birds be killed 
 in an earthen vessel over running water : as for the living bird, he shall take it, 
 and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the 
 living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water : and 
 he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed irom the leprosy seven times, 
 and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose in the open, 
 field.' 
 
 Question. Had this ordinance a physical, or only a ritual and- 
 symbolical relation to the leper ? 
 
 Answer. It will occur at once to the mind of a Bible student, 
 that there is a marked similarity between the treatment of these two 
 birds, and the treatment of the two goats on the great Day of Atone- 
 ment. This indeed appears to be a repetition of that ordinance in a 
 small and inexpensive form. But a more careful comparison of the 
 two rites brings to view a marked distinction between them. The 
 goat was killed for sacrifice, but the sparrow was not. And this dis- 
 tinction has led ancient commentators to see in this ordinance no 
 more than a public and formal recognition of the restored health of 
 
THE TWO BIRDS OF THE HEALED LEPER. 217 
 
 the leper. The relation of the various parts of the ceremony to the 
 leper and to his disease is well brought out by Abarbanel. 
 
 ' The living bird, according to him, represented the restored vigour 
 and freedom of the vital functions; the cedar-wood, the flesh re- 
 deemed from decay and putrefaction ; the scarlet, the purged blood 
 giving the hue of health to the complexion ; and the hyssop, deliver- 
 ance from the fetor which is characteristic of the disease. The 
 details of a restoration to health and freedom appear to be well ex- 
 pressed in the whole ceremony. Each of the birds represented the 
 leper. They were to be of a clean kind, because they stood for one 
 of the chosen race. The death-like state of the leper during his 
 exclusion from the camp was expressed by the killing of one of the 
 birds. The living bird was identified with the slain one by being 
 dipped in his blood mixed with the spring water that figured the pro- 
 cess 01 purification, while the cured leper was identified with the rite 
 by having the same water and blood sprinkled over him. The bird 
 then liberated leaves behind him all the symbols of the death disease, 
 and of the remedies associated with it, and is free to enjoy health 
 and social freedom with its kind/ Speaker's Commentary. 
 
 This explanation is so simple, so reasonable, and so sufficient, that 
 in the light of it we may admit the physical and social, rather than 
 the strictly religious, significance of the rite. 
 
 We add two specimens of the way in which the physical bearing of 
 the rite has been passed over, and the incidents spiritualized by the 
 ancient Fathers 01 the Christian Church. Theodoret writes in this 
 way : * We see here a type cf the Passion. As one of the birds was 
 killed, and the other, having been bathed in the blood of the slain 
 bird, was set free, so our Lord was crucified in His humanity for the 
 moral leprosy of the world; and His human flesh suffered death, 
 while the Godhead united itself to the suffering of His humanity. 
 As the leper was made bright when sprinkled with the blood of the 
 slain bird, mingled with living water, with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet, 
 so he who believes in Christ our Saviour, and is washed with the 
 water of Holy Baptism, is cleansed from the spots of sin. The cedar 
 represents the incorruptibility of Christ; the oil poured on the right 
 hand, foot, ear, and head, signifies the consecration of all our members 
 to God's service. The leper was to be without the camp ; the im- 
 penitent sinner is to be put out of the Church.' (Qu. on Levit. 19.) 
 
 St. Cyril (Glaphyr. in Levit., p. 357) says: 'The leper is without 
 the camp ; so we, when infected with the leprosy of sin, were aliens 
 from the city of God. The priest goes forth to the leper ; Christ has 
 come down from heaven to visit us. He has died to save us. This 
 
2i8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 is what is signified by the two birds. They represent the two natures 
 of Christ. The birds are clean, and Christ is holy. When we read 
 of two birds, let us not dream of two Christs. No ! the Only-begotten 
 Son of God took our nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary ; but in 
 what manner He, who is truly one person, consists of two natures, 
 the Divine and human, far transcends our power of understanding. 
 The Holy Spirit, contemplating these two natures, speaks of two 
 birds joined together. The cedar is an emblem of the incorruption 
 of His holy flesh. The hyssop is dipped in living water, typifying 
 the water of baptism. The living bird is dipped in the water, in 
 which the blood of the other bird has been received, because one 
 Christ was in death and above death ; for " He was put to death in 
 the flesh, and was quickened by the Spirit" (i Pet. iii. 18). As 
 far as He was man He endured death, but in that He is the Life He 
 conquered it.' 
 
 The comparison of these fanciful and extravagant explanations 
 with the suggestion of Abarbanel helps us to recognise the insight 
 with which the Jewish commentator reveals to us the original and 
 proper significance of the ceremony. 
 
 Unique Covenant Signs. 
 
 GENESIS xv. 17 : 'And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it 
 was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp, that passed between 
 those pieces.' 
 
 Question. Are there any helps to the understanding of these 
 singular symbolical actions ? 
 
 Answer. The only Scripture reference to a similar custom is 
 found in Jer. xxxiv. 18, 19: 'And I will give the men that 
 have transgressed My covenant, which have not performed the words 
 of the covenant which they had made before Me, when they cut the 
 calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof.' This passage 
 recalls the fact that ' in making a covenant for the manumission of 
 their Hebrew servants, the men of Jerusalem had passed through 
 the pieces of a calf (either really or figuratively), which they had cut 
 in twain, and said : " If we do not keep the covenant, may God cut us 
 in twain, as this calf is cut in twain." God now takes them at their 
 word, and will execute their own imprecation on their own heads.' 
 
 Burder records the various references to a similar custom found in 
 Eastern and Pagan literature. ' St. Cyril, in his tenth book against 
 Julian, derives this custom from the ancient Chaldeans. Others 
 derive the word lirith, which signifies "a covenant," from batar, 
 
UNIQ UE CO YEN A NT SIGNS. 2 1 9 
 
 which signifies to divide or cut asunder, because covenants were 
 made by dividing a beast, and by the parties covenanting passing 
 between the parts of the beast so divided : intimating that so should 
 they be cut asunder who broke the covenant. We find in Zenobius, 
 that the people called Molotti retained something of this custom ; 
 for they confirmed their oaths, when they made their covenants, by 
 cutting oxen into little bits. For whatever purpose a covenant was 
 made, it was ever ratified by a sacrifice offered to God, and the 
 passing between the divided pieces of the victim appears to have 
 signified, that each agreed, if they broke their engagements, to 
 submit to the punishment of being cut asunder. Herodotus tells us 
 that Xerxes ordered one of the sons of Pythius to be cut in two, and 
 one half to be placed on each side of the way, that his army might 
 pass between them. At the Areopagus, in Athens, the parties con- 
 cerned in any legal covenant were placed between the severed 
 members of consecrated victims, where they bound themselves and 
 families by a most solemn oath, to the sacred fulfilment of all the 
 stipulated conditions of such a covenant.' 
 
 The following illustration is taken from Pitt's Travels. * If they 
 (the Algerine corsairs) at any time happen to be in a very great 
 strait or distress, as being chased, or in a storm, they will gather 
 money, light up candles in remembrance of some dead marabout 
 (saint), or other, calling upon him with heavy sighs and groans. 
 If they find no succour from their before-mentioned rites and super- 
 stitions, but that the danger rather increases, then they go to sacri- 
 ficing a sheep (or two or three upon occasion, as they think needful), 
 which is done after this manner : having cut off the head with a 
 knife, they immediately take out the entrails, and throw them and 
 the head overboard ; and then, with all the speed they can (without 
 skinning), they cut the body in two parts by the middle, and throw 
 one part over the right side of the ship, and the other over the left 
 into the sea, as a kind of propitiation.' The ship passes between the 
 parts thus thrown on each side of it. 
 
 Rawlinson says : ' This form of making a covenant was probably 
 that usual in Babylonia, and thus Abraham received the assurance of 
 his inheritance by means of a ceremonial with which he was familiar. 
 But in most ancient languages men are said to cut or strike a cove- 
 nant, because the most solemn formula involved either the cutting of 
 victims in two, or striking them dead, as was the Roman manner.' 
 
 The animals which Abraham divided were those which specially 
 formed the staple of Abraham's wealth ; they were also those which 
 in after-times, were specially ordained for sacrificial offering* 
 
220 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Roberts well illustrates the using of fire, or a lamp, in the ratifica- 
 tion of a covenant. 'It is an interesting fact that the burning lamp 
 or fire is still used in the East in confirmation of a covenant. Should 
 a person in the evening make a solemn promise to perform some- 
 thing for another, and should the latter doubt his word, the former 
 will say, pointing to the flame of the lamp, "That is my witness." 
 On occasions of greater importance, when two or more join in a 
 covenant, should the fidelity of any be questioned, they will say, 
 "We invoke the lamp of the Temple." When an agreement of this 
 kind is broken, it will be said, " Who would have thought this, for 
 the lamp of the Temple was invoked ?" ' 
 
 In the instance before us, God condescends to make a covenant 
 with the Abrahamic race, in the person of its founder and representa- 
 tive, Abraham. Both parties entering into the covenant are present 
 at the solemn ratification of it. Abraham is present in actual person, 
 and takes the covenant by himself passing between the pieces. God 
 is graciously present also, but in His familiar symbol of smoke and 
 fire. He also takes the covenant by moving between the pieces. 
 Each, as it were, takes a solemn vow, like this ' May I be cut in 
 pieces if I fail to keep my part of this covenant !' The condescension- 
 of God in thus meeting Abraham as if He were a fellow-man, should 
 be very reverently treated. 
 
 Eastern Sentiment about Women. 
 
 ISAIAH iii. 12 : 'As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women, 
 rule over them.' 
 
 Question. What was the prevalent sentiment about women which 
 explains this figure of speech ? 
 
 Answer. There is some basis for the figure in the historical 
 fact that the queen mother, or the women of the harem, virtually 
 ruled during the childhood of a king ; but, most probably, the verse 
 reflects the contempt for woman, which was characteristic of ancient 
 times and Eastern countries, and which accounts for the weakness of 
 family life, and the insecurity of the social fabric. In Egypt, in 
 Rome, there was respect for womanhood, and consequently noble 
 family life ; but usually in Eastern countries woman is the slave, and 
 not the friend, of man. 
 
 Van Lennep illustrates the inferiority of woman now in Eastern 
 countries. * The practice of polygamy, combined with the concu- 
 binage of slaves, certainly exerts a more subtle and pernicious 
 influence than is generally supposed. It perverts the relations of the 
 sexes, and separates them, thus depriving each of the wholesome 
 
EASTERN SENTIMENT ABOUT WOMEN. 221 
 
 influence of intercourse with the other. Promiscuous assemblies of 
 men and women are unknown ; and even when a crowd collects to 
 see some sight, or gaze at a show, the sexes are always grouped in 
 two distinct and separate portions. A man never walks in the street 
 by the side of his wife or daughter, but when he happens to be out in 
 their company, is sure to keep several paces in advance of them. In 
 speaking of his wife he calls her his house, and in conversation with 
 other men prefixes to the word "woman," "wife," or "daughter'"' 
 (whenever he has occasion to allude to either), the phrase " I beg 
 your pardon," just as politeness requires him to do before mentioning 
 the words garlic, onion, a donkey, or a hog. When a man is absent, 
 and writes to his family, he does not address his letter to his wife, but 
 to his son, though his son may be a babe in his mother's lap. . . . 
 Oriental women are, as a class, remarkably industrious and thrifty. 
 They have the entire charge of the housekeeping, the daughters and 
 daughters-in-law bearing the chief burden, and they wait upon their 
 husbands and fathers even when there are plenty of servants and 
 slaves. Neither they nor the children can sit in his presence without 
 his special invitation. They perform all manner of menial services 
 for him, light his pipe, make and serve his coffee, " minister to him 
 at his meals, setting on meat," pouring water upon his hands, and even 
 washing his feet. He eats in solitary dignity, or in company perhaps 
 with his older sons, after which the women retire to another room to 
 partake of their meal with the younger children.' 
 
 Thomson, in Land and Book, presents this inferiority of women 
 very forcibly. 'Oriental women are never regarded or treated as 
 equals by the men. This is seen on all occasions ; and it requires 
 some firmness to secure to our own ladies proper respect, especially 
 from men-servants. They pronounce women to be weak and inferior 
 in the most absolute terms, and in accordance with this idea is their 
 deportment towards them. It is very common to see small boys lord 
 it over both mothers and sisters in a most insolent manner, and they 
 are encouraged to do so by the father. The evils resulting from this 
 are incalculable. The men, however, attempt to justify their treatment 
 ot the women by the tyrant's plea of necessity. They are obliged to 
 govern their wives with the utmost strictness, or they would not only 
 ruin their husbands, but themselves also. Hence they literally use 
 the rod upon, them.' 
 
 Gadsby says : ' All the servile work is, in the East, done by women. 
 All women are considered so much inferior to men that they are not 
 even allowed to enter a mosque during the times of prayer. Few 
 pray at all, and those who do are necessitated to pray at home. 
 Ignorance is called "a woman's jewel."' 
 
222 HANDBOOK Of BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The Symbolical Meaning of the Shewbread. 
 
 LEVITICUS xxiv. 9 : ' For it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord 
 made by fire by a perpetual statute.' 
 
 Difficulty. This setting up of loaves in the holy place seems to 
 have nothing corresponding to it in later religious services. Can, then, 
 the ritual significance of it be ascertained 1 ? 
 
 Explanation. Dr. Miligan, in Bible Educator, vol. iii., p. 153, 
 gives the following valuable and satisfactory passage : ' Of the 
 (shewbread) table we say nothing. Its importance is derived entirely 
 from that of the bread placed upon it ; and it has no special meaning 
 of its own. We pass at once to the loaves, twelve in number, an 
 offering of the " most holy " kind, " taken from the children of Israel 
 by an everlasting covenant " (ver. 8) ; above all, " the shewbread " 
 loaves, or, as the words literally mean, the bread of the face, or of the 
 presence. That this " face," this " presence," is that of God, it is 
 impossible to doubt. "Thou shalt set upon the table facebread 
 before my face alway " (Exod. xxv. 30) ; and again, " For there was 
 no bread there but the facebread that was taken from before the face 
 of the Lord" (i Sam. xxi. 6). The "face," therefore, spoken of in 
 the term for the shewbread is the face of God, and the bread was so 
 named because it was set immediately before Him in that holy part 
 of the tabernacle where He dwelt. But with what purpose, with 
 what meaning, was it thus set before Him ? Two answers have been 
 given to the question : the first, that of those who imagine it to 
 represent something by which the face of God is seen, the heavenly 
 food by the eating of which man attains to the vision of God, and 
 enters into communion and fellowship with Him ; the second, that 
 of those who behold in it, not something by which we see God, but 
 something in us for which God looks, those fruits of righteousness in 
 His people which are the great object of His desire, and, when pro- 
 duced as they ought to be, of His satisfaction and joy. 
 
 'The first of these views has much to recommend it, and is capable 
 of being presented in a light at once interesting and beautiful. For 
 the shewbread thus becomes the symbol of Him who is the " Bread 
 of Life," of that Only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, 
 and who " declares '' to us that God whom no man haj;h seen at any 
 time. Partaking of Him, His people " behold God's face in 
 righteousness," and have realized in their own happy experience that 
 in "His presence there is fulness of joy," that "at His right hand 
 there are pleasures for evermore." They are His priestly people, on 
 
SYMBOLICAL MEANING OF THE SHEWBREAD. 223. 
 
 whom all the blessings of the covenant are bestowed, and who, 
 therefore, on the Sabbath, that day which is peculiarly the sign of 
 the covenant, enter into the symbolic heaven, and there eat 
 heavenly food. 
 
 * Much, however, as may be said for this view, it appears liable to 
 objections which it is hardly possible to overcome. For, in the first 
 place, the outer apartment of the Tabernacle is not really that part 
 of it in which God peculiarly dwells. He is within the veil, and 
 seeing Him as He is, the sight of Him which is given in His Son, 
 is reserved for that stage in the progress of His Israel when the veil 
 is withdrawn, and they enter into the inmost and most holy shrine. 
 And then, in the second place, the analogy of the shewbread with 
 the other articles of furniture in the place where it stands is thus 
 destroyed. Both the golden candlestick and the altar of incense 
 represent what passes from men to God rather than what passes 
 from God to men, the grace indeed coming first from Him, but 
 afterwards so taking up its abode in them that they shine with sacred 
 light, and fill with the odour of sanctity the apartment in which they 
 live. 
 
 * We must fall back, then, on the second view mentioned, and 
 must see in the shewbread loaves the symbol of those fruits of 
 righteousness which are produced in the lives of the true children of 
 the covenant. These are produced first of all in Christ Himself, 
 whose life embodied every Christian grace and excellence in its most 
 perfect form, who in action exclaimed, " My meat is to do My 
 Father's will, anci to finish His work," and in suffering, " The cup 
 which My Father hath given Me to drink, shall I not drink it?" 
 whose earthly course was one continual doing good, and His death a 
 returning in faith and hope to the bosom of His Father, " Father, 
 into Thy hands I commend My spirit." But, thus produced in Him, 
 these fruits of righteousness are produced also in the members of 
 His body, for they are a " chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a 
 fcoly nation, a peculiar people, etc. (i Peter ii. 9). They do not 
 merely shine with the light of Christian knowledge and discernment;, 
 they are also faithful in all " good works " (Titus ii. 12-14). Should 
 it still seem to any that thus the eating of the loaves is not suffici- 
 ent^ explained, it has only to be borne in mind that they were an 
 " offering," that is, in the nature of the case, a meat-offering, and 
 that the same rule, therefore, was applied to them as to all the other 
 meat-offerings of Israel (Lev. vi. 16). 
 
 Ewald considers the shewbread to * have maintained itself in 
 Israel out of an altogether remote primitive age,' He says : *The 
 
224 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 simplest mode of offering a sacrifice of property was from the 
 beginning connected with the liveliest wish to prepare therewith 
 something pleasing, some enjoyment for the Deity. Accordingly, 
 the sacrifices which arose in the very earliest times, were entirely 
 furnished as food-offerings ; they were presented as meals for 
 gracious acceptance. Man parted with his own most delicious food 
 in order to prepare enjoyment for a higher being, and to draw forth 
 thereby a blessing over the earth ; and when he received this 
 blessing from Mother Earth, thankfulness drove him to make ready a 
 portion of the superabundance for a similar food-offering. Exactly 
 in this way the custom arose among certain nations of Western Asia 
 .and Europe, of setting out, at a sacred spot, a magnificent table, and 
 replenishing it from time to time with choice provisions. A trace of 
 this custom remained also in Israel down to later times.' 
 
 Dr. Cunningham Geikie gives the meaning of the shewbread in a 
 very simple form. * The absolute dependence of Israel, alike in its 
 tribes and as a whole, and of man as a race, on God, for daily bread, 
 could receive no more fitting acknowledgment ; for the bread of the 
 Presence remained before Him perpetually.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth sets the matter in yet another light. ' The 
 .shewbread represented the duty of the people, on their part, to set 
 themselves ever before God, and to set the Lord always before their 
 face, and to remember His continual presence, and their own special 
 duty to set themselves anew before Him on each succeeding Sabbath ; 
 .and they exhibited also God's continual care and favour towards the 
 .twelve tribes of His inheritance, which were ever before Him, and 
 His eye ever upon them.' 
 
 Bread, being the staff of life, is taken to represent that which it 
 .sustains. We speak of their milk as being the life of infants, and so 
 bread is the life of men, and may stand for them representatively. 
 The presentation of these loaves in the presence of God symbolically 
 indicated man's ever-renewed act of giving himself to God. The 
 spiritual meaning of the rite is in some sense preserved in the bread 
 of the Christian Sacrament 
 
 Magicians, Astrologers, and Sorcerers. 
 
 DANIEL ii. 2 : ' Then the King commanded to call the magicians, and the 
 . astrologers, and the sorcerers, for to show the King his dreams.' 
 
 Question. Are not these several names for the same class oj 
 persons? 
 
 Answer. The carefulness and precision of Bible narrative is 
 . constantly proved afresh as knowledge of Eastern life and custom 
 
MAGICIANS, ASTROLOGERS, AND SORCERERS. 22-5 
 
 increases. Fuller understanding of Babylonish society shows that, in 
 Belshazzar's time, the general name for the class of persons mentioned 
 in the text was Khakamim, or 'wise men' (see ver. 12). But 
 these were divided into three classes : i. Assaphim, or theosophists ; 
 2. Casdim, or astrologers; and 3. Gazerim, or soothsayers. Thest: 
 were separate sections of one guild. 
 
 Some accounts make four classes, adding the Khartummim, or 
 magicians. The distinct department of study and work for each of 
 these classes can only now be marked out with uncertainty. 
 
 The Khartummim repulsed ' by their incantations, prayers, and 
 ex'en imprecations, the demons and evil spirits. The form of their 
 conjuration and exorcism may almost be said to have been stereo- 
 '.yped. The existing specimens begin with an enumeration of the 
 evil spirits to be conjured, and their power is qualified and decried. 
 This is followed by the prayer that the person praying or prayed for 
 may be preserved from their evil influences and action; and the whole 
 closes with an invocation, sometimes to a vast number of gods and 
 goddesses, but always to " the spirit of heaven," and the " spirit of 
 earth," to remember the petitioner. They were in the habit of using 
 music in their incantations.' 
 
 The Assaphim were so called from the breathing or muttering 
 manner in which they are supposed to have spoken. ' In the time of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, and even long before, these " theosop-hists " were 
 accredited with a spiritual perception of spiritual things, which made 
 them the recognised ministers of the communion between man and 
 the supernatural beings who surrounded him.' 
 
 The Casdim, as astrologers, 'would be considered the chosen 
 interpreters of the signs, omens, and dreams, by which the gods 
 revealed their will.' Sometimes the term is used generally, and 
 includes the other classes. 
 
 The Gaseri/u, or soothsayers, were ' men who divided the heavens 
 into Spheres, etc., and divined or determined omens ; or to connect 
 the word with the Kazir of the Assyrian inscriptions, who collected 
 the laws Oi astrological phenomena and portents, and pronounced 
 upon them.' 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary adds : ' These were the classes which 
 presented themselves before Nebuchadnezzar to " show " (interpret) 
 Ls dream ii he would but tell it to them ; or drive away by their 
 hymns and exorcisms the evil spirit which "troubled" their royal 
 ;aaster. If there is still some indistinctness in allotting to each of 
 these classes Us special position in the scientific hierarchy, it is due 
 (L) to the fact that these classes were not exclusive, but frequently 
 
226 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 overlapped each other ; and (2) to the little help which the versions 
 notably the Greek versions give with reference to a system 
 thoroughly strange to the times in which they were compiled. Were 
 it not for cuneiform discovery, the English reader would still be in 
 darkness about the subject.' 
 
 Captive Women to pare their Nails. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY xxi. 12 : 'Thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she 
 shall shave her head, and pare her nails ; and she shall put the raiment of her 
 captivity from off her.' 
 
 Difficulty. What precise act was thus required, and what relation 
 could it bear to the womaris new condition ? 
 
 Explanation. The difficulty of this verse is partly occasioned 
 by the uncertainty of the translation. The margin of our Bible gives 
 ' suffer to grow,' which is the very opposite of * paring.' The original 
 Hebrew term means ' to make, or to dress.' Whatever the woman 
 was to do to her nails, the act must be in harmony with the other 
 acts required of her. Two distinct explanations have been offered, 
 but preference is to be given to the latter of the two. The Speakers 
 Commentary says : * We can scarcely doubt that the shaving the head 
 (a customary sign of purification, Lev. xiv. 8. ; Num. viii. 7), and the 
 putting away "the garment of her captivity," must be designed to 
 signify the translation of the woman from the state of a heathen and 
 a slave to that of a wife amongst the covenant people. Consistency 
 seems then to require that she should " pare," not " suffer to grow," 
 her nails ; and thus, so far as possible, lay aside all Belonging to her 
 condition as an alien. This rendering of the word is strongly sup- 
 ported by 2 Sam. xix. 24.' Bishop Wordsworth takes the same view, 
 and says : ' The ceremonial here prescribed, which was like a purifica- 
 tion from Gentilism, would also be a test of the sincerity of the 
 affection of the Israelite for her, as depriving her of some of the 
 external ornaments of beauty, especially her hair.' 
 
 Jamiesons explanation, which is the more probable one, is as 
 follows : ' According to the war customs of all ancient nations, a 
 female captive became the slave of the victor, who had the sole and 
 unchallengeable control of right to her person. Moses improved this 
 existing usage by special regulations on the subject. He enacted 
 that, in the event of her master being captivated by her beauty, and 
 contemplating a marriage with her, a month should be allowed to 
 elapse, during which her perturbed feelings might be calmed, her 
 mind reconciled to her altered condition, and she might bewail the 
 
CAPTIVE WOMEN TO PARE THEIR NAILS. 227 
 
 loss of her parents, now to her the same as dead. A month was the 
 usual period of mourning with the Jews, and the circumstances 
 mentioned here were the signs of grief the shaving of the head the 
 (not "paring", but, literally, "doing") allowing the nails to grow 
 uncut, the putting off her gorgeous dress, in which ladies on the eve 
 of being captured arrayed themselves to be the more attractive to 
 their captors. The delay was full of humanity and kindness to the 
 female slave, as well as a prudential measure to try the strength of her 
 master's affections. If his love should afterwards cool, and he 
 become indifferent to her person, he was not to lord it over her, 
 neither to sell her in the slave-market, nor retain her in a subordinate 
 condition in his house ; but she was free to go where her inclinations 
 led her.' 
 
 The passage is a very remarkable instance of Moses' method of 
 raising, improving, and giving tone to, existing customs. Only when 
 .a prevailing custom was morally evil did Moses entirely remove it 
 Usually he kept the custom, elevating it, and relieving it of any undue 
 pressure it might make on individuals. So here, the Israelites might 
 take to themselves the captive women, as other nations did ; but they 
 must treat them considerately, and nobly, not injuring them by any 
 outbursts of uncontrolled passion. 
 
 Man and Beast in Sackcloth. 
 
 JONAH iti. 8 : ' But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry 
 mightily unto God.' 
 
 Question. In what sense could the animals share with man in 
 an act of national repentance 2 
 
 Answer. In Bible history the domesticated animals are always 
 treated as sharing in the joys and sorrows, the rewards and punish- 
 ments of man. The family and the substance are treated as a 
 whole, and man is affected through his property and possessions. It 
 is only in harmony with this idea that the domestic animals should 
 rshare in the outward signs and expressions of mourning. The idea 
 is indeed not strange in Western and modern nations, for horses and 
 other animals are gaily caparisoned in times of national triumph and 
 joy, and are dressed with black plumes and velvets in times of 
 funeral. The Psalmist calls upon all animate and inanimate things 
 to join him in praising the Lord ; and it is but the obverse of this 
 that they should join him in the wailings of his seasons of penitence 
 .and humiliation. It may be added that the public acts of a nation 
 .-should be acts in which all the nation openly and evidently joins. 
 
 T 2 
 
228 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Speaker's Commentary says : ' In reference to the beasts which are 
 here alluded to, probably those animals only are contemplated which 
 were wont to wear harness, such as horses, asses, mules, camels, and 
 draught oxen. In all ages men have been wont, on occasion, to put 
 upon such animals trappings suited to the particular season, whether 
 in rejoicings, or (as among ourselves) at funerals. Commentators 
 further refer to particular instances in which other shows of mourn- 
 ing have been extended to them. The Persians, when mourning for 
 Masistius, not only cut off their own hair, but that also of their 
 horses and draught beasts, " according to their custom," says the 
 historian ; Alexander the Great ordered the like to be done in honour 
 of Hephsestion ; so did the Thessalians and their allies at the death 
 of Pelopidas. The remarkable peculiarity of the case before us con- 
 sists in the fact, that the garb of penitence was put upon beasts in 
 order that they might thus help in placating Heaven/ 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth says : ' The King of Nineveh declared his 
 consciousness of a great truth, that by the Providence of God, the 
 destinies of the animal creation, whether for joy or sorrow, whether 
 for action or suffering, are linked in a mysterious chain of sympathy 
 with those of man.' 
 
 Dean Stanley, in describing the effects of Jonah's testimony, says : 
 ' The remorse for the wrong and robbery and violence of many 
 generations is awakened. The dumb animals are included, after the 
 fashion of the East, in the universal warning, and the Divine decree 
 is revoked.' 
 
 Kitto says : * It seems a remarkable circumstance, that the Nine- 
 vites should have extended the acts of fasting and humiliation to 
 their cattle. We find nothing of this among the Hebrews ; but it 
 was a custom among the ancient heathen nations to withhold food 
 from their cattle, as well as from themselves, in times of mourning 
 and humiliation, and in some instances they cut off the hair of their 
 beasts, as well as their own.' 
 
 Wearing of Amulets. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY vi. 8, 9 : ' And them shalt bind them for a sign upon thine 
 hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write 
 them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.' 
 
 Difficulty. Was not this sanctioning the idolatrous custom of 
 wearing amulets and charms ? 
 
 Answer. In studying the Mosaic social and religious system, it* 
 is necessary to bear in mind that it was not absolutely original. It j 
 recognised existing habits, sentiments, and ritual practices. If 
 
WEARING OF AMULETS. 229. 
 
 seldom demanded their entire removal ; but, allowing them to 
 continue, it so modified them as to check the evil influences which 
 they might exert, and make them helpful to that which is good. 
 
 The Eastern people are gravely superstitious, and the use of 
 charms and amulets is mischievously widespead at the present day. 
 Of this one or two illustrations may be given. Van Lennep, who 
 was for years a missionary in Asia Minor, says : * Orientals believe in 
 charms, spells, and talismans, chiefly consisting of the names of certain 
 saints, or Jins, or of fancifal and senseless formulas, written upon a 
 piece of paper or parchment. This is kept in a case of silver or 
 gold, or more commonly served up in a small cloth bag, an inch 
 long, and hung round the neck, or fastened to the leathern girdle 
 which every Bedawy wears about his waist next to the skin. They 
 have great dread of the " evil-eye." Envy or jealousy are believed 
 to endow a single glance with a deadly venom ; and some persons, it 
 is thought, thus inflict injury quite unintentionally. It is certainly a very 
 annoying superstition, to say the least. Upon the walls of a new 
 house must be written, in large characters, in some conspicuous 
 place, the word " Mashallah " (Praise be to God), lest a glance of admi- 
 ration doom it to the flames, or bring a blight upon its inmates. The 
 dread of the evil-eye exists among all classes and in every religious 
 sect ; and though no direct allusion to it occurs in the Scriptures, it 
 cannot be doubted that it generally prevailed among the Hebrews, 
 as well as among their heathen neighbours. Indeed, some of the 
 Mosaic precepts are best explained by supposing that they were 
 chiefly intended to counteract such a superstition." 
 
 Thomson, in his Land and Book, says : ' Perhaps the superstition 
 most common at present is that of charms. People of every rank 
 and station in society, and of every creed and sect, employ them for 
 themselves, their children, their houses, their horses, and cattle, and 
 even for their fruit-trees. Amulets and charms are hung round the 
 neck, or hid away in the bosom ; they are suspended from the arch 
 of a newly-built house ; they dangle from the throat of horses and 
 cattle; and fig and other trees have cabalistic signs drawn upon 
 tnem, to guard against the evil-eye. The charms most in repute 
 among all sects are brief sentences from their religious books, written 
 with certain formalities, and frequently accompanied with cabalistic 
 diagrams, drawn by those skilled in these magic mysteries. I have 
 examined many of them. They are sewed up in small sacks, gener- 
 ally heart-shaped, and suspended from the tarbush of infants, round 
 the necks of larger children, and about grown-up people according to 
 their particular fancy. Like nostrums in medicine, these amulets are 
 
230 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULIIES. 
 
 believed to defend the wearer from sickness and accidents, from the 
 malice of enemies, from balls in a battle, from robbers by the way, 
 from the evil-eye, evil spirits, and, in short, from every species of 
 calamity.' 
 
 Compare Lane's Modern Egypt> c. 1 1 ; and Livingstone's Travels 
 p. 285, et passim. 
 
 In the Mosaic regulations concerning amulets two things seem to 
 have been designed, i. To place the superstitious sentiment under 
 strict and precise limitations. If certain signs were allowed, it must 
 be understood that no other could be recognised as lawful or 
 useful. 2. To associate the idea of protection from danger directly 
 with Jehovah, and Jehovah alone, and to fix permanently, in the 
 minds of the people, the connection between preservation and obedi- 
 ence to Jehovah's will. 
 
 Some think that the injunctions of Moses are to be understood 
 metaphorically ; and that he only meant they were to keep the facts 
 of the Passover and Exodus continually in mind ; and to have them 
 present as though they were inscribed on papyrus or parchment 
 fastened on the wrist, or on the face between the eyes. The modem 
 Jews are therefore regarded as wholly wrong when they allege this 
 precept as a justification for the use of phylacteries. Bishop Words- 
 worth replies to this explanation by saying : l Doubtless Moses 
 prescribed external memorials ; and the opinion which regards this 
 precept as merely figurative seems inadmissible. Indeed, the figura- 
 tive expressions in Prov. iii. 3; vi. 21; vii. 3, "Bind them (my 
 precepts) round thy neck, on thy heart, on thy hand," presuppose 
 literal practices, from which the metaphor was derived.' 
 
 The extravagances of later times should not prejudice us against 
 the original Mosaic injunction, so that we fail to discern the practical 
 wisdom of it, as guiding public sentiment, and familiar, but imperil- 
 ing, practices aright. 
 
 It may be added, further, that these requirements of Moses are in 
 perfect harmony with the plan of testing heart-obedience by formal 
 commandments in small things, which is the marked characteristic 
 of the earlier forms of Divine training for men. 
 
 Casting a Cord by Lot. 
 
 MlCAH ii. 5 : * Therefore thou shall have none that shall cast a cord by lot in 
 the congregation of the Lord.' 
 
 Question. What ancient custom is referred to in this threatening? 
 
 Answer. The parties addressed in this verse are the 'covetous 
 
 oppressors,' referred to in verse 2, who ' covet fields, and take them by 
 
CASTING A CORD BY LOT, 23! 
 
 violence ; and houses, and take them away/ And the idea seems to 
 be, that such persons shall not in any way gain the Divine recognition 
 of their wrongdoing; none by authority of God shall measure out 
 their land for them, or cast lots so as to secure them in their covetous 
 possessions. 
 
 The figure in the verse is evidently taken from the original division 
 of the land of Canaan among the tribes and families by lot. The 
 several portions were measured by casting a cord over, or round 
 them, and the measured portions were allocated to families by lot. 
 The expression means this : ' None of you shall have any possession 
 measured out? (See Deut. xxxii, 8, 9.) 
 
 The Revised Version reads, 'None that shall cast the line by lot.' 
 The generation would be such a godless one, that there would not be 
 one to make reasonable claim to a portion of the Lord's inheritance. 
 By covetousness and violence they had forfeited all right to the 
 ' portion of Jehovah's people.' 
 
 The Rule for the Nazarite's Hair. 
 
 NUMBERS vi. 18 : 'And the Nazarite shall shave the head of his separation at 
 the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall take the hair of the head 
 of his separation, and put it in the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace- 
 offerings.' 
 
 Question. What reason can be given for the importance attached 
 to the Nazaritfs hair / 
 
 Answer. Particular sentiments were connected with the hair by 
 Eastern people, and the regulations of the Nazarite vow were made in 
 accordance with those sentiments. 
 
 Dressing the hair was a sign of self-respect, and of care for personal 
 appearance. It indicated that a man was fully maintaining family 
 and social relations, and that he was under no physical or religious 
 disability. No man without well-dressed hair would be free to mingle 
 in social intercourse with others. The Egyptians allowed the women 
 to wear their hair long, but kept the heac's of men closely shaved 
 from early childhood. The Greeks admired long hair, whether in 
 men or women, as is evident in the representations of their divinities, 
 especially Bacchus and Apollo, whose long locks were a symbol of 
 perpetual youth. The Assyrians also wore it long, the flowing curls 
 being gathered together in a heavy cluster on the back, as represented 
 in the sculptures of Nineveh. But it is particularly to be observed 
 that the Hebrews, while they encouraged the natural growth of hair, 
 observed the natural distinction between the sexes by allowing the 
 
2^2 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 women to wear it long, while the men restrained theirs by frequent 
 clippings to a moderate length. With the Hebrews, wearing the hair 
 long, neglecting the ordinary clippings and dressings, was, as Ligkt- 
 Joot tells us, *a sign of humiliation and self-denial, and of a certain 
 religious slovenliness.' A man under religious vow is supposed to be 
 absorbed in the particular thing to which he is pledged, that he 
 cannot attend even to his own personal appearance. He is separated 
 from common life for the time of his vow, separated to the matter 
 concerning which he has vowed, and the sign, which everybody can 
 recognise, is his unpolled neglected hair. 
 
 Cutting or shaving the head is, then, the public act which indicates 
 the closing of the period of the vow, and the resumption of the 
 ordinary social relations, and the hair which had grown during the 
 period of the vow was naturally regarded as sacred, and was solemnly 
 burnt in the sacrificial fire of the peace-offerings. 
 
 The Speakers Commentary, in loc., gives several instances of the 
 religious significance associated with the hair in ancient times, and in 
 very diverse countries. * St. Paul is said to have " shorn " (the word 
 should rather be " polled ") his head in Cenchrea because he had a 
 vow' (Acts xviii. 18). The many and various observances con- 
 nected with the hair may be traced back to the estimation attached 
 to a profuse growth of it. Peleus (Iliad, xxiii. 142, sqq.) dedicates a 
 lock of Achilles' hair, and vows to shear it on the safe return of his 
 son from the Trojan war. Achilles, after the death of Patroclus, cuts 
 off this sacred lock, and in course of the funeral rites places it in the 
 hand of his dead friend. Examples are found of vows symbolized -by 
 particular modes of cropping, or partially shaving off the hair, as 
 amongst the Egyptians (Herod, ii. 65). The casting of hair from the 
 forehead of victims into the flame as an earnest of the sacrifice about 
 to be offered is mentioned (Iliad xix. 254 ; Virgil, ^Eneid vl 245). 
 Very apposite to the passage at the head of this paragraph is Koran 
 ii. 192 : 'Perform the pilgrimage, and shave not your heads until 
 your offering reaches the place of sacrifice;' and Morier (Second 
 Journey into Persia, p. 117) : * After the birth of a son, if the parent 
 be in distress, or the child be sick .... the mother makes a vow 
 that no razor shall come upon the child's head for a certain time, or 
 for life (cf. i Sam. i. n). If the child recovers, and the vow be but 
 for a time, so that the mother's vow be fulfilled, then she shaves his 
 head at the end of the time prescribed, makes an entertainment, 
 collects money and other things from her relations, which are sent as 
 Nezers (offerings) to the mosque.' 
 
AGRICULTURAL EFFECTS OF SABBATICAL YEAR. 23$ 
 
 The Agricultural Effects of the Sabbatical Year. 
 
 LEVITICUS xxv. 4 : ' In the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the 
 and, a sabbath for the Lord : thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy 
 vineyard.' 
 
 Difficulty. Surely the loss of a year's harvesting must have 
 proved seriously disturbing to national life. 
 
 Explanation. Due attention should be paid to the Sabbatical 
 element in the Mosaic system. Its physical, moral, educational, 
 and religious significance deserve careful study, and in this line of 
 study some of the gravest difficulties of the Mosaic system find ex- 
 planation. The central idea of that system seems to be that every- 
 thing a Jew had was really God's, and only his upon trust, for God's 
 use and service. The land, the crops, property, family, time, all 
 were God's. But such a truth would need to be constantly held up 
 before the people. It was one that would very readily be dimmed 
 and lost. The Jew was therefore required to show that he held all 
 for God by devoting entirely to Him certain parts. Thus, that all his 
 time was God's he testified by giving wholly to Him and His 
 worship a seventh part. So here, in relation to the harvests of the 
 soil, he declared that all was God's by giving to God the produce of 
 one year in seven : in that Sabbatical year the Jew took nothing for 
 self uses. 
 
 Very remarkable are two things : (i) The entireness of the way in 
 which the idea of * lying fallow,' on the Sabbatical year, was carried 
 out. It applied to vineyards and fruit-gardens, as well as to the 
 corn-lands. And (2) the liberty given to cattle, wild and tame, to 
 cat freely all the produce that grew of itself during the year. 
 
 As modifying the mischievous consequences which we may 
 imagine would result from such an arrangement, it should be remem- 
 bered (i) that, in the absence of scientific farming, fallows were 
 absolutely necessary if the producing power of the soil was to be 
 conserved. Without some regularly working laws, to which all must 
 conform, the greed of individuals would lead to the exhaustion of 
 Jehovah's land. In the earlier agriculture of England, landowners 
 made conditions with their farm-tenants that a certain number of 
 acres should lie fallow every year. Modern scientific farming, which 
 restores to the soil, in the shape of chemical manures, precisely the 
 elements which the growth of a particular crop has abstracted, 
 has made fallow laws obsolete. (2) It should also be observed that 
 as the Sabbatical year was a regular and well-known national arrange- 
 ment, all due provision was made for it, and a sufficient proportion 
 
234 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 of the six years' harvests was stored up against the emergency. And 
 (3) it is in full harmony with the whole spirit of the Mosaic revela- 
 tion that there should be such a recurring test of faithfulness to the 
 covenant, by a formal injunction. 
 
 Ewald explains the appointment of the Sabbatical year in a very 
 interesting way. * That the soil (especially if, as was the case then, 
 it is not manured) should, for its own sake, lie fallow from time to 
 time, that man had certain duties even towards it, and might not 
 perpetually exact, as it were, work from it, was a feeling which was 
 undoubtedly firmly established long before any conceptions about 
 the Sabbath. But when the idea of the Sabbath was added, not 
 only was a permanent period defined when the soil should rest, but 
 this period was itself sanctified, and its observance placed among the 
 higher duties of man. Here, accordingly, the whole natural view in 
 regard to the soil which prevailed in antiquity found expression in 
 the style peculiar to Jahveism. Even the soil has its divine right to 
 the necessary, and therefore divine, amount of rest and considera- 
 tion ; even towards it man is not to be ceaselessly directing his lust for 
 work and gain ; even to it is he to allow a proper time for rest, in 
 order that he may in turn reap the greater blessing. The soil annually 
 produces its fruits as a debt which it owes to man, and on which 
 man may reckon as the reward of the toil which he expends upon it ; 
 but just as there are times when the debt may not be demanded even 
 from the human debtor, so is man at the proper time to let the soil 
 alone without exacting payment from it. And as the ancient law 
 everywhere manifests a splendid consistency, it desires that the 
 harvest of every kind, even of orchards and vineyards, shall be re- 
 nounced, nay, that no purpose shall be entertained of gathering even 
 the spontaneous crops of the year in field and garden.' 
 
 Ewald shows that due provision was made, during this year, for 
 the needy, as they were at liberty to gather the fruits of every kind 
 which would grow freely and abundantly on the fallows. Also we 
 need not suppose that the Sabbatical was an idle year. Other occu- 
 pations besides ploughing, sowing, and reaping were permitted ; and, 
 in that year, special attention was given to moral and religious 
 instruction. 
 
 Dr. Ginsburg, Commentary for English Pleaders, in loc., says : 
 'What constitutes cultivation, and how much of labour was re- 
 garded as transgressing this law, may be seen from the following 
 canons which obtained during the second Temple. No one was 
 allowed to plant trees in the Sabbatical year, nor to cut off dried-up 
 branches, to break off withered leaves, to smoke under the plants in 
 
UNALTERABLE LA W OF MEDES AND PERSIANS. 235 
 
 order to kill the insects, nor to besmear the unripe fruit with any 
 kind of soil in order to protect them, etc. Anyone who committed 
 one of these things received the prescribed number of stripes. As 
 much land, however, might be cultivated as was required for the 
 payment of taxes, as well as for growing the barley required for the 
 omer, or wave-sheaf at the Passover, and wheat for the two wave- 
 loaves at Pentecost." 
 
 The Unalterable Law of the Medes and Persians. 
 
 DANIEL vi. S : ' Now, O King, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that 
 it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which 
 altereth not.' 
 
 Difficulty. How did Medo- Persian law differ from ordinary 
 laivl 
 
 Explanation. It was regarded as promulgated by the king as a 
 deified person. This conception of royalty is peculiar to the East, 
 though we have a Western shadow of it in the doctrine, once taught 
 even in England, of the Divine right of kings. The extravagant 
 extent of the sentiment in Oriental nations may be illustrated. 
 4 Babylonian kings, from the remote days of Khammurabi to the 
 days of Nebuchadnezzar, called themselves divine and god-born. In 
 an inscription (stated to be as early as 2,000 B.C.) in the palace of 
 Assurbanipal at Kouyunjik the king counts as his ancestor one 
 Sugamunu ; and this ancestor was afterwards worshipped by the 
 Babylonians as a god. Amaragu is the name of another king 
 similarly deified. Izdubar, the hero of the 'deluge' tablets, and 
 identified by some with the Biblical Nimrod, received like honours, 
 and a tablet with a prayer addressed to him has been discovered at 
 Nineveh. Hero-worship and king-worship made no strange demands 
 upon the most idolatrous of nations ; and therefore the Babylonians, 
 when called upon to pay to the conqueror Darius the Mede the 
 homage due to a god, readily acceded to the demand.' (Speaker's 
 Commentary.'] 
 
 Chardin says that, in Persia, when the king has condemned a 
 person, it is no longer lawful to mention his name, or to intercede in 
 his favour. Though the king were drunk or beside himself, yet the 
 decree must be executed ; otherwise he would contradict himself, and 
 the law admits of no contradiction. 
 
 An incarnation of God could not afford to appear mistaken, or 
 changeable ; and this idea is evidently the basis of the notion that 
 his laws were unalterable. What was regarded as a direct interven 
 tion of the gods alone could form sufficient reason for a change. 
 
236 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 The Writing on the Stones at Ebal. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY xxvii. 2, 3 : 'And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass 
 over Jordan unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt 
 set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister : and thou shalt write 
 upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou 
 niayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' (See 
 Joshua viii. 30-35.) 
 
 Difficulties. i. How could all Israel get to Ebal on the day of 
 crossing the Jordan? 2. Why was Ebal selected as the place for the 
 renewal of the covenant ? 3. What hope was there that writing on 
 plaister would endure ? 4. How could ' all the words of the law ' be 
 written on two stones ? 
 
 Explanations. The figurative character of Eastern language 
 must be constantly borne in mind by the Scripture reader. ' On the 
 day' is a figure of speech, meaning 'at the time'; 'as soon as con- 
 venient.' A journey to Ebal on the day of the crossing was physically 
 impossible by reason of the distance, and the presence of Canaanite 
 fortresses and armies blocking the way. As soon as Jericho was 
 overthrown, and Ai destroyed, the inhabitants of Central Palestine 
 fled from their homes, and then, at the first possible moment, before 
 either the southern or the northern nations could combine for a last 
 struggle, Joshua rapidly marched the people to Ebal, and fulfilled the 
 Mosaic instructions. - Such a march may seem strange and almost 
 impossible to us, but great tribes, familiar with desert movements, 
 would quickly and readily accomplish it, and return to their old 
 camping-ground. 
 
 Ebal was selected as a central situation, from which Joshua seemed 
 to embrace the whole country given by God to Israel. We may also 
 notice that the conformation of the valley, and proximity of the hill- 
 sides, fitted it for such a national gathering, and enabled all present 
 to take intelligent part in what was done. For description of the 
 district, see Dr. Geikie's Hours with the Bible, vol. ii., p. 410. 
 
 The rough surface of the stones would unfit them for writing or 
 painting, and we are not to understand that the laws were engraved 
 or carved into the stone. A hard white cement, covering the surface 
 of the stone, would be as firm and durable as the stone, and in that 
 dry climate the writing or painting would be clear and distinct for 
 generations. The practice was common in Egypt ; and many ancient 
 pictures painted on such layers of gypsum are still visible, as well as 
 ancient writings in reddish ink. Thomson {Land and Book^ p. 471) 
 says : * I have seen numerous specimens of this kind of writing, cer- 
 tainly more than 2,000 years old, and still as distinct as when it was 
 
THE WRITING ON THE STONES AT EBAL. 237 
 
 first inscribed on the plaster.' At Pompeii ancient writings are still 
 preserved on the cement which covers the walls of the houses and 
 streets. 
 
 As the exhibition of laws in this manner on stones, pillars, or 
 tablets, was familiar to the ancients, and they were skilful in com- 
 pressing a great deal upon a small surface, as is shown by the elaborate 
 inscriptions on recently recovered monuments, there is really no diffi- 
 culty in assuming that these stones were prepared beforehand, and 
 contained a full summary of the covenant requirements of God. It 
 need not have been the Book of Deuteronomy, the Decalogue only, 
 or the mere table of blessings and cursings. ' The words employed 
 can only mean all the laws revealed from God to the people by 
 Moses' (exclusive of the purely Mosaic elaborations, details, and 
 repetitions). * In these would not be included the historical, didactic, 
 ethnological, and other non-legislative matter comprised in the Penta- 
 teuch, but simply its legal enactments, regarded by the Jews as 613 in 
 number.' (Speakers Commentary r , in loc.) 
 
 The stones were to serve as a monument testifying to the fact that, 
 then and there, the whole people of Israel took possession of the land 
 on the Divine conditions, so only their side of the covenant, the 
 essential principles of moral and religious conduct to which they stood 
 pledged, required to be written on the memorial. The altar, beside 
 the stones, seemed to assure God's faithful keeping of His side of the 
 covenant if, in all obedience and holiness, they were faithful to theirs. 
 
 Egyptian Divining-Cups. 
 
 GENESIS xliv. 2, 5 : ' Put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the' 
 youngest.' ' Is not this in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he, 
 divineth ?' (See also ver. 15.) 
 
 Difficulty. Did Joseph so far give up his religion as to adopt 
 Egyptian magical customs ? 
 
 Answer. It may be well first to explain what these ' divining- 
 cups' were. E. L. Clark, in Israel in Egypt, p. 166, says: 'The 
 priests are believed to possess the art of knowing the will of the gods 
 from the divining-cups. Joseph brought fear into the hearts of his 
 brethren by referring to this well-known Egyptian custom. Such 
 bowls, or cups, are of finest workmanship, and represent at least the 
 wisdom of the workman who made them. They have the holy beetle 
 carrying a ball like the sun in his claws, his wings outstretched, 
 standing upon a lotus-flower. A similar beetle, with wider wings, 
 forms a canopy, the ends of which rest on lotus-plants. Beneath this 
 ire the sphinxes, in the unusual position of acf'on, standing erect, one- 
 
238 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 foot lifted above images, and the wings elevated. Many mysterious 
 lines and forms occupy the centre and the rim. The shadows which 
 come and go within these wine-cups, and the position of certain drops 
 of water or wine, are thought to be not less certain indications of the 
 Divine will than the eclipse of the sun, or the discovery of new stars.' 
 
 The sacred cup was a symbol of the Nile. Lane says that divina- 
 tion by cups was practised either by dropping gold, silver, or jewels, 
 into the water, and then examining their appearance ; or simply by 
 looking into the water as into a mirror, somewhat probably as the 
 famous Egyptian magician did into the mirror of ink, as mentioned 
 by the Duke of Northumberland and others in the present day. 
 
 Joseph was at this time acting a part before his brothers, with a 
 definite object in view ; and we may easily explain all that was said 
 and done as being necessary to the consistent and complete carrying 
 out of the part. So far from assuming that Joseph had, in any sense, 
 given up his religion, we need not even suppose that he actually had 
 a divining-cup. It is quite enough that, for his immediate purpose, 
 he had his silver drinking-cup so called. It was part of his plan to 
 produce a profound impression of his dignity and power as an 
 Egyptian official upon his brethren, and so to disarm any suspicions 
 that they might entertain. Joseph was to these Hebrews the great 
 Egyptian official, and he did just what such an officer would do, and 
 said just what such an officer would say. We can learn nothing from 
 such an incident concerning the ordinary habits of Joseph, and the 
 faithfulness which distinguished him is a strong presumption against 
 the notion that he either divined, or made trial in any of the idolatrous 
 ways. * If he had resorted to divination by cups, he would have been 
 untrue to his sacred character as a worshipper and prophet of the one 
 God, and would have degraded himself to the level of the Egyptian 
 magicians, and would have given countenance to their superstitions.' 
 i ( Bishop Wordsworth. ) 
 
 The morality of thus ' acting a part ' may best be tested by familiar 
 incidents in modern life, and the sentiments commonly cherished 
 concerning them. For instance, the son who has long been away in 
 foreign lands, comes to his old home unexpectedly, and acts the part 
 of a stranger, talking to the aged parents about their lost son to find 
 out if he has the old place in their hearts. No one imagines for one 
 moment that this is immoral, deceptive, or mischievous. So the 
 policeman puts on disguise, and acts a part, in order to secure the 
 apprehension of a criminal, and such stratagem is applauded. We 
 .must not 'do evil that good may come'; but devices, disguises, 
 -stratagems, and part-acting, need not be evil, and so may not only be 
 
THE LA IV AGAINST MING LINGS, 239 
 
 permissible, but even wise and right, the best thing under the circum- 
 stances. A little consideration will reveal that Joseph could not have 
 met the state of things more skilfully or more prudently than he did. 
 There need be no question about the Tightness of his ' acting a part ;* 
 the only question that seems difficult to answer is this : Did he not 
 overdo his part ? 
 
 The Law against Minglings. 
 
 LEVITICUS xix. 19 : ' Thou shall not sow thy field with mingled seed, neither 
 shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee. ' 
 
 Question. Is there a permanence of obligation attaching to this law? 
 
 Answer. Such an obligation has never been recognised. Within 
 limitations different breeds of animals have been crossed, and the 
 breeds improved thereby. And mixed stuffs are familiar articles of 
 merchandise. The farmers, if they do not absolutely sow two kinds 
 of seeds together, scatter the clover before the wheat is up. 
 
 The law belongs to the period when God was pleased to teach His 
 people by precise and formal rules ; and when it was especially need- 
 ful to impress that man must in no way interfere with the Divine 
 order and arrangement, either in nature or in revelation. Outside 
 of the formal theocracy, and after it has done its work, and made its 
 witness, the free dominion and use of the earth is given to men. 
 They soon discover that they cannot improve on, or alter, the actual 
 Divine order, but they can, and they may, develop the possibilities 
 that are in the Divine Creation. As an illustration we may remind 
 of the improvements of plants by artificial fertilization. And it is 
 curious to note that while, in the earlier times, the Hebrews were 
 forbidden to breed mules, these animals became the peculiar treasure 
 of kings and princes in the period of the monarchy. 
 
 From the Mosaic point of view, no doubt this law against minglings 
 was an important agency in preserving the separateness, simplicity, 
 and isolation of the Hebrews as a nation. It was one of the outward 
 teachings of the selectness of the nation. 
 
 Modes of calling Tribes together. 
 
 I SAMUEL xi. 7: 'And he took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces, and 
 sent them throughout all the borders of Israel by the hand of messengers, saying, 
 Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto 
 his oxen ' (Rev. Ver. ). 
 
 Question. Was this an invention of Saul's, or was it done in 
 accordance with a recognised tribal custom ? 
 
 Answer. The gathering together of scattered portions of a 
 tribe, or family of tribes, to meet some pressing necessity, was so im- 
 
240 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 portant a matter, and so frequently required, that we may be quite 
 sure some customs in relation to it were established. Perhaps 
 usually a messenger, or a trumpet call, sufficed. In our own land, 
 at one time, beacon fires were lighted on the hill- tops. There is, 
 however, a previous case narrated in Scripture which is very similar to 
 Saul's ; and both indicate action taken suddenly, and under the 
 influence of passion. We may therefore assume that such a custom 
 was only followed in a case of extreme urgency. 
 
 The earlier case is of so painful a character that we do not give 
 the details, but refer our readers to Judges xix., especially verses 
 29, 30. ' The narrative takes us back to wild times, when the passions 
 of men expressed themselves in wild and fierce expedients.' Dean 
 Stanley tells us in a footnote to Jewish Church, vol i., p. 261 : * A 
 similar incident is said to have occured recently in the tribes near 
 Damascus. An Arab woman having been accused of unchastity by 
 another, was killed by her father, who then tore her body open in 
 the presence of the tribe, and found that she was innocent. The 
 slanderer was then judged. Her tongue was cut out, and she was 
 hewn into small pieces, which were sent all over the desert.' 
 
 Lurian tells of the practice by the Scythians, of a custom, like 
 Saul's, of sending round the pieces of an ox, as a threatening to all 
 who fail to respond to the summons. 
 
 Readers of ' Lady of the Lake ' will remember the very striking 
 description of calling a Highland clan together for an expedition or 
 a defence. Sir Walter Scott explains his allusion thus : * When a 
 Highland chief wished to summon his clan, he slew a goat, and making 
 a cross of any light wood, seared its extremities at the fire, arid ex- 
 tinguished them in the blood of the animal. It was delivered to a 
 swift and trusty messenger, who ran with it to the next hamlet, where 
 he presented it to the principal person with a single word, implying 
 the place of rendezvous. He who received the symbol was bound to 
 send it forward with equal despatch to the next village, and thus it 
 passed with incredible celerity through all the district which owed 
 allegiance to the chief. At sight of the fiery cross every man. from 
 sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged 
 instantly to repair to the place of rendezvous. He who failed to 
 appear suffered the extremities of fire and sword ; emblematically 
 denounced by the bloody and burnt marks upon the warlike signal.' 
 
 Describing the effect of the message from Jabesh Gilead upon 
 Saul, Kitto says : ' The news awoke all the patriot and the king 
 within him. Like Samson aroused from slumber, he "shook his 
 invincible locks," and stood up in the fulness of his strength. The 
 
POLYGAMY WITHIN THE MOSAIC SYSTEM. 241 
 
 time was come to use, in behalf of the people, the office to which he 
 had been chosen, and to make that office a truth in their eyes and in 
 the eyes of their enemies. He did not hesitate one moment to call 
 the people to arms, and that not with uncertain voice, but command- 
 ingly as their king, whose summons it was their duty to obey. The 
 new monarch had an opportunity for affording such signal proof of 
 his capacity, decision, and military conduct, as might win for him the 
 general admiration of his subjects, and secure his full possession of 
 the royal power to which he had been appointed.' 
 
 Polygamy within the Mosaic System. 
 
 I SAMUEL i. 2 : * And he had two wives ; the name of the one was Hannah, 
 and the name of the other Peninnah ; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had 
 no children.' 
 
 Difficulty. In view of the original law for humanity one husband 
 and one wife could poly g.uny ever be considered right ? 
 
 Explanation. We may deal first with the case of Elkanah, and 
 then treat of the general question. Monogamy was certainly the 
 Divinely appointed rule, but circumstances might arise in which a 
 modification of the rule seemed advisable. The land of Canaan had 
 been allotted to families, and it was regarded as supremely important 
 that in no case should the land be alienated from the family. But 
 the keeping of the property depended on a man's having a son born 
 to him as his heir. If a man married, and his wife bare no children, 
 he was placed in a most anxious position, and relief was found for 
 him in permission to take a second wife. Suggestions of such a 
 custom we find in Sarah's giving Hagar to Abraham, and in the 
 operation of the Levirate law. The family of Zelophehad was placed 
 in great difficulty because the children were all daughters, and a 
 special law had to be passed for their relief, permitting them to 
 inherit. Hannah was the first wife of Elkanah, and only when it 
 was made plain that she was to have no children did he take the 
 second wife, who evidently occupied, throughout the references to 
 her, quite a secondary and subordinate position, and is a kind of 
 Hagar in relation to Sarah. We look on the case of Elkanah as one 
 of the exceptions that prove the monogamic rule to have prevailed. 
 
 On the general question Dr. C. Geikie writes, tracing the intro- 
 duction of polygamy to Lamech : * A new floodgate 01 evil is now 
 opened, for with Lamech begins polygamy. One wife had been 
 created for Adam, and, hitherto, had been the rule ; but the " wild 
 man " takes two, and thus introduces a usage which, more than any 
 other, corrupts society, where it prevails. That it should have been 
 
 16 
 
242 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 thus ascribed to the race of Cain is significant ; for though it after- 
 wards existed in Israel, it was always the exception. The law per- 
 mitted, but did not favour it ; and even kings were forbidden to have 
 many wives.' 
 
 The Mosaic law aimed at mitigating rather than removing evils 
 which were inseparable from the state of society in that day. Its 
 enactments were directed (i) to the discouragement of polygamy; 
 (2) to obviate the injustice frequently consequent upon the exercise 
 of the rights of a father or a master ; (3) to bring divorce under some 
 restriction ; and (4) to enforce purity of life during the maintenance 
 of the matrimonial bond. 
 
 Kitto says : ' Although a plurality of wives was not forbidden by the 
 law of Moses, the possession of more than one was exceedingly rare, 
 except among chiefs and princes, as is still the case in those Eastern 
 countries where the same permission exists. The popular feeling, 
 even in the presence of such a permissive law, is, and we have reason to 
 suppose was, averse to the exercise of this privilege, except in parti- 
 cular cases. This is evinced by the notion of some old Jewish com- 
 mentators on the case before us, that one of this man's wives was 
 childless, as a punishment upon him for having taken more than one. 
 This shows the tendency of Jewish opinion ; and among the Jews at 
 this day polygamy is scarcely ever practised, even in those Eastern 
 countries where the public law offers no restriction. As to the modern 
 Orientals, the country in which polygamy most prevails is Persia ; but 
 even there it is not common to find a man who has more than one wife.' 
 
 Subsequent to the Captivity we fine the monogamic system fully 
 established. Gadsby says that Mahomet allowed his male followers 
 each to have four wives, if he could maintain them. There are few, 
 however, in Egypt, who have so many ; indeed, most have only one 
 wife. Bachelors, or persons suspected of being bachelors, are looked 
 upon with contempt or distrust.' 
 
 Miss Martineau says : * If we are to look for a hell upon earth, it 
 is where polygamy exists ; and, as polygamy runs riot in Egypt, 
 Egypt is the lowest depth of this hell' 
 
 Extraordinary Use of Hallowed Bread. 
 
 I SAMUEL xxi. 6 : 'So the priests gave him holy bread ; for there was no bread 
 there but the shew-bread, that was taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread 
 in the day when it was taken away.' 
 
 Question. Was the priest justified in this use of the shew-bread 1 
 Answer. In referring to this incident as illustrating the reason- 
 able modifications of the Sabbath-law, our Lord laid down the principle 
 
EXTRAORDINARY USE OF HALLOWED BREAD. 243 
 
 that human necessities must override all formal and ritual rules. 
 From this point of view it was quite right for David, in his extremity, 
 to have the loaves of the shew-bread. But the priest did not dis- 
 tinctly take this position. He was deceived into the idea that the 
 King, who had supreme authority, requisitioned these loaves. The 
 priest's excuse for his giving the loaves was reasonable. David's plea 
 of necessity was reasonable. All that is to be regretted in the trans- 
 action is the deception to which David was driven by the pressure of 
 circumstances. 
 
 * The loneliness of David, and the fact that he had no weapons, 
 created suspicion ; but with the craftiness and skill at framing 
 excuses and explanations, which, from the higher standards of 
 Christianity, we call untruthfulness, but which was always a charac- 
 teristic of the Jewish race, and seems to have been a special here- 
 ditary quality in the family of David, he disarmed the suspicions, and 
 induced the priest to give him loaves of the old shew-bread, and the 
 sword of Goliath.' 
 
 Kit to supports the explanation given above, that the priest under- 
 stood a special claim was made for the Kings service. David 'pre- 
 pared an ingenious tale to delude the pontiff. He told him that he 
 was upon most urgent and private business for the King, citing the 
 very words which, as he said, Saul had used in intrusting this secret 
 mission to him ; and his servants, he alleged, had been directed to 
 meet him at a certain place. This, of course, left the high priest to 
 understand that whatever aid was rendered to him, would be advancing 
 the King's service.' 
 
 Canon Spence says : ' This " hallowed bread," or shew-bread, five 
 loaves of which David petitioned for, consisted of twelve loaves, one 
 for each tribe, which were placed in the tabernacle fresh every 
 Sabbath-day. The law of Moses was that this bread, being most 
 'holy, could only be eaten by the priests in the holy place. It is pro- 
 bable that this regulation had been relaxed, and that the bread was 
 now often being carried away and eaten in the homes of the minister- 
 ing priests ; and on urgent occasions, perhaps, was even given to the 
 " laity," as in this case, the proviso only being made that the con- 
 sumers of the bread should be ceremonially pure. Our Saviour, in 
 Matt. xii. 3, especially uses this example, drawn from the Tabernacle's 
 honoured customs, to justify a violation of the letter of the law, when 
 its strict observance would stand in the way of the fulfilment of man's 
 sacred duty to his neighbour. The natural inference from this 
 incident would be that such a violation of the Mosaic law was not an 
 mncommon occurrence. The Talmud, however, is most anxious that 
 
 16 2 
 
244 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 this inference should not be drawn, and points out in the treatise 
 Menachoth (Meat Offerings) that this bread was not newly taken out 
 of the sanctuary, but had been removed on some previous day, and 
 that as, after a week's exposure, it was stale and dry, the priests ate 
 but little of it, and the rest was left. It also points out that had such 
 violation of the Levitical law been common, so much importance 
 would not have been attached to this incident.' 
 
 What were the Idol Groves? 
 
 EXODUS xxxiv. 13 : ' But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and 
 cut down their groves.' 
 
 Question. Were these groves of trees, or some kind of image of the 
 female divinity known as Astarte ? 
 
 Answer. Groves were important associations of pagan worship 
 in classical times, and ' the connection of sacred groves and trees 
 with the worship of the powers of nature, may be traced very gener- 
 ally amongst the ancient nations of Europe and Asia.' 
 
 The word translated ' groves ' is ' asherah] and it is quite a different 
 word from that translated 'grove' in Gen. xxi. 33 (eshel). Asherdh 
 denotes something that is upright, fixed, or planted, in the ground. 
 It would seem to suggest a pillar, or a monument, if it is to be 
 distinguished from an image or statue. The suggestion has been 
 made, and it seems to be a reasonable one, that the asherdh was a 
 pillar, usually of wood, which was recognised as a symbol of Astarte. 
 Very possibly it was like the sacred tree of the Assyrians, which, from 
 the sculptured figures, was an upright stock, which was adorned at 
 festive seasons with boughs, flowers, and ribbons. 
 
 Professor Wilkins says that the word translated * grove ' properly 
 denotes a symbolical pole or stem of a tree. ' Movers indeed 
 maintains that Asherah is a goddess, distinct from Ashtoreth, but it 
 seems from the usage of the word far more probable that the word 
 denotes merely the upright wooden symbol, employed in the worship 
 of Ashtoreth, sometimes of comparatively small size and moveable, 
 as in the case of the Asherah which Josiah found standing on the altar 
 of Baal Peor, in the temple of the Lord, and brought out to be 
 destroyed, when he banished the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth from 
 Jerusalem, sometimes fixed up in numbers round the altars of Baal,, 
 as in the " grove " which Gideon cut down in the night at Ophrah.' 
 
THE KINSMANSHIP OF BOAZ. 245 
 
 Ruth's Mode of claiming the Kinsmanship of Boaz. 
 
 RUTH iii. 9 : 'And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth 
 thine handmaid ; spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid ; for thou art a 
 near kinsman.' 
 
 Question. Is it possible to reconcile this conduct of Ruths with 
 the modesty becoming to a young woman ? 
 
 Answer. It would be altogether unfair to judge this incident in 
 the light of modern and Western sentiments and customs. We 
 cannot even understand it unless we carefully consider the notions of 
 that age. It is necessary also to bear in mind that Ruth did not thus 
 act of her own accord, but in strict obedience to the instructions of 
 Naomi, who could be fully trusted to know well the customs of the 
 country, and to. take all care of the honour of her daughter-in-law. 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary points out that the difficulty in the way 
 of Naomi's getting her rights was the question of the marriage of 
 Ruth. Naomi saw her opportunity in the interest Boaz had taken in 
 Ruth, and the attentions he had shown her. Now the best thing 
 was for Ruth to claim the protection of Boaz, and then, for the sake 
 of securing her as his wife, Boaz would be sure to get over the 
 difficulty of the other kinsman standing in the way. Naomi's scheme, 
 therefore, precisely meant that Ruth should make her marriage- 
 claim of Boaz, and she planned the best possible occasion and 
 method for making this claim. 
 
 We may first see the relation of this * spreading the skirt over ' in 
 connection with marriage. Dr. A. Clarke says : * Even to this day, 
 when a Jew marries a woman, he throws the skirt, or end of his 
 tallith over her, to signify that he has taken her under his protection.' 
 From a passage in the Koran it is implied that prior to the time of 
 Mohammed, the next of kin could, by thus throwing his garment 
 over the widow, assert his claim to her person and dower, often with 
 great injustice. Roberts gives the fullest illustration we have met 
 with, from Hindoo marriage customs : * The bride is seated on a 
 throne, surrounded by matrons, having on her veil, her gayest robes, 
 and most valuable jewels. After the thali has been tied round her 
 neck, the bridegroom approaches her with a silken skirt (purchased 
 by himself), and folds it round her several times over the rest of her 
 clothes. A common way of saying he has married her is " he has 
 given her the Koori" has spread the skirt over her. There are, 
 however, those who throw a long robe over the shoulders of the bride, 
 instead of putting on the skirt. An angry husband sometimes says 
 to his wife, " Give me back my skirt," meaning he wishes to have the 
 
246 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 marriage compact dissolved. The request of Ruth, therefore 
 amounted to nothing more than that Boaz should marry her.' 
 
 Had Boaz resolved to marry her, he would have done just this 
 very thing. Now Ruth had legal claims of marriage on her kinsman, 
 and she supposed this kinsman to be Boaz, so she was absolutely 
 within her right in asking for the marriage symbol 
 
 In explanation of the incident we may further note that, in harvest- 
 time, the reapers and their master sleep on the threshing-floors, that 
 Orientals do not remove their dress for sleeping, but they are very 
 particular about folding their robe round their feet. All Ruth was to 
 do was to lift the end of the robe from the feet of Boaz, and lay it on 
 herself ; when the movement awoke Boaz, she was to ask him to do 
 voluntarily the symbolical act which she had begun. 
 
 Kitto makes a good suggestion. ' It is not unlikely that, when this 
 matter had been first suggested by Naomi, Ruth, as a stranger, had 
 shrunk from making this claim publicly in the harvest-field, and that 
 Naomi had, therefore, to spare her in that respect, devised this mode 
 of enabling her to do so in private, in which she would find less 
 difficulty, seeing that Boaz had already won her confidence by his 
 fatherly consideration for her. It may be that the desire to evade 
 one difficulty somewhat blinded this good woman to the danger 
 that may have lurked in the other alternative.' 
 
 The Affliction of Emerods. 
 
 I SAMUEL v. 6 : ' But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, 
 and He destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the 
 coasts thereof (Rev. Ver. 'tumours'). 
 
 Question. Is it possible for us to discover the probable character 
 of this affliction? 
 
 Answer. Medical science was in such an undeveloped state, 
 that the features of disease noticed in Scriptures are seldom those 
 which sharply distinguish one disease from another. We should not 
 expect to find in Scripture-writers the precise skill of the cultured and 
 experienced physician. In this case we have indication of tumourous 
 swellings, but it is with great uncertainty that we identify the swell- 
 ings with what we know as haemorrhoids, or bleeding piles, a dis- 
 tressing and painful, but not a fatal form of disease. Beyond the 
 argument based on the name, the only Bible evidence that can be 
 adduced, is a sentence in Psalm Ixxviii. 66, in which, referring to 
 these events, the Psalmist says, * And He smote His enemies in the 
 hinder parts.' But the Revised Version corrects the expression, which 
 should be, 'And He smote His enemies backward.' We can only sny 
 
THE AFFLICTION OF EMERODS. 247 
 
 that some plague, recognised as a Divine visitation, and known by 
 the name of emerods, was familiar to the Eastern people in ancient 
 times; for it is included among the Divine judgments in Deut xxviii. 27, 
 and is there classed with diseases of the skin and swellings of the flesh. 
 
 Dr. Edersheim thinks it was a malignant skin disease, highly 
 infectious and fatal in its character. * Judging from the derivation of 
 the word, and from its employment in connection with other skin 
 diseases, we regard it as a kind of pestilential boils of a very malignant 
 character.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie takes the same view. ' It is more likely to have been 
 a pestilence accompanied by local swellings, such as mark the Oriental 
 plague, and may have been caused by the devastations of the field 
 vermin, which, Oken assures us, often cause famine by their ravages. ' 
 
 Smith's Bible Dictionary argues for the modern idea o'/ 
 haemorrhoids, on the ground partly of the root-meaning of the word 
 used, and partly in view of the fact that these are very common in 
 Syria at present, Oriental habits of want of exercise and improper 
 food, producing derangement of the liver and constipation, etc., 
 inducing their development. The words of i Sam. v. 12, *Thc 
 men that died not were smitten with emerods,' show that the disease 
 was not necessarily fatal. 
 
 Dr. S. Cox, in the Expositor strongly commends this view. 
 
 Ewald thinks the disease was either a bloody flux, which in certain 
 countries accompanies other contagious diseases, or tumours affect- 
 ing the same part of the body. He observes, by way of illustration, 
 that Leipsic suffered in February and March, 1855, from an epidemic 
 of boils. 
 
 Jamieson takes the disease to have been an aggravated form of 
 haemorrhoids, and adds : ' As the heathens generally regarded diseases 
 affecting the secret parts of the body as punishments from the god ; 
 for trespasses committed against themselves, the Ashdodites would 
 be the more ready to look upon the prevailing epidemic as demon- 
 strating the anger of God, already shown against their idol,' 
 
 Michal's Image. 
 
 I SAMUEL xix. 13 : ' And Michal took the teraphim, and laid it in the bed, and 
 put a pillow of goat's hair at the head thereof, and covered it with the clothes.' 
 
 Question. What was the * image ' which Michal was enabled to 
 use in this singular way ; and what had the pillow of goaf s hair to do 
 
 Answer. We can readily understand Michal's quick-witted 
 device to gain time for David to escape. The front of the house was 
 
248 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 watched by the officers of Saul, and at any moment they might make 
 forcible entry. Michal was prompt and skilful. She let David down 
 through a window at the back of the house, and then devised the 
 appearance of a sick man, lying on his bed, and quite unable to obey 
 any commands of the king. We have some explanations of the way 
 in which she managed this appearance of a sick man. We must not 
 think of our raised beds : the Eastern beds were only mats laid on 
 the higher part of the floor against the wall : there it would be shady 
 and dark, and the deception would be easily successful. The 
 appearance of a man asleep in sickness, covered warmly with clothes, 
 and possibly having his head and face protected by a sort of mos- 
 quito-net, was promptly arranged. 
 
 The materials seem to have been ready to Michal's hand, but it 
 certainly creates surprise to find in the house of an Israelite, whose 
 law strictly forbade images, anything taking at all the form of a 
 human being. The Revised Version tells us that Michal took the 
 teraphim, and from this it is argued that the women may have kept, 
 in their private apartments, figures, like those which Rachel had, 
 when she left Padan-aram, and which were regarded as securing pros- 
 perity and good luck to the house. 
 
 But surely we have very small ground for making an idolatrous 
 teraphim out of Michal's image. It is true that Rachel had stolen 
 and concealed such figures, but from her mode of concealing them 
 it is quite clear that they must have been very small, probably little 
 metal figures, like the little gods of heathen lands, and not larger 
 than ordinary dolls. Such an image could not possibly have 
 answered Michal's purpose, or deceived anybody into the idea that a 
 man lay on the bed. Then, we have no other indication that the 
 Israelites were addicted to the superstitious use of these household 
 gods, or teraphim, than is to be found in the fact that Rachel had 
 them, and Josiah destroyed them, when he rooted out the elaborate 
 idolatry of the later monarchy. 
 
 Examining the narrative carefully, it becomes evident that Michal 
 was specially anxious about the appearance of the head, for the very 
 reason that what she put into the bed had not the shape and form of 
 a man's head. We are carefully informed that the mat, or pillow of 
 goat's hair was disposed about his head, so as to give the appearance 
 of a man's hair. All that was necessary was to find some pillar, or 
 block, or piece of household furniture, which would raise the 
 clothes, dispose the goat's hair round the part that was on the 
 pillow, bring the clothes high up, and cast a light mosquito-net over 
 the upper part. As she was a princess, we may be sure that the 
 
MICHAL^ IMAGE. 249 
 
 officers would take her word, after only a distant and cursory examina- 
 tion, and would discover the deception only when Saul commanded 
 them to fetch David, whether he were sick or well. 
 
 We may confirm this view by giving some account of the ancient 
 teraphim, and by showing the unsatisfactory character of the explana- 
 tions usually given of the goat's hair pillow. 
 
 Ewald tells us that an image of this sort did not consist of a single 
 object, but of several distinct parts, at any rate when the owner cared 
 to have one of the more fully adorned and perfect specimens. The 
 essential kernel of it, made either out of stone or wood, always 
 attempted to exhibit the image of a god in human form, even life- 
 size ; but already in the earliest times this by itself was readily 
 regarded as too plain. It generally received, therefore, a coating of 
 gold or silver, either over the whole body or only particular portions. 
 * These domestic deities were employed from the earliest times to 
 furnish oracles, so that the word teraphim is absolutely identical 
 with oracular divinity. For this purpose the first addition to the 
 image was an ephod, or magnificent robe put over the shoulders, 
 having on its breast a casket containing the lots employed in deter- 
 mining the oracle. In the second place a kind of mask was placed 
 over the head of the image, in which the priest who was seeking the 
 oracle probably had to perceive by sundry tokens whether the god 
 was willing or not to give an oracle at all at that particular time. 
 These masks alone made the image properly complete, and from 
 them the divinities received the name of teraphim, meaning, a 
 nodding countenance, or living mask.' They were undoubtedly con- 
 nected with idolatrous systems, but there is certainly no sufficient 
 proof that they were found in the houses of pious Jehovah worship- 
 pers. Kitto tries to support the idea that Michal had this figure in 
 the women's apartments, where she could keep it out of David's 
 sight : but if it was life-size that would surely be impossible. 
 
 It is evident that many articles of household furniture could be 
 readily made to serve Michal's purpose ; and all would depend on 
 her skill in making the appearance of a man's head on the pillow. 
 fosephus has a foolish explanation. He says that Michal put in the 
 bed the lungs of a goat recently killed, the palpitations of which 
 would impart the motion caused by a man's breathing in bed. Some 
 suggest that the head was covered with a mosquito-net made of goat's 
 hair. Others say there was a goat's-hair pillow below the head and a 
 cloth over it. The hair of a Syrian goat might form a good stuffing 
 for a pillow-case, but such a stuffing would in no way help the 
 deception. 
 
250 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Kitto makes a suggestion, that the pillow was of goat's skin, with 
 the hair outside ; and that such a pillow was then regarded as having 
 a sanative property in some diseases ; whence to see such a pillow in 
 a bed would strengthen the illusion that a sick man lay there. 
 
 We much prefer what seems a simple and satisfactory explanation, 
 that Michal disposed the goat's hair in such a way as to produce a 
 passable resemblance to David's head. 
 
 Women's Adornments. 
 
 ISAIAH iii. 18-24 : 'In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their 
 tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like th * 
 moon.' 
 
 Question. Can these various articles of female attire be reasonably 
 identified 1 ! 
 
 Answer. Not with any great certainty. Fashions are con- 
 stantly changing, and the names for fashionable articles are variable ; 
 but collecting the various suggestions of travellers and expositors, a 
 very fair account of them may be given. 
 
 Illustrating the 'round tires/ one writer says: 'The women of 
 Samaria wear now a head-dress which perfectly illustrates the prophet's 
 description. It is a sort of bonnet with a horse-shoe shape in front, 
 and in the front are some silver coins lapping over one another, and 
 making a crescent-shaped tire (resembling the crescent moon) round 
 the forehead and down to the ears. 
 
 Delitzsch gives the following careful details and paraphrase : * " On 
 that day the Lord will put away the show of the ankle-clasps and of 
 the head-bands, and of the crescents ; the ear-rings and the arm- 
 chains, and the light veils ; the diadems and the stepping chains, and 
 the girdles and the smelling-bottles, and the amulets ; the finger-rings 
 and the nose-rings; the gala-dresses and the sleeve-frocks, and the 
 wrappers and the pockets ; the hand-mirrors and the Sindu cloths, 
 and the turbans and the gauze mantles." " Ankle-clasps :" rings of 
 gold, silver, or ivory, worn round the ankle. "Head-bands" or 
 frontlets : plaited bands of gold or silver thread, worn below the hair- 
 net, and reaching from one ear to the other ; or were sun-like balls* 
 which were worn as ornaments round the neck. " Crescents:" little 
 pendants of this kind fastened round the neck, and hanging down 
 upon the breast. (In Judges viii. 21, we meet with them as orna- 
 ments hung round the camels' necks.) Such ornaments are still 
 worn by Arabian girls, who generally have several different kinds of 
 them. " Ear-rings :" we meet with these in Judges viii. 26, as an 
 ornament worn by Midianitish kings. " Arm-chains :" according to 
 
WOMEN'S ADORNMENTS. 251 
 
 the Targum, these were chains worn upon the arm, or spangles upon 
 the wrists, answering to the spangles upon the ankles. " Fluttering 
 veils :" these were more expensive than the ordinary veils worn by 
 girls. " Diadems " are only mentioned in other parts of Scripture as 
 being worn by men (e.g., by priests, bridegrooms, or persons of high 
 rank). " Stepping-chains :" the chain worn to shorten and give 
 elegance to the step. " Girdles :" dress-girdles, such as were worn 
 by brides upon their wedding-day (cf. Jer. ii. 32 with Isaiah xlix. 18); 
 the word is erroneously rendered " hair-pins " in the Targum. 
 " Smelling-bottles :" the breath of an aroma. ' Amulets :" gems or 
 metal plates with an inscription upon them, which were worn as a 
 protection as well as an ornament. " Finger-rings :" or signet-rings 
 worn upon the finger. " Nose-rings " were fastened in the central 
 division of the nose, and hung down over the mouth ; they have 
 been ornaments in common use in the East from the time of the 
 patriarchs down to the present day (Gen. xxiv. 22). " Gala-dresses" 
 are dresses not usually worn, but taken off when at home. " Sleeve- 
 frocks :" the second tunic, worn above the ordinary one the 
 Roman stola. " Wrappers :" broad cloths wrapped round the body. 
 u Pockets " were for holding money (2 Kings v. 23), which was 
 generally carried by men in the girdle or in a purse. " Hand- 
 mirrors :" the Septuagint renders this Lacedaemonian gauze, or trans- 
 parent dresses, which showed the nakedness rather than concealed it ; 
 but the better rendering is, mirrors with handles; polished metal 
 plates. " Sindu-cloths " (sedinim) : veils or coverings of the finest 
 linen, viz., of Sindu or Hindu cloth Sindu, the land of Indus, being 
 the earlier name for India. " Turbans :" the head-dress composed 
 of twisted cloths of different colours. " Gauze mantles :" delicate 
 veil-like mantles thrown over the rest of the clothes. Stockings and 
 handkerchiefs are not mentioned ; the former were first introduced 
 into Hither Asia from Media long after Isaiah's time ; and a Jeru- 
 salem lady no more thought of using the latter than a Grecian or 
 Roman lady did.' 
 
 The Ancient Law of the Goel. 
 
 RUTH iv. 5 : ' Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of 
 Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise 
 up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.' 
 
 Question. Did not Boaz, on this occasion, make a demand which 
 was an exaggeration of the acknowledged custom ; and would not the 
 kinsman have been justified in resisting him ? 
 
 Answer. The only thing that might seem to bar Ruth's right to 
 marriage with the family goel is her foreign birth ; but, in a previous 
 
252 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 paragraph, we have shown that the law against foreign marriages 
 applied only to the Canaanite nations, so that a Moabite wife could 
 claim her legal rights in Israel. 
 
 The duties of the goel, or family representative, need, however, 
 some careful attention. We are familiar with his duty as ' avenger 
 of blood,' but his relations to a branch of the family which may have 
 lost its head, and be left without any heir to take his place, are not 
 so well understood. They strike us as almost repulsive, but were 
 necessary at a time when property was not permitted to change 
 hands, or to be alienated from the family to which it was originally 
 given. The old Jewish marriage customs required the nearest relation 
 of a dead husband to become his goel, or redeemer, buying back his 
 inheritance, if estranged, and marrying his widow, if childless ; to 
 raise up a son to him, that * his name should not cease in Israel.' 
 All male blood relations of the deceased man were reckoned as 
 among his goelim, or redeemers ; but the nearest of all was the goel, 
 and was the first who was bound to redeem his kinsman's name and 
 inheritance. If, however, he refused to redeem, then the next kins- 
 man succeeded to his right and duty ; but he himself, for his refusal, 
 was put to an open shame. 
 
 Dr. S. Cox thinks that the Moabitish origin of Ruth formed the 
 real excuse of the goel in this case. His view is so interesting that 
 it may be given in full. * We need not think over-hardly, therefore, 
 even of this anonymous kinsman. He may have been, probably he 
 was, a just man according to his rights. Walking by the strict re- 
 quirements of the law of Israel, he may have honestly doubted whether 
 he were bound to marry Mahlon's Moabitish widow. Undoubtedly 
 it was a sin against the law for Mahlon to have married her while 
 she was a heathen, even if it were not a sin to take her now that she 
 was a proselyte. Could, then, the widow of an illegal marriage claim 
 quite the same rights with the widow of a legal marriage, even though 
 she afterwards became a proselyte to the Hebrew faith ? And if he 
 was not bound to marry her, would it be prudent to marry her ? 
 Evidently he thinks it would not be prudent. He declines to redeem, 
 on such terms, the inheritance of his dead kinsman, "lest I mar mine 
 own inheritance." By which he meant, I think, that his doubt as to 
 the right conferred on Ruth by the Hebrew law was reinforced by a 
 Hebrew superstition. For, in Israel, marriage with the daughter of 
 an alien race was held to be "unlucky," even when it was lawful. 
 Many such marriages had proved unhappy and disastrous, and, by 
 expressly calling Ruth the Moabitess in his challenge, Boaz seems to 
 have touched his kinsman's superstitious fears. No doubt the 
 
SACRIFICE TO DEVILS. 253 
 
 calamities which had befallen Elimelech and Naomi were popularly 
 attributed to their sojourn in the field of Moab. No doubt, the 
 popular voice of Bethlehem affirmed that Chilion and Mahlon had 
 been cut off before their time, because they had married " strange 
 women." Here, then, was one Hebrew family in imminent danger 
 of extinction solely because of such a marriage as was now proposed. 
 The goel fears a similar fate. He fears that should he marry Ruth : 
 he may " injure his own inheritance " fears that he, too, may die 
 before his time, and his name be put out of Israel. He, therefore, 
 will run no risk : let Boaz run it, if he will.' 
 
 All we need say is, that Boaz ran the demands of the Levirate law 
 as hard as he could, in the hope of securing for himself the rights of 
 the goel in relation to Ruth. 
 
 Sacrifice to Devils. 
 
 PSALM cvi. 37 : ' Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils ' 
 {Rev. Ver., 'demons'). 
 
 Question. What form of idolatry is referred to under this term? 
 
 Answer. In all probability the worship of Moloch is meant. 
 The actual word employed, and translated ' devils,' or * demons,' is 
 Shedim, which literally means the same as Baalim, lords, or powers. 
 We have no such notion of demons, or inferior gods, as was familiar 
 to men in those ancient times. Our idea of Satan, or the devil, is 
 altogether different, and we must not read this verse from the psalm 
 as if the sons and daughters were sacrificed to our Satan. The Old 
 Testament use of the term ' demons ' is explained in Deut. xxxii. 1 7 : 
 * They sacrificed unto demons, which were no God, to gods whom 
 they knew not, to new gods that came up of late.' The ' new gods ' 
 are the same as the ' demons.' The root of the Hebrew word is 
 common to the Shemitic languages, and means ' to waste.' or * to 
 hurry away violently.' So Shedim may iaiily mean ' destroyers,' and 
 its * application here to the false gods points to the trait so deeply 
 graven in all heathen worship, that of regarding the deities as malig- 
 nant, and needing to be propitiated by human sufferings.' 
 
 The Apostle Paul takes up and uses this Old Testament idea of 
 idol-gods as demons in i Cor. x. 20 : * But I say, that the things 
 which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God ; 
 and I would not that ye should have communion with devils.' (In 
 the margin, the Revisers suggest the alternative demons.} St. Paul 
 uses a word which, while it would not be needlessly offensive to 
 Gentiles, conveyed his meaning. The Greeks themselves called 
 
254 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 their deities daimonia, and St. Paul adopts the word ; but to Jewish 
 ears it meant, not * deities ' or ' demigods,' but ' demons ' or ' devils.' 
 
 There is existing in the world something which may correctly be 
 called a worship of the devil, or the embodiment of the evil principle ; 
 but we have no reason for thinking that this was in the mind of any 
 of the Bible writers. A people called the Yezidis, or devil-worshippers, 
 inhabit the countries situated between Persia and the north of Syria. 
 Layard spent some time amongst them, and studied their customs 
 and tenets with some care. He says : ' The name of the evil spirit, 
 or principle, is never mentioned ; and any allusion to it by others so 
 vexes and irritates them, that it is said they have put to death persons 
 who have wantonly outraged their feelings by ks use. So far is their 
 dread of offending the evil principle carried, that they carefully avoid 
 every expression which may resemble in sound the name of Satan, 
 or the Arabic word for " accursed." The Yezidis believe Satan to 
 be the chief of the angelic host, now suffering punishment for his 
 rebellion against the Divine will, but still all-powerful, and to be 
 restored hereafter to his high estate in the celestial hierarchy. He 
 must be conciliated and reverenced, they say ; for as he now has the 
 means of doing evil to mankind, so will he hereafter have the power 
 of rewarding them.' 
 
 Wordsworth puts the explanation of Old Testament references to 
 ' devils ' into a sentence : ' Though idols themselves are nothing, yet 
 to worship them is to worship the Evil Spirit, who works by them, 
 and is the author of idolatry.' 
 
 The ' Horns ' used by Eastern Women. 
 
 i SAMUEL ii. I : ' My heart rej oiceth in the Lord ; mine horn is exalted in the 
 Lord.' 
 
 Question. Is this a poetical figure, or does it refer to some custom 
 peculiar to Eastern women ? 
 
 Answer. Scripture- writers take both views, but the reports of 
 travellers and residents in Palestine make probable the reference to a 
 distinct custom. 
 
 Canon Spence treats it as a purely poetical figure. 'The image 
 " horn " is taken from oxen, and those animals whose strength lies in 
 their horns. It is a favourite Hebrew symbol, and one that had 
 become familiar to them from their long experience dating from far 
 back patriarchal times as a shepherd people.' 
 
 Hannah is not rejoicing in a general way over God's goodness, but 
 in a special and particular way over her new and honoured position 
 
THE 'HORNS' USED BY EASTERN WOMEN. 255 
 
 as a mother, which gave her such a triumph over her adversary, 
 Peninnah. We should naturally expect her to find figures of speech 
 from her womanly sphere of thought and association ; and, meeting 
 this expectation, Jamicson, in Critical Commentary, says : 'Allusion 
 is here made to a peculiarity in the dress of Eastern females about 
 Lebanon, which seems to have obtained anciently among the Israelite 
 women, that of wearing a tin or silver horn on the forehead, on which 
 their veil is suspended. Wives who have no children wear it pro- 
 jecting in an oblique direction, while those who become mothers, forth- 
 with raise it a few inches higher, inclining towards the perpendicular, 
 and by this slight but observable change in their head-dress, make 
 known wherever they go the maternal character which they now bear.' 
 We cannot fail to see what force and beauty this puts into Hannah's 
 expressioa She was proud of being thus able to lift her horn and 
 show herself a mother ; but she piously recognised that her horn was 
 4 exalted in the Lord,' who had given her the honour in answer to 
 her prayer.' 
 
 Van Lennep supports this view, but does not seem to have 
 observed the custom of thus raising the veil. ' Our own opinion is, 
 that this, in common with various other peculiar head-dresses put on 
 at marriage, and worn during the remainder of life, has no reference 
 whatever to the horns of animals, but is connected with the idea, very 
 prevalent in the East, that the marriage ceremony constitutes the 
 crowning of the virgin, who is thenceforth a queen. She is, indeed, 
 so called in the liturgies of all the Oriental Churches, and the head- 
 dress she then puts on for the first time bears a resemblance in 
 varying degrees to a crown.' 
 
 The following description of the woman's horn, which seems to 
 have originally been intended simply to keep the veil a little way off 
 from the face, is very interesting : * Besides the ring, chains, and 
 bracelets which load the ears, neck, and arms of the Syrian ladies, 
 they wear on the head a hollow horn, made either of silver or of 
 copper silvered over, according to the wealth of the wearer ; it rises 
 obliquely from the forehead, and is similar in shape to that worn by 
 the other sex. This horn, or tantour, is from fifteen to twenty inches 
 long ; its thickness gradually diminishes, the diameter of the larger 
 extremity being about four inches, and that of the smaller extremity 
 two inches. It is fastened to the forehead by means of straps, one 
 passing under the chin, and another behind the head. The inclina- 
 tion of the horn forms an angle of from twenty to thirty degrees, and 
 over it hangs a drapery of white muslin, with which the wearer may 
 conceal her features at pleasure. The horn is never seen apart from 
 
256 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the veil. Mr. Bruce found the chiefs of Abyssinia wearing this dis- 
 tinction. The horns were about four inches long, made of silver, and 
 in shape somewhat like an extinguisher. Mr. Buckingham^ also, 
 travelling in Palestine and Syria, a few years ago, saw females adorned 
 with this remarkable head-dress. 
 
 David's Moral Claim on Nabal. 
 
 i SAMUEL xxv. 6-17 : Give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand, 
 unto thy servants, and to thy son David.' 
 
 Question. Had David any reasonable ground in the established 
 customs of the age for a request which took so much the character of a 
 demand? 
 
 Answer. Irregular service may be rendered, and in such cases 
 an irregular request may be reasonably presented. Had David and 
 his followers been a mere ravaging set of outlaws, from whose depreda- 
 tions no farmer was secure, it would have been the height of imperti- 
 nence for him to ask a share of the yearly feasting. But David's plea 
 was that he had been a valuable, though informal, defence to Nabal ; 
 and that while David's men had been in his neighbourhood, his 
 usual losses, from robbers and wild beasts, had been reduced to a 
 minimum. Nabal might reasonably have taken an opportunity thus 
 presented of recognising and rewarding the service thus done to him. 
 See verses 15, 16. 
 
 These sheepmasters' yearly feasts were to a large extent open 
 feasts, to which wide invitations were given. 
 
 Eivald says : ' Since the inhabitants of these southern regions 
 received little or no protection in person or property from Saul, they 
 would have been constantly exposed to the rapacity of the tribes of 
 the desert, had not David and his flying troop protected them. It 
 was not therefore unreasonable of David to ask a share of the feast 
 for his people.' 
 
 Robinson says: ' Now, on such a festive occasion as a sheep-shearing, 
 near a town or village, an Arab sheik of the neighbouring desert 
 would hardly fail to put in a word, either in person or by letter, and 
 his message would be a transcript of that of David.' 
 
 Jamieson tells us that * when such tribute is denied to the Arab 
 chiefs, they are wont to enforce it as a right? 
 
 Kitto says : ' It must have been a matter of much consideration to 
 David, how to sustain and employ so large a body 01 men consistently 
 with his purpose of not taking a hostile attitude towards the king, 
 nor of giving the people any cause of complaint against him. He 
 
CONCERNING HANGING OR CRUCIFYING. 257 
 
 found the means of employing them chiefly, it seems, in protecting 
 the cattle in the wild and open border country, into which the great 
 sheep-masters sent their flocks for pasture, from the depredations of 
 their marauding neighbours, such as the Arabs, the Amalekites, the 
 Jebusites, the Hittites, and others. This species of service creates 
 a claim for a kind of tribute from the wealthy persons thus so 
 essentially benefited, in food and other necessaries, which is almost 
 invariably most willingly, and even thankfully, rendered, and when 
 not so, is enforced as a matter of right/ 
 
 Ewald further says : * Apart from the Eastern custom of giving 
 largely at such great merry-makings, according to which such a request 
 would seem in no way strange, David had a certain right to ask a 
 gift from Nabal's wealth. He had indirectly no small share in the 
 festal joy of Nabal and his house. Without some part of the super- 
 fluity of the inhabitants whom he protected, he could not have 
 maintained himself and his army.' 
 
 Universal Sentiment concerning Hanging or 
 Crucifying. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY xxi. 22, 23 : ' And if a man have committed a sin worthy of 
 death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree : his body shall not 
 remain all night upon the tree, but thou shall in any wise bury him that day ; (for 
 he that is hanged is accursed of God ;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord 
 thy God hath given thee for an inheritance.' (See also Gal. iii. 13.) 
 
 Difficulty. Why should any peculiar disgrace attach to this method 
 of death 1 
 
 Explanation. There were important differences between 
 ancient and modern modes of hanging, and what is referred to in this 
 passage is what we should call ' gibbeting.' In our modern method 
 of execution, we seek for the swiftest, easiest, and most painless form 
 of death ; but in earlier days there was a disposition to gloat over the 
 dying agonies of criminals, and they were often exposed, both when 
 dying and after death, to taunts which demoralized the taunters. 
 
 It seems that usually (according to the Rabbins) the criminal was 
 strangled, and after death his body was hung up, as a public warning, 
 and as a testimony of the vindication of law. But such a public 
 exposition must be kept within careful limits ; and it must never 
 reach such an extreme point as to suggest revenge. 
 
 For sanitary reasons a corpse could not be left long unburied in 
 that hot country ; and it would be a most painful sight to see a body 
 so hanging attacked by carrion birds. 
 
258 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The hanging also conveyed the sentiment that the victim was 
 cursed of God and man, and so hung between the two, as unfit for 
 either heaven or earth. Probably the special feeling attaching to this 
 method of execution was due to the fact that it was adopted only for 
 cases of idolatry and cursing of God. 
 
 Prof. Lightfoot renders the clause in verse 23, 'He that is hanged 
 is a curse (/.*., an insult, injury, or mockery) to God,' and he says 
 that this was the popular Jewish interpretation at all events from the 
 second century of the Christian era.' 
 
 Dr. Zoeckkr has collected valuable information concerning the 
 practice of impalement, or crucifixion, and the sentiments associated 
 with it. 'For the extraordinarily widespread, yea, almost unlimited 
 prevalence of the punishment of the cross in the widest sense, among 
 the better known pre-Christian peoples, evidence is afforded by the, 
 to a large extent, well-supported ancient accounts which attest it. 
 For the Indians, there are those referring to a time so early as that of 
 the conquests of Semiramis, who scornfully threatens the Indian 
 king, Stabrobates, with a nailing to the cross; for the Turanian 
 people of the Scythians, to the north of Media, those referring to a 
 period six- hundred years before Christ, at the time of the Median 
 king, Cyaxares ; as concerns the Medes and Persians, there are those 
 vouching for its existence among them under the kings of the line of 
 Achsemenides, in the fifth and sixth centuries; for the people of 
 Magna Grecia, its presence is attested in Sicily at the time of the 
 elder Dionysius, of Syracuse, about the year B.C. 400, and often after 
 that time ; for the Macedonians, under Alexander the Great and his 
 successors ; even for the ancient Britons and the Frieslanders, whose 
 custom, attested by Tacitus, for the first century of our era, of hang- 
 ing their captives upon crosses or gibbets, unquestionably points back 
 to an existence thereof in earlier ages. As concerns the Romans, 
 crucifixions in the wider sense present themselves even in the history 
 of their kings. The account in Livy, given in connection with the 
 history of the Horatii, of a hanging upon a " tree of ill omen," no 
 doubt refers to one which was effected by means of a cord, not by 
 nailing, but, nevertheless, implies clearly enough an execution bear- 
 ing the character of a punishment on the gallows a shameful death 
 by hanging. And as it reminds of the " hanging upon a tree" of the 
 Old Testament, so, also, does the proceeding of Tarquinius Priscus, 
 of which Pliny bears testimony, who, in the construction of the 
 Cloaca Maxima, caused the bodies of those who had committed 
 suicide, in order to escape the labour imposed upon them, to be 
 attached to the cross, as a warning to other labourers. In its later 
 
THE INFECTION OF PROPHESYING. 259 
 
 prevailing form, as an execution carried out mainly upon slaves, and 
 those guilty of the graver offences,' its degrading character is clearly 
 indicated. 
 
 The Infection of Prophesying. 
 
 I SAMUEL xix. 24 : * And he stripped off his clothes, and prophesied before 
 Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. 
 Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets ?' 
 
 Difficulty. How can the idea of a prophet, as a man in direct 
 communication with God, be reconciled with such scenes of emotional 
 excitement! 
 
 Explanation. Ewald very skilfully details the incidents of this 
 remarkable day. ' It is related of those who started with the most 
 hostile intentions against the prophets and their pupils, that as they 
 approached they suddenly stood still, spell-bound by the music and 
 solemn dance of the devotees; then, more and more powerfully 
 drawn by the same spirit into the charmed circle, they broke forth 
 into similar words and gestures ; and then, flinging away their upper 
 garments, they joined in the dance and the music, and sinking down 
 into ecstatic quivering, utterly forgot the hostile spirit in which they 
 had come. . . . The same thing befell fresh messengers a second, 
 nay, a third time. Then Saul himself, enraged, rushed to Ramah . . . 
 and as he looked down from the hill upon the school and heard the 
 loud pealing songs rising from it, he was seized by the Divine Spirit, 
 and when he at last reached the spot he sank into the same condition 
 of enthusiasm still more deeply than all the messengers whom he had 
 previously despatched.' 
 
 It is evident that the term ' prophesying ' is used in more than one 
 signification. It may mean, to foretell future events ; it may mean, 
 to deliver a message received directly from God. But it may also 
 mean, and it certainly does sometimes mean, to be in a state of great 
 emotional excitement, so that one's actions are swayed by the emo- 
 tions rather than by the will. It was such a condition into which 
 Saul passed ; and such conditions are dangerously infectious. The 
 modern illustrations of the condition are some forms of hysteria, 
 excitements of revival services, passions which seize and carry away 
 mobs, and the worked-up scenes of dervishes in Eastern lands. The 
 mental and emotional laws which govern such conditions, and explain 
 the infectious character of such scenes, are not well understood, but 
 are a branch of study to which men are more and more directing 
 attention in modern times. 
 
 17- 2 
 
2 6o HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 It should also be remarked that the spirit spoken of here is not 
 God the Holy Ghost, but the spirit of enthusiasm, the excitement 
 regarded as having a spiritual source. There was no renewal of the 
 Divine endowment which Saul had forfeited ; there is only such an 
 indication of a hopeful state as may be found in some remaining 
 sensitiveness to religious influences. In his case it is painfully 
 evident that times of excitement soon pass, leaving no permanent 
 beneficial influence on the mind, or the heart, or the life. 
 
 At the college at Ramah, presided over by Samuel, religious young 
 men were ' instructed in sacred learning and religious exercises, and 
 were led to cultivate, especially by psalmody and music, the devo- 
 tional feelings which might fit them, when occasion called, to become 
 the messengers of God and teachers of the people.' This minstrelsy 
 and song, with probably rhythmic movements of the body, are 
 gathered into the word * prophesyings.' We are to understand that 
 Saul, putting off the garment which distinguished him as a king, 
 joined the singers, entering so heartily and excitedly into all the 
 engagements as to forget everything else, presently becoming so 
 exhausted as to lie down in a deep sleep or trance. 
 
 It is remarkable that the unhinged condition of Saul's mind should 
 be so clearly indicated in the fact that he yielded to the enthusiasm 
 sooner, and in a much more extravagant degree, than his messengers 
 had done. 
 
 Van Lennep says : ' It would be easy to trace a near resemblance 
 between the " dervish associations " and the " schools of the pro- 
 phets," as instituted by Samuel, and continued through the period of 
 the Hebrew monarchy.' 
 
 The Philistine Trespass- Offering. 
 
 I SAMUEL vi. 3, 4 : ' And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of 
 Israel, send it not empty ; but in any wise return Him a guilt-offering ; then ye 
 shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why His hand is not removed from 
 you. Then said they, What shall be the guilt-offering which we shall return to 
 Him ? And they said, Five golden tumours, and five golden mice, according to 
 the number of the lords of the Philistines : for one plague was on you all, and on 
 your lords' (Rev. Fer.). 
 
 Question. Was the God of Israel likely to be propitiated by pre- 
 sents from a heathen people ? 
 
 Answer. Since the God of Israel had been directly dealing with 
 this heathen people in the way of judgment, there is nothing un- 
 reasonable in assuming that He would deal with them, in response to 
 expressions of penitence, in a way of mercy. We are curiously 
 limited by a notion, which has been allowed to settle in our minds, 
 
THE PHILISTINE TRESPASS-OFFERING. 261 
 
 that because Jehovah was in a special sense the God of the Jews, 
 therefore He was the God of the Jews only, and not what neverthe- 
 less He is most forcibly declared to have been, and to be the ' God 
 of the whole earth.' * In every nation, he that feareth God, and 
 worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him.' 
 
 The judgments of Jehovah on the Philistines took two forms : they 
 were afflicted with a very painful and trying form of disease, involving 
 local swellings, like tumours. These, in the absence of proper 
 surgical skill, proved very fatal. And their fields were overrun with 
 mice, which in the East are at times very destructive. An old traveller 
 found such vast numbers of rats and field-mice in the country from 
 Gaza northwards, that he says, * If nature had not provided a great 
 plenty of birds which lived on them, the people could not have sown 
 any seed that would not have been eaten.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie says : ' The custom was general in antiquity of 
 hanging up beside the altars, in the temples, such models of parts of 
 the body that had been healed, or of objects recalling dangers from 
 which one had been rescued. In those of Greece, for example, silver 
 models of eyes, legs, arms, etc., were displayed in great numbers, a 
 custom still seen in the Greek churches of Russia, or the Roman 
 Catholic churches of Italy or Switzerland. But in the case of the 
 Philistines, the images were not like these models, thankofferings 
 for recovery granted, for the plague still raged when they were sent 
 off. Nor can they be compared to the talismans or amulets of astro- 
 logers and magicians of ancient or later times, which were regarded 
 as charms to effect cures or avert evils, though the details respecting 
 such wonder-working fancies are very curious. The Philistine images 
 were representations of the instruments by which punishment had 
 been inflicted on them, and an acknowledgment that these calamities 
 the field-mice and the plague had not come by chance, but had 
 been inflicted by the God of Israel, for their having taken His ark 
 into captivity. A similar custom has prevailed from the remotest 
 times in India. Thus Tavernier tells us, that when a pilgrim under- 
 takes a journey to a pagoda, to be cured of a disease, he offers to the 
 idol a present, either in gold, silver, or copper, according to his 
 ability, in the shape of the diseased or injured member, and such a 
 gift is recognised as a practical acknowledgment that the suffering or 
 evil endured has been inflicted by the god.' 
 
 Canon Spence says : * The priests and diviners thought that the 
 Hebrew Deity, in some way resident in the "golden chest," was a 
 childish, capricious deity, like one of their own loved gods Dagon, 
 or Beelzebub, the lord of flies. Their people had insulted him ; he 
 
262 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 had shown himself powerful enough, however, to injure his captors, 
 so the insults must cease, and he must be appeased with rich 
 offerings.' 
 
 The Book of Jasher. 
 
 JOSHUA x. 13 : 'Is not this written in the Book of Jashar ?' (Rev. Ver.\ 
 
 Question. Is it possible for us to form any idea of the contents of 
 this lost book ? 
 
 Answer. It is only mentioned in one other Scripture passage. 
 2 Sam. i. 1 8, from which we learn that it contained the lamentation 
 of David over Saul and Jonathan, which was recorded under the 
 heading, ' The Song of the Bow.' Both the extracts preserved from 
 it for us are of a poetical character ; the one being a national song of 
 triumph, the other a national elegy. The word Jasher, or more cor- 
 rectly Jashar, is most probably an appellation of theocracy, that is, 
 of the people of Israel considered as the Covenant people, and it has 
 much the same force as the word Jeshurun (Deut. xxxii. 15). 
 
 Ewald thinks that the book illustrated ' by historical songs, how an 
 upright man in Israel, a Joshua or a Jonathan, should live ; what 
 glorious vfctories he could achieve ; what glory he would gain/ We 
 may assume that the collection was compiled by degrees. It must 
 be carefully distinguished from the Book of Psalms, and should be 
 regarded as a gathering up of heroic poems, which were composed 
 on the occasion of great national events. No separate book, known 
 by the title of Jasher, was extant among the Jews after the Christian 
 era. Bishop Lowth imagined that it was a collection of national 
 songs, so called, because the book probably commenced with the 
 words az yashir, ' then sang,' etc. In all nations there has been a 
 constant disposition to preserve the record of great national deeds in 
 heroic song ; and, though not a literary people, it may reasonably be 
 supposed that the Israelites followed the common impulse. The 
 existence of Moses' song and Deborah's suffice to prove that such 
 poems were composed on great occasions. 
 
 Dr. Donaldson has attempted the reconstruction of this Book of 
 Jasher from the fragments which, according to his theory, he traces 
 through several books of the Old Testament. A brief account of his 
 views we take from Smith's Bible Dictionary. * Assuming that, 
 during the tranquil and prosperous reign of Solomon, an unwonted 
 impulse was given to Hebrew literature, that the worshippers of 
 Jehovah were desirous of possessing something on which their faith 
 might rest, the book of Jasher t or uprightness, was written, or rathe* 
 
THE BOOK OF JASHER. 263 
 
 compiled, to meet this want. Its object was to show that in the 
 beginning man was upright, but had by carnal wisdom forsaken the 
 spiritual law ; that the Israelites had been chosen to preserve and 
 transmit this law of uprightness ; that David had been made king for 
 his religious integrity, etc. The compiler of the book was probably 
 Nathan the prophet, assisted by Gad, the seer. It was thus " the 
 first offering of the prophetic schools, and ministered spiritual food to 
 the greater prophets." Dr. Donaldson thinks it contained the 
 religious marrow of the Holy Scriptures. Whatever fragments in the 
 sacred books of the Hebrews exhibit the nature of uprightness, cele- 
 brate the victories of the true Israelites, predict their prosperity, or 
 promise future blessedness, have, according to this theory, a claim 
 to be considered among the relics of the Book of Jasher.' 
 
 In estimating the argumentative value of a quotation from this 
 Book of Jasher, such as given in Joshua x., we must make due 
 account of the fact that it contained poetry, and poetry of the un- 
 restrained, and often extravagant, ancient and Eastern type. Poetic 
 figures can never be made into proofs of anything, or even into pre- 
 cise explanations of anything. 
 
 Tops of Houses. 
 
 I SAMUEL ix. 25 : * And when they were come down from the high place into 
 the city, Samuel communed with Saul upon the top of the house ' {Rev. Ver., 
 ' housetop '). 
 
 Difficulty. Housetops seem singular places to which to take friends 
 for private conversation. 
 
 Explanation. It is commonly known that the roofs of Eastern 
 houses were flat ; but Bible readers are not so familiar with the 
 various uses to which they were put, and the arrangements made for 
 their adaptation to the family needs. A parapet all round made 
 them quite safe ; a special staircase gave access, so that persons could 
 get on the roof without going through the rooms ; the air was cool 
 there, so that persons often slept on the roofs ; awnings were set up ; 
 sometimes the household work was done there ; and private medita- 
 tions, or consultations with friends, were often conducted there. It 
 should be remembered that houses covered a large space, and were 
 only one, or at most two, stories high, built round an interior court- 
 yard ; so that there was a good space of roof which really served 
 much the same purpose as our gardens, round which friends 
 often walk holding private conference. Canon Spence says: 'He 
 conducted him to the flat roof of his house, often the favourite 
 
264 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 locality in the East for quiet conversation and rest, and where fre- 
 quently the honoured guest was lodged for the night : there the 
 prophet had a long interview with his young guest.' Curiously, the 
 Septuagint reads, ' they strewed a couch for Saul on the top of the 
 house, and he lay down.' But as the serious conversation about the 
 kingship was held next morning, this is not unlikely to represent the 
 fact that occurred. There is abundant authority for the custom of 
 providing temporary accommodation for visitors on the flat roofs. It 
 is indeed the pleasantest place for sleeping in the hot season. 
 Slight shelters are raised on it to protect the sleeper from the dew, 
 and mats are thought sufficient as beds. 
 
 Perkins gives a good account of these Eastern roofs. ' The roofs 
 of the houses in Persia are flat, and terraced over with earth. Stout 
 timbers are first laid across the walls, about two feet apart. These 
 are covered over with small split sticks of wood, at intervals of 
 perhaps three inches, on which are spread rush mats. Then succeeds 
 a thick layer of a rank thorny wood, which grows abundantly on the 
 mountains, in a bushy, globular form, a foot or two in diameter. 
 This weed is so resinous as not soon to decay is an excellent 
 article of light fuel, and is much used for burning brick, heating 
 ovens, etc. It may be that " grass of the field, which to-day is, and 
 to-morrow is cast into the oven," as mentioned by our Saviour. 
 Upon the thick layer of this wood is spread a coat of clay mortar, 
 and trodden down, and next a stratum of dry earth, six or eight 
 inches deep, over which is plastered a layer of mixed straw and mud. 
 An occasional depression of the back edge of the roof, furnished 
 with a spout a few feet long, conducts off the water. The soil is so 
 tenacious in all parts of Persia that there is little danger of a roof 
 thus constructed being pervious to rain, if kept in a state of good re- 
 pair. It should be annually plastered over with the straw and mud, 
 which will be worn and washed off by the exposure of a season, and 
 snow must be thrown off with a shovel as soon as it falls. These flat 
 roofs are pleasant promenades for summer evening walks, and the 
 natives usually sleep upon them during the warm season tor the sake 
 of the cool air and freedom irom vermin. There is no exposure in 
 thus sleeping out, as there is no dew in Persia. The roofs should be 
 secured with balustrades, that one family may not gaze upon the 
 other's premises. Persian law sanctions the stoning, without trial or 
 mercy, of all who are guilty of such an offence ; and the reader will 
 recollect the sad misfortune and sin into which King David fell, in 
 consequence of indulging an idle curiosity while walking upon the 
 terrace.' 
 
TOPS OF HOUSES. 265 
 
 Bitrder says : ' The houses in the East were in ancient times, as 
 they are still, generally built in one and the same uniform manner. 
 The roof or top of the house is always flat, covered with broad stones, 
 or a strong plaster of terrace, and guarded on every side with a low 
 parapet wall. The terrace is frequented as much as any part of the 
 house. On this, as the season favours, they walk, they eat, they 
 sleep, they transact business, they perform their devotions. The 
 house is built with a court within, into which chiefly the windows 
 open ; those that open to the street are so obstructed with lattice-work 
 that no one without or within can see through them. Whenever, 
 therefore, anything is to be seen or heard in the streets, everyone 
 immediately goes up to the housetop to satisfy his curiosity. In the 
 same manner, when anyone had occasion to make anything public, 
 the readiest and most effectual way of doing it was to proclaim it 
 from the housetops to the people in the streets.' (See Isai. xxii. i.) 
 
 Van Lannep farther illustrates this use of the housetops. * When 
 anything of public interest is occurring in the streets, the poorer 
 houses having no upper stories with windows, the men and boys rush 
 out and line the thoroughfare, while the veiled women and girls are 
 seen ranged along the edges of the terraced roofs, or leaning over 
 parapets. When successive shots are heard in the town, announcing 
 an accidental conflagration, or the breaking in of a cruel foe whose 
 progress is marked by fire and sword, men, women, and children 
 hasten to the housetop, and gaze in anxious groups as long as the 
 danger lasts. On the occurrence of a death in the dwelling, mourners, 
 especially priests, are stationed upon the housetops, and attract 
 public attention by their lamentations. And a proclamation is often 
 made, as well as an address to the people, from the flat roof of a 
 government house, which looks down upon the meidan, or public 
 square.' 
 
 Idolatries referred to by Ezekiel. 
 
 EZEKIEL viii. 10 : 'All the idols of the house of Israel' 
 
 Question. What special features of idolatry were, on this occasion, 
 brought to the notice of Ezekiel ? 
 
 Answer. It is uniformly observed that those who become 
 perverts, giving up one religion and accepting another, are very ex- 
 travagant and intense in their zeal for the new system which they 
 adopt. In many cases there is also found a great readiness to change 
 again when a change has once been made. The Israelites became 
 perverts. Once loosened from the sole and supreme claims of 
 
266 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Jehovah, they were easily enticed by the heathen and idolatrous 
 systems of the nations immediately around them. 
 
 The more prominent systems which they adopted were (i) that of 
 the Canaanites, whom they were to have driven wholly out of the 
 land, but who were weakly left to become a snare. In connection 
 with these we may refer to the influence of the coarse forms of 
 idolatry established among the Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, etc., 
 nations closely associated with Israel. (2) The next great influence 
 was exerted by Phoenician Baalism, in its various forms ; the princi- 
 pal patrons of this licentious system being Ahab and his priestess- 
 wife Jezebel. (3) It is singular to find that the Egyptian idolatry so 
 little influenced the Israelites before the time of the later and decay- 
 ing monarchy. The idea of Aaron's calf, and the idea of Jeroboam's 
 calves, may be traced to Egyptian associations, but even though Solo- 
 mon married an Egyptian princess, the rites of that country seemed to 
 gain little favour in Israel, until the later kings sought alliance with 
 Egypt as a defence against the invasion of Assyria. The prophet 
 Ezekiel lived in a time when the apostates from Jehovah were wildly 
 seeking safety in the help of all the gods of whom they could hear. 
 
 Brief notices may be given of the more prominent forms of idolatry 
 to which Ezekiel refers. Our information is taken from a valuable 
 additional note in the Speaker's Comme?itary. 
 
 1. Canaanite Worship. The children of Israel, when they entered 
 the land of promise, found the inhabitants devoted to nature-worship, 
 expressed in rites most cruel and impure. These rites too soon 
 proved very attractive to the conquerors, and retained their hold up 
 to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 though often repressed by pious rulers, and often partially supplanted 
 by new and more popular forms of idolatry. Possibly the idolatry of 
 the high places was a relic of the Canaanite system. 
 
 2. Egyptian Idolatry. Professor Wilkins explains that the 
 ' religion of the Egyptians was too sensuous, too subtle, and too 
 formal and petty in its details to present any very great attractions to 
 the simpler and less artificial Hebrews, and it was soon made still 
 more distasteful to them when its adherents became their cruel 
 oppressors.' We have never felt quite satisfied that Aaron made his 
 calf in imitation of the Egyptian Apis or Mnevis. We have the 
 impression that the form given to Aaron's visible representative of 
 the absent God must have had some patriarchal association. The 
 idea of Aaron copying the idol figure of the oppressors' religion is 
 very difficult to entertain. It is more likely that the calf was the 
 tribal sign of the Hebrews, as a pastoral people. 
 
IDOLATRIES REFERRED TO BY EZEKIEL. 267 
 
 However that may be, there can be no doubt that Ezekiel makes 
 reference to the idolatry of Egypt as, in his time, established in 
 Judah. Possibly it was introduced when Pharaoh Necho for a time 
 subjected the land to his sway. (2 Kings xxiii. 34.) Referring to the 
 underground places used for abominable rites, the Speaker's Commen- 
 tary says : ' Belzoni's discoveries in the early part of the present 
 century brought to light many subterranean chambers in rocks upon 
 the shores of the Nile. These were used as sepulchres berth for 
 kings and private persons. The walls were uniformly adorned by 
 painted figures, depicting embassies from foreign nations, or the 
 occupations of ordinary life, and by hieroglyphical characters, some 
 of which were representative of the objects of idolatrous worship. 
 The most remarkable of these chambers are the Tombs of the Kings 
 at Biban-el-Molouk, and also at Gourneh near Thebes. Belzoni 
 found access into one of these by a hole in the wall, which gave no 
 sign of a regular entrance. We have no evidence that these sepulchral 
 chambers were used as places of worship, but their position, and the 
 adornments, some of which at least were objects of idolatry, fitted 
 them for the scene of the ideal picture by which Ezekiel represented 
 Egyptian idolatry.' 
 
 3. Baalism. Some think that Baal, Moloch, and Chemosh were 
 originally different names of the same divinity ; but by Baalism we 
 distinctively mean the Phoenician system introduced into Israel by 
 the dynasty of Omri. Baalim and Ashtoreth, in the plural form, 
 represent the plurality of the host of heaven ; and Baalism was 
 really the worship of the heavenly bodies. Professor Wilkins tells us 
 that the great Nature-power, the Sun-god, Baal, was viewed in three 
 ways : i. As Baal Samim, or Adonis, the fresh young sun of spring, 
 full of creative force, calling all vegetable life into luxuriant fertility, 
 and kindling in the animal world the fire of youthful passion. 2. As 
 the fierce sun of summer, like Tantalus, burning up the fruits and 
 flowers that owe their life to him Baal, Mars, or Moloch, the 
 terrible god of fire. 3. As the principle of order, unity, and stead- 
 fastness in the universe the power which held the world together 
 when the beautiful Adonis had been slain by the fury of Moloch, 
 which, albeit in gloom and darkness, husbanded and gathered the 
 exhausted powers of nature for new creative exertions, when the 
 world should be gladdened again by the birth of the life-giving sun of 
 spring ; this was Baal-Chewan, identified with Saturn. 
 
 4. Sun- Worship, distinct from the Baal representations. The 
 worship of the heavenly bodies was one of the earliest forms of 
 idolatry (Job xxxi. 26), and was expressly forbidden in the law 
 
268 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 (Deut. xvii. 3). But among the Arabians, in its earliest form, it was 
 conducted without the intervention of images, the adoration being 
 addressed to the heavenly bodies themselves. This form, continued 
 among the Persians, seems to have been introduced afresh into 
 Jerusalem at the time of Ezekiel (viii. 16). Connected with this 
 form of idolatry were the horses that the kings of Judah had given to 
 the sun (2 Kings xxiii. n), and probably the altars which were on 
 the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz (2 Kings xxiii. 12), and the 
 images (marg. * sun-images ') of Ezekiel vi. 4, 6, which were columns 
 set up in honour of the sun, not images in human form. These 
 columns would make a kind of sun-dial by their shadows. 
 
 5. Thammuz- Worship. A form of nature-worship, like the worship 
 of Adonis. ' The death of Adonis symbolized the suspension of the 
 productive powers of nature, which were in due time revived. The 
 excitements attendant on this alternate wailing and rejoicing, which 
 was especially popular among the women, led by inevitable conse- 
 quence to unbridled license and excess. This was in Ezekiel's day 
 one of the most detestable forms of idolatry. 7 
 
 The Evil-Eye. 
 
 I SAMUEL xviii. 9 : 'And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.' 
 
 Question. Can this reference be supposed to give Scriptural sanc- 
 tion to the superstitious notions that are entertained concerning the ' evil- 
 
 Answer. Certainly not. It simply reflects the notions and 
 sentiments of the age, and leaves us free to correct those notions 
 with the aid of our more full and accurate medical and scientific 
 knowledge. It was the eye of jealousy and of revengeful purpose 
 with which Saul looked on David a diseased eye ; but the looking 
 would, of itself, do David no mischief. 
 
 Thomson, in Land and Book, says : * The belief in the malignant 
 potency of the evil-eye is very prevalent with all classes of Syrian 
 society. So ridiculously afraid are they of this blight, that, if you 
 merely look at a child, especially if it be pretty, you must repeat the 
 name of the prophet, of God, or of the Virgin, with a brief petition 
 for protection, or at least say, Mashallah (an exclamation of admira- 
 tion or praise to God). If you extol the beauty of a horse, you 
 must immediately spit on it ; and the same is done sometimes to a 
 child; more frequently, however, they merely blow in its face and 
 repeat a charm. The bright red or white figures made on fig-trees 
 
THE EVIL-EYE. 269 
 
 are designed to attract the eye from the fruit, lest it should wither 
 and fall. In short, against this mysterious source of evil there are 
 countless charms and counter-charms.' 
 
 Gadsby has some curious notes on the superstitious customs con- 
 nected with belief in the 'evil-eye.' 'In some parts, as soon as a 
 child is born it is covered with amulets ; and a piece of mud, duly 
 blessed by the priests, and softened in holy water, which is believed 
 to possess a peculiar charm, is plastered on its forehead, to keep off 
 what is called the "evil-eye." Even horses and camels are made 
 to wear charms, and children have them in cases on their foreheads, 
 to keep off the evil-eye. I was once at Mrs. M.'s, at Boulac, when 
 two Turkish ladies came to see her. One of them took Mrs. M.'s 
 little boy into her arms, exclaiming, " Mashallah !" (It is God's will) ; 
 when Mrs. M., mother-like, said, " Look at his fat legs !" " Oh 1" 
 both the ladies exclaimed, " Mashallah !" (It was God's will that the 
 boy should have fat legs), and immediately spat on the floor. This 
 was to prevent any ill effects from Mrs. M.'s remark.' 
 
 ' We were talking about Hajji's boy one day, when Hajji, who is 
 remarkably quick of hearing, overheard us. Shortly afterwards I 
 went out and saw the boy with a very nicely striped vest on, of various 
 colours. " Hajji," said I, " what has the boy put that on for ?" 
 " You talk about my boy," he replied. " And is that to keep off the 
 evil-eye ?" I asked He laughed, and said, " Who tell you that ? 
 That is true, Mr. Gadsby. Maloom, maloom " (Certainly, certainly). 
 " You know all, everything, like God." 
 
 * In confirmation of my remarks about the evil-eye, I may quote 
 Mr. Wortabot, a Syrian, who says : " If there is anything which 
 horrifies the parents in Syria more than another, it is to have their 
 boy praised ; and were the child to die after praises had been lavished 
 on him, most assuredly they would lay the evil at the door of those 
 who had praised him."' 
 
 Mr. Lane says : ' It is often the case that those children who are 
 most petted and beloved are the dirtiest and worst clad. Their 
 mothers purposely leave them unwashed from fear of the evil-eye ; 
 but at the same time, perhaps, they will be half covered with orna- 
 ments. The effort is to keep you from admiring the child. You 
 may admire the ornaments, but not the child, lest some evil should 
 befall it.' 
 
 In heathen lands the belief in the evil-eye very extensively prevails. 
 An enemy is supposed to be able, by a look, to bewitch persons and 
 even cattle. 
 
270 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 The Weight of the Ammonite Crown. 
 
 2 SAMUEL xii. 30 : ' And he took the crown of their king from off his head ; 
 and the weight thereof was a talent of gold, and in it were precious stones ; and it 
 was set on David's head.' 
 
 Difficulty. It would surely be impossible for anyone to bear the 
 weight of such a crown. 
 
 Explanation. It is probable that reference is intended to the 
 crown of the Ammonite god, and not of the Ammonite king. In the 
 Hebrew ' their king ' is expressed by the one word Malcom, which is 
 also the name of the great idol of the Ammonites ; and although no 
 living man could wear a crown of one hundred pounds weight, a god of 
 metal, wood, or stone, might support a head-dress much heavier. It is 
 probable, then, that the crown was taken from the head of Malcom, 
 or Moloch, the Ammonite god, not from the Ammonite king. 
 
 There still remains the difficulty of this heavy crown being placed 
 on the head of David. The translation says that the crown was 
 ornamented with precious stones ; but the Hebrew mentions only one 
 stone. Possibly there was one large stone set in the huge crown, 
 and this stone may have been transferred to the royal crown of 
 David. 
 
 Two other suggestions have been made. Instead of the ' weight,' 
 we should read the ' value.' They took the crown, which was valued 
 at a talent, and there were precious stones in it. "" 
 
 Others suppose that the crown was melted down, purified, and 
 refined, and made anew for David, and adorned with its jewels, and 
 then set upon David's head. 
 
 Dr. Gardiner says : ' The silver talent was above a hundred pounds, 
 and the gold talent twice as much. But there were various other 
 Eastern talents, as the Babylonian and Persian, of much smaller 
 weight, and it is not unlikely that a light talent may have been in use 
 among the Ammonites. The weight, however, on any reasonable 
 supposition, would have been too great to allow of this crown being 
 commonly worn.' 
 
 Kitto gives some good reasons for thinking that the English Version 
 is correct, and that the weight of the crown is intended. It was pro- 
 bably a crown used only for a short time on great state ceremonials. 
 Crowns are only so used in the East, or indeed anywhere else ; and 
 they are generally of such weight that they cannot long be borne 
 without inconvenience. The ' weight of a crown ' is not only a 
 figurative truth, but a material fact. Sir Harford Jones Brydges, who 
 had an opportunity of examining the Persian regalia at leisure, 
 
UNCLEANNESS BY CONTACT WITH THE DEAD. 271 
 
 describes the crown of state as excessively heavy. The same ambas- 
 sador relates that, happening to look back, on quitting the audience- 
 chamber, he saw the king lifting the crown from his head, as if 
 anxious to relieve himself from its oppressive weight. But the 
 ponderous crowns were not always even worn upon the head ; they 
 were sometimes suspended over it, or attached to the top of the 
 throne. Several crowns of great size and weight thus used are 
 mentioned by Athenaeus and by Pliny. Among them, one is described 
 by the former writer as being composed of 10,000 pieces of gold, and 
 placed on the throne of King Ptolemy. Benjamin of Tudela speaks 
 of a crown of gold and gems suspended over the throne of the 
 Emperor Commenes. Some of the Rabbins have a curious conceit, 
 that the Ammonitish crown .was kept in suspension by a loadstone, 
 as if the loadstone attracted gold as well as iron. 
 
 Uncleanness by Contact with the Dead. 
 
 NUMBERS xix. 1 1 : 'He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be 
 unclean seven days.' 
 
 Difficulty. Did not this regulation needlessly add to the family 
 trouble and anxiety in times of death ? 
 
 Explanation. In the hot Eastern countries it was supremely 
 necessary to secure sanitary precautions in connection with disease 
 and death, and the earliest possible burial of the dead, and the 
 affixing of seven days' uncleanness, and consequent separation from 
 family life, for all who touched the dead, in a very simple way effected 
 both these ends, and a little family disability might well be borne 
 cheerfully for the sake of the common weal. 
 
 Those who tended the body to the grave would be glad to have 
 the burial over as soon as possible, so that their separation time might 
 not be prolonged ; and, in cases of death from infectious diseases, 
 seven days would suffice to develop the germs of the disease, if the 
 nurse had taken it. 
 
 This is the simplest explanation, and it is sufficient; but it has 
 further been suggested that Moses may have intended to correct a 
 practice not uncommon in the East, of leaving the dead to be devoured 
 by wild beasts. And it may also have been designed as a reproof of 
 the unnatural system of embalming, with which the Hebrews had 
 been familiarized in Egypt. 
 
 Seeking for the deeper religious significance of this regulation, we 
 note that God revealed His mind and will to men, in the older dayo, 
 through their lives and relations. He treated death as the comple- 
 
272 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 tion, the representative, of sin ; and His treatment of death, and ot 
 those directly related to death, was designed to carry home to men's 
 hearts His view of sin. How terrible a thing that must be, only the 
 touch of which brought seven days' separation ! It was really sin ; 
 for ' sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.' 
 
 Plucking off the Shoe as a Testimony. 
 
 RUTH iv. 7 : * Now this was the custom in former time in Israel concerning 
 redeeming and concerning exchanging, for to confirm all things ; a man drew oft 
 his shoe, and gave it to his neighbour : and this was the manner of attestation in 
 Israel' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. There does not appear to be any rational connection 
 between taking off a shoe, and passing it to another , and the sealing of 
 a business or family contract. 
 
 Explanation. Several accounts are given of this ancient custom, 
 and we cannot readily decide to which the preference should be 
 given. As no documents were used in ancient times, but all business- 
 contracts were made in public, at the gates of the cities, we can 
 understand that some formal ceremony would be gone through, 
 which witnesses might observe. And, as the contracts usually con- 
 cerned the transfer of land, the ceremony would be one specially 
 significant to such contracts, and made to apply to all others. We 
 may compare our way of putting the finger on the seal of a deed, 
 after signing it, and repeating the words, ' So help me God.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth regards the transfer of the shoe as a symbol of 
 the transfer of the property ; and a public acknowledgment that he, 
 to whom the shoe was given, might tread on the property as his own 
 by the same right as he, who gave the shoe, had formerly trodden 
 upon it. Our interest in Ruth prevents us from fully recognising 
 that the business done was really a transfer of rights to Naomi's 
 property, and that the matter of Ruth was only what we should call a 
 condition of the purchase of the land. The ceremony of the shoe 
 was, therefore, strictly appropriate. 
 
 Dr. S. Cox reminds us that while this was the legal form for 
 confirming or binding legal or commercial transactions, it was 
 associated, in a special way, with the faithfulness of a family goel 
 to his obligations. The Mosaic rule is given in Deut. xxv. 5-10, 
 and runs as follows : * If kinsmen dwell together, and one of them 
 die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry 
 outside ' (i.e. outside the family circle), * unto a stranger ; her 
 husband's kinsman shall go in unto her, and take her to wife, and 
 perform the duty of a husband's kinsman unto her. And it shall be 
 
PLUCKING OFF THE SHOE AS A TESTIMONY. 273 
 
 that the firstborn whom she beareth shall stand upon the name ' (i.e. 
 take the place, or arise in the place) ' of the kinsman who is dead, that 
 his name be not wiped out of Israel. And if the man like not to take 
 his kinsman's wife, then let his kinsman's wife go up to the gate, unto 
 the elders, and say, My husband's kinsman refuseth to raise up unto 
 his kinsman a name in Israel ; he will not do the duty of my husband's 
 kinsman. Then the elders of the city shall call him, and speak unto 
 him ; and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her ; then shall 
 his kinsman's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and 
 loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face ' (probably it 
 should read, * spit before his face '), * and shall answer and say, So let 
 it be done unto the man who will not build up his kinsman's house. 
 And his name shall be called in Israel, House of the Shoe taken off' 
 (/.*., anyone might call him * Baresole,' without committing a legal 
 offence) ; his family would be stigmatised as the family of a shoeless 
 or barefooted vagabond, ' shoeless fellow ' being equivalent to 
 * miserable fellow,' since it was only in extreme penury and misery 
 that the Hebrews went barefoot. In the case of Boaz the indignity 
 of the spitting was avoided, probably by the matter being treated 
 simply as one of land transfer ; the kinsman's scruples as to marrying 
 a Moabitess being admitted. 4 
 
 Illustrating the symbolic use of the shoe from Indian customs, 
 Roberts says : ' Does a priest, a father, or a respectable friend, resolve 
 to go on a pilgrimage to some distant country ; some one will 
 perhaps say, " Ah, he will never return ; he intends to remain in those 
 holy places." Should he deny it, then they say, " Give us your shoes 
 as a witness of your promise," and having done so, never will he 
 break it. An affectionate widow never parts with her late husband's 
 shoes ; they are placed near her when she sleeps ; she kisses and puts 
 her head upon them, and nearly every time after bathing she goes to 
 look at them. These, therefore, are the " testimony," the melancholy 
 confirmation of her husband's death.' 
 
 The association of the shoe with marriage customs in Barbary is 
 illustrated by Urquhart, in his work Pillars of Hercules : * At a 
 Jewish marriage I was standing beside the bridegroom when the 
 bride entered ; and, as she crossed the threshhold, he stooped down 
 and slipped off his shoe, and struck her with the heel on the nape of 
 the neck. I at once saw the interpretation of the passage in Scrip- 
 ture respecting the transfer of the shoe to another, in case the 
 brother-in-law did not exercise his privilege. The slipper, being taken 
 off indoors, is placed at the edge of the small carpets on which you 
 sit, and is at hand to administer correction, and is here used in sign 
 of the obedience of the wife and the supremacy of the husband. 1 
 
 18 
 
274 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 David's Dancing. 
 
 2 SAMUEL vi. 16 : 'And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, 
 Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window, and saw King David leaping 
 and dancing before the Lord ; and she despised him in her heart.' 
 
 Question. What was the dancing referred to here, and why did 
 it excite the contempt of this princess ? 
 
 Answer. Nothing of the character of our set dances, as at balls 
 and parties, can be intended here. In ancient times they had no 
 idea of what we call ' dance-music/ nor of arranging movements in 
 response to formal music. Always and everywhere emotions of joy 
 and sorrow express themselves in movements and gestures of the 
 body. Children always did. and always will, dance. In David's case 
 we have simply the natural rhythmical movements of body which 
 find expression for pleasurable excitements. * The dance is spoken 
 of in Holy Scripture universally as symbolical of some rejoicing. In 
 the earlier period it is found combined with some song or refrain, 
 and with the tambourine, or timbrel, more especially in those 
 impulsive outbursts of popular feeling which cannot find sufficient 
 vent in voice or in gesture. Nor is there any more strongly popular 
 element traceable in the religion of the ancient Jews than the 
 opportunity so given to a prophet or prophetess to kindle enthusiasm 
 for Jehovah on momentous crises of national joy, and thus root the 
 theocracy in their deepest feelings, more especially in those of the 
 women, themselves most easily stirred, and most capable of exciting 
 others. The dance was regarded even by the Romans as the worship 
 of the body, and thus had a place amongst sacred things.' 
 
 We can get a better idea of Eastern dancing from the movements 
 of the Italians in our streets, who dance to the sound of their 
 tambourines, than from the dancing of evening parties. 
 
 What occurred on the festive day, to which this passage refers, 
 seems to have been as follows : When David found the Divine 
 blessing was resting on his better-advised plan for removing the ark, 
 and was granting him good success, he sacrificed seven bullocks and 
 seven rams ; and * when this act of worship was completed, a 
 procession was formed, David laying aside his heavy royal robe, 
 girding himself with a priestly ephod, joining in the procession, 
 sharing, and even leading, the excitement of delight with which 
 it moved toward the city of Zion, and its appointed resting-place. 
 The clang of symbols, the blast of trumpets, the chant of priests, the 
 shout of the people, all raised David's feeling of joy to so high a pitch, 
 that when the gates of the city were entered, and the music waxed 
 
DA VWS DANCING. 275 
 
 louder, and started the natural rhythmical movement known as 
 dancing, David could not restrain himself, but joined in the 
 measured movement, the swaying to and fro, and round and round, 
 that must have been very similar to the dancing now practised by the 
 Eastern dervishes.' 
 
 Kitto suggests that David took the place as leader of the choir of 
 women with timbrels and dances ' ; the position of Miriam in the 
 olden time, perhaps the position which Michal ought to have taken. 
 
 A. Lapide compares the history of Sir Thomas More, who, when 
 Lord Chancellor of England, sometimes took his place, and sang in the 
 choir of his parish church, in a surplice. And when the Duke of Norfolk 
 expostulated with him, as Michal did with David, for degrading him- 
 self and the king's service, he said, ' Nay, your Grace may not think 
 that the king my master will be offended with me for the serving of 
 God his master.' 
 
 4 It is evident that when the king danced before the ark, he laid 
 aside his robe, and wore only his ephod and drawers. Michal, his 
 wife, looked through a window, and, seeing what she considered his 
 undignified dress and demeanour, despised him in her heart, and 
 reproached him in language which seems very natural to an Oriental 
 ear/ Van Lennep. 
 
 In what Sense was Samuel 'lent to the Lord'? 
 
 I SAMUEL i. 28 : ' Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord ; as long as he 
 iiveth he shall be lent to the Lord ' Margin^ * returned ;' (Rev. Ver., 'granted '). 
 
 Difficulty. Seeing that there was no place for a child in the 
 Mosaic ritual, whence could Hannah have obtained the notion of con- 
 secrating her boy to the Tabernacle service ? 
 
 Explanation. Hannah's act is certainly difficult for us to 
 understand. According to the Mosaic law, every first-born male 
 child belonged of right to God, and must be devoted to Him. The 
 idea seems to have been that such a child must be offered in sacrifice 
 to Him, and of this idea we find the relic in the prophetical exclama- 
 tion, * Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my 
 body for the good of my soul ?' Moses arranged for the redemption 
 of the first-born by the offering of victims in their stead Hannah, 
 regarding her child as a special gift from God, and possibly, in a 
 prophetic way, anticipating for him an extraordinary career, refused 
 to redeem her boy, but returned him to the Lord, that he might be a 
 living, life-long sacrifice, in himself a testimony for the supreme 
 claims of Jehovah to all an Israelite was, and to all he had. It is 
 
 18 2 
 
276 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 not sufficiently recognised that in Samuel we have the ideal of a 
 ' living sacrifice.' 
 
 This, however, does not meet the difficulty of a mere child being 
 left at the Tabernacle. Perhaps Samuel was older than at first sight 
 appears, when his mother left him with Eli. If he "was only just 
 weaned from the usual Eastern three years' nursing, it is certain that 
 he would still be needing daily motherly care ; but this could readily 
 have been found, as the wives of the priests would be lodging in close 
 association with the tabernacle, and we cannot suppose Eli to have 
 dwelt within the tabernacle itself. Tents for the priests may have 
 been set up in the sides of the Tabernacle, and within the enclosed 
 space. Hannah, must, however, have acted on a Divine inspiration, 
 for she had no precedent for her scheme ; and this inspiration Eli 
 must have recognised, and regarded as sufficient reason for his per- 
 mitting so strange and unusual a thing. 
 
 On the probable age of Samuel when taken to Eli, a very curious 
 suggestion has been made by Comestor, who wrote in A.D. 1473, which 
 would greatly relieve the difficulty of the case, if we could confidently 
 accept it. He says that there was a threefold weaning of children in 
 old times : the first from the mother's milk, when they were three 
 years old ; the second from their tender age, and the care of a nurse 
 when they were seven years of age ; and the third from childish ways 
 when they reached the age of twelve. We can imagine Samuel would 
 be of some service in waiting on Eli at the age of seven, but twelve is 
 the yet more likely age. 
 
 Samuel was not designed for a priest, and no one concerned in his 
 childhood seems to have had any intimation of the work that would 
 be entrusted to him. He was to be a prophet, the first of the pro- 
 phetic order, and the founder of that order. He was to mediate 
 between the people and God in the matter of appointing a king for 
 the nation ; and he was to maintain the supreme claims of Jehovah 
 under the new regime. It was an essential to his efficiency for this 
 work that the public impression concerning him should be that of a 
 man wholly devoted to God from infancy. Wherever Samuel went 
 throughout his life, he was felt to be, in himself, a witness for God. 
 There is still, and there always will be, a specially gracious power 
 upon us of those men and women among us who are known to have 
 served God from their childhood. 
 
 Dmn Stanley dwells on the importance of Samuel's relation to the 
 older Mosaic system, which was now to undergo important modifica 
 tions. { He had been brought up and nurtured in the ancient system. 
 His childhood had been spent in the Sacred Tent of Shiloh, the last 
 
MARRIAGE WITH A WIFE'S SISTER. 277 
 
 relic of the wanderings of the desert. His early dedication to the 
 sanctuary belonged to that age of vows of which the excess appears 
 in the rash and hasty vows of Jephthah, of Saul, and of the assembly 
 at Mizpah ; in the more regular, but still peculiar and eccentric, 
 devotion of Samson to the life of a Nazarite. 
 
 Marriage with a Wife's Sister. 
 
 LEVITICUS xviii. 18 : ' Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister . . . beside 
 the other in her life-time.' 
 
 Difficulty. Does tlie limitation of this command involve liberty to 
 enter into this relationship when the condition of limitation is removed? 
 
 Explanation. We have no concern in these paragraphs with 
 the social and ecclesiastical controversies which have gathered round 
 this subject. We can only attempt to remove the literary difficulties 
 of the passage. 
 
 The term which is translated ' sister,' achoth, may mean a sister in 
 blood-relationship, but Bishop Wordsworth admits that 'it is not 
 certain whether the word " achoth " is to be here rendered a sister in 
 blood. It is remarkable that the phrases which would be literally 
 rendered " a woman to her sister," and " a man to his brother," occur 
 more than thirty times in the Hebrew Bible, and never in these 
 instances designate the ^^/-relationship of two sisters or two brothers, 
 but simply the addition of one person or thing to another of the 
 same kind. Accordingly, in the margin of our Authorised Version, 
 the words are rendered here, one wife to another. So the words are 
 here understood by Junius, Tremellius, Drusius, Calovius, Beza, 
 Ainsworth, Willett, Hammond, Schleusner, etc' 
 
 If the verse be only a prohibition of polygamy, we can clearly 
 understand the character of the limitation, in her life-time. A man 
 may not bring to his home a second wife while his first wife lives, but 
 he is free to bring the person he favours to his home as a wife when the 
 first wife is dead. The law in respect to second marriages is referred 
 to by the Apostle Paul as well recognised. (See Romans vii. 1-3.) 
 
 But if the force of the limitation be thus admitted, it must be 
 applied in exactly the same way to the particular case of the desired 
 second wife being the first wife's sister. The prohibition refers only 
 to the conduct of a man during his wife's life-time. 
 
 Without going beyond the language of the verse, we must admit, 
 (i) that it is very doubtful whether a wife's sister is referred to in it ; 
 and (2) that, if she is, the law of second marriage applies to her as to 
 any other woman. But the permissible is not always the advisable. 
 
278 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 The Woman-Owner of Ob. 
 
 I SAMUEL xxviii. 7 : 'Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that 
 hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And his servants 
 said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.' 
 
 Difficulty. This appears to recognise the wizards and witches as 
 really having some occult power at their command. 
 
 Explanation. Literally the expression used is ' the woman 
 mistress, or owner, of 6b.' Probably the word db means ' a skin 
 bottle' (Job xxxii. 19), and it is apparently employed to denote the 
 distended belly of the ventriloquist, the man who can make sounds 
 appear to come from different quarters. It was in accordance with 
 the common sentiment of the times, to think of a spirit as speaking 
 from the belly of the ventriloquist; but we regard such abilities merely 
 as special endowments, connected with a peculiar sensitiveness of 
 certain parts of the body. 
 
 It is quite certain that there were claims made, in ancient times, of 
 power to deal with the world of the dead, and with the world of 
 spirits ; but it will always be disputed whether these claims had any 
 substantial basis, or were merely the delusions of superstition. Our 
 idea is that when mesmerism, animal magnetism, thought-reading, and 
 spiritualism are more fully understood, there will be abundant 
 material for the explanation of all that is known concerning witches, 
 oracles, sorcerers, necromancers, etc. In this narrative the woman is 
 so surprised at the actual appearance of Samuel, that it is certain she 
 had no power really to call up the dead, and could only have attempted 
 to satisfy Saul by skilful rites and delusions. 
 
 This view, however, is not usually taken, and Canon Spence 
 expresses, with caution, the hesitating admission of some kind of 
 occult power at the command of the ancient sorcerers. Quoting 
 Keil thus, ' Prophesying by the Ob was probably performed by 
 calling up a departed spirit from Sheol, and obtaining prophecies, 
 that is, disclosures, concerning one's own fate through the medium of 
 such a spirit,' Canon Spence adds, * No other commentator touches 
 on the db here, and Keil leaves it in doubt as to whether he 
 considered the db was some special spirit devoted to the service of 
 the mistress of the db, or the spirit or soul of one already dead, who, 
 through some occult power, was to be brought back again for a 
 season to this earth. As far as we can judge of these old mysteries, 
 the sorcerer or sorceress possessed, or was supposed to possess, a 
 " familiar." Through the aid of this " familiar," the departed spirit 
 was compelled or induced to revisit this world, and to submit to 
 
THE WOMAN-OWNER OF OB. 279 
 
 certain questioning. The Hebrew word rendered " divine unto me " 
 (ver. 8) is of Syriac origin, like most of those words describing illicit 
 vaticinations. This miserable power, if it did exist, was one of the 
 things the Israelites learned from the original inhabitants of Canaan. 
 These " black arts " as they have been called, have in all ages, in every 
 degree of civilization, always had an extraordinary fascination for 
 men. It is well known that, even in our own " cultured age," similar 
 pretensions are put forth, and the dead are still invoked, summoned, 
 and questioned, as they were in the half-barbarous age when Saul and 
 his companions, in their desperate strait, sought the witch of 
 Endor.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie says : ' An old woman, a sorceress, still lingered at 
 Endor ; for where there is superstition it will find agents to turn it to 
 profit. Seeking her, in deep disguise, by night, he begged she would 
 invoke the spirit of Samuel, who had died shortly before. Con- 
 jurations and mutterings followed, to bring some apparent phantom 
 before him whom she might pronounce to be Samuel, but both she 
 and Saul were appalled by the result. What she could never, herself, 
 have done, was divinely vouchsafed. An apparition suddenly rose 
 before them, which Saul and the woman recognised at once, by its 
 mantle, as Samuel. But it came with no words of comfort or 
 hope.' 
 
 Pouring out of Water. 
 
 I SAMUEL vii. 6 : * And they gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and 
 poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have 
 sinned against the Lord.' 
 
 Difficulty. As the pouring out of water is not a Mosaic rite, this 
 must be regarded as an unauthorised and superstitious ceremony. 
 
 Explanation. The act has greatly puzzled Bible students, and 
 many suggestions in connection with it have been made. The one 
 that most commends itself is that the pouring of water was a 
 symbolical act, very well understood by Eastern people. Writing on 
 the customs of India, Mr. Roberts tells us, that ' pouring water on the 
 ground is a very ancient way of confirming an oath in India.' There 
 is reason to suppose that, in ancient times, almost every solemn act 
 was accompanied by libations, or the outpouring of some fluid, 
 generally wine, and we know that water was employed in the earlier 
 times for this purpose. There may possibly be some reference to 
 the compact into which the people now entered, and on which 
 Samuel acted on their behalf ; and the idea may be that their words 
 
2 8o HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 had gone forth not to be recalled. Oaths were certainly, under some 
 such idea, confirmed anciently by libations. Thus Ulysses says of 
 
 Phidon, 
 
 ' " To me the monarch swore in his own hall, 
 Pouring libation." ' 
 
 Mr. Roberts gives the following anecdote from the Hindu my 
 thology. ' When the god Vishnu, in the disguise of a dwarf, requested 
 the giant Maha Ville (Bali) to grant him one step of his kingdom, 
 the favour was conceded, and confirmed by Maha Ville pouring out 
 water before the dwarf. In that ancient work, the Scanda Purana, 
 where the account is given of the marriage of the god Siva with 
 Paravati, it is said of the father, He placed the hand of the goddess 
 Paravati, genetrix of the world, in the hand of Parama Easuran (Siva), 
 and, pouring out the water, said, " I give her to thee with all my 
 heart." This, therefore, was done in confirmation of the com- 
 pact. 
 
 Canon Spence makes a suggestion which would be valuable if so 
 simple an explanation as that given above were not at command. 
 He says : ' What more likely than that the prophet-statesman who in 
 that solemn juncture represented priest and judge and seer to Israel 
 devised on that momentous day new symbolic rites, signifying 
 Israel's new dedication to the Eternal for the future, Israel's repent- 
 ance for the sad past ? The solemn pouring out of water before the 
 Lord symbolized, to a people trained so carefully to watch the 
 meaning and signification of symbols and imagery, the heart and 
 whole inner life poured out before the Lord ; the fasting represented 
 the repentant, humble sinner bowed down in grief before the one true 
 God' 
 
 Connected with a somewhat similar reference in 2 Sam. xiv. 14. 
 to ' water spilt on the ground,' Gadsby relates that, ' passing by one 
 house, I heard wailings, and I narrowly escaped being drenched with 
 water. My guide said a Jew was dead. I thought nothing of the 
 circumstance until I read, a few days ago, in Jowett's " Christian 
 Researches," that the Jews throw out of the window all the water that 
 is in a house in which any person has died, believing that the soul 
 had cleansed itself therein. The Armenians pour a glass of water on 
 the head of a corpse when it is put into the grave. 1 
 
ROYAL BATHING IN THE NILE. 281 
 
 Royal Bathing in the Nile. 
 
 EXODUS it. 5 : ' And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river ; 
 and her maidens walked along by the river side' (Rev. Ver.} 
 
 Question. Do the Egyptian records give any illustrations of the 
 practice that is here indicated, or was this a custom of this particular 
 princess ? 
 
 Answer. No very full or accurate information on this subject 
 seems to be at command, and indeed the matter is one concerning 
 private and personal habits of which details are not likely to have 
 been preserved. We can quite understand that in such a hot country 
 as Egypt opportunities for bathing would be eagerly sought : but the 
 privacy which Eastern women so anxiously preserved, makes it very 
 unlikely that the open bathing of the Egyptian women in the river 
 Nile was ever an established custom. 
 
 In two directions explanations of this incident have been sought. 
 Some think that this princess was a childless wife, and as this condi- 
 tion is regarded as extremely distressing by all Eastern women, we 
 must assume that she was exceedingly anxious to get her disability 
 removed. A superstitious sentiment prevailed respecting the Nile, 
 the waters of which were thought to be health-restoring and fructifying. 
 The bathing of the princess, therefore, bore special relation to her 
 condition, and the state of her mind and feelings made her so readily 
 affected by the sight of the beautiful babe in the little ark. From 
 this very reasonable point of view we may regard the bathing as 
 unusual and temporary, and the attendance of the maidens, who are 
 said to have ' walked along the river-side, ' secured for the princess all 
 necessary privacy. 
 
 Supporting this view, the Speakers Commentary says : ' The Nile 
 was worshipped as an emanation of Osiris, and a peculiar power of 
 imparting life and fertility was attributed to its waters, a superstition 
 still prevalent in the country.' 
 
 The other explanation of the incident is that the Nile, or one of 
 its tributaries, flowed through, or by, the grounds of Pharaoh's palace, 
 and that a portion was marked off for the bathing purposes of the 
 court ladies. All needful privacy was thus secured, and we may 
 assume that the princess was but following her daily custom. The 
 difficulty of this explanation is, that the mother of Moses would not 
 have access to the palace grounds. It is quite possible, however, that 
 she placed the child where the current would be sure to carry the ark 
 down among the reeds which screened the princess's bathing place. 
 
282 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Off the main stream of the Nile, the current would run very slowly, 
 and the ark would be in no great peril. 
 
 There is a suggestion made by Dr. C. Geikie which supports the 
 view we prefer, viz., that this was an occasional bathing, with a dis- 
 tinctly superstitious aim. He says that Rameses was at this time in 
 residence at his northern capital, Tanis. The ' daughter of Pharaoh ' 
 must have been his sister and it seems that he was married to her : 
 and a marriage of brother and sister was thought in Egypt, as in 
 ancient Persia, the best possible for a prince, to guarantee the purity 
 of the Divine blood of the royal house. But such unnatural marriages 
 are often unfruitful : and the force of the Scripture narrative almost 
 wholly depends on the fact of the childlessness of this princess. The 
 name given to her by Josephus, Thermouthis, * Beloved by the 
 goddess Mut,' is found as that of one of the wives of Rameses. 
 
 Removing Bodies from Trees at Nightfall. 
 
 JOSHUA x. 26, 27 : ' And afterward Joshua smote them, and put them to death, 
 and hanged them on five trees : and they were hanging upon the trees until the 
 evening. And it came to pass at the going down of the sun, that Joshua com- 
 manded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave 
 wherein they had hidden themselves, and laid great stones on the mouth of the 
 cave, unto this very day ' (Rev. Ver. ) 
 
 Question. Was it for merciful or for sanitary reasons that the 
 bodies were not allowed to remain exposed through the night ? 
 
 Answer. The hanging mentioned in Scripture is what we should 
 understand by 'gibbeting,' or the public exposure of the bodies of 
 executed persons. Death by the breaking of the neck through a 
 sudden drop from a scaffold, with a rope round the neck, is not 
 referred to in Scripture. The condemned person was killed in some 
 other way, and then, as a public declaration and warning, the body 
 was hung up in the sight of the people. 
 
 There was a very strong sentiment established in the East against 
 allowing dead bodies to remain long unburied. Loyalty to the 
 memory of the dead found expression in speedy efforts for their 
 interment ; and no greater indignity could be put on a family than 
 to refuse burial, or delay burial, in the case of any deceased member. 
 This is illustrated, on its higher religious side, in the familiar classical 
 drama of ' Antigone/ 
 
 The importance of the sentiment is at once recognised when we 
 remember that all who came in contact with a dead person were 
 regarded as ceremonially unclean. They would be anxious to secure 
 restoration to ceremonial privileges as speedily as possible. Dead 
 
REMOVING BODIES FROM TREES. 283 
 
 bodies, in hot countries, begin at once to corrupt, and, unless at 
 once removed, seriously imperil the health of the household in which 
 they remain. And if left unprotected in the open air, the body 
 would soon be devoured by carrion beasts and birds, a mode of dis- 
 posing of it that has always been regarded as extremely humiliating 
 and painful. An African traveller tells of the death of one of his 
 party. The body was simply dragged away a hundred yards in front 
 of the tent, carrion birds in large numbers pounced upon it, and 
 within half an hour the flesh was gone, and nothing but clean whitened 
 bones were left. 
 
 As a public triumph over these five kings, Joshua had them gibbeted, 
 but there was no intention of offering insult, and Joshua met the 
 common sentiment, mercifully arranging for a speedy interment, and 
 securing the bodies from being torn of beast or bird. During the 
 day the gibbets were watched, and carrion creatures driven off. But 
 no protection could be given during the night ; and, if left all the 
 night, the condition of the bodies in the morning would be extremely 
 repulsive ; so Joshua saved everybody's feelings by arranging for the 
 burial ere night fell. 
 
 Joshua only carried out the merciful requirements of the Mosaic 
 law, as found in Deut. xxi. 22, 23. 
 
 Winer tells us that the hanging of a living man is a Persian punish- 
 ment Under the Herods this mode of execution occurs among the 
 Jews also, as well as in Egypt during the Roman age. 
 
 Jezebel's Scheme for the Destruction of Naboth. 
 
 I KINGS xxi. 9, IO : * And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and 
 set Naboth on high among the people : and set two men, sons of Belial, before 
 him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the 
 king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die.' 
 
 Difficulty. -Jezebel evidently made a bad use of some recognised 
 legal form , and this was a judicial murder ; but none of our legal forms 
 help us to understand precisely what this was. 
 
 Explanation. Our laws concerning * blasphemy ' greatly need 
 to be reformed, but they preserve the ordinary judicial course, and 
 do not yield the matters of conviction and execution to the mere 
 excitement of the people. In Israel this one crime was dealt with 
 by a sort of ' Lynch law '; the people at once vindicated the outraged 
 honour.of Jehovah, or of the king ; as soon as the accusation was in 
 any sense regarded as proved, the blasphemer was borne, in sudden 
 tumult, outside the gates, and stoned to death. This crime, there- 
 
284 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 fore, and this established custom, precisely suited the vile and shameful 
 purpose of the unscrupulous Jezebel. No delay would occur ; no 
 death-warrant was required; no appeal was possible: make Naboth 
 out to be a blasphemer, and the popular voice would at once cleai 
 him out of the way. This much may be said for the elders of Jezreel, 
 that they may have supposed Jezebel had some good reason for 
 making such an accusation, but could not secure precise evidence, 
 and therefore the degraded Eastern custom of paying witnesses to 
 swear falsely must be resorted to. Nothing, however, can relieve 
 them from the terrible charge of playing against their consciences 
 into the hands of a wicked woman. 
 
 The scheme was somewhat as follows : Jezebel intimated that a 
 dreadful curse was hanging over Jezreel, because there was some 
 great criminal in it, some great iniquity remained unavenged. A 
 town's meeting was to be called to consider what could be done to 
 avert the evil. At the meeting the elders were to take care that 
 Naboth occupied a prominent position, well in sight of everyone. 
 Suddenly an accusation was to be made against Naboth ; he was to 
 be singled out as the guilty party, a tumult was to be raised, two men 
 were to be brought forward as witnesses of his blasphemy, and then 
 the people were to be left to work their will on him. It was, in a 
 sense, a legal scheme, but it was of quite an exceptional character a 
 combination of the legal and the tumultuous. By accusing Naboth 
 of the crime which we should call treason, Jezebel, according to 
 custom, secured the reversion of his landed property to the king upon 
 his death. 
 
 Some illustration of this case may be found in that of the martyr 
 Stephen. 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie succinctly narrates Jezebel's scheme. * If Ahab really 
 wanted the vineyard, she would get it for him. Writing a letter in 
 his name, and duly authenticated by the royal seal, to the elders and 
 chief men of Samaria (there is a difference of opinion as to whether 
 the trial took place at Jezreel or at Samaria), she commanded them 
 to proclaim a fast, as at the occurrence of some great public calamity. 
 High treason had been committed, and the wrath of the gods must 
 be deprecated. Naboth was to be put at the head of the assembly, 
 and when thus brought into prominent notice was to be accused as 
 the criminal, by hired false witnesses, so common in all ages in the 
 East. It was to be asserted that he had cursed God and the king. 
 His only offence, of course, had been keeping his own property when 
 Ahab wished him to sell it. Largely dependent on the court, and 
 daunted by the fierce energy and unscrupulousness of Jezebel, the 
 
TEAR-BOTTLES. 285 
 
 elders had not spirit to resist, and carried out her murderous plan. 
 Naboth, having been charged with the crime, was at once condemned, 
 and forthwith hurried outside the town walls by night and stoned to 
 death, his sons also sharing his fate (2 Kings ix. 26) ; for they, too, 
 must be destroyed to secure the vineyard. To add iniquity to the 
 murders, the mangled bodies were left unburied, the greatest insult 
 that could be paid to the dead.' 
 
 Tear-Bottles. 
 
 PSALM Ivi. 8 : ' Thou tellest my wanderings : put Thou my tears into Thy bottle ; 
 are they not in Thy Book ?' 
 
 Question. Is this poetical figure based upon any known Eastern 
 custom, or is it merely a poetical license ? 
 
 Answer. There is abundant proof that it was a familiar and 
 even honoured custom thus to collect the tears of mourners. And 
 it is not so surprising that this should be done when we call to mind 
 that Eastern people are much more demonstrative than Westerns, 
 and are accustomed to weep with a freedom which to us seems very 
 surprising. 
 
 The Romans used to collect the tears of sorrowing friends who 
 wept for the dead, and put them in sepulchral urns of earth or 
 glass. 
 
 Morier tells of a singular practice and sentiment in Persia. ' In 
 some of their mournful assemblies it is the custom for a priest to go 
 about to each person at the height of his grief with a piece of cotton 
 in his hand, with which he carefully collects the falling tears, and 
 which he then squeezes into a bottle, preserving them with the greatest 
 caution. Some Persians believe that in the agony of death, when all 
 medicines have failed, a drop of tears so collected, put into the mouth 
 of a dying man, has been known to revive him, and it is for such use 
 they are collected.' 
 
 Gadsby says : ' Most of the Easterns shed tears much more copi- 
 ously than the people of Europe. The Psalmist said rivers of waters 
 ran down his eyes, and though the language is beautifully figurative, 
 I have no doubt it was also literally true. I have myself seen Arabs 
 shed tears like streams. The custom in old times, in some parts, 
 was, when a person was ill or in great distress, for his friends to go 
 to see him, and take with them a tear-bottle. Then, as the tears 
 rolled down the cheeks of the sufferer, they were caught in these 
 bottles, sealed up, and preserved as a memorial of the event. There 
 are several of these bottles in the British Museum. Some of them 
 
286 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 consist of two bottles joined together, so as to reach both eyes at 
 once ; and that no tears should be wasted they were made to fit just 
 under the eyes.' 
 
 The Speakers Commentary regards the sentence as a 'bold but 
 expressive metaphor. As the traveller carefully preserves water, milk, 
 or wine in leather bottles or bladders for a journey, so David trusts 
 that God keeps in memory every tear which he sheds. They are 
 precious as memorials of many a sorrowful pleading, many a prayer 
 offered with streaming eyes.' 
 
 Roberts says that a Hindoo in distress, as he weeps, will say, ' Ah ! 
 Lord, take care of these tears; let them not run in vain.' 'Alas 1 my 
 husband, why beat me ? my tears are known to God.' 
 
 The Foxes and the Firebrands. 
 
 JUDGES xv. 4, 5 : ' And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took 
 firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between every 
 two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the 
 standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and the standing 
 corn, and also the oliveyards.' 
 
 Difficulties. One man surely could not catch and keep so many as 
 three hundred fierce wild animals. And Samson's act seems to be a 
 malicious practical joke, doing extensive injury for no good moral ends. 
 
 Explanation. It appears that the Hebrew word Shualim is 
 used for both foxes and jackals. The fox prowls about alone ; the 
 jackals hunt in herds. Whichever animal is referred to, Samson 
 must have set traps for them, and as it would be necessary to do his 
 malicious act promptly, it is more reasonable to assume that, in some 
 way, he entangled a whole herd of jackals. How he controlled the 
 creatures while he tied the firebrand to their tails is quite beyond 
 explanation. His object in getting so many was to scatter the fire 
 widely abroad by the frightened rushing of the beasts, and to ensure 
 that some at least of the firebrands should keep alight. By tying 
 two tails together he made the creatures pull against each other, this 
 way and that, and kept them from rushing right away. 
 
 Samson did but follow one of the bad and malicious customs of 
 the East. To burn the crops of an Arab is to this day the deadliest 
 of all injuries. An example of the wicked practice may be found in 
 2 Sam. xiv. 30. Canon Farrar says : ' It is in entire accordance with 
 the custom of the East, and it finds curious confirmation from the 
 story in Ovid's Fasti, that every year, at the Cerealia torches were 
 tied to the tails of foxes, and they were let loose in the Roman circus 
 to commemorate the incident that on one occasion a young man at 
 
THE .FOXES AND THE FIREBRANDS. 28} 
 
 Carseoli, to punish a fox for depredations on his hen-coops, had 
 wrapped it up in straw, and set it on fire, and that the creature had 
 escaped into the cornfields, and burnt down the standing crops.' 
 
 Kitto says : ' Samson caught, probably by the help of others, no 
 fewer than three hundred foxes animals which to this day abound 
 in the same region. These, at the time he had chosen, he tied tail 
 to tail, fixing a slow firebrand, likely to be kindled into flame by the 
 air in rapid motion, between each pair of tails. Being then let loose, 
 the alarmed animals naturally sought shelter among the standing corn, 
 and soon set it in a blaze in every direction.' 
 
 Tristram thinks the brands were attached at some distance from 
 the tails of the animals ; and jackals, being accustomed to run together, 
 would not, unless very tightly fastened, pull in opposite directions, as 
 foxes or dogs would. 
 
 Van Lennep has a good note. * The plan of tying the tails of two 
 jackals together was certainly a most effectual means of attaining the 
 object, as anyone will testify who has ever seen the experiment tried. 
 A single animal carrying a firebrand would soon extinguish it, while 
 two would not only be impeded in their progress, but would find no 
 hole sufficiently large to admit them both at once, and so would con- 
 tinue rushing wildly through the land, setting fire to the sheaves of 
 wheat, and also to that still standing, together with the vineyards 
 and olives. The Philistines, moreover, would find it impossible to 
 seize the authors of this terrible mischief. These firebrands were 
 doubtless pieces of the pitch-pine of the country, which, once lighted, 
 are put out with difficulty.' 
 
 On the second difficulty it is necessary that we should firmly express 
 our view that no adequate excuse can be offered for this wanton and 
 malicious act. 'The adoption of these rough, coarse, and cruel 
 expedients must be as little judged by a later and better standard as 
 his thirst for the revenge of personal wrongs.' 
 
 Samson's character, conduct, and mission seem to us wholly beyond 
 explanation, unless we can accept the view so eloquently presented 
 by Dean Stanley, following Ewald. The subject is so interesting 
 and important that we give the passages from both these great 
 writers : 
 
 ' Conjoined with the immense power given by the faith that he was 
 God's own, Samson possessed within himself a second gift, which it 
 was not possible for others, or even for himself personally, to call 
 forth at will, which might indeed be latent at that very time in the 
 whole people, but displayed itself in him with a peculiar creative 
 force ; and it is only the combination of this with the former very 
 
288 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 different power that gave to his career its distinctive splendour. It is 
 not (as is said of Hannibal) a merely hereditary hate without scruple 
 and without affection, that urges him against the enemies of his 
 people ; on the other hand, he overflows with inexhaustible joyous- 
 ness in word and deed, lightheartedness under the heaviest disasters, 
 and sportive wit that accompanies him even to the moment of his 
 self-chosen tragic end. In a love not easily repulsed, he feels himself 
 drawn even to the oppressors of his people, and advances frankly to 
 meet them. And when, in his intercourse with them, the wrathful 
 Deity within suddenly urges him to show himself the inviolable con- 
 secrated servant of Jahveh, and to let the insolent " uncircumcised " 
 feel the irresistible might of his arm, even this he takes almost as a 
 jest, as something forced upon him against his will, and the fruit of a 
 love misunderstood and scorned His activity against the foe is thus 
 only called forth casually and without premeditation ; it is rather a 
 sort of teasing, a reiterated mark of mortifying humiliation ; more a 
 sign of what his strength could do in need and in earnest than of 
 what it does. But in fact this seeming half-heartedness of his nature 
 not only affords testimony to the disposition of his nation, at that 
 time scarcely capable of hatred, but in default of something better, 
 was really the best for those unhappy times. For if a nation, in the 
 main well disposed and civilized, has long to endure such grievous 
 wrong from a haughty foe, it is a great gain if it loses not its buoyant 
 mood, but while nothing better is possible, prepares itself for better 
 times, at least by the lighter exercises of wit and playful fancy, or by 
 occasional dashing strokes, and sometimes by the successful parry of 
 attack and unexpected flashes, bursting out here and there, of sup- 
 pressed military ardour. It is only by realizing vividly the whole 
 weight of long-continued foreign rule which then pressed upon the 
 people that we can understand the full value in such times, of those 
 inalienable weapons, playful wit and jest ; and again, in the proper 
 place, of daring revolt against local injustice, or the heroism of indi- 
 vidual self-sacrifice. We feel that a nation which even under mis- 
 fortune overflowed with such health and vivacity, might soon again 
 pass from these, preparatory sports and skirmishes to contests of a 
 happier character.' Ewald. 
 
 'Samson's name, which Josephus interprets in the sense of 
 " strong," was still more characteristic. He was " the Sunny," the 
 bright and beaming, though wayward, likeness of the great luminary 
 which the Hebrews delighted to compare to a " giant rejoicing to run 
 his course, a bridegroom coming forth out of his chamber." Nothing 
 can disturb his radiant good-humour. His most valiant, his most 
 
MARRIAGE DOWRIES. 289 
 
 cruel actions, are done with a smile on his face and a jest in his 
 mouth. It relieves his character from the sternness of Phoenician 
 fanaticism. As a peal of hearty laughter breaks in upon the des- 
 .pondency of individual sorrow, so the joviality of Samson becomes a 
 pledge of the revival of the greatness of his nation. It is brought out 
 in the strongest contrast with the brute coarseness and stupidity of 
 his Philistine enemies, here, as throughout the Sacred History, the 
 butt of Israelitish wit and Israelitish craft.' Stanley. 
 
 Marriage Dowries. 
 
 I SAMUEL xviii. 21-27 : * David said, Seemeth it to you a light thing to be a 
 
 king's son-in-law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed? 
 
 And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry.' 
 
 Question. What Eastern custom can be referred to here ? In 
 Western lands the marriage dowry is associated only with the bride. 
 
 Answer. In many parts of the East both the parties in a treaty 
 of marriage are expected to provide dowries. But this seems to have 
 been a relic of the older notion that a bride was to be purchased from 
 her relatives. 
 
 Kitto very skilfully explains the transaction brought before us in 
 these verses. ' We all know that in the East the husband is expected 
 in some sort to purchase his bride, by a payment to her father. One 
 who cannot pay this in money may do it by his services, as Jacob 
 did, or by some exploit fixed by the father, as Othniel did. David 
 had a clear claim to one of Saul's daughters ; but this, as a matter of 
 right, he did not urge ; and his family was not in such circumstances 
 as to afford such " gift and dowry " as a king had a right to expect 
 when he bestowed a daughter. To meet this difficulty, the king was 
 graciously content to accept some great exploit against the public 
 enemy as a sufficient equivalent for his daughter's hand. Thus 
 understood, what Saul required was not, as the difference of manners 
 has led many to suppose it to be, a gratuitous task, the real object of 
 which might have been even at the first view, very obvious ; but it 
 was in appearance a generous and considerate mode of enabling the 
 son of Jesse to contract this match on somewhat equal terms, by the 
 acceptance of a service that he could render in lieu of payments 
 beyond his power. For Saul to give his daughter without any con- 
 sideration, would have been a slur upon her, and to accept her on 
 such terms would have been, according to Eastern notions, dishonour/ 
 able in David. It was, therefore, not without the appearance of 
 generosity on the part of the king that he offered to accept a public 
 
2 9 o HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 service in lieu of a private benefit ; and it was right that he should 
 make that service bear some proportion, in hazard and difficulty, to 
 the value he set upon his daughter.' 
 
 Dr. Turner, writing on Polynesian customs, says : ' David objected 
 to the proposal of being Saul's son-in-law on the ground of poverty. 
 A Samoan would raise the same objection in the case of inequality 
 in rank, owing to the difficulty he might have in getting up a dowry 
 equal to that of the woman. The husband has to provide a dowry 
 as well as the wife, and the dowry of each must be pretty nearly of 
 ^qual value.' 
 
 Van Lennep tells us that, in the rural districts, among the village 
 farmers and the nomad tribes, whose manners have been least 
 affected by the influence of civilization, the marriage-contract is 
 avowedly an act of purchase, the parents selling the daughter, whom 
 they regard as their property, and whose acquiescence is secured by 
 a few additional trifling gifts or trinkets. This is practised by all the 
 Circassian tribes, both Muslim and pagan, among whom the father 
 sells his daughter, and the brother his sister, to the highest bidder.' 
 
 The Burnt-Offering of a King's Son. 
 
 2 KINGS iii. 27 : * Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his 
 stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the wall. And there was great 
 wrath against Israel : and they departed from him, and returned to their own 
 land ' (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Difficulty. This offering appears to have effected the deliverance 
 of Moab in a strange way. Was the indignation excited by it agai?ist 
 Israel reasonable ? 
 
 Explanation. So far as we can understand the narrative, we 
 see that Mesha, King of Moab, was at one time tributary to Ahab. 
 Then he broke away from his engagements, and for a time asserted 
 and maintained his independence. Jehoram, the son of Ahab, made 
 a league with Jehoshaphat of Judah, and with the King of Edom, 
 and the three united in an expedition for the recovery and subjection 
 of Moab. They carried on the war with extreme and unreasonable 
 violence, driving the Moabites to such extremities as to excite the 
 intensest feeling against them. Mesha was beaten in battle, and as 
 the conquerors advanced into his country they covered the fields 
 with stones to render them barren, and filled up the wells to render 
 the land uninhabitable. Mesha subsequently, in utter extremity, 
 took refuge in a stronghold, probably Kir-haraseth, and there offered 
 his son as a burnt-offering on the ramparts, in the sight of the 
 
THE BURNT-OFFERING OF A KING'S SON. 29 > 
 
 besiegers. The Moabites were evidently foaming with rage and 
 indignation against their enemies who had driven them to such 
 terrible shifts. 
 
 The retirement of the Israelites when this son was sacrificed was 
 due to an Eastern superstitious notion, that the enemy would be 
 haunted and cursed by the ghost of a person sacrificed under such 
 circumstances. Nothing but a superstitious sentiment could have 
 prevented their following up their advantages. Some, however, think 
 that the fact of their having forced Mesha to such a dreadful deed, 
 awakened the conscience of the Israelites to the wickedness of the 
 way in which they had carried on the war, and made them fear the 
 anger of Jehovah. 
 
 Burder says : * The reason why the King of Moab offered his son 
 on the wall was to represent to the attacking armies to what straits 
 they had reduced him. He did not merely implore assistance from 
 his gods by the sacrifice of his son, but took this method of terrifying 
 his adversaries, after his own personal valour had proved ineffectual 
 to deliver himself and his country. Caesar says of the Gauls, that 
 when they were afflicted with grievous diseases, or in time of war or 
 great danger, they either offered men for sacrifices or vowed they 
 would offer them. For they imagined God would not be appeased 
 unless the life of a man were rendered for the life of a man.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie says : * The awful tragedy, indeed, accomplished its 
 end, but by a means Mesha could not have foreseen, and with which 
 Chemosh had nothing to do. The sight filled the besieging army 
 with horror. Such sacrifices, in the opinion of the Hebrews, polluted 
 a land, and laid it under a curse of blood. They would no longer 
 stay in it, but would rather give up all they had won. To remain 
 might bring on them the wrath which must speedily break forth for a 
 deed so appalling.' 
 
 The superstitious sentiment referred to above is illustrated by an 
 Indian story, related by Lord Teignmouth. There were two 
 Brahmins, named Beechuk and Adher, brothers, who had a quarrel 
 with a man named Gowry. The emissaries of the latter stole forty 
 rupees, the property of the two brothers, from the apartments of 
 their women. When Beechuk understood what had happened, he 
 took his mother to the bank of the rivulet which ran through the 
 village, and there was also met by Adher, his brother. This was in 
 the grey of the morning, and they called aloud to the people of the 
 village that the forty rupees must be returned. No answer being 
 given, Beechuk drew his scimitar, and deliberately struck off his 
 mother's head. This was done that the mother's spirit, excited by 
 
 192 
 
292 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the beating of a large drum during forty days, might ever haunt, 
 torment, and pursue to death Gowry and his associates. The last 
 words the mother uttered were, * I will blast Gowry and those con- 
 cerned with him.' 
 
 The Foot upon the Neck. 
 
 JOSHUA x. 24, 25: 'Joshua called for the men of Israel, and said unto the 
 chiefs of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the 
 necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of 
 them.' 
 
 Question. Was this act of humiliation a special device of Joshua! s> 
 or was it based on some familiar ancient custom ? 
 
 Answer. The act is not one which accords with Western 
 notions of offering homage to kings, but Eastern peoples bow 
 themselves down, with their faces to the ground ; and to lay hold of 
 the feet, or to kiss the feet, is the familiar expression of humiliation, 
 penitence, and desire for mercy. When a suppliant takes such an 
 attitude, it is a very simple thing for the person of whom he asks 
 mercy to place his foot upon his neck, and this act was the recognised 
 sign of the conquest, humiliation, and subjection of the persons so 
 treated. It may be compared with the Western custom of surrender- 
 ing the sword as an acknowledgment of being conquered. 
 
 Some variations of the figure will be found, as it is used in Gen. xlix. 
 8 2 Sam. xxii. 41 ; Isai. xviii. 2, 7. As a symbol of complete 
 subjugation it is found in Psalm ex. i ; i Cor. xv. 25. 
 
 The practice was a common one in the Byzantine empire. 
 Gibbon says : ' We are told that Valerian in chains, but invested with 
 the imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude, a constant 
 spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the Persian 
 monarch (Sapor) mounted on horseback, he placed his foot on the 
 neck of a Roman emperor,' 
 
 Roberts^ illustrating Eastern customs from Hindoo life, says : 
 * This in the East is a favourite way of triumphing over a fallen foe. 
 In the history of the battles of the gods, or giants, particular mention 
 is made of the closing scene, how the conquerors went and trampled 
 on their enemies. When people are disputing, should one be a 
 little pressed, and the other begin to triumph, the former will say, 
 ' I will tread upon thy neck, and afterwards beat thee." A low caste 
 man insulting one who is high, is sure to hear some one say to the 
 offended individual, " Put your feet on his neck." ' 
 
 It is not difficult to recognise the significance of the figure. The 
 
JE WISH RESISTANCE. 293 
 
 sign of pride, and self-confidence, and triumphant success was the 
 stiff-neck. Stiffening the neck and hardening the heart are closely 
 associated, see 2 Chron. xxxvi. 13. Men are said to harden their 
 neck, so that they might not hear (Neh. ix. 29). Proud ladies walk 
 with stretched forth necks (Isai. iii. 16). And the self-willed, rebel- 
 lious Israelites are a * stiff-necked generation.' Straightening or 
 stiffening the neck is the characteristic attitude and action of the 
 self-reliant man ; and therefore the most effective expression of the 
 crushing down of pride is this placing of the foot upon the neck. 
 
 Jewish Resistance upon Ahasuerus's Decree. 
 
 ESTHER ix. 5 : ' And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the 
 sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto them 
 that hated them. 
 
 Difficulty. Surely such a liberty, given to a dependent and captive 
 race, must have put in grave peril the national order and government. 
 
 Explanation. It is not possible for us to conceive how such 
 an order or permission could be given with safety. Society would 
 never be safe, if the government loosened its hand, and gave liberty 
 to its dependent subjects, its slaves, helots, or criminal classes. But 
 it is well for us to distinguish between the order, as given from the 
 palace, and the order, as translated by the Jewish people, and as 
 actually worked out under force of circumstances. The order was 
 strictly a permission to the Jews to defend themselves, ' to stand for 
 their lives,' whenever attempts were made to execute the decree 
 which Haman had secured. But this involved permission to organize 
 for defence. It excused efforts to crush attacks which were being 
 prepared for, before they were made ; and this could hardly be 
 distinguished from attack. It was indeed a ridiculous order, 
 necessitated only by the ridiculous sentiment that the ' laws of the 
 Medes and Persians could not be changed.' To what extent the 
 governors of the provinces concerned restrained the Jews we are 
 not told, but the result was such a slaughter as was only possible in 
 Eastern lands. We can only compare the scene with the rising of 
 the Greek helots and Roman slaves. 
 
 ' How far the Jews acted according to the strict letter of the edict, 
 and " stood for their lives " only when attacked, is perhaps to be 
 doubted. They had on their side all the executive of the empire 
 (ver. 3), and evidently, to all intents and purposes, the second edict 
 was considered virtually to repeal the first. The Jews, therefore, 
 being in favour at court, and, as was not unnatural after their alarm, 
 
294 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 being now full of indignation and vengeance, were probably resolved 
 to use their opportunities while they had the chance. If so, who 
 could object, so long as they did nothing against the authorities ? and 
 they were on their side. That they did make a bloody use of 
 their opportunity is shown clearly by verse 16.' Ellicotfs Com- 
 mentary. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth makes a great effort to relieve the condemna- 
 tion which we at once pronounce on the vindictive spirit and ruth- 
 less slaughter of these Jews. He says : ' The slaughter, therefore, 
 of these 75,000, shows that a very large number of their heathen 
 enemies, who had been exasperated and stimulated against the Jews 
 by the decree of Haman, issued nearly a year before, had prepared 
 themselves for an attack upon them; and that, presuming upon 
 their own overwhelming numbers and forces, as compared with the 
 paucity and weakness of the Jews, they assaulted them in order to 
 destroy and despoil them, and to enrich themselves with their 
 property; and that the Jews made a vigorous resistance, and, by 
 the help of God, routed their assailants with a great discomfiture. 
 The slaughter was not a consequence of a vindictive spirit in the 
 Jews, but of the bitter animosity of their enemies ; and it proves 
 that the Jews would have been extinguished (as Haman's decree 
 intended that they should be), if God had not interfered to rescue 
 them from destruction.' 
 
 Divining by the Ephod. 
 
 I SAMUEL xxiii. 9 : 'And David knew that Saul devised mischief against him ; 
 and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring hither the ephod.' {See pages 60, 189.) 
 
 Question. Was divining by the ephod a proper and recognised 
 mode of inquiring from God? 
 
 Answer. This incident occurred at Keilah, and under circum- 
 stances which quite prevented David from applying at the Tabernacle 
 for counsel. We are told, in verse 6, that from the slaughter of the 
 priests at Nob, Abiathar succeeded in escaping, and in his escape he 
 secured an ephod. To be of any service as an oracle, this must have 
 been the ephod specially worn by the high priest. It is significant 
 that Saul's violence at Nob deprived him of the possibility of in- 
 quiring of God in the ordinary method, through the high priest, 
 and Divine Providence gave that special advantage to his rival, 
 David. 
 
 It seems that inquiries of God might be made in two ways either 
 
DIVINING BY THE EPHOD. 295 
 
 through the prophets, who would speak in words the Divine answer 
 that was given to them ; or through the priests, who could only use 
 the medium of the Urim and Thummim, and appear not to have 
 secured more than some sign of approval or disapproval It seems 
 that in the high priestly ephod, or shoulder-piece -, ' were set twelve 
 precious stones, one for each of the twelve tribes. The names of the 
 tribes were engraved on these gems, the Rabbis tell us, along with 
 some other sacred words. On important, solemn occasions it seems 
 perfectly certain during a considerable time these stones were 
 allowed, by the providence of God, who worked so many marvels for 
 His people, to be used as oracles. Probably the use of the sacred 
 gems was restricted to the high priest, who could only call out the 
 supernatural power at the bidding of the king, or the head of the 
 State for the time being.' 
 
 In what way the ephod stones gave their response we cannot 
 certainly know. Some think there was a peculiar flashing or shining. 
 Others say that, as each gem represented a tribe, by the illumination 
 of certain gems a word could readily be formed. Josephus says the 
 sardonyxes were bright before a victory or when a sacrifice was 
 acceptable ; dark when any disaster was impending. 
 
 It may, however, be reasonably urged that the ephod which 
 Abiathar secured was not this special high priestly garment, with its 
 sacred fittings, but an ordinary priestly ephod ; and that the Divine 
 response to Abiathar, when clothed in this ephod, was a graciously 
 exceptional case. The possession by David of the Urim and 
 Thummim would surely have been for Saul a fair casus belli. 
 
 We probably need freer ideas of the use of the ephod, and some 
 accurate acquaintance with the sentiments that prevailed in relation 
 to it. Gideon made an ephod (Judges viii. 27), which was a sleeve- 
 less coat, specially worn by a person of whom an oracle was sought. 
 When Micah set up his independent worship, we find that an ephod 
 was regarded as one of the essential things (Judges xvii. 5). Samuel 
 wore an ephod, and so did David on one occasion. Possibly the use 
 of this particular vestment was popularly regarded as constituting the 
 wearer, for the time being, a sort of mediator between God and 
 man. 
 
 The Speakers Commentary ', with some firmness, asserts that ' there 
 is not here a vestige of the Jewish notion that the answers were given 
 by the shining out of the stones in the breastplate of the ephod. 
 The answers were evidently given by the Word of the Lord in the 
 mouth of Abiathar.' 
 
296 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Holding the Horns of the Altar. 
 
 I KINGS i. 50, 51 : 'And Adonijah feared because of Solomon ; and he arose, 
 and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar. And it was told Solomon, 
 saying, Behold Adonijah feareth King Solomon : for, lo, he hath laid hold on the 
 horns of the altar, saying, Let King Solomon swear unto me to-day that he will 
 not slay his servant with the sword.' 
 
 Question. Was this a special device of Adonijatfs> or does it 
 indicate a prevailing custom and sentiment 
 
 Answer. Laying hold of the horns of the altar was one of the 
 recognised modes of claiming sanctuary, or protection from the con- 
 sequences of misdeeds. But it should be clearly understood that in 
 ancient times c sanctuary ' could be no protection for wilful and de- 
 termined criminals. It only shielded those who had done some 
 wrong under pressure of haste, or inadvertently, or by accident. The 
 principle of all ' sanctuaries ' is illustrated in the provision of the 
 cities of refuge, which could not shield wilful murderers only those 
 who had killed their neighbours by accident, without hating them 
 beforehand. It was quite a degradation of the idea of ' sanctuaries ' 
 when, in the middle ages, villains and criminals were shielded from 
 the proper punishment of their crimes. 
 
 The altar referred to is probably the ' altar of burnt-offering which 
 had been erected oia Mount Zion, where Abiathar, one of his 
 partisans, presided as high priest. The horns or projections at the 
 four corners of the altar, to which the sacrifices were bound, and 
 which were tipped with the blood of the victim, were symbols of 
 Trace and salvation to the sinner. Hence the altar was regarded as 
 a sanctuary' (Exod. xxi. 13, 14). * Taking sanctuary at the altar was 
 no part of the law, but a custom prior to the law, and common to the 
 Jews with many other nations.' 
 
 The prevalence of the idea of sanctuaries may be illustrated from 
 Dr. Turner's work on ' Polynesia.' * In Samoa, the manslayer, or 
 the deliberate murderer, flies to the house of the chief of the village, 
 or to the house of the chief of another village to whom he is related 
 by the father's or the mother's side. In nine cases out of ten he is 
 perfectly safe if he only remains there. In such instances the chief 
 delights in the opportunity of showing his importance. In Samoa, a 
 chief's house is literally his fortification, except in times of open 
 rebellion and actual war.' 
 
 It has been wisely remarked that ' however merciful the original 
 institution of sanctuaries might be, in modern times it was much 
 abused, so that places intended to protect the innocent became the 
 
SUPPOSED VIRTUE IN ELISHA'S STAFF. 297 
 
 resort and refuge of the guilty. Many examples curiously illustrative 
 of this observation might be adduced, though for the most part they 
 are only to be found recorded in the scattered pages of publications 
 difficult of access to the common reader. " The right of sanctuary," 
 says a modern writer on the annals and antiquities of London, " was 
 enjoyed by various districts and buildings in London. In times 
 when every man went armed when feuds were of hourly occurrence 
 in the streets when the age had not yet learned the true superiority 
 of right over might, and when private revenge too often usurped the 
 functions of justice, it was essential that there should be places 
 whither the homicide might flee and find refuge and protection until 
 the violence of angry passions had subsided, and there was a chance 
 of a fair trial/ 
 
 Supposed Virtue in Elisha's Staff. 
 
 2 KINGS iv. 31 : ' And Gehazi passed on before them, and laid the staff upon 
 the face of the child ; but there was neither voice nor hearing. Wherefore he 
 returned to meet him, and told him, saying, The child is not awaked.' 
 
 Difficulty. Elisha's act in sending this staff was calculated to 
 encourage false and superstitious notions. 
 
 Explanation. When superstitious notions are commonly enter- 
 tained, the servant of God may often effectively correct them by 
 acting in accordance with them, and so showing how unworthy and 
 without due foundation they are. It is said that necromancers were 
 accustomed to send their staff or rod to those whom they would re- 
 store from sickness or devil-possessions, with orders to the messengers 
 to let the staff come in contact with nothing by the way that might 
 dissipate or destroy the virtue imparted to it. It is suggested that 
 the manifest failure of Elisha's staff to accomplish anything was de- 
 signed to free the Shunamite, and the people of Israel at large, from 
 the superstitious notion of supposing a miraculous virtue resided in any 
 person or in any rod. Loyal prophets of Jehovah had always to guard 
 against the disposition of the people to trust in them, and rely on 
 their endowments, rather than in God, whose messages they brought, 
 and whose works of healing and grace they wrought. This Shuna- 
 mite thought Elisha could raise her son. so she must be taught the 
 lesson that Elisha could not, but God could. 
 
 Keil takes this view, and thinks ' the prophet foresaw the failure of 
 his experiment, and intended by it to teach that the power of working 
 miracles was not magically inherent in himself or in his staff, as they 
 might imagine, but only in Jehovah, who granted the temporary use 
 
298 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 of that power to faith and prayer. In other words, Elisha was seeking 
 to lift the minds of his disciples to higher and more spiritual concep- 
 tions of the prophetic office.' 
 
 Bdhr thinks ' that Elisha was at fault in supposing he could 
 transfer the spirit and power of a prophet to his servant, and acted in 
 overhaste, without a Divine incentive.' 
 
 It is curious to find a staff, or walking-stick (the word used does 
 not mean 'magician's rod'), the characteristic symbol of Elisha, and 
 not the mantle which fell to him from the ascending Elijah. 
 
 Dr. Turner, in his account of Polynesian customs, gives a sugges- 
 tive illustration of this passage, which he fell in with during a visit to 
 the New Hebrides. ' Among some stone idols and other relics of 
 heathenism which I had handed to me, was an old smooth staff made 
 of ironwood, a little longer and thicker than an ordinary walking- 
 stick. It had been kept for ages in the family of one of the disease- 
 healing craft, was considered as the representative of the god, and 
 was taken regularly by the priest when he was sent for to visit a case 
 of sickness. The eyes of the poor patient brightened up at the sight 
 of the stick. All that the priest did was merely to sit before the sick 
 man, and, leaning on this sacred staff, to speechify a little, and tell 
 him there was no further fear, and that he might expect soon to 
 recover.' 
 
 Kitto thinks Elisha sent his staff by his servant with the expectation 
 that it would be effectual to raise from the dead j and this showed 
 his great faith. He did not at first intend to go to Shunem, and for 
 that reason sent his staff to supply the lack of his own presence. If 
 he had then intended to go himself, there would have been no need 
 for sending his staff beforehand ; and his haste to do so might afford 
 an opportunity to the ungodly of throwing disparagement on the 
 miracle, by saying that he did this because he apprehended the child 
 would be ' too dead,' before he came himself, to be revived at all 
 
 It may, however, have been the intention of Elisha, in sending the 
 staff, to arrest the swiftly hurrying corruption of summer-time in that 
 hot country. 
 
 Lapping and Bowing. 
 
 JUDGES vii. 5 : * Everyone that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog 
 lappeth, him shall thou set by himself ; likewise everyone that boweth down upon 
 his knees to drink.' 
 
 Question. How could this mere peculiarity in the method and 
 habit of drinking come to be a satisfactory test of character ? 
 
 Answer. It is important, first, to see what particular qualities 
 were necessary in the men who were to take part in the proposed 
 
LAPPING AND BOWING. 299 
 
 stratagem. The most important quality was self-restraint. The plan 
 Gideon had been led to form could only be carried out by men who 
 would do precisely as they were told, would keep silence, make no 
 sign, yet be thoroughly on the alert, and would act, at the appointed 
 moment, with promptitude and decision. Such men only as could 
 control themselves would be safe to trust in such an exciting time, 
 when the plan might be wholly spoiled by the indiscretion of one 
 man. 
 
 Ewald points out the significance of the test : * Those only are the 
 true warriors of Jahveh, who, when an enjoyment is offered as, for 
 instance, refreshment at a living well taste it only in passing, and 
 while standing on the alert ; not seeking enjoyment, and crouching 
 down to it in indolent comfort, but, mindful every minute of the 
 business in hand, and the desired victory, only lapping the water like 
 dogs upon their way.' 
 
 Stanley, after saying that the ' cowards had been removed from the 
 army,' adds : * The next step was to remove the rash. At the brink 
 of the spring, those who rushed headlong down to quench their 
 thirst, throwing themselves on the ground, or plunging their mouths 
 into the water, were rejected ; those who took up the water in their 
 hands, and lapped it with self-restraint, were chosen.' 
 
 It is not easy to decide precisely what is meant by lapping, as, to 
 our Western minds, it is more appropriately applied to those who 
 bent down and put their mouths close to the water. But it has been 
 pointed out that man does not properly lap, nor can he lap, and 
 therefore the term must be used in a figurative sense. To know the 
 Eastern customs in such a matter we must consult travellers to, and 
 residents in, Eastern lands, and be guided by their observations. 
 
 Kitto has a very careful and suggestive note : * The explanation 
 which we give is founded upon OUT own observation of the different 
 modes in which men drink in haste when coming to a stream on a 
 journey, without being provided with vessels wherewith to raise the 
 water to their mouths. It is to be observed that this class is further 
 described as " the number of those that lapped, putting their hand to 
 their mouth." The chief distinction between them and the others is, 
 that they did not bow down on their knees to bring their mouths 
 near the water, and luxuriate in a more leisurely draught. They con- 
 tinued standing, stooping so far only as to be able to reach the water 
 with their hands, the hollow of which they filled, and then brought it 
 rapidly to the mouth, jerking in the refreshing contents. The motion, 
 compared to a dog's lapping, cannot apply to the tongue, first, be- 
 cause the human tongue is not framed for lapping ; and, secondly, 
 
300 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 because, if so, it would be an action belonging rather to those who 
 brought their faces down to the water, than to those who stood upon 
 their feet. Supposing lapping with the tongue at all a possible action 
 to a man, it would certainly not be resorted to by one who had suc- 
 ceeded in bringing a handful of water so far as his mouth. It would 
 have been a needless, if not silly, delay in quenching his thirst. The 
 motion expressed by " lapping " must therefore apply to the hand, the 
 rapid motion of which between the water and the mouth might be not 
 inaptly compared to the rapid projection and retraction of a dog's 
 tongue in lapping. This last action, if taken, as is apparently meant, 
 for an indication of character, would denote men of rapid and impul- 
 sive action, too earnest in the work before them to endure to satisfy 
 their animal wants with the leisurely action of men at ease : a few 
 hasty handfuls of water were all that the impatience of their spirit, in 
 the great interests before them, allowed them to take. These were 
 the men to save Israel.' 
 
 Travellers on the Continent, who undertake long days of walking, 
 know how the guides warn them against frequent and much drinking 
 of water on the way. Ready yielding to the thirsty feeling nourishes 
 it into strengthc Restraint best masters the craving. 
 
 Dr, Turner, writing of Polynesian customs, says that a thirsty 
 Samoan, in coming to a stream of water, stoops down, rests the palm 
 of his left hand on his knee, and with the right hand throws the water 
 up so quickly as to form a continual jet from the stream to his mouth, 
 and there he laps until he is satisfied. 
 
 Jamieson tells us that the wandering people in Asia, when on a 
 journey or in haste they come to water, do not stoop down with de- 
 liberation on their knees, but only bend forwards as much as is 
 necessary to bring their hand in contact with the stream, and throw 
 it up with rapidity, and at the same time such address that they do 
 not drop a particle. 
 
 The Jewish explanations of this test are both interesting and 
 curious, though we cannot but regard them as strained and unnatural. 
 Josephus says that Gideon led them down to the spring in the fiercest 
 heat of the noon-day, and that he judged those to be the bravest 
 who flung themselves down and drank, and those to be the cowards 
 who lapped the water hastily and tumultuously. Some even go so 
 far as to suggest that the Divine aid was shown by the fact that the 
 greatest cowards were chosen. Raschi gives the Jewish interpretation 
 thus : ' Gideon can ascertain the religious antecedents of his men 
 from the way in which they prepare to drink. Idolaters were accus- 
 tomed to pray kneeling before their idols. On this account kneeling, 
 
LAPPING AND BOWING. 301 
 
 even as a mere bodily posture, had become unpopular and ominous 
 in Israel, and was avoided as much as possible. Hence, he who, in 
 order to drink, throws himself on his knees, shows thereby, in a per- 
 fectly free and natural manner, that this posture is nothing unusual 
 to him ; whereas those who have never been accustomed to kneel, 
 feel no need of doing it now, and as naturally refrain from it. It 
 would have been difficult for Gideon to have ascertained, in any 
 Dther way, what had been the attitude of his men towards idolatry. 
 While quenching their eager thirst, all deliberation being forgotten, 
 they freely and unrestrainedly indicate to what posture they were 
 habituated. It is a principle pervading the legendary lore of all 
 nations, that who and what a person is can only be ascertained by 
 observing him when under no constraint of any kind. The queen of 
 a northern legend exchanges dresses with her maid, but she who is 
 not the queen is recognised by her drinking. That which is here in 
 Scripture accepted with reference to religious life and its recognitions, 
 popular literature applies to the keen, discriminating observance of 
 social life.' 
 
 Limitation of the Rights of the Blood-Avenger. 
 
 JOSHUA xx. 6 : 'And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the con- 
 gregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in 
 those days ; then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his 
 own house, unto the city from whence he fled.' 
 
 Question. Do we rightly see in this an instance of the Mosaic 
 legislation preserving old customs^ but mitigating their undue severity ? 
 
 Answer. Lange says : ' We find vengeance for blood not only 
 among the Hebrews, Arabs, Persians, but also among the Greeks, 
 with the Germanic and Slavic peoples, in the infancy of their develop- 
 ment, as now among savage nations.' In such cases the custom 
 prevails in all its sternness, and without qualifications. The offender 
 is pursued relentlessly, until vengeance can be wrought, and the 
 guilt of blood can be wiped out. 
 
 We understand the procedure to have been as follows. Before 
 Moses' time the family avenger dealt with all cases in which life was 
 taken violently, recognising no distinction between murder and man- 
 slaughter, and allowing no mitigations of penalty. Moses arranged 
 for the security of the manslayer, until, calmly and judicially, his 
 act could be estimated, and it could be decided whether he had 
 killed by accident or upon premeditation. To secure this unpre- 
 judiced examination, the man was sheltered in the city of refuge. 
 If it was decided that he had killed intentionally, the murderer was 
 
302 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 delivered into the hands of the blood-avenger, who executed natural 
 justice upon him. If it was decided that he had killed accidentally, 
 he was preserved from the blood-avenger, but treated as a careless, 
 dangerous person, and compelled strictly to remain within the pre- 
 cincts of the city of refuge. But the light of hope was not shut 
 out from the man. He was not enslaved for life. Perhaps no sentence 
 ever passed by man upon his fellow-man ought to blot out hope 
 utterly. And the limitation of this man's sentence was so specially 
 gracious because it was uncertain. The high priest might die any 
 year ; and each new year the poor man might renew his hope, for the 
 priest might die that year. Keil says that * the death of the earthly 
 high priest became a type of that of the heavenly one.' 
 
 The Rev. H. C. Waller, M.A., in Ellicotfs Commentary, has an 
 admirable note on making the retention of the sin-stricken man de- 
 pendent on the life of the high priest. ' If the manslayer did not 
 intend to shed the blood of his neighbour, he is not worthy of death, 
 and the Divine mercy provides a shelter wherein he may still live 
 without offence to the Divine majesty. Such a shelter is the city of 
 refuge, a city of priests or Levites, whose office was to bear the 
 iniquity of the children of Israel, to shield their brethren from the 
 danger they incurred by the dwelling of Jehovah in the midst of them, 
 u dwelling among them in the midst of their uncleanness." Hence 
 the manslayer must always remain, as it were, under the shadow of 
 the sin-bearing priest or Levite, that he might live, and not die for 
 the innocent blood which he had unintentionally shed. But how 
 could the death of the high priest set him free ? Because the high 
 priest was the representative of the whole nation. What the Levites 
 were to all Israel ; what the priests were to the Levites ; that the 
 high priest was to the priests, and through them to the nation the 
 individual sin-bearer for all. Into his hands came year by year " all 
 the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in 
 all their sins," and he presented a ^-offering for all. While the high 
 priest still lived he would still be legally tainted (burdened) with this 
 load of sin, for the law provides no forgiveness for a priest. But " he 
 that is dead is justified from sin" and at his death the load which 
 was laid on the high priest might be held to have passed from him, 
 for he had paid the last debt a man can pay on earth. But the high 
 priest being justified, the sinners whom he represents are justified 
 also, and therefore the manslayers go free.' 
 
 On the intense severity of the custom of blood-avenging, Dean 
 Stanley writes thus : ' Of all the virtues of civilization, the one which 
 most incontestably follows in its train, and is most rarely anticipated 
 
THE BLOOD-A VENGER. 303 
 
 in earlier ages, is humanity. And rare as this is everywhere in 
 barbarous nations, it is rarest in the East. In the East and West the 
 value of animal and of human life is exactly reversed. An Arab, 
 who will be shocked at the notion of shooting his horse, will have no 
 scruple in killing a man. And what was the fierceness of the ancient 
 Semitic race, especially, is apparent both from the later Jewish history, 
 and from that of the kindred nations of Phoenicia and Carthage. 
 Against this the laws of Moses, in war, in slavery, and in the social 
 relations of life, stand out, as has often been observed, in marvellous 
 contrast. But there was one form of ferocity, then as now, peculiar 
 to the Bedouin tribes, that of revenge for blood. To the fourth 
 generation (it is the exact limit laid down both in the Bedouin custom 
 and in the Mosaic law), the lineal descendant of a murdered man is 
 to this day charged with the duty of avenging his blood. This 
 institution, so deeply seated in the Arab race as to have defied the 
 course of centuries, and the efforts of three religions, was assumed 
 and tolerated, like slavery, polygamy, or any other of the ancient 
 Asiatic usages, which more or less lasted through the Jewish times. 
 But it was restrained by the establishment of the cities of refuge. If, 
 for the hardness of the Bedouin heart, Moses left the avengers of 
 blood as he found them, yet, for the tenderness of heart infused by 
 a " more excellent way," he reared those barriers against them. The 
 common law of the desert found itself kept in check by the statute 
 law of Palestine, and the six cities became (as far as we know from 
 history) rather monuments of what had been, and of what might 
 have been, than remedies of what was.' 
 
 Streets in Strange Cities. 
 
 I KINGS xx. 34 : * Thou shall make streets for thee in Damascus, as my father 
 made in Samaria.' 
 
 Question. What Eastern custom is illustrated by this strange 
 covenant ? 
 
 Answer. The word translated ' streets ' probably means ' open 
 spaces ' or * squares,' and they suggest conveniences for carrying on 
 trade. The answering term, for Western life, would be * shops ' or 
 * markets.' Granting this permission to Israel was really giving free 
 openings in Damascus to Israelite commerce. Commercial advan- 
 tages, rather than any other, were probably sought by this arrange- 
 ment ; which may be compared with the modern Oriental practice of 
 maintaining * Jews' quarters ' and ' Christians' quarters ' in all cities 
 of any considerable size. It should also be remembered that race 
 
30 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 jealousies and animosities are so intense in the East, that each race 
 resident in a town is wisely located in its own distinct district ; and, 
 probably, the permission of Benhadad secured to the Jews, in this 
 quarter of Damascus, the free exercise of their own religion and 
 laws. 
 
 Dr. Barry says : * This concession implies a virtual acknowledg- 
 ment of supremacy; for the right to have certain quarters for 
 residence, for trade, perhaps even for garrison, in the capital of a 
 king, belongs only to one who has sovereignty over him.' 
 
 Probably, at a former period, when Benhadad's father had con- 
 quered Israel, he had settled a sort of colony of Syrians in the 
 capital of the conquered country ; and those colonists dwelt in 
 streets, either expressly built for them, or from which Israelitish 
 inhabitants had been expelled in order to make room for them. 
 Now, Benhadad, in turn being subdued, agrees that Ahab shall 
 either build or seize certain streets in the Syrian capital, to be 
 occupied by Israelites. The transaction receives a good illustration 
 in the history of Constantinople. When that city had been be- 
 sieged by Bajazet, the Turkish Sultan, for about two years, at the 
 end of the fourteenth century, Emmanuel, the Greek Emperor, sent 
 out ambassadors to the Grand Turk to sue for peace. At length a 
 treaty was concluded, and peace restored, on the condition, among 
 others, that the Turks should have liberty to dwell in one street, with 
 free exercise of their own religion and laws, and under a judge of 
 their own nation. This was agreed to, and a large number of Turks 
 forthwith took up their residence at the capital. 
 
 Uzziah's Incense-Burning. 
 
 2 CHRONICLES xxvi. 16 ; ' But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to 
 his destruction : for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the 
 temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense.' The Rev. Ver. 
 reads : ' lifted up so that he did corruptly, and he trespassed against the Lord his 
 God.' 
 
 Question. Can we get at Uzziatts idea and intention in thus 
 persisting in performing himself the duty of the priests 1 
 
 Answer. It is probable that Uzziah was greatly interested in 
 what we may call religious archaeology; in ancient rites, utensils, 
 altars, decorations, services, etc. Finding that David and Solomon 
 had actually officiated as priests, he was disposed to restore the 
 practice. Azariah, the high priest, was evidently anxiously watching 
 this tendency in the king, the more anxiously because at this time 
 the priests were earnestly seeking to restore their paramount influence 
 
UZZIAH' S INCENSE-BURNING. 305 
 
 with the people ; so when the peculiar privileges of his order were 
 touched, he showed the utmost vigour in his resistance. There was 
 a good deal of party spirit at this time. A king's party and a priest's 
 party had come into conflict, and each was trying to master the 
 other. 
 
 It is doubtful whether, in view of precedents, Uzziah's proposed 
 act was a wrong one ; but it is quite clear that the spirit of his act 
 was so entirely different from the spirit of David or Solomon, that 
 what might otherwise have been permitted, under the circumstances 
 became a sacrilegious act ; and this God recognised by permitting a 
 divine judgment to fall upon the king. 
 
 Some writers seriously question whether the precedents of David 
 and Solomon can be appealed to, because, though it is quite true 
 that they took a very leading part in certain great state and religious 
 ceremonials, it is by no means certain that they actually themselves 
 performed any of the distinctly priestly functions, and the offer 
 of incense on the golden altar was quite an exclusive priestly 
 duty. 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie thinks 'the reformation under Jehoiada, and the 
 long pupilage of Jehoash, had consolidated the power of the priests, 
 and enabled them to claim an exclusive right to perform the sacred 
 offices. Uzziah, however, we are told, did not acknowledge this 
 recent innovation, and having put on priestly robes on a day of high 
 festival, entered the holy place to offer incense on the golden altar. 
 For the first time, however, in the history of the monarchy, the 
 royal assumption of such duties was resented as a sacrilege.* 
 
 Dr. A. Phelps regards 'the case of Uzziah as one of the few 
 instances recorded in the Scriptures of instant and severe punishment 
 of the sin of irreverence and presumption.' 
 
 Dean Stanley says : * Whether it was that, in the changes that had 
 elapsed since the reign of Solomon, the custom had dropped, or 
 whether Uzziah entered upon it in a haughty and irritating spirit, or 
 whether the priestly order, since their accession of power through 
 the influence of Jehoiada, claimed more than their predecessors 
 had claimed in former times, it is said that the high priest Azariah, 
 with eighty colleagues, positively forbade the king's entrance, 
 on the ground that this was a privilege peculiar to the priestly 
 office.' 
 
 In estimating the act of Uzziah, it should be remembered that 
 the offering of the daily incense involved going within the Holy 
 Place, and the office was regarded as so honourable that no one was 
 allowed to perform it twice, * since it brought the offering priest 
 
 ao 
 
306 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 nearer the Divine Presence in the Holy of Holies than any other 
 priestly act, and carried with it the richest blessing from on high, 
 which all ought to have a chance of thus obtaining. Like the rest 
 of the sacred functions, it was determined by lot.' 
 
 Sowing Cities with Salt. 
 
 JUDGES ix. 45 : * And Abimelech fought against the city all that day ; and he 
 took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and 
 sowed it with salt.' 
 
 Question. Was this a symbolical action, or was it intended to 
 do the district a permanent and irreparable injury ? 
 
 Answer. Serious damage might be done, but no irreparable 
 injury could follow sowing lands with salt, whose power would 
 gradually become exhausted, as does the power of manures. Some 
 lands need an addition of salt to complete their proper chemical 
 constituents, and it is quite usual for farmers to cast a judiciously 
 limited quantity over their lands. Where this is done on grass lands 
 a crop of mushrooms is the usual result. Too much salt does 
 destroy vegetable growths, and make the land barren, and therefore 
 salt is used in garden paths, to destroy troublesome weeds ; but it 
 will destroy the grass, too, if permitted to touch it. 
 
 The destructive power is recognised, but the custom must be 
 mainly regarded as symbolical Pliny say : ' Every place on which 
 salt is found is barren, and produces nothing.' It was very natural 
 that when a district was depopulated, and, as far as possible, turned 
 into a desert, it should, in a symbolic way, be sowed with salt. 
 
 In Bagsters Bible some illustrations of this custom are given. 
 'Sigonius observes that when Milan was taken, A.D. 1162, the walls 
 were razed, and it was sown with salt. And Brantome informs us 
 that it was an ancient custom in France to sow the house of a man 
 with salt who had been declared a traitor to his king. Charles IX., 
 King of France, the most base and perfidious of human beings, 
 caused the house of Admiral Coligni (whom he and the Duke of 
 Guise caused to be murdered, with thousands more Protestants, on 
 the eve of St. Bartholomew, 1572) to be sown with salt !' 
 
 Lange says, favouring the idea that it was a symbolic act : * The 
 usual explanation of this proceeding is, that by it Abimelech intends 
 to declare Shechem an unfruitful land, a land of salt, as it were. 
 But this explanation, although accepted by all recent expositors, does 
 not appear to be satisfactory. For to make the land unfruitful, he 
 neither intends nor, if he did, were he able ; for no one will think of 
 
SOWING CITIES WITH SALT. 307 
 
 such a salting as would actually bring about this result. He can only 
 intend to say, that this city, being unfaithful to its covenants, and 
 forgetful of its oaths, has ceased to exist, and is never more to be 
 known as a city. When Joshua inflicted a similar destruction on 
 Jericho, he swore that it should never be rebuilt (Josh. vi. 26). 
 Abimelech makes the same declaration in the act of strewing salt ; 
 for salt is the symbol of an oath, just as among all nations, not except- 
 the dull tribes of Siberia, it was the symbol of covenants. The salt 
 which he strewed over Shechem intimated both the cause and the 
 perpetuity of the vengeance inflicted.' 
 
 For illustrations of the use of c salt ' as a figure for barrenness and 
 desolation, see Deut. xxix. 23 ; Jer. xvii. 6 ; Ezek. xlvii. 1 1 ; 
 Zeph. ii. 9. 
 
 It may be interesting to add a note on the pecularities of salt in 
 Bible lands. In Palestine this substance is procured from the rock 
 salt at the south end of the Dead Sea, and also from the salt deposits 
 on the shores of that lake, and from various marshes. From this last 
 source most of the salt now used is procured. * It is not manufactured 
 by boiling clean salt water, nor quarried from mines, but is obtained 
 from marshes along the seashore, or from salt lakes in the interior, 
 which dry up in summer, as the one in the desert north of Palmyra, 
 and the great lake of Jebbul, south-east of Aleppo.' Much earth and 
 impurity is collected with this salt ; and with the chloride of sodium, 
 which easily dissolves in water, much insoluble sulphate of lime is 
 mixed ; so that there is an insipid residuum, the ' salt which has lost 
 its savour,' and which travellers assure us they have seen literally 
 * trodden under foot.' 
 
 The Sins of Eli's Sons. 
 
 i SAMUEL ii. 17 : ' And the sin of the young men was very great before the 
 Lord ; for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.' 
 
 Difficulty. The fault of these young priests seems to have concerned 
 a mere matter of ceremonial order ^ and ii is strange to find so deep a 
 moral significance attached to it. 
 
 Explanation. Acts can never be safely judged as mere acts. 
 They must be considered as done by particular persons, and by those 
 persons as standing in particular relations, and under special respon- 
 sibilities. They must even be tested in view of the motives and 
 intentions of the actors. Before God sin must ever lie, not in the 
 bare act, but in the will of the person acting. And God read the 
 neart of these young men through their covetous, inconsiderate, dis- 
 
 20 2 
 
308 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 obedient, and self-willed actions. A little thing may suffice to reveal 
 a bad heart : and it may be a very bad heart which finds expression 
 in a little thing. The sin of these young priests concerned but a 
 little matter, but it was very great before God, because it was just 
 the very kind of sin which only utterly wrong-hearted men could do. 
 Canon Spence says : * The whole conduct of these high-priestly 
 officials showed they were utter unbelievers. They used their sacred 
 position merely as affording an opportunity for their selfish extortions, 
 and, as is so often the case now, so it was then, their unbelief was 
 the source of their moral worthlessness. In all the strange rites and 
 ceremonies of the Levitical law, there was a higher symbolism in- 
 volved. This was ruthlessly set at nought and trampled on by these 
 reckless, covetous guardians of the worship of Israel. Portions of 
 the sacrifice fell legally to the ministering priests in lieu of fee. It 
 was fair " that they which ministered at the altar should live of the 
 altar." The " heave leg " and the " wave breast " of the slaughtered 
 victim were theirs by right, and these the sacrificing priest was to 
 receive after the fat portion of the sacrifice had been burnt upon the 
 altar. But to take the flesh of the victim, and roast it before the 
 symbolic offering had been made, was a crime which was equivalent 
 to robbing God. It dishonoured the whole ceremony.' 
 
 Dean Stanley has a fine reference to these young priests. ' Hophni 
 and Phinehas (the two sons of Eli) are, for students of ecclesiastical 
 history, eminently suggestive characters. They are true exemplars of 
 the grasping and worldly clergy of all ages. It was the sacrificial 
 feasts that gave occasion for their rapacity. It was the dances and 
 assemblies of the women in the vineyards and before the sacred feast 
 that gave occasion for their debaucheries. They were the worst 
 development of the lawlessness of the age, penetrating, as in the case 
 of the wandering Levite of the Book of Judges, into the most sacred 
 offices. But the coarseness of these vices does not make the moral 
 less pointed for all times. The three-pronged fork which fishes up 
 the seething flesh is the earliest type of grasping at pluralities and 
 Church preferments by base means; the open profligacy at the door of 
 the Tabernacle is the type of many a scandal brought on the Christian 
 Church by the selfishness or sensuality of the ministers.' 
 
 Kitto, after describing carefully the nature of the young priests* 
 exactions, adds : * What wonder that the people were disgusted at 
 these proceedings, and that the result was, that they abstained from 
 bringing their peace-offerings to the altar, seeing that their doing so 
 subjected them to such insult and oppression, and produced circum- 
 stances so revolting to their religious feelings ' 
 
GODS OF THE HILLS AND OF THE PLAINS. 300 
 Gods of the Hills and of the Plains. 
 
 I KINGS xx. 23 : And the servants of the King of Syria said unto him, Their 
 gods are gods of the hills ; therefore they were stronger than we ; but let us fight 
 against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.' 
 
 Question. Is the sentiment thus expressed based on any common 
 and general idea of idolatrous people ? 
 
 Answer. Apart from Divine revelation men have never been 
 able to conceive the unity of the Divine Being. They recognised a 
 variety of forces at work, acting, some for good and some for evil, 
 and they deified all these forces. In a similar way they observed 
 differing characteristics of countries, in their conformation, climate, 
 productions, etc., and they marked off the gods of each country as 
 having answering features. It was quite in accordance with the 
 general sentiment, therefore, that these Syrians should explain their 
 defeat by suggesting a difference, if not superiority, in the God of 
 Palestine, as the God of the hills. Their reasoning is curious to 
 us, but perfectly natural to them, seeing they believed in the 
 restricted local power of particular deities. The idea they lighted 
 on was suggested by the fact that Palestine was a hilly country, and 
 it expressed the very simple fact that the Syrian chariots were found 
 unsuitable for warfare when it was impossible to furiously dash at an 
 enemy, as the chariots were wont to do in the plains. The real 
 cause of the Syrian defeat, judged from the human standpoint, was 
 the failure in the military skill of adapting engines and weapons 
 to the precise expedition. It is not an unusual thing for men 
 to accuse the gods, in order to excuse their own mistakes and 
 follies. 
 
 ' In the parcelling out of the earth by paganism among national 
 and territorial gods, and among gods who presided over the various 
 forms, and powers, and qualities of nature, we find many gods of 
 the mountains, and some, but not so many, of the valleys. At the 
 present day the Hindoos have their gods of the hills, and also of the 
 lower places. Thus Siva, Vishnu, and Murraga-Murte, are those of 
 the high places ; while Vyravar, Urruttera, and many demons, are the 
 deities of the lower regions. So, in classical antiquity, we meet 
 with Collina, the goddess of the hills, and Vallina, of valleys. We 
 also hear of the god Montinus, and of a god Peninus, who had 
 his name from a part of the Alps so called, where he was worshipped, 
 and where also the goddess Penina was honoured. Even Jupiter had 
 names from mountains, as Olympius, Capitolinus, etc ; and the 
 "great universal Pan " is called "mountainous Pan ; ' by Sophocles.' 
 
3 io HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Stackhouse says : ' The Syrians might have a conceit that the god 
 of Israel was a god of the mountains, because Canaan, they saw, 
 was a mountainous land ; the Israelites delighted to sacrifice on high 
 places ; their law, they might have heard, was given on the top of a 
 mountain ; their temple stood upon a famous eminence, as did 
 Samaria, where they had so lately received a signal defeat ; for their 
 further notion was, that the gods of the mountains had a power to 
 inject a panic fear into any army whenever they pleased.' 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary regards the explanation of these 
 officers of the King of Syria as a mere political device. ' The 
 Syrian chiefs suggest that the Israelite gods cannot be resisted on 
 the hills, but that they will be found, even within the limits of their 
 own country, less powerful on the plains than among the mountains. 
 This may have been a mere politic device the chiefs being really 
 anxious, on military grounds, to encounter their enemy on the plain, 
 where alone chariots would be of much service, chariots forming an 
 important element in the strength of a Syrian army. In the plain 
 the Israelites had always fought at a disadvantage, and had proved 
 themselves weaker than on the hills.' 
 
 Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water. 
 
 JOSHUA ix. 23 : ' Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be 
 freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the 
 house of my God.' 
 
 Question. What precise position, in relation to the Israelite 
 nation, did these Gibeonites occupy ? Are we to understand this as 
 a description of their work, or as a figure of their dependent 
 position ? 
 
 Answer. Both, though probably the figurative aspect is the 
 more prominent and important. Paxton skilfully illustrates both in 
 the following passage : * In the kingdom of Algiers, the women and 
 children are charged with the care of their flocks and their herds, 
 with providing food for the family, cutting fuel, fetching water, and, 
 when their domestic affairs allow them, with tending their silkworms. 
 The daughters of the Turcomans in Palestine are employed in the 
 same mean and laborious offices. In Homer, Andromache fed the 
 horses of her heroic husband. It is probable the cutting of wood 
 was another female occupation. The very great antiquity of these 
 ( ustoms is confirmed by the prophet Jeremiah, who complains that 
 the children were sent to gather wood for idolatrous purposes ; and 
 in his Lamentations he bewails the oppressions which his people 
 
HEWERS OF WOOD AND DRA WERS OF WATER, 311 
 
 suffered from their enemies in these terms : " They took the young 
 men to grind, and the children fell under the wood." Hence the 
 servile condition to which the Gibeonites were reduced by Joshua, 
 for imposing on him and the princes of the congregation, appears to 
 have been much more severe than we are apt at first to suppose. 
 The bitterness of their doom did not consist in being subjected to a 
 laborious service, for it was the usual employment of women and 
 children, but in their being degraded from the characteristic employ- 
 ment of men, that of bearing arms, and condemned, with their 
 posterity for ever, to the employment of females.' 
 
 Illustrating the kinds of work which these Gibeonites had to do, 
 Van Lennep tells us that ' at Constantinople water is supplied to all 
 the houses by Armenian Christian Sakkas, who convey it in large 
 leather bags suspended from the shoulder ; and no one belonging to 
 any other nation would venture to infringe upon the monoply. 
 They are also the porters of the capital. But the trade in charcoal 
 and wood is in the hands of the Turks, who alone hew the latter. 
 The celebrated Smyrna porters are all Turks from Konieh (Iconium), 
 and the business is confined to certain families, whose children are 
 trained to it from childhood.' 
 
 It seems to have been thought that reducing these Gibeonites to a 
 servile condition would limit, if not wholly remove, their evil influ- 
 ence as idolaters in the land. There is not much danger of a nation 
 taking up with the religion of its slaves. 
 
 Kitto seems to limit the judgment to duties connected with the 
 tabernacle service. He says : ' Such was the respect felt by all the 
 Israelites for the oath which had been taken, that no one supposed 
 there was any other course now to be followed than to spare their 
 lives and respect the property of the Gibeonites ; yet, to punish 
 their deception, it was directed that they should henceforth be 
 devoted to the service of the tabernacle, and be employed in the 
 servile and laborious offices of hewing the wood and drawing the 
 water required in the sacred offices, from which the Israelites them- 
 selves were thenceforth relieved. It is not to be supposed that the 
 whole, or the greater part of them, were thus employed at once. A 
 certain number of them performed it in rotation, while remaining in 
 possession of their city and their goods.' Later on, they were 
 identified as the Nethinims. 
 
3 i2 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Customs at Sacrificial Feasts. 
 
 I SAMUEL ix. 22 : And Samuel took Saul and his servant, and brought them 
 into the guest-chamber, and made them sit in the chiefest place among them that 
 were bidden, which were about thirty persons.' 
 
 Question. What special significance attached to tJie feasts which 
 usually followed acts of sacrifice ? 
 
 Answer. It is somewhat remarkable that the attention of Bible 
 students should be so engrossed with the sacrifices as almost entirely 
 to neglect the feastings which were connected with them, and com- 
 pleted the symbolical meaning of them. When the sacrifice was not 
 wholly burnt, a portion of it was used as food, both by the priests and 
 also by the offerers themselves. The custom of feasting together after 
 sacrifice is of the greatest antiquity among all nations, and it is alluded 
 to by Homer. The idea of it is, that reconciliation with God having 
 been effected through sacrifice, God invites the offerers to feast with 
 Him as His friends. For illustration we may be reminded that a 
 king would be likely to seal his reconciliation with an offended sub- 
 ject by inviting him to stay and dine with him. Apart from this feast, 
 the offerer would have no response to his sacrifice, no sign of his 
 acceptance. 
 
 Some see in the sacrificial feasts a type of the communion of the 
 Lord's Supper, which we observe after our Lord's great sacrifice for 
 us. That, amongst its other suggestions, certainly does keep in our 
 minds the state of acceptance with God, into which we enter through 
 the sacrifice of our Lord. It is our spiritual feast following upon a 
 spiritual sacrifice. / 
 
 Kitto explains the singular way in which Samuel did honour to 
 Saul at this feast : ' He assigned to this travel-worn but noble-looking 
 stranger the place of honour, which we know was the right-hand 
 corner, and directed the cook to set before him the most distinguished 
 portion of the meat. This was the shoulder ; and it seems to have 
 been, under Samuel's direction, reserved for this purpose. We appre- 
 hend that this was the right shoulder, which, as the due of the sacri- 
 iicer, had been assigned to Samuel ; and he had thus directed it to be 
 prepared for his expected guest We the rather think this, as we are 
 aware of no distinction belonging to the left shoulder ; whereas the 
 assignment of the right shoulder, the priestly joint, to the stranger, 
 was a most remarkable distinction and honour, well calculated to 
 draw general attention to him, and, together with his stately figure 
 and the honourable place assigned him, to lead to the expectation of 
 some remarkable disclosures respecting him.' 
 
THE TEMPLE OF DAG ON. 313 
 
 The Temple of Dagon resting on Two Pillars. 
 
 JUDGES xvi. 29 : ' And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which 
 the house rested, and leaned upon them, the one with his right hand, and the 
 other with his left ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. No building that we can conceive of could hold thou- 
 sands of persons on the roof, and yet rest on two pillars so close together 
 that a man could grasp both. 
 
 Explanation. Dr. Thomson, in Land and Book, has, once for 
 all, met and settled this difficulty. He says : * The roofs in Gaza 
 were then flat, as they are now, and it does not require a very large 
 space for three thousand people who stand as close as they can be 
 packed. So much for the size of the building. A further explanation 
 may be found in the peculiar topography of Gaza. Most of it is built 
 on hills, which, though comparatively low, have declivities exceed- 
 ingly steep. The temple was erected over one of these, beyond a 
 doubt, for such was and is the custom in the East ; and in such a 
 position, if the central columns were taken out, the whole edifice 
 would be precipitated down the hill in ruinous confusion. There is 
 such a steep declivity on the north-east corner of the present city, 
 near the old dilapidated castle and palace, and the houses in that 
 vicinity have fragments of columns wrought into the walls, and laid 
 down as sills for their gates.' 
 
 The older explanation was that a gallery ran round, or partly round, 
 an open court, protected by a balustrade. Samson was placed in the 
 court ; the lords and ladies were grouped under the gallery ; the 
 people crowded on the gallery, pressing against the balustrades. 
 When the two central pillars of the one side gave way, the balustrade 
 would break, the panic of the people would overweight the unsup- 
 ported parts, and piece after piece of the gallery would give way, 
 heaping its ruins on the lords and ladies below, and casting the 
 people, in crowded struggling masses, on tne open court. It is easy 
 to realize the scene from this point of view. * When the pillars were 
 removed, the weight of three thousand people brought the roof down 
 with a fearful crash, and those above fell on those below, together 
 with the stones and timbers, and a great slaughter was the result.' 
 We may reasonably suppose that the removal of the central pillars 
 was a beginning of the catastrophe the first cause, but not the entire 
 cause of the calamity. The removal of a chief prop, or support, is 
 followed oftentimes by a perilous strain on the weaker portions. 
 Kitto tells us, that ' in very many Eastern buildings the whole centre 
 of the principal side of the enclosed area (towards which all parts of 
 
314 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the building generally front) is made to rest upon one or two pillars, 
 so that their removal would most certainly involve the downfall of 
 that part ; and from the connection of the parts, this would involve 
 the overthrow of the whole range of building on that side at least. 
 And if this be the obvious result in ordinary cases, much more cer- 
 tain would it be here, when the roof, and no doubt the galleries, if 
 any, looking into the court, were crowded with people, whose weight 
 must have created so great a strain and pressure, that the withdrawal 
 of any single prop must bring the whole to the ground in an 
 instant' 
 
 * When Dr. Shaw was at Algiers he frequently saw the inhabitants 
 diverted upon the roof of the dey's palace, which, like many more of 
 the same quality and denomination, has an advanced cloister over 
 against the gate of the palace, made in the form of a large pent- 
 house, supported only by one or two contiguous pillars in the front, 
 or else in the centre. Supposing, therefore, that in the house of 
 Dagon was a cloistered building of this kind, the pulling down of the 
 front or centre pillars which supported it, would alone be attended 
 with the catastrophe which happened to the Philistines.' Pax f on. 
 
 Intercessory Sanctifying. 
 
 JOB i. 5 : ' And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, 
 that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered 
 burnt -offerings according to the number of them all : for Job said, It may be that 
 my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. The relations of a man with God are strictly indi- 
 vidual and personal, and the business of personal religion cannot be 
 delegated to anybody -, or undertaken by anybody in our behalf. 
 
 Explanation. The story of Job belongs to patriarchal times, 
 and we are not very well informed on the peculiarities of patriarchal 
 religion. Whether the Book of Job is a relic of the writing of very 
 ancient times, or, as seems more probable, a composition of the age 
 of Solomon, based upon a very early legend, or history, the surround- 
 ings of the story are strictly patriarchal ; there is in the book no 
 reference to priests, revealed law, temple, or organized worship. 
 
 But it should be understood that religion for man, in every age, 
 and in every clime, must take two distinct, but very closely related, 
 forms. It is always a matter which the individual must settle for 
 himself, and in his own way, by direct and personal relations with 
 God. And since men must dwell together in families and societies, 
 it must have some outward forms of expression, in which all may 
 agree to join. The common worship is always found to be directly 
 
INTER CESS OR Y SANCTIFYING. 3 1 5 
 
 helpful toward the culture of the personal life, and the personal piety 
 is the source of ever fresh vitality in the common worship. Probably^ 
 if we could keep to the stricter meaning of terms, we might say that 
 every man should have both * piety ' and * religion.' 
 
 The question we have to meet is this, What forms of common ana 
 united worship were established in patriarchal times ? They must 
 have been such as were suitable to tribes that were frequently moving 
 from one spot to another ; and they must have been of the simplest 
 character. The chief of the tribe was regarded as the priest, and by 
 the simple rite of the burnt-offering, on fitting occasions, he expressed 
 for his tribe the sense of God's claim to perfect service, the convic- 
 tion of short-coming and sin, the desire for pardon, and the readiness 
 to offer a full consecration of self unto the Lord. These recurring 
 acts of sacrifice became the education of the tribe in religious truths 
 and duties; they helped, but they did not stand in place of, nor 
 remove the necessity for, personal godliness. 
 
 Job's burnt-offerings belong to the class of helpful ceremonies, 
 which can express piety, but cannot take the place of it ; can call 
 to duty, but cannot stand instead of doing our duty to God and to 
 man. Such ceremonies may be helpless formalities, but they may 
 be spiritual realities, helpful expressions for devout and sincere souls. 
 
 Job seems to have allowed the period of cheerful feasting to pass, 
 and then he sent for his children, made them perform certain cere- 
 monial ablutions, and then join in a united service. The burnt- 
 offering was the only form of sacrifice known to the patriarchs. * The 
 whole victim was consumed by fire, a perfect holocaust, representing 
 the absolute right of God over His creatures, and the absolute sur- 
 render of the creature's self. The original word means " ascending 
 offering " ; the victim went up, so to speak, to heaven in flame and 
 smoke/ 
 
 Matthew Henry deals with this subject quaintly but suggestively. 
 ' He sent to them to prepare for solemn ordinances, " sent and 
 sanctified them," ordered them to examine their own consciences, and 
 repent of what they had done amiss in their feasting, to lay aside 
 their vanity, and compose themselves for religious exercises. Thus 
 he kept his authority over them for their good, and they submitted 
 to it, though they had got houses of their own. He offered sacrifice 
 for them, both to atone for the sins he feared they had been guilty of 
 in the days of their feasting, and to implore for them mercy to 
 pardon, and grace to prevent the debauching of their minds, and 
 corrupting of their manners by the liberty they had taken, and to 
 preserve their piety and purity/ 
 
316 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The Cruelty of the Executions at Rabbah. 
 
 2 SAMUEL xii. 31 : 'He brought forth the people that were therein, and put 
 them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made 
 them pass through the brick-kiln ; and thus did he unto all the cities of the 
 children of Ammon.' 
 
 Difficulty. Unless such horrible cruelty can be relieved by explana- 
 tions, it gives a very painful impression of David's character. 
 
 Explanation. Dr. dimming makes a correction in the trans- 
 lation which we should be very glad if we could accept, but the 
 severe customs of ancient times encourage the sterner view of these 
 transactions. He says : * The Hebrew word beth, which is here trans- 
 lated " under," does not mean under (that is, placed beneath), but 
 means /0(in the sense in which we say, in ordinary language, "'I put 
 him to the plough ") ; the literal meaning is that he put them to 
 saws, and to harrows, and to axes, and to the making of bricks that 
 he made them perpetual working slaves. There is no warrant what- 
 ever for the construction that he destroyed them by saws, and harrows, 
 and axes, or inhumanly forced them into the furnace of the brick- 
 kiln. He simply set them to a laborious drudgery.* 
 
 Kitto wishes he could accept this relief of the story. But he 
 thinks it has very little real foundation. * It does much violence to 
 the Hebrew words, which it takes in an unusual and previously 
 unimagined acceptation. Some of the alleged labours are also 
 unsuited to the age and country or the people. Firewood, for 
 instance, is so scarce in Palestine, that the people of so many cities 
 could not have found employment as hewers and sawers of wood ; 
 and the only public want in this respect, that of the tabernacle and 
 its altar, was already provided for by the services of the Gibeonites ; 
 while the people generally used stubble and dried dung for fuel. 
 Then, for building, stone has always been more used than brick in 
 Palestine, and it is, therefore, marvellous that the more laborious 
 work of quarrying stone is not named, if penal labours were really 
 intended ; and as to iron mines, there is not the least evidence that 
 any were ever worked in the territories over which David had sway. 
 
 ' Besides, if David thus dealt with the Ammonites, he would have 
 been far less severe to them than the war law of the age authorized, 
 and far less so than to the Moabites and Edomites, of whom a large 
 proportion of the males in the one case, and all who could be caught 
 in the other, were destroyed. And is this credible in regard to a 
 people the aggravation of whose conduct had been so much greater? 
 ' Putting captives to death by torture was not a war custom of the 
 
CRUELTY OF THE EXECUTIONS AT RABBAH. 317 
 
 Hebrews, whose legislation is remarkable beyond that of any other 
 people for the absence of torturing punishments.' Kitto thinks, there- 
 fore, that these punishments were retaliatory for similar treatment of 
 Jewish and other prisoners who had been taken by the Ammonites. 
 He cites the case of Adoni bezek, which has a distinct bearing upon 
 this, because it shows that ' the Hebrews were accustomed to deal 
 out to their enemies the same measures which they received from 
 them. And this was quite necessary, it being the only way in which 
 other nations could coerce such offenders into an adherence to the 
 established usages of war.' 
 
 It may be added that David is not personally responsible only 
 governmentally responsible for actions done by his generals and 
 soldiers in the time of siege. David should only be officially con- 
 nected with a matter which was, in all probability, done before he 
 knew anything about it. We must never forget that in all these war 
 movements of David's reign, Joab was the leading, masterful spirit, 
 and such deaths by torture suit his nature better than David's. 
 
 Accursed Thing. 
 
 JOSHUA vi. 17: 'And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are 
 therein, to the Lord. Rev. Ver. : ' devoted.' 
 
 Difficulty. Unless some custom or sentiment of the age is found to 
 relieve the severity of this judgment % it must seem to us inexplicable, and 
 beyond what the occasion demanded. 
 
 Explanation. The word 'accursed' is likely to convey a wrong 
 impression. It would be better to read * devoted,' and associate the 
 word with the offering of first-fruits as sacrifice to God, and solemn 
 acknowledgment that all was recognised as His. Josephus helps us 
 to the right idea of this devotement when he says, * Joshua com- 
 manded the Israelites to reserve the silver and gold of Jericho, the 
 first city taken by them, as the first-fruits of their successes, to God.' 
 Inverse 19 the metal spoil is spoken of as 'consecrated unto the 
 Lord'; but the fact is, that all Jericho was consecrated to the Lord 
 some of it by being destroyed, sent to Him on the wings of fire ; and 
 some of it by being reserved for use in the Lord's tabernacle. 
 
 Kitto so fully meets the difficulty as it is stated above, that his 
 entire passage may be given : ' It has seemed to some rather a severe 
 exaction that the soldiers should have been forbidden, under the 
 severest penalties, from appropriating to themselves the least benefit 
 from the spoil of this wealthy city But there may be seen many 
 reasons for it The principal seems to have been to impress upon 
 
3 i8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 them in the most lively manner the fact that the conquest of the city 
 was ijot in any respect due to the power of their arms, and that there- 
 fore they had no right to any portion of the spoil. Nothing was so 
 well calculated as this privation to remind them to whom alone this 
 important conquest was due. It was also a prudential measure. On 
 the one hand, it tried the obedience of the people and, all things 
 considered, it is certainly a wonderful instance of the religious and 
 military discipline of the troops, that an order of this stringent nature 
 was so well obeyed ; while, on the other hand, it would have been 
 inexpedient to allow the soldiers at the outset to glut themselves with 
 the spoils of a rich city, whereby they would have been more disposed 
 for luxury and idleness than for the severe labours which lay before 
 them in the martial conquest of Canaan. The city had also been 
 won without the exhausting toils or feats of valour which might seem 
 to demand such recompense. It may be added that it has been at 
 all times usual in military operations to deal severely with the first 
 town taken by storm, the garrison of which has held out to the last, in 
 order to strike such a dread into the people as may facilitate further 
 conquest, or induce submission in order to avoid a similar doom. 
 Upon the whole, Jericho was to be regarded as the first-fruits of 
 conquest, and as such was to be offered up to the Lord as a burnt- 
 offering.' 
 
 Mr. W. H. Grvserhas some useful remarks concerning this 'ban.' 
 ' There is a remarkable provision in the Mosaic law (first mentioned 
 abruptly, as a thing well known), that when persons or property had 
 been devoted by a solemn vow to God, there could be no redemption 
 of them by a gift to the sanctuary, as in other cases. They became 
 cherem, or anathema, " devoted ": if persons, they were to be slain ; 
 if property, given to the sanctuary. Thus Jonathan narrowly escaped 
 being made cherem, through his father's rash vow ; bwt doubtless such 
 cases were extremely rare. It was permitted, however, to "devote" 
 an enemy's city by such a vow ; and this occurred in the war with the 
 Canaanite King of Arad in the time of Moses. Now it is remarkable 
 that no command to put human beings under the ban is to be found 
 in the Mosaic law, except for deliberate idolatry on the part of an 
 individual Israelite, or the inhabitants of an Israelitisn city. 
 
LOTS FOR COLLECTING WOOD FOR OFFERING. 319 
 Lots for collecting the Wood for Offering. 
 
 NEHEMIAH x. 34 : * And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and 
 the people, for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, after the 
 houses of our fathers, at times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of 
 the Lord our God, as it is written in the law.' 
 
 Question. Was this a revival of some old custom, or the necessity 
 of some new and peculiar circumstances t 
 
 Answer. It seems that it had been made the duty of the 
 Gibeonites to provide the wood that was required for the Temple 
 service ; but in the restored company of exiles it was nobody's duty, 
 or rather everybody's. Some arrangement, therefore, was necessary, 
 to ensure that the duty was performed by somebody. 
 
 The note in the Speaker's Commentary gives all that need be said 
 on this subject : ' No special provision was made by the law for the 
 supply of wood necessary to keep fire ever burning upon the altar ; 
 nor do David or Solomon appear to have instituted any definite 
 regulations on the subject. It remained for Nehemiah to establish 
 a system by which the duty of supplying wood should be laid as a 
 burthen in turn on the various clans or families which were regarded 
 as constituting the nation. The lot was used to determine the order 
 in which the several families should perform the duty. A special day 
 (the 1 4th of the fifth month, according to Josephus) was appointed 
 for the bringing in of supplies ; this day was after a time regarded as 
 a high festival, and called the " Feast of the Wood Offering."' 
 
 Night Customs in Eastern Encampments. 
 
 JUDGES vii. II, 12: 'Then went he down with Phurah his servant unto the 
 outermost part of the armed men that were in the camp. And the Midianites 
 and the Amalekites and all the children of the East lay along in the valley like 
 locusts for multitude ; and their camels were without number, as the sand which 
 is upon the seashore for multitude ' (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Difficulty. // is very strange to find a host like this, in a hostile 
 country ', making no sort of provision for sudden attacks, by appointing 
 outposts and sentinels. 
 
 Explanation. We must carefully distinguish between the 
 orderly invasion of a country by an organized army, and the swarm- 
 ing of a large collection of nomad tribes into a fertile territory 
 about harvest-time. The invasion of Israel by the united Midianites 
 and Amalekites was an overwhelming rush of whole tribes into the 
 land, eating up everything, as would a plague of locusts. Each 
 tribe, and division of tribe, would have its armed men, its trained 
 
320 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 fighting men ; but the great mass of the people were camp-followers, 
 a class specially liable to sudden panic. 
 
 Canon Farrar says : ' The invasions of these Arab tribes were of 
 the most crushing and irritating kind. Living in idleness and 
 marauding expeditions, they let the Israelites sow their corn, and 
 came themselves to reap and carry it away. Alyattes, King of 
 Lydia, treated the people of Miletus in exactly the same way. 
 leaving their houses undestroyed, solely that they might be tempted 
 to return to them, and plough and sow once more. The same thing 
 goes on to this day. The wretched Fellahin, neglected and oppressed 
 by the effete and corrupt Turkish Government, sow their corn, with 
 the constant dread that they are but sowing it for the Bedouin, who 
 yearly plunder them, unrepressed and unpunished.' 
 
 There is a strong Eastern superstition against night attacks, and 
 even against travelling by night. Guides hasten the parties they 
 are conducting, so that they may gain shelter before the darkness 
 comes on. This common feeling gives a kind of security, so that 
 sentinels, or outposts, are not thought to be necessary. Camps are 
 formed with the non-combatants in the centre, and the armed men 
 on the outskirts, and this is regarded as sufficient ; but except in 
 cases of actual danger, when an opposing force was known to be 
 near, even this precaution would not be taken. Probably, also, the 
 very vastness of this host, which was really its danger, was thought 
 to constitute an impregnable strength. 
 
 The only hint of special protection in this case is found in the 
 expression used in verse n, 'unto the outside of the armed men that 
 were in the host.' The Revised Version renders (as given above), 
 ' unto the uttermost part of the armed men that were in the camp/ 
 The Speakers Commentary says the meaning is uncertain, but the 
 most probable is * arranged in divisions,' marching or camping in 
 companies. 'The armed men seem to have been encamped 
 together, in one part of the camp, that nearest to the hostile army of 
 Gideon.' Lange translates, ' As far as the line (limit) of the van- 
 guard to the camp.' He compares the two and a half tribes who 
 marched in the vanguard of the Israelite army, and says that ' to 
 the same class of soldiery belonged the chamusim (armed men), to 
 whom Gideon approached. They formed the outer rim of the 
 encampment.' 
 
 Leslie Porter, in his Handbook for Palestine, describes such a 
 host as this of Midian, only on a smaller scale, seen by him in the 
 spring of 1857, when the Bedouin sheik, Akeil Agha, assembled his 
 men in Esdraelon, after the massacre of the Kurds at Hattin, to 
 
ABSALOM'S PILLAR. 321 
 
 divide the plunder. 'They spread over the plain, countless as 
 locusts ; their camels beyond number, like the sands on the sea- 
 shore. When I looked at the wild and fierce crowds of this dis- 
 orderly army on the spoils and booty it seemed as if I had 
 before me the very spectacle of the great invasion of the Midianites 
 in the days of Gideon.' 
 
 Absalom's Pillar. 
 
 2 SAMUEL xviii. 18 : ' Now Absalom in his life time had taken and reared up for 
 himself the pillar, which is in the King's dale : for he said, I have no son to keep 
 my name in remembrance, and he called the pillar after his own name ; and it is 
 called Absalom's monument, unto this day.' Rev. Ver. : ' Absalom's place.' 
 
 Difficulty. We have no other case of men's thus raising monu- 
 ments to themselves, and we cannot but be suspicious that such a thing 
 would hardly have been allowed in David's time. 
 
 Explanation. There is a monument called Absalom's, still to 
 be seen in the ravine of the Kedron, but it is quite a modern 
 erection, and can bear no relation whatever to the time of Absalom. 
 It is, however, possible that it occupies the position of the earlier 
 monument, though the King's Dale is identified with the Valley of 
 Shaveh (Gen. xiv. 17), which was in the near neighbourhood of 
 Sodom. Josephus tells us that the pillar was a marble one ; he fixes 
 its distance at two furlongs from Jerusalem, but he does not say 
 trom what part of Jerusalem the measurement was made j and he 
 also says that it was named * Absalom's Hand.' 
 
 Buckingham thus describes the existing monument : ' On the east, 
 we came to the reputed tomb of Absalom, resembling nearly, in the 
 size, form, and decoration of its square base, that of Zacharias , 
 except that it is sculptured with the metopes and triglyphs of the 
 Doric order. This is surmounted by a sharp conical dome, of the 
 form used in our modern parasols, having large mouldings, re- 
 sembling ropes, running round its base, and on the summit some- 
 thing like an imitation of flame. The dome is of masonry, and on 
 the eastern side there is a square aperture in it.' 
 
 It was quite usual to raise cairns of stone, or single stones, as 
 memorials of great events or important victories, but the only 
 approach to a personal memorial of such a kind is found in the self 
 glorying of King Saul, who, on his return from the partial slaughter 
 of the Amalekites, is said to have ' set him up a place/ that is, a 
 monument, or trophy. But this is quite distinct from raising a pillar 
 for the sake of perpetuating a man's name. 
 
 In those times, and down to recent times, it has been quite usual 
 
 21 
 
322 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 for rich and great persons to prepare before their death their own 
 tombs and sepulchres. These were usually natural or artificial caves 
 in the rocks, but they were sometimes separate erections which 
 should contain their bodies, and be conspicuous as their memorials. 
 There can be little doubt that Absalom's pillar was a tomb, with a 
 raised building, of handsome proportions and decorations, above it ; 
 and his hope was that he might be buried there in state as the 
 ' beautiful prince,' and with the aid of such a monument, ever- 
 lastingly remembered. The fact is called to mind, in the Scripture 
 history, to point the moral that ' man proposes, but God disposes,' 
 and to set in sharp contrast the actual fate of the prince, killed as he 
 hung in a tree, cast into a pit in a wood, and covered with the stones 
 of execration. ' His real monument was a solitary cairn in the wild 
 forest, instead of a lordly pillar in the " King's Dale," near the 
 capital city.' 
 
 Passing through the Fire. 
 
 2 KINGS xvi. 3 : ' But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and 
 made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the 
 heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel.' 
 
 Question. Was this only a ceremony of lustration by fire, or 
 should we understand that the young prince was sacrificed 1 } 
 
 Answer. The corresponding account in 2 Chron. xxviii. 3 sup- 
 ports the idea that the son, or sons, were actually sacrificed. There 
 ihe expression used is. ' And burnt his children in the fire.' 
 
 The idol Moloch is said by the Rabbins to have been made of 
 brass, and its throne also of brass ; its head was that of a calf, and 
 wore a royal crown ; its stomach was a furnace, and when the chil- 
 dren were placed in its arms they were consumed by the fierce heat, 
 their cries being drowned by the beating of drums ; from which (toph 
 meaning a drum) the place of the burning was called Tophet. 
 
 It is also affirmed that the hands of the idol were made hot, and 
 the children were passed between them, which was considered a form 
 of lustration. Probably both views are true to the facts. On ordinary 
 occasions the rite may have been one of simple lustration, but in 
 times of extreme pressure the children may have been actually sacri- 
 ficed. 
 
 Compare other Scripture references, as 2 Kings xvii. 3 1 ; Jer. xix. 5 ; 
 Ezek. xvi. 20, xxiii. 37 ; Jer. xxxii. 35. Possibly, the children were 
 not burnt alive, but first put to death ; their bodies being then burnt. 
 Very definite and trustworthy information concerning the old custom 
 does not seem to be at command. 
 
PASSING TH1. UGH THE FIRE. 3 2 3 
 
 Moloch is best regarded as one of the forms of Baal, the Sun-god, 
 to whom, in Carthage and Numidia, children were immolated. 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary says : ' The fact which seems to be 
 certain is, that Ahaz adopted the Moloch-worship of the Ammonites 
 and Moabites, and sacrificed at least one son, probably his first-born, 
 according to the horrid rites of those nations. A king of Moab had 
 once done the same when he found himself in a sore strait (2 Kings 
 iii. 27). Another had expressed his willingness so to appease his 
 god (Mic. vi. 7). Hitherto, apparently, the Jews had been guiltless 
 of the abomination. Now, however, as the time of more searching 
 trial approached, as dangers thickened, and the national existence 
 was seen to be in peril, the awful rite seems to have exercised a fatal 
 fascination upon them. It has been suggested that the cause of its 
 sudden appearance, and great prevalence from the time of Ahaz to 
 the close of the Jewish kingdom, is to be found in the influence of 
 Assyria, which now first came to be much felt in Palestine. But 
 there is no evidence that the Assyrians had any such custom as that 
 here in question, or any human sacrifices at all. They had no god 
 Moloch, although of course almost any god might bear the title of 
 Melech (king). Moloch in Scripture is always connected with Ammon ; 
 and there seems to be no real ground for doubting that it was from 
 this quarter from Ammon and Moab that the Jews and Israelites 
 of the period to which we are now come adopted the practice of 
 " causing their children to pass through the fire." ' 
 
 Idolatrous Kissing the Hand. 
 
 JOB xxxi. 27 : ' And my heart hath been secretly enticed, and my mouth hath 
 kissed my hand.' Hebrew: ' My hand hath kissed my mouth.' 
 
 Question. Does this refer to some peculiar movement or action 
 iharacteristic of certain idol-worshippers, and somewhat resembling a 
 masonic sign ? 
 
 Answer. Delitzsch gives a translation which makes the action 
 much more intelligible to us * I threw them a kiss by my hand/ It 
 appears that in heathen worshipping they used to kiss the hand, and 
 then throw the kiss, as it were, towards the object of worship (i Kings 
 xix. 18 ; Hos. xiii. 2). The practice was probably adopted because 
 the idol-figures were set up on high, out of actual reach. This ' kissing 
 the hand ' as a token of admiration and worship was an early and 
 common practice in Syria. 
 
 The following note is given in Biblical Things not Generally 
 Known, without intimation of its authorship : ' This passage is an 
 
 21 2 
 
3 2 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 obscure and difficult one, on which only some side-lights can be 
 thrown. The act may have been one of worship offered to some deity, 
 or the hand itself may have been the object of worship, and we are not 
 without indications of such a practice. The " Talmud " asserts that 
 the hand and the foot were both regarded as objects of worship. It 
 says that a broken piece of an idol is not to be considered an idol in 
 itself, since it may be put to some useful purpose : if it be made of 
 metal, it may be melted down ; and if of earthenware, it may be 
 broken up and used again. But the hand and the foot, being objects 
 of worship in themselves alone, whether they are broken from statues 
 or not, are unclean, and must not be touched. 
 
 ' There is a curious relic of hand-worship still preserved in Jeru- 
 salem, a rough representation of a hand being always made by the 
 native masons on the wall of a house in the course of erection. This 
 hand-print is made in order to avert the " evil-eye." The Jews also 
 take care to make the same mark on a conspicuous part of the ex- 
 terior of their houses just before a marriage, a birth, or any other 
 festival. At Jerusalem a sign resembling a double arrow is frequently 
 used instead of the hand, the Jews saying that it is a symbol of the 
 five names of God, as are also the five fingers ; and either symbol 
 will ward off evil from the place on which it is imprinted. 
 
 1 The cornice of a cistern near Petra, in Arabia, was found not long 
 since, to be decorated with hands printed in black and red alter- 
 nately. At the present day both Jews and Mohammedans hang 
 round their children's necks hands rudely cut out of thin plates of 
 silver and gold ; and this is done as a charm against the " evil-eye." 
 In Italy the first and last fingers of the hand are used for the same 
 purpose.' 
 
 Paxton thinks that to kiss the hand and place it on the head is a 
 token of respect less revolting to our minds than some that might be 
 mentioned. He says : ' An Oriental pays his respects to a person of 
 superior station by kissing his hand and putting it to his forehead ; 
 but if the superior be of a condescending temper, he will snatch away 
 his hand as soon as the other has touched it ; then the inferior puts 
 his own fingers to his lips, and afterwards to his forehead. It seems, 
 according to Pitts, to be a common practice among the Moham- 
 medans, that when they cannot kiss the hand of a superior, they kiss 
 their own, and put it to their forehead ; thus also they venerate an 
 unseen being whom they cannot touch. But the custom existed long 
 before the age of Mohammed; for in the same way the ancient 
 idolaters worshipped their distant or unseen deities. Had Job thus 
 " kissed his hand/' in the case to which he refers, it would have been 
 
EASTERN SENTIMENTS ABOUT MAD PEOPLE. 325 
 
 an idolatrous action, although it is exactly agreeable to the civil ex- 
 pressions of respect which obtained in his country, all over the 
 East.' 
 
 Eastern Sentiments concerning Mad People. 
 
 I SAMUEL xxi. 15 : 'Have I need of madmen ' (Rev. Ver. : 'Do I lack mad- 
 men '), ' that ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence ? 
 Shall this fellow come into my house ?' 
 
 Difficulty. How would feigning himself a madman give David 
 security in his time of peril 1 With us it would involve his being 
 rigorously confined. 
 
 Explanation. David found his life in peril among the Philis- 
 tines, and adopted a device which depended for its success on a pre- 
 vailing sentiment of Eastern people. Easterns have ideas of spirit- 
 possessions, devil-possessions, which to us seem absurd. Things 
 which we regard as diseases, such as epilepsy, hysteria, lunacy, 
 delirium tremens, etc., they regard as due to the presence of bad 
 spirits in the sufferers, and they have a sort of respect for these bad 
 spirits, and fear to touch or injure them, lest they should take 
 revenge and afflict the injurer by transferring their presence. All 
 sufferers of this class are therefore let alone. 
 
 David took advantage of this common sentiment. He knew he 
 would be free to go where he pleased if the people took up the idea 
 that he was mad. 'No one would touch a demented man, for 
 insanity was held in antiquity, as it still is in the East, in some way, 
 a divine possession.' 
 
 Dr. Porter says that * many of the dervishes in the East act in the 
 same way at present, and are venerated as saints by an ignorant and 
 superstitious people. I have heard it said that Akeil Aga, a notorious 
 Arab sheikh still living, when seized and imprisoned by the Governor 
 of Acre, escaped as David did, pretending to be a madman.' 
 
 Kitto has the following good note : ' David " feigned himself 
 mad," or perhaps to fall into a fit of epilepsy, which was in ancient 
 times regarded as a form of madness. This character he acted to 
 such disgusting perfection, that the court had no doubt of the reality 
 of his affliction. He not only " scribbled upon the wall," but let his 
 slaver fall down upon his beard. This last was convincing. Con 
 sidering the regard in which the beard is held, the care taken of 
 it, and the solicitude of the owner to protect it from insult and 
 pollution, who could possibly doubt the abject and absolute madness 
 of the man who thus defiled his own beard ? On the other hand, a 
 sort of respect for the persons thus afflicted, as if they were under 
 
326 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 some kind of supernatural influence, has always existed, and does 
 now exist, in the East ; so that David knew that his personal safety, 
 and even his freedom, were guaranteed by the belief in his madness. 
 Such was the case. The king was not, perhaps, sorry to be thus 
 relieved from the difficulty which he saw to be gathering round the 
 question. He therefore turned, in seeming or real wrath, to his 
 servants, rebuking them for admitting a madman into his presence.' 
 
 Kitto adds that ' the Jewish writers think there was more emphasis 
 than we are aware of in Achish's asking if he had need of madmen. 
 They tell us that the king's wife and daughter were both mad, and 
 that while David was simulating madness without, they were exhibit- 
 ing the reality within, so that poor Achish might well think he had 
 already quite enough of this.' 
 
 * It has been cleverly suggested that David was only too well 
 acquainted with all the signs of madness, from his long and intimate 
 association with King Saul in his darker hours of insanity.' Canon 
 Spence. 
 
 Night Hospitalities in the East. 
 
 JUDGES xix. 18, 19 : ' There is no man that taketh me into his house. Yet 
 there is both straw and provender for our asses ; and there is bread and wine also 
 for me, and for thy handmaid, and for the young man that is with thy servants : 
 there is no want of anything.' 
 
 Question. What prevailing conditions or sentiments led to so 
 strange a limitation of hospitality ? 
 
 Answer. It is very probable that the incidents of the last five 
 chapters of the Book of Judges are not narrated in their chrono- 
 logical order. They belong to the earlier period of the time of the 
 Judges, and present to us illustrations 'of the loose condition of 
 society during the anarchical period which intervened between the 
 death of the elders who outlived Joshua and the government of 
 Othniel.' 
 
 Kitto explains precisely what occurred : ' Gibeah stood upon a 
 low, conical, or rather round eminence, about five miles north by 
 east from Jerusalem. By the time the party got near this the sun 
 went down, and the Levite concluded to turn in there. As he had 
 no acquaintance in the place, and there seems to have been no 
 lodging place or khan to which he could repair, he tarried, as the 
 custom was, in the street, sure that some one would soon invite him 
 to his house. We do not think there is any charge against the men 
 of Gibeah on this account merely, for no one could receive him till 
 it was known that he wanted reception, and this was the proper mode 
 
NIGHT HOSPITALITIES IN THE EAST. 327 
 
 of making his want known. The same practice still exists in the 
 East under the like circumstances, and it is not long that anyone 
 has to wait before entertainment is offered to him. But in this vile 
 piace it is expressly stated that " no man invited him to his house," 
 and he was left waiting in the street, until at last an old man, who 
 was also of Mount Ephraim, and who very possibly recognised the 
 Levite, saw the party as he returned from his work in the fields, and 
 
 invited them to his humble dwelling The gross neglect of the 
 
 duties of hospitality must have given the Levite some misgiving as to 
 the character of the place, seeing how highly these duties are estimated 
 in the East, and seeing that his Levitical character gave him a more 
 than common claim to kind and generous entertainment.' 
 
 Jamieson says : * The towns in Palestine at this remote period 
 could not, it seems, furnish any establishment in the shape of an inn 
 or public lodging-house ; and hence we conclude that the custom, 
 which is still frequently witnessed in the cities of the East, was then 
 not uncommon, for travellers who were late in arriving, and who had 
 no introduction to a private family, to spread their bedding in the 
 streets, or, wrapping themselves up in their cloaks, pass the night in 
 the open air. In the Arab towns and villages, however, the sheikh, 
 or some other person, usually comes out and urgently invites the 
 strangers to his house. This was done also in ancient Palestine 
 (Gen. xviii. 4, xix. 2), and that the same hospitality was not shown 
 in Gibeah, seems to have been owing to the bad character of the 
 people.' 
 
 It is clear that the same vices prevailed in this town as in Sodom 
 in the older time ; and these vices were utterly destructive of social 
 order and family life. Probably these pictures of rioting and unre- 
 strained wickedness are given in the Scripture to prepare us for the 
 great change from a pure theocracy to that of an orderly human 
 government, which could at once repress and punish evil-doers. 
 Theocracy is the sublimest idea of government, but so long as men 
 are self-willed and self-seeking, it is not found to be practically 
 efficient Modifications of it had to be made because of the hard- 
 ness of men's hearts. 
 
 The old man who did offer hospitality asks questions which seem 
 to express his astonishment that anyone should think of passing the 
 night in Gibeah out of doors. The city had such a bad name in the 
 neighbouring region, that travellers shunned it ; but there is no 
 sufficient ground for assuming that so vile a state of things was repre- 
 sentative of the degraded condition of the country generally. 
 
328 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Egyptian Embalming. 
 
 GENESIS 1. 2 : ' And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm 
 his father; and the physicians embalmed Israel.' 
 
 Question. As embalming was connected with idolatrous notions, 
 how are we to understand Joseph s adopting such heathen methods ? 
 
 Answer. Apart from superstitious associations, embalming was 
 the national mode of doing honour to the memory of great persons, 
 and probably in this way only did Joseph regard it. The reverence 
 thus shown for the bodies of the dead was grounded on a primitive 
 traditional belief in its future resurrection, which was a material 
 setting of the spiritual truth which has been revealed to us. 
 
 If a more precise reason for the embalming of Jacob be sought for, 
 it may be found in the necessity for preparing and perfuming the 
 patriarch's body, in view of the long journey which had to be taken 
 if it was to be buried in the cave of Machpelah. Only an embalmed 
 body could have been kept unburied for so long a time. 
 
 There is abundant information at command concerning this 
 Egyptian custom. Only a few details can be appropriately given in 
 this connection. 
 
 Jamieson says : ' In ancient Egypt the embalmers were a class by 
 themselves. The process of embalming consisted in infusing a great 
 quantity of resinous substances into the cavities of the body, after the 
 intestines had been removed ; and then a regulated degree of heat 
 was applied to dry up the humours, as well as decompose the tarry 
 materials which had been previously introduced. Thirty days were 
 allotted for the completion of this process ; forty more were spent in 
 anointing it with spices. The body, tanned from this operation, was 
 then washed and wrapped in numerous folds of linen cloth the 
 joinings of which were fastened with gum, and then deposited in a 
 wooden chest, made in the form of a human figure.' 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary, noting the fact that the physicians are 
 said to have embalmed Jacob, and that the physicians were not 
 usually employed in this work, suggests that it was a simpler kind of 
 embalming than usual, and that the proper embalmers could not be 
 employed because Jacob was a foreigner. 
 
 'The Greek historians mention three ways in which mummies 
 were made. In the first, the brain was extracted through the nose, 
 and the intestines were removed. The body was then filled with 
 myrrh, cassia, etc., after which it was steeped in natron for seventy 
 days. After the seventy days were over, the body was washed, and 
 
SWIMMING METHODS. 329 
 
 swathed in linen bandages gummed on the inside until every part of 
 it was covered. In the second, a material called oil of cedar was 
 introduced, which dissolved the intestines, so that they could be 
 removed without mutilating the body. It was then laid in natron, 
 which dissolved the greater part of the flesh and left only the skin 
 and bones. In the third, the body was merely salted for seventy 
 days, and then given back to the friends. The first method would 
 cost about .250 of our money, the second ;6o, while the third 
 would be very cheap.' E. A. W. J3udge, M.A. 
 
 Swimming Methods. 
 
 ISAIAH xxv. n : ' And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as 
 fie that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim.' 
 
 Difficulty. This does not accurately describe the kind of action in 
 swimming with which we are familiar. 
 
 Explanation. In our method of swimming the hands are 
 brought together at the chest, then thrust forward together, and 
 widened out in the form of an arch. There is no such beating of the 
 water as is indicated in the figure of this passage. It seems that the 
 people of the East are fond of bathing, and many of them are expert 
 swimmers. They all swim ' hand over hand,' alternately raising each 
 arm out of the water, and thus never presenting the whole breast, but 
 only one side to the stream. The American-Indians, who are 
 generally expert swimmers, uniformly practise the Oriental mode. 
 Among the Assyrian sculptures which represent persons in the act of 
 swimming, there does not appear to be one which indicates a dif- 
 ferent method. The lifting up of each arm, and bringing it down 
 with force, well expresses the repeated blows by which Moab was to 
 ' be trodden down as straw for the dunghill ' ( Van Lennep]. 
 
 It should, however, be noticed that Dr. A. Clarke's translation of 
 verse 10 gives a possible explanation of the passage now before us, 
 in accordance with Western modes of swimming. This is best given 
 in a note from Roberts, who says on the translation of the words ' for 
 the dunghill,' as ' under the wheels of the car.' ' This may allude to 
 their ancient cars of war, under which Moab was to be crushed, or 
 under her own heathen cars, in which the gods were taken out in 
 procession. To spread forth the hands, as a person when swimming, 
 may refer to the involuntary stretching forth of the limbs when the 
 body was crushed with the weight of the car ; or to the custom of 
 those who, when they go before the car in procession, prostrate them- 
 selves on the ground, and spread out their hands and legs as if 
 
330 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 swimming, till they have measured the full distance the car has to go, 
 by throwing themselves on the earth at the length of every six feet, 
 and by motions as if in the act of swimming. The whole of this is 
 done as a penance for sin, or in compliance with a vow made in 
 sickness or despair/ 
 
 Beds of Gold and Silver. 
 
 ESTHER i. 6 : ' The beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and 
 blue, and white, and black marble.' Rev. Ver. : 'couches.' 
 
 Question. What articles of furniture may we suppose to be in- 
 dicated by the term l beds ' ? 
 
 Answer. Bedsteads and bedding, such as we are familiar with, 
 are not usually found in the East. A bed-chamber was not arranged 
 for, a closet sufficing for the keeping of the quilts and mattresses 
 during the day. The divan, or platform along the side or end of an 
 Oriental room, sufficed as a support for the bedding. There is but 
 little distinction of the bed from the sitting furniture, the same article 
 being used for nightly rest and during the day. The term beds in the 
 text would better be rendered couches^ on which guests could recline, 
 and which either had frames of solid gold and silver, or were inlaid 
 with ornaments of those costly metals. They stood on an elevated 
 floor of parti- coloured marble. 
 
 Forbes says that these beds of gold and silver may receive illustra- 
 tion from modern Asiatic furniture ; the divan, or hall of audience,, 
 as also the room for receiving guests in private houses, is generally 
 covered with a Persian carpet, round which are placed cushions of 
 different shape and size, in cases of gold and silver rincob, or of 
 scarlet cloth embroidered ; these are occasionally moved into courts 
 and gardens, and placed under the shahmyanah for the accommoda- 
 tion of company. 
 
 Wilkinson gives very interesting details respecting the chairs and 
 couches of Egyptian mansions and palaces. 'Many of the fauteuils were 
 of the most elegant form, and were made of ebony and other rare woods, 
 inlaid with ivory, covered with rich stuffs, and very similar to some now 
 used in Europe, to which indeed they have frequently served as models. 
 None of these have yet been found in the tombs of Thebes ; but chairs 
 of more ordinary quality are occasionally met with, some of which are 
 in the British Museum and in the Leyden Collection. They are much 
 smaller than the fauteuils of the sculptures, the seat being only from 
 eight to fourteen inches high, and are deficient, both in elegance of 
 form and in the general style of their construction : in some the seat 
 
BEDS OF GOLD AND SILVER. 331 
 
 is of wood, in others of interlaced string or leathern thongs, in ap- 
 pearance, as well as in rank, not very unlike our own rush-bottomed 
 chairs ; and they probably belonged to persons of inferior station, or 
 to those rooms which were set apart for casual visitors. Various are 
 the forms of chairs which occur in the sculptures, representing scenes 
 of domestic life, and sacred subjects. Some were, on the principle 
 of our camp-stools, furnished with a cushion, or covered with the 
 skin of a leopard or other animal, which could be easily removed 
 when the chair was folded up ; and it was not unusual to make other 
 seats, and wooden head-stools or pillows, in the same manner; one 
 of which was found by me at Thebes, and is now in the British 
 Museum. They were adorned in various ways : being bound with 
 metal plates, or inlaid with ivory and foreign woods ; and, even in 
 some ordinary chairs, sycamore, or other native wood, was painted to 
 imitate that of a more rare and valuable quality. The seat was 
 frequently of leather, painted with flowers or fancy devices ; and the 
 figure of a captive, or a conquered foe, was frequently represented at 
 the side, or among the ornaments of the chair. Sometimes the seat 
 was formed of interlaced work of string, carefully and neatly arranged, 
 which, like our Indian cane chairs, appears to have been particularly 
 adapted for a hot climate ; but over this even they occasionally placed 
 a leather cushion painted in the manner already mentioned. Most 
 of the chairs and stools were about the ordinary height of those now 
 used in Europe, the seat nearly in a line with the bend of the knee ; 
 but some were very low, and others offered that variety of position 
 which we seek in the kangaroo chairs of our own drawing-room. 
 The ordinary fashion of the legs was in imitation of those of some 
 wild animal, as the lion, or the goat, but more usually the former, the 
 foot raised and supported on a short pin ; and what is remarkable, 
 the skill of their cabinet-makers, even in the early era of Joseph, had 
 already done away with the necessity of uniting the legs with bars. 
 Stools, however, and more rarely, chairs, were occasionally made with 
 these strengthening members, as is still the case in our own country ; 
 but the form of the drawing-room fauteuil and of the couch was not 
 degraded by so unseemly and so unskilful a support. The back of 
 the chair was equally light and strong. It was occasionally concave, 
 like some Roman chairs, or the throne of Solomon ; and in many of 
 the large fauteuils a lion formed an arm at either side ; but the back 
 usually consisted of a single set of upright and cross bars, or of a 
 frame receding gradually, and terminating at its summit in a graceful 
 curve, supported from without by perpendicular bars ; and over this 
 was thrown a handsome pillow of coloured cotton, painted leather, or 
 
332 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 gold and silver tissue, like the beds at the feast of Ahasuerus, men- 
 tioned in Esther; or like the feather cushions, covered with stufis. 
 and embroidered with silk threads of gold, in the palace of 
 Scaurus.' 
 
 Covenant-Sealing with Gifts. 
 
 GENESIS xxi. 30 : ' And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of 
 my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. 
 
 Question. Was this a special device of Abraham's, or did he 
 simply act in accordance with recognised Oriental customs ? 
 
 Answer. There is good reason for thinking that a custom is 
 referred to which even now prevails in Eastern lands. It seems that 
 there had been a dispute between Abimelech and Abraham as to the 
 right of possessing the well at Beersheba, which Abraham appears to 
 have digged. Abraham gave Abimelech, in addition to other 
 presents, seven ewe lambs, as a witness for him that he had digged 
 the well, and this present was regarded as settling the dispute and 
 sealing the covenant between them. 
 
 Bruce, the traveller, while in Abyssinia, wished to go from one 
 place to another, and the Sheikh had assured him that the journey 
 might be undertaken with safety. 'But,' said I, 'suppose your 
 people meet us in the desert, how shall we fare in that case? 
 Should we fight ?' ' I have told you, Sheikh, already,' says he ; 
 ' cursed be the man that lifts his hand against you, or even does not 
 defend and befriend you to his own loss, even were it Ibrahim, my 
 own son.' Then, after some conversation, the old man muttered 
 something to his sons in a dialect Bruce did not understand, and 
 in a little time the whole hut was filled with people, the priests and 
 monks of their religion, and the heads of families. ' The great 
 people joined hands, and uttered a kind of prayer really the oath 
 about two minutes long, by which they declared themselves and 
 their children accursed if ever they lifted their hands against me in 
 the field, in the desert, or on the river; or, in case that I or mine 
 should fly to them for refuge, if they did not protect us at the risk of 
 their lives, their families, and their fortunes, or, as they emphatically 
 expressed it, " to the death of the last male child among them." 
 Medicines and advice were given on my part, faith and promises 
 were pledged on theirs, and then two bushels of wheat and seven sheep 
 were carried down to my boat' 
 
 Dean Payne Smith says : ' The word in Hebrew for " swearing " is 
 a passive verb, literally signifying "to be sevened," that is, done or 
 
S YEN DA YS } SILENT SYMPA THY. 333 
 
 confirmed by seven. In this ancient narrative we see a covenant 
 ictually thus made binding. Seven ewe lambs are picked out and 
 placed by themselves, and by accepting these Abimelech bound 
 tiimself to acknowledge and respect Abraham's title to the well. 
 Apparently this manner of ratifying an oath was unknown to the 
 Philistines, as Abimelech asks, " What mean these seven ewe lambs ?" 
 out it is equally possible that this question was dictated by the rules of 
 Oriental courtesy. When Abraham had picked out the lambs, it 
 Became Abimelech's duty to ask what was the purpose of the act, 
 which was then explained, and as soon as the lambs were accepted, 
 .he ratification was complete. ' 
 
 Such symbols are common in all counties. In Scotland, until a 
 recent period, the symbol in the sale of land was a handful of earth 
 md stones ; for a ferry, an oar and water ; and for church patronage, 
 i psalm-book and the keys of the church. 
 
 Seven Days' Silent Sympathy. 
 
 JOB ii. 13 : 'So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven 
 lights, and none spake a word unto him : for they saw that his grief was very 
 jreat.' 
 
 Difficulty. It is hardly possible to conceive that three me?i actually 
 remained seated, without food, or drink, or spoken word, for so long a 
 time as seven days. 
 
 Explanation. It is only our ignorance of Eastern customs that 
 leads us to assume that Job's three friends never moved, and took 
 no food, during those seven days. The passage only states that they 
 spake no word, and to sit in perfect silence for a very prolonged 
 period is quite a customary Eastern practice. Seven days was the 
 usual period of mourning, and all we can reasonably assume is that 
 there was some degree of fasting, not enough to imperil health or 
 life. 
 
 Describing the mourning customs in connection with the death of 
 Lazarus, of Bethany, Dr. C. Geikie tells us that the sisters had fasted 
 all the day after the death, and had since eaten nothing but an occa- 
 sional egg, or some lentiles; for that was the only food allowed 
 mourners, for the first seven days. When returned from the burial, 
 ' the sisters, with veiled heads, even in their own chamber, and with 
 unsandaled feet, sat down on the earth, in the midst of a circle of at 
 least ten friends, or professional mourners, with rent clothes and 
 dust on their heads. None spoke till the bereaved ones had done so, 
 but every sentence of theirs was followed by some word of sympathy 
 and comfort, and by the wails of the mourners. And thus it would 
 
334 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 be for seven days.* According to this account, if Job did not speak, 
 the friends would not. 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary has the following valuable note : 
 { The cause of this prolonged silence has been questioned. 
 Among the Jews it is a point of decorum, and one dictated by a fine 
 and true feeling, not to speak to a person in deep affliction until he 
 gives an intimation of a desire to be comforted ; such was possibly 
 their motive, as seems to be indicated by the last words in the 
 chapter. Others see in this silence one sign of perplexity as to the 
 origin of the infliction ; and a suspicion that Job's conscience might 
 be burdened with some hidden guilt : in either case the long, weary 
 suspense was too much for his feelings, he could bear it no more, 
 and at last gave expression to the agony which he had hitherto 
 endured in silence. With that expression the long colloquy is 
 opened in which the causes and principles of heaven-sent afflictions 
 are discussed.' 
 
 Barnes provides a very apt and suggestive illustration. He says : 
 ' It cannot be supposed that they remained in the same place and 
 posture for seven days and nights. The meaning is, that they 
 mourned with him during that time in the usual way. An instance 
 of grief remarkably similar to this, continuing through a period of 
 six days, is ascribed by Euripides to Orestes. 
 
 ' " 'Tis hence Orestes, agonised with griefs 
 And sore disease, lies on his restless bed 
 Delirious. Now six morns have winged their flight, 
 Since by his hands his parent massacred, 
 Burnt on the pile in expiatory flames. 
 Stubborn the while he keeps a rigid fast, 
 Nor bathes, nor dresses ; but beneath his robes 
 He skulks, and if he steals a pause from rage, 
 'Tis but to feel his weight of woe and weep. " ' 
 
 Kitto says : * To the statement that the friends sat upon the ground 
 seven days and seven nights in silence, it may be objected that it is 
 scarcely credible that Job himself, weakened by disease and exces- 
 sive grief, should be able to sit thus seven days successively without 
 speech or motion ; and at least equally so, that his friends, who were 
 in perfect health, and just off a long and tiresome journey, should 
 forego during all that time the natural uses and offices of life, to sit 
 without speaking a single word. Knowing the capacity of the 
 Orientals for remaining so long in one place, and even in one posture, 
 as would be astonishing to Europeans, we are not quite so much 
 impressed with this difficulty as some have been. Nevertheless, we 
 may admit that such texts as these are not to be too stringently in- 
 terpreted. We conceive that, rightly understood, it does not pre- 
 
PLANTING A GROVE. 335 
 
 dude them from sleeping, eating, and going about not even from 
 some slight expressions of sorrow and condolence, but that it does 
 mean that they constantly, during that period, returned to sit with 
 him, spending, in fact, as much of their time with him as they 
 possibly could ; during which, beholding his distress of mind, they 
 made no attempt to enter into conversation, argument, or discussion 
 with him. This is quite sufficient to meet the demands of the text, 
 as we may see by other instances, in which the inspired penmen 
 speak of a thing as being continually done, which was only done very 
 frequently.' 
 
 Planting a Grove. 
 
 GENESIS xxi. 33 : ' And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called 
 there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.' Rev. Ver. : ' tamarisk-tree.' 
 
 Difficulty. Since 'groves' are associations of idolatrous worship, 
 tould Abraham have been right in this act ? 
 
 Explanation. There is considerable dispute on the question 
 whether Abraham planted a single tree, as a memorial or witness of 
 his claim to the well, or whether he separated a spot for sacred 
 worship by surrounding it with a circle of trees. As the passage so 
 clearly connects his act with the offering of worship, it is very pro- 
 bable that the English Authorized Version contains the true idea, and 
 that a sacred place was made round the Jehovah-altar. 
 
 A thing may at first be done in simplicity, and for those who do 
 it at first it may be quite proper and helpful : but as time goes on the 
 thing may become guileful ; it may be filled with evil associations, 
 and perverted to mischievous uses. Then it must be spoken of as 
 wrong, and then it will be denounced by God ; but we have no right 
 to say that because a certain thing was wrong in the age of the later 
 kings, therefore it must also have been wrong in the days of 
 Abraham. We must judge each case in the light of the knowledge, 
 revelation, and sentiments of its time. 
 
 In favour of the view that Abraham only planted a single tamarisk- 
 tree, as a declaration that he had a right to the well beside which it 
 grew, the custom prevailing in Turkey may be referred to. ' When 
 a person plants a tree in unreclaimed land, he becomes the owner of 
 the tree as well as of five feet of ground all round it.' 
 
 KittO) taking the view that Abraham planted a grove or circle ot 
 trees, deals with the question, how that could be right for Abiaham 
 which was so vigorously denounced in later times. He says : * We 
 must regard Abraham, not as an isolated individual, but as the chief 
 and master of many hundred persons, who worshipped God with 
 
336 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 him by sacrifice and prayer. They must have met together for these 
 acts of worship, which doubtless the patriarch himself conducted. 
 One tent could not have contained them all, but a grove of trees 
 would afford all the shelter required. Hence, when men had no 
 fixed abode, or afterwards, when they had not yet learned how tot 
 construct edifices large enough for many persons to join them in an 
 act of worship, groves of trees became their temples the first temples 
 of mankind. It was also, it would seem, regarded as becomingly 
 reverent, that the altar appropriated to sacrificial worship, should not 
 stand out among the common objects of the wayside, but should be 
 descently veiled from careless notice by a screen of trees. So the 
 worship in groves was not in itself blameable. It was even usefully 
 solemnizing ; and it appears to have involved a recollection of Eden,. 
 to which it would be difficult to ascribe any other than a salutary 
 influence. But when gross idols arose around, and the groves were 
 considered proper to their worship, it behoved God to make a 
 distinction between His worship and theirs, and to show that he had 
 no fellowship with the powers of darkness .... Nothing is more 
 notorious than the shameful orgies that were celebrated in these 
 sacred groves ; and it might well be feared that the presence of a 
 grove would soon bring around the sanctuary a crowd of idle 
 devotees, coming, not to worship, but to enjoy themselves, and where 
 the leafy screen and the cool and pleasant shade would soon allure 
 to all kinds of licentious freedom/ 
 
 Bowing on the Bed's Head. 
 
 GENESIS xlvii. 31 : ' And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head.' 
 
 Question. What special significance can we suppose to have at- 
 tached to this act, seeing it is so carefully recorded? 
 
 Answer. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives a 
 totally different form to this incident. He says (ch. xi. 21), 'And 
 worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.' His rendering is taken 
 from the Septuagint, and it gives the probable explanation of the act 
 of Jacob. From the Egyptian inscriptions we learn that the staff 
 was the symbol of office ; and so, if Jacob ' had bowed himseb 
 toward the head of Joseph's staff, he would have been simply 
 acknowledging the authority of Joseph as deputy and representative 
 of the king. The inscriptions show that the Egyptians were in the 
 habit of touching the head of the official staff in token of homage when- 
 they made oath, as Jacob did upon the occasion in question.' 
 
 M. ChabaS) in his interesting essay on Egyptian judicial proceed- 
 
LOWING ON THE BED'S HEAD. 337 
 
 ings, cites the following passage describing the taking of an oath by a 
 witness in a trial at Thebes : ' He made a life of the royal lord, 
 striking his nose and his ears, and placing himself on the head of the 
 staff.' This seems to have been the ordinary oath when the witness 
 bowed himself on the magistrate's staff of office. 
 
 Inglis tells us that, * in Hebrew, when written without the vowel 
 points, the word for " bed " and for "staff" is the same ; and accord- 
 ing to the vowels we read either matteh, a staff, or mittah^ a bed. As 
 Jacob does not appear to have been in bed at the time of Joseph's 
 visit, the rendering " staff" is to be preferred, it being natural that 
 the venerable old man, as he worshipped God, should bow down on 
 the staff which he had carried through all his wanderings " 
 (ch. xxxii. 10). 
 
 The picture of the bowed patriarch, bent with the weight of years 
 and feebleness, and leaning heavily on his staff, is a very natural and 
 very beautiful one. And, as the Oriental beds are little more than 
 mats on the raised floors, it is not easy for us to conceive what can 
 be meant by the ' bed's head.' 
 
 Thfodoret gives an admirable paraphrase, which should be regarded 
 as in every way satisfactory. 'He strengthened himself upon his 
 staff, and so, leaning forward, worshipped God.' 
 
 It has been asked, ' Why did Jacob bow himself?' This Words- 
 worth answers by saying : * The act of bowing himself is mentioned 
 as a consequence of Joseph's consent to his request, that Joseph 
 should bury him in Canaan ; and the most probable opinion seems 
 to be, that Jacob bowed himself in adoration of God, for His mercy in 
 restoring Joseph to him, and because his prayer for burial in Canaan 
 was granted, and because the oath which he had asked from Joseph, 
 and which Joseph had just sworn, was a solemn appeal to Almight) 
 God. To His great name, in thankful adoration, the aged Patriarch, 
 the pilgrim of one hundred and forty-seven years, bowed his head, 
 leaning on the staff of his pilgrimage, the emblem of that power which 
 had supported him in all his wanderings, and which had now brought 
 him near to his end in peace.' 
 
 A Man's Shadow marking the Time. 
 
 JOB vii. 2 : * As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling 
 looketh for the reward of his work.' 
 
 Question. What custom connected with day-labourers may we 
 suppose is referred to in this passage ? 
 
 Answer. It may be that the verse should bear the simple 
 meaning, ' As the bond-slave daily panteth after the shade, and *& 
 
 22 
 
338 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 ihe hireling longeth for the end of his work.' Then the allusion is 
 to the severity of the restraint and toil under which the bond-slave is 
 placed. Exhausted with the heat he longs for shade ; weary with 
 long hours he sighs for night and rest. Nothing is more grateful in 
 Oriental countries, when the sun pours down intensely on burning 
 sands, than the shadow of a tree, or the shade of a projecting rock. 
 And it is common to all languages to speak of night as enveloped 
 with shadows. 
 
 But it is quite possible that the speaker had in mind a familiar 
 Eastern custom, of which there are traces among country people 
 even in our own land and time the custom of standing in the 
 sunshine and guessing the time from the length of the shadow 
 thrown by the man's own body. The daily practice of this custom, 
 and daily observance of the position of the sun, enables men by this 
 means to calculate the time with surprising exactness. 
 
 Roberts tells us that * the people of the East measure time by the 
 length of their shadow. Hence, if you ask a man what o'clock it is, 
 he immediately goes in the sun, stands erect, then looks where his 
 shadow terminates : he measures the length with his feet, and tells 
 you nearly the time. Thus they earnestly desire the shadow^ which 
 indicates the time for leaving their work. A person wishing to leave 
 his toil often cries out, " How long my shadow is in coming !" When 
 asked, " Why did you not come sooner ?" his answer is, " Because I 
 waited for my shadow.'" 
 
 We have seen it stated that in some parts. of England it was 
 customary, a few years ago, before watches became common, for all 
 labourers, whom a long familiarity had taught the direction in which 
 the fields lay in respect to the cardinal points of the heavens, when 
 they wished to ascertain the hour of the day, to turn their faces 
 towards the north, and observe the bearing of their own shadow. 
 By this simple expedient they would often guess within a few minutes 
 of the time. 
 
 Lifting up the Head. 
 
 GENESIS xl. 13 : ' Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and 
 restore thee unto thy place.' (See ver. 19.) 
 
 Question. Is this an ordinary poetical figure of 'restoration] or 
 is it based on some particular Oriental custom ? 
 
 Answer. Stackhouse gives a very interesting explanation, which 
 seems so reasonable that we are disposed to accept it as the true 
 one. He says that the ancients, in keeping their reckonings, or 
 accounts of time, or their list of domestic officers or servants, made 
 
LIFTING UP THE HEAD. 3o9 
 
 use of tables with holes bored in them, in which they put a sort ot 
 pegs, or nails with broad heads, exhibiting the particulars, either 
 number or name, or whatever it was. These nails or pegs the Jews 
 call heads, and the sockets of the heads they call bases. The mean- 
 ing, therefore, of Pharaoh's lifting up his head is, that Pharaoh would 
 take out the peg, which had the cupbearer's name on the top of it, to 
 read it ; that is, would sit in judgment, and make examination into 
 his accounts ; for it seems very probable that both he and the baker 
 had been either suspected or accused of having cheated the king, 
 and ',hat, when their accounts were examined and cast up, the one 
 was acquitted, while the other was found guilty. And though Joseph 
 uses the same expression in both cases, yet we may observe that, 
 speaking to the baker, he adds, that Pharaoh shall lift up thy head 
 from off thee, that is, shall order thy name to be struck out of the 
 lists of his servants, by taking thy peg out of the socket 
 
 Under the Rod. 
 
 LEVITICUS xxvii. 32 : * And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, 
 even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the 
 Lord.' 
 
 Question. Does this refer to an ordinary method of counting 
 animals, OT to some special method adopted for reckoning the tithe ? 
 
 Answer. There is nothing special about the figure here used ; 
 and the idea that ' passing under the rod ' represents our times of 
 affliction, belongs entirely to the sphere of Christian sentiment. 
 
 A Christian missionary admirably explains the figure. He says : 
 ' In Syria, just below my house, which stood facing the Mediterranean 
 Sea, there was a sheepfold a large area surrounded by high walls. 
 It had but one entrance, a little gateway near the corner. It was 
 long and narrow, and a man must stoop to get into it. Every night 
 the shepherd brings home his flock from outside the city, or from the 
 distant field, or the mountain side, to be gathered into this fold. And 
 as they pass into this narrow gateway, they must go one by one. No 
 huddling, and crowding, and jostling, as boys do sometimes at play ; 
 but, as they pass in, the shepherd stands by the gate, and holds his 
 crook over them, to count them one by one as they go in. Every 
 night the shepherd does this, and so he knows if any are leic out in 
 the field or on the mountains.' This counting of the sheep, as they 
 pass under the rod, is referred to in the above passage, as will be 
 clearly seen by comparing it with Jer. xxxiii. 13. 'In the cities of 
 the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities 01 the south, 
 
 22 2 
 
340 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and 
 in the cities of Judaea, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of 
 him that telleth (counteth) them.' ' This is a work of restoration, 
 and the fields there shall have flocks in great number, and they shal) 
 pass under the hand of the shepherd, who tells them one by one as 
 he gathers them into the fold.' 
 
 Wordsworth's note on the verse gives a similar explanation. ' As 
 the sheep went of their own accord out of the fold they were to be 
 counted, and every tenth of the increase was to be given to the 
 Lord.' 
 
 Jamieson adds to our knowledge of the shepherd customs alluded 
 to. He says : ' This refers to the mode of taking the tithe of cattle, 
 which were made to pass singly through a narrow gateway, where a 
 person with a rod, tipped in ochre, stood, and counting them, marked 
 the back of every tenth beast, whether male or female, sound or 
 unsound.' 
 
 Monthly Prognosticators. 
 
 ISAIAH xlvii. 13 : * The astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticates. * 
 Heb. : 'Those that give knowledge concerning the months.' 
 
 Question. Can this distinct class be identified ; and can their 
 precise work be explained? 
 
 Answer. Canon Rawlinson tells us that 'the Assyrian and 
 Babylonian libraries contained hundreds of tablets, copied with the 
 utmost care, on which were recorded the exorcisms, the charms, the 
 talismans, and the astronomical prognostics, which had come down 
 from a remote antiquity, and which were implicitly believed in. The 
 celestial phenomena were constantly observed, and reports sent to the 
 court from observatories, which formed the ground-work of confident 
 predictions. Eclipses were especially noted, and, according to the 
 month and day of their occurrence, were regarded as portending 
 events, political, social, or meteorological. 
 
 1 The division of the learned class into three distinct bodies, devoted 
 to different branches of the mystic lore in which all participated, 
 receives illustration from the native remains, where the literature of 
 magic comes under three principal heads: (i) written charms or 
 talismans, which were to be placed on the bodies of sick persons, 
 or on the doorposts of afflicted houses ; (2) formulae of incantation, 
 which had to be recited by the learned men in order to produce their 
 proper effect ; and (3) records of observations, intended to serve as 
 grounds for the prediction of particular events, together with collec- 
 
MONTHL Y PROGNOSTICA TORS. 341 
 
 tions of prognostications from eclipses or other celestial phenomena, 
 regarded as having a general applicability. The preparation of the 
 written charms or talismans was probably the special task of the 
 *' magicians," or Khertummim, whose name is formed from the root 
 Kheret, which signifies an " engraving tool " or " stylus." The 
 composition and recitation of the formulae of incantation belonged 
 to the ash shaphim or meca shaphim, the " astrologers" and " sorcerers" 
 of our version, whose names are derived from the root ashaph or 
 cashaph) which means to " mutter." The taking of observations and 
 framing of tables of prognostics is probably to be assigned to the 
 gdzerhn or "dividers," in our version "soothsayers," who divided 
 the heavens into constellations or "houses" for astronomical and 
 astrological purposes.' 
 
 Henderson thinks that the astronomers of Babylon published a 
 monthly table of the leading events that might be expected to 
 happen. 
 
 Professor Sayce gives some additional information. He says : * Even 
 the science of the Babylonians and their Assyrian disciples was not 
 free from superstition. Astronomy was mixed with astrology, and 
 their observation of terrestrial phenomena led only to an elaborate 
 system of augury. The false assumption was made that an event 
 was caused by another which had immediately preceded it ; and 
 hence it was laid down that whenever two events had been observed 
 to follow one upon the other, the recurrence of the first would cause 
 the other to follow again. The assumption was an illustration of the 
 well-known fallacy : " Post hoc, ergo propter hoc." It produced both 
 the pseudo-science of astrology and the pseudo-science of augury. 
 The standard work an astronomy was that called " The Observations 
 of Bel," compiled originally for the library of Sargon I. at Accad. 
 Additions were made to it from time to time, the chief object of the 
 work being to notice the events which happened after each celestial 
 phenomenon. Thus the occurrences which at different periods 
 followed a solar eclipse on a particular day were all duly introduced 
 into the text, and piled, as it were, one upon the other. The table of 
 contents prefixed to the work showed that it treated of various matters 
 eclipses of the sun and moon, the conjunction of the sun and 
 moon, the phases of Venus and Mars, the position of the pole-star, 
 the changes of the weather, the appearance of comets, or, as they are 
 called, " stars with a tail behind and a corona in front," and the 
 like.' 
 
342 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Reconciliation Presents. 
 
 GENESIS xx. 14, 16 : 'And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants 
 and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah hL, 
 wife. . . . And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand 
 pieces of silver : behold, it is for thee a covering of the eyes to all that are with 
 thee ; and in respect of all thou art righted ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. // does not seem easy to understand why Abimelech 
 made these presents, seeing that, if he acted violently ', he was led into 
 his act by Abraham's deception. 
 
 Explanation. The Septuagint renders this verse thus : 'These 
 shall be to thee for an honour of thy countenance, and to all the 
 women that are with thee ; and speak the truth in all things.' 
 
 The Vulgate renders thus : 'This shall be to thee for a veil of the 
 eyes to all that are with thee, and wheresoever thou shalt go ; and 
 remember that thou hast been detected.' 
 
 Dean Payne Smith thinks the correct rendering probably is : * And 
 unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother (a gift worth) a 
 thousand (pieces) of silver : behold, it shall be to thee for a covering 
 of the eyes to all that are with thee (that is, so large a compensation 
 for the wrong done thee in taking thee from thy husband, will be a 
 proof to all thy friends and attendants that thou hast not been dis- 
 graced, but treated with honour) ; and in respect of all that has 
 happened thou art thus righted.' 
 
 Wordsworth gives the three possible explanations. 'The sense 
 seems to be, I have been to blame, and acknowledge my sin, and 
 make restitution for it. But thou art not altogether free from fault 
 If thou hadst been on thy guard, and hadst kept thyself from public 
 view, as a modest matron ought to do in a strange land, I should not 
 have been beguiled to do what I have done. And now I have given 
 to him, who is thy husband, and whom thou didst call thy brother, ::. 
 thousand pieces of silver ; let this be to thee a covering of thim 
 eyes ; let it be an offering from me to expiate my offence, and to 
 appease thee, and to prevent thee from looking on me with anger. 
 
 * Perhaps, also, the words may be applied in another sense. Let 
 this sum be for the covering of thine eyes in the provision of veils 
 for thy face wherever thou goest, so that thou mayest not ensnarr 
 others, as thou hast ensnared me, but mayest be attired with shame- 
 facedness and modesty. This exposition is confirmed by what is 
 related of Rebekah (ch. xxiv. 65), that when she heard of Isaac'.-* 
 approach, she dismounted from her camel, and covered her head 
 with a veil. 
 
RECONCILIA TION PRESENTS. 343 
 
 'Perhaps, also, there may be an allusion here to the usage of 
 covering a bride with a veil ; and Abimelech may also intend to say, 
 I have given a thousand pieces of silver to thy brother, who is hence- 
 forth to be declared to be thy husband ; let this be as a dowry from 
 me, and let it be applied to procure thee a bridal veil, so that all 
 may know thee to be married to him, and so prevent thee from pre- 
 tending to be his sister, and protect thy modesty from encroach- 
 ments.' 
 
 As a general rule, the simplest explanation of a Scripture figure is 
 likely to be the correct one ; and we often err in searching for deep 
 meanings when the one that is ready to hand is quite satisfactory. 
 In this case we prefer the very simple, and almost prosaic interpreta" 
 tion, that the money was a charge to purchase veils for Sarah and 
 her attendants, who in tent-life had not worn them, that she might 
 henceforth be known as a married woman, exclusively belonging to 
 her husband. There is good reason for the statement, that unmarried 
 females among the pastoral tribes do not wear any kind of veil, and 
 married women only partially veil the face by means of a kerchief. 
 In towns the face is wholly covered. Abimelech, familiar with the 
 custom of the towns, and deceived by the freer customs of pastoral 
 life, counsels Sarah to get a veil and shade her face altogether with 
 the kind of veil worn by women in the towns. 
 
 Communication by Signs. 
 
 I SAMUEL xx. 20: 'And I will shoot three arrows on the side thereof, as 
 though I shot at a mark.' 
 
 Question. Did not Jonathan make a needless mystery of this 
 communication with David, especially as, after the formal signs, he 
 ventured upon personal i?itercourse with him ? 
 
 Answer. Jonathan was placed in very difficult circumstances ; 
 and we must carefully distinguish between what actually happened, 
 and what he feared might happen, and therefore must be guarded 
 against. David ran serious risks in thus venturing into the neigh- 
 bourhood of the enraged Saul. Jonathan ran very serious risks in 
 venturing to communicate with his friend. Saul was so suspicious 
 of Jonathan that he would hardly let him leave his presence, and it 
 was most unlikely that he would allow him to leave the vicinity of 
 the court without having one of the officers attendant upon him. In 
 that case he could only convey information to David through some 
 sign previously agreed on between them. 
 
 Things turned out very much better than Jonathan could possibly 
 
344 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 have anticipated. Under the excuse of going to practise archery, 
 Jonathan managed to get away from the court with no other 
 attendant than a little lad to carry his arrows. But he had to be 
 cautious, as even this lad might tell on him. So he carried through 
 the sign just as he had arranged with David ; he sent back the boy 
 with the arrows, and then he could venture safely upon a brief 
 converse with his friend. The boy was quite unsuspicious. If he 
 thought that his master soon got tired of his practising that day, it 
 would be but a passing thought to one who had been taught implicitly 
 to obey. 
 
 We need not hesitate to say that, by their very nature, Eastern 
 people prefer scheming and roundabout and half-deceptive ways of 
 acting to those which we consider blunt and straightforward. They 
 enjoy acting by signs, and getting up little plots ; and there may 
 have been something of this disposition even in Jonathan. 
 
 Cursing the Day. 
 
 JOB iii. 8 : ' Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse up 
 leviathan ' (Rev. Ver. ). 
 
 Question. On what popular astronomical notions is this poetical 
 figure based? 
 
 Answer. The general idea of the first clause of this verse seems 
 to be this, * Let those who proclaim days unlucky or accursed curse 
 that day as pre-eminently so ; or let them recollect that day as a 
 standard or sample of cursing. "Let it be as cursed as Job's birth- 
 day.'" The Speaker's Commentary thinks there is evidently an 
 allusion to ancient and widespread superstitions : * One of the earliest 
 and most natural corruptions of religious feeling was a desperate 
 struggle against the powers of nature ; the sorcerer was believed, and 
 believed himself, to be able to arrest the course of day and night by 
 incantations. It does not follow that Job adopted the belief, though 
 he found in it apt expression of his feelings. 
 
 The second clause was translated, in the Authorised Version, 
 * who are ready to raise up their mourning.' If that translation could 
 stand, the allusion would be to the hired mourners of the East, who 
 clamorously bewail family calamities. But the Revised Version is 
 undoubtedly the correct one in this case. Leviathan is the crocodile, 
 used here as a symbol of the dragon, the enemy of light, who, in 
 old Eastern traditions, is conceived as ready to swallow up sun and 
 moon, and plunge creation in original chaos and darkness. 
 
 Wordsworth says, without approving of the suggestion, because he 
 
CURSING THE DAY. 345 
 
 prefers a vague spiritualizing of the passage : ' Some modern expositors 
 suppose that there is a reference here to the Oriental mythology, in 
 which it was imagined that there is a great dragon among the heavenly 
 bodies (called in Hindu rdhii) who is subject to incantations, and 
 who chases the sun and moon, in order to swallow them up in 
 darkness.' 
 
 Herodotus reports a people of Africa, living in the vicinity of 
 Mount Atlas, who were accustomed to curse the day and the sun. 
 He says : ' Of all mankind, of whom we have any knowledge, the 
 Atlantes alone have no distinction of names ; the body of the people 
 are termed Atlantes, but their individuals have no appropriate 
 appellation. When the sun is at the highest, they heap on it 
 reproaches and execrations, because their country and themselves 
 are parched by its rays.' 
 
 So far as we can trace the associations of the passage, it appears 
 that leviathan was regarded as the dragon, an astro-mythological 
 being, which has its place in the heavens. Whether it be the con- 
 stellation still known by the name ' Draco,' or Dragon, or whether it 
 be Serpens or Hydra, constellations lying further south, it is not 
 possible to decide. But the dragon, in ancient popular opinion, had 
 the power to follow the sun and moon, to enfold, or even to swallow 
 them, and thus cause night. Eastern magicians pretended to possess 
 the power of rousing up the dragon to make war upon the sun 
 and moon. Whenever they wished for darkness they had but to 
 <:urse the day and hound on the dragon to extinguish for a time the 
 lamp that enlightened the world. Job, in hi? bittetness, curses the 
 day of his birth, and utters the wish that those who control 
 leviathan would, or could, blot that day and its deeds from the page 
 ot history. 
 
HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Salt Swept Out. 
 
 MATTHEW v. 13 : 'If the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted ? 
 it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and trodden under foot of 
 men.' 
 
 Question. Is this a strong poetical figure of speech, or is it based 
 upon actual observation of facts of Eastern life ? 
 
 Answer. The salt of Palestine differs materially from that with 
 which we are familiar, as obtained from salt-rocks or salt-water, and 
 carefully purified. There is an inexhaustible supply of salt on the 
 southern shores of the Dead Sea. Robinson describes a mountain of 
 fossil salt in that district, which is five miles in length, and one of 
 the chief sources of the salt in the sea itself. Saltpits, formed in the 
 marshes at the southern end of the lake, are completely coated with 
 salt, which is deposited periodically by the rising of the waters. It 
 was the belief of the Jews that salt would, by exposure to the air, 
 lose its virtue, and become saltless. Maundrell gives some support 
 to this notion by his assertion that he found the surface of a salt- 
 rock in this condition. 
 
 It does not appear, however, that the above passage was regarded 
 as other than a strong figure of speech, or illustration, until 
 Dr. Thomson, the writer of * The Land and the Book,' recorded for 
 us the precise Eastern association. Now we know that our Lord 
 literally described a scene of everyday Eastern life. This is one of 
 the most striking things for which we are indebted to Dr. Thomson. 
 He says : ' It is plainly implied that salt, under certain conditions so 
 generally known as to permit him to found his instruction upon 
 them, did actually lose its saltness ; and our only business is to dis- 
 cover these conditions, not to question their existence. Nor is this 
 difficult. I have often seen just such salt, and the identical disposi- 
 tion of it that our Lord has mentioned. A merchant of Sidon having 
 farmed of the Government the revenue derived from the importation 
 of salt, brought over an immense quantity from the marshes of 
 Cyprus enough, in fact, to supply the whole province for at least 
 twenty years. This he had transferred to the mountains, to cheat 
 the Government out of some small percentage. Sixty-five houses in 
 June Lady Stanhope's village were rented and filled with salt. 
 These houses have merely earthen floors, and the salt next the 
 ground is in a few years entirely spoiled. I saw large quantities of 
 
SALT SWEPT OUT. 347 
 
 it literally thrown into the street, to be trodden under foot of men 
 and beasts. It was " good for nothing." Similar magazines are 
 common in this country, and have been from remote ages, as we 
 learn from history both sacred and profane ; and the sweeping out of 
 the spoiled salt and casting it into the street, are actions familiar to 
 
 All men It is a well-known fact that the salt of this country^ 
 
 when in contact with the earth, or the rain and sun, does become 
 insipid and useless. From the manner in which it is gathered, 
 much earth and other impurities are necessarily connected with it. 
 Not a little of it is so impure that it cannot be used at all, and such 
 salt soon effloresces and turns to dust not to fruitful soil, however. 
 It is not only good for nothing itself, but it actually destroys all fertility 
 wherever it is thrown, and this is the reason why it is cast into the 
 street. There is a sort of verbal verisimilitude in the manner in which 
 our Lord alludes to the act " It is cast out" and "trodden under foot." 
 So troublesome is this corrupted salt, that it is carefully swept up, 
 carried forth, and thrown into the street. There is no place about 
 the house, yard, or garden where it can be tolerated. No man will 
 allow it to be thrown on to his field, and the only place for it is the 
 street ; and there it is cast, to be trodden under foot of men.' 
 
 Release by 'Corban.' 
 
 MATTHEW xv. 5, 6 : * But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his 
 mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me ; and honour 
 not his father or his mother, he shall be free. That wherewith thou mightest have 
 been profited by me is given to God ' (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Question. What explanation can be given of this immoral 
 Rabbinical custom ? 
 
 Answer. So great was the solemnity attached to vows, whether 
 they were rightly or wrongly made, that the Rabbins were prepared 
 to argue that it was of less importance that parents should be 
 honoured, than that a vow should be broken. It is the universal 
 penalty that follows on attaching undue importance to forms, that 
 presently they come to override even the great natural laws of 
 human associations, and the Divinely announced commandments of 
 the Decalogue. Ecclesiastical rules come to be valued above 
 Divine laws; and ecclesiastical rules can be made to excuse the 
 neglect of the first and essential human duties. 
 
 This Rabbinical custom is not, however, generally understood, 
 and, indeed, it is so repulsive to all men of noble and generous feel- 
 ing, that it is difficult to secure for it a patient consideration. It 
 seems to have been established as a principle that any man was at 
 liberty to make a vow consecrating his property, or any portion of it, 
 
348 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 to the service of the Temple, after his decease ; or even during 
 his life, with the understanding that he would keep the use of it 
 so long as he needed. Properly speaking, such ' devotements ' 
 ought always to be thankofferings for special mercies received, and 
 they ought only to have been accepted when they had such a 
 religious feeling inspiring them.' 
 
 But such a custom of * devotements ' was open to serious abuse 
 by unprincipled men. If a man's property was in peril of being 
 seized by his creditor, he could at least save the life-use of it by 
 making it a gift to the Temple. And if any special claim as by 
 parents or brothers was made on a certain portion of his property, 
 he successfully evaded the claim by affirming that the particular por- 
 tion had been devoted, by a vow, to the service of God. ' Corban ' 
 denotes anything offered to God or the service of the Temple. 
 'Almost every possession a man had might be rendered " Corban " by 
 him, even his own person; and, when once offered to God, the 
 article was sacred, and could on no account be turned to a secular 
 use until redeemed. All that was necessary was that a man should 
 say respecting a given thing, " May this be as the Temple to me ;" or, 
 " as the altar," etc. ; or, "as the (sacred) fire," etc. ; or, "as the sacrifice 
 to me." Thereupon a man, being displeased with his aged or poor 
 parents, might free himself from all obligation to support them by 
 merely pronouncing one of these forms; and then, when either father or 
 mother appealed to him for aid, he would say, " Whatever I might 
 have bestowed on you is now Corban." And the Pharisees, as 
 Christ complains, insisted on the fulfilment of this execrable vow, 
 even though it necessitated the violation of natural instinct, as well 
 as the command, " Honour thy father and thy mother." In fact, there 
 was no duty a villain might not shun by this infamous procedure.' 
 
 The Talmud actually teaches that everyone ought to honour his 
 father and his mother, or to support them if they were poor, unless 
 he has vowed to the contrary. We cannot wonder that such abomi- 
 nable doctrines excited our Lord's utmost indignation, and drew 
 from Him one of His severest censures. 
 
 Anointing the Sick. 
 
 JAMES v. 14 : ' Is any sick among you ? let him call for the elders of the church ; 
 and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.' 
 
 Difficulty. There does not seem to be any reasonable connection 
 between anointing with oil and praying^ and there is no other case in 
 which such use of oil is taught as a Christian duty. 
 
 Explanation. Instead of making a careful inquiry into the 
 ordinary use of oil by the people of Eastern countries, and in that 
 
ANOINTING THE SICK. 349 
 
 direction seeking for the explanation of the allusions made by 
 St. James, it has been the fashion to associate this anointing of the 
 ;ick with the official anointing of priests and kings, and, perhaps, 
 )rophets. In this way a symbolical and sacramental character has 
 )een given to what is really a simple custom of ordinary family life. 
 This verse offers an illustrative instance of the common mistake of 
 eekmg extraordinary explanations of Scripture, when a very simple 
 md everyway satisfactory explanation lay close at hand. 
 
 Oil is in familiar use in the East as an article of the toilet. It 
 akes very much the place for them of our pomades and scents. 
 But it seems that the use of oil for the toilet was regarded as a sign 
 >f health, and the neglect of oil was just as precisely the sign that a 
 nan was out of health. Those who were sick were not allowed to be- 
 inointed, nor were those who were passing through a time of mourning. 
 
 The ancient customs and sentiments in relation to anointing may 
 >e effectively illustrated by our customs, or the custom of our fathers,, 
 n connection with the shaving of the beard. The man who is ill 
 icither troubles about shaving, nor will his friends trouble him ; and 
 he half-grown beard is a sign that the man is sick. As soon as he 
 ;ets better and begins to take his place again in life, he will be sure 
 
 shave, and show due regard to his personal appearance. We 
 mow the sick man of the West is better by his asking for the shaving 
 nstruments. We know the sick man of the East is better by his 
 sking for the oil necessary to make his toilet. 
 
 It may be expressed precisely thus : ' The sick man will neither 
 rouble himself, nor be troubled about shaving ; but as soon as he 
 >egins to recover he will return to his old and cleanly habits. So the 
 ncients would neglect daily anointing while under sickness, and 
 heir return to their old ways was the sign of recovering health. 
 Vhen, therefore, James enjoins the elders to anoint the sick that 
 5, at once make his usual toilet after prayers for his restoration, he 
 eally says just this, " Pray for him with full faith, and show that you 
 ave such strong faith, by acting towards him as if he really were 
 ecovered. Whatever things ye ask when ye pray, believe that ye 
 eceive them, and ye shall have them. Anoint the sick man as if he 
 f ere restored to health again." ' The elders were to * help him rise 
 om the bed, wash, anoint his head and dress, and rejoice with him 
 
 1 view of the healing mercies of God.' 
 
 If they had faith, they should give that faith active expression ; 
 icy should ' show it by their works '; the particular works which 
 ould best show it in this case were, that they should at once pro- 
 eed to wash, dress, and anoint the sick man, as if they were quite 
 ure that God had heard their prayer and made him well. 
 
350 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 With this may be compared our Lord's demand for some acl 
 which would give an outward expression to faith. Thus, in the 
 case of the man with the withered hand, our Lord commanded him 
 to * stretch forth his hand.' The man might fairly have said, 'That 
 is just what I cannot do.' But he could if he believed. So in the 
 case of the paralyzed man. Jesus said, ' Take up thy bed, and walk/ 
 A paralyzed man bidden to walk ! But he could if he believed, and 
 the trying was the show of faith. 
 
 As some authority may be desired for an explanation which may 
 be accepted only with hesitation, on the very ground of its extreme 
 simplicity, we give the following passages from Van Lennep's Bible 
 Customs in Bible Lands, pp. 133, 134: 
 
 * The use of oil in anointing the body appears to have been general 
 in ancient times among all the nations dwelling around the 
 Mediterranean. Allusions to this use abound in all ancient authors. 
 The heroes of Homer are described by him as restoring their wearied 
 limbs after a battle by frictions of oil. This was Alexander's 
 practice. It was Pompey's daily habit also, as well as that of all the 
 wealthy Romans. We find this custom alluded to in the Scriptures, 
 both of the Old and New Testaments. It is mentioned as forming a 
 habitual part of the toilet on special occasions (Ruth iii. 3 ; 2 Sam. 
 xii. 20; Micah vi. 15) not to be indulged in in case of mourning 
 (2 Sam. xiv. 2 ; Dan. x. 2, 3). The head was anointed in connection 
 with the daily recurring ablution, as mentioned in Matt. vi. 1 7. 
 
 The 'extreme unction' practised by the Roman Church is defended 
 by a misinterpretation of the passage in James, for extreme unction 
 is never applied until it is considered certain that the patient is 
 about to die ; whereas the words in James, as well as in Mark vi. 13, 
 connect anointing the sick with recovery. We do not consider that 
 in these cases oil was used either as a means or a symbol ; the 
 anointing was simply an exercise of faith, similar to Peter and John's 
 saying to the lame man at the gate of the Temple called Beautiful, 
 ' Rise up and walk.' The elders of the church, after praying for the 
 sick man, were to treat him as though he were recovered. 
 
 Fire-Salting. 
 
 MARK ix. 49 : ' For everyone shall be salted with fire.' 
 Difficulty. Since salt and fire are such different agencies, it is 
 
 perplexing thus to find them associated together. 
 
 Explanation. This is >ne of the most difficult passages in 
 
 Mark's Gospel, both the meaning of the terms and the connection 
 
FIRE-SALTING. 351 
 
 vith what goes before being doubtful and obscure. Among the 
 -ariotis interpretations which have been proposed, one or two points 
 eem to be agreed upon, which may therefore be first stated, as 
 i basis for determining the other questions. It is commonly admitted 
 hat the last clause of this verse is an allusion to, if not a direct 
 potation from, the law of sacrifice in Lev. ii. 13, from the Septuagint 
 ersion of which it differs only by the change of * gift ' to ' sacrifice,' 
 i term used in the older classics to denote the sacrificial act or ser- 
 ice, but in later Greek extended to the sacrificial victims, or the 
 inimals admitted to the altar. It is also agreed that there is allusion 
 
 the antiseptic and conservative effects of salt, and that these are 
 iguratively transferred to fire. But what fire is meant, and in what 
 ense it is conservative, and how the whole verse is related to what 
 ;oes before and follows, these are questions as to which there is a 
 ;reat diversity of judgment. The different hypotheses entitled to 
 ittention may, however, be reduced to two, essentially distinguished 
 >y the fact that one of them regards this as a promise, and the 
 )ther as a threatening or warning. According to the former view, 
 >ur Lord, referring to the well-known requisition of the law already 
 nentioned, that every sacrificial victim must be salted that is, 
 ubbed or sprinkled with salt and also to the universal association 
 )etween salt and soundness or purity of meats, avails Himself of 
 hese associations to assure His hearers that every one whom God 
 ipproves, or towards whom He has purposes of mercy, though He may 
 )ass through the fire of persecution and affliction, including the painful 
 ;elf-denial recommended in the previous context, will be purified and 
 ;aved thereby ; or, as an offering to God, salted with such fire, just 
 is the literal sacrifice was salted at the altar. This is certainly 
 
 1 good sense in itself, and favoured by the strong analogy of the 
 iery trial which Peter mentions in his First Epistle (iv. 12). The 
 Ejections to it are, that it gives to fire a sense entirely different from 
 hat in the preceding context, and that it does not explain the logical 
 :onnection indicated by the ' for.' The other explanation supposes 
 he connection to be this : Our Lord had six times spoken of eternal 
 orments as unquenchable fire, from which no man could escape without 
 ;elf-denial and the mortification of sin. The immediately preceding 
 rerse concludes with the solemn repetition of that fearful saying, 
 
 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,' *.&, 
 :heir sufferings are endless and unceasing. But how can the subject 
 )f such sufferings escape annihilation ? By being kept in existence 
 or the very purpose of enduring them. This awful fact he clothes 
 n a figurative form, derived from the sacrificial ritual of Moses. 
 
352 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Every victim must be rubbed with salt, the 'symbol of incorruptioa 
 and preservation ; so these victims shall be salted, not with salt, but 
 fire. The Divine wrath that consumes them will preserve them, *>., 
 from annihilation not from suffering, but for suffering. It is no 
 objection to this view of the passage that it takes salt in a sense 
 not justified by usage, which requires it to mean preservation for a 
 good end, or salvation. This is a mere assumption, just as easy to- 
 deny as to affirm. The essential idea of the figure is preservation 
 from destruction, or continued existence, and may just as well be 
 used both in a good and bad sense, as leaven (which the law 
 excluded from all offerings no less strictly than it required salt) is 
 used in both ; and just as we might say that the lost sinner will be 
 saved from annihilation, although not from ruin. On the other 
 hand, this interpretation has the advantage of continuing the train 
 of thought unbroken, taking fire in the same sense as throughout the 
 previous context, and concluding this terrific warning in a manner 
 far more appropriate than a promise of salvation by the fire of suffer- 
 ing, however pleasing and delightful in itself. (/. A. Alexander.) 
 
 Olshausen thinks the sense of the passage is this : * Because of the 
 general sinfulness of the race, every individual must be salted with 
 fire, either, on the one hand, by his entering, of his own free will, on 
 a course of self-denial and earnest purification from his iniquities; or, 
 on the other hand, by his being carried, against his will, away to the 
 place of punishment.' He adds that * the operation of salt is closely 
 allied to that of fire. The fire-baptism is the purification of the 
 saints through the salt of self-denial.' 
 
 Prophetic Dress. 
 
 MATTHEW iii. 4 : ' Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a 
 leathern girdle about his loins.' 
 
 Question. Does this represent the usual dress of the class of 
 men known as l prophets] or was it a designed imitation of the great 
 Elijah ? 
 
 Answer. This kind of dress is in so striking a way contrasted 
 with our dress, that we naturally think it must have been the badge 
 of a class. It is first necessary to recall to mind the fact, that the 
 Eastern dress usually consisted of a long under-garment, fastened 
 round the loins with a girdle, and an outer cloak or robe, which was- 
 readily taken off when work had to be done. The legs and feet 
 were left bare, except for the very light sandal used in walking. 
 
 In the towns great attention was paid to dress, and garments were 
 
PROPHETIC DRESS. 353 
 
 sold of fine materials, dyed with beautiful colours ; but in the desert 
 districts, and amongst the nomadic tribes, dress was altogether 
 simpler, and was often made from homespun cloth, out of the 
 materials provided by the large flocks of camels or sheep or goats. 
 The characteristic dress of Elijah was not, therefore, so strange or 
 so striking as we too easily imagine it to have been. It was the dress 
 of the people of the wilder part of Gilead, the usual garb of the Arab 
 races, to which he seems in part to have belonged. The shirt, or 
 inner coat, or tunic, was made of the long hair of the camel ; perhaps 
 the expression 'camel's hair' was a recognised trade term for a 
 certain article of merchandise, for we have read of goat's hair or wool 
 as being sold under the name * camel's hair.' Some idea of the 
 material is obtained by remembering that of it the tent-cloths were 
 made. The leathern girdle was provided from the skin of the 
 animals, and the mantle or cape was, in all probability, a sheep-skin 
 with the wool left on a kind of dress still worn by the peasants of 
 Palestine. 
 
 We are not told of any prophet before Elijah who wore a dis- 
 tinctive set of clothing, and we do not understand that Elisha, in this 
 matter, followed his master's example. But there are indications 
 that, later on, this kind of dress became established as the prophetic 
 garb. The only passage, however, that we can find strictly relevant 
 is Zech. xiii. 4, where reference is made to the prophet, and it is said, 
 as if this were the dress of the order and a sign of the calling, 
 ' Neither shall he wear a rough garment to deceive.' So far as a 
 prophet made a protest for God against the luxuries and extrava- 
 gances of an age, it might be necessary for him to wear such simple 
 clothing as would itself be a reproach and a testimony \ and from 
 this point of view we can understand the moral and educational 
 value of the distinctive garb of the Society of Friends, or so-called 
 Quakers. 
 
 Very much may be said for the view that John the Baptist under- 
 stood his mission to be to do, for his age, very much what Elijah 
 had done for his; and that, therefore, Elijah became a model 
 to him. We can also see that his manner of dress and living was in 
 strict accordance with his message. Both Elijah and he had to 
 demand repentance. Both had to testify against the luxuries of an 
 over-refined age. Both had to make a striking impression of their 
 separateness from the evils of their age. Both had to be in their own 
 persons 'spectacles,' persons drawing the attention of all men to 
 themselves, in order that attention might be obtained for their 
 message. And in this, sufficient reason may be found for John's 
 
354 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 imitation of Elijah, without assuming that the camel's hai-r tunic, 
 girdle of a strip of hide, and sheep-skin mantle, were the common 
 garb of all Old Testament prophets. No hint is given us that even 
 Jonah had any distinctive dress. Stanley tells us that Bedouins or 
 Dervishes, dressed almost precisely as Elijah and John, are still 
 familiar sights in the East. 
 
 The view that John's dress was not that of the prophetic class is 
 supported by Kitto, who says : ' He was clad in raiment which would 
 wear well, and required no care such as Elijah and other ancient 
 prophets wore, not as a distinctive of their profession (for John had 
 not yet been called to be a prophet), but as the dress of poor men, 
 and best suited to their condition. It is a dress which may still be 
 seen every day in the Syro-Arabian countries : a rough, but stout and 
 serviceable robe of camel's hair, or of camel's hair and wool combined, 
 bound about the waist by a broad girdle of stiff leather. 
 
 * Go up Higher.' 
 
 LUKE xiv. 10: 'That when he that bade thee cometh, he may say onto thee, 
 Friend, go up higher : then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that 
 sit at meat with thee. 
 
 Question. Does this involve that, in Eastern /eastings, the 
 respect in which each guest was held was intimated by the position in 
 which he was placed ? 
 
 Answer. Yes, there was great formality in the arrangements 
 made for feasts. Even in Roman dinner-parties, which were usually 
 composed of nine persons, three reclining on each triclinium, the 
 guest of the evening had the seat of honour, in the centre of the 
 middle triclinium ; the host had the centre of the one side, and the 
 next most honoured guest the centre of the remaining side. Each 
 chief person had his chief friends on the right and left of him. 
 
 Two or three illustrations of the Eastern customs may be given. 
 Schulz narrates the following incident : ' Towards evening the eldest 
 son of the consul (at Jean d'Acre, the ancient Ptolemais) conducted 
 me to the wedding-feast of a considerable Greek, whose father is a 
 priest, and his brother secretary to the Governor of Galilaea. All 
 the guests who were invited assembled, without distinction, in a 
 saloon, where they were inspected by the master of the ceremonies, 
 and some had to move higher and others lower ; and thus it 
 happened when we came, that two, who had already seated them- 
 selves at the top, were obliged to move down lower. 
 
 Mr. Morier^ giving an account of a feast he attended in Persia, 
 says : ' On alighting at the house we were conducted through mean 
 
UP HIGHER: 355 
 
 and obscure passages to a small square court, surrounded by apart- 
 ments, which were the habitations of the women, who had been 
 dislodged for the occasion ; and as we entered into a low room, we 
 there found our host waiting for us, with about a dozen more of his 
 friends. The ambassador from England* (whom Mr. Morier ac- 
 companied) ' was placed in the corner of honour, near the window, 
 and his host next to him, on his left hand. The other guests were 
 arranged round the room, according to their respective ranks. 
 When a Persian enters an assembly .... measuring with his eye 
 the degree of rank to which he holds himself entitled, he straightway 
 wedges himself into the line of guests, without offering any apology 
 for the disturbance which he produces. The master of the enter- 
 tainment has, however, the privilege of placing anyone as high in 
 the ranks of the assembly as he may choose, and we saw an instance 
 of it on this occasion ; for, when the assembly was nearly full, 
 the Governor of Kashan, a man of humble mien, though of con- 
 siderable rank, came in, and had seated himself at the lowest place, 
 the host, after having testified his particular attentions to him by 
 numerous expressions of welcome, pointed with his hand to an 
 upper seat in the assembly, to which he desired him to move, which 
 he accordingly did/ 
 
 With the formality characteristic of the Chinese, their hall of 
 audience and feasting is arranged as a quadrangle, the table along 
 the top, and ranges of seats down the room on each side. The 
 party invited enters, bowing as he advances, and is invited to sit 
 down, which he does by taking the seat at the bottom of the line. 
 He is scarcely seated, however, before he is told, in a peremptory 
 tone, a little softened by the melodious accent of kindness, to * come 
 up higher.' As soon as he has consented to this new arrangement, 
 the host sits down on the seat immediately below the stranger, and 
 thus awards to him the higher or more honourable place. 
 
 Selection of Sacrifices. 
 
 JOHN vi. 27 : ' Him hath God the Father sealed.' 
 
 Question. Is there any custom in relation to sacrifices from which 
 this figure of * sealing ' is taken ? 
 
 Answer. It was an established custom, in countries contiguous 
 to Judaea, for an appointed officer to examine carefully the various 
 animals presented for sacrifice, which were required to be in good 
 form and healthy condition, and to affix a mark or seal to those of 
 which he was enabled to approve. 
 
 232 
 
356 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 There is a passage in Herodotus, having reference to the selection 
 of white bulls for sacrifice in Egypt, which affords an effective illus- 
 tration : * If they find one black hair on the bull, they deem him 
 unclean. That they may know this with certainty, the priest ap- 
 pointed for this purpose examines the whole animal, both standing 
 up and lying down. If, after this search, the animal is found without 
 blemish, he signifies it by binding a label to his horns ; then, ap- 
 plying wax, he seals it with his ring, and the beast is led away. To 
 sacrifice one not thus sealed is deemed a capital crime.' 
 
 It is not precisely known in what form the Jewish officer attested 
 the suitability of a victim for sacrifice, but whatever mark was placed 
 upon it would take the form of a seal, as something separating it 
 for Divine use. In this sense our Lord was attested, and set apart 
 for sacrifice, by God the Father. This association of the passage 
 affords a richer meaning than the more common idea of affixing a 
 seal to a legal document. 
 
 Bringing Sick Folk to the Hakim. 
 
 MATTHEW iv. 24 : * And his fame went throughout all Syria : and they brought 
 unto him all sick people .... and he healed them.' 
 
 Question. Was the excitement produced by the healing power of 
 Jesus altogether new, or was this the usual Eastern way of seeking the 
 help of skilful doctors f 
 
 Answer. There is good reason for thinking that our Lord 
 arrested public attention mainly as a skilful physician. It would not 
 strike them that His methods of cure were so novel as they appear 
 to us. There was often as little apparent connection between the 
 remedies used by their Hakims (physicians) and the cures they 
 effected, as they could discern between the formulae or actions of 
 Jesus, and the results that followed. The main purpose of our 
 Lord's miracles of healing, so far as the people were concerned, was 
 to draw attention to Himself and to His message ; to prepare open 
 and grateful hearts in which the seed of His truth might find good 
 soil 
 
 So far as we can learn the methods of the physicians in the time 
 of Christ, we understand that there were no doctors resident in the 
 towns, as with us, to whom applications had to be made in cases of 
 need ; but men at times rose up, having, or professing to have, some 
 ' specific ' for a certain class of disease, a specific medicine, or a 
 specific treatment. Such a man would take the title of Hakim, and 
 journey about the country, everywhere having crowds of people 
 
BRINGING SICK FOLK TO THE HAKIM. 357 
 
 gathering round him, bringing their sick folk to the healer. The 
 Eastern doctor, indeed, is best represented by the vendor of patent 
 medicines in our market-places. Tidings of a few successful cures 
 would run swiftly through a wide district, and make a man's fame 
 quickly. 
 
 Our Lord worked in the lines of the public customs and senti- 
 ments of His age. His supreme aim was moral teaching ; His means 
 for securing an audience were the interest awakened in one who 
 could heal bodily diseases. And He could. He was the true power 
 of God ; and, for that very reason, aroused an amount of public 
 attention, which the mere mountebank, and even the judicious doctor, 
 could not hope to command. 
 
 Here, also, the common customs of Eastern lands differ so 
 materially from those with which we are familiar, that the incidents 
 of our Lord's life seem to us more extraordinary than they could 
 have appeared to them among whom He lived. Eastern customs 
 steadfastly abide, and we give two descriptions of the way in which 
 Hakims are treated at the present day. 
 
 Dean Stanley tells us : 'It was after a walk through the village of 
 Ehden, beneath the mountain of the cedars, our last Syrian expedi- 
 tion, in which we visited several of the churches and cottages of the 
 place, that we found the stairs and corridors of the castle of the 
 Maronite chief, Sheikh Joseph, lined with a crowd of eager appli- 
 cants, " sick people taken with divers diseases," who, hearing that 
 there was a medical man in the party, had thronged round him, 
 "beseeching him that he would heal them." I mention this incident 
 because it illustrates so forcibly those scenes in the Gospel history, 
 from which I have almost of necessity borrowed the language best 
 fitted to express the eagerness, the hope, the anxiety of the multitude 
 who had been attracted by the fame of his benevolent influence.' 
 
 And Gadsby says: 'When Dr. Richardson was in Jerusalem, 
 crowds of invalids, the halt, the blind, the lame, the sick of every 
 description, collected from all quarters around him, so that he found 
 it impossible to satisfy their demands. The patients seized upon 
 him, as if only he stood between them and death. They fell down 
 before him, grasped his legs, and kissed his feet, and supplicated 
 him, in the most earnest manner, to prescribe for their complaints. 
 Whether he was in his lodgings, or walked the streets, or sat down 
 in the market-place, he was equally beset. No sooner had he pre- 
 scribed for one, than another victim of disease pathetically assailed 
 him, and kept him in constant employment They, indeed, hunted 
 him over town and country.' 
 
35* HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 The Evil of Divorcements. 
 
 MATTHEW xix. 7 : * They say unto Him, Why did Moses then command to give 
 a writing of divorcement, and to put her away.' 
 
 Difficulty. Usually our Lord thoroughly supported Mosaic teach- 
 ings and institutions, what was there in this case, or in the customs of His 
 age, which led Him thus to oppose the Mosaic regulation, or permission ? 
 
 Explanation. If a permission is abused, it may properly be 
 withdrawn. There are conditions which make it better that even 
 the sacred marriage-bond should be severed. Strictly for such con- 
 ditions the Mosaic system provided. When formal religion took the 
 place of spiritual religion, the Rabbins busied themselves with elaborat- 
 ing the condition^ on which divorce could be allowed, until most 
 false impressions came to prevail in relation to the sanctity of the 
 marriage-tie ; and our Lord, whose life-work was to restore spiritual 
 religion, was compelled to sweep away all conditions of divorce, both 
 Rabbinical and Mosaic, in order that He might set men face to face 
 with the primary law of the relations of the sexes to each other. He 
 swept away the good limitation along with the evil additions, when 
 He found that the reasonable limitation was thus shamefully abused 
 
 The Divine idea is that, upon the basis of a pure mutual affection, 
 two lives, that of the man and the woman, should be so intimately 
 blended, that the two should have one purpose, one endeavour, be 
 in effect one flesh. 
 
 But as soon as men became what is called 'civilized/ marriage 
 was made an instrument for securing self-seeking ends. The sexes 
 were brought into life-association on other terms than mutual affec- 
 tion ; and, inevitably, there came repulsions from one another out 
 of the experience of the married state, and a whole host of moral 
 evils as the consequence of such repulsions. The laws of civilized 
 society must put the consequences under regulation, and arrange the 
 conditions on which those once 'joined together' may be ' put asunder. 
 
 Rabbinism seems to have cared neither for morals nor religion in 
 its endeavours to secure its sectarian ends ; and one of the worst 
 things it secured was a most perilous freedom of divorce, which 
 tended to destroy the family life, and to open a wide door for social 
 immoralities. A society can only keep pure by maintaining strict 
 marriage laws, giving right of divorcement only in cases of adultery, 
 and possibly also of personal cruelty. 
 
 Some idea of the shamefully loose character of Pharisaic teachings 
 on this subject may be obtained from the following passage : * The 
 Rabbis say, " If anyone see a woman handsomer than his wife, he 
 
THE EVIL OF DIVORCEMENTS. 359 
 
 may dismiss his wife and marry that woman." Even the strict 
 Schammai held that if a wife went out without being shrouded in 
 the veil which Eastern women still wear, she might be divorced ; and 
 hence many Rabbis locked up their wives when they went out. 
 While some held that divorce should be lawful only for adultery, 
 others, like Josephus, claimed the right to send away their wives if 
 they were not pleased with their behaviour. The school of Hillel 
 even maintained that if a wife cooked her husband's food badly, by 
 over-salting or over-roasting it, he might put her away ; and he might 
 also do so if she were stricken by any grievous bodily affliction. The 
 facility of divorce among the Jews had, indeed, become so great a 
 scandal, even among their heathen neighbours, that the Rabbis were 
 fain to boast of it as a privilege granted to Israel, but not to other 
 nations. ' Geikie. 
 
 Allen, in his Modern Judaism, tells us that ' Divorce is still very 
 common among the Eastern Jews ; in 1856 there were sixteen cases 
 among the small Jewish population of Jerusalem. In fact, a Jew 
 may divorce his wife at any time or from any cause, he being himself 
 the sole judge ; the only hindrance is that, to prevent divorces in a 
 mere sudden fit of spleen, the bill of divorce must have the con- 
 currence of three Rabbis, and be written on ruled vellum, containing 
 neither more nor less than twelve lines ; and it must be given in the 
 presence of ten witnesses.' 
 
 Our readers will be interested in the following specimen of a 
 modern bill of divorcement : 
 
 * On the fourth day of the week, on the eleventh day of the month 
 Chisleu, in the year five thousand four hundred and fifty-four from 
 the creation of the world ; according to the computation which we 
 follow here in the city of Amsterdam, which is called Amstelredam ; 
 situated by the side of the sea called Taya, and by the river Amstel. 
 I, Abraham, the son of Benjamin, surnamed Wolff, the priest ; and 
 at this time dwelling in the city of Amsterdam, which is called 
 Amstelredam, which is situated by the seaside called Taya, and by 
 the river Amstel ; or if I have any other name, or surname, or my 
 parents, or my place, or the place of my parents ; by my own free- 
 will, without any compulsion, do put away, dismiss, and divorce 
 thee, my wife Rebekah, the daughter of Jonah the Levite ; who at 
 this time resides in the city of Amsterdam, called Amstelredam, 
 situated by the seaside called Taya, and by the river Amstel ; 
 or if thou hast any other name, or surname, or thy parents, 
 or thy place, or the place of thy parents : Who wast hereto- 
 fore my wife; but now I put thee away, dismiss, and divorce 
 
360 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 thee ; so that from this time thou art in thine own power, and art at 
 thine own disposal, and mayest be married to any other man, whom 
 thou pleasest ; and let no man hinder thee in my name, from this 
 day forward, and for ever ; and lo, thou art free to any man. Let 
 this be to thee, from me, a bill of divorce, an instrument of dis- 
 mission, and a letter of separation, according to the law of Moses 
 
 and Israel. 
 
 1 SEALTIEL, the son of Paltiel, witness. 
 * CALONYMUS, the son of Gabriel, witness.' 
 
 Van Lennep, writing of life in Western Asia, forcibly illustrates the 
 evils of loose notions respecting divorce : * As a matter of fact, the 
 actual cause of divorce is not adultery, a crime punishable with death 
 when detected, which, however, rarely occurs. The usual causes of 
 divorce are a bad temper or extravagance in the wife, and the cruel 
 treatment or neglect of the husband. As the latter is not obliged to 
 pay the wife's dowry when she sues for divorce, he often treats her so 
 badly as to compel her to appeal to the judge for deliverance. We 
 have known a man, not forty years of age, who had successively 
 married and put away a dozen wives, having devoured the substance 
 of each in turn, and compelled her to seek a divorce on the ground 
 of utter neglect.' 
 
 Count Tolstoi, in his remarkable work, What / believe, says : * I 
 came to understand the full meaning of Christ's words, and saw that 
 God had created man and woman in order that they might live in 
 couples, and that what God had joined together should never be put 
 asunder. I now see clearly that monogamy is the natural law of 
 mankind, and must never be broken. I understand the words " he 
 who divorces his wife," that is, the woman to whom he was first 
 united, " forces her to commit adultery," and brings new evil into the 
 world. I consider as alone sacred and obligatory that union which, 
 once and for ever, binds a man to the first woman he loves.' 
 
 Love-Feasts in the Early Church. 
 
 ACTS ii. 42 : ' And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and 
 fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.' 
 
 Question. What relation may we suppose this * breaking of 
 bread ' to have borne to the observance of the Lord's Supper ? 
 
 Answer. A study of the literature of this subject leaves the 
 impression that there is very little actual information on which we 
 can rely, and that we are almost dependent on reasonable or un- 
 reasonable suppositions. WTiat seems to be quite clear is, that 
 
LOVE-FEASTS IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 361 
 
 Eastern communities, united by some philosophical, or social, or 
 religious bonds, are accustomed to take their common daily meal 
 together, one meal usually sufficing in Eastern countries. Such was 
 the custom of the Essenes ; and, in later times, of monks and 
 religious sects. The men of Sparta were provided with a daily 
 public meal, at the national expense. And further illustrations may 
 be found in the habits of the Mendicant Friars, the Apostolici, and 
 the Waldenses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
 
 Our Lord and his band of Apostles no doubt took their daily 
 meal together ; and, in the times of the great feasts, it was usual 
 for the companies coming up from the country to share together the 
 daily provision. 
 
 The expression c breaking of bread ' would not, standing by itself, 
 even suggest the Lord's Supper. It was the common expression 
 for an ordinary meal, and became such from the double fact that 
 Eastern bread is always broken by hand, and not cut with the knife ; 
 and that the head of the family, immediately after the saying of 
 grace, commenced the meal by the act of breaking a piece, or cake, 
 of bread. So far then as the expression, as used in the above 
 passage, goes, we are simply to understand by it that the new con- 
 verts shared in the daily meal of the apostolic company, which was 
 enlarged to meet the new and increased demands. 
 
 Such meals would, however, bear a solemn religious character, and 
 it is in no way unreasonable to assume that the one chief association 
 of them, in the minds of the apostles, would be the last meal they 
 had with Christ, on the night of His arrest. That association would 
 give tone to the conversation at such daily meals, and it would 
 gradually become fixed, so that it would be understood, by the 
 president, that it was his duty to bring the solemn scene of the 
 great Supper-night, and its hallowed teachings, before the minds of 
 the assembled company. We can even understand that, gradually, 
 the custom grew of actually imitating that act of Christ, in what we 
 know as the institution of the Supper. This is, probably, the genesis 
 of the Christian feast, which we now observe. 
 
 Whatever form this ' ordinance,' or * sacrament,' took, it is almost 
 universally admitted that, at first, it was a part probably the closing 
 part of the ordinary evening meal, or ' supper,' as it was called. 
 This is indeed clearly involved in the perils of self-indulgence which 
 St. Paul so forcibly deals with in i Cor. xi. How the Lord's Supper 
 came to be separated from the daily meal we are left to imagine ; 
 but, from the religious point of view, this was the only part of the 
 feast specially worth preserving, as having a worshipping and educa- 
 
362 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 live character : and so, when changes of social life made daily eating 
 together unadvisable or impossible, the remembrance of Christ with 
 the aid of the emblems of bread and wine was retained, and made a 
 distinct part of public Christian service. 
 
 There are no descriptions of these daily eatings together, as they 
 were presided over by the Apostles, and we have no reason for 
 thinking that they differed in general form from the united meals of 
 other communities at this period. We have descriptions of the 
 methods of observance in the time of the successors of the Apostles, 
 but, in considering them, we must make careful allowance for the 
 tendency to establish ceremonials, and get the free Christian life 
 fixed in precise and formal moulds. 
 
 We are told that the Christians of a given town or district came 
 together on a fixed day, probably the first day of the week, in some 
 large room, either hired, or lent by some wealthy Christian. The 
 materials of the meal varied according to the feeling or wealth of 
 the society. Bread and wine were essential, because used in that 
 more solemn commemorative act which came at some period in the 
 service. But they provided also meat, poultry, cheese, milk, and 
 honey ; and early paintings in the catacombs of Rome indicate that 
 fish was also used. If the feast was of this kind we can well under- 
 stand how gluttony and drunkenness became associated with it, and 
 called forth the indignant reproaches of the Apostle Paul. The cost 
 of the meal fell chiefly on the richer members of the church ; but it 
 is probable that each person was expected to bring his contribution 
 in money or in food. The women and men were seated at different 
 tables, perhaps on opposite sides of the room, and all waited until 
 the presbyter or bishop pronounced the blessing. Then they ate 
 and drank. At some time during the meal, one loaf was passed 
 round, and one cup, the cup of blessing, and of these all partook. 
 Then they washed their hands, and the more devotional part of the 
 evening began. Reports from district churches were read, those who 
 had gifts expounded, collections were made for the poor, and with 
 the kiss of charity the evening closed. Such meetings were designed 
 to be a witness and bond of the common brotherhood of Christians. 
 
 It is certainly a most strange thing that no commands in relation 
 to the Lord's Supper are given by any apostle, and that the reproof 
 of St. Paul is the only reference made in the New Testament to it. 
 No mention is made of it by the Apostolical fathers, Barnabas, 
 Polycarp, or Clement of Rome. Ignatius, in a doubtful passage, 
 make some very vague and uncertain allusions to it. Justin Martyr 
 (A.D. 148) gives two descriptions in nearly identical words. 'On 
 
LOVE-FEASTS IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 363 
 
 Sundays we all assemble in one place, both those who live in the 
 city and they who dwell in the country, and the writings of apostles 
 and prophets are read so long as the time permits. When the 
 reader stops, the president of the assembly makes an address, in 
 which he recapitulates the glorious things that have been read, and 
 exhorts the people to follow them. Then we all stand up together 
 and pray. After prayer, bread, wine, and water are brought in. 
 The president of the meeting again prays according to his ability, 
 and gives thanks, to which the people respond " Amen." After this, 
 the bread, wine, and water are distributed to those present, and the 
 deacons carry portions to such as are necessarily detained from the 
 meeting. Those who are able and willing contribute what they 
 please in money, which is given to the president of the meeting, and 
 is appropriated to the support of widows and orphans, the sick, the 
 poor, and whomsoever is necessitous.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre says that 'in proportion as the society became 
 larger, and the sense of brotherhood less living, the old social dis- 
 tinctions would tend to re-assert themselves. The agapae would 
 become either mere social entertainments for the wealthy, as at 
 Alexandria, or a mere dole of food for the poor, as in Western 
 Africa, and in either case would lose their original significance. 
 Other causes tended also to throw them into the background. When 
 Christians came to have special buildings set apart for worship, and 
 to look on them with something of the same local reverence that 
 the Jews had had for the Temple, they shrank from sitting down in 
 them to a common meal as an act of profanation. The agapae were, 
 inerefore, gradually forbidden to be held in churches, as by the 
 Council of Laodicea, that of third Carthage (A.D. 391), and that of 
 Trullo (A.D. 692).' The least of love was finally separated irom the 
 Eucharist, which, by the Council of third Carthage, was required to 
 be received lasting. 
 
 Selling Debtors. 
 
 MATTHEW xviii. 25 : But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded 
 him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to b? 
 made.' 
 
 Question. May not an argument be drawn from our Lord's 
 reference to slavery in favour of that domestic institution ? 
 
 Answer. It is necessary to distinguish carefully between slavery, 
 or compelled personal service, in Eastern countries, and the slavery 
 which properly aroused the indignation of our fathers, as practised in 
 
364 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the West Indies and America. Our Western idea, that man ought 
 never to be treated as property, seems very strange to the Eastern 
 mind, which is familiar with the tribal idea, which treats all the 
 members of the tribe as the absolute property of the chief. It may 
 also be remembered that Easterns do not punish by perpetual im- 
 prisonment, as our fathers did, for debt, or by penal servitude, as we 
 do for crime. To sell a person, and even his family, which was 
 dependent on him, along with him for debt, was a more hopeful way 
 of punishing him by restricting his liberty, than our method of com- 
 mitting to the dreadful associations of a Fleet prison. A man who 
 proved himself unable to manage money was wisely sentenced to 
 work all the rest of his life for another. 
 
 We do not, therefore, confuse things that differ. To use force 
 against a weaker race, rudely seize them from their homes, cruelly 
 ill-treat them, carry them away to foreign lands, sell them for profit, 
 and drive them to work with the lash, is all so utterly abominable 
 that one wonders how honourable men could ever have argued in 
 favour of such practices and such institutions. But to restrict a man's 
 liberty when it is proved that he does not know how to use it ; to 
 compel him to serve another when it is plain that he could not serve 
 himself, has only in it so much of degradation as is necessary to 
 constitute it a punishment 
 
 It may even be fairly argued, in favour of ancient and Eastern 
 institutions, that as there are individuals who are incapable of self- 
 management, and are best in the bondage and direction of personal 
 service, so there may be races which can develop better under con- 
 ditions of so-called slavery, than with the full trust of individual 
 liberty. But it is extremely difficult to persuade Western peoples 
 that the extreme demand which they make for personal freedom rests 
 upon a very local and circumscribed sentiment. Abraham's followers 
 never wanted to be free, because such slavery as they knew was no 
 irksome relationship. 
 
 Our Lord had no commission to alter the existing conditions of 
 society, and He therefore spoke in the terms familiar to His age. We 
 must clearly see that He referred to the slavery which He knew of, and 
 not to the slavery which has disgraced the later Christian centuries. 
 
 It may be noted that, in the case of slavery in payment of debt, 
 the debtor would have the chance of working out his debt, and so 
 recovering his personal freedom. This is an important mitigation of 
 the punishment and degradation. At least in the earlier times the 
 Year of Jubilee brought all slave-times to an end. 
 
WHO WERE THE HERODIANS1 365 
 
 Who were the Herodians ? 
 
 MARK iii. 6 : ' And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with 
 the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand by this term a distinct sect, or 
 is it another name for a well-known party? And in any case, what 
 could be the ground of their enmity against Christ! 
 
 Answer. Very little positive information is at hand concerning 
 this party or sect, which seems to have been political rather than re- 
 ligious, and to have united with the Jewish sects only on the ground 
 of a common animosity to one who claimed to be the Messiah. 
 
 Among a great many suppositions as to who or what they might 
 have been, one little piece of historical fact appears, which is narrated 
 by Dean Plumptre. He says that certain Jewish writers give the 
 origin of the Herodian sect thus : ' In the early days of Herod the 
 Great, when Hillel the great scribe was at the height of his fame, he 
 had as his colleague Menahem, possibly the son of the Essene of 
 that name, of whom Josephus tells us that he prophesied Herod's 
 future greatness, and, it may be, the father of the Manaen of 
 Acts xiii. i. This Menahem was tempted by the king's growing 
 power, and, with eighty followers, entered into his service, forsook 
 the ranks of the Pharisees, and appeared in gorgeous apparel glittering 
 with gold.' If this man was the founder of the party, by this act, we 
 can well understand what were its leading principles. 
 
 Tertullian and others say that they took their name from believing 
 Herod to be the Messiah, who was to raise the country to the highest 
 pitch of glory. We may be sure that they were strongly attached to 
 the family and rule of Herod; and, by consequence, very zealous 
 for the authority of the Romans, and the introduction of Roman 
 manners, games, and other heathen usages. Their desire to fully 
 re-establish the Herodian kingdom set them in deadly enmity against 
 Christ, who claimed to set up a new kingdom. Farrar thinks that 
 these Herodians were, on their religious side, mostly Sadducees ; 
 and he inclines to identify them with the Boethusim, a party who 
 were identified with Herod the Great, by marriage (through Mari- 
 amne, daughter of Simon, who was son of a certain Boethus of 
 Alexandria), and by worldly interests. 
 
 If we try to estimate the political movements of the age, we shall 
 see that there were probably many who saw ' in the power of the 
 Herodian family the pledge of the preservation of their national 
 existence in the face of Roman ambition. In proportion as they 
 regarded the independent nationality of the Jewish people as the 
 
3 66 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 first condition of the fulfilment of its future destiny, they would be 
 willing to acquiesce in the dominion of men who were themselves of 
 foreign descent, and not rigid in the observance of the Mosaic ritual. 
 Two distinct classes might thus unite in supporting what was a 
 domestic tyranny as contrasted with an absolute dependence on 
 Rome, those who saw in the Herods a protection against direct 
 heathen rule, which was the one object of their fear ; and those who 
 were inclined to look with satisfaction upon such a compromise 
 between the ancient faith and heathen civilization, as Herod the 
 Great and his successors had endeavoured to realize, as the true and 
 highest consummation of Jewish hopes. On the one side the 
 Herodians partisans of Herod in the widest sense of the term 
 were thus brought into union with the Pharisees ; on the other 
 with the Sadducees. Yet there is no reason to suppose that they 
 endeavoured to form any very systematic harmony of the conflicting 
 doctrines of the two sects, but rather the conflicting doctrines them- 
 selves were thrown into the background by what appeared to be a 
 paramount political necessity. Such coalitions have been frequent in 
 every age; and the rarity of the allusions to the Herodians as a 
 marked body, seems to show that this, like similar coalitions, had 
 no enduring influence as the foundation of party.' Westcott. 
 
 Old Testament Baptizings. 
 
 MATTHEW iii. 6 : ' And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sin*.' 
 Question. Whence did John get the idea of associating this rite 
 with his preaching ? 
 
 Answer. The assertion made by John himself, and recorded by 
 the Evangelist John, * And I knew him not, but he that sent me to 
 baptize with water, the same said unto me,' etc., can only mean that 
 he claimed to have received instructions direct from God in relation 
 to the matter. And this is the only satisfactory explanation. If we 
 recognise in John a prophet, that is, a man in direct communication 
 with God, receiving instructions immediately from heaven for the 
 ordering of his life-work, then it is not difficult to understand that his 
 characteristic rite, as well as his characteristic message, were given 
 him from above. It may be freely admitted that, in later Judaism, 
 there had grown up associations with sprinklings, or baptizings, which 
 prepared the way for a ready understanding of John's rite, but it and 
 its meaning were subjects of special revelation, and needed to be 
 explained to the people. 
 
 It is asserted that previous to the time of John proselytes to 
 
OLD TESTAMENT BAPT2ZINGS. 367 
 
 Judaism were admitted by the ceremony of baptism, the water repre- 
 senting the dividing line between the two religions : but John's 
 demand was not of any change of religion, but o. repentance, as a 
 moral preparation for a special Divine revelation, which was close at 
 hand. It would be more hopeful to study the rite of baptism in its 
 association with repentance ; and as the sign, or outward expression, 
 of the state or attitude of the repentant mind. In teaching the duty 
 of repentance, it is of supreme importance that it should be made 
 quite clear to every mind, that it is no mere good sentiment, it must 
 be accompanied by an actual putting away of evil. Exactly this was 
 enforced by the rite of baptism, which said, * You must put away your 
 wrong- doings, wash them all right away, as you wash the filth of the 
 body by bathing. Your immersion then is, the outward and visible 
 sign that you not only feel sorry for sin, but do actually, with holy 
 resolve and efibrt, put it away from you.' In this view the associa- 
 tions of John's rite are the simple and natural associations of the bath ; 
 and it does not seem necessary to go beyond these. The voice of his 
 rite John uttered when he said, ' Bring forth therefore fruits meet for 
 repentance.' 
 
 While, however, this satisfies us, it may be well to examine what 
 can be said in favour of a much more strictly ritual significance. So 
 far as the Mosaic system, in its original form, is concerned, the 
 washings of priests, or of healed persons, signified only the putting 
 away of external sin, sin as a stain on conduct and relations. In 
 earlier Judaism lustrations have nothing to do with changed opinions 
 or new religions. And it is certainly more probable that John would 
 carry on the original Mosaic teachings than any of the sentiments and 
 extravagances which grew up under a decayed Rabbinism. 
 
 It can only be said there is reason to believe that a baptism of 
 proselytes was practised prior to the advent of Christ. Some argue 
 indeed that it was a custom introduced after Christ's time ; and Dean 
 Alford only ventures to assert that * the baptism or lustration of a 
 proselyte on admission would follow as a matter of course, by analogy, 
 from the constant legal practice of lustration after all uncleannesses ; 
 and it is difficult to imagine a time when it would not be of use.' 
 But this looks very like determining beforehand what ought to be 
 the explanation of the rite, and then seeking for indications and proofs 
 of the position resolved upon. It does not appear that John's baptism 
 had anything whatever to do with proselytes. He was a moral pre- 
 parer of the ways ;' and his rite was strictly a part of his * preparing ' 
 work. Olshausen suggestively says, ' It was a baptism of repentance ; 
 not a laver of regeneration* 
 
3 68 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Pressens'e may be cited as supporting, in general, the view of John's 
 baptism which we have commended as most reasonable. He says : 
 ' The rite of baptism is the summary of John's preaching, and of his 
 whole ministry, at least when it is restored to its true meaning, and 
 is not regarded according to the thoroughly Pharisaic interpretation 
 of the historian Josephus, as setting forth the self-purification of the 
 soul. The originality of John's baptism is unjustly disputed, on the 
 ground that it was identical with the baptism of proselytes. It is first 
 very doubtful whether this ceremony was in use at this period ; then 
 John expressly combated the exaggerated idea entertained of the 
 privilege of belonging to the holy nation. The rite which he instituted 
 connects itself with the ablutions so much observed in the religion of 
 Moses ; but it extends their significance by substituting the idea of 
 moral purification for that which is merely ritual. With him the 
 question is not of such or such a special defilement, but of that 
 general corruption which has befallen human nature, and which calls 
 for a powerful and new manifestation of Divine love. Thus his bap- 
 tism represents present penitence and coming deliverance : it is the 
 true sacrament of this era of preparation, the condensed utterance of 
 which is a cry of grief and hope, taking the form of a prayer of 
 penitence and trust. The later prophets had declared that the times 
 of Messiah would be marked by the purification of hearts. * I will 
 sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean,' we read in 
 Ezekiel. * There shall be a fountain opened for sin and for unclean- 
 ness,' says Zechariah. Evidently the baptism of John only translated 
 into an impressive ceremonial these symbolical words. If for ablutions 
 he has substituted immersion, it is the better to represent the gravity 
 of the disease which was to be healed." 
 
 We find, then, the proper anticipations of John's rite (i) in the 
 general Eastern associations of washing with water. 'Ablution in the 
 East is almost a religious duty. The dust and heat weigh upon the 
 spirits and heart like a load; its removal is refreshment and happiness. 
 It was, hence, impossible to see a convert go down into a stream, 
 travel-worn and soiled with dust, and, after disappearing for a 
 moment, emerge pure and fresh, without feeling that the symbol suited 
 and interpreted a strong craving of the human heart'. (2) The Taber- 
 nacle and Temple practised constant ablutions, and others were 
 required daily from the people at large, to remove ceremonial im- 
 purity. And (3) in the^figurative expressions used by the later prophets. 
 David had prayed, 'Wash me from mine iniquity.' And Isaiah had 
 cried, ' Wash ye, make you clean ; put away the evil of your 
 doings.' 
 
WASHING SAINTS FEET. 369 
 
 Washing Saints' Feet. 
 
 I TIMOTHY v. 10 : ' If she hath washed the saints' feet.' 
 
 Question. Can this refer to some ritual practice which had been 
 early established, or does it allude only to the usual kindly and familiar 
 attentions to guests in Eastern households ? 
 
 Answer. It is merely a general expression for * showing kindly 
 hospitality,' and there is nothing whatever of a ritual or ceremonial 
 character about it. One familiar and necessary act of hospitality is 
 mentioned as representing all that is included in kindly attention to 
 guests and strangers. Washing the feet was regarded as a specially 
 grateful act, by those who wore sandals for journeying, but threw 
 them off, and stepped on carpets and mats with bare feet. 
 
 ' To this day, in some parts of Syria, the custom exists of washing 
 a visitor's feet, to show to him that he is welcome. Buckingham 
 states that he once stopped at the house of a widow in Arabia, and 
 that she insisted upon washing his feet ; and Jowett, when in 
 Syria, received the like attention from a servant, by direction of his 
 master. The earliest records we have of this custom are in Gen. 
 xviii. 4, xix. 2. If a man should call at a house in the parts referred 
 to, and no water should be brought for his feet, it would be a sign 
 that he was not welcome. Now we read in Timothy that a widow 
 was not to be admired into the primitive Church unless she had 
 washed the saints' feet ; that is, unless she could prove her attach- 
 ment to the cause of Christ by having hospitably entertained His 
 travelling disciples having "lodged strangers," and having made 
 known to them that they were welcome in the usual way ; for all the 
 early saints were travelling, wayfaring men.' 
 
 Sweat like Blood. 
 
 LUKE xxii. 44 : ' And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly : and His 
 sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground ' 
 (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Question. Does this mean that they actually were blood-drops 
 that fell from Him, or only that they were large, thick, heavy drops, 
 like drops of blood ? 
 
 Answer. Two things at once invite attention, (i) The fact of 
 the sweat taking a peculiar character is only noticed by the Evan- 
 gelist Luke. If it had been real blood, the apostles must all have 
 observed the blood-stains on our Lord's garments. (2) St. Luke 
 carefully states that the form of them was like blood-drops ; he does 
 
 24 
 
370 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 not assert anything concerning the substance of them. It seems then 
 to be quite an over-straining of his language to make out that the 
 sweat was actual blood. 
 
 It may be freely admitted that sufficient instances of bloody dis- 
 charge from the skin, under pressure of extreme excitement, have 
 been furnished by Dr. Stroud and others, to assure the possibility of 
 such an explanation of Luke's narrative. AVe only say, that such 
 scientific elucidations are not necessary, for Luke's words are quite 
 simple and natural, and adequate to the occasion. Being a physician, 
 he readily found a medical simile, and likened the big drops of 
 sweat to the great thick drops of blood which he must often have 
 seen. We do not desire to separate our Lord's experience from that 
 which is quite ordinarily human. 
 
 Dean Plumptre evidently inclines to this view, though he hesitates 
 about distinctly stating it ' The phenomenon described is obviously 
 one which would have a special interest for one of Luke's calling, 
 and the four words which he uses for " agony," " drops," " sweat," 
 " more earnestly " (lit, more intensely), though not exclusively techni- 
 cal, are yet such as a medical writer would naturally use. They do 
 not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The form of the expression, 
 " as it were, great drops (better dots) of blood," leaves us uncertain, 
 as the same Greek word does in " descending like a dove," in Matt. 
 iii. 1 6, whether it applies to manner or to visible appearance. On 
 the latter, and generally received view, the phenomenon is not un- 
 paralleled, both in ancient and modern times.' 
 
 The chief authorities for the view that the term refers to the great 
 size and thickness of the drops that fell, are Euthymius, Theophylact, 
 Kuinoel, Olshausen ; and for the view that they were drops of actual 
 blood, Calvin, Bengel, Meyer, De Wette, Godet, Oosterzee, Alford, 
 etc. 
 
 Farrar curiously allows himself to use expressions which suit 
 either of the theories. He says : ' The great drops of anguish 
 which drop from Him in the deathful struggle look to them like 
 heavy gouts of blood/ And then, a few lines below, he says: 
 * Whence came all this agonized failing of heart .... which forced 
 from Him the rare and intense phenomenon of a blood-stained 
 sweat T 
 
 The view which we approvers, that large drops of sweat from our 
 Lord's face fell, and attracted the attention of the disciples ; in 
 narrating the striking fact they had noticed, they produced such an 
 impression of the unusual intensity of the discharge, that St. Luke 
 found the only fitting simile with which to describe it, in the thick 
 and heavy drops of blood. 
 
PRAYING IN THE STREETS. 37 1 
 
 Praying in the Streets, 
 
 MATTHEW vi. 5 : 'They love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the 
 corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.' 
 
 Question. Must we regard our Lord's words as literally de- 
 scriptive of prevailing habits^ or are they a figurative representation 
 of formality and self-seeking in prayer ? 
 
 Answer. We can hardly doubt that the exaggerated claim of 
 the Pharisees to a peculiar sanctity found expression in public acts 
 and attitudes of devotion. They sought the ' praise of men,' and 
 would not scruple at any methods for attracting public attention. If 
 our religion be of the heart, then it is enough to be assured that He 
 who seeth in secret knows all about it ; but if a man's religion be a 
 round of forms and ceremonies, then he will be sure to want some- 
 body some fellow-men to look on and admire ; and he will soon 
 come, more or less consciously, to adjust and arrange his doings so 
 as to win men's admiration. 
 
 The mistaken forms which a merely ceremonial Eastern religion 
 may take is well illustrated in the Moslem practices of the present 
 day. The * namaz,' or daily prayer, is recited, as nearly as con- 
 venient, at sunrise, noon, three o'clock in the afternoon, at sunset, 
 and an hour and a half later, which is called bed-time. The Moslem 
 may pray anywhere, in any place where the prayer-time may find 
 him ; and the more ostentatious the place the greater the merit of the 
 prayings. * To obtain a reputation for sanctity, they often make long 
 prayer, using vain repetitions. It is evident that their minds are 
 little engaged in these exercises, for they look around, salute a friend, 
 or tell a person that they will give him some desired information as 
 soon as they get through.' 
 
 Van Lennep tells us that ' Orientals are very particular in selecting 
 the spot on which they pray ; it must not have been used for unclean 
 purposes, nor in any way have been defiled Hence Muslims never 
 pray in a sleeping apartment or closet, but in an open hall, garden, 
 or on a house-top. They never kneel upon the bare ground, if they 
 can help it, but spread a cloth or rug, upon which they perform their 
 devotions, after removing their shoes.' 
 
 It is said by those who describe the prevailing customs of our 
 Lord's time, that a rigid Pharisee prayed many times a day, and too 
 many took care to have the hours of prayer overtake them, decked 
 in their broad phylacteries, at the street corners, that they might 
 publicly show their devoutness. But it is not necessary to force our 
 
 242 
 
372 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Lord's words to bear a precisely descriptive application. The moral 
 teacher, who seeks to correct the common evils of an age, is bound 
 to make them * loom large.' He becomes effective by adding a 
 certain * humour ' to his description. If we were referring only to 
 human teachers, we should say that they even gain effect by using 
 the instrumentality of 'satire' and 'caricature.' We prefer, there- 
 fore, to regard the expression of the above passage as so far descrip- 
 tive, that such praying in the streets might occasionally be seen, but 
 as mainly figurative, designed to show up the evil of formality and 
 self-seeking in so purely religious a matter as prayer. 
 
 Gifts of Festal Garments. 
 
 MATTHEW xxii. 1 1 : * And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw- 
 there a man which had not on a wedding garment.' 
 
 Difficulty. The punishment was very severe for what seems to us 
 a mere slight. Can it be that local customs alter our estimate of the 
 man's conduct. 
 
 Explanation. Though it cannot be proved to have been a 
 common custom in ordinary society, there are many illustrations of 
 the fact that kings provided suitable garments for their guests, and 
 required them to wear such garments while in their presence. Trench, 
 in his work on the ' Parables/ gives several instances. Wardrobes 
 filled with many thousand garments formed part of the wealth of 
 every Eastern prince, and it was part of his glory to bring them out 
 for use on state occasions. We have met with another illustration. 
 * Every guest invited to the wedding at the royal marriage of Sultan 
 Mahmoud, a few years ago, had made expressly for him, at the 
 expense of the Sultan, a wedding-garment No one, however digni- 
 fied by his station, was permitted to enter into the presence-chamber 
 of that sovereign without a change of raiment. This was formerly 
 the universal custom in the East. But, inasmuch as these garments 
 were very costly, and some of the guests invited might plead poverty, 
 and thus appear unclad in the guest-chamber of the king, the cost 
 was defrayed at Sultan Mahmoud's expense. To each guest was 
 presented a suit of wedding-garments.' 
 
 The figures used to describe the punishment of this false friend, 
 this presumptuous, conceited, self-willed guest, only present in a 
 poetical way the simple fact that he was turned out of the warm and 
 light guest-chamber into the night and the cold, and left to go shiver- 
 ing home. In this view his punishment was exactly appropriate to 
 the sin of his insolent slighting of the feelings and wishes of one who 
 was offering him kindly hospitalities. 
 
FASTING CUSTOMS 373 
 
 Farrar states the case in a few suggestive sentences : ' Others are 
 invited ; the wedding-feast is furnished with guests both good and 
 bad ; the king comes in and notices one who had thrust himself into 
 the company in his own rags, without providing or accepting the wed- 
 ding-garment, which the commonest courtesy required. This rude, 
 intruding, presumptuous guest is cast forth by attendant angels 
 into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of 
 teeth/ 
 
 Fasting Customs. 
 
 MATTHEW vi. 16 : ' Moreover when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad 
 countenance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to 
 fast. 1 
 
 Difficulty. Seeing that fasting is no part of Mosaic injunctions, 
 flow did it come to be such a common religious custom 'J 
 
 Explanation. It is certainly the fact, and it is a very striking 
 fact, that no examples of fasting occur before the time of Moses; arid 
 no regulations in relation to fasting were made by Moses. The only 
 thing that can be forced to bear such a reference is the requirement 
 for the solemn day of expiation : ' On the tenth day of this seventh 
 month, ye shall afflict your souls' (Lev. xxiii. 27, 29). It is argued 
 that this 'affliction of the soul' must have been accompanied with 
 abstinence from eating ; because people in trouble lose appetite. 
 
 The earliest Bible reference to fasting is found in Judges xx. 26 ; 
 and a careful study of Old Testament passages bearing upon it, will 
 probably leave the impression that it was rather a national than a 
 religious custom, and one bearing its proper relation to outxvard and 
 temporal troubles rather than to soul-humiliations. 
 
 The religious character of fasting seems to have grown out of the 
 national fastings which the Jews established during the Captivity. 
 They observed four annual fasts, in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and 
 tenth months. Weekly fasts were established some time later than 
 the Captivity. They were observed on the second and fifth days of 
 the week, and may have been associated with the troublous times of 
 the Maccabees. 
 
 Rabbinism developed national fasting into a religious ordinance, 
 and made it a bondage; a burden beyond men's power to bear. 
 The spirit of priesthood, which claims the guidance of men's con- 
 sciences and lives, must work through minute and multiplied require- 
 ments ; and is sure to delight in schemes which put men's bodies 
 and bodily habits under painful restraints. Fasting is one of the 
 
'374 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 most effective instruments for the purposes of Rabbinism and 
 Priestism ; and in this way the evil custom became established. So 
 far as we can understand the New Testament teaching, no man is 
 required to fast ; but everyone is at liberty to fast. It is no matter 
 of religious duty ; it may be a matter of pious feeling, of personal 
 impulse. If any man finds fasting to be helpful to his religious 
 culture, let him fast ; but do not let him lay his customs as bondages, 
 or even as models, on his fellow-worshippers. What Christ urges is 
 simply this : ' If you do fast, be true in it ; be modest in it ; be 
 reticent in it ; fast for God only to know about ; beware of fasting 
 just to get the praise of men.' 
 
 The extravagancies and insincerities against which our Lord pro- 
 tested are well indicated by Geikie : ' When fasting, the Pharisees 
 strewed their heads with ashes, and neither washed nor anointed 
 themselves, nor trimmed their beards, but put on wretched clothing, 
 and showed themselves in all the outward signs of mourning and 
 sadness used for the dead. Insincerity made capital of feigned 
 humiliation and contrition, till even the Roman theatre noticed it. 
 In one of the plays of the time, a camel, covered with a mourning 
 cloth, was led on the stage. " Why is the camel in mourning ?" 
 asked one of the players. "Because the Jews are keeping the 
 Sabbath-year, and grow nothing, but are living on thistles. The 
 camel is mourning because its food is thus taken from it." Rabbis 
 were forbidden to anoint themselves before going out, and it was 
 recorded of a specially famous doctor, that his face was always black 
 with fasting. 
 
 All Things Common. 
 
 ACTS ii. 44 : ' And all that believed were together, and had all things common.' 
 
 Question. WJiat limitations ought we to put on this as a descrip- 
 tion of the daily life of the early disciples ? 
 
 Answer. Great mistakes are made by attempting to explain 
 Eastern customs in the light of Western ideas. We bring to this 
 passage our knowledge of wild and visionary schemes for securing 
 among men a community of goods, and then assume that it was such 
 a scheme that the apostles and the Early Church attempted to work 
 out. In the East large and mixed families are accustomed to dwell 
 together, sharing the common property of the family. Even as many 
 as sixty to one hundred persons are reported to reside in one house. 
 The idea of a separate dwelling for each distinct family is quite a 
 Western notion. So we may understand that providing daily food 
 
ALL THINGS COMMON. 375 
 
 for a very large accession to the apostolic family was no very over- 
 whelming matter. 
 
 But the fact is, that St. Luke's very simple and natural language 
 has been forced to mean too much : and two statements of his have 
 been set together, though they have no necessary relations. He says, 
 'they had all things common,' which simply means that they took their 
 daily meals together, instead of in their separate houses. And he 
 presently says, they * sold their possessions and goods, and parted them 
 to all, as every man had need :' which has been read as ii it were, 'and 
 every member sold all his possessions and goods, put the proceeds 
 into a common fund, from which the general needs were supplied ;' 
 whereas the natural and common- sense meaning is ' those who had 
 possessions and goods sold out so as to be enabled to replenish the 
 stores from which the daily food, and the supply of special necessities, 
 was provided.' 
 
 A note in the Speaker's Commentary puts, succinctly and forcibly, 
 the reasonable limitations under which St. Luke's expressions ought 
 to be placed. ' The apostles may have thought that thay were follow- 
 ing Christ's example in having some common fund on a larger scale 
 than that with which they had been familiar while they were in 
 personal attendance upon Him (Luke viii. 3 ; John xii. 6 ; xiii. 29). 
 There was no community of goods ' as touching the right, title, and 
 possession of the same,' absolutely and universally enforced, as a 
 necessary and permanent arrangement oi the Church. This is plain 
 from Acts v. 4 ; from the scope for the alms deeds of Dorcas, ix. 36 ; 
 from Mary, the mother of Mark, retaining her house, xii. 1 2 ; from 
 Mnason's ability to provide lodgings, xxl 16; from the Hebrew 
 Christians having property of which they could be despoiled, Heb. x. 
 34; xiii. 2, 5, 16; from the exhortations to almsgiving and to the 
 distinct duties of rich and poor in the Epistles generally ; and from 
 the recommendation to the Corinthians in particular (i Cor. xvi. 2), 
 that everyone should lay by on the first day of the week as God had 
 prospered him. (Comp. Rom. xv. 26 ; i Johniii. 17.) The estimate 
 of comparative needs recognised in the next verse shows that property 
 was not alienated beyond control Whatever was done was spon- 
 taneous, and continued to be so.' 
 
 Dr. Oswald Dykes traces carefully the circumstances under which, 
 this so-called ' community of goods' came to be the temporary fashion. 
 * This social peculiarity of the Jerusalem Church during the early 
 weeks of its existence is attended with a little difficulty, but that 
 difficulty has been increased by the discussion which has raged over 
 it. When we throw ourselves back into the circumstances of the time, 
 
3 y6 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 what really happened becomes more than intelligible it becomes 
 natural. During the Master's ministry, He and his itinerant assistants, 
 who formed one household for the time being, had naturally one 
 purse, out of which their common expenses were defrayed. This 
 fund, when low, was recruited by the voluntary gifts of well-to-do and 
 generous friends, especially females, who had received spiritual 
 blessing from the Master. The unity of the brotherhood had thus 
 been realized even in its financial arrangements. Now, matters were 
 not felt to have materially changed. There was still a band of Twelve, 
 who could not earn a subsistence because they had spiritual work to 
 do, as well as a number of incapable, aged, and sickly brethren, 
 widows, like the Mother herself, and young children. There was also 
 a larger number than before of somewhat wealthy disciples, such as 
 Nicodemus, Joseph, and Barnabas. All these, as brethren, ate daily 
 at one common table, and counted themselves to be one large family 
 of God, left by their divine Head, indeed, yet not orphans, since the 
 Comforter had come. But how can we speak of brotherhood in the 
 family if the abundance of one brother is not to be a supply for 
 another's want ? Inequalities, indeed, are not inconsistent with the 
 family idea ; but destitution is. There is, to be sure, no suggestion 
 of what moderns call 'Equality,' as the result of this 4 fraternity'; only 
 there is an intolerance of downright want. There must not be among 
 them any that lack. The spirit of fraternity in Christ will at least 
 forbid that ; forbid it, not by any statute, but by the instinct of brother- 
 hood working spontaneously yet working irresistibly. The common 
 expenses of the house and table, which belonged to all ; the support 
 of the apostles ; the relief of destitute and widowed members ; all 
 these were from the first a very pressing and patent care. For such 
 purposes a fund was formed under the charge of the apostles. Into 
 that fund all those who had landed property, or real estate of any 
 sort, brought the proceeds of its sale. Besides, I think there is a 
 hint that some capitalists distributed their wealth at their own 
 discretion, as well as through the hands of the church officers. Any- 
 how, the result was that, under the strong and general feeling of 
 Christian charity which sprang out of Christian unity, men gave as 
 freely as if what they had were not really their own, but only held by 
 them in trust for others.' 
 
 Neander says : ' When we are told " The whole multitude .... 
 had all things common," it is not to be understood literally, but as a 
 description of that brotherly love which repressed all selfish feelings, 
 and caused the wealthier believers to regard their property as 
 belonging to their needy brethren, so ready were they to share it with 
 
TRIBUTE-MONEY. 377 
 
 them. And when it is added, " They sold their possessions," etc., it 
 is to be understood according to what has just been said. A common 
 chest was established, from which the necessities of the poorer 
 members were supplied, and perhaps certain expenses incurred by the 
 whole church, such as the celebration of the agapae, were defrayed ; 
 and in order to increase their contributions, many persons parted 
 with their estates.' 
 
 Tribute-Money. 
 
 MATTHEW xvii. 24 : ' And when they were come to Capernaum, they that 
 received the tribute-money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay 
 tribute ?' 
 
 Difficulty. Seeing that our Lord had no property, and was not 
 engaged in any trade, it seems strange that He should be called on to 
 pay taxes. 
 
 Explanation. Taxes have to be distinguished from customs 
 and duties. And taxes may be levied on houses and incomes, or 
 on heads. Our Lord paid no customs as a tradesman or merchant ; 
 He was the subject of no tax-claim as a householder or as the recipient 
 of an annual income ; but He was a man, a member of the nation, 
 and of full age, and therefore if a tax was laid on ' heads,' He would 
 come under its claim. 
 
 The Revised Version renders this passage in such a way as to 
 bring out the particular tax which is referred to. ' And when they 
 were come to Capernaum, they that received the half-shekel came to 
 Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay the half-shekel ?' 
 
 If we follow this rendering, we understand the tribute or tax 
 referred to to be the gift required by the Mosaic law from all 
 Israelites, towards meeting the expenses of the tabernacle or temple 
 service. Josephus is an authority for the statement that, though in 
 earlier times this had been only collected occasionally, as circum- 
 stances required, in the time of our Lord it had come to be collected 
 annually, from all Jews above twenty years of age. It was not until 
 the time of Vespasian that this tax was paid into the Roman treasury. 
 As the tax was for religious purposes, in which men shared simply as 
 men, and not on any grounds of their trade, class, or property, the 
 tax was properly paid by our Lord, simply as a worshipping Jew, who 
 desired to * fulfil all righteousness.' 
 
 We learn that this 'half-shekel' was collected even from the Tews 
 in foreign countries. 'The three great Festivals of the Jewish year 
 were recognised as the proper times for payment ; and the relations 
 of this narrative to John vii. makes it probable that the collectors were 
 
378 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 now calling in, for the Feast of Tabernacles, the payments that had 
 not been made at the Passover or Pentecost previous. Their question 
 implies that they half thought that the Prophet of Nazareth had 
 evaded or would disclaim payment.' 
 
 Geikie has collected careful details concerning this tax : ' The 
 Shelihim, or " messengers," who collected this tax in Judaea, visited 
 each town at fixed times. In foreign countries places were appointed 
 for its collection in every city or district where there were Jews and 
 where were there not ? the chief men of their community in each 
 acting as treasurer, and conveying the amounts in due course to 
 Jerusalem. Three huge chests, carefully guarded in a particular 
 chamber in the Temple, held the yearly receipts, which served, 
 besides providing the beasts for sacrifice, to pay the Rabbis, in- 
 spectors of victims, copyists, bakers, judges, and others connected 
 with the Temple services, and numerous women who wove or washed 
 the Temple linen. It supplied also the costs of the water-supply, 
 and of the repairs of the vast Temple buildings. The collection 
 began in the Holy Land on the first of Adar part of our February 
 and March the month of the " returning sun," and the next before 
 that of the Passover. By the middle of it the official exchangers in 
 each town had set up their tables, and opened their two chests for 
 the tax of the current and of the past year, for many paid the tax for 
 two years together. They supplied the old sacred shekel, coined by 
 . Simon the Maccabee, for a trifling charge, to all who required it, for 
 only that coin was received by the Temple authorities in homage to 
 Pharisaic and national sentiment. At first everything was left to the 
 goodwill of the people; but after the 25th, prompt payment was 
 required, and securities, such as an under-garment or the like, were 
 taken even from the pilgrims coming up to the feast.' These 
 Shelihim made the inquiry of Peter concerning the payment of the 
 half-shekel for Jesus. 
 
 Outside Staircases. 
 
 MATTHEW xxiv. 17 :' Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take 
 anything out of his house.' 
 
 Difficulty. This counsel assumes some sort of outside staircase, 
 but if access could be gained to the roof from the public street ', how could 
 the house be secure from robbers ? 
 
 Explanation. Some travellers have boldly asserted that they 
 never saw, in the East, any such outside stairs as would meet the 
 case of the text ; but there appears to be an imperfect understanding 
 
OUTSIDE STAIRCASES. 379 
 
 of the arrangements of Eastern houses, and of the possibilities which 
 were before a man who was caught with a sudden alarm when on the 
 house-top. 
 
 The rooms were built round an open central court, and there was 
 direct access from this court to the front-door through a smaller 
 court. If the staircase came from the roof into the large court, the 
 man could readily escape at the gate without being hindered by going 
 into or through the rooms. Or the staircase might come into the 
 smaller court, just inside the front-gate. 
 
 But our Lord may have contemplated the case of the man not 
 coming down any staircase at all, but fleeing at once over his 
 neighbours' flat roofs, until he found a convenient place for descent. 
 This, of course, was only permissible on sudden emergencies, as very 
 strict laws warned men against even looking over their neighbours' 
 parapets. Over the roofs it was quite possible for a man to reach the 
 city walls and gates. Dean Plumptre supports this view : ' The houses 
 in the streets of Jerusalem were built in a continuous line, and with 
 flat roofs, so that a man might pass from house to house without 
 descending into the street until he came to some point near the wall 
 or gate of the city, and so make his escape.' 
 
 Assuming that some sort of staircase is tacitly referred to, we may 
 note that Trench says there was usually a flight of steps on the out- 
 side of the house, as well as, or sometimes instead of, an internal 
 communication of the same kind. But no sufficient authority is given . 
 for this explanation. 
 
 Dr. Thomson is more exactly descriptive of Eastern matters, and 
 he says that the staircase is often outside the house, but within the 
 exterior court. It would not be either agreeable or safe to have the 
 stairs land outside the enclosure altogether, and it is rarely done, 
 except in mountain villages, and where roofs are but little used. 
 The stairs not infrequently end in the lewan> but more commonly in 
 some lower part of the court. 
 
 Van Lennep) describing the houses of Western Asia, says : ' The 
 staircase, of stone or wood, which leads to the flat roof, is usually 
 upon the outside of the house, and starts from the central court. But 
 at the great earthquake of Aleppo, in 1822, the few that escaped with 
 their lives happened to be upon the house-tops, and, not going down 
 into the houses or into the narrow streets, fled from roof to roof until 
 they reached the fields outside the city.' 
 
 From these accounts we distinctly gather that, whatever was the 
 position of the staircase, it was well within the precincts of the build- 
 ing, and duly protected by the front door or gate. 
 
380 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 
 
 Powers of Jewish Tribunals. 
 
 JOHN ix. 22 : * He should be put out of the synagogue.' 
 
 Question. Is there accurate information at command concerning 
 the limits imder which the Romans permitted the Jews local govern- 
 ment ? 
 
 Answer. It was the policy of the Romans not to interfere with 
 the religious systems prevailing in the countries which they conquered 
 and ruled ; and it seems that they even retained the systems of local 
 magistracy, reserving to themselves the power of dealing with serious 
 social crime and offences of a political or semi-political character. 
 But in the case of the Jews the local magistracy was closely con- 
 nected with the religion, the elder, or elders, of the synogogue having 
 power to deal with common social offences, which were regarded 
 from a religious point of view, and punished mainly by the depriva- 
 tion of religious privileges. Romans would think little of such 
 punishments, but the history of the Jewish race had settled into the 
 minds of all the people an exceeding jealousy of their religious 
 standing and privileges, and the synagogue punishments appealed 
 to this prevailing social sentiment. 
 
 The Romans did not interfere with the Jewish excommunications, 
 which seem to have been of three kinds : (i) An injunction that the 
 condemned person was not, for thirty days, to come within four cubits 
 distance of any other person. (2) Absolute banishment from all re- 
 ligious meetings, and exclusion from society, for a time. (3) Perpetual 
 banishment ; entire exclusion from the fellowship of God's people. 
 
 The second stage of excommunication needs further explanation. 
 * If, at the end of thirty days, the offender's repentance was not 
 declared, he was then subject to the Cherem, or curse. His offence 
 was proclaimed in the synagogue to which he belonged ; and, at the 
 time of pronouncing the curse, lamps or candles were lighted, which 
 at its conclusion were extinguished, to express that the excommuni- 
 cated person was then excluded from the light of heaven. The 
 person thus publicly cursed might neither teach others nor they 
 teach him ; but, by study and research, he might teach himself, that, 
 haply, he might be convinced of the guilt or error into which he had 
 fallen. His effects were confiscated ; his male children were not 
 admitted to circumcision ; he might neither hire nor be hired ; no 
 one might trade with him, or employ him in any business, unless it 
 were a very little, to afford him the barest possible means of subsist- 
 ence ; and if, finally, he died without repentance, stones were cast at 
 
POWERS OF JEWISH TRIBUNALS. 381 
 
 his bier, to denote that he had deserved to be stoned. He was not 
 honoured with a common burial ; none followed him to the grave ; 
 none lamented for him. It appears, however, that even the persons 
 who laboured under this fearful sentence which was exceedingly 
 dreaded by the Jews were not excluded from the services of the 
 temple and synagogues, although they were there dishonourably 
 distinguished from others, and not allowed to mingle with the con- 
 gregation. They were, in fact, no longer considered members of the 
 Jewish Church, and scarcely deemed members of its common-wealth. 
 'We should add that the curse with which this form of excommuni- 
 cation was publicly given was attended with the blowing of trumpets 
 and horns, as if to announce the circumstance to all the world. The 
 number of these instruments appears to have been proportioned to the 
 alleged offence ; and among the stories which the Talmudists relate 
 concerning Christ, they tell us that four hundred trumpets were 
 brought out when " Jesus of Nazareth " was excommunicated. 1 
 
 Certificates of Cure. 
 
 MATTHEW viii. 4 : 'Jesus saith -unto him, See thou tell no man, but go thy 
 way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a 
 testimony unto them.' 
 
 Difficulty. If leprosy was an incurable disease, what necessity 
 could there be for arranging a certificate of 'cure ? 
 
 Explanation. This difficulty rests on the assumption, which is 
 too readily made, that the disease of leprosy was strictly of one kind, 
 always marked by the same characteristic features. What appears to 
 be true is that it was incurable in certain of its forms, and after it had 
 passed certain stages. It is not strictly correct to say of any disease 
 that it is absolutely incurable ; all we may say is that it is not curable 
 by any known medical remedies. 
 
 The question whether leprosy was an infectious disease is still 
 debated It is clearly seen that it was hereditary. It was communi- 
 cated by certain special forms of contact ; and we are disposed to 
 think that, in some of its forms, it was strictly infectious. This 
 affords the most simple and natural explanation of the strict removal 
 of lepers from society, and it makes reasonable the extreme care with 
 which the priest used to test an assumed cure, before giving his- 
 certificate, and allowing the restored person to return to ordinary life 
 associations. 
 
 The process which had to be gone through, on a known leper pro- 
 fessing to have been cured, is given in detail in Lev. xiv. It is so 
 
382 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 seldom read t'nai good service may be done by repeating it in othei 
 terms. * It was a long process in two stages. First, the priest had to 
 come to the leper outside the camp or town, to kill a sparrow over 
 fresh water, to dip a living sparrow with cedar-wood, scarlet wool, 
 and hyssop, into the blood-stained water, to sprinkle the leper seven 
 times with this strange aspergillum, and then let the living bird loose, 
 and pronounce the man clean. The man was then to shave off his 
 hair, bathe, remain seven days out of his house ; again shave and 
 bathe, and return to the priest, bringing one lamb for a trespass- 
 offering, and a second with a ewe-lamb for a burnt and sin offering 
 (or, if too poor to do this, two young pigeons), and flour and oil for a 
 meat-offering. Some of the blood of the trespass-offering and some 
 of the oil was then put, with certain ceremonies, on the tip of his 
 right ear, the thumb of his right hand, and the great toe of his right 
 foot, the rest of the oil being poured upon his head. He was then 
 pronounced clean. There could not well be any dispute about the 
 reality of the cleansing, after ceremonials so elaborate as this.' 
 
 The importance of the priestly certificate lay in this, that without 
 it the man could not be restored to the Temple, or even to synagogue, 
 worship. We are not told whether these strict ceremonies were 
 maintained down to the time of our Lord ; possibly the presentation 
 of an offering was treated as sufficient. 
 
 It is certain that Moses could not regard any disease as absolutely 
 incurable, for that would be to put limitations on the Divine power. 
 Since God could cure even leprosy, proper ceremonials had to be 
 established for recognising what was at least a possibility, and more 
 than once in the history of the race proved to be a fact. 
 
 Breaking up Roofs. 
 
 MARK ii. 4: 'They uncovered the roof where He was, and when they had 
 broken it up.' 
 
 Difficulty. One cannot understand whence they obtained permis- 
 sion to break up a man's roof ; nor how they managed to do it without 
 covering the company below with choking dust. 
 
 Explanation. St. Matthew narrates this incident, but gives no 
 description of the mode in which the men succeeded in overcoming 
 their hindrances, and getting the sick man into the presence of Jesus 
 (Matt. ix. 1-8). St. Luke is as careful in details as St. Mark, but 
 somewhat differs from him. He says : * They went upon the house- 
 top, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the 
 midst before Jesus' (Luke v. 19). From St. Mark we learn pre 
 
BREAKING UP ROOFS. 383 
 
 cisely that the incident occurred at Capernaum ; and there is good 
 reason for assuming that, in this town, our Lord lodged in the house 
 of Simon and Andrew, which, suitably to their station, would be one 
 of the better-class houses of a country town. 
 
 An inquiry into this incident should start with the assumption that 
 the damage done to the building was the least possible that would 
 meet the necessity of the case, and was such as the men who did it 
 could themselves readily repair. So many and such various explana- 
 tions are at our command that the inquiry resolves itself into a 
 criticism of them, and an effort to discover the most reasonable. 
 
 Some idea may be first given of the opinions entertained by 
 commentators. Alford thinks that Jesus was ' speaking to the crowd 
 from the upper story of the house, they being assembled in the court, 
 or perhaps (but less probably) in the street. Those who bore the 
 paralytic ascended the stairs, which led direct from the street to the 
 flat roof of the house, and let him down through the tiles.' He 
 assumes that the house was of two stories ; imagines a staircase irom 
 the street ; and avoids the attempt to explain what ' letting down 
 through the tiles ' can mean. 
 
 Olshausen says : * The whole description can be understood only 
 from the Oriental construction of houses, in consequence of which 
 the flat roof might be reached either by a ladder from the outside, 
 or from a neighbouring house. Still, the breaking up of the top-floor, 
 which was generally laid with tiles, appears rather strange ; but 
 perhaps the description is to be understood of their somewhat en- 
 larging the entrance into the house from above.' Olshausen does 
 not seem to have decided whether Jesus was teaching in a room or 
 in the quadrangle; but on this depends our explanation of the 
 incident. The idea of ' letting the couch down ' does not suggest 
 * carrying it down an inside stair.' 
 
 Webster and Wilkinson give what we think to be the most simple 
 and most satisfactory explanation we have met with ; its simplicity 
 and naturalness being its chief recommendation. ' Many Oriental 
 houses have a court or quadrangle in front ; the buildings which 
 form the house occupy one or more of its sides. The internal part 
 of such a house is often screened by a corridor below, having the 
 various household offices behind it, and a gallery above, iiom which 
 is the entrance to the family apartments. The gallery is roofed over, 
 and its roof is about the same height as the rooi Oi the house. 
 Bearing this in mind we may account for the iollowing description 
 in this way. The quadrangle is full of people ; our Lord instructs 
 them from the gallery ; the Pharisees are in the family apartments 
 
384 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 adjoining the gallery ; the friends of the sick man cannot enter the 
 quadrangle from the street ; or, if this could be done, they cannot 
 reach the corridor, from which there were steps leading to the gallery ; 
 they ascend, therefore, the stairs from the back or side of the house 
 leading to the roof, and break open the roof or veranda which 
 covered the gallery. The house-roof was used for a terrace, and was 
 built of strong materials ; the gallery-roof was of very slight con- 
 struction, of the same character as the covered balcony.' This 
 explanation wholly removes the two difficulties of creating dust and 
 injuring the building. 
 
 Trench tells us that * in St. Mark, at ' least, the words are so plain 
 and clear, that we can suppose nothing else than that a part of the 
 actual covering of the roof was removed, that so the bed on which 
 the palsied man lay might be let down before the Lord. The whole 
 circumstance will be much more easily conceived, and present fewer 
 difficulties, when we keep in mind that it was probably the upper 
 chamber where were assembled those that were drawn together to 
 hear the Lord.' This explanation brings us in full front of the two 
 difficulties which we have suggested, but give no help toward the 
 skilful treatment of them. 
 
 Dean Plumptre notes that the expression used by St. Mark is a 
 very strong one, and means literally ' and having dug it up.' He 
 thinks actual injury was done to the ordinary roof; and that the 
 light structure of Eastern houses made the work comparatively 
 easy. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth says that the roof might be the covering of an 
 interior colonnade surrounding the atrium, or court. But to this, 
 and to another suggestion, that our Lord was speaking in a large 
 upper room, the objection may fairly be urged, that such colonnades 
 and such upper rooms, were only found in superior houses, to which 
 class Peter's did not belong. 
 
 We may now give some of the explanations offered by travellers 
 or residents in Palestine, whose actual knowledge and observation 
 should give material help. 
 
 Dr. Thomson is the authority for the view that there was an 
 actual breaking up of the substance of the roof. He says : ' I have 
 often seen this (" breaking up the roof ") done, and have done it 
 myself to houses in Lebanon ; but there is always more dust made 
 than is agreeable. The materials now employed (for roofs) are 
 beams, about three feet apart, across which short sticks are arranged 
 close together, and covered with the thickly-matted thorn-bush called 
 bellan. Over this is spread a coat of thick mortar, and then comes 
 
BREAKING UP ROOFS. 385 
 
 the marl or earth which makes the roof. Now, it is easy to remove 
 any part of this without injuring the rest. No objection, therefore, 
 would be made on this score by the owners of the house. They had 
 merely to scrape back a portion of the roof over the lewan, take up 
 the thorns and short sticks, and let down the couch between the 
 beams at the very feet of Jesus.' But how could they know exactly 
 the part of the room in which Jesus was ? How could the people 
 outside hear Jesus if He spoke in a room ? And how could these 
 men break up the roof, in this sense, without making such a noise as 
 would disturb both speaker and hearers ? It is hardly possible to 
 accept this very ingenious explanation, which creates more difficulties 
 than it removes. 
 
 Van Lennep and Kitto are the authorities for the idea of a gallery 
 or veranda roof, which has been given from Webster ana Wilkinson. 
 Van Lennep says : * The roofs are not covered with tiles ; but there 
 is often a veranda running round the court, and this is shaded by 
 boards, which would, according to the Greek and Roman fashion 
 then prevailing, be covered with tiles. The court was evidently full 
 of people, and Jesus spoke seated on the veranda, which was higher. 
 The men quietly took off the tiles overhead, as is frequently done 
 in order to rearrange them, and let down the man along the edge of 
 the veranda, without even removing a board.' And Kitto says : 
 * There are usually but two floors the ground-floor and an upper 
 floor. The ground-floor comprises the kitchen, store-rooms, and 
 various offices ; and the family lives in the upper floor, the chambers 
 of which look into, and open into, a gallery, to which there is access 
 by one or two staircases, usually of stone. The gallery is generally 
 broad, and is covered with a boarded roof, supported by wooden 
 pillars. As Jesus was in this gallery, the course the men had to take 
 was plain and simple. They had only to take up two or three of the 
 loosely-attached boards, forming the covering of the gallery, and 
 there was a clear and sufficient opening through which to let their 
 friend down to the feet of our Saviour.' 
 
 Right of Plucking Ears of Corn. 
 
 MATTHEW xii. I : ' At that season Jesus went on the sabbath day through the 
 cornfields : and His disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck ears of corn, 
 and to eat ' (Rev. Ver. ). 
 
 Question. What limitations were put on this liberty to pluck the 
 torn, so that serious loss and damage might not fall on tJie farmer ? 
 
 Answer. The limitations needed were sufficiently found in the 
 circumstances and sentiments of the country, and in the rule that the 
 
386 HANDBOOK OF J3IBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 barley or wheat might be taken for immediate use, but none might 
 be carried away. 
 
 Reading this incident with the associations of Western life, we 
 think the permission was very unjust to the farmers, who, in our 
 country, do suffer serious loss from the wanton damaging of the crops 
 by the people who walk through the fields. We have not the Jewish 
 sentiment, that the land is the Lord's, and the produce of the land is 
 His, and therefore the fruitage ought to be at the command of any of 
 the Lord's people who might be in sudden distress. The disciples 
 took, not the farmer's corn, but Jehovah's corn. 
 
 Then it should be noted that Eastern people do not freely walk 
 about, for the pleasure of walking, as do Westerns. They prefer 
 sitting ; they avoid exertion ; so that at any time there would be very 
 few people in the fields, and these only going through on their 
 business. 
 
 And travellers would only take a few ears to stay the gnawings of 
 hunger ; they would do no injury to the growing corn, and the little 
 they would take would hardly amount to a gleaning. Limit our 
 European customs to a permission, granted to bona-fide travellers, 
 that they might take sufficient to satisfy passing hunger, and no 
 farmer would be found to complain. 
 
 The Eastern custom was so well established, that the opponents of 
 Jesus do not complain of the disciples for taking the ears, but for 
 taking them on the Sabbath, contrary to the Rabbinical rules. With 
 characteristic exaggeration, this rubbing of the ears on the Sabbath 
 was treated by the Legalists as a capital offence. It seems that to 
 reap or thresh on the Sabbath was forbidden by one of the abhoth, or 
 primary rules, but ' the Rabbis had decided that to pluck corn was 
 to be construed as reaping, and to rub it as thrashing ; even to 
 walk on the grass was forbidden, because that, too, was a species of 
 threshing ; and not so much as a fruit must be plucked from a tree. 
 All these latter acts were violations of the toldoth, or derivative rules.' 
 
 The law as laid down by Moses has its own sufficient limitations. 
 * When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then 
 thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand ; but thou shalt not move 
 a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn ' (Lev. xxiii. 25). 
 
 The custom is maintained to the present day. Dr. Thomson says : 
 ' I have often seen my muleteers, as we passed along the wheat- 
 fields, pluck the ears, rub them in their hands, and eat the grains 
 unroasted, just as the Apostles are said to have done.' 
 
THE NEEDLES EYE. 387 
 
 The Needle's Eye. 
 
 MATTHEW xix. 24 : ' And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to gr 
 Ihrough the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.' 
 
 Difficulty. This appears to be quite an extravagant figure oj 
 ipeech, unless there is some unusual Eastern association with the term 
 ' needtts eye? 
 
 Explanation. In this instance there is a striking illustration of 
 the needless confusion created by the attempt to explain Scripture 
 allusions without due consideration of Eastern customs and associa- 
 tions. Very laboured have been the efforts to make a ' camel ' mean 
 a kind of rope, whereas it means nothing but a camel. And most 
 commentators have to rest satisfied with the conclusion, that the 
 sentence must have been a popular proverb to express the doing of 
 what is nearly impossible ; in such a conclusion shirking, rather than 
 explaining, the difficulty. 
 
 It seems that our Lord meant exactly what He said. The 
 * needle's eye ' was the common name given to the small gate beside 
 the larger one at the entrance of a city, through which a camel had 
 to be hardly squeezed and pulled if his master arrived after the large 
 gates were shut Eastern travellers describe as almost ludicrous the 
 desperate efforts which are necessary in getting the big, unwieldy 
 creature through the little gate. 
 
 Lord Nugent was the first to call attention to the possible reference 
 of the term to the narrow gate, which is often formed for foot- 
 passengers beside the larger gate of Eastern cities ; and Miss Von 
 Finkelstein, who has resided for many years in Palestine, gives a very 
 graphic description of the scene suggested by our Lord's reference, in 
 one of her popular lectures. City gates are shut at sunset, or soon 
 after. Some of them contain, in one of their folds, a small door, 
 which is left open for an hour or more after sunset to accommodate 
 foot-passengers accidentally delayed outside the walls or in the town ; 
 and it can be opened even later with a backshish. This little door 
 is said to be called by the Arabs of the present day * the eye of a 
 needle.' 
 
 Van Lennep is incredulous as to the sufficiency of this explanation. 
 He says : ' We have not met with the expression, but it seems not 
 improbable that it has sometimes been used to denote the smallness 
 of the opening. Nor have we ever heard, as some have asserted, that 
 camels are sometimes made to pass through this little door upon 
 their knees after their load and pack-saddle have been taken off. 
 
 252 
 
388 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The fact is, a camel could never pass through such a door, for, 
 besides being small and low, its threshold, which consists of the 
 lower part of the great gate, is a foot and a half or two feet in 
 height.' It is evident, however, that Van Lennep is only taking into 
 account one particular kind of small gate. There were small gates 
 sometimes at the sides of the larger gates, which had no such 
 thresholds, and were only very narrow for big animals. 
 
 As illustrations of the proverbial use of this and similar figures, we 
 may quote from Lightfoot the following specimens : ' In a discourse 
 about dreams, to intimate that they do not exhibit things of which 
 the mind had no previous conception, it is said, " They do not show 
 a golden palm-tree or an elephant passing through the eye of a 
 needle." To one who had related something very absurd and 
 incredible, it was said, " Perhaps thou art one of the Pombeditha (a 
 Jewish school at Babylon), who can make an elephant go through 
 the eye of a needle." So, too, in the Koran, "until the camel shall 
 enter the needle's eye," or ear in Arabic.' 
 
 Roberts gives the Indian form of the proverb : ' Just as soon will 
 an elephant pass through the spout of a kettle.' * Ah ! the old 
 sinner, he finds it no easy thing to die ; his life is lingering; it cannot 
 escape ; it is like the elephant trying to get through the spout of a 
 kettle/ 
 
 Malicious Sowing of Tares. 
 
 MATTHEW xiii. 25 : ' But while men slept, his enemy came, and sowed tares 
 among the wheat, and went his way.' 
 
 Question. Can we think that our Lord's illustration is based on 
 any common custom of those times ? 
 
 Answer. It satisfies the case of a parable if we admit that the 
 thing described in it might be done : it is not necessary to affirm that 
 the thing had been done. It is quite a natural and reasonable supposi- 
 tion that an enemy might, maliciously, scatter the seeds of noxious 
 weeds in a newly-sown field, and actual instances of such wickedness 
 have been met with, and reported. 
 
 . Dr. Thomson makes it extremely doubtful whether anything 
 approaching a custom of such a kind was established in the country 
 and age of our Lord. His treatment of this subject we have not seen 
 noticed, and the explanations of the commentaries have been allowed 
 to pass without their necessary qualifications. After identifying the 
 ' tare ' with the Arabic Zowan, a strong soporific poison, Dr. Thomson 
 says : * How are you to answer a farmer who takes you to a field 
 
MALICIOUS SOWING OF TARES. 389 
 
 nearly all tares, and declares that he there sowed clean seed, and 
 that in previous years he always reaped good harvests of pure grain ? 
 Whence the present crop of tares ? he asks, and so do you. I have 
 repeatedly examined such fields with all the care in my power, and 
 without finding an answer. It would be easy to say, as in the 
 parable, " An enemy hath done this ;" but, though I have read in 
 authors who never resided in Palestine that bad men do thus injure 
 their enemies, I have never found a person in the country itself who 
 had either known or heard of such an act. It is certainly remarkable 
 that Arab malice has never adopted this mode of injuring its victims; 
 but the fact must be told, it is altogether unknown at the present 
 day. It must have been done, however, in the time of our Saviour, 
 or He would not have mentioned it in His parable. At all events the 
 farmers of this day will not admit that their fields have thus been 
 filled with tares, and I believe them. We must, therefore, find some 
 other solution of a phenomenon which occurs so often that I have 
 myself had frequent opportunities to verify it.' 
 
 Roberts gives illustrations of this malicious practice in India ; and 
 we have met with the following fresh proof that so shamefully wicked 
 a method of taking revenge has entered into the minds of bad men : 
 'The country of 111- Will is the byname of a district hard by St. 
 Arnaud, in the north of France. There, tenants, when ejected by a 
 landlord, or when they have ended their tenancy on uncomfortable 
 terms, have been in the habit of spoiling the crop to come by vindic- 
 tively sowing tares and other coarse strangling weeds among the 
 wheat, whence has been derived the sinister name in question. The 
 practice has been made penal ; and any man proved to have tampered 
 with any other man's harvest will be dealt with as a criminal.' 
 
 Trench says that in the Roman law the possibility of this form of 
 injury was contemplated ; and adds that he actually knew of an out- 
 going Irish tenant who, with such a malicious intent, sowed wild oats 
 in the fields he was leaving. 
 
 One Bed for a Family. 
 
 LUKE xi. 7 : Trouble me not : the door is now shut, and my children are wiih 
 me in bed : I cannot rise and give thee.' 
 
 Question. Is this allusion to one family bed to be taken literally? 
 
 Answer. The simple question that must be decided is this: 
 What were the customs of the country and the time ? Such a family 
 arrangement is so repugnant to our notions of what is seemly, that 
 we are set upon persuading ourselves that our Lord did not really 
 
390 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 mean what He said ; and we search for some possible meaning 
 which may bring the expression into harmony with Western notions. 
 We think He may have meant, * We are all of us in our beds.' 
 
 Eastern people have no proper bed-chambers or beds. They 
 sleep at night in the rooms they occupy by day. They lie down 
 without removing any clothes except the outer robe, which is often 
 laid over them as a quilt. They rest on mats or mattresses, which, 
 along with the coverlids, are kept by day in a cupboard, out of one 
 corner of the room. This is called the bed, or, more properly, 
 bedding chamber. 
 
 Still, under such arrangements, we may assume that it was the 
 usual thing for individuals to lie separately, and this would certainly 
 be the case in better-class families ; but there is good evidence that, 
 among the poorer people, it was not infrequent for a whole family to 
 lie together under one large quilt ; of course it was strictly a family 
 arrangement 
 
 We are told, by those who are very familiar with Eastern life, that 
 parents sleep in the same chamber with their children, unless they 
 can afford to keep servants, to whose charge they may be entrusted. 
 A mother has been known to sleep in the same bed with her five 
 children ; this bed being spread upon a permanent platform, built of 
 wood, at one corner of the room, with a low railing round it. 
 
 G. O. Wray, in his journal in Palestine (1863), relates the follow- 
 ing : ' Our quarters for the night are a family dwelling-house, con- 
 sisting of one chamber thirty feet square, with dome roof of solid 
 masonry ; on one side of the room is a raised floor of ten feet in 
 breadth. On the floor of this dais sleep the grandfather or patriarch, 
 and his family of children and grand-children, male and female, some 
 eight of them, under a vast blanket.' 
 
 The word in the above passage which is translated * bed,' is an 
 unusual one, and properly means the divan, or raised platform, which 
 often filled nearly half a room in a Jewish or Eastern house. 
 
 Money- Changers in the Temple Courts. 
 
 MATTHEW xxi. 12 : ' And Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all 
 them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overthrew the tables of the money- 
 changers, and the seats of them that sold doves.' 
 
 Questions. Was this a recent or a long-established custom! 
 And wherein lay tfie sin of it which aroused our Lord's indignation ? 
 
 Answer. The first person to introduce this sacrilegious custom 
 was, according to the Talmud, one Babba Ben Buta, who brought 
 
MOAEY-CHANGERS IN THE TEMPLE COURTS. 391 
 
 three thousand sheep of the flocks of Kedar into the Mountain of the 
 House, that is, into the Court of the Gentiles, and so within the 
 consecrated precincts. The practice grew out of the desire to meet 
 the convenience of the foreign Jews, who visited the Holy City at 
 the Feasts, and were glad to purchase close at hand the beasts they 
 desired to offer in sacrifice, and to exchange their foreign money for 
 the orthodox Jewish shekel. 
 
 From early times there had been shops of merchants, and the banks 
 of money-changers, ranged on both sides of the Eastern Gate the 
 gate Shusan as far as Solomon's Porch. This was not altogether 
 seemly, but no serious mischief would have been done if the evil had 
 stopped there. But ' the vicinity of the Court of the Gentiles, with 
 its broad spaces and long arcades, had been too tempting to Jewish 
 gceed.' The profane example of Ben Buta was soon followed. * The 
 chanujoth of the shopkeepers, the exchange booths of the usurers, 
 i^raduallv crept within the sacred enclosure.' The priestly party, 
 which w.is in active enmity against Christ, very probably enriched 
 themselves by letting off the spaces of the court to these traffickers, 
 and thev were especially incensed against Him for at once stopping 
 their gains, and holding them up to reproach for practices at which 
 they connived. 
 
 In the sight of our Lord the sin lay in thus seeking merely selfish 
 ends where God alone ought to have been sought. It seemed to 
 Him the highest and worst expression of the rampant formalism 
 which had displaced spiritual Judaism. Even the place of worship 
 was defiled to the use of man's covetousness. It was hypocrisy to 
 pretend provision for the Temple-service, when they meant only to 
 secure personal gain ; and our Lord's severest things were said and 
 done concerning the hypocrite and the covetous. He was * filled with 
 righteous scorn at such mean irreverence.' 
 
 Kitto explains that, 'though the custom had in its origin the excuse 
 of public convenience, and the traffic had at first been conducted 
 with that subdued decorum which the sacred place exacted, yet, from 
 the progressing corruptions of the people, many foul indecorums had 
 crept in ; and the merchants and brokers, with the eager cupidity 
 which had already become their characteristic, soon made everything 
 subservient to their avarice ; and their noisy toutings and keen 
 hucksterings not only defiled the sacred courts, but greatly disturbed 
 those who came to worship at the Temple.' 
 
 It has been seriously questioned whether our Lord did, in fact, 
 cleanse the Temple courts, in a similar way, on two distinct occa- 
 sions, and with an interval of some two years. It is certainly remark- 
 
392 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 able that the earlier cleansing is omitted by the Synoptists, and that 
 there is no reference to the later cleansing by the fourth Evangelist. 
 Had we to decide upon mere probabilities, we should certainly say 
 that two cleansings so near together were unlikely, and that the 
 incident more naturally connects itself with our Lord's last visit to 
 Jerusalem, and the remarkable public assertion of His royal claims. 
 
 Gnashing of Teeth. 
 
 MATTHEW viii. 12 : * But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into 
 outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 
 
 Question. On what conditions of human feeling is this strong 
 figure based? 
 
 Answer. * Gnashing ' of teeth is the natural bodily expression of 
 extreme cold. It is the condition of one who is turned out of a 
 heated banqueting-hall into the chill, dark, winter's night, clad only in 
 his light, festal robes. We are more familiar with the very similar 
 expression * chattering of teeth.' The { outer darkness ' is the gloom 
 of the narrow street, which was not provided with any public lights, 
 and was even a place of danger in the night-time. 
 
 In this passage our Lord is not dealing with the final conditions of 
 men in the future life, but with the relations in which men stood, or 
 would stand, to the new dispensation, the new kingdom, which He 
 came to establish. Unexpected ones would be found within the 
 light and warmth of that kingdom. Expectant ones, who pride 
 themselves on their mere race-rights, would be found outside, in the 
 cold and the dark. There is no need that we should find more than this 
 reproof and warning of the self-confident ones in the passage. That 
 is a reproof and warning which ought to come searchingly to us all 
 
 Getkie paraphrases the passage thus : * I say unto you that many 
 shall come from the east and west and lie down at the table of God 
 in the kingdom of the Messiah, as honoured guests, with Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, while the Jew, who prided himself on being, by 
 birth, the child of the heavenly kingdom, and despised all others, as 
 doomed to sit in the darkness outside the banquet-hall' of the 
 Messiah, will have to change places with them.' 
 
 Some curious instances have been collected of the association of 
 the wretchedness of extreme cold with the idea of hell. The 
 Scandinavian demon Hel, phonetically corresponding with Kali, the 
 Black One (Gothic, Halja\ whose abode is an icy hole, has her 
 name preserved as a place of fiery torment. The realm called Hades 
 suggests cold. Tertullian and Jerome say that Christ's own phrases, 
 
GNASHING OF TEETH. 393 
 
 1 outer darkness ' and the * gnashing (chattering) of teeth,' suggest a 
 place of extreme cold alternating with excessive heat. Traces of 
 similar speculations are found with the Rabbins. Thus Rabbi 
 Joseph says, Gehenna had both water and fire. Noah saw the angel 
 of Death approaching, and hid from him twelve months. Why 
 twelve? Because, explains Rabbi Jehuda, such is the trial of 
 sinners, six in water, six in fire. Dante, following Virgil, has 
 frigid as well as burning hills ; and the idea was refined by some 
 scholiasts to a statement which would seem to make the alternations 
 of future punishment amount to a severe ague and fever. In Thibet 
 hell is believed to have sixteen circles, eight burning, eight frozen. 
 Plutarch, relating the vision of Thespesius in Hades, speaks of the 
 frozen regions there. Shakespeare has the following lines in ' Measure 
 for Measure ': 
 
 1 The delighted spirit 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 
 In thrilling region of thick -ribbed ice.' 
 
 In Paradise. 
 
 LUKE xxiii. 43 : * And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thec, to-day shalt 
 thou be with Me in Paradise.' 
 
 Question. As used by our Lord, was this merely an assurance of 
 coming death, or was it an explanation of what the condition of the 
 thief would be in the next life ? 
 
 Answer. A careful and unprejudiced examination of the inci- 
 dent with which this passage is associated is extremely difficult to 
 secure, because of the associations with it which have been fixed for 
 ages, and which we think must be true because they are so old. 
 And yet the fact is that we have connected our thoughts and senti- 
 ments about being * in Paradise ' with it, and have not duly endea- 
 voured to understand the sentiments of the Jews, the sentiments 
 which both our Lord and the thief must have shared, and which our 
 Lord expresses in His assurance. 
 
 Making a resolute effort to divest ourselves of long-established 
 notions, we attempt a reverent and sympathetic study of the entire 
 narrative. 
 
 There is no need for making more than one slight alteration of the 
 passage as we have it in the Authorized Version. In verse 42, the 
 expression ' into Thy kingdom ' should be rendered, * Lord, remember 
 me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.' 
 
 ' Paradise,' as a figure of speech, can only be rightly understood 
 
394 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 in the light of the thoughts that were familiar to the Jews of our 
 Lord's time. They do not appear to have conceived what the con- 
 dition of the soul would be after the resurrection and the judgment. 
 They strictly limited the reach of their imaginations to what we now 
 call the * the intermediate state.' Their general name for the place 
 of disembodied spirits was Hades (Greek), or Sheol (Hebrew) ; but' 
 in a very natural way, this one place, Hades, was thought of as 
 divided into two sections. The dual division of men, into * good ' 
 and 'bad,' must have its counterpart in this 'intermediate state.' 
 And so the gathering place of the good came to be known as 
 ' Paradise '; and the gathering place of the bad was called ' Gehenna.' 
 Both together made up the abode of the dead. Now, it was quite ap- 
 propriate for Christ, as a good man, to say that on His death, He 
 would go to the part of Hades known as Paradise ; and it was most 
 comforting that He could assure the poor thief, who would expect to 
 go to Gehenna, that he should be with Him * in Paradise.' 
 
 The story of the two thieves has been injured by being taken 
 from its natural connections, and regarded as an unrelated incident ; 
 whereas the truth is, that these crucified malefactors were very fully 
 influenced by what was going on around them. Just at this time the 
 Jews were again and again agitated by the uprising of persons claim- 
 ing to be Messiahs. We know the names of some : Theudas, and 
 Judas of Galilee. Now, Jesus of Nazareth had been regarded by 
 many as only another of these impostors. He was distinctly con- 
 demned for claiming ^to be Messiah : and though He had certainly 
 done many mighty works, yet His yielding to arrest, His meek attitude 
 at His trial, and His failure to deliver Himself by miracle things 
 which it seemed quite impossible to associate with the true Messiah 
 deceived His enemies into the conclusion that He was now a proved 
 impostor. 
 
 It is necessary also to observe that these incidents of our passage 
 occurred during the earlier part of the crucifixion time, before the 
 darkness had fallen about the cross,and amid the shoutings and the 
 raillery which accompanied the lifting up of the crosses and fixing 
 them firmly in the ground, Then the people were crowding round., 
 the Jewish rulers stood by, and all joined in that terrible jeerinc 
 which, a thousand times since then, has greeted the appearance of 
 the prisoner on the scaffold. What a pitiful sight it was ! As if 
 utterly to scorn those Jews who had compelled him to do a judicial 
 murder, Pilate had put over this helpless crucified claimant to 
 Messiahship these words : c Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.' 
 What an outburst followed the sight of those words as the cross 
 
IN PARADISE. 395 
 
 was raised ! ' He's no King of the Jews !' ' If He be Christ, let Him 
 come down from the cross !' Satire blends with scorn : ' He saved 
 others indeed, or professed to do so : let us see if He can save Him- 
 self, now, with the strong nails through His hands and feet. Here is 
 a grand chance for Him, if He be Messiah indeed. Our Messiah 
 will never die a malefactor's death. He will save Himself, if He can; 
 but, see, He can't. Behold, there He is, the proved impostor of 
 Nazareth, dying in His helplessness and shame !' 
 
 It is impossible for us to understand this story unless we can enter 
 into the spirit of this scene. We must hear that one cry, 4 Save 
 thyself.' * Save Thyself and us.' * If Thou be the Christ, come down 
 from the cross ; deliver your companions ; begin, in your own rescue 
 from death, the kingdom of which you spoke so much !' One 
 question stirred all hearts about His cross until they heard His dying 
 cry : ' Will He save Himself and begin His kingdom ?' 
 
 Now, we may venture to look at this scene from the point of view 
 of the praying thief, and try to enter into his thoughts. He was 
 affected by the near approach of death. Nearing death has two 
 effects on men. Some it makes scornfully daring. Some it 
 solemnizes and humbles. This man felt hurt by his companion's 
 scorn. All were going into the presence of their Maker and Judge, 
 and at least he might feel some shame when he remembered that 
 that they were carrying a burden of crime, while their companion 
 was dying in innocence, * He had done nothing amiss.' And as he 
 spoke to his fellow-thief, the thought came, ' Perhaps, after all, this is 
 the Messiah. If He is, then that is not the way in which to speak to 
 Him; better pray; perhaps, even now, He will put forth His power, 
 and save Himself and us from death.' So this man's prayer to 
 Christ really means this : * Lord, I know Thou art not about really to 
 die on that cross. When Thou puttest forth Thy power, and savest 
 Thyself, and comest in Thy kingdom, Lord, remember me, deliver 
 ine !' The man pleads for rescue from approaching death. And 
 our Lord's answer to him then means: 'I am not going to save 
 Myself, and I shall not save you. Do not rest in any such notion. 
 This very day we shall both die, and go to Paradise.' 
 
 The expression, then, * in Paradise ' may be accepted as a simple 
 poetic setting of the fact that on that very day they both should die ; 
 they both should be in the realm of the dead ; and there is no need 
 for us to force aside the veil that so wisely hides from human view 
 the mysteries of the future state, which human intelligence is as yet 
 unfitted to apprehend. 
 
SECTION 111. 
 DIFFICULTIES RELATING TO THE MIRACULOUS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 * WITH God all things are possible.' In dealing with this class of 
 difficulties, we cherish the reverent sentiment which is so effectively 
 expressed by Job (ch. xlii. 2), * 1 know that Thou canst do every- 
 thing.' Doubt of the Divine power to do more marvellous things 
 than any which are recorded, we will give no place to. * Allah 
 Akbarj ' God is great.' We will not even think of limitations of His 
 illimitable power. Anything and everything which is not ridiculous 
 in the statement God can do. It is sometimes said that God cannot 
 make two and two count five, or set two things in the same place at 
 the same time. But these are not * impossibilities ' ; they are foolish 
 statements ; the impossibilities in them only belong to the conditions 
 under which human thinking is placed. 
 
 But what we have reverently to ask is this not what God can do, 
 but what He has been pleased to do. We are to accept the revelation 
 which He has given us, and try to understand it, fully assured that 
 revelation means ' light.' If He is pleased to show us the methods 
 of His working, or permits us to recognise the agencies He uses, 
 then it is becoming, it is right, that we should learn all we possibly 
 can concerning His ways and His means, assured that they will prove 
 to us valuable helps towards the better knowing of Him. 
 
 In this spirit we propose to deal with the miracles recorded in 
 Scripture ; not desiring to be wise above what is written, but regard- 
 ing the revealed Word as given us to be studied and understood all 
 the better understood as man's general and scientific knowledge 
 advances, and throws sidelights upon the Book. Nothing approach- 
 ing to an exhaustive discussion is in any case attempted ; there 
 
INTROD UCTOR Y NOTE. 397 
 
 could only be such views of miraculous incidents presented as may 
 reasonably be taken in these days of keen Biblical criticism and 
 enlarged scientific knowledge. 
 
 The point which it is proposed variously to illustrate, in dealing 
 with Bible miracles, is that man's knowledge is strictly limited to thai 
 which has been revealed to him either directly through his senses, in 
 relation to the world of things in the midst of which he is set ; or, 
 mediately, through the operations of his mind on the material thus 
 offered to his senses; or, further, by the special communications 
 which God may be pleased to make in His written Word, or by the 
 lips of His servants. 
 
 All man's knowledge is revelational. But this is to affirm that 
 it is a part only of the great whole of truth and life just the part 
 that suffices for the particular life on this earth which man is required 
 to live. Out of the infinite treasury he is furnished with just so 
 much as he needs for the present. Whatsoever comes to any man, at 
 any time, as a glimpse of the infinite truth and life, he calls 
 miraculous ; he may even, with some propriety, call it * supernatural,' 
 because it transcends that sphere of ' Nature ' with which he alone is 
 familiar. It is strictly the higher natural, the higher order, and is 
 simply another order than that with which our senses and our 
 faculties are set in relation. 
 
 It is, no doubt, very difficult for us to conceive of any other than 
 this * natural order ' with which we are now associated. A certain 
 piece or part of the * universal order ' has been revealed to us ; but 
 we have no right to argue that all the forces working in the universe 
 are working in this our world, or even that they are all illustrated 
 by forces that are working here. Perhaps the simplest aid we can 
 secure towards a clear apprehension of this distinction may be gained 
 by conceiving of beings among us who have seven senses or ten 
 senses. Such persons would have apprehensions of existing things 
 which are absolutely closed to us ; and yet everything that they know 
 would be strictly in the sphere of the ' natural' If any one of us 
 has that gift known as ' second sight,' or the ' mesmeric ' power, we 
 do not think of them as accomplishing anything miraculous ; they 
 only have apprehension of a natural order which is at present beyond 
 the vision and ability of ordinary men. Dr. Horace Bushnell puts 
 the distinction in very felicitous terms : * Nature is not in any proper 
 and complete sense the system of God, but is in fact a subordinate 
 member only of a higher and virtually supernatural system, to whose 
 uses it is subject. It is in fact a Thing ; while the real Kingdom of 
 God is a Kingdom of Powers, Himself the Regal Power. .... Not 
 
398 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 even miracles, wrought by a supernatural Divine agency, necessarily 
 imply any removal or suspension of its laws (laws of Nature) ; for 
 Nature is subjected by her laws, both to God's activity and to ours, 
 to be thus acted on and varied in her operation by the new combi- 
 nations or conjunctions of causes they are able to produce.' 
 
 The same view is reached along another line of thought. All the 
 processes of thinking, under our present human conditions, are de- 
 pendent on two primary conceptions, those of 'Time' and of 
 'Space.' We can only think things in sequence; one must be 
 before or behind the other. And everything must take room ; it 
 must lie beside something else. But * time ' and ' space ' are purely 
 earthly conditions. They determine marts thinking ; but they need 
 not determine the thinking of every creature God has made, as they 
 certainly do not determine the thinking of God, to whom ' time ' is 
 an eternal 'now,' and 'space' is infinite. Some of the so-called 
 * miracles ' are really no more than time-puzzles; things done at once 
 which men say cannot be done except in time. If corn-plants usually 
 took twelve months for their ripening, we should 'call it a miracle 
 that, in a given case, they ripened in six months. And now that they 
 ripen in six, we think it a miracle that they should, in a given case, 
 ripen in an hour. 
 
 In treating of miracles a clear distinction should be made between 
 an Atheistic and a Theistic standpoint. We make no attempt to 
 discuss the abstract question of the miraculous from the Atheistic 
 position. We believe in God a personal, living Being, Creator of 
 all things, Controller of all forces, for whose supreme pleasure every- 
 thing is, acts, and maintains relations. 
 
 Many definitions of ' miracle ' have been attempted. None have 
 yet been generally accepted, and recognised as undoubtedly satis- 
 factory. If we deal with miracle apart from its special Scriptural 
 features, it should seem sufficient to say that by a miracle we mean 
 4 any event for which we are unable to assign an antecedent or a cause.' 
 If we can explain a thing or, if we have experience or knowledge 
 that enables us to trace how a thing has come about then we do 
 not call it a miracle. 
 
 But this at once brings up to view the fact, that different things 
 will be called miracles at different times. Given an age in which 
 man's knowledge is limited and his observation superficial, and in 
 such an age miracles will abound. One half the things man has to do 
 with will seem to be supernatural; unusual operations of nature, storms, 
 ice, eclipses, earthquakes, etc., will be treated as miraculous. But 
 such things are only * miracle ' in the sense of being beyond the know- 
 
1NTRODUCTOR Y NOTE. 390 
 
 kdge and experience of the age. ' In the remoter and more primitive 
 ages of the world, it will be observed that mankind, whether by 
 reason of some native instinct as yet uncorrupted, or some native 
 weakness yet uneradicated, were abundantly disposed to believe in 
 things supernatural. They had little thought of nature as an existing 
 scheme of order and law. Everything was supernatural. The universe 
 itself, in all its parts, was only a vast theatre in which the gods and 
 demi-gods were acting their parts.' 
 
 Given an age in which knowledge abounds and observation is 
 keen and precise, and then the miraculous will be set under the 
 narrowest possible limitations. Let a miracle be asserted, and men 
 will at once submit its evidence to the most searching tests, and 
 disprove the miraculous in it if they possibly can. They will trace 
 its causes, connections, and processes, and identify its laws with such 
 as are already recognised as 'natural laws.' 
 
 Then the evidential value of a so-called * miracle ' depends upon 
 the impression which it makes on those for whom the miracle was 
 first wrought. No miracle or unusual event can be an evidence of 
 equal value to all persons, or in all ages. Its power is relative. And 
 we have to ask : What was the value of the miracle as evidence, or, 
 better, as revelation, when it occurred^ and to those for whose sake it 
 was wrought ? Because its miraculous character has been removed 
 for us by advancing knowledge, we have no right to declare it false 
 in itself, or to say that it deceived those to whom it first came. 
 
 Revelation must always be relational. A perfect revelation could 
 only come to perfect and perfectly furnished beings. Qualified and 
 limited revelations alone are adapted to a race which is advancing in 
 knowledge by stages. It may very well be that at some stages, the 
 best possible revelation is that which convinces of the direct inter- 
 vention of God. 
 
 In considering the miraculous, as presented in the Scriptures, this 
 point should be kept well in mind : Every Bible miracle must be 
 studied in its setting. If we can explain its processes, those for whom 
 it was wrought could not. And both of us get the true lesson and 
 influence of the miracle, when the one says : ' God wrought it in 
 ways that I eannot explain ;' and the other says : * God wrought it in 
 ways that I can explain.' The essential thing for both of us is that 
 God wrought it. 
 
 In precisely this lies the value, for all the ages, of the records of 
 Bible miracles. They are impressions of the Divine working, and 
 revelations of the Divine character. The more fully we, in these days, 
 can see that the Divine Being, always and everywhere, works along 
 
400 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the lines of His own orderly laws, the more perfect should be our 
 reverence for Him and trust in Him. It is not in the least degree 
 necessary to a true and reverent view of God, that we should conceive 
 of Him as the embodiment of a power that works oddly, impulsively, 
 or spasmodically. 
 
 We must, however, give careful attention to the very important 
 relations which a personal will may bear in the orderly outworking 
 and application of any system of laws, for in this direction will be 
 found the true explanation of the miraculous. There is a system of 
 fixed laws which regulates the wise ordering of a man's private life 
 and conduct; but the man's personal will modifies, controls, and 
 arranges the working together of those laws. There is a system of 
 laws for the government of families ; but, for high moral ends, those 
 laws are set in fresh measures and relations by the parental will. So 
 we are to understand there is a higher spiritual order the superior 
 law of the Divine Will, which may overrule and readjust the relations 
 of the ordinary laws. 
 
 This point is of so great importance, that we may restate it under 
 the authority of some honoured names. 
 
 It is not more clearly presented than by R W. Robertson 
 ('Sermons,' ii. 40) : 'What we call laws are simply the subordinate 
 expressions of a will. There must be a will before there can be a 
 law. Certain antecedents are followed by certain consequents. 
 When we see this succession, we are satisfied, and call it natural. 
 But there are emergencies in which it may be necessary for the will 
 to assert itself, and become not the mediate, but the immediate 
 antecedent to the consequent. No subordinate agent interposes; 
 simply the first cause comes in contact with a result. The audible 
 expression of will is followed immediately by something which is 
 generally preceded by some lower antecedent, which we call a 
 cause. A miracle is the manifestation to man of the voluntariness of 
 power.' 
 
 Taking illustration from the controlling power given to the human 
 will, Dr. Horace Bushnell argues thus : ' What an immense action 
 upon nature are we ourselves seen to have, as a race, when we con- 
 sider the multifarious wheels and engines we have put to work, the 
 heavy burdens we carry round the globe in our ships, the structures 
 we raise, the cultivation we practise ! We make the world in fact 
 another world. All of which is referable to a force supernatural in 
 the last degree. Nature, unapplied or uncombined by our wills, 
 could do no such thing. Wills only have this power, and wills are 
 supernatural. If now we have a power so immense over the world 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 401 
 
 as we see in all our works and wonders of contrivance, is it credible 
 that God can have no way of access to nature, no power at all 
 over nature? Is He the only Will excluded from a sovereignty 
 over it?' 
 
 There are two tendencies in relation to the miraculous, as recorded 
 in Scripture, both of which the careful and reverent student anxiously 
 resists. One is the tendency to exaggerate the miraculous element, 
 and find the supernatural everywhere. This is a weak and a weaken- 
 ing tendency, and does not honour the great Wonder-worker ; while 
 its results excite the scoffings of the ungodly. If we firmly hold that 
 God is in all the orders and systems of laws, as the supreme user and 
 controller, in those at any time known to men, and in those unknown, 
 we can at once accept any adequate explanation that may be given 
 of a so-called miracle, and say concerning it, that we will no longer 
 call it a miracle, for in that case God evidently wrought through the 
 ordinary and known processes of nature. 
 
 One of our purposes in dealing with the difficulties connected 
 with the miraculous which are found in our Scriptures, is to relieve 
 the Sacred Book of some of the needless burdens which it has been 
 compelled to bear. We hope to find God in nature, where our 
 fathers thought they found God working beyond nature ; and we 
 would learn to adore the Wisdom that devised a system of laws that 
 proves adequate to explain so many more cases than we had supposed 
 a system so perfect that it is seen to need fewer exceptions than 
 we had imagined. 
 
 The other tendency is to eliminate the miraculous. With the 
 rationalistic spirit we have no sympathy, because, in seeking to explain 
 the genesis of all so-called miracles, it seeks to remove all sense of 
 God, all need for God. And miserable, indeed, are the shifts to which 
 the rationalistic genius is put, demanding from us a harder measure 
 of faith than any series of Bible miracles. While we willingly give 
 heed to all natural explanations that can be soberly offered, we refuse 
 to give up any one case in which the explanation suggested proves 
 inadequate, and the directness of the Divine dealing acting in lines 
 and laws of the higher, supernatural order is still manifest. 
 
 It will be difficult to obtain a better definition of miracle than this: 
 ' It is God working out His purposes through the natural order in 
 an extraordinary way.' By ' extraordinary,' meaning simply this : 
 ' otnerwise than men have any experience.' 
 
 Miracles are not temporary subversions of the Divine order, but 
 operations in that higher line of Divine order which, as yet, is only 
 
 26 
 
4 c2 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 occasionally revealed to men a higher order of which this earthly 
 order is simply a harmonious specimen, or part, or illustration. 
 
 In dealing with the Scripture Difficulties connected with the 
 miraculous, we shall find many cases in which the unusual feature is 
 not the thing done, but the extent of the thing, the quantity of the 
 thing, or the timeliness of its doing. In these cases we come upon 
 the border line between the * Miraculous ' and the * Providential ' ; 
 and, perhaps, L we had worthier ideas of the ' Providential,' that word 
 would suffice for all such cases. 
 
 We propose to keep the following things always before us in our 
 treatment oi this section of ' Biblical Difficulties ' : 
 
 1. To recognise, as readily as possible, the natural agencies which 
 God was generally pleased to use. 
 
 2. To observe carefully the unusual features in His mode of 
 using them. 
 
 3. To trace the immediate effect of the miracle on those for whose 
 sake it was first wrought. 
 
 4. To discover the precise moral purpose of the miracle in relation 
 to the Divine education of the race. 
 
 We are supremely anxious to conserve the Bible miracles for all 
 intelligent and thoughtful readers ; but we are even more supremely 
 anxious to conserve the reality of the Divine rule in this world of 
 things and laws ; and to enlarge the general conception of that rule, 
 by showing how it uses forces which are not as yet altogether revealed 
 to men. 
 
 It may be well to add as is done in each of the paragraphs 
 some extracts from writers on various aspects of this question of the 
 miraculous, whose views may be regarded as lying in the same plane 
 with those to which expression has, in this Introductory note, been 
 somewhat fully given. 
 
 I. The Relations of Miracle to Nature. 
 
 Archbishop Trench uses careful and precise language in the dis- 
 cussion of these relations : * But while the miracle is not thus nature, 
 so neither is it against nature. That language, however commonly 
 in use, is yet wholly unsatisfactory, which speaks of these wonderful 
 works of God as violations of a natural law. Beyond nature, beyona 
 and above the nature which we know, they are, but not contrary to 
 
 it. Nor let it be said that this distinction is an idle one 
 
 The miracle is not thus unnatural^ nor can it be, since the un- 
 natural, the contrary to order, is of itself the ungodly, and can in 
 
INTRO D UCTOR Y NOTE. 403 
 
 no way, therefore, be affirmed of a Divine work, such as that with 
 which we have to do. The very idea of the world, as more than one 
 name which it bears testifies, is that of an order ; that which comes 
 in then to enable it to realize this idea which it has lost, will scarcely 
 itself be a disorder. So far from this, the true miracle is a higher 
 and a purer nature, coming down out of the world of untroubled 
 harmonies into this world of ours, which so many discords have 
 jarred and disturbed, and bringing this back again, though it be but 
 for one mysterious prophetic moment, into harmony with that higher. 
 The healing of the sick can in no way be termed against nature, seeing 
 that the sickness which was healed was against the true nature of 
 man, that it is sickness which is abnormal, and not health. The 
 healing is the restoration of the primitive order. We should term the 
 miracle not the infraction of a law, but behold in it the lower law 
 
 neutralized, and for the time put out of working by a higher 
 
 In the miracle, this world of ours is drawn into and within a higher 
 order of things ; laws are then at work in the world, which are not 
 the laws of its fallen condition, for they are laws of mightier range 
 and higher perfection ; and as such they claim to make themselves 
 felt, and to have the pre-eminence and predominance which are 
 rightly their own.' 
 
 F. W. Robertson presents the following view : ' A miracle is com- 
 monly defined to be a contravention of the laws of nature. More 
 properly speaking, it is only a higher operation of those same laws 
 in a form hitherto unseen. A miracle is, perhaps, no more a sus- 
 pension or contradiction of the laws of nature than a hurricane or a 
 thunderstorm. They who first travelled in tropical latitudes came 
 back with anecdotes of supernatural convulsions of the elements. In 
 truth, it was only that they had never personally witnessed such 
 effects ; but the hurricane which swept the waves flat, and the light- 
 ning which illuminated all the heaven, or played upon the bayonets 
 or masts in lambent flames, were but effects of the very same laws of 
 electricity and meteorology which were in operation at home,' 
 
 II. Definitions of Miracles. 
 
 A work, effect, or occurrence happening out of the ordinary course 
 of Providence, or effected by suspension of natural or physical laws. 
 
 A Divine interposition or exercise of Almighty power. 
 
 Works involving a temporary suspension of the known laws of 
 nature; or a deviation from the established constitution and fixed 
 order of the universe ; or, perhaps, more correctly, of that depart 
 
 26 a 
 
4 o 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 ment of the universe which constitutes our own system whose 
 established order and laws we are capable, to the full extent requisite 
 for our purpose, of ascertaining. Wardlaw. 
 
 Such a control of natural causes as bespeaks the intervention of a 
 cause to which they are all secondary and obedient. Dr. Robert 
 Vaughan. 
 
 A miracle is a work, event, or junction of events out of the course 
 of nature and beyond the power of man. Professor W. Griffiths. 
 
 A miracle is a manifestation to man of the voluntariness of 
 power. F. W. Robertson. 
 
 A miracle is an abridged word which admonishes us that Deity is 
 there. Vinet, 
 
 III. The Value of Miracles as Evidence. 
 
 This we have not found more calmly or more wisely treated any- 
 where than by Frederick Myers ( ( Catholic Thoughts,' pp. 276-280) : 
 ' Of all kinds of external evidences that of miracles has been most 
 unduly exaggerated, and a weight has been made to rest upon it 
 which it now seems to many ill-calculated to bear, and which, judging 
 from the Bible alone, it could scarcely have been intended to bear. 
 And if this be true, it is surely wise for all who have been committing 
 to it much of the faith of others, or of their own, to re-examine from 
 time to time the degree of the stability of their dependence. 
 
 * Doubtless those objections which resolve themselves into the 
 denial of the possibility of miracle are unreasonable. They proceed 
 on an assumption of a knowledge of the powers and purposes con- 
 nected with man's history, which no one can show that he possesses 
 or can possess; and also on that of the spiritual world being governed 
 by laws strictly analogous to those by which the material world is 
 governed. But the modes of God's operation can only justly be 
 regarded by us as infinite : and in the small portion of the spiritual 
 world with which we are acquainted, there are more things seemingly 
 miraculous than things that we can bring into the sequence of cause 
 and effect All will and all original thought are for us miraculous ; 
 whatever, indeed, is spontaneous must ever seem to us supernatural. 
 And thus there can be no conclusive antecedent objection of the 
 metaphysical kind to the occurrence of miracles. The question is 
 one purely historical, and to be decided by testimony. But at the 
 same time it must be acknowledged that most cultivated minds have 
 a strong disposition to object to any interference with the laws of 
 nature, either by spirit or otherwise, in any particular case, and more 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 405 
 
 especially when the preternatural is exalted as more Divine than the 
 natural. And for those who have been taught to trust much in 
 spiritual things to natural analogies, so strong is the analogy of 
 nature against any miraculous interference with its laws by the Great 
 Lawgiver, that this state of mind is so reasonable that it may fairly 
 be said, that belief in the existence of miracle can for them only 
 justly be demanded on the production of evidence for its occurrence 
 very much more weighty than for that of any historical fact. And 
 objections to this evidence may often be of great weight when drawn 
 either from moral considerations respecting the nature and purpose 
 of the asserted miracle, or from those critical considerations which 
 are connected with all personal and documentary proof. And it 
 should be borne in mind that the burden of proof lies always on those 
 who assert the occurrence of the miracle ; no preliminary burden 
 of disproof on those whose belief in it is demanded And then, too, 
 let us remember that it is not obviously just to expect or require that 
 the same effect should be produced on any mind by the mere record 
 'of a miracle that might fairly be expected or required from one 
 witnessing the miracle itself. For it requires a very strong faculty 
 of historic imagination to be much affected by the mere record of a 
 miracle, and while we by no means theoretically disbelieve it, we may 
 not at the same time be able so vividly to apprehend it as to believe 
 it influentially. 
 
 ' And then, again, we may consider whether the merely historical 
 evidence for the credibility of the documents which contain the 
 records of the Biblical miracles is very much greater than that of any 
 ordinary historical documents. For the evidence for the credibility 
 of the Sacred Books depends for a large measure of its conclusive- 
 ness on moral considerations; and, if this be so, then if we introduce 
 moral considerations largely into our data for establishing the credi- 
 bility of the documents upon the evidence of which we are called 
 upon to believe the miracle, we may justly also be allowed to introduce 
 moral considerations into our data for estimating the credibility of 
 the miracle itself. And if we do this, we shall find that ultimately 
 we come to the result that the revelation supports the miracles as 
 much as the miracles support the revelation.' 
 
 Professor W. Griffiths says : ' Miracles indicate superhuman know- 
 ledge or power; else they do not deserve the name, and must be 
 traced to artifice or chance. But miracles do not in themselves 
 prove the moral quality, much less the divinity, of the source whence 
 they spring. Our safeguard against deception is, partly the scale on 
 
406 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 which the work is done, but chiefly the moral influence which 
 accompanies it. The question, Can miracles in any case compel 
 belief of doctrine? is curious rather than practical It does not come 
 before us in connection with the wonders of the Bible, and may be 
 banished to the domain of those subtleties which have nothing to do 
 with the duties of life. The Scripture miracle is closely allied to 
 some spiritual truth that speaks for itself. In revelation we have to 
 deal with the sign as clothed with instruction, and are not bound 
 to determine what might be its effect if it stood naked and alone. 
 
 'According to Scripture, therefore, miracles are in themselves 
 neither useless nor of supreme authority. The sensuous does not 
 override or supplant the spiritual, but acts as its handmaid only. 
 The proof from signs, though necessary, is not absolute, and leaves 
 room for appeal to the court of intellect and moral affection, the 
 ultimate tribunal The evidence is of a mixed order ; the word 
 and the token go together, and accomplish between them what would 
 be impossible to either by itself.' 
 
JACOB AND THE ANGELS. 407 
 
 Jacob and the Angels. 
 
 GENESIS xxxii. 1, 24: 'And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God 
 met him.' ' And Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled a man with him until 
 the breaking of the day.' 
 
 Difficulty. If tJiese statements are historical, they involve mi- 
 raculous interventions. If they describe mental and spiritual visions, 
 they are true to nature, and there is no room for miracle. 
 
 Explanation. It is quite true that visions may take extra- 
 ordinary forms, and be remarkably vivid ; to the person receiving 
 them even seeming to be real ; and yet, because they take no place 
 in the world of fact, they cannot be regarded as miraculous. It is 
 not beyond, or otherwise to, the natural order, that God should have 
 direct access to man's mind, and speak to him through his thoughts 
 and imaginations. St Paul speaks of * visions and revelations of the 
 Lord/ without regarding them as miraculous. We are familiar with 
 the strange combinations and the dramatic situations of our dream- 
 times, when the will no longer controls the selections from the passing 
 mental associations; and it is in the regular order of nature that 
 God's will should, when He may please, guide the selections and 
 combinations, and so give visions which should be revelations. 
 
 We may, however, hesitate to class the latter case of Jacob's 
 wrestling with such Divine visions. The sight of the ladder and the 
 moving angels was clearly a night-vision. The sight of angel- 
 defenders at Mahanaim was very probably a day-vision. And, on 
 the face of it, we should certainly expect to regard the wrestling 
 scene as a night-vision ; and we are only checked by the very strange 
 fact that, after it, Jacob is said to have * halted,' or * limped/ as if he 
 had suffered some physical injury in the course of an actual bodily 
 struggle. 
 
 Almost universally the scene at Mahanaim is recognised as a vision. 
 ' In a dream he saw the angels encamped on each side of him, to 
 assure him of protection against his brother.' 
 
 Many commentators regard the wrestling at Peniel as an allegory ; 
 and some see in it an actual presence of an angel, or Divine 
 messenger, in human form. On the whole the view supported by 
 Dr. C. Geikie may be preferred. He says : * It is not necessary to 
 materialize the scene; for the soul is the true sphere of that wrestling 
 which secures spiritual blessing. Nor does even the halting on his 
 thigh involve any physical struggle, though it implies miraculous 
 
4 o8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 agency. Its lesson is only an enforcement of what had preceded 
 that human policy is no safe reliance, but that he must trust in God. 
 The mighty struggle was that of God with the still resisting evil of 
 his nature ; a struggle which cannot be spared anyone destined to 
 high spiritual ends, and conscious of being so.' 
 
 On that strain of the sciatic nerve, which involved Jacob's lame 
 ness, and which Geikie thinks necessarily implies miraculous agency, 
 Keil makes a suggestion which commends itself as reasonable : 
 ' Soul-struggles in vision might present themselves under the form of 
 bodily labour and wrestlings of the soul, since in the vision the whole 
 spiritual process is represented in pictures ; and, further, such a 
 struggle may even produce bodily effects, as here the lameness of 
 Jacob's thigh.' 
 
 It is probable that all soul-struggles are accompanied by more or 
 less severe bodily strainings; and in this connection we can but 
 remember the strange sweating of our Lord in the Garden of Geth- 
 semane. Such answering physical strain to Jacob's mental agonies 
 will quite sufficiently explain the injury done to his nerve. The more 
 true this scene is felt to be to the spiritual nature of man, the less 
 shall we need to add to it any miraculous elements. 
 
 We are not prepared to accept the view of this scene which 
 represents it as a subsequently fashioned legend, created to give an 
 external form to a great and mysterious spiritual struggle ; but as that 
 view needs to be taken into thoughtful consideration, and may be 
 treated with all due reverence for Biblical authority and inspiration, 
 we give the passage in which Ewald deals with it. After describing 
 the peculiar anxiety of Jacob just at this time, which leads him to 
 consecrate all his powers in solemn and urgent supplication to his 
 God, he says : ' It is a happy conception of the later historian, to 
 introduce just at this moment of Jacob's most torturing suspense, 
 when his early treachery towards Esau returned suddenly in fearful 
 retribution upon his soul, his wrestling with the Angel ; the answer. 
 
 as it were, to the prayer immediately before Much, it is true, 
 
 Jacob has already gained ; yet precisely that which he formerly gained 
 from his brother, he holds as yet on a merely human tenure the 
 right of the cunningest and the strongest, rather than by the Divine 
 right of pure aspiration and spiritual conquest. And yet man knows 
 no real or unalienable possession but that which he has won rather 
 from God than from man, and has thus made a part of his very life 
 and soul. The ordinary struggles of youth, exciting rather than 
 decisive, and prompted for the most part by mere passion, are 
 
JACOB AND THE ANGELS. 409 
 
 followed inevitably by the final and decisive struggle with the Gods 
 themselves ; and he only who fails not in this can win for himself 
 the Divine blessing, which brings with it true possession and enduring 
 prosperity. So in this critical night Jacob is met unawares by a 
 mighty wrestler, and forced to wrestle with the unknown and mys- 
 terious visitor ; and the wrestling lasts without interruption the whole 
 
 night long Now is accomplished the true spiritual triumph of 
 
 the great hero, made a new man through such superhuman conflicts; 
 though, as the legend finely concludes, he receives a lameness, a 
 memento of the mortal combat he has passed through, and a reminder 
 of past weakness ; as if the moral deformity of " the crafty " had 
 passed into the body, and were henceforth to attach to that only. 
 Many old materials, doubtless, have been worked up into this con- 
 ception : the popular belief in fearful nightly phantoms vanishing 
 with the dawn ; the easy change of interpretation given to the old 
 name Israel (God's Wrestler), as denoting one who had striven with, 
 and therefore, perhaps, even against God ; also, no doubt, some 
 ancient notion of this patriarch as limping, connected with the idea 
 of his craftiness and crookedness ; and the localization of the night- 
 scene on the river Jabbok (as if this name signified " River of 
 Wrestling "), and near the place called Peniel all these are made to 
 fit in well with these stories, and the whole episode is then interwoven 
 most harmoniously with Jacob's history.' 
 
 F. W. Robertson well says that ' the most honest and simple way 
 is to confess that we cannot understand the historical fact ; but this 
 need not prevent our receiving the underlying spiritual truths the 
 truth of God's guidance and protection, the truth that the struggle 
 to know and to feel after God is the conflict of our whole life.' 
 
 Jonah in the Whale's Belly. 
 
 JONAH i. 17 : ' And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and 
 Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.' 
 
 Questions. Is the strictly historical character of this narratirt 
 well assured? And can any explanations be given which at all relieve 
 the extraordinary character of the miracle ? 
 
 Answer. The presumption is certainly in favour of the historical 
 character of the Book of Jonah. There are other references to this 
 prophet, and our Lord alludes to him as a real person, and assumes 
 the miraculous character of his preservation. It is, indeed, possible 
 that it may be an imaginative creation, in the nature of a parable. 
 
4 io HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. - 
 
 or picture-teaching of moral truth ; but if so, it stands alone in 
 Scripture, and is the only instance of such a mode of composition. 
 The only work that could possibly be compared with it is that of 
 Job, which may, perhaps, be regarded as a philosophical discussion, 
 for which the machinery is found in the details of an ancient 
 legend. 
 
 But, regarded as bona fide history, it may be permissible to recognise 
 that it is given to us in poetical form, and strict literalness of descrip- 
 tion is not to be looked for. If we may suppose that Jonah wrote 
 the accounts some time after these events occurred, we can quite 
 understand that a halo of poetry and mystery had gathered round 
 the scenes, and he could only record them as they were glorified in 
 his feeling. The absolute plain bare facts it would now be impossible 
 for us to recover. 
 
 Explanations of Jonah's preservation have been offered from two 
 distinct points of view. Strongly holding the miraculous character of 
 the transaction, some yet seek to relieve the strain of the narrative, 
 and to answer objectors, by showing that creatures are found in the 
 Mediterranean which are capable of swallowing and retaining a man 
 entire. But no explanations can relieve the mystery of the retention 
 of life for so long a time under conditions so absolutely destructive 
 to life. 
 
 Others seek for natural or semi-natural explanations, and either 
 regard the translation great fish as incorrect, or look upon the 
 description as a poetical representation of some form of remarkable 
 rescue. 
 
 Explanations offered from a strictly rationalistic point of view we 
 do not care to give, as with such we can have little sympathy. But 
 elucidations which are based on the reverent study of God's Word, 
 and supported by adequate illustration and proof, deserve our very 
 careful consideration. John Bellamy, an original and suggestive 
 student of the Old Testament in the original language, thinks the 
 account of Jonah can be relieved of its miraculous features by a 
 more exact apprehension of the Hebrew terms that are used. As 
 his ideas are not at ready command, and are only briefly alluded to 
 in the usual commentaries, they may be given somewhat fully. 
 
 The words daag and dagah are generally chosen to mean a great 
 fish, or some sea-monster ; dag is also applied to whatever appertains 
 to the profession of fishing ; as to fishermen (Is. xix. 8) to things 
 that are necessary at sea, to house the fish, such as boats, barges, 
 coasters, and is written in this sense by the most learned .Rabbis in 
 
JONAH IN THE WHALES BELLY. 411 
 
 their writings. The word is not used in this verse to mean zfish, but 
 to describe the nature of the business done in those vessels, which 
 was that of fishing; and this, according to the most learned Jewish 
 Rabbis, is the true and literal meaning of the word. See Lingua 
 Sacra, under dag, where the words besiroth daugah (in Amos iv. 2), 
 which are translated in the English Version fish-hooks, are truly 
 translated fishing-vessels. 
 
 The learned lexicographer says : * This in the English translation 
 vs. fishing- hooks. But, after the most strict examination, I cannot find 
 any of the commentators or lexicographers of note espouse this 
 sense (see Jarchi, Kimchi, Jonathan, and Buxtorf), who are decidedly 
 unanimous that the true meaning of the words is fishing-vessels ; and 
 the learned Abarbanal is also of a similar opinion. See also the 
 Chaldee, under dagah : " and your daughters in the fisherman's ship " 
 (Targ. Jona).' And in Talm. Heb. it denotes a covered boat or 
 small sloop. * He that sells the ship, sells the cock-boat' (Bava 
 Bathra, ch. v.). 
 
 Secondly, the word lebalangis rendered to swallow; it a!:o, in various 
 places, means to destroy ; but by a critical examination we shall find 
 that it has no such meaning in this passage, and that an improper 
 word has been chosen in the authorized translation. For, notwith- 
 standing it is rendered to swallow in various places of Scripture, we 
 also find that it is expressed differently according to idiom, and the 
 obvious meaning of the writer ; yet all variations of expression must 
 always partake of the nature of the root of the word in a nearer or 
 more remote sense. In Is. xxviii. 4, it is rendered * he eateth up. 1 
 In Gen. xli. 7, 24, 'devoured.' In Is. xxv. 7, 'covered.' In Num. 
 xxiv. 20, marg., 'destroy' But it is possible to destroy without 
 eating or devouring; and it is also possible to cover, conceal, or hide 
 without deiwuring, destroying, or swallowing. 
 
 This word lebalang must necessarily mean to remove or banish ; 
 it is said in Ps. Iv. 9, * Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues.' 
 But it is plain that the result of this destruction would be contrary to 
 reason, for if the people were destroyed, there would be no necessity 
 to divide their tongues. The sacred writer here makes an allusion to 
 the confusion or dividing of tongues, or the doctrines of religious 
 sects, at Babel, which caused them to be removed. This verse reads, 
 * Remove, O Lord, divide their tongues.' 
 
 There is another passage which shows that the word balang, which 
 is translated swaUow, is to be truly translated by remove or banish. 
 See Job x. 8, ' Yet thou hast destroyed me ' ; this is as it stands in 
 
4 i2 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the Authorized Version ; but though Job was then * removed ' ot 
 4 banished ' from his tabernacle, and his patriarchal rule over the land 
 of Edom, yet he was not ' destroyed.' 
 
 The word megnee in Chaldee means the belly or inward part of 
 anything to which it is applied. This is the clear meaning in Talmud 
 and Rabbinical Hebrew. 
 
 Thus it appears from the proper translation of these passages the 
 rational series of the narrative the customary usage of the words 
 among the ancient people, and the opinion of the above-named 
 eminent Rabbinical writers, that the Chaldee word dagah, which has 
 been rendered a fish, was meant by the sacred writer to signify a 
 covered boat or skiff ; and the word lebalang, which has -been 
 rendered to swallow, literally means to remove from place to place. 
 
 The verse reads then agreeably to reason, as it is in the original, 
 without supposing impossibilities, thus : * Now the Lord had prepared 
 a great barge to remove Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly (hold) of 
 the barge three days and three nights.' 
 
 It appears that the ship in which Jonah embarked was bound to the 
 port of Tarshish, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and the 
 mariners, having put Jonah in the boat, attempted to pull him ashore, 
 but the sea being tempestuous, they could not. Finding it impossible 
 to land him, they then returned to the ship, leaving Jonah in the boat 
 at the mercy of the waves ; in which perilous situation he was three 
 days and three nights. 
 
 As representing those who hold to the historical and miraculous 
 character of the incident, Dean Payne Smith wisely says : ' In an 
 age when the advance of science has made us careful not to accept 
 any facts but such as are carefully verified, the preservation of Jonah 
 alive in the belly of a fish beneath the waters for more than twenty- 
 four hours is sufficiently startling. The real point, however, for those 
 who believe that God has deigned to authenticate His revelation by 
 miracles is, whether there is such a reason for this miracle as justifies 
 us in receiving it as a matter of faith.' 
 
 All the well-known Bible writers labour to reduce the miraculous 
 element in the incident within the narrowest possible limitations. 
 And they succeed in showing that fishes large enough are found in 
 the Mediterranean ; that they can swallow a man whole ; that it is 
 quite possible for them to cast up again whole what they swallowed ; 
 and that, if Jonah retained life, the digestive processes of the creature 
 would not affect him, for the animal stomach has no power on living 
 substances. But nothing can remove the miraculous character of 
 
JONAH IN THE WHALES BELLY. 41$ 
 
 the fact, that life was retained in circumstances which human experi- 
 ence declares to be absolutely destructive. 
 
 There are three ways in which the narrative of Jonah's preservation 
 may be reasonably dealt with, (i) It may be accepted as an imagi- 
 native and poetical description of some remarkable and gracious 
 Providential preservation. (2) Or it may be regarded as an historical 
 account of the casting loose of Jonah in the ship's boat, which is 
 obscured from view by the mistaken translation of the Authorized 
 Version. (3) Or the miraculous character of the incident may be 
 fully recognised ; it may be seen that God used ordinary naturat 
 agencies so far as they would go towards effecting His purposes, and 
 controlled them, and supplemented them by direct miraculous 
 agencies. Either of these views may be taken by reverent men, who 
 jealously guard the truth of God's supreme, direct, almighty, ever- 
 present control of the affairs of men, whose providences in every age 
 are more or less miracles, involving combinations and arrangings that 
 are unusual and Divine. 
 
 Prebendary Huxtable, in the Speaker's Commentary, says : * But 
 amongst various possibilities which offer themselves, we are wholly 
 incapable of determining what the actual fact was, either in respect 
 to the part of the animal in which the prophet was imprisoned, or as. 
 to the particular kind of marine creature which was selected for the 
 purpose. It is enough that we are able to show that the sea is pro- 
 vided with a variety of inhabitants already known to us, and there 
 may well be others as yet unknown, from among which the Almighty, 
 without having recourse to any new exercise of creative power, might 
 call forth an individual fish for the strange office here assigned to it.'* 
 
 * Herodotus tells a story which singularly resembles that of Jonah. We give it 
 in an abridged form: 'Arion, the Mithymnoean, who, in the days of Periander,. 
 King of Corinth, resided for some time in that city, is said to have been carried to 
 Toenarus on the back of a dolphin. He went to Italy, and there acquired a large 
 fortune, apparently by the exercise of his unrivalled talents as a harpist. Wishing 
 to return to Corinth with his wealth, he embarked at Tarentum in a Corinthian 
 vessel ; but as soon as they were out at sea, the sailors determined to murder hin. 
 for the sake of his money. Perceiving their intention, he offered them all he had 
 to save his life, but the men were determined to be rid of him. Reduced to 
 extremity, he entreated that they would at least allow him to put on his most 
 valuable dress, and also permit him to give them a specimen of his musical 
 powers, promising that as soon as he had finished he would destroy himself. 
 They complied, retiring to the centre of the ship, while he made his arrange- 
 ments. Having dressed to his taste, Arion stood with his harp upon ihe side of 
 the vessel, where he sang them a quick and spirited song, and then leaped into 
 the sea. The ship pursued her course to Corinth ; but Arion, so the fable 
 relates, was taken up by a dolphin, and carried on its back to Toenarus. He 
 hastened away at once to Corinth, and told his strange adventure to Periander 
 who would not believe him until he was confronted by the sailors with whom h 
 had sailed, who, when they saw him, confessed their crime.' 
 
4 r 4 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Talking Serpents. 
 
 GENESIS in. I : ' Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field 
 which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God 
 said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden ?' 
 
 Question. Is it necessary to find in this the historical record oj 
 what was said, miraculously, by a talking animal; or may we see the 
 familiar form of poetical figure and legendary narrative ? 
 
 Answer. There would be no difficulty whatever felt in recog- 
 nising the poetical and figurative character of this narrative, if it 
 were found in an ordinary ancient book; but we have allowed 
 ourselves to think that everything found in the Scriptures must be 
 strictly historical, because it is inspired. But that view will not bear 
 examination or criticism. If God is pleased to reveal Himself and 
 His will to men, He is free to use any of those methods by which 
 man can communicate his mind to his fellow-men. God is not 
 limited to the use of history; He may use poetry; He may use 
 philosophy; there is no reason why He should not use fable and 
 legend, which really are nothing more than teaching by picture. No 
 teacher of morals by means of fable or legend is ever supposed to 
 assert that his creations are true to historical fact ; they are what 
 they profess to be imaginative creations, more or less probable in 
 their form, embodying and conveying to men's minds some valuable 
 truth or principle ; and the shape of the creation is decided by 
 the knowledge and sentiment of the age for which the picture is 
 made. 
 
 We may distinctly claim the 'legendary* as one of the forms 
 under which Divine revelations may have been made in past ages ; 
 and we may properly set ourselves upon the endeavour to understand 
 how, through these older legendary forms, important truths have 
 been conveyed and preserved for all the generations. 
 
 There is only one objection to the legendary, as a mode of revela- 
 tion or teaching, which specially claims our attention. It is said that 
 it is unworthy as an instrument for God to use, because it is not true. 
 But that depends on what we understand by ' the true.' A thing 
 may be true to life it may have happened ; though it is not true to 
 fact, for it never has happened. A thing may be true to imagination 
 and thought, which has never gained formal realization. There is, 
 however, a more precise and complete answer the legendary is not 
 presented in the Scriptures as true, in the sense of being true 
 to fact. We accept it as legend ; the imaginative setting of moral 
 
TALKING SERPENTS. 415 
 
 events, moral struggles, that cannot be stated in bald terms, that must 
 be suggested by strong figure, because they cannot be precisely de- 
 scribed. ' God of old time spoke unto the fathers by divers portions 
 and in divers manners? and we need find no difficulty in recognising 
 that one of the manners was the legendary. 
 
 Following out this line, it becomes plain that we need not find the 
 miraculous in this account of the serpent talking to the woman. The 
 thing told us in and by the pictured scene is that a struggle went on 
 in the mind of Eve between the desire to indulge the senses and the 
 duty of restraining the senses within the known limitations of the 
 Divine command. Paint that struggle, so that others may see it to 
 be just the struggle going on in their own natures, and the picrure 
 we paint cannot be a more suggestive and effective one than that 
 which we find given us in connection with the above passage. 
 
 In a very valuable series of sermons by the Rev. Johnson 
 Barker, LL.B., entitled Forbidden Fruit ; or, Sermons on Temptation^ 
 the views we have indicated receive eloquent expression. He says : 
 * Now, there are three possible ways of reading this story of the Fall. 
 It may be read as history ; in every sentence of it literally true. It 
 may be read as poetry ; true, but not literally true : true as Bunyan's 
 " Pilgrim's Progress " is true. Or it may be read as history blended 
 with poetry ; the historic facts of an actual occurrence, and a genuine 
 experience, partially veiled under the thin transparency of imaginative 
 form. It is in this third way that I think it should be read. The 
 man and woman innocent, yet frail and temptable. The Tempter. 
 The Temptation. The Fall. All this is history. But the form of 
 the temptation through a serpent and the fruit of a forbidden tree 
 this surely is not history. It is only the poetic clothing or rendering 
 of some profound spiritual and supernatural truths which, quite pos- 
 sibly, could not be otherwise conveyed. And I know of nothing 
 either in the Scriptures or out of them to compel us to read this part 
 of the story in any other way. " The letter killeth, the spirit giveth 
 life." To insist on a close adhesion to the letter in every word and 
 syllable of a narrative like this would be to kill the faith of many, 
 and to make them blind to the spiritual teaching it contains. These 
 things narrated are not literally true ; they are true only symbolically. 
 True in their spiritual meaning to every human experience I believe 
 they are, but not true as the record of actual historical facts. 
 
 ' If in any other Oriental book we read of a tree of knowledge 
 bearing forbidden fruit, and hiding in its leaves a talking, tempting 
 serpent, we should never think of reading it as other than a poetic 
 
4 i6 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 rendering of the truth it was designed to teach, and that truth would 
 be no less true to us because it pleased the writer to put it in this 
 form. Why, then, should any man insist that that must be literal in 
 Scripture which he would never for a moment dream of thinking 
 literal if he met with it elsewhere ?' 
 
 Attempt has been made to get over the difficulty of a reasoning 
 and talking serpent, by the supposition that Satan was the actual 
 tempter, and the serpent only his agent or instrument. But Mr. 
 Barker well replies to this by saying ' it is a theory which receives 
 no warrant from the narrative itself; it is imported into it from 
 without, and for it, so far as I know, there is no Scriptural authority; 
 and when, in order to explain a narrative, you begin to intrude ideas 
 of your own, which do not necessarily belong to it, you have then 
 surely ceased to read it literally:' 
 
 Whether an animal spake, or a devil spake by an animal, or 
 neither animal nor devil spake, the struggle must in reality have been 
 carried on within Eve's mind. We have represented in the narrative 
 her thoughts, which she followed until they led her astray. In her 
 we find the struggle of the seen and unseen, of feeling and faith, of 
 dependence and independence. The knowledge of good and evil 
 implies just this the fancied ability to go alone, apart from the 
 Divine guidance. Ability to see on all sides, and so to watch and 
 guard efficiently one's own life. So her taking the fruit of this tree is 
 figurative of just this, which is the very essence of sin for the de- 
 pendent creature taking life into one's own hands. This was Eve's 
 transgression and evil. She fell by yielding to the senses, Adam fell 
 t>y yielding to the passions and affections. 
 
 Perhaps what is best said on this difficult subject is said by Dean 
 Payne Smith: ' The leading point of the narrative is that the tempta- 
 tion came upon man from without, and through the woman. Such 
 questions, therefore, as whether it were a real serpent, or Satan under 
 a serpent-like form, whether it spake with a real voice, and whether 
 the narrative describes a literal occurrence or is allegorical, are better 
 left unanswered. God has given us the account of man's temptation 
 and fall, and the entry of sin into the world in this actual foim ; and 
 the more reverent course is to draw from the narrative the lessons 
 it was evidently intended to teach us, and not enter upon too curious 
 speculations. We are dealing with records of a vast and hoar 
 antiquity, given to man when he was in a state of great simplicity, 
 and with his intellect only partly developed, and we cannot expect 
 to find them as easy to understand as the pages of modern history.' 
 
PROPOSED IDENTIFICATION OF THE MANNA. 417 
 Proposed Identification of the Manna. 
 
 EXODUS xvi. 4, 15: 'Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain 
 bread from heaven for you ; and the people shall go out and gather a day's 
 jjortion every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law or 
 no.' ' And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, What 
 is it ? for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, It is the bread 
 which the Lord hath given you to eat ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. Efforts have been made to prove that the substance 
 known as manna is an ordinary product of desert districts, and that 
 consequently the miraculous character of this daily provision for the 
 Israelites cannot be maintained ; but it would still seem that if the 
 substance itself was not in its nature miraculous, its mode of coming its 
 continuance, and its Sabbatic conditions certainly were. 
 
 Explanation. This subject is so important for its own sake, 
 and as a specimen of a large character of miracles, that it may 
 properly receive careful and elaborate treatment. We need to 
 understand clearly that the miraculous element in any event or 
 incident may be simply the element of time, or of quantity, or of 
 mode. That lesson is taught us in our Lord's miracle of multiplying 
 the loaves. The increase was bread, even as the original loaves were 
 bread. It was not a miracle of making some new substance ; it was 
 a miracle of time and of quantity. So, if it can be shown that 
 manna is a familiar natural product, we are still left free to recognise 
 Divine intervention in the times of its coining and not coming, its quan- 
 tity, and its use in teaching the spirit of trustful dependence on God. 
 
 One preliminary remark should be made. There is no good 
 reason for the assumption so often made, that the manna constituted 
 the entire food of the Israelites during their forty years' training. A 
 little consideration will serve to assure us that it simply took the 
 place relative to other food which is usually taken by bread. The 
 Israelites had the milk and flesh of their cattle, such herbs as would 
 quickly grow in the neighbourhood of their temporary settlements, 
 and certain natural products of the desert which are known to form 
 an important part of the food of the Bedouins. 
 
 It will be well to describe the various natural substances which 
 have been proposed as identical with the manna, and the fact that 
 there are several indicates how much uncertainty attaches to the 
 matter. The Scriptural description is not precise enough to admit of 
 any accurate comparisons. 
 
 Duns tells us of two plants which have been named as the source 
 of the manna. One of these, the Alhagi, or camel's thorn (Manna 
 Hebraica], abounds in the Sinaitic desert, of which it is a native, 
 
 27 
 
4 i8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 It is also common in the Egyptian desert. In summer the so-called 
 manna exudes in small drops from its leaves, and falls to the ground. 
 The other is the tamarisk or tarfa tree (Tamarix galtica^ var. man- 
 nifera), a native of the Eastern deserts. The exudation is caused by 
 the puncture of an insect (Coccus maniparus). The puncture is made 
 in the tender branches and twigs, and from this the saccharine 
 matter known as manna flows at irregular periods. Sometimes over 
 a wide area no exudation takes place for a period of four or five 
 years. This is not to be confounded with the manna of commerce, 
 a substance yielded by one of the Oleaceae the Ornus, or manna- 
 ash, which contains the principle known to chemists as mannite. The 
 exudation of the tamarisk is sugar ; it does not contain mannite. It 
 is found in shining drops on the twigs and branches. What falls 
 upon the sand is said not to be gathered. It has the appearance of 
 a gum, is of a sweetish taste, and melts when exposed to the sun or 
 the fire. The Arabs consider it a great delicacy, and the pilgrims 
 prize it highly. A very small quantity and that only at a particular 
 time of the year, which is not the time when the manna first fell 
 is now afforded by all the trees of the Sinai peninsula ; and Kitto 
 adds, ' It would be safe to say that if all the trees of this kind, then 
 or now growing in the world, had been assembled in this part of 
 Arabia Petrsea, and had covered it wholly, they would not have 
 yielded a tithe of the quantity of gum required for the subsistence of 
 so vast a multitude.' The whole quantity now produced does not 
 exceed 600 or 700 pounds. 
 
 Canon Rawlinson gives a further description of this tamarisk- 
 manna : ' It is comparatively a dry substance, is readily shaken from 
 the leaves, and consists of small yellowish-white grains, which are 
 hard, and have been compared to coriander-seed by moderns. The 
 name " manna " attaches in the East to this substance, which is em- 
 ployed both as a condiment and as a laxative. The special points 
 in which it differs from the manna of Scripture are : its confinement 
 to certain trees or bushes; its comparative permanency, for it 
 "accumulates on the leaves"; and its unfitness for food.' It is also 
 found only in the months of July and August, and not during the 
 whole year. 
 
 Rawlinson also tells of a substance known as 'air-honey.' A 
 deposit from the air, which falls indifferently on trees, stones, grass, 
 etc., and is generally thick and sticky like honey, but under certain 
 circumstances is * concreted into small granular masses.' It has been 
 described by Aristotle, Pliny, Avicenna, Shaw, Forskal, and others. 
 It is collected by the Arabs, and eaten with their unleavened cakes 
 
PROPOSED IDENTIFICATION OF THE MANNA. 419 
 
 as a condiment. It so far resembles the manna that it comes with 
 the dew, is spread upon the ground generally, and melts when the 
 sun's rays attain a certain power. But it is never found in large 
 quantities ; it does not fall for more than two months in the year ; 
 and it is wholly unfit to serve as man's principal food, being more like 
 honey than anything else. Probably this * air-manna ' is a fanciful 
 creation, and the substance so named is really one of the tree 
 exudations. 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie^ quoting from Ritter, makes quite a fresh addition 
 to the claimants for identification with the manna. Hugh Macmillan 
 also mentions this substance in his Footnotes from the Page of 
 Nature : 
 
 ' There is an edible lichen which sometimes falls in showers several 
 inches deep, the wind having blown it from the spots where it grew, 
 and carried it onwards. In 1824, and in 1828, it fell in Persia and 
 Asiatic Turkey in great quantities. In 1829, during the war between 
 Persia and Russia, there was a great famine at Oroomiah, south-west 
 of the Caspian Sea. One day, during a violent wind, the surface of 
 the country was covered with what the people called " bread from 
 heaven," which fell in thick showers. Sheep fed on it greedily, and 
 the people, who had never seen it before, induced by this, gathered 
 it, and having reduced it to flour, made bread of it, which they found 
 palatable and nourishing. In some places it lay on the ground five 
 or six inches deep. In the spring of 1841 an amazing quantity of 
 this substance fell in the same region, covering the ground here and 
 there to the depth of from three to four inches. Many of the particles 
 were as large as hailstones. It was grey and sweet to the taste, and 
 made excellent bread. In 1846 a great manna rain, which occurred 
 at Jenischehr during a famine, attracted great notice. It lasted 
 several days, and pieces as large as a hazel-nut fell in quantities. 
 When ground and baked it made as good bread, in the opinion of 
 the people, as that from grain. In 1846 another rain of manna 
 occurred in the government of Wilna, and formed a layer upon the 
 ground three or four inches deep. It was of greyish-white colour, 
 rather hard, irregular in form, without smell, and insipid. Pallas, 
 the Russian naturalist, observed it on the arid mountains and lime- 
 stone tracts of the Great Desert of Tartary. In 1828 Parroth brought 
 some from Mount Ararat, and it proved to be a lichen known as 
 Parmelia esculenta, which grows on chalky and stony soil, like that 
 of the Kirghese Steppes of Central Asia. Eversmann described 
 several kinds of it, last century, as found east of the Caspian, and 
 widely spread over Persia and Middle Asia. It is round, and at 
 
 272 
 
420 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 times as large as a walnut, varying from that to the size of a pin's 
 head, and does not fix itself in the soil in which it grows, but lies 
 free and loose, drinking in nourishment from the surface, and easily 
 carried off by the wind, which sweeps it away in vast quantities in 
 the storms of spring, and thus causes the " manna rains " in the 
 districts over which the wind travels.' 
 
 Now, it may freely be granted that each of these substances bears 
 resemblance, in some points, to the Bible manna ; but it must also 
 be admitted that none of them satisfy all the requirements of the 
 Bible description. And if we willingly recognise that * it pleased the 
 Creator to proceed on the lines of nature, so to speak, and to assimi- 
 late His new to certain of His old creations' ; if we admit that ' God 
 fed His people not with the food which belonged to other regions, 
 but with such as appertained to the district ' ; still the fact remains 
 that the miraculous stamp lies on the timeliness, quantity, continuance, 
 and Sabbatic limitations of the bestowment. These can have no 
 possible explanation save that of direct and extraordinary Divine 
 intervention, arrangement, and provision, which may properly be ex- 
 pressed by the term * miracle ' ; no less miracle because, being 
 continued for some forty long years, it passed into the 'providential/ 
 
 The Natural Agencies in the Destruction of Sodorru 
 
 GENESIS xix. 24 : ' Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah 
 brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. ' 
 
 Question. Does the destruction of Sodom essentially differ front 
 the destruction of cities and districts by volcano, earthquake, or tornado, 
 which we only regard as extraordinary natural calamities ? 
 
 Answer. The only difference is that, in so many cases of over- 
 whelming calamity, we have no knowledge of the Divine intention, 
 no such warning as makes the calamity a precise Divine education 
 for us ; but in this case of Sodom the Divine intention was revealed 
 to some persons, so that the moral design in sending the calamity 
 should, by them at least, be properly understood. And so, for the 
 whole world, the case of Sodom became a specimen case, from which 
 man might learn the direct relation which God bears to all pro- 
 vidential calamities, and the moral missions which He makes all 
 such disasters to execute. 
 
 If by miracle we understand * direct Divine intervention,' then 
 the destruction of Sodom was a miracle. If we can see that direct 
 Divine intervention is the regular and constant method of God's 
 dealing with our world, then the supernatural becomes the natural ; 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. 421 
 
 and we can understand that the natural becomes the handmaid for 
 carrying out God's moral and educational purposes concerning the 
 race which He has set in His world. 
 
 Scripture distinctly attributes the destruction to certain natural 
 forces. Two are named, * brimstone and fire,' but these may be only 
 one. Fire from heaven leaves a smell of brimstone ; and it would be 
 quite in accordance with Eastern idiom to translate this ' brimstony 
 fire,' by which we should understand ordinary but severe lightning. 
 What was peculiar in the case attaches to the character of the soil, 
 which was lighted up by the heavenly fire. Possibly the best illus- 
 tration is found in the setting light to a coal mine which is full of 
 inflammable material. 
 
 There is abundant evidence of the extraordinary character of the 
 soil in this district of Sodom. The most recent and most interesting 
 is furnished by Tristram, who, writing of the range of salt hills on 
 the south-western shore of the Dead Sea, known as the Ridge of 
 Sodom, says of a valley he discovered at the northern end of this 
 ridge : ' The sides of the valley are cliffs of limestone, showing here 
 and there on their surface traces of post-tertiary marl. But since 
 the marl has been washed out there has been a second filling in of 
 an extraordinary character, which is only now in course of denuda- 
 tion. There are exposed on the sides of the wady large masses of 
 bitumen mingled with gravel. These overlie a thick stratum of 
 sulphur, which again overlies a thick stratum of sand, so strongly 
 impregnated with sulphur that it yields powerful fumes on being 
 sprinkled over a hot coal. The layer of sulphurous sand is generally 
 evenly distributed on the old limestone base, the sulphur evenly 
 above it, and the bitumen in variable masses. In every way it differs 
 from the ordinary mode of deposit of these substances as we have 
 seen them elsewhere. Again, the bitumen, unlike that which we 
 pick up on the sea-shore, is strongly impregnated with sulphur, and 
 yields an overpowering sulphurous odour. Above all, it is calcined, 
 and bears the marks of having been subjected to extreme heat. 1 
 
 The vale of Siddim, we are told, was full of bitumen pits. Bitu- 
 men is inflammable, and when ignited by the fiery shower, the 
 pits and the whole plain which was filled with them would burn 
 fiercely. 
 
 Tristram's explanation, based upon his careful observations, is as 
 follows : * So far as I can understand this deposit, if there be any 
 physical evidence left of the catastrophe which destroyed Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, we have it here. The whole appearance points to a 
 shower of hot sulphur and an eruption of bitumen upon it, which 
 
422 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 would naturally be calcined and impregnated by its fumes ; and this 
 at a geological period quite subsequent to all the diluvial and alluvial 
 action, of which we have such abundant evidence. The catastrophe 
 must have been since the formation of the wady, since the deposition 
 of the marl, and while the water was at its present level ; therefore, 
 probably, during the historic period. Everything leads to the con- 
 clusion that the agency of fire was at work, though not the overflow- 
 ing of an ordinary volcano. The materials were at hand, at which- 
 ever end of the lake we place the doomed cities, and may probably 
 have been accumulated then to a much greater extent than at present. 
 The kindling of such a mass of combustible material either by light- 
 ning from heaven or by other electrical agency, combined with an 
 earthquake ejecting the bitumen or sulphur from the lake, would 
 soon spread devastation over the plain, so that the smoke of the 
 country would go up as the smoke of a furnace. There is no 
 authority whatever in the Biblical record for the popular notion that 
 the site of the cities has been submerged. The simple and natural 
 explanation seems to be this : that, during some earthquake, or with- 
 out its direct agency, showers of sulphur and probably bitumen, 
 ejected from the lake or thrown up from its shores, and ignited 
 perhaps by the lightning which would accompany such phenomena, 
 fell upon the cities and destroyed them.' 
 
 This case affords an effective illustration of the changed estimate 
 of so-called miraculous events in different ages. In its time this 
 destruction of Sodom was thought of as a miracle; by the Jews it 
 would be called a miracle ; but we can trace the operation of natural 
 forces, and so we do not call it a miracle ; yet we see, quite as 
 clearly and impressively as ever our fathers did, that it was a Divine 
 ruling and overruling, in the spheres of nature, for effecting the Divine 
 purpose in the judgment of one race for its iniquity, and the moral 
 education of all races. ' Seen by its light, events of history, for 
 which sufficient secondary causes may be discovered, are nevertheless 
 shown to be direct manifestations of the Divine justice, and to have 
 moral causes as their real basis. We lose the benefit of the teaching 
 of the Bible if we suppose that the events recorded there were 
 different in kind from those which take place now. A certain limited 
 number of events were so ; but of most it is simply the curtain that 
 is drawn back, and we see God's presence no longer veiled as with 
 us, but openly revealed.' Dean Payne Smith. 
 
SUN AND MOON STANDING STILL. 423 
 
 Sun and Moon standing still. 
 
 JOSHUA x. 13 : ' And the sun stood still and the moon stayed, until the people 
 had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of 
 Jasher ? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down 
 about a whole day.' 
 
 Difficulty. If this is a strictly historical statement \ the miracle 
 described seems to have been much more extraordinary than any neces- 
 sities of the case could have demanded. If the description be poetical 
 in form, it may be possible to discover the precise circumstances which 
 thus gain so intense an Eastern colouring. 
 
 Explanation. It has not been duly observed that the report is 
 given by the writer as one of which he had no personal knowledge ; 
 and, as if he felt the extraordinary character of what he narrated, he 
 does the unusual thing of giving his authority for his statement ; and 
 this authority we find to have been a book of historical poems, in 
 which we might reasonably expect to find extravagant Eastern 
 metaphors. 
 
 Very little information can be obtained concerning this book of 
 Jasher. Ewald thinks it illustrated by 'historical songs, how an 
 upright man in Israel, a Joshua or a Jonathan, should live what 
 glorious victories he could achieve ; what glory he would gain.' It 
 was rather a book of heroic poems than a book of Psalms. Bishop 
 Lowth imagined that it was a collection of national songs, and 
 named from the first words of it az yashir, 'then sang.' 
 
 The point of importance is, that this extract from the Book of 
 Yashir should be compared with such poems as Moses' Song, the 
 Song of Deborah, and the Song of the Bow, all of which we may 
 assume were included in the book. It would perhaps be helpful to 
 compare the extract with some that might be taken from the poems 
 of Homer, in whose writings extravagant description abounds, but 
 is not usually misunderstood, as if it represented historical fact 
 All poets' facts are facts idealized and glorified. 
 
 Almost universally it is now recognised that the description was 
 given when it was supposed that the sun went round the earth, 
 which it does not, it only appears to do. And it has arrested 
 attention that if the sun were retained there could be no work for 
 the moon also to do at the same time. If all that is meant is that 
 there was an unusual extension of after-glow, or a dispelling of a 
 storm cloud from one quarter of the heavens, then the aid of the 
 moonlight may have been useful. 
 
 Earnest studies of this subject have been made by those who 
 
424 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 cherish the utmost reverence for God's Word, and hold firmly the 
 truth of Divine and miraculous intervention in human affairs, for 
 high moral purposes ; and we propose to give some summaries of 
 their explanations as likely to be at once more interesting and more 
 satisfying than any restatement of the modern case that we might 
 ourselves make. 
 
 In a work on Bible Difficulties by a Roman Catholic writer, 
 which came into our hands some years ago, we found the following 
 passage : * The sun was over Gibeon, or in the east the moon in 
 the Valley of Ajalon, or in the west So that at the time of Joshua's 
 prayer to Jehovah not command to the sun he had a long day 
 before him, and therefore no present fear of failing light. The 
 simple facts of the case were these. The Israelitish army made a 
 forced march from Gilgal to Gibeon in the night, hoping to arrive 
 before daylight, so as to attack the investing Amorites suddenly in 
 the darkness, and defeat them more easily in the panic that would 
 ensue. This plan was in danger of failing, for as the advancing 
 force approached Gibeon the day began to break. Then it was 
 that Joshua appealed to God for aid. But the aid he sought was 
 that of prolonged darkness ; hence his prayer was that " the sun 
 might be obscured and the moon also," by the great storm which so 
 powerfully aided the Israelitish attack.' 
 
 We can but admire the boldness and simplicity of this explanation, 
 while we admit that it has not received general acceptance. The 
 more elaborate treatment may be represented by the careful work of 
 Dr. S. Cox, which may be regarded as giving the view of the passage 
 which is now largely accepted. 
 
 On the Gibeonites appealing for help, nothing loth, Joshua 
 seized the opportunity of encountering the hostile kings. As the 
 need was sharp and pressing, he made a forced march, traversing in 
 a single night the space between Gilgal and Gibeon, a distance 
 which on a previous occasion it had taken him three days to cover 
 so bent was he on striking a sudden blow which might break the 
 hostile confederation to pieces before it gathered its full strength 
 The five kings of the Amorites and their combined host, taken at 
 unawares, were unable to stand the onset of Joshua's ' mighty men 
 of valour.' They broke, and fled up the western pass, ' the way that 
 goeth up to Beth-horon.' Up the weary length of this steep difficult 
 pass the flying host had to toil, chased by their eager foes, and 
 suffering a great slaughter, till they reached the hamlet of Upper 
 Beth-horon at the crown of the pass. 
 
 When the pursuing army of Israel reached this point, the summit 
 
SUN AND MOON STANDING STILL. 425 
 
 of the pass, a broad and noble scene would open before them, 
 extending even to the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. But, 
 doubtless, they would cast but a rapid glance on the distant scene. 
 That which would most attract their eyes would be the rough steep 
 road, heavy with loose stones and shale, broken at intervals with 
 sharp upturned edges, and again by smooth slippery sheets of rock, 
 which led down to Lower Beth-horon, and over which their dis- 
 comfited enemies were flying in wilii disorder, amid the horrors of a 
 tropical storm. For it was as the Amorites turned the crest of the 
 pass, 'in the going down to Beth-horon,' that they met a fierce 
 tempest driving up from the sea ; thunder, lightning, and a deluge 
 of hail storming down on their broken ranks, the Lord casting down 
 great stones upon them, ' so that they were more that died of the 
 hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the 
 sword.' 
 
 It must have been a weird and marvellous spectacle which burst 
 on the panting warriors of Israel as they topped the pass. Behind 
 them lay the hills which hid Gibeon from view, while from high 
 above those hills the sun shone hotly on their backs. Beneath them 
 the steep mountain-path sloped sharply into the valley, all thick with 
 their scattered and disheartened foes; while, before them, black 
 clouds of tempest rolled up from the sea, and the faint crescent 
 moon glimmered through a rift in the clouds over the distant Valley 
 of Ajalon. To Joshua and his captains the scene would be as un- 
 welcome as it was strange. For here were their foes utterly at their 
 mercy, and, if the daylight would but last, sure to be well-nigh 
 exterminated by a terrible slaughter. But here, too, was the tempest 
 driving up the valley from the sea, threatening to blot out the light 
 of the sun, and, by bringing the day to a premature close, to give 
 their foes an opportunity of escape. 
 
 At such a conjuncture as this, the natural thought of Joshua, his 
 wish, perhaps his prayer, would be, ' O that the daylight would last, 
 that the darkening tempest might be dispersed, and that we might 
 see our foes till the victory be complete !' If this was his wish, his 
 prayer and we shall soon see that the Sacred Record implies no 
 more than this his prayer would be answered as the storm blew by, 
 and the sun shone out through the clouds. In some way it was 
 answered ; for the Israelites did chase the Amorites down the pass 
 and through the valley, smiting them with a very great slaughter. 
 
 What the exact basis of historical fact was which the sacred poet 
 quoted by Joshua had in view when he sang of the sun and the 
 moon as coming to the help of Israel, we cannot determine with 
 
426 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 precision. It may be that, as he stood on the summit of the Beth- 
 horon pass, and saw the dark tempest driving up the valley, from 
 the sea, Joshua prayed that the light of day might not be obscured, 
 that the tempest might be dispersed; and to this simple incident, if the 
 prayer were uttered and answered, the poet may have given the 
 imaginative and hyperbolical expression we find in his verses. Or 
 it may be that he only had in view the astonishing greatness of the 
 victory, and meant to imply that so vast an achievement demanded 
 more than the ordinary length of an ordinary day. Or, just as 
 Deborah, when singing of the stars that fought against Sisera, pro- 
 bably intended to imply that all the forces of Nature are arrayed 
 against the enemies of God ; so our poet, in singing of the arrest of 
 the sun and the moon, may only have intended to imply, that all 
 the forces of Nature are for the servants and friends of God, that when 
 we do His will the whole universe is on our side. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth, representing quite another school of Biblical 
 critics, struggles very hard to retain the miraculous character of the 
 events of this day, but is constrained to admit that the miracle was 
 local, and the scene of it, as it were, between the longitude of Gibeon 
 on the east and Ajalon on the west. ' The result, therefore, at which 
 we arrive is this, that by the working of God, listening to the prayer 
 of Joshua, the light of the sun was miraculously continued to Israel, 
 in a particular place, and the moon's light was stayed from rising, 
 while it was night to those who were beyond the sphere of the 
 operation of the miracle.' Wordsworth notes that the words trans- 
 lated the sun stood still, are literally, the sun was silent, certainly a 
 striking and suggestive difference. 
 
 Dean Stanley gives some sentences of Kepler s in relation to this 
 subject : ' They will not understand that the only thing which 
 Joshua prayed for, was that the mountains might not intercept the 
 sun from him. Besides, it had been very unreasonable at that time 
 to think of astronomy, or of the errors of sight ; for if anyone had 
 told him that the sun could not really move on the Valley of Ajalon, 
 but only in relation to sense, would not Joshua have answered that 
 his desire was that the day might be prolonged, so it were by any 
 means whatsoever ?' 
 
 It will suffice to give the somewhat differing suggestion made by 
 Herder, to complete our summary of what may fairly be called 
 reasonable solutions of this Biblical difficulty. He says : * It is 
 astonishing that this fine passage has been so long misunderstood. 
 Joshua attacked the Amorites in the early morning, and the battle 
 continued till night ; that is, for a long day which seemed to protract 
 
THE ANGEL-VISITORS TG ABRAHAM. 427 
 
 itself into night, to complete the victory. The sun and moon were 
 witnesses of Joshua's great deeds, and held their course in the midst 
 of heaven till the triumph was perfect Who does not recognise this 
 as poetry, even if it had not been quoted from the Book of Poems 
 on Heroes. In the usual language of the Hebrews such expressions 
 were neither bold nor unusual ' (Heb. Poesie, vol. L, p. 237). 
 
 The An gel- Visitors to Abraham. 
 
 GENESIS xviii. i, 2 : 'And the Lord appeared unto him by the oaks ofMamre, 
 as he sat in the tent-door in the heat of the day ; and he lift up his eyes and 
 looked, and, lo, three men stood over against him.' 
 
 Difficulty. Two things require explanation in this incident: 
 (i) The manifestation of God to Abraham, on this particular occasion, 
 in a human form ; and (2) the singular fact that the manifestation 
 was made in three persons. 
 
 Explanation. It is important to recognise distinctly what 
 is asserted in the above passage. ' The Lord ' is said to have 
 appeared unto Abraham ; and then this appearance is described as 
 being the approach towards the tent of three distinguished-looking 
 strangers. We are to find in the coming of these men the coming of 
 ' the Lord,' that is, of ' Jehovah.' 
 
 It is a singular complication of the narrative that, in verses 21, 22, 
 it should be intimated that all three men were going towards Sodom, 
 with the expressed intention of visiting it, and yet in chapter xix. i 
 we are told that only two persons arrived at Sodom, and these are 
 called 'angels/ not 'men.' 
 
 The explanation ready to hand, but suspiciously easy to give is, 
 that one of the visitors was the Lord Himself, and the others were 
 attendant ministers; that the Lord did not Himself go down to 
 Sodom, but left His ministers to obtain the necessary information, 
 and execute His Divine judgment. This involves that the two 
 angels who appeared at Sodom are identified with two out of the 
 three men who appeared to Abraham ; but such an identification is 
 not necessary ; and we prefer to think that the manifestation of ' the 
 Lord ' to the Patriarch took a threefold human form, though it must 
 be granted that this view very seriously increases the difficulty of our 
 endeavour to understand the incident. 
 
 The probable reason for the appearance of Jehovah in human 
 form on this occasion is, that it was necessary Abraham should have 
 a profound impression of that actual personal rule of God over all 
 the affairs of Canaan, which was one of the conditions of the 
 covenant. God rules the world, but He does it by agents. God 
 
428 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 ruled Canaan, but He did it directly ; He did it Himself. Abraham 
 must see him as a man ruling men. He was at this time judging the 
 accused, and prepared to punish the guilty, and this, for Abraham 
 and for us, must be brought out of the realm of sentiment, and pre- 
 sented as actual, tangible fact. Probably the chief importance of 
 this manifestation lies in the aid it affords towards realizing the 
 objectiveness of the Theocracy. 
 
 The Jewish commentators have a curious account to give of the 
 sending of three angels, as they call them. ' No angel might execute 
 more than one commission at a time ; one of the three came to heal 
 Abraham, the second to bear the message to Sarah, and the third to 
 destroy Sodom.' 
 
 The true explanation seems to lie in the direction indicated by 
 Bishop Wordsworth : ' In these three men was there ' not a mys- 
 terious shadowing forth of the Three Persons of the Undivided 
 Trinity ? And those Three Persons being coequal are called by the 
 same name, "men," "three men," but they could not be called 
 angels ; for angel means sent, and the First Person of the Trinity is 
 never said in Scripture to be sent. But the Son is said to be sent, 
 and the Holy Ghost is sent. They may be called Angels ; but the 
 Father not. Perhaps, then, with reverence be it said, we have a 
 vision of the Three Persons in this chapter ; and of the Second and 
 Third Persons in the following.' 
 
 This may seem an overstraining of the meaning, and we cannot 
 accept the idea of a separation of the Divine Unity thus suggested. 
 It is better to think of the two angels who came to Sodom as simple 
 ministrants and executors of the Divine will ; and it is better to say 
 simply, with the early Christian fathers, that the three men symbo- 
 lized the Divine presence of the Blessed Trinity in Unity. The 
 Hebrew words rendered three men signify a triad of men. Such 
 a manifestation became a kind of picture-teaching of the primary 
 truth concerning God, adapted to the apprehension of the Patriarch 
 and those who lived in his time. Lange says : 'This great manifestation 
 of God, in the life of Abraham, is the most striking sign in the old 
 covenant of the incarnation of God.' The incarnation, or embodi- 
 ment of God, for human apprehension cannot be made in one 
 person, or one form, it requires three persons, or three forms, if men 
 are to realize His absolute Being, His visibility to the senses, and 
 His recognition as an indwelling life. Men can only think of God, 
 in His relations to them, as a three-fold Being ; and it was well that 
 this should be so strikingly shown in symbol to the great race- 
 father. 
 
SWIFT-GROWING AND SWIFT-DYING GOURD. 429 
 The Swift-growing and Swift-dying Gourd. 
 
 JONAH iv. 10 : ' Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for 
 the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow ; which came up in a 
 night, and perished in a night.' 
 
 Question. Is it necessary to recognise anything miraculous in the 
 account of the gourd as here given ? 
 
 . Answer. The miraculous feature in the narrative is the timing 
 of the incidents to fit in with the moral instruction of God's servant, 
 and not in the incidents themselves. The sudden growth was usual, 
 and the sudden decay was usual, if due allowance is made for the 
 poetical form in which the narrative is given to us. 
 
 In considering this subject, the possibility that the Book of Jonah 
 is a parable, or work of imagination, based, more or less, on some 
 historical incident, must be duly estimated. This has been treated 
 in a former paragraph on Jonah i. 17. So much as this may fairly 
 be said : the instruction of God's servant through the circumstances 
 of a plant are suggestive of pictorial teaching by fable, or imagined 
 incident. But, on the whole, the arguments seem to favour the 
 strictly historical character of the narrative ; and we need only say, 
 that the actual facts were given by Jonah himself, after they occurred, 
 and when a prophetical and poetical 'glamour' had gathered about 
 them. We must all have observed that when we narrate actual 
 events, in which we were personally concerned, in order to convey 
 through them moral teachings, we cannot help ' dressing them up/ 
 so that the bare facts get quite an imaginative clothing. No dis- 
 honour whatever is done to the Divine Word by recognising that 
 this very natural process may be observed in the Bible narratives, 
 which often are ' fact glorified by feeling.' 
 
 Dean Payne Smith is a safe authority for adequate explanations of 
 the extraordinary growth and decay of this gourd. He says : ' The 
 plant called in Hebrew Kikanion is really the * Palma ChristiJ the 
 Ricinis Communis of botanists. St. Jerome describes this plant as 
 having a firm trunk, broad leaves shaped like those of the vine, and 
 as giving a most dense shade. ' It grows,' he adds, ' with great 
 rapidity, so that the seed rises marvellously into a shrub ; and where 
 a few days before you saw only a small plant, you behold quite a 
 little tree.' Elsewhere we learn that it has a hollow stem, and rises 
 often to a height of fifteen or sixteen feet. Dr. Pusey, who has 
 collected much valuable information both about the white shark and 
 the palma christi, quotes also an interesting account of the manner 
 in which it is sometimes as suddenly destroyed. 'On warm days, 
 
430 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 when a small rain falls, black caterpillars are generated in great 
 numbers on this plant, which in one night so often and so suddenly 
 cut off its leaves that only their bare ribs remain.' He furthei 
 notices that there is nothing in the text to imply thai it was the stem 
 that was gnawed asunder, and that the word ' worm ' might be used 
 collectively for a multitude of caterpillars. 
 
 As regards the minor point, that if Jonah had built him a booth 
 (chap. iv. 5), he would not have needed a palma christi to shade 
 him, Pusey further shows, that the booth which Jonah put up was 
 such as the Jews erected at the Feast of Tabernacles ; and that these, 
 composed of slight branches, did not (effectually) exclude the sun. 
 But we can very well imagine that, in so hot a climate, no erection 
 of dead boughs, or even of planks, would give a shade so refreshing 
 as green living foliage.' 
 
 Kitto says : * We are not bound, in the case of the gourd, to find a 
 plant which, without the special ordinance of the Lord's providence, 
 should attain such growth in a night as to afford adequate shelter to 
 the prophet's head. The Lord, however, is in all His dispensations 
 economical of prodigies ; and we are to suppose that in this instance 
 He did not create a new plant for the occasion, or choose one of 
 naturally slow growth. It is more in the ordinary course of even 
 His miraculous providence to suppose that a plant naturally of rapid 
 growth was chosen, and that this natural quickness of growth was 
 preternaturally stimulated for the occasion.' 
 
 No gourd actually grows up in a single night, and the expression, 
 4 which came up in a night,' or literally, * which was the son of a 
 night,' must be regarded as giving in strong poetic figure the fact of 
 swift growth. It is a sort of poetical antithesis to the other ex- 
 pression, * perished in a night.' The gourd is a climbing vine of 
 rapid growth, always trained to run up trees, trellis, and temporary 
 booths, the size of its leaves affording a pleasant shade. The fruit, 
 though large, is not heavy, and hangs on the vines swinging and 
 drying in the wind. It appears, however, that the gourd plant, in 
 consequence of its light and pulpy texture, is very liable to be 
 destroyed by grubs and worms, which attack the root, and so involve 
 the speedy withering of the plant. Tristram prefers the identifi- 
 cation with an ordinary gourd to that with the ricinus. 
 
 ' The same God who caused the gourd to grow in a night could 
 make a cedar do so likewise ; but this would be a wide departure 
 from the general method of miraculous interposition, which is to 
 employ it no further than is necessary to secure the result required ' 
 (Dr. Thomson). Calvin says : ' God approaches nature when He 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE URIM AND THUMMIM. 431 
 
 does anything beyond nature : this is not indeed always the case ; 
 but generally we find that God so works as that He exceeds the 
 measure of nature, and yet from nature does not wholly depart* 
 
 The Mystery of the Urim and Thummim. 
 
 EXODUS xxviii. 30 : * And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the 
 Urim and the Thummim ; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth 
 in before the Lord : and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel 
 upon his heart before the Lord continually.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand that this Urim and Thummim 
 was the medium of constant miraculous communications from God ; and 
 how did che informations or decisions furnished by it differ from those 
 arrived at by the process of ' casting lots ' ? 
 
 Answer. It cannot be said that we properly understand what 
 this ' Urim and Thummim ' was. In all accounts given us of it, 
 there is evidently much guess-work ; and the fact that it was made a 
 regular and orderly plan for obtaining a Divine oracle, takes it out 
 of the class of miracles proper. It became the usual method of 
 Divine communication for certain matters. But the removal of the 
 miraculous feature in no way involves any weakening of our im- 
 pression of the direct Divine action in the responses given. In 
 this case we may distinguish between the extraordinary and the 
 miraculous. 
 
 On comparison of the various references in Scripture to the 
 Urim and Thummim, we gather that it was some material thing, 
 separate from the breastplate, and separate from the gems on the 
 breastplate. Probably there were two balls kept loose in the bag of 
 the breastplate, and if so, they must have been used somewhat as 
 pebbles may be used for casting lots. Their proper use seems to 
 have been to gain knowledge of the Divine mind in the matter of 
 the wars of Israel, and their responses amounted to a simple * yes ' 
 or 'no.' There is no instance on record of their being consulted 
 after the time of David. 
 
 There have been many suggestions made as to the form and material 
 of this oracle, and the method in which it was consulted by the high- 
 priest, but they may be classified under three heads. Some think 
 that the Divine will was manifested through the Urim and Thummin 
 by some physical effect addressed to the eye or ear. Others think 
 that there was some ordained symbol which, when the high-priest 
 concentrated his sight and attention on it, became a means 01 calling 
 forth the prophetic gift. And yet others think that there was some 
 
432 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 contrivance for casting lots ; and this certainly is the safest direction 
 in which to seek for explanation. 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie sums up a careful criticism of the various suggestions 
 in this way : ' The Urim and Thummim have been supposed to refer 
 to something analogous to an ornament worn by the president of the 
 high court of justice in Egypt, who was necessarily a priest a small 
 figure composed of costly stones, which was called Truth forming, 
 perhaps, an image of the goddess Tme, whose name has been sup- 
 posed by some identical with " Thummim," though many Egyptian 
 scholars reject this derivation. It would seem, however, as if the 
 translators of the Greek Bible had been of this opinion, as 
 "Thummim" is always rendered "Truth" by them. So, also, 
 " Urim " is thought traceable to the Egyptian word for "revelation." 
 Hence it has been suggested that the Urim and Thummim may 
 have been two small images kept in the pocket of the breastplate, 
 or hung in front it representing " revelation " and " truth," which 
 in some way gave oracular answers when consulted. M. Lenormant 
 has found allusions in the Assyrian tablets to a gem in a royal or 
 priestly ring, the flashes from which were regarded as oracular. This, 
 he fancies, may explain the nature of the Urim and Thummim. 
 That these were in the pocket of the high-priest's breastplate not 
 outside proves, he thinks, conclusively that they could not, as 
 Josephus imagines, be any of the gems in front of that ornament ?' 
 
 Philo says that the Urim and Thummim were gems cut in the 
 form of teraphim. 
 
 Ewald represents the bag connected with the ephod as the least 
 comprehensible article of the high-priest's adornment. It was a span 
 in length, and in breadth, had four corners, and, as we distinctly 
 know, was double. If, however, this last expression still seems 
 ambiguous, it is fully explained by an inner side, i.e., the side of the 
 article turned towards the breast, being spoken of (Exod. xxviii. 26, 
 comp. 16; xxxix. 19, comp. 9). What distance apart from one 
 another the two sides of the bag were, we do not know ; but it was 
 plainly no more than was necessary to grasp with the hand and to 
 draw out what was preserved within. For we know further that there 
 was something placed inside the article. It was the receptacle of the 
 Urim and Thummim. Now, these objects, which as something placed 
 inside must have been quite capable of being grasped in the hand, 
 are not described either elsewhere in the Old Testament, or yet in 
 the Book of Origins at this very place. It is also manifest from many 
 clear tokens that the words Urim and Thummim of themselves 
 denote nothing save the oracle, and declare nothing about its kind 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE URIM AND THUMMIM. 433 
 
 or the instruments by which it was to be obtained.' Probably two 
 pebbles of different colours were shaken as lots in the dag, and one 
 of them was drawn out. 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary concludes a careful note thus : * No 
 attempted explanation seems to be more in accordance with such 
 'analogy as the history of the Israelites affords, or more free from 
 objection, than that the Urim and the Thummim were some means 
 of casting lots. That the Lord should have made His will known to 
 His people by such means may indeed run counter to our own 
 habits of thought. But we know that appeals to lots were made 
 under Divine authority by the chosen people on the most solemn 
 occasions. It must have been a truth commonly recognised by 
 the people, that though " the lot was cast into the lap, the whole 
 disposing thereof was of the Lord " (Prov. xvi. 33).' 
 
 The Fate of Lot's Wife. 
 
 GENESIS xix. 26 : ' But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became 
 a pillar of salt.' 
 
 Question. Is it possible to gain any satisfactory ideas concerning 
 the miraculous judgment which so suddenly overwhelmed this woman 1 
 
 Answer. As in so many cases, we must carefully eliminate from 
 this narrative the additions which men have made to it, and the 
 inferences which they have drawn from it. We have argued as if 
 the Bible statement were, 'And she became at once a pillar of salt' 
 It would be much more simple and natural to read it thus: 'And 
 she ultimately became a pillar of salt.' What we may suppose to 
 have happened was this : her protection from the raging elements 
 was withdrawn on account of, and as a judgment on, her disobedience 
 and wilfulness. She was smitten and killed, and her body became 
 encrusted with the salt deposits of the district. 
 
 In connection with those salt deposits, the fact may be noticed 
 that, at the southern end of the Dead Sea, Gebel Usdum, a huge 
 mountain of rock-salt, capped by gypsum and marl, about seven 
 miles long, and from one and a half to three miles broad, hollowed 
 out by rains and springs, sends a constant addition of brine into the 
 lake ; and this, with that which enters it in other parts, has gradually 
 made it more than six times salter than the open ocean. Things 
 are soon encrusted with its salty evaporations. 
 
 Edersheim says : ' Tradition has since pointed out a mountain of 
 salt, at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, as the spot where 
 the occurrence had taken place. It need scarcely be said that, like 
 
 28 
 
434 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 most traditions, which only import a disturbing element into om 
 thinking, this also is not founded on fact.' 
 
 Bishop Patrick offers an account of the incident which is difficult 
 to improve upon. * Some of that storm which overwhelmed her 
 country, overtook her, and falling upon her, as she stood staring 
 about, and minded not her way or guide, suddenly wrapped her 
 body in a sheet of nitro-sulphureous matter ; which congealing into 
 a crust as hard as stone, made her appear, they say, a pillar of salt, 
 her body being, as it were, candied in it.' 
 
 Though no identification of any column or pillar is either possible 
 or necessary, and those suggested are not found in likely situations, 
 it is interesting to note a discovery made by the American Expedition. 
 ' At Usdum, on the south-west of the lake, they discovered a pillar 
 forty feet in height, being a great block of rock-salt, partially de- 
 tached from the salt mountain that stands there. It is on a plateau 
 1000 feet above the sea-level. It is a tall isolated needle of rock, 
 which really does bear a curious resemblance to an Arab woman 
 with a child upon her shoulders.' 
 
 The death of Lot's wife may be classed among the events which 
 are properly called ' miracles of Providence,' in which ordinary 
 natural forces are so timed, and set in such relations, as to carry out 
 some special Divine design. 
 
 Lange ventures on an explanation which altogether removes the 
 miraculous element from the story. * The looking back is plainly not 
 more to be understood in a strict literal sense than the account that 
 she became a pillar of salt. Female curiosity, and the longing for 
 her home in Sodom, led her to remain behind Lot, and delay, so 
 that she was overtaken in the destruction.' It certainly is a striking 
 thing that our Lord uses this judgment to illustrate * returning back,' 
 and not merely ' looking back' (Luke xvii. 31, 32). 
 
 The Position of the Red Sea Crossing. 
 
 EXODUS xiv. 9 : * And the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and 
 chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamp- 
 ing by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-Zephon.' 
 
 Question. Have modern researches succeeded in identifying the 
 place of the crossing ; and if so, does the identification suggest any 
 explanations of the leading features of the narrative f 
 
 Answer. It is not to be expected that the conditions of the 
 district should remain precisely the same as they were three thousand 
 years ago. Recedings of tides, encroachments of sands, and denu- 
 
THE POSITION OF THE RED SEA CROSSING. 435 
 
 dalions of hills, would alter the natural features, and the changes of 
 dynasties, and shiftings of commerce, caravan routes, etc, would 
 lead to the removal of populations, and the decay of towns, villages, 
 forts, watch-towers, etc. Still, in this case, the general position so 
 jfar remains the same, that a satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at. 
 
 Such a map as is found in Speaker's Commentary, vol. L, p. 435 ; 
 or in Biblical Treasury , New Series, vol. ii., p. 72, will prove very 
 helpful in tracing the route of the Israelites. That in the Speakers 
 Commentary marks in a very distinct way the shoal between the 
 head of the Red Sea and the end of the southern Bitter Lake, which 
 is now generally recognised as the scene of the crossing. 
 
 In deciding the position we must keep in mind the necessities 
 which had to be met. A large army of men may have marched 
 across a narrow space like a bridge in a few hours ; but in this 
 case a nation, including men, women, and children ; flocks, herds, 
 baggage, sick and infirm folk, etc., had to be conveyed across during 
 the hours of one night, and the distance, at the lowest computation, 
 must have been three miles ; it is variously estimated, some even 
 suggesting six to twelve miles. It is quite certain therefore that the 
 crossing would be over a sand bank, and not through the deep part 
 of the Red Sea, which would have involved a perilous descent into 
 the bottom, and a most toilsome ascent on the further side, involving 
 serious delay in the passage. We are distinctly told that the crossing 
 took place in the time between two tides, which would be only, at 
 the most, from six to eight hours. 
 
 In view of the facts which seem now to be generally admitted, it 
 is safe to believe that the crossing took place near Suez, the head ot 
 the Red Sea, at a part which is now silted up with sand (through 
 which the Suez Canal has recently been cut), rising not more than 
 six feet above the level of the lakes. This wide belt of sand now 
 divides the Red Sea from the Bitter Lakes, but these were un- 
 doubtedly at one time joined together, the sea lying shallow over 
 this sand belt, or perhaps only covering it at the rise of the tide. 
 
 Some assert that there was a known ford at this spot, but the ford 
 would only be a narrow passage, just where the water channel was 
 safe, and such a ford would be quite useless for such an immense 
 host of human beings and animals. Nothing is clearer than that 
 they must have crossed over a wide tract of hardened sand, reaching 
 almost miles in width. The notion of their going across in a narrow 
 procession will not stand criticism. 
 
 The most reasonable account that can be given of the circum- 
 stances is as follows. We assume, in our narration, that the whole 
 
 282 
 
.,36 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 company of people and animals kept together under the direction of 
 Moses. To relieve the difficulties of the narrative, some have very 
 needlessly suggested that Moses divided the caravan at Etham, 
 sending the flocks, servants, and women, etc., round the north end 
 of the Bitter Lakes, and into the wilderness of Etham, while he con- 
 ducted the armed Israelites southwards towards Jebel Atakah. No 
 hint of any such arrangement is given in the Scriptures, and we can 
 conceive of nothing more unlikely. 
 
 The entire host, possibly marshalled in five sections, started from 
 Raineses, marched to Etham, the frontier fortress of Egypt towards 
 the wilderness, and the starting-point for the ordinary route to 
 Palestine. This Etham lay between Lake Timsah, and the northern 
 end of the Bitter Lakes. At this place the strange Divine command 
 came to change the route, turn southward, and march towards Jebel 
 Atakah, with the Bitter Lakes lying on the left hand of the host. 
 The encampment was made under Jebel Atakah, where the Red Sea 
 narrowed, so as to be only from three to six miles across. The 
 position of the encampment is marked by three names, and if we 
 may conclude that there was a regular ford at this spot, the names 
 may well indicate the watch-towers or fort that marked it, and the 
 town which provided rest and shelter for those who undertook 
 crossing the ford. Israel stretched for some distance northward 
 close along the shores of the sea, ready to start straight across the 
 dried sands as soon as the signal was given. 
 
 Pi-hahiroth is generally identified with Ajrud, a fortress with a 
 very large well of good water, situate at the foot of an elevation 
 commanding the plain which extends to Suez, at a distance of four 
 leagues. The journey from Etham might occupy two, if not three 
 days. 
 
 Migdol means a tower or fort, probably Bir Suweis, about two 
 miles from Suez. Baal Zephon was nearer to Suez. These three 
 places really represent the space over which the encampment of the 
 Israelite host extended. Pi-hahiroth its northern part ; Suez its 
 southern ; and Migdol its centre, or head- quarters. They were thus 
 full in front of the wide sand-belt which was to be made hard and 
 dry for them. 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie collects some further information on the physical 
 features of this district. ' At the point where Suez lies, the western 
 bank juts out in a point, to the east, so that the bay has only a 
 breadth of two-thirds of an English mile. But, below the town, 
 towards the south, the bank retires in a deep bend to the west, 
 leaving a breadth of water of from three to four English miles. The 
 
THE POSITION OF THE RED SEA CROSSING. 437 
 
 bottom of this stretch of sea consists, next the land, of sandbanks 
 and rocky soil, firm and level, and sprinkled with sea-grass. The 
 sandbanks run out to this from the Eastern shore, and, with the 
 exception of a small opening, are dry at the lowest ebb, or covered 
 with only little water. Such is the southern ford, through which, 
 Robinson was told, the people waded at low water, though the depth, 
 even then, was five feet, in the channel dividing the bank from north 
 to south. This, or the ford which runs in a line with Suez, where 
 the waters are so much narrower, may have been the spot at which 
 Jehovah, making use, so far, of natural laws, led the Israelites safely 
 over.' 
 
 E. S. Poole says : ' The most important change in the Red Sea 
 has been the drying up of its northern extremity, " the tongue of the 
 Egyptian Sea." The land about the head of the gulf has risen, and 
 that near the Mediterranean become depressed. The head of the 
 gulf has consequently retired gradually since the Christian era. The 
 tongue of the Red Sea has dried up for a distance of at least fifty 
 miles from its ancient head, and a cultivated and well-peopled 
 province has been changed into a desolate wilderness. The country, 
 for the distance above indicated, is now a desert of gravelly sand, 
 with wide patches about the old sea-bottom, of rank marsh land, now 
 called the " Bitter Lakes " (not those of Strabo). At the northern 
 extremity of this salt waste is a small lake sometimes called the Lake 
 of Heroopolis (the city after which the gulf of Suez was called the 
 Heroopolite Gulf) : the lake is now Birket et Timsah, " the Lake of 
 the Crocodile," and is supposed to mark the ancient head of the 
 gulf.' 
 
 The Fire-Sign at the Dedication of the Temple. 
 
 2 CHRONICLES vii. I : ' Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, tlie 
 tire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt-offerings and the sacrifices ; 
 and the glory of the Lord filled the house.' 
 
 Question. Should this Divine fire be distinguished from light- 
 ning 1 } Or may we think that the ordinary natural force of electricity 
 was used in new and surprising ways ? 
 
 Answer. So much depends on whether it seems to us most 
 honouring to God that He should bend, to the doing of His will, the 
 things He has already created and appointed, or that He should on 
 emergency absolutely create new forces. A fuller understanding 01 
 the wisdom and mystery of creation is, in our day, strengthening the 
 feeling that God's honour is seen in His wonder-working within the 
 spheres of natural law rather than beyond it ; and it is probable that 
 
438 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the tendency, in coming years, will set more and more strongly 
 in favour of finding ' God in Nature,' rather than * God outside 
 Nature.' 
 
 In this and similar cases recorded in Old Testament history 
 there seems no good reason for assuming the creation of a new fire 
 element. The electrical force, which is in the Divine control, is 
 efficient to accomplish all the results described. We are not to 
 assume that the fire consumed the sacrifices apart from kindling the 
 fuel on which the sacrifices were laid. The Divine fire was the 
 spark that set the pile alight ; and what is called the glory of the 
 Lord is the cloud of smoke which rose from the burning altar, which 
 glowed brightly because full of the reflections of the fire. Such scenes 
 could but be seen in the excitement of aroused religious feeling, and 
 we are told what devout and enthusiastic men thought things to be, and 
 felt them to be, rather than what they actually were. The Bible must 
 be read with something of the quickened imagination and feeling 
 which are so evident in the composition of very much of it ; and due 
 account must be taken of the fact that natural phenomena are 
 accounted as wonderful and miraculous simply because they are not 
 understood, and their connections with things that are understood 
 cannot readily be traced. It is only in quite recent years that elec- 
 tricity, as a sublime natural force of light and life, has been at all 
 studied ; and it is now seen to be one of the most potent forces, 
 whose power of service to man, under the development of the future, 
 no man can possibly imagine. It may even be that the seemingly 
 erratic agencies of earthquake and volcanic fire may be found to 
 follow fixed laws, and when man has come to understand them, even 
 the volcano and the earthquake may be yoked to man's service. 
 These things are semi-miracles to us now, even as the Divine fire 
 was of old to the Jews, simply because the laws of them are still a 
 mystery. 
 
 The point which should be especially considered is, that God is 
 quite as truly in the use of things that already exist, as in the creation 
 of special things for the outworking of His purpose. And God's 
 using of existing things in an extraordinary way is designed to impress 
 on all sensitive hearts the graciousness of His using existing things 
 in an ordinary way. The particular effect produced on Solomon and 
 nis nation by the descending fire need not be produced on our 
 minds ; it is enough that we learn the permanent lesson, for the sake 
 of which the narrative is preserved, that God surely grants His 
 acceptance, and the sense of His acceptance, to all those who faith 
 fully endeavour to carry out His blessed will. 
 
ELIJAHS RA VENS. 439 
 
 Elijah's Ravens. 
 
 I KINGS xvii. 4 : ' And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook ; and I have 
 commanded the ravens to feed thee there.' 
 
 Difficulty. These carrion birds do not seem to be fitting agents for 
 the supply of the prophefs daily needs ; and yet the suggestion that 
 Arabians, not ravens, are meant seems to add to, rather than relieve, 
 the difficulties of the incident. 
 
 Explanation. If read without the present vowel points, the 
 word translated ' ravens ' may signify * Arabians.' And if read with 
 the present pointing, it is possible to render the word as ' merchants,' 
 or as ' Orbites.' 
 
 To Jerome seems due the suggestion, that a people dwelling in the 
 neighbourhood, and known as Orbites, from the town of Orbo, near 
 Bethshan, were the real succourers of Elijah; but it is extremely 
 improbable that men would take either the trouble or the risk of 
 coming morning and evening with fresh food, when they could have 
 left the prophet a sufficient supply to last for several days. 
 
 It is passing strange to find Kitto supporting the rendering 
 1 Arbim,' Arabs, in preference to ' Orebim,' ravens ; and, though we 
 do not agree with his suggestion, it will interest our readers, and 
 serve to illustrate how the most orthodox Biblical writers feel the 
 importance of keeping the miraculous element within the strictest 
 limits, and recognising the ' providentia-1,' where the enthusiast will 
 think he finds the miraculous. Dealing with the view that birds are 
 intended, Kitto says : ' The statement in the text does not require us 
 to suppose that the ravens with purpose and forethought brought 
 victuals designedly for Elijah, and laid them before him, or pre- 
 sented them to him. This was not required for the object in view, 
 and therefore was probably not done ; for God does not work need- 
 less miracles It may suffice to suppose that the place to 
 
 which Elijah had been directed to retreat, was the chosen resort of 
 ravens, which had their nests among the trees that grew on the 
 banks of the stream. They brought home, morning and evening, to 
 their nests as much animal and vegetable food as sufficed not only for 
 their own wants, but for those of Elijah, who secured what he required, 
 and dressed it with the dry wood which abounds in such situations. 
 .... But the natural food of the raven was that which, least of all, 
 an Israelite obedient to the law could touch. He could not eat that 
 which died of itself ; yet this is generally the case with the carrion, 
 which forms the proper diet of the raven. Still, the food of the 
 
440 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 raven is not exclusively carrion. Among birds there is none more 
 omnivorous in its appetite. There is scarcely anything that comes 
 
 amiss to it It is impossible to suppose that the prophet was 
 
 supplied from the ordinary resources and operations of the ravens. 
 If we admit that they were the agents through which subsistence was. 
 given to him, we must hold their agency to have been miraculous in 
 all its circumstances, and that suitable and adequate food was daily 
 presented by miracle twice to the notice of the ravens, which 
 they were impelled to bear away to Elijah's hiding-place, and to drop 
 there. 1 
 
 On the identification of the so-called ravens with Arabians, or 
 Orbim, Kitto says : * Going over the list of alternatives, that of 
 " Arabs " instead of " ravens," is probably the one that persons free 
 from any previous bias would spontaneously select as the most pro- 
 bable. For ourselves, though we should not hesitate at the ravens, 
 if quite sure that those birds are really intended, yet when the 
 alternative is thus open, we rather incline to the Arabs influenced, 
 perhaps, by such a knowledge of the habits and character of that 
 people as enables us to perceive their entire fitness to be the agents 
 of this Providential dispensation in favour of Elijah. To us nothing 
 seems more likely than that encampments of Arabs who still intrude 
 their tents at certain times of the year upon the borders, or into 
 the unappropriated pastures of settled countries, would, at this season, 
 of drought, have been forced within reach of the brook Cherith. 
 They were, from their condition and habits of life, the very persons 
 to whom the secret of his retreat might be most safely entrusted. . . . 
 When once he had eaten of their bread and meat, the great law of 
 Arabian honour made him secure of continued support and safe from 
 betrayal.' 
 
 It is not necessary to assume that the precise birds employed were 
 those which are now classed under the term ' ravens ' ; precision of 
 distinctions in matters of natural history is not to be looked for in 
 the Old Testament Scriptures. To those who believe in God, there 
 should be no difficulty in apprehending the Divine control of the 
 instincts of the creatures. We need not unduly force language, which 
 is expressed in Eastern poetical form, so as to suppose that with 
 absolute regularity to the hour the birds returned with the food. 
 Every day some birds brought supply, and as they only brought 
 enough for the day, Elijah learnt well the lesson of daily waiting on 
 God. Our daily bread does come from Him, whether birds be the 
 agents in carrying it or it comes in the ordinary lines of toil. 
 
 The Rev. C.J. Ball gathers up all that it seems necessary to add in 
 
ELIJAH'S RA YENS, 44 1 
 
 the following note on the verse : ' Of the accuracy of this rendering, 
 which is that of almost all the ancient versions and of Josephus, there 
 can be little doubt. The singularly prosaic interpretations, sub- 
 stituted for this striking and significant record of miracle by some 
 ancient and modern writers (adopting slight variations of the Hebrew 
 vowel-points) such as " Arabs," " merchants," " inhabitants of a city 
 Orbi, or the rock Oreeb " seem to have arisen simply from a desire 
 to get rid of what seemed a strange miracle, at the cost (be it observed) 
 of substituting for it a gross improbability; for how can it be supposed 
 that such regular sustenance by human hands of the persecuted 
 prophet could have gone on in the face of the jealous vigilance of 
 the king ? But it is idle to seek to explain away one wonder in a 
 life and an epoch teeming with miracles. It is notable, indeed, that 
 the critical period of the great Baal apostasy, and of the struggle of 
 Elijah and Elisha against it, is the second great epoch of recorded 
 miracle in the Old Testament the still more critical epoch of 
 Moses and Joshua being the first It is hardly less idle to deter- 
 mine that this or that miracle is so improbable, than to introduce 
 any difficulty of acceptance which does not apply to miracles in 
 general.' 
 
 We may regard it significantly in favour of the ' raven ' translation, 
 that Dean Stanley, who always gives full attention to naturalistic 
 suggestions, nevertheless writes on this matter thus : ' Thither, we 
 are told, night and morning, came the ravens that frequented that 
 one green spot, " the young ravens " of Palestine that cry to God 
 " the ravens " whom God feedeth, " though they neither sow nor 
 rea p an d laid their portion of bread and flesh at break of day and 
 at fall of evening by the side of the gushing stream.' 
 
 The Shadow on the Dial of Ahaz. 
 
 2 KINGS xx. 1 1 : * And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord : and He brought 
 the shadow ten steps backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz.' 
 
 Difficulty. If this change in tJie position of the shadow involves an 
 alteration of the sun's place in the heavens, according to the older notion, 
 or an arrest of the earth's motion round the sun, and wen a motion 
 of the earth backwards, according to modern notions, it was a stupendous 
 miracle, and apparently beyond the necessities of the case. 
 
 Explanation. It must frankly be admitted that the varied 
 consequences resulting from a temporary alteration of the earth's 
 position in relation to the sun, so as to cause a change of shadow, 
 are too serious to allow of that as the explanation of this incident. 
 
442 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Nor is it necessary to resort to such an explanation. Hezekiah was 
 not an astronomer. He did not puzzle over the method in which 
 this phenomenon came about For the Divine purpose, and for the 
 encouraging of the faith of the king, it was enough that so unusual 
 an event occurred; that no human agency was concerned in pro- 
 ducing the effect ; and that it bore direct relation to God, as being 
 His response to His servant's prayers. We have to inquire what was 
 sufficient to effect the desired moral result, and we need not go beyond 
 that to assume displays of Almighty power for which there was no 
 demand. 
 
 So far as sending back the shadow on a dial ten degrees is con- 
 cerned, any mechanician could manage that by due refraction of the 
 sun's rays. An astronomer, or, indeed, a clockmaker, could make a 
 sundial mark any time he liked. And God could work in the same 
 sphere, and use the same instrumentalities as men could use. The 
 point of the incident is, that no one interfered with the dial, and so 
 it must have been God, using such agencies as man might use, who 
 sent the shadow back. 
 
 But it is necessary that we should understand, as far as possible, 
 what this * dial ' was : and see what suggestions have been made in 
 explanation of this unusual phenomenon. Burder's note on ancient 
 modes of measuring time may be first given. * At the beginning of 
 the world it is certain there was no distinction of time but by the 
 light and darkness, and the whole day was included in the general 
 terms of the evening and morning. The Chaldeans, ages after the 
 flood, were the first who divided the day into hours. Sundials are of 
 ancient use ; but as they were of no service in cloudy weather and in 
 the night, there was another invention for measuring the parts of time 
 by water ; but that not proving sufficiently exact, they laid it aside 
 for another by sand. The use of dials was adopted earlier among the 
 Greeks than the Romans. It was about three hundred years after 
 the building of Rome before they knew anything of them ; but yet 
 they had divided the day and night into twenty-four hours, though 
 they did not count the hours numerically, but from midnight to mid- 
 night, distinguishing them by particular names, as by cock-crowing, 
 the dawn, the mid-day, etc. The first sun-dial we read of among the 
 Romans, which divided the day into hours, is mentioned by Pliny, as 
 fixed upon the temple of Quirinus by L. Papyrius, the censor, about 
 the twelfth year of the wars with Pyrrhus. Scipio Nasica, some years 
 after, measured the day and night into hours from the dropping of 
 water.' 
 
 The determination of the moment of noon, by the absence of 
 
THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL OF AHAZ. 443 
 
 shadow cast from a wall built north and south, was well known to all 
 Eastern people, and appears to have been introduced into the 
 structure of the Court of Israel by King Solomon. 
 
 The possible translation of the word ' degrees ' as ' steps ' has led 
 to the suggestion that a staircase in the palace of Hezekiah was made 
 to measure the hours of the day by a shadow falling on the steps. 
 (So Josephus and Jerome.) Knobel^ute this suggestion in its most 
 probable shape. He thinks the dial consisted of a column rising 
 from a circular flight of steps, so as to throw the shadow of its 
 top on the top step at noon, and morning and evening on the bottom 
 step. 
 
 Kitto describes a sort of dial found in Hindustan, near Delhi, the 
 construction of which would exceedingly well suit all the circum- 
 stances recorded respecting the dial of Ahaz. It seems framed to 
 answer the double purpose of an observatory and a dial. It is a 
 rectangled triangular figure, whose hypotenuse is a staircase, appar- 
 ently parallel to the axis of the earth, and bisects a zone or coping of 
 a wall, which wall connects the two terminating towers right and left. 
 The coping itself is of a circular form, and accurately graduated to 
 mark, by the shadow of the gnomon above, the sun's progress before 
 and after noon ; for when the sun is in the zenith he shines directly 
 on the staircase, and the shadow falls upon the coping. A flat 
 surface on the top of the staircase of the gnomon fitted the building 
 for the purpose of an observatory. 
 
 But it must seem to simple Bible readers that anything so elabo- 
 rate as this is unnecessary to the narrative, and belongs to the dispo- 
 sition to conjecture wonderful things when common-place things 
 sufficiently meet the occasion. There need only have been a dial- 
 plate, or pillar set up in the court or garden of the palace, as such 
 dials are often set up in gardens now ; and this arrangement for 
 measuring time is so readily suggested by observation of the moving 
 sun-shadows, that we may be quite sure it was early adopted The 
 word translated * degrees ' may mean lines or figures on a dial-plate 
 of any kind, or on a pavement A Jewish Rabbi, one Ellas Chomer, 
 describes the dial of Ahaz as a concave hemisphere, in the midst of 
 which was a globe, the shadow of which fell upon several lines 
 engraved upon the concavity of the hemisphere, and which lines are 
 said to have been twenty-eight in number. 
 
 Writers who are most keenly alive to the traces of the miraculous 
 in the Bible agree that we must not attempt to explain this phenom- 
 enon by any alteration of the axis, or motion, of the earth. The 
 older commentators, almost without exception, believed in the actual 
 
444 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 reversing of the earth's motion around its axis, simply because they 
 did not realize what such a reversal must of necessity involve. On 
 this point Kilto has the following wise note : * Some have supposed 
 that, to produce this effect, the earth was made to retrograde upon 
 its axis for a space corresponding to that marked by ten degrees upon 
 the dial. This would certainly have produced the effect intended ; but 
 it would doubtless have produced something more. Such a reversal 
 of the order of nature, and disturbance of the solar system, could 
 hardly have happened without such results as would be remembered 
 through the world to the end of time. Yet history records no such 
 event ; and its local character is indirectly recognised in the fact, that 
 the prince of Babylon sent to inquire respecting the wonder that is 
 done in the land. Besides, in the course of human conduct, it is not 
 deemed wise " to leap over the house to unbar the little gate ;" 
 neither do we find that the Almighty is ever redundant in manifesta- 
 tions of power, but rather sparing employing just so much power, 
 and no more, as may be needful to produce the intended result. It 
 is therefore not likely, judging from the analogy of the Divine opera- 
 tions, that the earth should be sent backward in its course to produce 
 an effect which might be accomplished by means as sufficient, and 
 as truly miraculous, though with less derangement to those laws on 
 which God has established the universe, and which He does not 
 Himself disturb without a most adequate cause.' 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth observes : ' It is not said by the sacred writer 
 that this miracle was wrought on any other dial at Jerusalem, besides 
 that of Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah. We are not to imagine that in 
 this miracle any effect was wrought upon the motion of the earth 
 round its axis. A miraculous refraction of the sun's rays was 
 effected by God on a particular sun-dial, at the prayer of King 
 Hezekiah. It was a miracle, wrought on a particular dial, in a par- 
 ticular place, showing that it concerned a particular person ; and it was 
 not wrought on the solar orb, but on the solar light? 
 
 Wordsworth quotes the following note from Bishop Hall: 'The 
 demonstration of the miracle is reported to be local in the dial of 
 Ahaz, not universal in the sensible length of the day ; whethersoever 
 to draw the sun back with the shadow, or to draiv the shadow back 
 without the sun, was the proof of a Divine Omnipotence, able to draw 
 back the life of Hezekiah from the night of death.' 
 
 The explanations offered either suggest a refraction of the sun's 
 rays, an alteration of the height of the pillar, which acted as the 
 gnomon, by an earthquake, or the effect of a partial eclipse. 
 
 The effect upon the shadow might have been produced by a 
 
THE SHADO W ON THE DIAL OF AHAZ. 445 
 
 niraculous deflection of the rays which fell upon the dial, so as to 
 hrow back the shadow to the extent required. Or there may have 
 xjen a simple refraction of the rays, through the sudden interposi 
 ion of a different medium. * That such refraction takes place when 
 ays of light pass through a denser medium, is a well-known physical 
 act The most striking illustration is perhaps found in the observa- 
 ion made, on the 27th March, 1703, by P. Romauld, prior of the 
 doister of Metz, that, owing to such refraction in the higher regions 
 af the atmosphere, in connection with the appearance of a cloud, the 
 shadow of his dial deviated an hour and a half.' 
 
 The possibility of the effect having been produced by a partial 
 eclipse is efficiently given in a note of the Speakers Commentary, 
 following an article by Bosanquet, in the Journal of the Asiatic 
 Society. * Recently it has been urged with a good deal of force that 
 the true cause of the phenomenon was a solar eclipse, in which the 
 moon obscured the entire upper limb of the sun ; and it has been 
 clearly shown that if such an occurrence took place a little before 
 mid-day, it would have had the effect described as having taken place 
 i.e., during the obscuration of the sun's upper limb shadows would 
 be sensibly lengthened, and that of the obelisk would descend the 
 stairs ; as the obscuration passed off the reverse would take place, 
 shadows would shorten, and that of the obelisk would once more 
 retire up the steps. If this be the true account, the miracle would 
 consist in Isaiah's supernatural foreknowledge of an event which the 
 astronomy of the age was quite incapable of predicting, and in the 
 Providential guidance of Hezekiah's will, so that he chose the 
 " sign " which, in the natural course of things, was about to be mani- 
 fested.' 
 
 An eclipse occurring, as reckoned by Thenius, on Sept 26th, 
 713 B.C., may possibly be that alluded to, but unfortunately this 
 date does not harmonize with the Assyrian chronology. 
 
 A Pathway through Jordan. 
 
 JOSHUA iii. 16 : ' The waters which came down from above stood, and rose up 
 in one heap, a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan ; and those 
 that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut 
 off; and the people passed over right against Jericho ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. This language suggests that tfie miracle was wrought 
 through some ordinary mechanical agency ; but it is difficult to conceive 
 of any that would be effective in the case of a swift and flooded river. 
 
 Explanation. The carefulness and precision of this descrip- 
 tion certainly suggest that the account given was intended to be 
 
446 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 understood as, in some sense, explaining the phenomenon. We are, 
 however, at disadvantage, because we cannot with certainty identify 
 the place named Adam, and so cannot be sure of the physical 
 features of the river at this particular spot. 
 
 In attempting to realize the scene of the crossing, we should first 
 divest our minds of some associations which we have inherited in 
 relation to it. Until late years there was a strong tendency, among 
 pious people, to exaggerate the wonder of the Bible miracles. They 
 were regarded as 0;z//-natural, and it was thought to glorify God if 
 He was regarded as interfering with nature as much as possible. We 
 now think of these incidents as su#er-na\.ura\, and think God is 
 honoured by our recognising His working through Nature, and inter- 
 fering with the ' order ' as little as possible. So our fathers imagined 
 the upper waters heaped up on the one side, and the lower waters 
 heaped up on the other, and a narrow lane, between the walls of 
 water, crested with foaming waves, through which the whole host of 
 Israel marched in narrow files. 
 
 But all this is pure imagination, an attempt to realize the scene 
 without attending to the strict descriptions given in the Scripture. 
 We cannot wonder that such unfounded imaginations gave occa- 
 sion to the sceptic and the scoffer to blaspheme. Such a host, with 
 all their ' impedimenta,' would take days to cross a stream if only 
 such a passage was given them ; and such an alteration in the nature 
 and ways of water, as is involved in such a description, is quite un- 
 necessary to a proper understanding of the narrative. 
 
 Stated briefly, what we may suppose to have occurred is this. At 
 the part over against Jericho, there is a ford, and comparatively 
 shallow water for a long space. By some convulsion of nature, 
 earthquake and other agency, the river was for a time dammed, at a 
 narrow gorge, some twenty miles up the stream. As Jordan is a 
 swift-flowing stream, as soon as the flow was dammed back, or cut 
 off, the waters would quickly drain away, leaving a dry, stony bed ex- 
 posed for quite a long distance. Across any part of this, below the 
 position taken up by the priests with the ark, the people, cattle, and 
 baggage hurriedly went ; and in this way a few hours sufficed to get 
 the whole nation on the upper terrace west of Jordan, before the 
 swelling river overtopped its obstacle, or forced it away, and came 
 rolling down again, filling all its banks. As the Bible account bids 
 us look for the natural agency which God used in this most wonderful 
 way to effect His gracious purpose, we are justified in offering the 
 suggestion of such a solution. But it will be well to see what sup- 
 port can be gained for it. 
 
A PATHWAY THROUGH JORDAN. 447 
 
 4 The Jordan flows at the bottom of a deep valley, which descends 
 to the water's edge on either side in two, occasionally in three, 
 terraces. Within the lowest of these the stream, ordinarily less than 
 100 feet wide in this lower part of its course, is confined/ Usually 
 the river is easily forded, and at the time of spring-flood it may be 
 crossed by swimming, for this the two spies must have done both 
 going and returning. 
 
 The Speakers Commentary fully recognises the natural agency em- 
 ployed. ' The city of Adam is not named elsewhere ; and Zarthan 
 erroneously written Zaretan in A.V., though mentioned i Kings, 
 iv. 12 ; vii. 46, has also disappeared. It is, however, probably con- 
 nected with the modern Kurn Sartabeh (Horn ot Sartabeh), the 
 name given to a lofty and isolated hill some seventeen miles on the 
 river above Jericho. Here high rocks on either side contract the 
 valley to its narrowest point, and seem almost to throw a barrier 
 across it ; and here, in all likelihood, " far away " from where Joshua 
 and Israel were passing, were the waters held back and accumulated 
 by the hand of God. They would need to be so but for a briet 
 space. For as the sequel of the verse (16) points out, the waters that 
 came down towards the sea of the plain failed; /.*., they flowed 
 rapidly off down the steeply-sloping bed of the river, and the whole 
 channel above and before, as far as the eye could reach, lay dry 
 before the people. The whole multitude could therefore " haste and 
 pass over " at once.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie gathers some particulars respecting the Jordan, 
 which help us to understand how the waters could accumulate behind 
 a dam for some hours. * Between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead 
 Sea, a distance of sixty-six miles, the channel is a chasm called the 
 Ghor, from one to twelve miles broad ; in some parts fertile in the 
 extreme, in others utterly barren ; the mountains of Palestine bound- 
 ing it on the west, the great eastern plateau on the other side. 
 Within this strange bed the river descends with innumerable wind- 
 ings, through a lower valley which it has worn to a depth of from 
 forty to a hundred feet below the level of the Ghor ; its sides deeply 
 fringed with a tropical jungle known in Scripture as the " pride " or 
 " swelling of the Jordan," and in former times the special haunt of 
 lions. So tortuous is its course, that in the sixty-six miles between 
 the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea in a direct line, i: darts at so 
 many angles over its rough bed as to make its whole length nearly 
 200 miles, and in this distance it leaps and rushes over twenty-seven 
 rapids, including in all a descent of 606 feet The Jordan shows in 
 its channel four broad regions, connected by two narrow ones, with a 
 
448 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 marshy lake and valley, highest of all ; suggestive of a former chain 
 of great lakes connected by a river, but now gradually drained off till 
 three small sheets of water alone remain, with the broad dry beds of 
 two others.' It is evident that such lake spaces might have been 
 refilled with the waters that were dammed back. Dr. Geikie points 
 out that ' The people could cross along a great breadth of front, which 
 would immensely facilitate the passage.' And Jamieson says, ' The 
 river was thus dried up as far as the eye could reach.' Dean Stanley 
 describes thus : * The scene presented is, of the whole bed of the 
 river left dry from north to south, through its long windings; the 
 huge stones lying bare here and there, imbedded in the soft bottom ; 
 or the shingly pebbles drifted along the course of the channel. ' 
 
 A note in the new issue of the Biblical Treasury contains all that 
 can be wisely said on the matter. * It is not unreasonable that we 
 should think of such a miraculous result being produced by the 
 ruling and overruling of the natural agencies which God holds within 
 His control. We may reverently inquire what natural agencies could 
 conceivably have been employed. Evidently the cause of the 
 stoppage of the stream was found some thirty miles (or less) above 
 the place where Israel crossed. It is at least possible that, by an 
 earthquake, the river bed was so obstructed that the waters were 
 dammed back into the Lake of Galilee, which might rise for hours 
 before the obstacle could be overcome, and the waters again flow 
 down to the Dead Sea. God usually works His mighty works 
 through the agency of the forces which He has created, and all 
 natural forces are in His hands.' 
 
 The Ascension of Elijah. 
 
 2 KINGS ii. ii : ' And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, 
 behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them 
 both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.' 
 
 Difficulty. There is a strange blending of the natural and the 
 supernatural in this narrative^ and it is almost impossible to see the 
 mission of the whirlwind when Elijah was carried away by horses and 
 chariots of fire. 
 
 Explanation. Much depends on the source whence our infor- 
 mation has come. It seems certain that Elisha is the author ; he 
 must have been in a most excited state of mind that day, just in the 
 mood to see visions ; and it would be quite in accordance with the 
 ways of later editors, to embellish and adorn so striking an account 
 as Elisha must have given. 
 
THE ASCENSION OF ELIJAH. 449 
 
 A remarkable instance of the tendency to gather astonishing 
 things round the stories of departures and martyrdoms is found in 
 connection with the * passing' of Polycarp. One of the legends 
 woven around his story, after describing how the officers came to nail 
 him, as usual, to the stake, but he begged them not to do so, saying 
 that He who gave him strength to endure the fire, would enable him 
 without nailing to stand immoveable in the hottest flames, adds this : 
 1 Clasping his hands, which were bound behind him, he then poured 
 out his soul in prayer ; and as the fire increased to a mighty flame, 
 behold, a wonder ; the flames disposing themselves into the resem- 
 blance of an arch, like the sails of a ship, swelled with the wind, 
 gently circled the body of the martyr, who stood all the while in the 
 midst, like gold or silver purified in the furnace ; his body sending 
 forth a delightful fragrancy, which, like frankincense or other costly 
 spices, presented itself to our senses.' 
 
 In an endeavour to understand the actual facts that occurred in 
 connection with the removal of Elijah, we should keep in mind that 
 flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven ; corruption 
 cannot inherit incorruption. Somehow we must all be changed ; the 
 mortal must put on immortality, the natural body must become a 
 spiritual body. Elijah's mortal body was not borne up into the place 
 where God was. It was Elijah himself, not Elijah's body that went up to 
 heaven. There must have been the removal of the mortal body, and 
 this may have been accomplished by its being changed into a spiritual 
 body as it went up, or the whirlwind may have carried the body away 
 to some unknown place of earth, and the freed spirit ascended to 
 God. Which of these represents the actual facts we are not told. 
 
 The similarity between the mode of his departure and the charac- 
 teristic features of his movements while he lived should be noticed. 
 He was always suddenly coming and going. It was no new thing for 
 him to be carried away of the spirit. 
 
 And the natural feature of his removal especially struck the young 
 prophets who were watching. They credited the whirlwind with his 
 departure, and so expected to find the dropped body of the prophet 
 when the whirlwind failed 
 
 It may be added, that it is easy enough for a poetic nature to 
 fashion the attendant circumstances of such a storm into the shapings 
 of chariots and horses of fire. 
 
 The facts of which we may be sure are, that an actual whirlwind 
 caught the prophet and swept him away into the sky ; that the atmo- 
 sphere was so filled with strange light and cloud that it seemed to the 
 watcher as if he was enwrapped with fire as he went up ; and that this 
 
 29 
 
450 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 1 passing ' proved to be the prophet's departure from earth, for his body 
 was never found. He was gone altogether, body and soul 
 
 We may helpfully set together some of the explanations of the 
 scene given by good Biblical writers of various schools. 
 
 Kitto says : ' As they went on, conversing of high things, suddenly 
 a whirlwind reft Elijah from his companion, and he was borne aloft 
 like an exhalation, in a chariot with horses of fire, or glowing like 
 fire, to heaven. This is a strange transaction ; it seems to us, how- 
 ever, that it is but an isolated anticipation of that which shall happen 
 collectively to the righteous that are alive on the earth at our Lord's 
 second coming. Then what hinders that this rapture of the living, 
 and change in the act of rapture change because flesh and blood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom of God should be exemplified in one or 
 two instances before, in this instance of Elijah, and in the earlier 
 instance of Enoch ? Under this view, there is no more any objection 
 to the departed Elijah having his place in heaven, seeing that his 
 body must have undergone all that change which was needful to fit 
 it for abiding in that place where nothing corruptible can exist. Not 
 discerning this, the old schoolmen were of opinion that Elijah was 
 taken to some place doubtless a pleasant place prepared of old, 
 as they supposed, for those pious spirits which awaited the coming of 
 the Messiah, who should open paradise for them.' 
 
 Dean Stanley dwells strongly on the natural features of the incident 
 He says : * Then came a furious storm. " And Elijah went up in 
 the tempest into heaven." In this inextricable interweaving of fact 
 and figure, it is enough to mark how fitly such an act closes such a 
 life. " My father, my father," Elisha cried, " the chariot of Israel 
 and the horsemen thereof." So Elijah had stood a sure defence to 
 his country against all the chariots and horsemen that were ever 
 pouring in upon them from the surrounding nations. So he now 
 seemed, when he passed away, lost in the flames of the steeds and 
 the car that swept him from the earth, as in the fire of his own un- 
 quenchable spirit in the fire which had thrice blazed around him in 
 his passage through his troubled earthly career.' 
 
 The Speakers Commentary says of the ' chariot of fire and horses 
 of fire,' this was the appearance which now presented itself to the 
 eyes of Elisha. There is no mention of a whirlwind, but only of a 
 storm ; and the word translated * heaven ' is properly the visible 
 firmament or sky. No honest exegesis can explain this passage in 
 any other sense than as teaching the translation of Elijah, who was 
 taken from the earth, like Enoch, without dying. 
 
 Dr. A. Barry says : ' Elijah went up in the storm heavenward, or, 
 
THE ASCENSION OF ELIJAH. 45 1 
 
 perhaps, into the air. SSarah, properly, storm blast; and so storm, 
 thunderstorm. The Hebrew mind recognised the presence and 
 working of Jehovah in the terrific phenomena of nature ; the thunder* 
 cloud or storm-wind was His chariot, the thunder His voice, the 
 lightning His arrow. We must therefore be cautious of taking the 
 words before us in too literal a sense. The essential meaning of the 
 passage is this, that God suddenly took Elijah to Himself, amid a 
 grand display of His power in and through the forces of nature. The 
 popular conception, which we see embodied in such pictures as 
 William Blake's Translation of Elijah, that the prophet ascended to 
 heaven in a fiery car drawn by horses of fire, is plainly read into, 
 rather than gathered from, the sacred text.' 
 
 Jamieson, in the Critical Commentary, understands the chariots 
 and horses of fire to be ' some bright effulgence, which, in the eyes of 
 the spectators, resembled those objects. There was a tempest or 
 storm, wind accompanied with vivid flashes of fire.' 
 
 Dr. H. Allon, in Bible Educator, says: * Objections have been 
 made to this part of the narrative as being an inextricable interweav- 
 ing of fact and figure. No doubt both are here, and both are to be 
 recognised. The essential fact is that Elijah was translated without 
 dying. Not only does the credibility of the history demand this, but 
 the entire Biblical conception requires it also. No doubt, the mannei 
 of his translation is figuratively represented ; all that the description 
 necessarily means is, that he was caught away as in a fiery storm- 
 cloud poetically, God's " chariot and horses of fire ;" " as a fire " 
 Elijah " brake forth ;" in a fiery storm-cloud he was taken away ; the 
 prophet of fire to the end.' 
 
 Moses smiting the Rock. 
 
 NUMBERS xx. n : 'And Moses lifted up his hand, and smote the rock with his 
 rod twice ; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and 
 their cattle ' (Rev. Ver. : see also Exodus xvii. 6). 
 
 Difficulty. No known natural agency will account for the result 
 following upon this smiting of the rock. No incident in the life oj 
 Moses seems so strictly miraculous, so directly a Divine intervention, 
 distinct from and beyond human experience, as this is. 
 
 Explanation. All that can be said is, that water filters through 
 the crevices of the rocks, and is stored in basins in the mountains, 
 so that if properly pierced an abundant supply of water can often be 
 secured. No doubt, under Divine direction, Moses struck the rock, 
 on both occasions, at spots where there were such secret stores of 
 
 29 2 
 
45* HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 water. But this in no way explains the connection between the 
 smiting of the rock with a simple rod or staff, and the gushing forth 
 of the water. 
 
 We must, however, be careful not to make the Scriptures say more 
 than they really do. It is very easy to assume that Moses struck 
 the rock, and just at the place where he struck it the water gushed 
 forth. But a little consideration will show that this is certainly not 
 stated, nor is it essential to the understanding of the narrative. The 
 water stored in the recesses of the hill forced its way out in response 
 to the smite of Moses and the controlling power of God, but it 
 forced its way through the ordinary rock fissures, and became a 
 flowing stream, from which the people could take supplies. 
 
 Nothing can remove the miraculous element from this case. 
 Otherwise than man has any experience, God made the waters act in 
 response to an appointed sign. The most careful and reverent 
 limitation of the miraculous features still leaves us face to face with 
 a direct Divine intervention God working in other than His ordinary 
 ways. 
 
 An extraordinary passage from Fraas, the geologist, is interesting, 
 but must be wisely criticised : * A sharp eye sees at the foot of 
 Horeb, at a moderate height above the, valley, on the smooth bare 
 wall of rock, a number of green spots, some higher than others.' 
 Climbing to one, Fraas found ' a granite wall rose perpendicularly 
 from the debris below. A fig-tree at its foot is first seen, but as one 
 approaches, shrubs and verdure show themselves, quickened by a 
 small basin of water fed from a spring close at hand. This runs from 
 the smooth face of the rock, about breast high, with the fulness of a 
 good sized well-pipe. But, on looking more closely, the opening 
 through which it burst out proved to be artificial. No traces can be 
 seen of water elsewhere in the mountain wall, to betray the presence 
 of a spring thus previously hidden behind the granite. On the whole 
 face of the rock, in its height of forty feet, only crystals of felspar 
 glitter, showing no indications of water behind. The spring has 
 been struck out of the rock by a human hand ; a circumstance which 
 reminds a geologist acquainted with the Bible, of Moses, the great 
 student of the hills and of men, who struck a rock on Horeb, and 
 the water flowed from it.' 
 
^EXPECTED WATER IN WAD Y EL AHSA. 453 
 Unexpected Water in Wady el Ahsa. 
 
 2 KINGS iii. 20 : * And it came to pass in the morning, about the time of 
 offering the oblations, that, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and 
 the country was filled with water.' 
 
 Question. If the Israelites took up the idea that a miracle was 
 wrought for them, are we not at liberty to recognise the ordinary and 
 natural agencies through which the water was provided 1 
 
 Answer. This is a case in which, almost universally, the 
 * Providential ' is recognised rather than the miraculous. Josephus 
 explains that a storm had burst on the hills at a distance of three 
 days' march. Kiel says : ' Far from the Israelitish camp, in the 
 Eastern mountains of Edom, a great fall of rain a kind of cloud- 
 burst took place, by which the wady was at once filled, without 
 their either seeing the wind or the rains. The Divine interposition 
 was seen by introducing the laws of nature to the determined end in 
 the pre-determined way.' Ball, in Ellicotfs Commentary says : ' It 
 would seem that a sudden storm of rain had fallen on the mountains 
 of Seir, at some distance from the camp ; and the water found its 
 natural outlet in the dry wady. Reuss thinks this explanation 
 " superfluous," in the face of the " author's intention to describe 
 a miracle /' but there are different kinds of miracle, and, in the 
 present instance, the miraculous element is visible in the prophet's 
 prediction of the coming help, and in the coincidence of the natural 
 phenomena with the needs of the Israelites.' 
 
 As the incident is a somewhat unfamiliar one, it may be well to 
 give Dr. C. GeikiJs vivid sketch, which follows the line of sugges- 
 tions given by Kitto : c The united armies advanced towards Moab, 
 by the southern route, to meet the contingent from Edom, and to 
 pass along the edge of its territory round the south end of the 
 Dead Sea. Seven days of painful and slow stages had brought them 
 apparently to the Wady el Ahsa, the brook Zered of the wilderness 
 life, marking the boundary between Edom and Moab. Usually 
 retaining some water even in the heat of summer, it was now dry, 
 and the army and its cattle were alike suffering from thirst. Mean- 
 while, Mesha had gathered all the strength of Moab, from the 
 youngest able to bear the sword-girdle, and was close at hand. In 
 this extremity the confederates were saved by the prophetic counsels 
 of Elisha, who had accompanied Joram of Samaria, and was con- 
 sulted by Jehoshaphat. By his directions a number of pits were dug 
 in the bottom of the wady, where they found themselves, to catch 
 and retain the water which he told them would presently rush down 
 
454 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 from the highlands of Moab; though they should see neither 
 wind nor rain, the storm breaking at too great a distance. Nor 
 were they disappointed, for through the night the prediction was 
 fulfilled. 
 
 * When the sun rose suddenly, as it does in the East, with hardly 
 any twilight, its level beams, red with the morning mists, revealed no 
 enemy (to the Moabites), but shone with a blood-red glare on the 
 line of pools in the wady, dug on the preceding evening. No water 
 having existed there before, the appearance was inexplicable, except 
 on the supposition that the confederates had quarrelled, and had 
 destroyed each other.' In great confusion the Moabites rushed to 
 sack the Israelite camp, and found a vigorous enemy. They were 
 defeated, and their country overrun and ruined. 
 
 Balaam's Ass. 
 
 NUMBERS xxii. 28 : 'And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said 
 unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these 
 three times ?' 
 
 Difficulty. Actual speech must depend on the possession of appro- 
 priate organs of speech ; but the ass is not provided with any such. 
 How, theti, are we to understand this conversation between Balaam and 
 the animal t 
 
 Explanation. No one imagines that the organs of the animal 
 produced miraculously an articulate sound. There was no occasion 
 for such a miracle. All the necessities of the case are met by under- 
 standing that Balaam heard a sound which appeared to him to come 
 from the animal. Two things in the narrative arrest attention : (i) 
 Balaam expresses no sort of surprise at the speaking of the ass. (2) 
 His two servants who were attending on him, and the messengers of 
 Balak, who were accompanying him, are not reported to have shown 
 any concern at the crushing of Balaam's foot, at the falling of the ass 
 and consequent peril of their master, or at the extraordinary circum- 
 stance of an ass holding a conversation. 
 
 In order to understand the scene, it is above all things important 
 that we should understand the man who was principally concerned 
 in it. If such a narrative were given as having actually occurred to 
 some ordinary man, we should treat as strictly historical, however 
 perplexing its details might seem to be. But the Bible story is an 
 evident blending of history and mystery, and it stands in relation to 
 quite an extraordinary man. Whatever view we take of Balaam 
 whether we regard him as a true or a false prophet this at least is 
 
BALAAM'S ASS. 455 
 
 quite plain, he was a man keenly sensitive to unseen influences, subject 
 to trances, visions, secret communications with what we may call the 
 * other,' the * spiritual ' world. And at this time it is quite certain 
 that he was in a strangely elevated and excited frame of mind, quickly 
 sensitive to subtle spiritual influences. 
 
 It is probably true that, usually, his peculiar gifts and conditions 
 of mind were made to serve his own interests and to uphold idola- 
 trous systems ; but the true God was pleased to make direct communi- 
 cations with him through the very peculiarities of his nature and gifts. 
 This sorcerer, diviner, necromancer, found the true God actually 
 dealing with him in the line of his divining and auguring. 
 
 Keeping this in mind, we may find the best explanation of the 
 difficulties of this narrative, by assuming that the incidents, and the 
 voices, and the sights were quite real to Balaam, but were real only 
 to him ; he saw them and heard them, but nobody else did ; and they 
 did not, as we are pleased to call it, actually occur. They were a 
 prophet's vision, and most real to him. Through them the Divine 
 communication was made to him. 
 
 So purely incidental and illustrative a reference to Balaam as is 
 found in 2 Peter ii. 16 cannot, of course, be used as any proof of 
 the literal and historical character of the ass's speaking. However 
 the narrative is treated, whether as descriptive or as part of a vision, 
 it is equally true that the ass rebuked the prophet. 
 
 KittO) preferring a literal interpretation, nevertheless makes a 
 curious distinction. If the ass could miraculously speak, it must 
 have been made miraculously to understand ; but Kitto hesitates to 
 accept this. He says : * We do not suppose that the ass thought or 
 reasoned, though there is perhaps nothing beyond the sense or com- 
 prehension of an ass in the words which were uttered ; nor that the 
 animal had any intention or volition in the utterance of these words. 
 Words appropriate to the rebuking of the prophet were made to flow 
 from the mouth of the ass, without any intention or consciousness on 
 the part of the poor beast.' 
 
 The Speakers Commentary gives an explanation which endeavours 
 to preserve somewhat of the historical character of the narrative : 
 'The account of this occurrence can hardly have come from anyone else 
 than Balaam himself .... That which is here recorded was apparently 
 perceived by him alone among human witnesses .... The cries of 
 the ass would seem to have been significant to Balaam's mind only- 
 God may have brought it about that sounds uttered by the creature 
 after its kind became to the prophet's intelligence as though it 
 addressed him in rational speech. Indeed, to an augur, priding him- 
 
456 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 self on his skill in interpreting the cries and movements of animals, 
 no more startling warning could be given than one so real as this, yet 
 conveyed through the medium of his own art ; and to a seer pretend- 
 ing to superhuman wisdom no more humiliating rebuke can be 
 imagined than to teach him by the mouth of his own ass. 
 
 ' On the other hand, the opinion that the ass actually uttered with 
 the mouth articulate words of human speech, or even that the utter- 
 ance of the ass was so formed in the air as to fall with the accents of 
 a man's voice on Balaam's ears, seems irreconcilable with Balaam's 
 behaviour. Balaam was indeed labouring under derangement, in- 
 duced by his indulgence of avarice and ambition, and this, too, 
 aggravated at the moment by furious anger; yet it seems scarcely 
 conceivable that he could actually have heard human speech from 
 the mouth of his own ass, and even go on, as narrated in verses 29 
 and 30, to hold a dialogue with her, and show no signs of dismay 
 and astonishment.' 
 
 What may be called the purely subjective explanation is best given 
 by Archdeacon Farrar, in the Expositor, May, 1875 : * Now I hardly 
 hesitate to say that the entire circumstances and context of the narra- 
 tive show that the Semitic writer neither did attach, nor could have 
 attached, any importance to what may be called the outward 
 machinery of his story, and that he is intent, not on describing a 
 marvel, but on teaching a lesson. And if so if, writing in the 
 ordinary and perfectly familiar Semitic style, which as much as 
 possible throws every image into the concrete, and every lesson into 
 allegory or narration ; if, accustomed by his Semitic habits of thought 
 to see and recognise but little distinction between the Providential 
 and the miraculous ; if, being perfectly familiar with the talking trees 
 and animals which have always entered into Oriental parables he 
 wished to convey the story of an awakening conscience the inci- 
 dents which reveal to an erring soul that its ways are not pleasing to the 
 Lord the omen which should bring home to it the awful conviction 
 that even the unintelligent creation around it seems more conscious 
 of, more sensitive to, God's presence and to the majesty of God's 
 offended law than itself then I maintain that it would have beer, 
 impossible for him in a manner more startling from the very simplicity 
 to show how it came home to Balaam's heart that there was an 
 awful meaning in what occurred, how conscience re-asserted its 
 majesty, how he became aware that an angel of opposing mercy stood 
 right in his path, to warn, to punish, haply even to save him ere it 
 was too late. A spirit is before him. He can distinguish the very 
 waving of his apparel ; he can no longer mistake the flash of his 
 
SALAAM'S ASS. 457 
 
 sword for the hot sunshine that streams through the leaves of the 
 vines. His eyes are opened with that great glare of unnatural illu- 
 mination which so often follows the commission of a great act of sin. 
 His soul is frozen and stunned as it realizes the dread of an aveng- 
 ing presence. . . . From the earliest days of belief there is abundant 
 evidence that many great and holy minds have seen in this portion 
 of the story a vision or a philosopheme. But to say that the ass 
 spoke to Balaam only in a vision is, of course, the same thing as 
 saying that it did not actually speak at all. It is to give to the story 
 a purely subjective turn.' 
 
 The following remarks by the P.ev. J. B. Heard, M. A. (in Bib. 
 Educator\ are as satisfactory and as suggestive as anything we have 
 met with on this subject : ' The most striking instance of the action 
 of the Divine Spirit, not only elevating the human spirit, but actually 
 guiding it and carrying it whither it would not, is the case of Balaam. 
 Balaam not only utters words beyond his consciousness, as all the 
 holy men of old did ; but this unholy man, probably as a punish- 
 ment for his taking the wages of iniquity, is made to utter words 
 against his will he is made to bless those whom he was bribed to 
 curse, and to curse those whom he wanted to bless. The miracle of 
 the dumb ass speaking with man's voice is here a sign of what the 
 Divine Spirit can do when the human spirit, like an untuned pipe, 
 was about to give an uncertain sound. The dumb ass rebuked the 
 madness of the prophet. There was the deepest irony in this sign 
 from heaven. The unmelodious bray of the ass was replaced by the 
 utterance of articulate sounds, or an impression equivalent to it, pro- 
 duced on the prophet's mind, teaching him, as a last warning on his 
 way to oppose God's will, that the human pneuma is only the pipe of 
 the Divine Pneuma, and that so mighty and powerful is that wind of 
 God that it can breathe through the most reluctant instruments. 
 Balaam's case is a solemn lesson as to the dependence of man for 
 inspiration from on high.' 
 
 The Rabbinical writers have given a very extraordinary account of 
 Balaam. They say that he was at first one of Pharaoh's counsellors, 
 and that he was the father of Jannes and Jambres, the two noted 
 magicians who withstood Moses when he went to Pharaoh to demand 
 the release of Israel. They further add, that Balaam was lame, and 
 afflicted with a squint. They affirm, too, that he was the author ot 
 that passage in the Book of Numbers which gives his personal history ; 
 and that Moses merely inserted it in the book, as he did other docu- 
 ments in his works, without making himself responsible for what they 
 contained. 
 
458 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Elisha's Miracles. 
 
 2 KINGS ii. 19-21, etc. : 'And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, 
 we pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth : but the water 
 is naught, and the land miscarrieth. And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and 
 put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the 
 spring of the waters, and cast salt therein, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have 
 healed these waters ; there shall not be from thence any more death or mis- 
 carrying' (Rev. Ver.\ 
 
 Difficulty. Two features of Elisha's miracles set them in striking 
 contrast with the miracles oj Elijah, and almost tempt us to say that 
 Elisha's miracles were not worth working. They are, the purely private 
 and localcharacterofmostofthe miracles ; and the careful way in which 
 Elisha used material agencies in working the miracles. The means he 
 used were ' suitable' to the production of the desired result, but not strong 
 enough for the effect save as specially used by God, and so made efficient. 
 
 Explanation. Every man must be seen in the setting of his 
 age ; and every man's work must be judged in the light of the senti- 
 ments and needs of the people among whom that work has to be done. 
 Elisha was the successor of Elijah, not in the sense of continuing his 
 precise work, but in the sense of following it up by a detailed applica- 
 tion of its truths and principles in the private spheres of the national 
 life. Elijah publicly asserts and wins the national acceptance of 
 the assertion that Jehovah is the God of the people. Elisha has to 
 illustrate in a hundred ways that Jehovah, as the God of the people, 
 bears direct and interested relations to all the minutest concerns of 
 their personal, family, social, city, and national life. If this account 
 of the two prophets be duly pondered, it will come to be felt that the 
 simplicity, privacy, and even what we incline to call the littleness, of 
 Elisha's miracles can be fully justified and explained. His kind of 
 service was as precise an adaptation to the needs of his time as 
 Elijah's kind of service was to his. There are ages when what has 
 been called c religion in common life ' is the supreme subject of a 
 godly ministry. Such ages demand the teaching of duty rather than 
 of doctrine. It was given to Elisha to show ' God in common life/ 
 and to fix associations with the Divine Being in connection with every 
 form of human relationship. And though not so imposing a work as 
 Elijah's, we count Elisha's life-mission to have been at least as noble. 
 
 The other peculiarity is closely allied to this one. If Elisha is to 
 show God in common life, he must illustrate how God sanctifies the use 
 of means, and is always the power that makes means effective. In the 
 case of Elisha there may be an unusual measure of the Divine power 
 seen working through the means to secure unusual results, but there- 
 
ELISHA' S MIRACLES. 459 
 
 by the prophet was only prominently illustrating that it is God who 
 works, in the ordinary way, through all means, and our whole life is 
 full of Him, * His good hand is ever on us for good.' Elisha was a 
 teacher, by illustrations in the life-sphere, of the truth that God is in 
 everything. 
 
 These are reasonable solutions of the difficulties above suggested, 
 but it maybe helpful to add some explanations from other points of view. 
 
 Dean Stanley, in contrasting Elijah with Elisha, brings to light the 
 elements of greatness in Elisha. 'The succession was close and 
 immediate ; but it was a succession not of likeness, but of contrast. 
 The whole appearance of Elisha revealed the difference. The very 
 children laughed when they saw the change. . . . His life was not 
 spent, like his predecessor's, in unavailing struggles, but in widespread 
 successes. . . . His deeds were not of wild terror, but of gracious, 
 soothing, homely beneficence, bound up with the ordinary tenor of 
 human life. At his house by Jericho the bitter spring is sweetened ; 
 for the widow of one of the prophets the oil is increased ; even the 
 workmen at the prophet's huts are not to lose the axe-head which has 
 fallen through the thickets of the Jordan into the eddying stream ; 
 the young prophets, at their common meal, are saved from the deadly 
 herbs which had been poured from the blanket of one of them into 
 the caldron ; and enjoyed the multiplied provision of corn. . . . 
 His life and miracles are not Jewish, but Christian. His works stand 
 alone in the Bible in their likeness to the acts of mediaeval saints. 
 There alone in the Sacred History the gulf between Biblical and 
 Ecclesiastical miracles almost disappears. The exception proves the 
 general rule ; still it is but just to notice the exception. . . . Elijah, 
 and those who are as Elijah are needed, in critical and momentous 
 occasions, to " prepare the way for the Lord." His likeness is John 
 the Baptist ; and of those that were born of women before the times 
 of Christendom none were "greater than they." But Elisha, and 
 those who are like Elisha, have a humbler, and yet a wider, and 
 therefore a holier sphere : for their works are not the works of the 
 Baptist, but are the deeds, if not of Christ Himself, at any rate of 
 " the least in His kingdom " the gentle, beneficent, " holy man of 
 God, who passeth by us continually."' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie shows that * the times had in some measure changed 
 when Elisha came with his gentler mission. The worship of Baal 
 was no longer in exclusive favour at court. Joram, Ahab's son and 
 successor, at least tolerated that of Jehovah, though in association 
 with the calf-symbols of Bethel and Dan. In after-years, under the 
 inspiration of Jezebel, the evil genius of his house, he was to restore 
 
460 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Baal-worship to its old pre-eminence ; but, for the time, the work of 
 Elijah had been accomplished, and his sternness might with advantage 
 be laid aside. The thunders and lightnings of Horeb had done 
 their part; men could now listen to the "still small voice." . . . 
 While few of the acts of Elisha are mentioned, he is noted for the 
 number of his miracles. Was it because the power and goodness of 
 Tehovah needed to be specially impressed on a people prone to 
 apostatize, and tempted to do so by the rival wonders of the priests 
 of Baal ? . . . The wonders recorded of Elisha are a testimony to 
 his gentle and loving nature.' 
 
 Ewald says : ' This prophet is the subject of a number of narratives 
 in the present Book of Kings, which not only cursorily mention him in 
 connection with a larger circle of events, but revolve solely round the 
 illustration of his wonderful career. Although in the last resort derived 
 from various older and more recent sources, they constitute in every re- 
 spect an unmistakable unity, and must have been recorded in a special 
 work before they were incorporated in the present Book of Kings. 
 They all possess a certain resemblance in so far as they only bring 
 into prominence the recollections of Elisha's miracles. The province 
 of religion is always the province of miracles also, because it is that 
 of pure and strong faith in the presence and operation of heavenly 
 forces actively as well as passively ; where, therefore, true religion 
 makes the most powerful effects, there will be a corresponding display 
 of miracles which will either actually take place through the activity 
 of the believing spirit, or will be at any rate experienced by the be- 
 lieving heart ; while to be vividly penetrated, though only from a 
 distance, with the might of such forces, is in itself a gain. Thus far 
 the age of Elijah and Elisha, when the true religion was obliged to 
 maintain itself with the utmost force against its internal enemies, was 
 as rich in miracles as the days of Moses and Joshua or the conclusion 
 of the period of the Judges had been ; only these miracles do not 
 now, as in the time of Moses and Joshua, affect the whole nation, nor 
 as in the era of the last Judges are they directed against a foreign 
 people, but they proceed from a few individual prophets who are 
 compelled as instruments of the ancient religion to exert all the 
 greater power, as in the nation itself the true faith theatens to dis- 
 appear. No such stories can be anything more than scattered traces 
 of the action of a spirit in itself miraculous, and of the impression 
 immediately produced by it ; but that there is some spirit of power 
 in religion to the agency of which they all point is only the more 
 certain.' 
 
THE BUDDING OF AARON'S ROD. 461 
 
 The Budding of Aaron's Rod. 
 
 NUMBERS xvii. 8 : ' And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses went 
 into the tent of the testimony ; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of 
 Levi was budded, and put forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and bare ripe 
 almonds' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Question. Does this incident show us how miracle may be em- 
 ployed to give Divine testimony to an individual? Does it illustrate the 
 use of miracle as evidence ? 
 
 Answer. Illustrating what he calls the * general economy of 
 miracles,' Thomson remarks on the selection of rods from the almond- 
 tree, which hastens to bud and blossom long before any other tree 
 has begun to wake out of the repose of winter, and before it has 
 put forth its own leaves. In this case, indeed, there was miraculous 
 rapidity; but not only do the blossoms of the almond appear on it 
 suddenly, but the fruit sets at once, and appears even while the flowers 
 are yet on the tree buds, blossoms, and almonds together on the 
 same branch as on this rod of Moses. 
 
 It is evident that this trial partakes of the character of trial by lot. 
 Declaration of the Divine will through the word of Moses did not 
 satisfy certain ambitious folk, and questionings and murmurings 
 arose. It was necessary, therefore, that, in some open and public 
 way and by some manifest sign, the will of God should be made 
 known. The miracle was, therefore, distinctly wrought as a con- 
 firmation of the authority of Moses. It was a kind of appeal from 
 the assertion of Moses to the direct mind of God an appeal which 
 He was graciously pleased to respond to. 
 
 Miracles may be wrought to attest a person or to confirm a truth. 
 This accomplished both objects; it declared Moses to be God's agent, 
 and it confirmed the truth of that particular message which he had 
 delivered in the matter of the priesthood. 
 
 F. Myers, M.A.^ wisely says on the question above suggested : 
 4 And let it be noted that the working of miracles, wherever it might 
 be most fully admitted, did not on Biblical principles prove anything 
 more with regard to the person so working them than that he had a 
 general mission from God as a prophet; and also that the working of 
 miracles was not a necessary token of the prophet's mission. Moses 
 and Aaron, Elijah and Elisha, worked miracles, and were still but 
 men of like passions and infirmity with others ; while the great body 
 of the Old Testament prophets wrought no miracles that we know 
 of ; nor did he who was the greatest of these in some respects, the 
 immediate herald of the Messiah. The truth concerning this matter 
 
462 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 probably is, that miracles are most duly thought of when they are 
 considered as a peculiar class of facts intended to awaken men to a 
 perception of, and attention to, God's immediate presence as hints, 
 excitements, suggestions, rather than as evidences. Indeed, no 
 amount or frequency of exhibitions of physical power can of itself 
 prove anything as to either the truth or worth of any proposition. 
 There is no kind of logical or moral consequence in saying that one 
 who is extraordinarily powerful must, therefore, be extraordinarily 
 good .... The faith produced by miracles is rather a subjugation 
 of the senses than an affiance of the heart a belief after seeing, 
 instead of trust before sight ; and were this to be most highly prized, 
 the blessing of Christ would be reversed.' 
 
 Hezekiah's Cure. 
 
 2 KINGS xx. 7 : And Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. And they took and 
 laid it on the boil, and he recovered ' (Rev. Ver.\ 
 
 Question. Are we to regard the plaster of figs as an efficient 
 remedy, or as a material sign^ helping belief in the Divine and 
 miraculous healing ? 
 
 Answer. There is no intimation in the narrative that the 
 recovery took a miraculous character. That is an inference which 
 the reader may make, if he thinks there are sufficient grounds for it ; 
 but it is necessary to show extreme care in distinguishing between 
 what the Scriptures assert, and what men infer from that which is 
 found in Scripture. The Divine inspiration does not include and 
 guarantee men's inferences. What is most certainly declared in the 
 record, is God's direct intervention to guide the progress of the 
 disease, and to bless the remedial agencies employed ; but if terms 
 are used with precision, this should be called ' Providential,' and not 
 ' miraculous.' 
 
 At the same time there is much to be said in favour of the infer- 
 ence that the plaster of figs was only a visible sign of a supernatural 
 work of healing. And the chief thing to be said is, that it was in 
 harmony with Divine dealing thus to help faith by outward signs. 
 We may recall to mind the requirement of Naaman, that he 
 should bathe in Jordan ; our Lord's use of spittle for anointing the 
 blind man's eyes ; and James's suggestion, that faith in the Lord's 
 healing of the sick man should be shown by helping the man to make 
 his toilet as if he was restored. 
 
 The description given of the disease from which Hezekiah suffered 
 is not presented in sufficient detail for us to identify it with any cer- 
 
HEZEKIAH'S CURE. 463 
 
 tainty. It is called a ' boil,' and boils of a malignant character, that 
 imperil life, are known by us as * carbuncles,' and if these come in 
 certain positions of the body, the patient has a terribly suffering time, 
 and retains life only with extremest effort. The one thing that 
 inclines us to recognise in Hezekiah's boil a malignant carbuncle is, 
 that such developments often follow upon the lowered vitality attend- 
 ing times of great mental strain and anxiety. The physical effects of 
 * worry ' often find expression in such diseased discharges ; and 
 through a time and a prolonged time of supreme anxiety this 
 jood king had been passing. A boil in the arm-pit, setting up severe 
 inflammation, constitutes the well-known plague of Egypt, which was 
 for so many centuries, and until lately, the scourge of the Levant. 
 If such boils can be made to discharge freely, the danger of them 
 quickly passes away ; but if the discharge be unnatural, or unduly 
 prolonged, the patient sinks under the strain or the general disturb- 
 ance of his system, and a good deal depends on skill of treatment in 
 the later stages of the disease. Those who have suffered from such 
 eruptions know well the extreme pain and exhaustion of the time 
 immediately preceding the suppuration of the boil, and the instant 
 and delightful relief felt when the discharge commences. 
 
 We need not assume that so familiar a remedy as a poultice of figs 
 had not been thought of by the king's physicians, but it would be 
 quite in accordance with human nature in doctors, if they had used 
 all sorts of grand remedies and neglected this very simple household 
 one. And if the boil was almost ready for bursting, this poultice 
 would do exactly what was required. We may, therefore, regard the 
 application of it as an efficient means upon which the Divine blessing 
 graciously rested, and Hezekiah's recovery may take rank among 
 those healings in answer to prayer, with which we are ourselves 
 familiar. It is not sufficiently noticed, that Hezekiah's recovery was 
 not until the third day after the application of the poultice, which 
 certainly suggests that the healing agency did its work in the ordinary 
 and usual manner. 
 
 Elijah's Horeb Scene. 
 
 I KINGS xix. II : * And he said, Go forth and stand upon the mount before the 
 Lord, and, behold, the Lord passed by.' 
 
 Difficulty. In this scene mental vision is so blended with what 
 seems to be miracle, that it is nearly impossible to tell what is natural 
 and what is supernatural 
 
 Explanation. Such cases must always be judged in the light of 
 the temperament of the person concerned, and in view of his par- 
 
464 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 ticular mental mood at the time of the occurrence. What is narrated 
 here is the Divine correction and revival of the faint-hearted and 
 unduly despondent prophet. Communications were made directly 
 to his heart, and also mediately through the influence exerted by the 
 grand things of nature upon him. Prophetic and poetic souls are 
 sensitive to nature-moods in ways and degrees that seem impossible 
 to prosaic souls. They can hear messages, and translate into definite 
 meaning sights and sounds, which are dumb to most of us. And if 
 God would communicate with such prophetic souls, nature, in her 
 softer or her wilder moods, may be His voice to them. A distinct 
 purpose, to nourish the sense of awe and reverence, led to the people 
 of Israel being brought amongst the awful primeval rocks of Sinai. 
 It was the appropriate spot of earth for the revelation of the one 
 living and true God; and Nature-influences harmonized with the 
 verbal revelations. The same may be remarked of this scene of 
 Elijah. The grand things of nature, witnessed among the ever- 
 lasting hills, are not miracles, but they are the servants of God, 
 coming and going at His bidding, and doing His work, and carrying 
 His messages, as they come and go. 
 
 There does not seem to be any necessity for introducing the 
 supernatural into this Horeb scene, unless it be thought supernatural 
 that the Great Spirit should communicate directly with the human 
 spirit That, however, we have learned to regard as a regular 
 method of Divine dealing. John Howe's view can have its reference 
 to other modes of producing impressions of God than those found in 
 the written Word. He says : * Nor do I believe that God never doth 
 immediately testify His own special love to holy souls without the 
 intervention of some part of His eternal Word, made use of as a 
 present instrument to that purpose, or that He always doth it in the 
 way of methodical reasoning therefrom/ 
 
 The associations of a great storm of wind and lightning among the 
 mountains will explain the phenomena recorded, and the gentle 
 breathing of the air, when the storm-time had passed, is the basis of 
 the poetical figure of the 'still small voice.' He reads the story 
 aright who reads the impression made on Elijah, and the prophetic 
 communications for which God thus prepared the way, ensuring in 
 His servant an open, and receptive, and humble mood. 
 
 No one seems to have realized the scene better than Dean Stanley ', 
 whose description seems to so recreate the incident as to satisfy all 
 difficulties. * Elijah is drawn out by the warning, like that which 
 came to Moses on the same spot, and stands on the mountain-side, 
 expecting the signs of the Divine presence. He listened ; and there 
 
ELIJAH'S HOREB SCENE. 465 
 
 came the sound of a rushing hurricane, which burst through the 
 mountain wall and rolled down the granite rocks in massive frag- 
 ments round him. " But Jehovah was not in the wind." He stood 
 firm on his feet, expecting it again ; and under his feet the solid 
 mountain shook, with the shock of a mighty earthquake. "But 
 Jehovah was not in the earthquake." He looked out on the hills as 
 they rose before him in the darkness of the night, and they flamed 
 with flashes of fire, as in the days of Moses. " But Jehovah was not 
 in the fire." And then, in the deep stillness of the desert air un- 
 broken by falling stream, or note of bird, or tramp of beast, or cry of 
 man came the whisper, of a voice as of a gentle breath of a voice 
 so small that it was almost like silence. Then he knew that the 
 moment was come. He drew, as was his wont, his rough mantle 
 over his head ; he wrapt his face in its ample folds ; he came out 
 from the sheltering rock, and stood beneath the cave to receive the 
 Divine communications. They blended with the vision : one cannot 
 be understood without the other.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie seems to accept the phenomena as natural and 
 ordinary, for he says : * A rushing hurricane, before which Elijah 
 sank once more into the depths of the cave, burst through the awful 
 gorges of the mountains, tearing off huge granite fragments on every 
 side. Then followed the crash of an earthquake, making the mighty 
 peaks and summits rock and sway on their foundations ; and after 
 that the peals of an awful thunderstorm reverberated through the 
 naked defiles : the incessant blaze of Eastern lightning flaming around, 
 and revealing the heights and depths of the rocky wilderness.' 
 
 Sonar's description of the district round Elijah at the time, and 
 this Divine revelation to him, will enable us to realize how profoundly 
 nature must have influenced him. 'We saw the "great and terrible 
 wilderness " around us .... no green spot, no tree, no flower, no 
 rill, no lake, but dark brown ridges, red peaks, like pyramids of solid 
 fire. No rounded hillocks, or soft mountain curves such as one sees 
 even in the ruggedest of home-scenes, but monstrous and misshapen 
 cliffs, rising tier above tier, and surmounted here and there by some 
 spire-like summits, serrated for miles into rugged grandeur, and 
 grooved from head to foot by the winter torrents that had swept down 
 like bursting water-spouts, tearing their naked loins, and cutting into 
 the very veins and sinews of the fiery rock ; a land of darkness, as 
 darkness itself, and of the shadow of death ; without any order, and 
 where the light is as darkness.' 
 
 The Speakers Commentary suggestively calls this scene an ' acted 
 parable.' 
 
466 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Preservation of Clothes during the Wilderness 
 
 Journey. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY viii. 4 : ' Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did 
 thy foot swell, these forty years.' 
 
 Question. Does this declare only an extraordinary \ or must we 
 understand a miraculous, preservation of clothing ? 
 
 Answer. It is singular to find no mention of this matter either 
 in Exodus, Leviticus, or Numbers. Moses refers to it again in his 
 preamble to the renewal of the covenant (chap. xxix. 5). 'And I 
 have led you forty years in the wilderness ; your clothes are not 
 vvaken old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot' 
 When the Levites, in Neh. ix. 21, recall the Divine mercies shown to 
 the Israelite race, they repeat the words of Moses, ' their clothes 
 waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.' In view of the figurative 
 character of Eastern expression, our first thought would be that this 
 is a sort of proverb, a common saying to indicate the Divine care and 
 keeping : and this view is well supported by further consideration 
 and careful study. 
 
 The actual preservation of clothes and shoes from decay was not 
 necessary to the safety or comfort of the people, as they had the 
 materials for renewal at easy command. Wandering tribes are 
 almost entirely dressed in homespun, the materials being provided 
 from the wool of sheep and goat, and even camel. The skins of 
 animals dying, sacrificed, or slaughtered for eating, provided abun- 
 dance of leather. And no intimation is given us that the Israelites 
 were debarred from bartering with the tribes around, and so pro- 
 curing other articles needed fo/ their comfort or use. We may 
 reverently say that there does not appear to have been sufficient 
 occasion for a miracle to preserve what could be so readily renewed. 
 
 The tendency unduly to introduce the miraculous element is seen 
 in the fact that the Jewish commentators assert concerning this 
 matter, that the clothes of the people grew with their growth from 
 childhood to manhood. 
 
 Waller, in Ellicotfs Commentary, says : ' We cannot say that any- 
 thing miraculous is certainly intended, though it is not impossible. 
 It may mean that God in His providence directed them to clothe 
 themselves in a manner suitable to their journey and their mode of 
 life.' 
 
 Speakers Commentary says : ' These words in a passage like the 
 present, where the speaker is not so much narrating historically as 
 
DAVIHS VISION OF THE ANGEL. ^67 
 
 alluding for hortatory purposes to God's care of them in the desert, 
 may signify no more than that " God so amply provided for them all 
 the necessaries of life, that they were never obliged to wear tattered 
 garments, nor were their feet injured for lack of shoes or sandals." ' 
 
 Both in Deut. viii. 4, and xxix. 5, the words * waxes not old upon ' 
 should be read ' fell not from off,' and simply mean that the people 
 were never without suitable clothing. 
 
 David's Vision of the Angel. 
 
 i CHRONICLES xxi. 16 : ' And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the 
 Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand 
 stretched out over Jerusalem.' 
 
 Question. Was this a vision made to the mind of David only, or 
 may we think there was some outward appearance which others besides 
 David could perceive ? (See verse 20). 
 
 Answer. It is not possible to give any description of a Bible 
 * vision ' which would be found to suit all cases that are recorded. 
 In the very idea of a vision is involved that it should be precisely 
 adapted to the occasion, and fitted to the mental moods, and the 
 sphere of knowledge, of the person to whom it is given. Whether the 
 impression was always produced on the man that he actually saw 
 something with his bodily eyes cannot be assured. We know how it 
 is possible for us to see things which never take any material shape. 
 Possibly the normal idea of communication by vision was this a 
 man seemed to see a sight, though there was no external form, and 
 to hear a voice, though there was no person speaking. .But it must 
 be admitted that in many cases the vision was of an external form ; 
 there was something which the bodily senses could apprehend. 
 
 There are cases narrated, with more or less of truth, of strange 
 appearances in the clouds, foreshadowing the doom of cities or the 
 approach of grave calamities ; but these are usually the creations of 
 men of great imaginative sensitiveness, and others seem to see what 
 they can show them. David's vision of the angel of the plague be- 
 longs to this class of portents, but is connected with a precise Divine 
 communication. There is no reason against the assumption that a 
 great cloud-form, taking shape to a sensitive mind like an angel with 
 <x sword, and seen by others as well as David, formed the actual 
 basis, the external reality, of an inward and spiritual revelation of the 
 Divine will. It should, however, be carefully noted that, in this case, 
 the prophet Gad was the medium of Divine communications, and 
 the angf.l-form did but serve to arouse due attention and concern. 
 
 302 
 
468 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 On verse 20, Ellicotfs Commentary says: * There can be little 
 doubt that this is corrupt, and that the text of Samuel is right. 
 " And Araunah looked up, and saw the king and his servants passing 
 by him." ' On this showing we may consider that the angel-vision was 
 jne which was given to David alone. To understand the incidents 
 the account given in 2 Samuel xxiv. should be compared. From it 
 we learn that the sight of the angel of judgment wakened David to a 
 sense of sin, and drove him to confession and prayer. Then Gad 
 brought to him the Divine answer, and spoke it to him in human 
 words. Some writers have suggested that the more minute and 
 wonderful details given in Chronicles are * derived from the imagina- 
 tion of the writer, who gratified his love of the marvellous by thu? 
 expanding the simpler words of his predecessor/ 
 
 Dean Stanley, without affirming that the instances were strictly 
 similar, says : * Above this spot (the threshing-floor of Araunah) is 
 said to have appeared an awful vision, such as is described in the 
 later days of Jerusalem, or in the pestilence of Rome, under Gregory 
 the Great, or in our own plague of London, of a celestial messenger 
 stretching out a drawn sword between earth and sky over the devoted 
 city.' 
 
 * The Bible idea of an angel seems to be that of an agent, other 
 than man, employed to carry out the Divine purposes in the sphere 
 of creation, and especially in this our world. If we accept this com 
 prehensive conception of an angel, we shall understand how there 
 may be angels of affliction, angels of death, and even angels o^ 
 temptation, all engaged directly in the Divine service. Destruction 
 by pestilence is on several occasions attributed to the ministry of an 
 angel, e.g., destruction of the first-born in Egypt, and of Sennacherib's 
 army. This is still a familiar poetic figure. Sometimes unseen 
 things have been graciously set within the sphere of the senses, in 
 order to help men to feel the reality of the unseen. Angels are un- 
 seen beings ; the Divine workings are largely secret and unseen ; but 
 it pleases God to set his people sometimes " within the veil " ; or, we 
 may say, " behind the scenes " ; or down below among the machinery, 
 so that they may gain for themselves, and give to others, fitting 
 impressions of the reality of the Divine working.' Pulpit Com- 
 mentary. 
 
LIFE FROM TOUCHING THE BONES OF ELI SH A. 469 
 Life from touching the Bones of Elisha. 
 
 2 KINGS xiii. 21 : ' And it came to pass, as they were burying a man. thaf, 
 behold, they spied a hand ; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha : 
 and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on 
 his feet ' (Rev. Ver.) 
 
 Difficulty. There does not appear to be any sufficient reason for 
 the working of this miracle ; and no one was so connected with it as to 
 indicate how it made witness for God. 
 
 Explanation. This narrative is certainly one of the most per- 
 plexing in the Old Testament, and is only matched by the equally 
 astonishing statement of the New Testament, that at our Lord's 
 death, ' the graves were opened ; and many bodies of the saints 
 which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, 
 and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many ' (Matt, xxvii. 
 
 S 53). 
 
 The first suggestion that comes to mind is that such a passage must 
 surely be a later addition to the narrative, and must belong to a time 
 when there was a disposition to multiply wonders. Dean Stanley 
 very significantly says : * Alone of all the graves of the saints of the 
 Old Testament, there were wonders wrought at it which seemed to 
 continue after death the grace of his long and gentle life. It was 
 believed that by the mere touch of his bones a dead corpse was re- 
 animated.' And Dr. S. G. Green evidently feels the difficulty of 
 this case, for, after enumerating the miracles of Elisha, he says : 
 1 May we add the miracle wrought even by his bones in the sepul- 
 chre, on touching which a dead man revived and stood upon his 
 feet ?' 
 
 But we can find no support for the idea that this narrative is a later 
 addition to the text. It must be accepted as a part of the history, 
 and probably nothing can be said about it more satisfactory than that 
 which may be found in an ' Additional Note ' of the Speaker's Com- 
 mentary. ' The miracle of Elisha's after his death is more surprising 
 than any of those which he performed during his life-time. The Jews 
 regarded it as his highest glory ; and hence the son of Sirach con- 
 eludes his eulogy of Elisha with a double reference to it : " No word 
 could overcome him, and after his death his body prophesied. He 
 did wonders in his life, and at his death were his works marvellous " 
 (Eccles. xlviii. 13, 14). No exact parallel to the miracle offers itself 
 to us in the rest of Scripture. Still, it may be said to belong to a 
 class of Scripture miracles, cases, i.e., where the miracle was not 
 wrought through the agency of a living miracle- worker, but by a 
 
470 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 material object in which, by God's will, " virtue " for the time resided. 
 The most familiar example of this class is the staunching of the issue 
 of blood by the touch of the hem of Christ's garment ; but the cures 
 wrought by " handkerchiefs and aprons " brought to the sick from the 
 body of St. Paul (Acts xix. 12) are still more nearly parallel. 
 Another, not exactly similar, but still connected instance, is that of 
 St. Peter's shadow, which seems to have had a healing efficacy (see 
 Acts v. 15). Miracles of this kind appear to be peculiarly offensive 
 to our modern thought, but it is difficult to say why. As Dean Alford 
 well observes : " All miraculous working is an exertion of the direct 
 power of the All-powerful ; a suspension by Him of His ordinary laws ; 
 and whether He will use any instrument in doing this, or what instru- 
 ment, must depend altogether on His own purpose in the miracle 
 the effect to be produced on the recipients, beholders, or hearers. 
 Without His special selection and enabling all instruments were vain 
 with these, all are capable'' 1 In the present instance, no doubt, the 
 primary effect was greatly to increase the reverence of the Israelites 
 for the memory of Elisha, to lend force to his teaching, and especially 
 to add weight to his unfulfilled prophecies, as to that concerning the 
 coming triumphs of Israel over Syria. In the extreme state of de- 
 pression, to which the Israelites were now reduced, a very signal 
 miracle may have been needed to encourage and reassure them.' 
 
 For ourselves we confess that no real relief of the difficulties of this 
 incident can be obtained ; and we are content to leave it among the 
 things that must remain ' hard to be understood.' 
 
 Fiery Serpents. 
 
 NUMBERS xxi. 6: 'And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and 
 they bit the people, and much people of Israel died.' 
 
 Question. Does the assertion that the Lord sent ' these serpents 
 involve that He sent them in a miraculous way ? 
 
 Answer. This is one of the cases in which we may trace the 
 distinction between the Providential and the miraculous. The serpents 
 are characteristic of the district ; their special number, their activity, 
 and the inflammatory character of their bite at this time, all indicate 
 a controlling Providence ; but there is nothing that can properly be 
 called supernatural in the incidents. The Providential keeps strictly 
 in the line of natural agencies, but may vary their action. The 
 miraculous introduces other agencies than belong to ordinary human 
 experience. 
 
 The expression ' the Lord sent ' is the pious sentiment and expres- 
 sion of the Jew, who traced the direct working of God in everything 
 
FIER Y SERPENTS. 47 1 
 
 that happened. We may call it the detailed and practical expression 
 of the idea of the theocracy the direct rule, control, action of God in 
 all the concerns of the people. When we should say of a thing, ' /'/ 
 happened? the Israelite would say, * God did so and so,' or ' God sent 
 so and so.' If we firmly hold that the Providential is the Divine,' we 
 may call the visitation of the fiery serpents Providential. It was 
 Divine chastisement and correction by the control of Providential 
 arrangements. An ordinary annoyance and peril was made to become 
 a public calamity. 
 
 The description * fiery ' may refer to the appearance of the snake, 
 but it would be more simple to treat it as suggesting the inflammation 
 caused by its bite. Quite a number of snakes have been described 
 with a view to identification, but the one thing to which inquiry 
 should be limited is, what are the serpents now found in that portipn 
 of country through which the Israelites were travelling at this time ? 
 To this question Dr. C. Geikie gives careful attention, and upon it 
 he has collected valuable information. He says : * The region itself 
 provided a terrible punishment for such disloyalty and rebellion. 
 Venomous serpents abounded in it, and spread terror and death. 
 A strange confusion of texts has led to the common idea that they 
 were " flying serpents " that thus assailed Israel. But there is not a 
 word in Numbers or Deuteronomy of their being so (Deut. viii. 15). 
 It is Isaiah who speaks of " flying serpents," but without any reference 
 to the incidents of the desert (Isai. xiv. 29 ; xxx. 6). It is highly 
 interesting to find that in the very neighbourhood in which Israel was 
 then encamped, travellers mention the existence of serpents in great 
 numbers. Thus, Captain Frazer tells us that " All the Arabs say there 
 are flying serpents here, three feet long, very venomous, their bite 
 deadly ; they have no wings, but make great springs" Mr. Churton, 
 when south-west of the Dead Sea, fell in with a large red-coloured 
 serpent, which came out of a hollow tree, and was declared by the 
 Arabs to be poisonous. Burckhardt writes : " The sand showed every- 
 where tracks of these reptiles. My guide told me they were very 
 numerous in these parts, and that the fishermen were in such dread 
 of them, that they put out their fire each night before going to sleep, 
 lest it should attract them." In a similar strain Schubert tells us that 
 " A large and very mottled snake was brought us, marked with fiery 
 red spots and stripes. From its teeth, it evidently belonged to one 
 of the most poisonous kinds. The Bedouins say that these creatures, 
 of which they are in terror, are very numerous in this locality." ' 
 
 Alexander, in crossing Gedrosia, lost many men through the 
 serpents which sprang upon them from the sand and brushwood. 
 
472 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Inexhaustible Meal and Oil. 
 
 I KINGS xvii. 14 : . For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, The barrel of 
 meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the 
 Lord sendeth rain upon the earth ' {Rev. Ver. ). 
 
 Question. To what class of miracles does this belong; and can 
 any explanation be given of so remarkable a provision being made for 
 so small a family of strangers ? 
 
 Answer. Somewhat similar miracles are found in Elisha's 
 multiplying the loaves and corn and oil (2 Kings iv. 6, 42-44), and 
 our Lord's feeding of the thousands. All the cases are outside of, 
 and beyond, ordinary human experience, and bear an evident super- 
 natural character. 
 
 As an illustration, and a teaching of the people by illustration, this 
 miracle was all the more striking and effective, in that it was wrought 
 for a poor and despised widow, and she a stranger to the claims and 
 privileges of Israel. It was a manifestation of the grace and pro- 
 viding of God, which was all the more impressive because of the 
 dark background on which it was set. And the woman's faith in 
 God, shown in acts of trustful obedience, puts to shame the unbelief 
 of Israel, whose forsaking of Jehovah had brought on the terrible 
 judgment of the famine. 
 
 Very few Biblical writers attempt to deal with the difficulties of 
 this incident. They usually satisfy themselves with pointing out its 
 moral or religious suggestions. Ellicotfs Commentary contains the 
 following good note : l The miracle is doubly remarkable. First, 
 in this instance, as in the similar miracles of Elisha, and of our Lord 
 Himself, we see that God's higher laws of miracle, like the ordinary 
 laws of His Providence, admit within their scope the supply of what 
 we should consider as homely and trivial needs in this respect, 
 perhaps, contradicting what our expectation would have suggested. 
 Next, that it is a miracle of multiplication, which is virtual creation 
 not necessarily out of nothing doing rapidly and directly what, 
 under ordinary laws, has to be done slowly and by indirect process. 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary recognises and deals with objections 
 from the naturalistic point of view : * This is the first recorded miracle 
 of its kind a supernatural and inexplicable multiplication of food. 
 This class of miracles offers peculiar difficulties to modern sceptics, 
 who ask whether the senses and appetite were cheated, or whether 
 new matter was created, or whether, finally, there was a trans- 
 formation of previously existing matter into meal, oil, fish, and 
 bread. The sacred record does not enable us to answer these 
 
INEXHAUSTIBLE MEAL AND OIL. 473 
 
 inquiries positively; but we may observe that, if the last of the 
 three explanations above suggested be the true one, the marvel 
 of the thing would not be much greater than that astonishing 
 natural chemistry by which, in the growth of plants, particles of 
 water, air, and earth are transmuted into fruits and grains of corn, 
 and so fitted to be human food. There would be a difference in the 
 agency employed, and in the time occupied in the transmutation, but 
 the thing done would be almost the same.' 
 
 It has been remarked that 'the supernatural character of the 
 history of Elijah, in which miraculous incidents are crowded in a very 
 remarkable way, has naturally directed upon it the fiercest hostility of 
 rationalistic critics. Ewald^ and after him Bunsen^ have summarily 
 pronounced the narrative unhistorical. Bunserfs theory is that the 
 narrative is a traditional myth, a popular epic poem, like the Iliad ; 
 the image of Elijah, like that of Hercules, being that of a fabulous 
 hero, a " wonderful creative representation," as Ewald expresses it, 
 " of the sublimest prophetic truths." The primary question of the 
 validity of the miraculous element in Old Testament history must, 
 however, be determined upon broader and more general grounds, 
 than are presented by any one particular set of incidents. 
 
 The Natural Agencies in the Miracle of dividing 
 
 the Sea. 
 
 EXODUS xiv. 21 : 'And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the 
 Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the 
 sea dry land, and the waters were divided.' 
 
 Difficulty. This assertion^ that the waters were removed by the 
 agency of the east wind> appears to relieve the narrative of its miraculous 
 character. 
 
 Explanation. If we use terms with precision, it may be said 
 that the events here narrated were * Providential,' and not strictly 
 4 miraculous.' Nothing is said that may not be accounted for by the 
 action of ordinary, known, and natural forces ; but there are combi- 
 nations, degrees, and fittings of times, which distinctly and im- 
 pressively convince of the direct intervention of God, the controlling 
 of Divine Providence. As the natural agencies which God was 
 pleased to use for the outworking of His purpose are precisely 
 stated, it is proper for us to endeavour to understand what actually 
 occurred. 
 
 Before attempting an explanation of the wonderful crossing, it 
 may be well to confirm the reasonableness of our undertaking by 
 
474 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 quoting the following words of Canon Rawlinson: 'Whether the 
 whole effect was purely natural, or whether (as in so many other 
 cases) God used the force of nature so far as it could go, and 
 further supernaturally increased its force, we are not told, and may 
 form what opinion we please.' And also the language of Canon 
 Cook: ' It is distinctly stated that the agency by which the object was 
 effected was natural. It is clear that Moses takes for granted that a 
 strong east wind blowing through the night, under given circum- 
 stances, would make the passage quite possible. It would seem to be 
 scarcely practicable, when the wind blows from other quarters.' 
 
 In a previous paragraph, we have taken the view that a wide stretch 
 of sand reached from Suez to the Bitter Lakes; that this was at one time 
 but lightly covered with the sea at low tide, and across it one or more 
 fords were arranged. The stretch of sand, at least a mile or two wide, 
 and from one to six miles across, was the wide road providentially 
 prepared for the crossing of the Israelites. We have, therefore, to 
 inquire what help our knowledge of such tide-washed belts of sand 
 will give us towards the understanding of the scene. 
 
 Bays, or sandy estuaries, such as that known as Morecambe Bay, 
 afford valuable suggestions. In the inland part of that bay, the tide 
 sometimes runs right out, leaving a great reach of sand seamed with 
 channels which quickly hardens, so that persons, and even carts and 
 horses, readily cross from one side to the other, a distance of some 
 miles. It is necessary, however, to know the state both of the wind 
 and the tide, for the wind may retard the tide or may hurry its 
 return ; and it has been known to come back so swiftly along the 
 channels, that the fleetest horse, caught in the middle of the bay, 
 could not hope to escape. We have imagined the tide held back for 
 some time by an opposing wind, and the host of Israel well-nigh 
 covering this great stretch of sand, hurrying across while the pathway 
 kept safe, and felt that Morecambe Bay must well represent the 
 district north of Suez. 
 
 A fact may be added, which has been observed in connection 
 with the Goodwin Sands, off Ramsgate. When the tide recedes 
 far back, the treacherous sands become so hard that games of cricket 
 are played upon them ; but as soon as the tide turns, they change 
 again into quicksands, which would readily engulf Pharaoh and all 
 his cavalry. 
 
 We have then, in the description of the district above Suez, and in 
 our knowledge of the effects of wind on sands and tides, the materials 
 for a very reasonable explanation of the deliverance of Israel by a 
 passage through the sea. It is true that the agency of the wind 
 
MIRACLE OF DIVIDING THE S&A. 475 
 
 alone is mentioned, but the ordinary effect of the tides is assumed ; 
 and it is interesting to note that an Egyptian tradition distinctly 
 states, ' Moses waited for the ebb tide in order to lead the Israelites 
 across.' It may be further remarked, that the Hebrews gave names 
 only to the four winds from the four cardinal points, so that north- 
 east and south-east, the winds employed in this case, are included 
 under the general term east. It was a north-east wind which kept 
 back the tide, holding it from its usual return flow at its appointed 
 time, and prolonging the hours for the crossing ; it was a sudden 
 change of wind to the south-east, which brought the gathered waters 
 swiftly and overwhelmingly down upon the hosts of Pharaoh. 
 
 Due account must be taken of the position of the sand banks; of the 
 waters of the Bitter Lakes preventing attack from the north ; of the 
 receding tide ; of the effect of the wind in hardening the surface of 
 the sand ; of the protection on the south afforded by the main waters 
 of the sea ; of the effect on the sand of the trampling of so many feet ; 
 of the difficulties of crossing in the face of the strong wind ; and of 
 the suddenness with which the waves would return, when the re- 
 straining wind was removed. All these b^ong to the natural agencies 
 employed to work out the Divine purposes, and they are adequate to 
 produce the results narrated, without assuming anything of a super- 
 natural character. 
 
 But while so much may be admitted, there are some parts of the 
 narrative which cannot be explained by any suggestions in the line 
 of human experiences, and must be traced to immediate Divine 
 intervention and arrangement of an unusual and miraculous 
 character. The fitting of events to times ; the cloud, bright towards 
 Israel, and dark towards the Egyptians ; the connection of natural 
 events with Divine command, especially strike us as indications of 
 the immediate working of God ; though the general impression of the 
 whole story is certainly an impression of God's working within, rather 
 than/;w beyond, the Nature-sphere. The deliverance of Israel was 
 a remarkable instance of 'special providence.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie gives a description of the scene, which we can 
 generally approve, though we should otherwise explain some of the 
 details. He says : * Ebb and flood tide, in the narrow northern ford 
 especially, are affected greatly by the wind prevailing at any given 
 time. When it blows strongly from the north-east, which it often 
 does, the waters are driven south, into the bay, on the west shore, 
 leaving four islets stretching in a line north from Suez, and separated 
 from the firm land, and from each other, by narrow but deep 
 channels. Near these is the upper ford, which can be passed on 
 
476 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 foot ,it the lowest ebb, by those well acquainted with the ground. 
 The other, to the south, bends northward towards this one, but its 
 length makes it less used. The waters appear to have reached a 
 little further east and north at the time of the Exodus than they do 
 at present ; but either of these lines of sand bank may have been 
 used, under the guidance and miraculous aid of God. The night set 
 in dark and stormy, with a violent north-east gale which blew all night, 
 and drove the waters before it, at ebb tide, into the south-west bay, 
 till the sandy ridge of the ford was laid bare : the shore waters thus 
 becoming a wall, or protection, to the Hebrews on the right, and 
 those of the open sea on the left hand. The storm prolonging the 
 ebb, delayed the flow of the tide, and thus before morning, the whole 
 of the Hebrews here, going round pools, there, kept back by the 
 tempest, and by the slow progress of the cattle were able to reach 
 the east shore ; after a long and slow march, aggravated by the terrors 
 of the night/ 
 
 We prefer, however, the less detailed, but more suggestive, note 
 of Canon Rawlinson. * By a " strong east wind " we are at liberty to 
 understand one blowing from any point between north-east and 
 south east. If we imagine the Bitter Lakes joined to the Red Sea by 
 a narrow and shallow channel, and a south-east wind blowing strongly 
 up this channel we can easily conceive that the water in the Bitter Lakes 
 might be driven northwards, and held there, while the natural action 
 of the ebb tide withdrew the Red Sea water to the southward. A 
 portion of the channel might in this way have been left dry, and have 
 so continued until the wind changed and the tide began to flow.' 
 
 Note on the figure in verse. 22. The notion that is suggested by the 
 pictures in our older Bibles, of heaped-up and foaming waters making 
 walls to a narrow passage, could only have been conceived by persons 
 who failed to understand the poetical and figurative character of Bible 
 language. Anything that acts as a protection is in Scripture called 
 'a wall.' (Comp. i Sam. xxv. 16; Prov. xviii. n; Isa. xxvi. i; 
 Jer. i. 18; Nahum iii. 8.) All that we need understand is the 
 defence from flank attacks by the Egyptians which was afforded by 
 the fact that deep waters were both on the right and on the left of 
 their divinely made path. The Egyptians were compelled to come 
 on behind them, and if they had attacked, the soldiers of Israel could 
 have kept them at bay until the whole host was safely across. Kalisctts 
 idea that on this occasion the ' water gave up its nature, formed with 
 its waves a strong wall, and instead of streaming like a fluid, congealed 
 into a hard substance,' has been properly called an 'instance of 
 turning poetry into prose, and enslaving one's self to a narrow 
 literalism.' 
 
BALAAM'S TRANCE. 477 
 
 Balaam's Trainee. 
 
 NUMBERS xxiv. 4 : ' He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw 
 the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open.' 
 
 Question. Is it possible for us to distinguish between the natural 
 and the supernatural in this account '/ 
 
 Answer. Probably that is a hopeless task, because we do not 
 know the character or the extent of the gifts with which Balaam was 
 endowed. We cannot hesitate in saying that there are natural features, 
 and it is quite certain that there were also Divine usings and over- 
 rulings ; but just where the natural ends and the supernatural begins, 
 it is not possible to decide. 
 
 A trance must be classed among purely natural things. There 
 seems to be a marked peculiarity in this trance. Usually the eyes 
 are shut ; if open, they do not see things actually existing around 
 them. In this case the eyes were open, and it is suggested that they 
 were actually fixed on the sight of the tents of Israel. In the trance 
 which takes an ecstatic form, the person is lost to all external impres- 
 sions, but rapt and absorbed in some object of the imagination. 
 ' Nervous and susceptible persons are apt to be thrown into these 
 trances under the influence of what is called mesmerism. There is, 
 for the most part, a high degree of mental excitement. The patient 
 utters the most enthusiastic and fervid expressions, or the most 
 earnest warnings. The character of the whole frame is that of intense 
 contemplative excitement He believes that he has seen wonderful 
 visions and heard singular revelations.' 
 
 1 Whatever explanation may be given of it, it is true of many, if not 
 of most, of those who have left the stamp of their own character on 
 the religious history of mankind, that they have been liable to pass at 
 times into this abnormal state. The union of intense feeling, strong 
 volition, long-continued thought (the conditions of all wide and lasting 
 influence), aided in many cases by the withdrawal from the lower life 
 of the support which is needed to maintain a healthy equilibrium, 
 appears to have been more than the " earthly vessel " will bear. The 
 words which speak of" an ecstasy of adoration " are often literally true. 
 The many visions, the journey through the heavens, the so-called 
 epilepsy of Mahomet, were phenomena of this nature. Of the three 
 great mediaeval teachers, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 and Joannes Scotus, it is recorded that they would fall into the 
 ecstatic state, remain motionless, seem as if dead, sometimes for a 
 whole day, and then, returning to consciousness, speak as if they had 
 drunk deep of Divine mysteries/ 
 
478 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The words * into a trance ' have no equivalents in the Hebrew, but 
 the word ' falling ' clear involves passing into an unusual mental state. 
 It suggests that Balaam's mind and mouth were taken captive by God, 
 and used for His purpose. The Speakers Commentary thinks ' the 
 word "falling" indicates the force of the Divine inspiration over- 
 powering the seer, as Saul was overpowered, and stripped of his 
 clothes before Samuel, and " fell," " lay down naked all that day and 
 all that night." The faithful prophets of the Lord do not appear to 
 have been subject to these violent illapses. In Balaam and in Saul 
 the word of God could only prevail by first subduing the alien will, 
 and overpowering the bodily energies which the will ordinarily 
 directs.' 
 
 What we are to understand is that Balaam possessed something 
 which answered to the prophetic gift. This was usually under the 
 control of his own will; but on this occasion his own will was put 
 aside, and he was made the subject of a special Divine inspiration. 
 In this case we have no mere ecstasy of trance, but a genuine Divine 
 commission and impulse. 
 
 Restoring the Dead Child. 
 
 i KINGS xvii. 21 : ' And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and 
 cried unto the Lord, and said, O L^rd my God, I pray Thee, let this child's soul 
 come into him again.' 
 
 Difficulty. There does not appear to have been any need for this 
 personal exertion of the prophet, if he depended on Divine reviving in 
 answer to prayer. 
 
 Explanation. We have allowed ourselves to cherish the senti- 
 ment that a miracle is a Divine intervention distinct from, and inde- 
 pendent of, all human and natural means and instrumentalities, 
 ^whereas the large proportion of the Scripture miracles are simply an 
 unusual fulness and promptness of Divine benediction resting on 
 human means and instrumentalities. They are God working, in an 
 astonishing way, within the system of things of causes and agencies 
 which he has appointed in His infinite wisdom. And, very 
 possibty, an enlarging of our knowledge, so that we better under- 
 stand God's sphere of operations, will show us that even the most 
 extraordinary miracles are God working among, and by, the forces 
 which He has established, rather than in any new ways beyond or 
 outside them. 
 
 How would we try to restore suspended life? Evidently we 
 should aim at two things, restoration of bodily warmth and revival 
 
RESTORING THE DEAD CHILD. 479 
 
 of the breathing process. Both these are illustrated by the means 
 used for the recovery of the drowned. Now Elijah, and Elisha 
 subsequently, used the appropriate means. This stretching on the 
 body was designed to impart natural warmth. Comparing the case 
 recorded, in the life of Elisha (2 Kings iv. 34), we may assume that 
 * mouth was put to mouth ' in order to breathe living breath into the 
 lung. Of themselves such agencies could not be efficient to secure 
 the revival of life, but with the blessing of God they could be. No 
 means are efficient of themselves ; and this is the great lesson which 
 we have to learn from such incidents. God is the efficient power 
 that energizes all agencies so that they secure the ends desired. 
 Means are put in our control, and the use of them at once illustrates 
 and cultures character; but results are wholly with God, and He 
 may, if He please, bless our instrumentality to the restoring of life. 
 
 There have been cases in which, after every ordinary method has 
 been tried in vain, life has been brought back by the inbreathing of 
 living breath and the impartation of natural warmth. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that prayer is an agency, or that the use 
 of means and efforts in connection with prayer is the proper expres- 
 sion to God of our faith in Him as the Prayer-hearer. It is no due 
 honouring of God to pray, and then idly wait until He works 
 wonders. True honouring of God lies in praying, and using suitable 
 instrumentalities, in the assured confidence that God will graciously 
 work His wonders through the instrumentalities. It is the law of 
 Divine relations with men, which has its application in every sphere, 
 that we must * work out our salvation with fear and trembling,' for the 
 very reason that * it is God who worketh in us to will and to do of 
 His good pleasure.' 
 
 Kitto says : * He felt the true mountain-moving faith heaving strong 
 within him, and he gave it unrestained vent. He threw himself upon 
 the corpse, as if, in the vehement energy of his will, to force his own 
 life into it ; and he cried, with mighty and resistless urgency, to God, 
 to send back to this cold frame the breath He had taken.' 
 
 A"7, and other writers, think that Elijah's action was taken, ' not 
 for the purpose of imparting natural warmth to revive and quicken 
 the dormant physical energies, but to communicate the quickening 
 power of God.' But it may fairly be urged that this rather adds to 
 than relieves the difficulties of the passage, seeing that three supreme 
 efforts are represented as being necessary. 
 
 Dr. H. Allon is an authority for the assertion that 'the original 
 Hebrew does not explicitly affirm the death of this son, but only his 
 dying condition,' or collapse. 
 
480 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Dividing the Jordan. 
 
 2 KINGS ii. 8 : ' And Elijah took his matle, and wrapped it together, and smote 
 the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over 
 on dry ground.' 
 
 Question. How does this miraculous dividing of the waters differ 
 from that which occurred in the time of Joshua ? (See paragraph on 
 Josh. Hi. 13, 1 6.) 
 
 Answer. This is in one sense a greater miracle, and in another 
 sense a smaller miracle. The sphere is smaller ; it was wrought in 
 behalf of two persons, not of a nation ; the river was in its ordinary 
 condition, and not in flood ; and the passage only needed to be made 
 for the few moments of the crossing. But it is a greater miracle, 
 from the human point of view, because it seems to be a more direct 
 action of God, apart from the use of any natural agency which we 
 can conceive. So far as we can trace the position of the crossing, 
 there does not appear to have been any known ford at the spot ; and 
 no suggestion can be made of wind or earthquake producing the 
 desired effect. All signs of control over the action of ' water ' strikes 
 us, in a very impressive way, as being Divine ; and therefore none of 
 our Lord's miracles convince us more of His Divine power and 
 rights than His l stilling the storm ' and ' walking upon the waters.' 
 Though mentioned in quite a casual way, as if it were but one of the 
 incidents of this most extraordinary day in the prophet's history, there 
 are few Old Testament miracles which so fully illustrate what may be 
 called the older idea of miracle, as the control of God over the 
 forces of nature, so as to make them do contrary to their custom in 
 working out His will. Of course a momentary arrest of the waters 
 is all that was necessary, as the lower waters would swiftly drain 
 away, and the bottom of the swift-flowing Jordan is stony, not 
 muddy. But this sudden stoppage of the flowing stream is precisely 
 what no human power could accomplish in a moment ; and we must 
 fully accept it as an immediate Divine intervention on behalf of, and 
 as a witness to, his faithful servant. 
 
 It may be well to correct the exaggerated notion which is 
 commonly entertained concerning the width and depth of the river 
 Jordan. American travellers especially are greatly disappointed with 
 it, after the magnificent rivers of their country, and it will not even 
 bear comparison with the larger rivers of our own land. Dr. 
 Thomson says : * The Jordan would scarcely be dignified with the 
 name of river in America, and its appearance is, in reality, quite in- 
 significant. Travellers have differed widely in the description of the 
 
THE USE OF PROPHETIC SIGNS. 481 
 
 Jordan, principally from two causes visiting it at different seasons 
 of the year, and at different places. When and where I saw it, the 
 width might have been twenty yards, and its depth ten feet.' Being 
 the principal stream of Palestine, the Jordan has acquired a dis- 
 tinction much greater than its geographical importance could have 
 given it. 
 
 The Use of Prophetic Signs. 
 
 i SAMUEL x. 7 : 'And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that 
 thou do as occasion serve thee ; for God is with thee.' (See ver. 1-6.) 
 
 Question. What precise object had Samuel in view in thus fore- 
 telling the incidents of the day ? 
 
 Answer. We may be sure that he wanted to convince the new 
 king that what he had done had been done under Divine direction, 
 and consequently that Saul entered on his office with assurance of 
 Divine favour and acceptance. Samuel acted in his capacity as a 
 Seer, one who could anticipate coming events. The accordance of 
 the events with the foretelling satisfied Saul that Samuel had acted on 
 authority. 
 
 Jamieson says : ' The design of these specific predictions of what 
 should be met with on the way, and the number and minuteness of 
 which would arrest attention, was to confirm Saul's reliance on the 
 prophetic character of Samuel, and lead him to give full credence to 
 what had been revealed to him as the word of God.' 
 
 But there was a further object, and one more directly bearing on 
 the future of the new. king. He was to receive a special endowment 
 for his kingship, and the connection of the coming of this spiritual 
 power with foregoing prophecy compelled Saul to recognise it as a 
 Divine endowment. But for this close association with the words of 
 Jehovah's prophet, it would have been easy for him to think, and for 
 men to say, that he was only caught up, and carried away, by the 
 enthusiasm and ecstasy of the company he joined. 
 
 The supremely important event of the day was ' the Spirit of the 
 Lord coming upon him,' as prophesied in verse 6 ; and the other 
 signs did but magnify this sign, and help to convince Saul that he had 
 the Divine grace for reigning, as well as the Divine call to be 
 king. 
 
 To impress this further point, it may be well to show what must 
 be understood by this ' turning Saul into another man.' The 
 Speaker's Commentary note is very suggestive. ' The expression is a 
 remarkable one, and occurs nowhere else. Doubtless it describes 
 
 3 1 
 
482 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the change in point of mental power and energy which would result 
 from the influx of the Spirit of the Lord. In the case of Samson it 
 was a supernatural bodily strength, in the case of Saul a capacity for 
 ruling and leading the people of which he was before destitute, which 
 the Spirit wrought in him. The change in the mental power of the 
 Apostles, as described in Acts i. 8, is analogous. Compare Isaiah xi. 
 2-4. The change is described in verse 9 by saying that " God gave 
 him another heart." The heart in the Hebrew acceptation points 
 more to intellect and courage than to the affections and conscience.' 
 
 Kitto says : ' It will occur to most readers, that although these 
 words describe Saul as being turned into another man, they do not 
 declare that he was turned into a new one ; and although they have 
 reference to a lesser work of the Holy Spirit than His regenerating 
 and sanctifying work, they are remarkably typical or adumbrative of 
 that larger and greater work of God in the soul of man. It is 
 observable that this coming of the Spirit of God upon Saul, and 
 turning him into another man, was properly his introduction to the 
 kingdom, and constituted his fitness for it. It was the proper sequel 
 to and completion of the operation commenced by his anointing, and 
 by it he acquired all the fitness he ever possessed for the kingdom.' 
 
 Canon Spence takes the view that the three prophetic signs were 
 designed to be precisely instructive to the new king, in relation to his 
 future work ; and this view cannot be so well presented as in Canon 
 Spence's own words : 
 
 ' Each of these tokens, which were to strengthen the young Saul's 
 faith, contained a solemn lesson, the deep meaning of which, as his 
 life went on, the future sovereign would be able to ponder over. 
 Each of the three signs from heaven met him at one of the sacred 
 spots which were so plentifully dotted over these southern districts of 
 Canaan, memorable for the life-stories, first of Abraham and the 
 patriarchs, and then of the warrior-chieftains of the Israel of the con- 
 quest. The selection of localities famous as homes of prayer, or 
 sacred as the resting-place of the illustrious dead, taught the eternal 
 truth that " help comes from the holy place." At the sepulchre of 
 Rachel, the loved ancestress of the warlike tribe of Benjamin, to 
 which the new king belonged, men should meet him on his home- 
 ward journey with the news that the lost asses which he had gone to 
 seek were found again. This showed him that henceforth in his new 
 life he was to dismiss all lower cares, and give himself up alone to 
 higher and more important matters. A king must take counsel and 
 thought for the weal of a whole people ; he must put aside now and 
 for ever all consideration for himself and his family, all anxiety 
 
THE USE OF PROPHETIC SIGNS. 483 
 
 for the mere ordinary prosperity of life. God, who had chosen him, 
 would provide for these things, as He had now done in the case of 
 the lost asses. Further on in his journey, when he reached the tere- 
 binth-tree of Tabor, three men on a pilgrimage to the great Beth-el 
 sanctuary would meet him, and would offer him some of the loaves 
 which they proposed offering at Beth-el. The significance of this 
 peculiar gift was that some portion of the products of the soil, which 
 had hitherto been appropriated exclusively to the service and support 
 of the sanctuary, in future should be devoted to the maintenance of 
 the anointed of the Lord. The third sign which he should perceive 
 would meet him as he approached his home, which was situated near 
 a famous holy place of prayer, known as the " Gibeah," or " Hill of 
 God." A number of prophets belonging to one of the " schools " of 
 the prophets founded by Samuel, coming from the altar on the " Hill 
 of God," where sacrifice had just been offered, would meet him. 
 They would be plunged in prophetic raptures ; he would hear them 
 chanting hymns to the Eternal, accompanied by the music of their 
 instruments. A new and mighty influence, Samuel told the astonished 
 Saul, would, as he met this company of singers, come upon him, and 
 involuntarily he, who evidently had never joined before in any of 
 these solemn choruses, would sing his part with the rest The new 
 influence, said the old Seer, which would then come upon him 
 would be the Spirit of the Lord, and from that moment he would be 
 a changed man. Never in his after-days of glory and of might was 
 the king to forget how, in a moment, the Divine power had swept 
 down and given him the ignorant shepherd, the humble vine- 
 dresser, the heir to a few asses and sheep, to some fields of corn or 
 vineyards wisdom, power, and a mighty kingdom. He must re 
 member that, in a moment, the same Divine power might wing awaj 
 from him its solemn flight ; that was the lesson of the third sign 
 which was to meet him on his homeward journey.' 
 
 The Revelation of the Blazing but Unconsumed 
 
 Bush. 
 
 EXODUS iii. 2 : ' And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame ot 
 fire out of the midst of a bush : and he looked, and behold the bush burned with 
 fire, and the bush was not consumed.' 
 
 Question. Was this merely designed to draw the attention of 
 Moses; or may we regard it as a revelation of God in His relationship 
 to His enslaved people ? 
 
 Answer. It is much too remarkable and too impressive a scene 
 to be regarded only as a call of Moses to attention. It is hardly 
 
484 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 possible to conceive of a more impressive symbol of the condition 
 of the people in Egypt than is afforded by the bank of bushes burn- 
 ing with fire ; and nothing could more effectively convince of the 
 Divine care than the observed fact that, though the blaze was fierce, 
 the bushes were not consumed. The outward symbol prepared for 
 the Divine communication. There was a future before the nation 
 that was kept safe amid the bondages and hardships of the Egyptian 
 rule. God was keeping it, and, in His own good time, the * Keeper ' 
 could and would deliver. 
 
 The scene has been thus described, so as to bring out its points of 
 special interest : ' Moses had followed his flocks of sheep and goats 
 as they sought the aromatic shrubs on the ledges of the rocks, or in 
 the folds of the narrow valley or by the side of chance springs ; little 
 thinking to what they were leading him. The wild acacia, the senek 
 of the Hebrew Bible a gnarled and thorny tree, not unlike our 
 solitary hawthorn in its growth dotted the bare slopes and the 
 burning soil of the ravines. But now, suddenly, a glow of flame, 
 like that which was consuming Israel in the furnace of affliction, 
 shines forth amidst the dry branches of one of those before him, and 
 yet, as he gazes, "the bush," though "it burned with fire," was not 
 consumed. Drawing near to " see this great sight," a voice, which 
 he instinctively recognises as Divine, sounds from its midst, com- 
 manding him to remove his sandals as on holy ground ; revealing 
 new and closer relations of God to His chosen people, and imposing 
 on the awed shepherd ' the work of bringing the people out of the 
 fires. 
 
 Keble expresses the message of the unconsuming bush thus : 
 
 * And hark ! amid the flashing fire, 
 Mingling with tones of fear and ire, 
 
 Soft Mercy's undersong 
 'Tis Abraham's God who speaks so loud, 
 His people's cry have pierc'd the cloud, 
 
 He sees, He sees their wrong.' 
 
 Jamieson, supporting the symbolical view of the burning bush, 
 says : * It is generally supposed to have been emblematic of the 
 Israelites' condition in Egypt oppressed by a grinding servitude 
 and a bloody persecution, and yet, in spite of the cruel policy that 
 was bent on annihilating them, they continued as numerous and 
 thriving as ever. The reason was, "God was in the midst of 
 them."' 
 
FALLEN DAGON. 485 
 
 Fallen Dagon. 
 
 I SAMUEL v. 3 : 'And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, 
 Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And 
 they took Dagon, and set him in his place again ' (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Question. Would not such an incident tend to give the Philistines 
 a wrong idea of Jehovah, as if He were really present in the Ark ? 
 
 Answer. This is one of the cases which must be studied strictly 
 in the light of the sentiments and superstitions of the times. It has 
 been pointed out that * revelation' must always be * accommodation'; 
 it must be God graciously adapting Himself to the spheres of 
 knowledge, and to the everyday associations, of those whom He 
 would teach. Jehovah, in this case, is adapting Himself to these 
 .Philistines, so that He might become a power and persuasion upon 
 them.* He is meeting them on their own level. He is convincing 
 them of His superiority, by making their idol-god bow down before 
 the symbol of His presence. The image symbolized their god; and 
 the Ark symbolized Jehovah. The relations of the symbols at once 
 suggested the supreme and unique claims of Jehovah. This is a case 
 of symbol-teaching, or, as we say, picture-teaching. And it illustrates 
 the Divine control of forces that, though natural, are beyond our 
 experience, and so by us must be called ' supernatural.' 
 
 Layard tells that, in one of the bas-reliefs discovered at Khorsabad, 
 and representing the war of an Assyrian king probably Sargon 
 with the inhabitants of the coast of Syria, a figure is seen swimming 
 in the sea, with the upper part of the body resembling a bearded 
 man wearing the ordinary conical tiara of royalty, adorned with 
 elephants' tusks, and the lower part resembling the body of a fish. 
 It has the hand lifted up, as if in astonishment or fear, and is sur- 
 rounded by fishes, crabs, and other marine animals. Keil thinks this 
 must be a representation of the Philistine Dagon : ' This deity was 
 a personification of the generative and vivifying principle of nature, 
 for which the fish, with its innumerable multiplication, was specially 
 adapted, and set forth the idea of the Giver of all earthly good.' 
 
 Up to this point the Philistines had triumphed over the Israelites ; 
 or we may say that Dagon had been allowed for a time to triumph 
 over Jehovah. But now Jehovah must vindicate Himself. Philis- 
 tines had been used by Him as executors of His judgments on His 
 sinful people ; but Philistines must be taught not to presume : they 
 must learn that even they could only win successes by the permissions 
 of the one and only true God, before whom their very idol must bow. 
 They must see him lie in the attitude of a vanquished enemy and a 
 
486 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 suppliant, and this picture of humiliation significantly declared the 
 superiority of the God of Israel. 
 
 Bishop Wordsworth says : * Dagon, in his own temple, fell down 
 like a prisoner before his conqueror, or like a suppliant before his god.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie, regarding the Ark as one of the spoils of war, says : 
 1 But such spoils were held even then, by not a few, as of doubtful 
 value ; the thoughtful fearing that the hatred and vengeance of the 
 god so insulted might be visited on his captors. Thus the wiser 
 among the Romans criticised the conduct of Marcellus, who first 
 brought Grecian statues and pictures of the gods to their city to adorn 
 his triumph ; thinking better of the course followed by Fabius, who, 
 in taking Tarentum, had told his army to leave to the Tarentines the 
 gods offended with them. 7 
 
 Deaths of the Sacrilegious. 
 
 LEVITICUS x. i, 2 : 'And Nadab and Abihu,the sons of Aaron, took each of them 
 his censer, and put fire therein, and laid incense thereon, and offered strange fire 
 before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And there came forth fire 
 from before the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord '(Rev. Ver. ). 
 
 NUMBERS xvi. 31-33 : * And it came to pass, as he made an end of speaking all 
 these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them : and the earth 
 opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men 
 that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. So they, and all that appertained 
 to them, went down alive into the pit ; and the earth closed upon them, and they 
 perished from among the assembly ' (Rev. Ver. ). 
 
 Difficulty. These destructions seem to be extraordinarily severe ', 
 especially in that they included the innocent with the guilty. 
 
 Explanation. Neither of these incidents can be rightly under- 
 stood unless we distinctly realize that God was the actual King and 
 Ruler of Israel, as directly ordering, judging, legislating, rewarding, as 
 if, in bodily person, He was seated on a throne. Our notions of God 
 make it very difficult for us to enter into the thought of God that 
 possessed the Israelite race. To them He was General of the army, 
 King of the nation, and supreme Judge for all civil and criminal 
 cases. 
 
 We may therefore take analogies from the methods which Eastern 
 kings find it necessary to adopt. And two things are essential to 
 vigorous and secure rule : (i) sufficient severity in judgment to duly 
 impress spectators, and declare the king's estimate of the sin ; and 
 (2) prompt and effective crushing out of all incipient rebellions 
 Both of these are illustrated in the cases before us ; and the miracu- 
 lous form which, in each case, the judgment took, only served to 
 impress the fact that their unseen King possessed a direct executive 
 
DEATHS OF THE SACRILEGIOUS. 487 
 
 power, and the control of forces which were wholly beyond then 
 understanding. A wholesome fear was thus created, which would 
 check self-willedness, and help to the maintaining of obedience. 
 
 We have here mainly to do with the miraculous features of the 
 deaths. In the case of Nadab and Abihu there appears to have been 
 a more strictly supernatural agency. The shekinah light seems to 
 have flashed forth from the Holy of Holies, and smitten the two 
 priests with instant death. We can only compare the effect to that pro- 
 duced by a lightning flash. It was, as it were, the stroke of the 
 insulted and indignant King. In the case of Korah, and his com- 
 panions, there was an incipient rebellion against the unseen King, and 
 this must be dealt with at once, and strongly, for the rebellious spirit 
 is wont to spread very swiftly. It must be dealt with in such a way 
 as would convince the people that the unseen King took the matter 
 into His own hands, and vindicated His rights by the use of forces, 
 in the execution of His judgments, which were strictly in His own 
 control. 
 
 On the severity of the judgment that fell on Nadab and Abihu, 
 Kitto says : ' It was necessary. At any time the offence would have 
 been very grievous ; but at this time, when the ritual service was so 
 newly established, and just coming into regular operation, such an 
 infraction of it by the very persons whose official charge it was to 
 maintain its sacredness, demanded a most rigid punishment, even a 
 miraculous interposition, to protect the sacred service, and indeed 
 the whole law, from that disesteem on the part of the people which 
 might naturally have resulted from it, if it had been passed over 
 without the severest notice.' 
 
 On the second case Ewald has the following very valuable and 
 suggestive note : * The cause of the insurrection of Korah, of the 
 tribe of Levi, and of the elders Dathan, Abiram, and On, of the 
 tribe of Reuben, with their two hundred and fifty followers, appears 
 very clearly to have been a low jealousy of the prophetical supremacy 
 of Moses, and of the priestly power of Aaron, founded upon an over- 
 strained interpretation of the nature of the community as just then 
 set forth by Moses ; implying that from the newly promulgated idea 
 that the community was to be holy and the seat of Jahveh, it followed 
 that the individual was already holy and perfect, and consequently 
 had no need of any earthly guidance, priestly or other. Undoubtedly 
 every age, which like the Mosaic first brings strongly to light the 
 highest truths respecting the idea of the community, must contain 
 also within its bosom a multitude of misunderstandings and excesses, 
 false imitations and vain pretensions, as the histories of the first ages 
 
4 88 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 of Christianity and of Islam abundantly teach us. The occurrence of 
 a mutiny based upon views so strange might even be adduced as a 
 fresh proof that those exalted views respecting the nature of the com- 
 munity were at that time vividly felt and widely spread. The fact 
 that from the tribe of Reuben three elders rose up in jealousy against 
 the new power of Levi, although themselves obliged to seek a Levite 
 as their confederate, agrees very well with the earliest history of the 
 twelve tribes. But certainly there is nothing intrinsically more 
 dangerous and reprehensible than the employment of such exalted 
 truths for selfish ends, and the abuse of such freedom as a cloak for 
 personal ambition, lawlessness, and dissolution of all order, as if the 
 holiest things given to man could be trifled with with impunity. 
 Against those who thus seek to use holy truths and blessings merely 
 as a means of universal corruption, the Holy itself turns round and 
 becomes their instantaneous destruction.' 
 
 A careful study of the narrative leads to the assumption that Korah 
 and his company died by fire coming out from the Holy of Holies, 
 just as Nadab and Abihu died \ and that the opening of the earth, 
 and sudden engulphing, refers only to the Reubenites, who stood at 
 their tent-doors, apparently in a spirit of contumacious defiance. 
 
 The Coming of Elijah. 
 
 MALACHI iv. 5 : ' Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great 
 and terrible day of the Lord come ' (Rev. Ver.\ 
 
 Question. Is it reasonable to regard this promise as an assurance 
 of the return to the earth of the actual Elijah ? 
 
 Answer. Not if we apprehend the figurative and poetical 
 character of the prophetical Scriptures. One who would do for his 
 age a similar work to that which was done by Elijah for his age 
 would, in Scripture, be called an Elijah. Moreover, we have our 
 Lord's own intimation that John Baptist fulfilled this promise. * If 
 ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.' There is no 
 occasion whatever for imagining that any miraculous re-appearance of 
 Elijah was in the mind of Malachi, or a part of his prophetic message. 
 The Jews overpressed a literal interpretation, and to this day they 
 earnestly pray for the coming of Elias, which, they assume, will imme- 
 diately precede the appearance of Messiah. 
 
 * Elijah was the prophet for whose return in later years his country- 
 men have looked with most eager hope. ... It was a fixed belief of 
 the Jews that he had appeared again and again, as an Arabian mer- 
 chant, to wise and good rabbis at their prayers or on their journeys. 
 
MIRACULOUS SIGNS. 489 
 
 A seat is still placed for him to superintend the circumcision of the 
 Jewish children. Passover after passover, the Jews of our own day place 
 the paschal cup on the table, and set the door wide open, believing 
 that that is the moment when Elijah will reappear. When goods are 
 found, and no owner comes ; when difficulties arise, and no solution 
 appears, the answer is " Put them by till Elijah comes." ' Dean 
 Stanley. 
 
 Our Lord's teaching is, for us, an ail-sufficing commentary on the 
 intentions and meanings of the allusion to Elijah found in Malachi. 
 ' And they asked Him, saying, The Scribes say that Elijah must first 
 come. And He said unto them, Elijah indeed cometh first and 
 restoreth all things : and how is it written of the Son of man, that He 
 should suffer many things and be set. at nought ? But I say unto you, 
 that Elijah is come, and they have also done unto him whatsoever 
 they listed, even as it is written of him ' (Mark ix. 11-13, Rev. Ver.) 
 
 Miraculous Signs. 
 
 EXODUS iv. 2, 3, 6 : ' And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand ? 
 And he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the 
 ground, and it became a serpent ; and Moses fled from before it.' ' And the Lord 
 said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his 
 hand into his bosom ; and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as 
 snow.' 
 
 Question. May we regard these signs as illustrating the use of 
 miracles as the credentials of a person, rather than evidences of the truth 
 of the message he delivers f 
 
 Answer. They were plainly wrought for the convincement and 
 satisfaction of Moses himself, and so far may be said to resemble the 
 signs granted to Gideon, Hezekiah, etc. The hesitation of Moses to 
 accept the Divine commission was natural and sincere, though wrong. 
 It was very gracious of God so patiently to bear with his infirmity, 
 and encourage him to undertake the charge. Moses had not quite 
 got over the sense of failure which came when he attempted to cham- 
 pion the Hebrews, and was compelled to flee for his own life. It 
 was hardly reasonable to suppose that Pharaoh would heed a verbal 
 message from a desert shepherd, even if he granted that shepherd 
 royal audience. Moses would be in peril of being rejected, and 
 even put to death as an impostor. 
 
 God graciously intimated that Moses should be endowed with 
 miraculous powers, and enabled to do such mighty works as would 
 demand public attention to his message, and secure his personal 
 safety, by creating a superstitious fear of him. But it was necessary 
 to give Moses some idea of what the miraculous power would be ; 
 
400 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 and the two miracles of the rod and the leprosy were types or 
 specimens of the kinds of miracles he would be enabled to work. 
 They convinced Moses that God would be with him, and the power 
 of God would work through him. Or, rather, they should have con- 
 vinced him, for it is painful to observe that even after such Divine 
 encouragements, he resists the acceptance of the Divine charge. It is 
 never true humility to refuse any duty to which God plainly calls us. 
 On these verses Canon Rawlinson says : ' The words give Divine 
 sanction to the view, so strangely combated of late, that the power 
 of working miracles is given to men, primarily and mainly, for its 
 evidential value, to accredit them as God's messengers. Without 
 the gift of miracles neither would Moses have persuaded the 
 Israelites, nor would the Apostles have converted the world.' 
 
 The Vision of the Captain of the Host. 
 
 JOSHUA v. 13 : And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted 
 up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his 
 sword drawn in his hand : and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou 
 for us, or for our adversaries ?' 
 
 Question. Is this to be regarded as a mental vision f And tf so, 
 onght visions to be classed among miracles ? 
 
 Answer. It is well to distinguish between miracles and visions, 
 as differing methods in which the Divine Being communicates His 
 will to men; for miracles are quite as essentially 'revelations' as 
 visions are. The term ' miracles ' should be kept for special Divine 
 operations in the sphere of nature. The term 'visions should be 
 used for special Divine operations in the sphere of mind. But both 
 may be called ' miracles,' if by that term we understand direct, and 
 unusual, Divine interventions and operations. 
 
 We understand the scene here narrated to be a mental vision, and 
 that what Joshua really saw in his mind, he thought of as if it were 
 an objective reality. Perhaps the incident with which it may be best 
 compared, is the vision given to Paul on the way to Damascus, 
 though that was accompanied with a flashing light which Paul's com- 
 panions saw. Paul alone saw Jesus, or heard the voice. 
 
 If we understand that an actual form appeared before the bodily 
 eyes of Joshua, and actual words were heard by his bodily ears, then 
 we may compare this case with the angel appearances to Abraham, 
 Gideon, Manoah, etc. Probably a fuller understanding of the 
 mysteries of the human mind, and its power of creating scenes which 
 seem to itself to have external reality the power of the imagination 
 
SAFETY IN A FIER Y fURNA CE. 491 
 
 to convince itself of the reality of its imaginings would allow us at 
 once to class Joshua's experience among ' mental visions.' God can 
 just as truly and as fully use those powers of mind which He has 
 Himself given, as the powers of nature which He has Himself created. 
 His agency may be direct upon mind; it need not always be 
 mediate, through the senses. And there are what we may call 
 ' mind-miracles ' as well as 'nature-miracles.' 
 
 The commentators agree in seeing in this ' Captain of the Host ' 
 an appearance of God manifested in the Person of His Word a 
 foreshadowing of the Incarnation. But it strikes an independent 
 reader that such an explanation is suggested by the exigencies of a 
 theological system, and that something much more simple will meet 
 all the necessities of the cases. 
 
 Dr. C. Stanford writes so as to suggest the visionary character of 
 the scene : ' We may be sure that this hour of pause was to their 
 leader an hour of prayer. ... In this mood he went forth alone to 
 reconnoitre the place. While he was there thinking and thinking, 
 all at once there glimmered in the twilight over against him the 
 figure of *' a man with a drawn sword in his hand." ' 
 
 Safety in a Fiery Furnace. 
 
 DANIEL iii. 25 : * He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in 
 the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt ; and the aspect of the fourth is like 
 a son of the gods ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. In this account there seems to be a curious blending of 
 vision and history. 
 
 Explanation. The rendering given in the Revised Version 
 relieves the great difficulty which has always been felt in the identifi- 
 cation of the fourth person in the fire as the Son of God. It is evi- 
 dent that only Nebuchadnezzar saw this fourth person, and that the 
 noble or godlike form he observed suggested to him that the men in 
 :he fire were under special Divine protection. It must be remem- 
 Dered that Nebuchadnezzar was, at the time, in a very excited state, 
 md his suffering from what is called lycanthropy, or a diseased im- 
 igination that he was an animal, suggests the sensitiveness of his im- 
 igination. This part of the story belongs to the king alone. No 
 dea is suggested as to the three young men recognising that a fourth 
 vas with them. 
 
 The miracles of preservation recorded in the Book of Daniel are 
 extraordinary instances of the Providence that watches over God's 
 ;ervants, more especially when they are called to witness, work, 01 
 uffer for God. Their mission probably was to convince the people 
 
492 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 of Israel that God's Providence was watching over them, and keeping 
 them safe, through all the years and perils of their captivity. It may 
 have been partly designed, by these miracles, to produce, in the 
 minds of the Babylonians, a wholesome fear of Jehovah ; but we may 
 look for their chief purpose in the comforting and reassuring of God's 
 own afflicted people. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that the three youths expected any 
 miraculous deliverance. They proposed to themselves no more than 
 a firm and strict obedience, whatever it might cost, and anticipated a 
 speedy death. 
 
 The Speakers Commentary says : * It is a question still unsolved 
 Did others besides the king see " four men loose," etc. ? The narra 
 tive would admit it ; the courtiers' stereotyped reply, " True, O king,' 
 is not of much weight for or against this view ; but the older belie 
 has been that this " sight ' an object sight, and not a vision wa? 
 granted unto the king alone. What did the expression " a son of th( 
 gods " mean, as used by Nebuchadnezzar ? It was the language o 
 one educated in and familiar with the Babylonian belief in gods 
 From the union of Bel and Mylitta had sprung a divine progeny o 
 " sons ;" and one of those divine visitors had vouchsafed to appea 
 now, an "angel" (lit, "messenger," ver. 28) of deliverance t< 
 Shadrach and his fellows.' 
 
 Miraculous Imitations. 
 
 EXODUS vii. n :' Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men, and the sorcerers 
 and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did in like manner with their enchantments 
 (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Question. Are we to unde'*u*, ' that these magicians succeede, 
 in producing identical results, or did they simply deceive by false appeal 
 ances, or make changes by sleight of hand 1 
 
 Answer. Some have supposed that the magicians of Egypt wer 
 really in possession of supernatural powers, obtained by a connectio 
 with evil spirits; but an examination of their writings does nc 
 support any such representation. They are full of charms, whic 
 were believed to exert a powerful effect, producing or removin 
 disease, and averting evil. * On the whole, it is perhaps most pr< 
 bable that the magicians were merely persons acquainted with mar 
 secrets of nature not generally known, and trained in tricks of sleigl 
 of hand and conjuring.' 
 
 The things which they accomplished were certainly not beyond tr 
 skill and power of the Eastern conjuror. Moses describes the effe< 
 produced on the spectators ; he must not be understood as assertir 
 
MIR A CULOUS IMITA TIONS. 493 
 
 hat they did exactly the same thing as he did. They produced the 
 ame appearances, and this would satisfy the king, who did not want 
 o believe in the Divine commission of Moses. The appearance 
 erved to provide an excuse, and the king was not anxious to make 
 nquiries that would dispel any delusions. It is indeed quite probable 
 hat he believed in the supernatural powers of his jugglers ; but his 
 relief did not make such supernatural power the actual fact. The 
 Koran represents the magicians as deceiving the people by acting 
 ipon their imaginations. 
 
 Jamieson well expresses all that can be said on this subject. 
 Pharaoh's object in calling them was to ascertain whether this doing 
 )f Aaron's was really a work of Divine power, or merely a feat of 
 nagical art The magicians of Egypt in modem times have been 
 ong celebrated adepts in charming serpents, and, particularly by 
 iressing the nape of the neck, they throw them into a kind of 
 :atalepsy, which renders them stiff and immovable this seeming to 
 :hange them into a rod. They conceal the serpent about their 
 persons, and, by acts of legerdemain, produce it from their dress, stiff 
 md straight as a rod. Just the same trick was played off by their 
 indent predecessors, the most renowned of whom, Jannes and 
 [ambres (2 Tim. iii. 8), were called in on this occasion. They had 
 ime after the summons to make suitable preparations and so it 
 ippears that they succeeded, by their " enchantments," in practising 
 in illusion on the senses.' 
 
 The imitation of the blood-coloured water was even an easier thing. 
 Changing colours of liquids is quite a common conjuror's trick. It 
 s managed by sleight of hand. In those days appearances were 
 ireated as realities, and no rigorous scientific examinations were 
 required. Things were easily accepted as being what it seemed as if 
 :hey were. Both miracles, and imitations of miracles, must be 
 studied in the light of the credulity and superstition of the age in 
 which they were wrought. 
 
 Signs granted to Gideon. 
 
 JUDGES ri. 36, 37 : ' And Gideon said unto God, If Thou wilt save Israel by 
 mine hand, as Thou hast spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the 
 threshing-floor ; if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the 
 ground, then shall I know that Thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as Thou hast 
 spoken' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Question. Was Gideon justified in thus asking for an interference 
 with the order of nature for tJie confirmation of his faith ? 
 
 Answer. Such a putting God to the test would certainly be 
 wholly wrong in us. We must never act as if, for a moment, we 
 
494 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 doubted God's word. For Gideon to ask signs for the confirming of 
 his faith is no example to us who know God so much better than he 
 could. His act must be judged in the light of his character, and of 
 the sentiments of his age, and of the peculiar difficulty of his circum- 
 stances. He was called to a seemingly hopeless task. His only 
 chance of success lay in special Divine power exerted on his behalf, 
 and it was but natural, though distinctly wrong, that Gideon should 
 ask for the encouragement of seeing what the Divine power could do. 
 It is evident that there were grave questions in Gideon's mind as to 
 whether he was right in asking these signs, for, in presenting the 
 second request, he says : ' Let not Thine anger be hot against me, 
 and I will speak but this once.' We can only see an instance of 
 Divine condescension, and gracious adaptation to the precise circum- 
 stances of the time, in God's thus allowing Himself to be put to the. 
 test. 
 
 It must, however, be distinctly noted that Gideon asked with a 
 desire and purpose to trust and obey. Our Lord refused signs to 
 Pharisees who asked in a mood of doubting^ and with the hope of 
 maintaining their doubts. If there is faith God may be pleased 
 graciously to confirm it with signs. No signs will create faith, for the 
 man disposed to object can always raise objections, and rebut the 
 best evidences. 
 
 It is noticed that the first sign might be a purely natural result. 
 
 * Everyone must have noticed flocks of wool on the hedges, sparkling 
 with dewdrops long after the dew on the leaves around them has 
 evaporated.' Lord Bacon is the authority for the statement that 
 1 Sailors have used every night to hang fleeces of wool on the sides of 
 their ships towards the water, and they have crushed fresh water out 
 of them in the morning.' The second result, being contrary to 
 nature, could only have been reached by Divine interposition. 
 
 Kitto thinks Gideon asked these signs rather to authenticate his 
 mission to the people, than for the confirming of his own faith. 
 
 * The tenor of the request is expressed in such a manner as would 
 have been offensive to any man of spirit, who had given solemn 
 assurances to another: but the Lord is very merciful, very long- 
 suffering more of both than man and Gideon's request was granted 
 without a rebuke. Perhaps, also, the terms employed are to be 
 regarded as not so much the emanation of his own feeling, as his 
 mode of stating the case for the understanding of his people.' 
 
 The Speakers Commentary says : ' The caution of Gideon is remark- 
 able. It is impossible to conceive anything more remote from a 
 credulous enthusiasm. Distinguish between tfcs desire to be assured 
 
NILE WATERS TURNED TO BLOOD. 495 
 
 that he really had a promise from God, and doubts as to God's 
 faithfulness or power to fulfil His promise. Of the latter there is not 
 a trace in Gideon's character. He is a worthy example of faith. 1 
 
 Dean Stanley greatly admires Gideon : * He was, we should say, 
 before bis age. He himself remains as a character apart, faintly 
 understood by others, imperfectly fulfilling his own ideas, staggering 
 under a burden to which he was not equal.' 
 
 Nile Waters turned to Blood. 
 
 EXODUS vii. 17, 1 8 : ' Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shall know that I am 
 the Lord ; behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters 
 which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish Uat is in 
 the river shall die, and the river shall stink ; and the Egyptians shall loathe to 
 drink water from the river.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand that the water was turned into 
 ictual blood, or that it was changed in character, and the new character 
 resembled blood ? 
 
 Answer. If we may reasonably limit the miracle to what was 
 iccessary in producing due impressions on Pharaoh and his people, 
 ve may certainly assume that the water was turned into a blood- 
 colour, and not into actual blood. To make the waters of the land 
 ictual blood was a miracle quite beyond the demands of the occa- 
 ;ion. It is not a question whether God could do such a thing, but 
 vhether He would do such a thing, in particular circumstances, when 
 i miracle running along the lines of ordinary nature would suffice, 
 t is a principle of human action, that a thing is not really efficient 
 vhich is beyond the occasion. And this principle may reverently be 
 pplied to God. 
 
 The incident must be viewed in the light of facts that are known 
 :oncerning the Nile, and of the sentiments entertained by the 
 Egyptians concerning it. 
 
 The admiration for the Nile water strikes us as extravagant and 
 idiculous. It was said that if Mahomet had once tasted the stream, 
 ie would have asked an immortality on earth that he might enjoy it 
 or ever. The water of the Nile was sent, as a present fit for royalty 
 o receive, to distant kings and queens. The Egyptians were accus- 
 omed to use the Nile water for drinking, for ablutions, for the wash- 
 ig of their clothes, and for culinary purposes; they have great 
 .ifficulty in procuring any other ; they delight in the Nile water ; 
 link it the best in the world, and are in the habit of drinking deep 
 raughts of it continually. * The waters of Egypt consist of the main 
 tream of the Nile ; its branches ; canals derived from it ; natural 
 
496 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Lakes, pools, and ponds, either left by the inundation, or anticipative 
 of it, being derived by percolation from the main stream ; and 
 artificial reservoirs of a larger or smaller size in gardens, courts, and 
 houses. There is no other stream but the Nile in the whole country; 
 and there are no natural springs, fountains, or brooks. Water may, 
 however, at all times, and in all parts of the Nile Valley, be obtained 
 by digging wells ; but, as the soil is impregnated with nitre, the water 
 is highly unpalatable.' 
 
 In a natural way the Nile does, at times, show a blood-red colour. 
 Before the annual rise the water is green and unfit to drink without 
 filtration. About the end of June it changes to a yellowish colour, 
 which gradually becomes reddish, like ochre. Probably this is owing 
 to red earth borne down by the flood from Sennaar, but Ehrenberg 
 seems to prove his assertion that it is really owing to the presence of 
 microscopic cryptogams and infusoria. It is said that at such 
 seasons the broad turbid tide has a striking resemblance to a river of 
 blood. 
 
 But this natural redness of the Nile materially differed from the 
 redness produced by Divine power through the agency of Moses. 
 It does not render the water unfit for drinking, nor does it kill the 
 fishes. We may say, with Kitto^ ( We do not suppose that there was 
 actual blood, but that the water became red as blood, and acquired 
 such properties as not only destroyed the fish, but caused the 
 Egyptians to loathe to drink from the stream which they, not without 
 reason, regarded as affording the most delicious water in the world.' 
 
 It may further be said that the Nile water at times has a distinctly 
 offensive odour naturally. 
 
 Very possibly, therefore, the miracle took the form of an exaggera- 
 tion of the natural peculiarities of the river. The intenser colour, 
 and the stronger odour, intimating a condition making the waters 
 offensive to man, and perilous to the fishes. 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie collects some curious instances of waters becoming 
 blood-red in colour, and blood-looking spots appearing on bleaching 
 linen, etc., which are important as suggesting the natural agencies 
 which may have been used. 'Ehrenberg saw, in 1823, the whole 
 bay of the Red Sea, at Sinai, turned into the colour of blood by the 
 presence of cryptogamous plants. Similarly, the Elbe ran with wha 
 seemed blood, for several days, in the beginning of this century. 
 The Nile, also, has been known to have the same look, and to re 
 main blood-like and fetid for months. In Silimaris Journal there it 
 an account of a fountain of blood in a cave in South America. I 
 grew solid, and burst bottles into which it was put, and dogs ate i 
 
NILE WATERS TURNED TO BLOOD. 497 
 
 greedily. Before the potato rot in 1846 small red spots appeared on 
 linen laid out to bleach, and in 1848, Eckhardt, of Berlin, saw the 
 same on potatoes in the house of a cholera patient ; the spots in this 
 last case proving to be caused by one of the algae Palmella prodigiosa. 
 In 1852 a similar appearance on food, both animal and vegetable, 
 was noticed in France, by M. Montague. In 1825, Lake Morat 
 became like blood in different parts. In the steppes of Siberia, also, 
 lakes have been noticed thus strangely discoloured. In the time of 
 the Reformation, M. Merle d'Aubigne tells us, blood seemed in 
 some parts of Switzerland to flow from the earth, from walls and 
 other sources, and the same thing has been noticed on bread, at 
 Tours, in A.D. 503; at Spires, in 1103; at Rochelle, in 1163; at 
 Namur, in 1193; and elsewhere at various times. The cause of 
 these wonders is a minute alga which grows so rapidly that it 
 actually flows, and is so small that there are from 46,656,000,000,000 
 to 884,736,000,000,000 plants in a cubic inch.' 
 
 In Osburn's Monumental History of Egypt is the following inter- 
 esting passage : * The sun was just rising over the Arabian hills, and 
 I was surprised to see that the moment its beams struck the water a 
 deep-red reflection was caused. The intensity of the red grew with 
 the increase of the light, so that even before the disk of the sun had 
 risen completely above the hills the Nile offered the appearance of a 
 river of blood. Suspecting some illusion, I rose quickly, and leaning 
 over the side of the boat, found my first impression confirmed. The 
 entire mass of the waters was opaque, and of a dark red, more like 
 blood than anything else to which I could compare it. At the same 
 time I saw that the river had risen some inches during the night, and 
 the Arabs came to tell me it was the Red Nile.' 
 
 Geikie thinks that if 'the waters had been turned into real bloody the 
 smell of its corrupting would have killed every living creature, both 
 man and breast, long before the seven days had ended.' Perhaps we 
 can only venture to say that, even to those who knew the Nile well, 
 the phenomena were so unusual, and so revolting, as to indicate not 
 only the power but the judgment of God. The waters became as 
 offensive, loathsome, and dangerous, as if they had been changed 
 into the blood which, in colour, they so greatly resembled. 
 
498 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Stopped Mouths of Lions. 
 
 DANIEL vi. 22 : * My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, 
 that they have not hurt me ; forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me ; 
 and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.' 
 
 Question. Can we realize how the Median Darius would regard 
 this Divine intervention for the safety of Daniel? 
 
 Answer. He was a worshipper of Ormazd, or Ormuzd, the good 
 god; and believed in a being known as Sraosha or Serosh Ormazd's 
 messenger or angel, and the ' protector of the true faith.' He would, 
 therefore, quite understand Daniel's language, in harmony with his 
 own knowledge and notions. 
 
 'The most common representatives of the evil powers in which 
 the Medo-Persian believed were lions winged and unwinged. The 
 walls of Persepolis, and coins, pictured the king Ormazd's repre- 
 sentative on earth as the recognised opponent and destroyer of the 
 lions, and so of the evil which they symbolized. What King Darius 
 had failed to do, what Ormazd according to the Median creed 
 would have had Darius do, that " God's angel had done." ' Speaker's 
 Commentary. 
 
 Dean Stanley tells us that 'the story of the Den of Lions is told in 
 three different versions the one in the Hebrew, most generally 
 known, which places the incident under Darius the Mede ; the second, 
 in the Greek, which places it under Cyrus, in connection with the 
 intrigues of the priests of Bel ; the third, in John of Malala, who 
 places it also under Cyrus, from Daniel's refusal to answer the 
 question whether he shall succeed against Croesus. It is the second 
 of these which the early Christians of the Catacombs adopted when 
 they painted the youth standing upright in prayer naked between 
 the lions, and relieved by the flight of Habakkuk the prophet from 
 Palestine to Babylon, a grotesque addition to the Hebrew record, 
 redeemed by the fine answer of the captive : " Thou hast remembered 
 me, O God, neither hast Thou forsaken them that seek Thee and 
 .oveThee.'" 
 
 On the proofs afforded by the monuments of this mode of dealing 
 with criminals in Babylon, Kitto gives very interesting details in his 
 Daily Bible Illustrations. 
 
 This miracle, as a private and personal Divine preservation, may 
 be classed with the feeding of Elijah by the ravens. Its lesson for 
 all ages seems to be, that Divine Providence will surely be on the 
 side of, and work for, all those who bear good character. This may 
 be accepted as the usual fact. * Godliness has the promise of the 
 
RfSE OF SAMUEL AT ENDOR. 499 
 
 life that now is.' If in any case such Providential preservations and 
 benedictions seem to fail, we must always look for some overruling 
 ' need's be.' If the good man suffers, it is because higher ends of 
 blessing for the man himself or for others can be accomplished by 
 the suffering than could have been accomplished by the usual bene- 
 diction. But life for us all may be lived under this ever-ennobling 
 conviction God is on the side oj the good. 
 
 Rise of Samuel at Endor. 
 
 I SAMUEL xxviii. 13, 14 : 'And the woman said unto Saul, I see a god coming 
 up out of the earth. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, 
 An old man cometh up ; and he is covered with a robe. And Saul perceived that 
 it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance ' 
 (ftevi Ver.). 
 
 Question. Was this raising of Samuel something which, we are 
 to understand, could be accomplished by the woman's incantations ; or 
 were both the woman and the king surprised at the result which she 
 appeared to achieve t 
 
 Answer. There can be no doubt that Saul was superstitious 
 enough to believe that the woman had occult powers, and could 
 bring the spirits of the dead to hold converse with the living. But 
 even he was surprised when he found Samuel appeared in bodily 
 form. The narrative does not make it quite clear whether the king 
 actually saw the form of Samuel, or whether the woman only saw, 
 and the communications between Samuel and Saul were made through 
 her. The woman was evidently frightened at results which she knew 
 were quite beyond her power to obtain. 
 
 If illustrations of the woman's power are needed, they should be 
 sought in the * spiritualism,' the * clairvoyants,' and the * mediums,' of 
 the present day. The proper meaning of the term ' necromancer ' 
 is * one who interrogates the dead.' Some writers think that Samuel 
 suddenly appeared before the woman had time even to begin any of 
 her rites. 
 
 Kitto tells us that at one time he thought the king did not see the 
 shade, or hear the voice ; but only communicated through the 
 woman; closer attention to the narrative had convinced him that 
 Samuel had directly to do with SauL 
 
 Ewald represents the more vague view of the incident, which 
 would gladly relieve the story of all miraculous features. He says : 
 * Saul's act is condemned beforehand by the narrator as running 
 counter to the religion of Jahveh ; but it is equally certain that the 
 narrator means that what Saul heard was really the angry spirit-voice 
 of Samuel, and not mere deceptive words from the witch. He thus 
 
 323 
 
500 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 condemns this mode of seeking an oracle as impious, but does 
 not deny that the dead, or at least a spirit like Samuel's, could 
 speak after death.' The tone of these remarks leads us to feel 
 that Ewald would like to believe that the voice heard was really the 
 voice of Saul's aroused conscience, using language remembered as 
 employed by Samuel in the denunciations of the past. And for such 
 a view very much might be urged. 
 
 Jamieson expresses the diversified views taken of the incident 
 succinctly : ' The story has led to much discussion whether there was 
 a real appearance of Samuel or not. On the one hand, the woman's 
 profession, which was forbidden by the divine law, the refusal ot 
 God to answer Saul by any divinely-constituted means, the well- 
 known age, figure, and dress of Samuel, which she could easily 
 represent herself, or by an accomplice his apparition being evidently 
 at some distance, being muffled, and not actually seen by Saul and 
 the vagueness of the information given, which might have been 
 reached by natural conjecture, have led many to think that it was a 
 case of mere deception. On the other hand, many eminent writers 
 (considering that the apparition came before her arts were put in 
 practice ; that she herself was surprised and alarmed ; that the pre- 
 dictions of Saul's own death and the defeat of his forces were con- 
 fidently made) are of opinion that Samuel really appeared.' 
 
 The chief authorities for the view that there was an actual presence 
 of Samuel are : Heb. and Sept. Ver. ; Josephus ; Jewish expositors ; 
 Justin Martyr, Origen, Hippolytus, Ambrose, and Augustine ; Water- 
 land, Kitto, Gerlach, Delitzsch, and Keil. The authorities for 
 the view that there was only a- spectral illusion are : Tertullian,. 
 Luther, Cavin, Bishop Hall, Bishop Patrick, and Matthew Henry, 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 JOSHUA vi. 20 : ' And it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the 
 trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat,, 
 so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they 
 took the city.' 
 
 Question. Are there any natural forces which we may think 
 likely to have been used by God in the overthrow of this city? 
 
 Answer. It is remarkable that the Bible narrative should give 
 so few details. We have the picturesque description of the eye-witness, 
 not the precise and elaborate account of a scientific man. There is 
 no attempt made to trace the agencies that were divinely employed ; 
 the writer satisfies himself with a firm and clear declaration of the 
 Divine operation. 
 
THE FALL OF JERICHO. 501 
 
 The modern mind cannot be satisfied with a statement of bare fact 
 about anything. It persists in inquiring how the thing came about, 
 and why it came to pass. We feel that we do not know a thing until 
 we know the cause of it, and the reason for it. But in the case of 
 Bible events and incidents we can never get beyond the possible, or 
 perhaps the probable causes, and all inquiries into the antecedents 
 of miraculous incidents must be made in a modest and hesitating 
 spirit, because the data for an absolute decision cannot possibly be 
 recovered. 
 
 The gravest difficulty in the account of Jericho lies in the mental 
 picture which has been created by the expression, ' the wall fell down 
 flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight 
 before him.' This usually suggests a circular city with a wall all 
 round it, which in a moment fell inwards, and lay like a pavement, 
 over which the soldiers marched to possess the city. 
 
 It is only necessary to state the popular impression thus plainly in 
 order to indicate its unsuitability, as a realization of the facts that are 
 narrated. Poetical descriptions must not be treated in such a prosaic 
 way. The Hebrew does not say that the wall fell downyfotf, but that 
 it fell " in its place? or " under it," which equally expresses a general 
 tumbling down. All that was necessary was the opening of wide 
 breaches, of which the soldiers could take instant advantage ; and 
 this would be accomplished by an earthquake. It should further be 
 noticed that Rahab's house was upon the town-wall, so that she could 
 let down the spies into the open country ; but as her house did not 
 fall, it is plain that the part of the wall by her house could not have 
 fallen. 
 
 The district is one much subject to earthquakes, and one may be 
 assumed to have occurred at this moment, the force of which told 
 upon the walls in such a manner that the Israelite soldiers could, 
 from several directions at once, scramble over the debris, resist the 
 frightened soldiers of Jericho, and speedily crush all opposition. 
 Such an explanation meets all the necessities of the case, and, for 
 many minds, will give worthier and more impressive views of the 
 Divine interventions and overrulings, than can come to them by 
 exaggerated representations, which seem more like fables or legends 
 than sober history. God's use and control of the forces He has 
 Himself appointed is more wonderful than any mere working 
 of new wonders, which seem to suit better the Joves of heathenism 
 than the Jehovah of the Bible, who created all things in infinite 
 wisdom, and in foreknowledge of all their possible uses. God's free 
 power over everything He has created, so that all things shall * serve 
 
502 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 His might/ seems to us a conception of God that fills us with rever- 
 ence, and makes possible an intelligent and not a mere super- 
 stitious trust. 
 
 The explanations offered of the agency of this miracle have taken 
 a threefold character. Paulus suggested an undermining of the 
 walls ; Jahn, an earthquake ; and Ewald, a sudden assault. 
 
 Mr. W. H. Groser, in his work on Joshua and his Successors^ 
 shows how the intelligent and thoughtful reader ought to understand 
 the poetical Bible description. He says : ' The mighty fortress was 
 shaken to its foundations, the wall ' falling under itself,' and laying 
 open the famed stronghold as though it had been one of the villages 
 of the plain. Before the defenders could recover from the shock the 
 invaders crossed the crumbling ruins on every side, and in accord- 
 ance with the Divine command, put every living creature to the 
 sword.' 
 
 Dean Stanley says : * It may be that the means were found in the 
 resources of the natural agencies of earthquake or volcanic convul- 
 sion, which mark the whole of the Jordan Valley, from Gennesareth 
 down to the Dead Sea, and which are perpetually recurring in its 
 course, not only during the sacred history, but to our own time. If 
 so, we have a remarkable illustration and confirmation of the narra- 
 tive, the more so, because the secondary causes of this phenomenon 
 must have been to the sacred historians themselves unknown.' 
 
 Van Lennep remarks that * Western Asia has suffered much from 
 earthquakes from time imemmorial, although only one volcano exists in 
 its neighbourhood. This is Santorino, whose last great eruption is 
 described by Strabo, since which period it has shown no sign of life 
 till quite lately. The volcanoes of Katakekaumene (a part of Lydia) 
 have long been extinct. But many cities, once prosperous and re- 
 nowned, have in a moment's time been utterly destroyed by earth- 
 quakes, and many of their inhabitants buried under the ruins ; chief 
 among these were Antioch, Sardis, and Nicomedia. Constantinople 
 has also suffered severely from the same cause, and the church of St 
 Sophia was levelled with the ground, but was afterwards rebuilt with 
 greater splendour than before, by the Emperor Justinian (A.D. 548). 
 It was, perhaps, by such an agency that the walls of Jericho were 
 miraculously overthrown at the sounding of the trumpets of the 
 Israelites.' 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie only ventures timidly to state the fact that an earth- 
 quake has been suggested as the agency. He says : ' That the walls 
 should give way, and open a wide breach, after the seven circuits of 
 the seventh day, must have raised only one thought in the bosom of 
 
GOHS SIGN TO AHAZ. 503 
 
 all Israel that the victory was not theirs but God's. It is not even 
 hinted that one of the earthquakes, so common in that region, 
 happened at the time, though such a coincidence has been imagined. 
 
 God's Sign to Ahaz. 
 
 ISAIAH vii. 14 : * Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign ; behold, 
 virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand that some supernatural event 
 was to happen^ or did the sign lie in the fact of what was about tc 
 happen being foretold ? 
 
 Answer. A * sign ' is not necessarily a ' miracle,' nor necessarily 
 even a ' prophecy.' It is simply a sensible pledge of the truth of 
 something else, whether present, past, or future. Sometimes it took 
 form as a miracle, sometimes as a prophecy, but sometimes only as 
 a symbol, and especially as a symbolical name or action. In the 
 case of Ahaz, the sign was offered as a proof of Isaiah's Divine 
 legation, which Ahaz seemed to doubt. 
 
 The explanation of this particular sign by J. A. Alexander is as 
 follows : ' The king having refused to ask a sign, the prophet gives 
 him one, by renewing the promise of deliverance (ver. 8, 9), and con- 
 necting it with the birth of a child, whose significant name is made a 
 symbol of the Divine interposition, and his progress a measure of the 
 subsequent events. Instead of saying that God would be present 
 with them to deliver them, he says the child shall be called 
 Immanuel (God with us) ; instead of mentioning a term of years, he 
 says, before the child is able to distinguish good from evil ; instead of 
 saying that until that time the land shall lie waste, he represents the 
 child as eating curds and honey, spontaneous products, here put in 
 opposition to the fruits of cultivation. At the same time, the form 
 of expression is descriptive. Instead of saying that the child shall 
 experience all this, he represents its birth and infancy as actually 
 passing in his sight; he sees the child brought forth and named 
 Immanuel ; he sees the child eating curds and honey till a certain 
 age. But very different opinions are held as to the child here 
 alluded to. Some think it must be a child about to be born, in the 
 course of nature, to the prophet himself. Others think that two 
 distinct births are referred to, one that of Shear Jashub, the prophet's 
 son, and the other Christ, the Virgin's Son. Yet others see only a 
 prophetic reference to the birth of Messiah.' Alexander's conclusion 
 is that, ' While some diversity of judgment ought to be expected and 
 
504 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 allowed, in relation to the secondary question (of the child of the 
 period that is referred to), there is no ground, grammatical, historical, 
 or logical, for doubt as to the main point, that the Church in all 
 ages has been right in regarding this passage as a signal and explicit 
 prediction of the miraculous conception and nativity of Jesus Christ' 
 
 It has been remarked that c the method of giving a sign by pre- 
 dicting something in the near future as a pledge for predictions that 
 belong to a more remote time is specially characteristic of Isaiah.' 
 
 With the general idea, that an undertone of reference to the 
 person, times, and work of Messiah runs through the whole prophetic 
 Scriptures, we can accept Dean Plumptre's suggestions as to the first 
 and natural explanation of the sign. And a clear understanding of 
 its immediate purpose is essential to an advance towards the deeper 
 allusions or prophecies that may be embodied in it. The Dean says : 
 ' We may deal with this passage as though the Gospel of St. 
 Matthew had never been written, as though the facts which it records 
 had no place in the history of mankind. From this point of view 
 we get what seems at first a comparatively simple exposition. The 
 prophet offers a sign to the faithless king, and the sign is this : he 
 points to some young bride in either sense of that word, and says 
 that she shall conceive and bare a son. The fulfilment of that pre- 
 diction in a matter which lay outside the range of human knowledge 
 was to be the sign for Ahaz and his court, and she should give that 
 son a name which would rebuke the faithlessness of the king. 
 Immanuel, " God with us," would be a nomen et omen, witnessing, 
 not of an incarnate deity, but -of his living and abiding presence. 
 Who was the mother of the child on this theory we have no data for 
 deciding. The natural birth of the child Immanual was, to the 
 prophet and his generation, a pledge and earnest of the abiding 
 presence of God with His people.' 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTES. 
 
 505 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 * We have no right to insert miracles in the Gospel records.' Dean Plumptre> 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTES. 
 
 /. The Miracles of our Lord and His Apostles considered as Evidences 
 of Christianity. 
 
 IT is a marked feature of modern religious thought that the evidence 
 of miracles is undervalued. For those who lived in our Lord's time, 
 they were of primary importance, because Christ had not been long 
 enough among them to make due moral impression upon them. To 
 those who have received direct impressions from Christ Himself, 
 miracles become quite simple, secondary, and comparatively unim- 
 portant things. The Christ is felt to be greater than any * works ' 
 He did, any ' wonders ' He wrought. In a critical age, such as ours 
 is, no reported miracles can be accepted as proofs, because the evi- 
 dence for the miracle itself is not satisfactory to the critical mind, 
 and the wonder said to be wrought was not submitted to scientific 
 tests. 
 
 Evidence by miracle can only be effective for ages of over-faith, or 
 of lost faith. In simple childlike, we had almost said superstitious, 
 times, supernatural working is at once accepted as evidence of Divine 
 presence and power. Untrained minds, like child-minds, are over- 
 ready to accept the mysterious. And when faith in the unseen and 
 eternal has been crushed down by scepticism, formalism, and world- 
 liness, then indications of direct Divine action, taking miraculous 
 form, may make an awakening impression ; but in the first case 
 moral susceptibility has not developed, and in the latter case moral 
 susceptibility has been destroyed. This is the position we may take 
 if a man is open to the moral influence of Christ Himself, he will 
 be comparatively indifferent to any evidence which may be afforded 
 by Christ's wonder-working. Christ is His own evidence. 
 
 This position may be restated in the language of other writers. It 
 is a point of importance in view of the difficulty felt by many 
 
506 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 thoughtful minds in accepting Christianity on what is called unverified 
 and unexplained miracle. 
 
 Dr. Angus says : ' Men believed, in the first age at least, because 
 Divine works or miracles (facts, that is, which could not have taken 
 place from natural causes or without superhuman aid) attested the 
 truth of the message. To these works our Lord repeatedly appealed, 
 as works which none other man did, and as an evidence of His 
 mission.' 
 
 Archbishop Trench says : * The fact that the kingdom of lies has its 
 wonders no less than the kingdom of truth, would be alone sufficient 
 to convince us that miracles cannot be appealed to absolutely and 
 simply in proof of the doctrine which the worker of them proclaims. 
 Miracle only claims the right to be listened to the doctrine must 
 commend itself to the conscience as good, only then can a miracle 
 seal it as Divine. The first appeal is from the doctrine to the con- 
 science, the moral nature in man. Miracles are to be the credentials 
 for the bearer of the good word. When the mind and conscience 
 witness against the doctrine, not all the miracles in the world have a 
 right to demand submission to the word which they seal. The safe- 
 guard from fatal errors lies altogether in men's moral and spiritual, 
 and not at all in their intellectual, condition.' 
 
 Dr. Arnold says : ' The substance of a revelation is the most 
 essential part of its evidence ; and miracles wrought in favour of what 
 was foolish or wicked would ^nly prove Manicheism.' ' The character 
 of any supernatural power can only be judged by the moral character 
 of the statements it sanctions.' 
 
 Renan states the point more intensely than we can approve, but 
 his words indicate the extreme modern position on the present 
 evidential value of miracles : * Two means of proof miracles and the 
 accomplishment of prophecy could alone, _ the opinion of the 
 contemporaries of Jesus, establish a supernatural mission. Many 
 circumstances seem to indicate that Jesus only became a thauma- 
 turgus (wonder, or miracle-worker), late in life, and against His incli- 
 nation. If the thaumaturgus had effaced in Jesus the moralist and 
 religious reformer, there would have proceeded from Him a school of 
 theurgy, and not Christianity. The greatest miracle would have 
 been Christ's refusal to perform any ; never would the laws of history 
 and popular psychology have suffered so great a derogation. The 
 miracles of Jesus were a violence done to Him by His age, a con- 
 cession forced from Him by a passing necessity.' 
 
 Dr. Horace Bushnell says : ' To the contemporaries of Jesus he 
 might well enough be approved of God, by miracles and signs ; for, 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTES. 507 
 
 being themselves eye-witnesses, they could easily be sure of the facts. 
 But to those who saw them not, to us who have only heard of them 
 by report of history, they can never be cited as proofs ; because the 
 main thing to settle is the verity of the facts themselves. The Gospel 
 history, instead of being attested to us by the miracles, has them 
 rather as a heavy burden resting on its own credibility.' 
 
 Baden Powell says : * The evidential force of miracles is wholly 
 relative to the apprehension of the parties addressed. An alleged 
 miracle can only be regarded in one of two ways: (i) abstractedly, 
 as a physical event, and therefore to be investigated by reason and 
 physical evidence, and referred to physical causes, possibly to known 
 causes ; but at all events to some higher cause or law, if at present un- 
 known : it then ceases to be supernatural, yet still it might be appealed 
 to in support of religious truth, especially as referring to the state of 
 knowledge and apprehensions of the parties addressed in past ages. 
 Or (2) as connected with religious doctrine, regarded in a sacred 
 light, asserted on the authority of inspiration. In this case it ceases 
 to be capable of investigation by reason, or to own its dominion ; it 
 is accepted on religious grounds, and can appeal only to the principle 
 and influence of faith.' 
 
 The author of Ecce Homo says : * Some may think that in assert- 
 ing miracles to have been actually wrought by Christ, we go beyond 
 the evidence, perhaps beyond what any possible evidence is able 
 to sustain. This at least will be admitted, that Christ professed 
 to work miracles, and was believed by His followers really to work 
 them. The reality of the miracles depends in a great degree on the 
 opinion we form of Christ's veracity, and this opinion must arise 
 from the careful examination of His life. By itself supernatural power 
 would not have procured for Christ the kind of ascendancy he 
 wanted, but exactly that ascendancy which He so decidedly rejected. 
 Supernatural power was not invariably connected in the minds of the 
 ancients with God and goodness ; it was supposed to be the gift of 
 evil spirits as well as good ; it was regarded with horror in as many 
 cases as with reverence.' 
 
 J. Stalker^ in his very suggestive Life of Jesus Christ^ says: 'It 
 was a stupendous claim which He made on the faith of men when 
 He announced Himself as the Messiah, and it would have been 
 unreasonable to expect it to be conceded by a nation accustomed 
 to miracles as the signs of a Divine mission, if He had wrought 
 none.' 
 
 Miracles, then, are evidences of Christianity to us mainly because 
 they were, when wrought, adequate evidences to those for whom 
 
5o8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 they were wrought. Our fuller evidence of a moral character pro- 
 perly puts evidence from miracle in the background. 
 
 II. Miracles of our Lord considered as Illustrations of His Mission. 
 
 They were mainly symbols of His spiritual and saving work, and 
 we use them chiefly for their illustrative value. In this direction 
 they are found to be an inexhaustible storehouse for all Christian 
 teachers. 
 
 Dr. George Macdonald has put new meaning into the miracles of 
 Christ, by studying them from this point of view. The following 
 passage explains his position : ' He has come, the Word of God, that 
 we may know God ; every word of His then, as needful to the know- 
 ing of Himself, is needful to the knowing of God It is but 
 
 natural to expect that the deeds of the great Messenger should be 
 just the works of the Father done in little. If He came to reveal 
 His Father in miniature, as it were (for in these unspeakable things 
 we can but use figures, and the homeliest may be the holiest), to tone 
 down His great voice, which, too loud for men to hear it aright, could 
 but sound to them as an inarticulate thundering, into such a still 
 small voice as might enter their human ears in welcome human 
 speech ; then the works that His Father does so widely, so grandly, 
 that they transcend the vision of men, the Son must do briefly and 
 sharply before their very eyes. This, I think, is the true nature of 
 the miracles ; an epitome of God's processes in nature beheld in 
 immediate connection with their source a source as yet lost to the 
 eyes, and too often to the hearts of men in the far-receding grada- 
 tions of continuous law. That men might see the will of God at 
 work, Jesus did the works of the Father thus .... The miracles 
 are surely less than those mighty goings on of nature with God beheld 
 at their heart. In the name of Him who delighted to say, " My 
 Father is greater than I," I will say that His miracles in bread and 
 wine were far less grand and less beautiful than the works of the 
 Father they represented, in making the corn to grow in the valleys, 
 and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the hillsides of the world, 
 with all their infinitudes of tender gradation and delicate mystery of 
 birth. But the Son of the Father be praised, who- as it were, con- 
 densed these mysteries before us, and let us see the precious gifts 
 coming at once from gracious hands hands that love could kiss 
 and nails could wound.' ' What in the hands of the Father are the 
 mighty motions, and progresses, and conquests of life, in the hands of 
 the Son are miracles.' 
 
 A more familiar way of setting forth the illustrative value of Christ's 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y NOTES. 509 
 
 miracles is given by Stalker : ' You have only to consider the miracles 
 for a moment to see that they were, as a whole, triumphs over the 
 misery of the world. Mankind is the prey of a thousand evils, and 
 even the frame of external nature bears the mark of some past 
 catastrophe. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain." 
 This huge mass of physical evil in the lot of mankind is the effect of 
 sin. Not that every disease and misfortune can be traced to special 
 sin, although some of them can. The consequences of past sin are 
 distributed in detail over the whole race. But yet the misery of the 
 world is the shadow of its sin. Material and moral evil being thus 
 intimately related, mutually illustrate each other. When He healed 
 bodily blindness, it was a type of the healing of the inner eye ; when 
 He raised the dead, He meant to suggest that He was the Resurrec- 
 tion and the Life in the spiritual world as well ; when He cleansed 
 the leper, His triumph spoke of another over the leprosy of sin ; 
 when He multiplied the loaves, He followed the miracle with a 
 discourse on the Bread of life ; when He stilled the storm, it was an 
 assurance that He could speak peace to the troubled conscience.' 
 
 III. On the Manifestation of Miraculous Power at Special Times. 
 
 'The Scriptures record three eras signalized by displays of the 
 supernatural ; which three periods stand associated respectively with 
 three great names Moses, Elijah, and the Lord Jesus Christ. The 
 performance of wonders is related of other times ; but only these 
 deserve to be called the ages of miracles. 
 
 * The reasons for the distinction must be sought in peculiarity of 
 circumstance, and in special Providential ends requiring extraordinary 
 measures for their accomplishment. In the first instance, a people, 
 long sunk in ignorance and degradation, were to be liberated from 
 serfdom, trained in virtue, and made keepers of the oracles of God. 
 The second period was that of a much-needed reformation in the 
 kingdom of Israel ; when a desperate effort was put forth to recall 
 the Ten Tribes from idolatrous apostasy, that it might not involve 
 them in final rejection and ruin. The third was the age of Messiah's 
 coming ; when the revealed religion reached its full development, and 
 was offered to all mankind. 
 
 * These were crises of unparalleled importance. If it ever com- 
 ported with the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme, for His 
 power to be exceptionally seen on the theatre of human affairs, it 
 would be fitting for the manifestation to appear at such pregnant 
 times. 
 
5io HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 * This is eminently true of the first and third of the specified eras 
 those momentous starting-points in the history of man ! On looking 
 back over the page of history, we meet with no other junctures that 
 called so imperatively for Divine interposition, in order that the 
 minds of men might be impressed with unusual tokens of God's 
 presence and will. If these periods had been passed by, none 
 could have laid claim to the sublime distinction. Every one of 
 the three dusters of signs stands when and where it was most to be 
 expected. 
 
 * These groups of miracles support one another. The first leads 
 the way to those which follow, and the last helps us to believe the 
 preceding. The Christian wonders have the advantage of being the 
 most accessible to inquiry, because the nearest to our own day, and 
 within the range of collateral history. And when the credentials of 
 the latest satisfy, the way is prepared for the reception of the more 
 remote. As the members of a series, Scripture signs are so far 
 mutually confirmatory, that persons who feel certified of any will have 
 little difficulty in accepting the rest. If the authenticity of our Lord's 
 works is proved, they go a great way towards establishing the credit of 
 all the extraordinary things recorded in the Old Testament.' Prof. 
 
 W. Griffiths, M.A. 
 
 Trench, comparing our Lord's with the earlier miracles, says : * The 
 works of our Lord, though they bear not on their front the imposing 
 character which did those of old, yet contain higher and deeper 
 truths. They are eminently miracles of the Incarnation of the Son 
 of God who had taken our flesh, and taking, would heal it. They 
 have predominantly a relation to man's body and his spirit. Miracles 
 of nature assume now altogether a subordinate place; they still 
 survive, even as we could have ill afforded wholly to have lost them; 
 for this region of nature must still be claimed as part of Christ's 
 dominion, though not its chiefest or its noblest province. Man, 
 and not nature, is now the main subject of these mighty powers ; 
 and thus it comes to pass that, with less of outward pomp, less to 
 startle and amaze, the new have a yet deeper inward significance 
 than the old.' 
 
THE WONDERFUL BIRTH. 51 1 
 
 The Wonderful Birth. 
 
 LUKE i. 38 : ' And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto 
 me according to thy word. 
 
 Difficulty. If our Lord came into the world in such a super- 
 natural manner, there must be some limitations on our conception of 
 Him, as a real fellow-man. 
 
 Explanation. It is not easy to treat this profound and delicate 
 subject with a becoming reticence ; and the doctrinal points con- 
 nected with the Incarnation will be considered elsewhere. We limit 
 ourselves here to one point Previous manifestations of God to men 
 had taken the temporary form and appearance of men, and we call 
 them ' angel manifestations.' They were cases of God revealing His 
 mind to His servants through an unreal human appearance, which, 
 however, made due impressions on man's senses ; and these senses 
 of sight, hearing, and even touch, became the media of communi- 
 cation with God. 
 
 These -were but foreshadowings of, and preparations for, a mani- 
 festation of God to man in an actual, complete human life of flesh, 
 and blood, and relations. God proposed to show men in a man the 
 kind of man He planned at first. He made man in His image in 
 order that man's life might become His shrine. Adam, in the name 
 of his race, filled the throne with self-will. Now God would send 
 forth into the world a man, who should go about among his fellow- 
 men as the shrine of God ; in Him God dwelt and ruled. 
 
 To make due impression on us, this Man must be felt to be really 
 one of us. That impression could only be produced in one way. He 
 must be born of a woman as we are born. It is the mother who gives 
 the bodily form to the new life. The origination of the life is always 
 the work of God. In this new life was to be found a new starting of 
 the race, and so, as the first Adam came forth in his maturity by the 
 direct creation of God, the second Adam came forth under ordinary 
 womanly conditions, by an act of Divine origination. The true 
 humanity of Jesus is sealed for us in this, that He was born under 
 the ordinary earthly conditions, or, as Scripture expresses it, ' born of 
 a woman.' 
 
 It may suffice to confirm our point by a restatement of it in the 
 language of Pressense, which, though similar to that of Neander and 
 others, will be somewhat clearer to the general reader : ' He who ii 
 to be the head of a new race which is to be at once Divine and 
 human the realization, that is to say, of its primitive type cannot 
 
5 1 2 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 be simply one of the links of the long chain of natural generations, 
 all tainted with the evil which has, as it were, become incorporated 
 in a fallen race. It is impossible that He should save humanity, if 
 He has to say with David, " I was conceived in sin." We must 
 make, as it were, a new beginning ; and the second Adam cannot 
 destroy the work of the first, except on condition that He be not of 
 his descent. He must be born of a woman, and assume a truly 
 human nature ; but it is equally essential that the active cause of 
 His earthly being be not a corrupt humanity, but the Divine and 
 creative principle. As to explanation of this mystery, we can offer 
 none but 'such as is contained in the words, " With God nothing is 
 impossible ;" this will suffice for every believer in the Omnipotent 
 mercy, which is the one foundation of the supernatural.' 
 
 Money in a Fish. 
 
 MATTHEW xvii. 27 : * But, lest we cause them to stumble, go thou to the sea, 
 and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up ; and when thou hast 
 opened his mouth, thou shall find a shekel : that take, and give unto them for Me 
 and thee' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. This appears to be opposed to our Lord's rule of using 
 His miraculous powers only for ends of service to others, never merely 
 to meet His own wants^ or to preserve Himself from danger. 
 
 Explanation. Ends of service to others must not be limited to 
 physical blessings ; it must include moral blessings. Miracles may, 
 within the line of Christ's rule, be used for moral teaching, for the 
 religious education of one person, or of money. Several of our 
 Lord's most striking miracles are explicable only in view of the 
 educational ends sought by them. This particular miracle is rela- 
 tive to Peter, and is a part of our Lord's service to him. Money for 
 the purpose of taxation could have been procured from some other 
 and ordinary source ; but our Lord saw an opportunity of impressing 
 the deeper truth concerning Himself upon this leading disciple, and 
 therefore made him the agent in proving a miracle of foreknowledge. 
 We are willing to admit that this case is a most unusual one, and 
 that there is -not another of our Lord's works with which it can 
 properly be compared ; but the end sought by it is of sufficient import- 
 ance to justify it, and to show it to be in essential harmony with our 
 Lord's principle in the use of miraculous power. 
 
 Trench brings out the educational relation of the miracle to Peter 
 with much force. On being asked whether his Master pays the 
 ordinary Jewish tax of a half-shekel, * Peter at once replies in the 
 
MONEY IN A FISH. 513 
 
 affirmative. Zealous for his Lord's honour, and confident that His 
 piety would make Him prompt in whatever God's ordinance required, 
 he pledges Him without hesitation to the payment. Yet was he 
 overhasty in this. There was on his part a failing here to recognise 
 the higher dignity of his Lord ; it was not in this spirit that he had 
 exclaimed a little while before, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the Living God." For the time, at least, he had lost sight of his 
 Lord's true position and prerogative, that He was a Son over His own 
 house, and not a servant in another's ; the Head of the theocracy, 
 not one of its subordinate members, so that it was to Him in His 
 Father that offerings were to be made, not from Him to be received. 
 This last had been out of all reason ; for He who was to be a ransom 
 for all other souls could not properly give a ransom for His own. It 
 was not for Him who was " greater than the temple," and Himself 
 the true temple (John ii. 21.), identical with it according to its 
 spiritual significance, and in whom the Shekinah glory dwelt, to pay 
 dues for the support of that other temple built with hands, which was 
 now fast losing its significance, since in His flesh the true tabernacle 
 was set up, which the Lord had pitched and not man. It is then 
 for the purpose of bringing back Peter, and with him the other 
 disciples, to the true recognition of Himself, from which they had 
 in part fallen, that the Lord puts to him the question which follows. 
 And for the same reason, being engaged through Peter's hasty impru- 
 dence, to the rendering of the didrachm, which now He could 
 scarcely recede from, He yet does it in the remarkable way of this 
 present miracle a miracle which should testify that all things served 
 Him, from the greatest to the least, even to the fishes that walked 
 through the paths of the sea that He was Lord over nature, and, 
 having nothing, yet in His Father's care for Him, was truly possessed 
 of all things. For here, as so often in the life of our Lord, the depth 
 of His poverty and humiliation is lighted up by a gleam of His 
 glory; while, by the manner of the payment, He re-asserted the 
 true dignity of His person, which else by the payment itself was 
 in danger of being obscured, and compromised in the eyes of some. 
 The miracle, then, was to supply a real need slight, indeed, as an 
 outward need, for the money could assuredly have been in some other 
 and more ordinary way procured ; but as an inner need, most rea/.' 
 
 33 
 
514 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Early Church Miracles. 
 
 MARK xvi. 17, 18: 'And these signs shall follow them that believe: in My 
 name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall 
 take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them ; 
 they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Questions. Are we to think of these poivers, or gifts, as distributed 
 among the disciples, or as the endowment of each and all of the disciphs ; 
 and are we right in assuming that miraculous powers were limited to 
 the Apostolic age f 
 
 Answer. Our Lord's intention in making this assurance is best 
 understood by examining the way in which His promise was fulfilled. 
 St. Paul clearly teaches that there was a distribution of gifts. 
 Writing to the Corinthians (ch. xii. 4-11.), the Apostle speaks of 
 " diversities of gifts," wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, 
 prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers tongues, interpretation of 
 tongues ; and he adds, * All these worketh that one and the self-same 
 Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.' From this we 
 gather that our Lord's promise was fulfilled in the Church as a whole, 
 but each individual member had his own special gift. 
 
 The answer to the second question depends on the view we may 
 take of the necessity for permanent outward signs of superhuman 
 power as evidences of Christianity. Miracles must in their very 
 nature be temporary. As soon as the things which we call miracles 
 become permanent and regular, they come into the natural order, 
 and cease to be surprises. We are familiar with them, and they no 
 longer bear testimony to us of Divine interferences and adjustments. 
 It may also be urged, that when miracles have done their precise 
 work, they have accredited messengers, and then they leave us to 
 listen to the messengers, feel their personal influence, and receive the 
 cruth they have to teach. 
 
 But no one can safely venture to "say that miracles may not again 
 be wrought, and again be used as signs and evidences. That must 
 depend on man's mental and moral conditions in any particular age. 
 We can quite conceive of the influence of formality on the one hand, 
 and scepticism on the other, producing such a spiritual or rather 
 unspiritual condition, that again, in appropriate ways, the direct 
 intervention of God, by miraculous workings, may be necessary. 
 Such signs will surely be given whenever such signs are needed ; and 
 of the need only the great Searcher Himself can fitly judge. 
 
 Dr. Bushnell argues thus : ' It does not follow that, if the canon 
 of Scripture is closed up, there is no longer any use or place for 
 
DRIVING OUT OF DEVILS. 515 
 
 miracles and spiritual gifts. That is a conclusion taken by a mere 
 act of judgment, when plainly no judgment of man is able to pene- 
 trate the secrets and grasp the economic reasons of God's empire, 
 with sufficient insight to affirm anything on a subject so deep and 
 difficult. There may certainly be reasons for such miracles and gifts 
 of the Spirit, apart from any authentication of new books of Scripture. 
 Indeed, they might possibly be wanted even the more, to break up 
 the monotony likely to follow, when revelations have ceased and the 
 word of Scripture is for ever closed up ; wanted possibly to lift the 
 Church out of the abysses of a mere second-hand religion, keeping it 
 alive and open to the realities of God's immediate visitation. 
 
 Driving out of Devils. 
 
 MARK i. 34 . : ' And He healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast 
 out many devils ; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew Him.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand this devil-possession as a form 
 of suffering peculiar to the time of Christ ', or was it only a term under 
 which known and common forms of disease were classified ? 
 
 Answer. It is remarkable that no Evangelist alludes to devil- 
 possession as in any way fresh or astonishing. They treat it as a very 
 sad, but very common form of human suffering ; and unless we have 
 satisfied ourselves that the Jewish notions about evil spirits are sub- 
 stantially true, we cannot find more in this so-called devil-possession 
 than an attempt to explain cases of disease which were obscure then, 
 and are obscure still. 
 
 Evidently the name is applied to essentially different cases of 
 suffering. Some are plain cases of severe epilepsy ; others are as plainly 
 cases of hysteria ; yet others of ordinary mania or melancholia. But 
 it must be admitted, that the most important instances cannot be 
 regarded as ordinary cases of brain or nerve disease. There is no 
 ground for assuming any special activity of evil spirits in Christ's day ; 
 and probably a proper understanding of the class of diseases of which 
 delirium tremens may be taken as the type, would enable us to explain 
 the special features of the most perplexing cases. 
 
 In delirium tremens we have this peculiarity the craving for drink 
 has becoming a separate and master power, controlling the man's will : 
 so that in some things the man may be ordering his life, and in other 
 things the drink-spirit is ordering his life. The man is possessed 
 with an evil spirit the demon of drink. Sometimes the man speaks ; 
 at other times the demon-spirit masters the man, and speaks through 
 him ; and this is one of the features of the devil-possessions narrated 
 
 33~ a 
 
5t6 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 in the Gospels ; probably it is the one which occasions most difficulty, 
 and gives most support to the notion of an indwelling of an in- 
 dividual and personal evil spirit. 
 
 Now, the case of delirium tremens is only an intense case of habit. 
 All habits if unresisted tend to become masterful, they grow to be 
 * second selves' ; they compel us to do what we would not ; they are 
 a sort of spirit in us, a second will controlling, and even crushing 
 our wills. It is a great law for our life that if we do not resist inclina- 
 tion and evil when we may, we shall not be able to do so when we 
 would. 
 
 What applies generally to bodily and mental habits, applies in a 
 very special way to habits in which the passions are concerned. 
 There is a disease of indulged sensuality just answering to delirium 
 trtmensj which may also truly be regarded as a devil-possession : and 
 some of the cases with which our Lord dealt notably the case of the 
 man at Gadara were of this class. 
 
 It is more helpful to us to see that our Lord bore saving relations 
 to the precise conditions in which men are actually found, and 
 delivered men from the precise bondages in which they were enslaved, 
 than to imagine men suffering from some unknown forms of disease 
 or possession, sent for a time, that Christ's power may gain extra- 
 ordinary illustration. Our conviction that our Lord can help and 
 deliver us lies just in this, that we feel sure He dealt while He was 
 here with the sorrows, woes, and slaveries that were " common to 
 men " in every age ; however true it may be that they take on intenser 
 forms in some conditions of social life than in others. 
 
 Trench gives a note from a medical work, by Bright and Addison^ 
 which clearly recognises a double consciousness as a symptom of 
 delirium tremens. ' In his most tranquil and collected moments he 
 is not to be trusted ; for the transition from that state to the greatest 
 violence is instantaneous : he is often recalled by a word to an 
 apparent state of reason, but as quickly his false impressions return ; 
 there is sometimes evidence, at the time, of a state of double con- 
 sciousness, a condition of mind which is sometimes remembered by 
 the patient when the paroxysm is over.' 
 
 If we take, then, the typical instances of the devil-possessions as 
 cases of weakened and mastered personal will, we shall get more im- 
 pressive views of the Divine power of our Lord, whose supreme 
 work in man is the regeneration and adequate strengthening of the 
 human will. We shall see His work of grace, in us all, effectively 
 illustrated in His restoring the will-power of these demoniacs, and 
 putting them in their right mind. 
 
DRIVING O UT OF DE VILS. 5 , 7 
 
 A due consideration of this subject would require a treatise, and 
 we can only suggest the one explanation which seems to us every 
 way reasonable and probable. It may, however, be wise to add a 
 few remarks on the Jewish way of regarding evil, and especially evil 
 taking obscure forms, as the action of demons. * All mental aberra 
 tion, all sudden sickness, all melancholy tendencies, all unexpected 
 obstacles, were, and in the East still are, regarded as due to the 
 direct influence of demons (devils). These demons they believed to 
 be the spirits of the wicked. That they regarded as demoniacal 
 possession what we regard as epilepsy and mania is certain.' 
 Farrar. 
 
 Dr. Edersheim does not take the view which we have suggested, 
 but the following striking passage gives our explanation valuable 
 philosophical support. (See Life of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i., p. 608.) 
 ' We repeat, that this must be kept in view as characteristic of the 
 demonized, that they were incapable of separating their own consci- 
 ousness and ideas from the influence of the demon, their own 
 identity being merged, and to that extent lost, in that of their 
 tormentors. In this respect the demonized state was also kindred to 
 madness. Self-consciousness, or rather what may be termed indi- 
 viduism, /.*., the consciousness of separate and independent indi- 
 viduality, and with it the power of self-origination in matters mental 
 and moral (which some might term an aspect of free volition), 
 distinguish the human soul from the mere animal spirit. But in 
 maniacal disease this power is an abeyance, or temporarily lost 
 through physical causes, such as disease of the brain as the medium 
 of communication between the mind and the world of sense \ disease 
 of the nervous system, through which ordinarily impressions are con- 
 veyed to and from the sensorium ; or disease of both brain and 
 nervous system, when previously existing impressions on the brain 
 (in memory, and hence possibly imagination) may be excited with- 
 out corresponding outward causes. If in such case the absolute 
 power of self-origination and self-action is lost to the mind, habits of 
 sin and vice (or moral disease) may have an analogous effect as 
 regards moral freedom the power of moral self-origination and 
 action. In the demonized state the two appear combined, the cause 
 being neither disease or vice, but the presence of a superior power of 
 evil.' In this last assumption we do not follow Dr. Edersheim. 
 Disease and vice sufficiently account for all the phenomena of so- 
 called 'demonism,' on Dr. Edersheim's own lines; and there is no 
 reason why we should call in to our aid vague and mysterious con- 
 ceptions of actual possessing demons. 
 
Si8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 One grave difficulty, however, is our Lord's using language con- 
 cerning these sufferers which is thus shown not to be strictly 
 accurate. He spoke of ' spirits ' possessing the men ; but did He 
 know that they were cases of disease or indulged habit? This 
 difficulty really rests on our notion that Jesus was omniscient in the 
 sphere of His earthly life. As God, He was omniscient ; but the 
 glory of the Incarnation is, that He limited Himself to the thought- 
 sphere, word-sphere, and life-sphere, not only of a man, but also of a 
 Jew, and of a Jew born in that particular age. As man, he spoke of 
 a common disease of the time in the language commonly used about 
 it. It was no part of our Lord's earthly mission to correct the 
 mistakes of common speech, or the misconception of medical, or any 
 other, science. He condescended to accept the thought and 
 language limitations of His age. 
 
 Christ's Invisibility. 
 
 LUKE iv. 30 : ' But He, passing through the midst of them, went His way.' 
 JOHN viii. 59 : ' They took up stones therefore to cast at Him : but Jesus hid 
 
 Himself, and went out of the temple ' (Rev. Ver.). 
 JOHN x. 39 : They sought again to take Him : and He went forth out of their 
 
 hand ' (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Question. Are we to understand the Evangelists to mean that, on 
 these occasions, our Lord wrought a miracle to ensure His own safety y 
 and made Himself invisible to those who would seize Him ? 
 
 Answer. No such thing is directly stated in either instance. 
 Making Himself invisible is the ready explanation of what occurred 
 which men have given ; so we need not hesitate to inquire whether 
 any better account of the incidents can be suggested. The Word of 
 God simply says that our Lord passed through the crowd and excite- 
 ment uninjured ; and by comparing the Revised Version, in the two- 
 latter cases, with the Received Version, it will be seen that some of 
 the difficulty attaches to the earlier and more imperfect translation. 
 
 Seeking analogies from other parts of Scripture, we are reminding 
 of the mental confusion, or blindness, of the Sodomites, who wearied 
 themselves to find the door ; and the delusion of the Syrians who 
 came to seize Elisha, and were led by him into Samaria. 
 
 The instance recorded by John are simply cases of prudence and 
 skill in managing. There is nothing of the miraculous suggested in 
 them : the instance given by Luke is more suggestive of special 
 putting forth of Divine power. 
 
 It is necessary, however, to keep in mind that it was a fixed 
 principle with our Lord, one which expressed His loyalty to God, 
 
CHRIST'S INVISIJ3ILITY. 5 , 9 
 
 that he would not use His miraculous gifts or powers for His own 
 safety, or His own service; and we therefore require thoroughly 
 sufficient proofs of any particular case which appears to be opposed 
 to His established principle of action. If, on this occasion at 
 Nazareth, our Lord saved Himself by a miracle, evidence of the 
 miracle should be given, and it should be shown that only a miracu" 
 lous interpretation will meet the difficulty of the case. 
 
 If the people from the synagogue were unitedly set on the seizure 
 of Jesus, only some putting forth of His supreme power could have 
 saved Him. But if the people from the synagogue were quarrelling 
 and struggling among themselves, some opposing Christ and some 
 standing up for Him, our Lord might easily, and in quite a natural 
 way, secure His escape. We will seek the help of good Bible 
 writers in our endeavour to form a correct view of the incident 
 
 Farrar says : ' There is no need to suppose an actual miracle ; still 
 less to imagine a secret and sudden escape into the narrow and 
 tortuous lanes of the town. Perhaps His silence, perhaps the calm 
 nobleness of His bearing, perhaps the dauntless innocence of His 
 gaze overawed them. Apart from anything supernatural, there seems 
 to have been in the presence of Jesus a spell of mystery and of 
 majesty which even His most ruthless and hardened enemies 
 acknowledged, and before which they involuntarily bowed. It was 
 to this that He owed His escape when the maddened Jews in the 
 Temple took up stones to stone Him ; it was this that made the bold 
 and bigoted officers of the Sanhedrim unable to arrest Him as He taught 
 in public during the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem ; it was this 
 that made the armed band of His enemies, at His mere look, fall 
 before Him to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane. Suddenly, 
 quietly, He asserted His freedom, waived aside His captors, and 
 overawing them by His simple glance, passed through their midst 
 unharmed. Similar events have occurred in history, and continue 
 still to occur. There is something in defenceless and yet dauntless 
 dignity that calms even the fury of a mob. " They stood stopped 
 inquired were ashamed fled separated." ' 
 
 Farrar adds, in a footnote : ' Some of my readers may be aware of 
 an instance in which a clergyman, still living, walked untouched 
 through the very midst of a brutal and furious London mob, who had 
 assembled for the express purpose of insulting and assaulting him. 
 It was observed by more than one spectator, that if he had wavered 
 for a single instant, or shown the slightest sign of fear and irresolu- 
 tion, he would in all probability have been struck down, and possibly 
 have not escaped with his life.' 
 
520 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Geikie dismisses the matter in a sentence : * His time was not yet 
 come. A spell cast on the fierce mob, opened a way for Him, and 
 He passed through and left the town unhurt.' 
 
 Neander says: 'The protecting hand of God alone saved Him 
 from the death which threatened Him.' 
 
 Ohhausen says : * These words in themselves certainly do not indi- 
 cate anything miraculous ; some fortunate accident might have made 
 it possible for an individual to escape from the excited and irritated 
 inhabitants of a whole city. But anyone who holds that nothing 
 happens by accident, and that least of all this could be the case in 
 the history of the Son of God, anyone, moreover, who inquires 
 exegetically into the view of the writer, must be forced to confess the 
 meaning here expressed to be this, Jesus departed through the midst 
 of them without restraint or hindrance, insomuch as being the 
 Mighty One, His Divine power held their limbs and senses bound. 
 No one could take from Him His life, unless when He freely 
 gave it' 
 
 Kitto says : * On the way He escaped out of their hands whether 
 by miracle or by the exercise of natural providence, aided by the 
 presence of His disciples, is not recorded.' 
 
 The Speaker's Commentary says : ' It is not very clear whether we 
 are to understand that any miraculous event took place. Some 
 consider that He so impressed His enemies by the dignity of His 
 appearance and manner, that they had not the courage to lay hold of 
 Him or to stop Him. De Wette and Meyer consider that a miracu- 
 lous occurrence is intended : the former, with ancient writers, gener- 
 ally understanding the Evangelist to mean, that the inherent miracu- 
 lous power of Jesus paralyzed His enemies. This is, on the whole, 
 the most probable explanation of the narrative.' 
 
 It may suffice to add the very satisfactory conclusion of Dean 
 Plumptre. ' The words do not necessarily involve a directly super- 
 natural deliverance, as though the multitude had been smitten with 
 blindness, or our Lord had become invisible. We have no right to 
 insert miracles in the Gospel records. Calmness, silence, the moral 
 power of self-possessed righteousness, have in themselves a power, 
 often proved, to baffle the fury of an angry mob. 1 
 
HEALING AGENCIES EMPLOYED IN MIRACLES. 521 
 
 Healing Agencies employed in Miracles. 
 
 JOHN ix. 6 : 'When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made 
 clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.' 
 
 Difficulty. As our Lord could heal with a word, and usually 
 did so, there seems to be no reason for His carefully using healing 
 agencies in this and some other cases. 
 
 Explanation. Every case illustrates the care with which our 
 Lord adapted His methods so as to be most effective in the blessing 
 of the sufferer. When the patient had his ordinary senses of sight 
 and hearing, they brought him sufficient information, and due per- 
 suasion to the belief or better, trust which was the condition of 
 Christ's healing. But when hearing or sight were lost, our Lord 
 made up for the deficiency by acting His persuasion, so that feeling 
 might do the work which hearing and sight could do in other cases. 
 In this direction lies an adequate explanation of our Lord's using 
 agencies in some cases and not in others. 
 
 The case connected with the above text is one of blindness ; and 
 the remedies are such as were usual for eye diseases at the time, but 
 they were associated with a requirement to wash at Siloam which 
 bore no known relation to eye disease, and at once suggested a special 
 Divine power. 
 
 Dr. Edersheim says : * If we ask ourselves why means were used in 
 this instance, we can only suggest that it was partly for the sake of 
 him who was to be healed, and partly for theirs who afterwards heard 
 of it. For the blind man seems to have been ignorant of the character 
 of his Healer, and it needed the use of some means to make him, so 
 to speak, receptive. On the other hand, not only the use of means, 
 but their inadequacy to the object, must have impressed all* 
 
 Farrar contents himself with the general remark, ' We have no 
 means of deciding in this, any more than in the parallel instances, 
 why our Lord, who sometimes healed by a word, preferred at other 
 times to adopt slow and more elaborate methods of giving effect to 
 His supernatural power. In this matter He never revealed the 
 principles of action which doubtless arose from His inner knowledge 
 of the circumstances, and from His insight into the hearts of those on 
 whom His cures were wrought.' 
 
 Geikie sees a connection between the employment of agencies in 
 this case, and a testimony which Jesus desired to make respecting 
 the Sabbath. He might have opened the eyes of the poor man by a 
 word, but a great lesson was to be taught His enemies. He wished 
 
522 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 to protest once more against the hypocritical strictness of the Rabbi- 
 nical observance of the Sabbath, which so entirely destroyed the true 
 significance of the holy day. He would show that it was in full 
 accordance with the office of Messiah, not only Himself to do what 
 the dominant party denounced as work on the Sabbath, but to 
 require it also from him whom He cured.' 
 
 Professor Watkins (in Ellicotfs Commentary] supports the explana- 
 tion which we suggest above : * Here it will be enough to observe 
 that in each case (of the use of means) the loss of a channel of com- 
 munication between the individual man and the outer world is com- 
 pensated by some special means which may help to assure him of the 
 presence of the true Healer, and may furnish a foundation for his 
 faith and hope. The deaf man cannot hear the tones of a voice that 
 tells of mercy and love, but the touch applied to the ear may in part 
 convey the same gracious truths. The blind man cannot see the 
 look of compassion which others can see ; but the saliva or the clay 
 applied to the eye, gives force to the word which is heard by the 
 ear. In every case we should remember that the means is chiefly 
 moral, preparing in the sufferer a mental condition which can receive 
 the gift of healing, and that the physical gift is itself regarded as a 
 stage in the spiritual education.' 
 
 Forty Days' Fasting. 
 
 MATTHEW iv. 2 : ' And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was 
 afterwards an hungered.' 
 
 Question. Was this merely an unusual case of Eastern absti- 
 nence, or must we recognise direct miraculous support given to our 
 Lord? 
 
 Answer. It is quite possible that the number forty is used in a 
 general way for a long time, and is not intended to indicate precisely 
 the length of the fasting time. Numbers, such as 'seven' and 'forty,' 
 appear to have been used in a special way by the Jews. The nar- 
 rative of the Temptation is satisfied by our understanding that the 
 fasting continued a long time, sufficient to involve great bodily ex- 
 haustion, which, in an ordinary case, would involve a weakness of 
 will to resist temptation. 
 
 We are not, however, anxious to press this point. Forty days' 
 fasting is almost, but not quite, a human impossibility; but it is 
 much more of an impossibility under the conditions of Western life, 
 food, and habits, than it is in the more restful and the simpler East 
 
FORTY DA KS' FASTING. 
 
 523 
 
 The Evangelists who record the fasting do not suggest anything 
 miraculous about it, nor do they indicate that it needs either explana- 
 tion or proof. It may, therefore, be understood that the fasting was 
 naturally sustained a highly strained, rapt, and ecstatic condition 
 of mind and feeling, making our Lord for so long a time indifferent 
 to food. It was a time of profound and absorbed meditation on His 
 mission, and all it involved ; and our Lord was, as we should say, 
 * carried away,'' so as to be wholly indifferent to material things. 
 
 It is significant that Matthew says nothing of special help to 
 endure the fasting, but tells of angels ministering to Him at the 
 close of the scene, and when both the fasting and the temptation 
 were over (ver. n). Probably the ministering of the angels was such 
 miraculous provision for His needs as was made for the wearied 
 and despondent Elijah, when he fled into the deserts of Beersheba. 
 
 On the number ' forty ' Farrar says : * The number occurs 
 again and again in Scripture, and always in connection with the 
 facts of temptation or retribution. It is clearly a sacred and repre- 
 sentative number, and independently of other associations, it was for 
 forty days that Moses had staid on Sinai, and Elijah in the wilderness. 
 In moments of intense excitement and overwheming thought, the 
 ordinary needs of the body seem to be modified, or even for a time 
 superseded.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre says that 'prolonged fasts of nearly the same 
 extent have been recorded in later times. The effect of such a fast 
 on any human organism, and therefore on our Lord's real humanity, 
 would be to interrupt the ordinary continuity of life, and quicken all 
 perceptions of the spiritual world into a new intensity.' 
 
 Ohhausen says that 'the number forty was certainly a sacred 
 number with the Jews ; but it does not follow thence that it is not to 
 be taken exactly ; but rather that the idea entertained by the Jews of 
 the sacredness of certain numbers has itself a deeper foundation, 
 which, taken as a general proposition, may be thus expressed: 
 "According to Divine arrangement, which is pure harmony, every 
 development proceeds by definite measure and number." The forty 
 days of the temptation form an interesting parallel with Israel's 
 forty years' journey through the wilderness. All the passages quoted 
 in the history of Christ's temptation are taken from the narrative of 
 that journey.' 
 
524 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Paul's Conversion. 
 
 ACTS ix. 3, 4 : ' And as he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew nigh unto 
 Damascus : and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven : and 
 he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why perse- 
 cutest thou Me ?' (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. There is a strange blending of outward phenon vna 
 and inward experiences in this narrative : and it is difficult to recognise 
 the limits of each. 
 
 Explanation. Many years ago we were much impressed by 
 Neander's account of this incident, and, with the qualifications 
 suggested in the passage we give from Dean Plumptre, it may be re- 
 garded as affording a very satisfactory account of an internal vision 
 and revelation which was introduced by external circumstances. 
 
 ' Paul had received many impressions which disturbed the repose 
 of his truth-loving soul ; he had heard the temperate counsels of his 
 revered instructor Gamaliel ; he had listened to the address of 
 Stephen, to whom he was allied by natural temperament, and had 
 witnessed his martyrdom. But he was still too deeply imbued with 
 the spirit of Pharisaism to surrender himself to those impressions, so 
 contrary to the prevailing bent of his mind. He forcibly repressed 
 them ; he rejected the thoughts that involuntarily rose in his mind in 
 favour of the new doctrine, as the suggestions of Satan, whom he re 
 garded as the sole contriver of this rebellion against the authority of the 
 ancient traditions, and accordingly set himself with so much the greater 
 ardour against the new sect Yet he could not succeed altogether in 
 suppressing these rising thoughts, and in silencing the voice of con- 
 science, which rebuked his fanaticism. A conflict arose in his soul. 
 While in this state, an outward impression was added, which brought 
 the internal process to maturity. Not far from Damascus he and his 
 followers were overtaken by a violent storm ; the lightning struck Paul, 
 and he fell senseless to the ground. He attributed this catastrophe 
 to the avenging power of the Messiah, whom in the person of his 
 disciples he was persecuting, and, confounding the objective and sub- 
 jective, converted this internal impression into an outward appearance 
 of Christ to him : blinded by the lightning, and stunned by the fall, 
 he came to Damascus/ (It should be understood that this is not 
 Neander's own view of the incident, but a possible view from the 
 purely natural standpoint) 
 
 Dean Plumptre' s note is as follows : It is not possible in such a 
 history to draw a hard and fast line between the objective and the 
 subjective. The man himself cannot say whether he is in the body, 
 
PAUL'S CONVERSION. 
 
 5*5 
 
 or out of the body (2 Cor. xii. 2, 3). It is enough for him that he 
 sees what others do not see, and hears what they do not hear, while 
 they too hear and see enough to prove both to themselves and to 
 him that something has occurred beyond the range of ordinary phe- 
 nomena. Nothing in the narrative suggests the thought of a sudden 
 thunderstorm, which has seemed to some wiiters a probable explana- 
 tion of the facts. In that case, the gathering gloom, the dark rolling 
 clouds, would have prepared the traveller for the lightning-flash. If 
 this hypothesis be at all entertained and as it does not necessarily 
 exclude the supernatural element, and presents analogies to the Divine 
 manifestations on Sinai (Exod. xix. 16) and Horeb (i Kings xix. n, 
 12) it may be entertained legitimately we must think of the storm, if 
 we take such a view, as coming with an almost instantaneous quick- 
 ness, the first flash and crash striking all with terror, while the full 
 revelation of the Christ was made to the consciousness and conscience 
 of the future Apostle.' 
 
 Conybeare and Howson remark on the external and internal features 
 of the narrative. * All fell to the ground in terror (xxvi. 14), or stood 
 dumb with amazement (ix. 7). Suddenly surrounded by a light so 
 terrible and incomprehensible, " they were afraid." " They heard not 
 the voice of Him that spake to Paul " (xxii. 9), or, if they heard a 
 voice, " they saw no man." (ix. 7). The whole scene was evidently 
 one of the utmost confusion : and the accounts are such as to express, 
 in the most striking manner, the bewilderment and alarm of the 
 travellers. But while the others were stunned, stupefied and confused, 
 a clear light broke in terribly on the soul of one of those who were 
 prostrated on the ground.' 
 
 The Withered Fig-Tree. 
 
 MARK xi. 20 : * And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig-tree 
 withered away from the roots.' 
 
 Question. Was this a sudden consummation of disease in tJie 
 tree^ or the direct result of our Lord's curse, without any previous evil in 
 tfo tree ? 
 
 Answer. We have elsewhere dealt with this incident in its 
 moral aspects, and need only refer here to the form which the 
 miraculous judgment of the tree took. It may be well, however, to 
 recall to mind that our Lord used the tree as a medium for 
 symbolical or picture teaching ; we may therefore seek to discover 
 the points which would make such picture-teaching more effective. 
 As He was illustrating the condition and doom of a hypocritical 
 
526 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 nation, it is more reasonable to assume that there was decay in the 
 tree, some deficiency of vitality which led to its bringing forth leaves 
 only. Then this may be treated as a time-miracle one in which the 
 natural process of judgment is simply hastened, that, so, conviction 
 of evil and Divine judgment of evil may be seen close together, and 
 due impressions produced by the sight. It was a corrupt tree. In 
 the ordinary course of things it would, after a time, have withered. 
 Its condition was found out by the all-searching One ; and its doom 
 was pronounced and executed as a solemn warning to our Lord's 
 disciples. On any other assumption than that of the rottenness of 
 the tree, there can be no point #1 treating it as an illustration of 
 Divine judgment on the hypocritical. Judgment on the innocent, 
 and healthy, and right-doing, Jesus could not have spoken. 
 
 Farrar states the case of the tree very clearly : The sap was 
 circulating, the leaves made a fair show ; but of fruit there was none. 
 Fit emblem of a hypocrite, whose external semblance is a delusion and 
 sham fit emblem of the nation in whom the ostentatious profession 
 of religion brought forth no " fruit of good living " the tree was 
 barren. And it was hopelessly barren ; for had it been fruitful the 
 previous year, there would still have been some of the kermouses (violet- 
 coloured autumn figs) hidden under those broad leaves ; and had it 
 been fruitful this year, the bakkooroth (first-ripe figs) would have set into 
 green and delicious fragrance before the leaves appeared ; but on this 
 fruitless tree there was neither any promise for the future, nor any 
 gleanings from the past. And therefore, since it was but deceptive 
 and useless, a barren cumberer of the ground, He made it the 
 eternal warning against a life of hypocrisy continued until it is too 
 late, and, in the hearing of His disciples, uttered upon it the solemn 
 fiat, " Never fruit grow upon thee more !" Even at the word, such 
 infructuous life as it possessed was arrested, and it began to wither.' 
 
 Edersheim's note is suggestive : ' It was evidently a barren fig-tree, 
 cumbering the ground, and to be hewn down. Our mind almost 
 instinctively reverts to the Parable of the Barren Fig-tree, which he 
 had so lately spoken (Luke xiii, 6-9). To Him who but yesterday 
 had wept over the Jerusalem that knew not the day of its visitation, 
 and over which the sharp axe of judgment was already lifted, this 
 fig-tree, with its luxuriant mantle of leaves, must have recalled, with 
 pictorial vividness, the scene of the previous day. Israel was that 
 barren fig-tree ; and the leaves only covered their nakedness, as erst 
 they had that of our first parents after their fall. And the judgment, 
 symbolically spoken in the parable, must be symbolically executed in 
 this leafy fig-tree, barren when searched for fruit by the Master.' 
 
THE TRANSFIGURATION. - 527 
 
 The Transfiguration. 
 
 MATTHEW xvii. 2 : ' And He was transfigured before them : and His face did 
 shine as the sun, and His garments became white as the light.' 
 
 Question. Is this incident to be classed among ' visions? or are we 
 to understand that some miraculous change was wrought on Christ, and 
 some supernatural conditions were arranged for Him 1 
 
 Answer. The view taken of the scene of the Transfiguration 
 directly depends on the view taken of the person of the Lord Jesus. 
 If He was the Son of God, ' God manifest in the flesh,' it can in 
 no way surprise us that, on occasion, He should have direct access 
 to the spiritual, the heavenly world. There are two other scenes in 
 our Lord's life with which the Transfiguration should be compared. 
 The one is the descent of the Holy Ghost on Him, under the symbol 
 of a brooding dove, after His baptism. The other is the sound as 
 of thunder, and the responding voice of the Father, saying of His 
 Father-name, *I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.' 
 And it should be noticed that the first direct manifestation of God to 
 Christ at His baptism occurred as the beginning of His active 
 mission as a teacher. The second at the Transfiguration 
 occurred as a starting of Christ on the suffering side of His mission. 
 And the third the thunder-voice as a precise assurance and en- 
 couragment when our Lord was entering upon His Passion. 
 
 It is significant that each case of special manifestation bore direct 
 relation to the mental condition of our Lord Himself. We dwell so 
 constantly on the vicarious character of our Lord's whole life, and 
 words, and works, that perhaps we do not sufficiently sympathize with 
 Him, or realize what support He needed spiritual support in 
 carrying out His life-mission. Only when we can appreciate the 
 limitations of the human condition, to which the Divine Christ 
 voluntarily submitted Himself, can we understand what spiritual 
 helps He needed. If St. Paul needed the support of occasional 
 visions in His arduous life, how much more were such direct Divine 
 communications needed by the Son of God, while pressed into the 
 limitations and humiliations of a human life. 
 
 Neander has the following fine and suggestive note : ' It termed 
 part of the trial and self-denial Ot Christ through His whole life, that, 
 together with the consciousness that He was the Son of God, He 
 combined the weakness and dependence of humanity. These 
 affected the lesser powers ot His soul, although they could never 
 
528 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES, 
 
 move His unchangingly holy will, and turn Him to any selfish 
 strivings.' 
 
 We should call the Transfiguration a vision if it was a scene 
 related to a human being. In the case of our Lord it is more than a 
 vision, it is other than a vision. It is the temporary freedom of the 
 Son of God from His body limitations : a temporary resumption of 
 heavenly conditions in a heavenly sphere : a freedom from the human 
 for the sake of a time of Divine and spiritual communion. We think 
 it an incomprehensible scene, save for those who can see God in 
 Man, in the Man Christ Jesus. The attendant disciples gained no 
 more than a general impression of a surpassing glory. The scene was 
 real only to Christ, and bore direct relation to His own spiritual 
 necessities. It lay in that region of the supernatural which was the 
 proper, the eternal, sphere of the Son of God. To Him it was not 
 vision, because to Him the spiritual was the real. To the watching 
 disciples all was vision, because spiritual things and spiritual persons 
 must get sensible appearances to adapt them to the apprehension of 
 mortal senses. Rightly understood, the Transfiguration sheds the 
 clearest light on the Divine nature of Christ. 
 
 Rapture, in prolonged times of prayer, is the human experi- 
 ence which alone can be suggested as bearing any likeness to this 
 Transfiguration of Christ ; and we can but feel how far short the 
 most ecstatic human raptures must ever come. The experience of 
 our Lord is unique. It stands alone because He stands alone. ' The 
 Transfiguration, with its attendant glorified Ministry and Voice from 
 heaven, was God's answer to Christ's prayer.' * If Jesus was the very 
 Christ of God, then this event can scarcely be described as miracu- 
 lous at least in such a history. If we would not expect it, it is 
 certainly that which might have been expected.' Edersheim. 
 
 Miracles that seem to be Mere Wonders. 
 
 MARK vi. 48-50 : ' And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was 
 contrary to them, about the fourth watch of the night He cometh unto them, 
 walking on the sea : and He would have passed by them : but they, when they 
 saw Him walking on the sea, supposed that it was an apparition, and cried out ; 
 for they all saw Him, and were troubled ' (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Difliculty. Our Lord is supposed to have only wrought miracles 
 in service to others, and as a part of His mission ; but it is not easy to 
 see at y benefit bestowed, or any trouble removed, by this walking on the 
 sea. 
 
 Explanation. Trench tells us that the name 'wonders' is 
 never applied to the miracles except in connection with some other 
 
MIRACLES THAT SEEM TO BE MERE WONDERS. 529 
 
 name. They are continually * signs and wonders ;' or ' signs ' alone ; 
 or * powers ' alone ; but never ' wonders ' alone. Miracles are 
 always signs and pledges of something more than and beyond them- 
 selves. 
 
 It is true that it was, from the first, an absolute law with Christ, 
 that He might not, and He would not, use the miraculous powers 
 with which He was entrusted for His own private purposes, His own 
 defence, or His own supply. And yet exactly this He appears on 
 several occasions to have done. He stilled the waves that involved 
 His own peril. He sought in a miraculous way the money needed 
 to pay the Temple tax. He ' walked the waves in wondrous guise.' 
 He cursed the fig-tree that deceived Him. In each case, no physical 
 good to others answered to the putting forth of His power. But, in 
 each case, moral good did ; educational good for the disciples, and 
 for us through them. And if we rightly estimated the relative values 
 of the physical and the moral, we should think those miracles, that 
 look at first like mere wonder-working, were more strictly within His 
 rule than the others. They were even more truly done * not unto 
 self.' 
 
 In the case of walking on the sea, the immediate connection of the 
 miracle with the consequences of the miracle of feeding the thousands 
 must be noticed. The people, excited by that display of Divine 
 power, were about by force to " make Him a King," and the Apostles 
 were disposed to favour the idea of the people. It was a moment for 
 prompt and decisive action. So our Lord dismissed the people, sent 
 away the disciples, and retired into the mountain. 
 
 But it was most important to correct the carnal notions of Him 
 which the disciples evidently cherished, and to make them feel that 
 He was a spiritual Lord and King. And His walking on the water 
 was His gracious effort to awaken thought about Himself in their 
 minds, and to lead them to worthier apprehensions of His mystery. 
 The act had in view the spiritual training of those disciples. ' This 
 manifestation of Christ's hidden glory was designed to build up His 
 disciples in the faith. They saw more and more clearly with whom 
 they had to do, and perceived that He was the revelation of the 
 invisible Father, who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth 
 upon the waves of the sea/ 
 
 34 
 
530 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Opened Graves at the Crucifixion. 
 
 MATTHEW xxvii. 52, 53 : 'And the tombs were opened ; and many bodies of 
 the saints that had fallen asleep were raised ; and coming forth out of the tombs 
 after His resurrection they entered into the holy city, and appeared unto many ' 
 (Rev. Ver.}. 
 
 Difficulty. The statements here made are so singular, so vague, 
 and so unsupported, that we seem to be reading a legend of the time 
 rather than historical fact. 
 
 Explanation. The passage is preserved in the Revised Version, 
 so we may assume that there is sufficient justification of it in the 
 original manuscripts ; but it stands alone ; Mark and Luke limit 
 themselves to recording the rending of the vail, John refers to none 
 of the portents. 
 
 The passage has always been a serious stumbling-block, and, with a 
 sort of tacit consent, Christian people pass it over, as a strange record 
 that, in some unknown way, has gained a place in the text. No 
 names are given of those who appeared, or of those to whom they 
 appeared. What saints can be meant it is impossible for us to guess. 
 The bodies are said to be raised, but it does not appear whether this 
 is equivalent to saying that the dead were restored to life. These 
 raised bodies are said to have * appeared,' which is a term suitable 
 for a temporary vision, rather than for an actually restored fellowship. 
 We never hear afterwards anything concerning these raised bodies. 
 And, strangest of all, the bodies were raised on the evening of the 
 crucifixion, and they only appeared to people in the holy city after 
 the resurrection. 
 
 The complications are so great that it is quite impossible for us to 
 receive these verses as a part of Matthew's Gospel ; and it is better 
 to say at once that they are so completely out of harmony with the 
 Gospel, that they must be an interpolation : they suit such books of 
 mere wonders as the Apocryphal gospels, they have no proper 
 place in the genuine Gospels, which contain no records of unnecessary 
 and useless miracles. Man invents such stories as this ; those which 
 God inspires have never the characteristic features of this. 
 
 It is singular to find Christian writers slipping over these verses, 
 leaving them, as if explanation of them were hopeless. Neander, Dr. 
 Geikie, and the writer in the Cambridge Bible for Schools give no 
 notes. The Speakers Commentary does not attempt to relieve the 
 difficulties. Alford accepts the passage as genuine, and finds suffi- 
 cient justification for it in the symbolical teaching it contains. Those 
 
OPENED GRAVES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 531 
 
 -who think the original Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew, 
 give the Greek editor the credit of having added these verses. Some 
 of the ancient fathers understood the Holy City to mean the 
 ' heavenly Jerusalem,' which shows plainly how the difficulties of the 
 passage have always perplexed Christian hearts. 
 
 Farrar says : ' An earthquake shook the earth and split the rocks, 
 and as it rolled away from their places the great stones which closed 
 and covered the cavern sepulchres of the Jews, so it seemed to the 
 imaginations of many to have disimprisoned the spirits of the dead, 
 and to have filled the air with ghostly visitants, who after Christ had 
 risen appeared to linger in the Holy City. Only in some such way 
 as this can I account for the singular and wholly isolated allusion of 
 Matthew.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre looks at the narrative in the light of his views 
 respecting our Lord's descent into Hades, but no one more skilfully 
 presents the difficulties of the passage, or more considerately suggests 
 the views which reverent Bible readers may take, in the hope of 
 relieving the difficulties. He says : * It is scarcely, perhaps, surprising 
 that a narrative so exceptional in its marvellousness, and standing, as 
 it does, without any collateral testimony in any other part of the 
 New Testament, should have presented to many minds difficulties 
 which have seemed almost insuperable. They have, accordingly, 
 either viewed it as a mythical addition, or, where they shrank from 
 that extreme conclusion, have explained it as meaning simply that 
 the bodies of the dead were exposed to view by the earthquake men- 
 tioned in the preceding verse, or have seen in it only the honest 
 report of an over-excited imagination.' 
 
 In view of all that can be urged in favour of, and helpful to, an ex- 
 planation of the passage, we deeply feel that it is everyway wiser, safer, 
 and more honouring to God's Word, to think that it is a stranger, and 
 has no business there. It is somebody's later addition which has 
 crept into the text. Matthew Henry ends his notes on the passage 
 with this striking sentence : * The relating of this matter so briefly is 
 a plain intimation to us that we must not look that way for \ 
 confirmation of our faith ; we have a more sure word of prophecy. 1 
 
532 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Healings by Handkerchiefs and Aprons. 
 
 ACTS xix. II, 12 ; 'And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul : 
 insomuch that unto the sick were carried away from his body handkei chiefs or 
 aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out ' 
 (Rev. Ver.). 
 
 Difficulty. If we accept the fact of such miracles as wrought by 
 Paul, it would seem only reasonable to accept the record of miracles by 
 similar agencies in later and medieval times. 
 
 Explanation. It is probably necessary for us very carefully to 
 distinguish between the putting forth of the Apostle's power to heal, 
 and the sentiments entertained about that power by a very excitable 
 people. An amount of public enthusiasm and excitement was raised 
 by Paul's use of his gifts, and men were carried away to imagine a 
 good deal that did not happen by Paul's direct agency. 
 
 Thomson, in the Land and Book, helps us to understand the form 
 which such excitements usually take in the East : * The external 
 instruments connected with working miracles had, in ancient times, 
 transferred to them, in imagination, a portion of the sanctity and 
 reverence due to him who used them, or to that Divine power which 
 was transmitted through them. This applied not only to the staves * 
 robes, and mantles of prophets while living, but to the same things, 
 to their bones also, and even to their very gravestones, when dead. 
 The same thing exists to this day, and even in an exaggerated form. 
 It is now very common to bind on, or wrap round the sick, some 
 part of the robes of reputed saints, in the belief that healing virtue 
 will be communicated from it. The same faith, or rather feeling, led 
 the people to bring out their sick into the streets, that even the shadovr 
 of Peter might overshadow some of them ' (Acts v. 15). 
 
 Probably the reason for allowing such a great and unusual effusion. 
 of the healing power in this case of Paul's, is to be found in the 
 necessity for providing some counterpoise to the magical and 
 theurgic practices to which the Ephesians were devoted ; the true 
 must be set in forcible contrast with the false, even in the lines of 
 action which were commonly taken by the false. 
 
 Nothing wiser on this subject can be found than the following note 
 by Dean Plumptre : * The picture suggested is that of devout persons 
 coming to the Apostle as he laboured at his craft, and carrying away 
 with them the very handkerchiefs and aprons that he had used, as. 
 precious relics, that conveyed the supernatural gift of healing which 
 
 he exercised The two conditions of the supernatural work 
 
 of healing were a Divine Power on the one hand, and Faith on the 
 
HEALINGS BY HANDKERCHIEFS AND APRONS 533 
 
 other, and any external medium might serve to strengthen the latter 
 and bring it into contact with the former. Cures, more or less 
 analogous, ascribed to the relics of saints admit, in some measure, of 
 a like explanation. Without pretending to draw a sharp line of 
 demarcation between the natural and supernatural, it is clear that a 
 strong belief in the possibility of a healing work as likely or certain to 
 be accompanied by any special agents, does much to stimulate the 
 activity of the vis medicatrix natura which before was passive and 
 inert It is not unreasonable to see in the works of healing so 
 wrought a special adaptation to the antecedent habits of mind of a 
 population like that of Ephesus. It was something for them to learn 
 that the prayer of faith and the handkerchief that had touched the 
 Apostle's skin had a greater power to heal than the charms in which 
 they had previously trusted.' 
 
 Conybeare and Howson say: 'We are not to suppose that the 
 Apostles were always able to work miracles at will. An influx of 
 supernatural power was given to them at the time and according to 
 the circumstances that required it. And the character of the miracles 
 was not always the same. They were accommodated to the peculiar 
 forms of sin, superstition, and ignorance they were required to 
 oppose. Here at Ephesus St. Paul was in the face of magicians, like 
 Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh ; and it is distinctly said that his 
 miracles were " not ordinary wonders " ; from which we may infer 
 that they were different from those which he usually performed.' 
 
 Our Lord's Resurrection Body. 
 
 LUKE xxiv. 31 : 'And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him ; and He 
 vanished out of their sight ' (Marg.: ' ceased to be seen of them '). 
 
 Question. Can our Lord's body after the resurrection be the same 
 as He had before His death; for it was evidently not subject to ordinary 
 conditions and limitations ? 
 
 Answer. At first our attention may be absorbed with the 
 evidences of identity between the human body and the resurrection 
 body of Christ. Much is made of our Lord's appeal to Thomas to 
 test the reality of His bodily presence by touching the body-marks of 
 nails and spear. And yet the more the narrative of the forty days in 
 the resurrection body is meditated on, the more impressively we are 
 convinced that our Lord's body was other than it had been. He 
 came forth from the tomb, leaving His grave-clothes behind, and yet 
 Mary saw Him in the garden clothed. He forbade Mary to touch 
 Him, on the ground that He was in a state just ready for His ascen- 
 sion, and fitted for the heavenly rather than the earthly spheres. He 
 
534 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 came in when doors were shut. He vanished out of sight. Nobody 
 ever knew where He dwelt. He went to Galilee, but no one accom- 
 panied Him. The recognition of His disciples was on no occasion im- 
 mediate. At last, He simply went up out of sight without any further 
 change. We are now getting to understand better that our Lord's 
 resurrection was no mere resumption of life such as Lazarus ex- 
 perienced. Our Lord rose, as the dead are to rise at last, to a 
 spiritual body, made sensible to human apprehension for a time, but 
 really fitted for spiritual and eternal spheres. There was a natural 
 body, and there was a spiritual body ; and they were the same body. 
 The one thing which the resurrection is to persuade us of is the 
 continued life of Christ. It is in no way necessary to such a per- 
 suasion that our Lord should resume all the conditions of His old 
 bodily life. He lives. Death, the mightiest energy of sin, could not, 
 did not, hold Him. 
 
 Pressense states this distinction : ' The glorification of Jesus com- 
 menced from the day when He rose from the grave. His body was 
 no phantom, it retained its reality, since it could be handled and 
 felt, could eat and drink ; but it was, nevertheless, invested with new 
 properties, which distinguished it from its former condition. Jesus 
 was not at once recognised by His disciples ; He seemed able to 
 transport Himself with strange rapidity from place to place. In the 
 Ascension He resumed all the glory which belonged to Him, and 
 in that glory those Divine attributes, by virtue of which He governs 
 His Church, and gives Himself, by His Spirit, to be the life of each 
 believing soul.' 
 
 Stalker says : * Christ rose from the dead in a transfigured body.' 
 Farrar says : ' There was something spiritual, something not of 
 earth, in that risen and glorified body.' 
 
 Ewald says : The disciples ' saw Him, not as a common man, or 
 as a shade or ghost risen from the grave ; but as the one only Son of 
 God already more than man at once in nature and power; and that 
 all who thus beheld Him, recognised at once and instinctively His 
 unique Divine dignity, and firmly believed in it thenceforth. . . . . 
 That former familiar appearance of the earthly Christ, and this higher 
 vision of Him, with its depth of emotion and ecstatic joy, were so 
 mter-related that even in the first days or weeks after His death, they 
 could never have seen in Him the Heavenly Messiah, if they had not 
 first known Him so well as the earthly.' 
 
 Edersheim says : ' The Christ must have Dome in His glorified 
 body all that He was, all that even His most intimate disciples had 
 not known nor understood while He was with them.' 
 
THE MAGI AN STAR. 535 
 
 The Magian Star. 
 
 MATTHEW ii. 9 : And lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before 
 them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.' 
 
 Question. Will any astronomical phenomenon sufficiently explain 
 the appearance of this star, or must it be regarded as a miraculous 
 direction of the Magi? 
 
 Answer. It would be quite in harmony with the Divine method, 
 if we assume, that the thoughts of the wise men were divinely guided, 
 in the line of their usual observations and studies. It is quite 
 possible that they observed either a new star, or a singular con- 
 junction of stars, in a quarter of the heavens which indicated the 
 birth of a Treat sovereign somewhere in the countries westward. But 
 it is impossible for us to go beyond suggestions and conjectures as to 
 the appearances which they observed. We need not assert a miracle 
 until all reasonable natural explanations have been patiently con- 
 sidered and judiciously estimated. 
 
 Pressense deals with the incident wisely and yet liberally: * The 
 sidereal appearance which led to the journey of the Magi was nc 
 miracle, else it would have aroused a universal astonishment, ot 
 which some trace would have been preserved by the historians of the 
 time. Persian savans have confirmed it by their observations. 
 There is, therefore, no reason for supposing the phenomenon to be 
 other than the conjunction which, according to Kepler, took place 
 about this period. The Magi bent their steps toward Judaea, pro- 
 bably from a previous acquaintance with Jewish prophecies, or from 
 a distant echo which had reached them, to the effect that Messiah 
 was to be born in that country. Arrived at Jerusalem, they are com- 
 pelled to inquire where is the town in which he is expected. The 
 reappearance of the star over Bethlehem confirms the exact indica- 
 tions given them. Now, a star could not stand over a house ; its 
 shining could not be thus concentrated on one point. But it is quite 
 possible that, after being for a time hidden, it might reappear at the 
 very moment in which a fixed spot is reached. The Gospel narra- 
 tive uses popular language, as when it speaks of the rising and 
 setting of the sun, and makes no pretence to scientific exactness in 
 the description of natural appearances. Thus the Magi were led 
 into Judaea primarily by their holy aspirations.' 
 
 Neander says : 'It is not necessary to suppose that an actual 
 miracle was wrought in this case ; the course of natural events under 
 Divine guidance was made to lead to Christ, just as the general 
 
536 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 moral culture of the heathen, though under natural forms, was made 
 to lead to the knowledge of the Saviour.' 
 
 Probably the best information at command on this subject is that 
 given by Dr. Edersheim, in his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. 
 It is necessary to give his passage almost in full : 
 
 * There is one illustrative Jewish statement which, though not astro- 
 logical, is of the greatest importance, although it seems to have been 
 hitherto overlooked. Since the appearance of Munters well-known 
 tractate on the Star of the Magi, writers have endeavoured to show 
 that Jewish expectancy of a Messiah was connected with a peculiar 
 sidereal conjunction, such as that which occurred two years before the 
 birth of our Lord, and this on the ground of a quotation from the 
 well-known Jewish commentator Abarbanel (or rather Abrabanel). 
 In his commentary on Daniel, that Rabbi laid it down, that the con- 
 junction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces betokened 
 not only the most important events, but referred especially to Israel 
 (for which he gives five mystic reasons). He further argues that, as 
 that conjunction had taken place three years before the birth of 
 Moses, which heralded the first deliverance of Israel, so it would also 
 precede the birth of the Messiah, and the final deliverance of Israel. 
 But the argument fails, not only because Abarbanel's calculations are 
 inconclusive and even erroneous, but because it is manifestly unfair to 
 infer the state of Jewish belief at the time of Christ from a haphazard 
 astrological conceit of a Rabbi of the fifteenth century. There is, 
 however, testimony which seems to us not only reliable, but em- 
 bodies most ancient Jewish tradition. It is contained in one of the 
 smaller Midrashim, of which a collection has lately been published. 
 On account of its importance, one quotation at least from it should 
 be made in full. The so-called Messiah-Haggadah (Aggadoth 
 Meshiach) opens as follows ; " A star shall come out of Jacob. There 
 is a Boraita in the name of the Rabbis : The heptad in which the Son 
 of David cometh in the first year, there will not be sufficient 
 nourishment ; in the second year the arrows of famine are launched ; 
 in the third, a great famine; in the fourth, neither famine nor 
 plenty; in the fifth, great abundance, and the star shall shine forth 
 from the east, and this is the star of the Messiah. And it will shine 
 from the east for fifteen days, and if it be prolonged, it will be for 
 the good of Israel ; in the sixth, sayings (voices) and announcements 
 (hearings) ; in the seventh, wails, and at the close of the seventh the 
 Messiah is to be expected." A similar statement occurs at the close 
 of a collection of three Midrashim respectively entitled, The Book 
 of Elijah, Chapters about the Messiah, and The Mysteries of R. 
 
THE MAGIAN STAR. 537 
 
 Simon, the son ofjochai where we read that a star in the east was to 
 appear two years before the birth of the Messiah. The statement is 
 almost equally remarkable, whether it represents a tradition previous 
 to the birth of Jesus, or originated after that event. But two years 
 before the birth of Christ, which, as we have calculated, took place 
 in December, 749 A.U.C., or five before the Christian era, brings us 
 to the year 747 A.U.C., or seven before Christ, in which such a star 
 should appear in the east. Did such a star, then, really appear in 
 the east seven years before the Christian era? Astronomically 
 speaking, and without any reference to controversy, there can be no 
 doubt that the most remarkable conjunction of planets that of 
 Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces, which occurs only 
 once in 800 years did take place no less than three times in the 
 year 747 A.U.C., or two years before the birth of Christ (in May, 
 October, and December). This conjunction is admitted by all 
 astronomers. It was not only extraordinary, but presented the most 
 brilliant spectacle in the night sky, such as could not but attract the 
 attention of all who watched the sidereal heavens, but especially of 
 those who busied themselves with astrology. In the year following, 
 that is, in 748 A.U.C., another planet, Mars, joined this conjunction. 
 The merit of first discovering these facts of which it is unnecessary 
 here to present the literary history belongs to the great Kepler, who, 
 accordingly, placed the nativity of Christ in the year 748 A.U.C. 
 This date, however, is not only well-nigh impossible, but it has also 
 been shown that such a conjunction would, for various reasons, not 
 answer the requirements of the Evangelical narrative, so far as the 
 guidance to Bethlehem is concerned. But it does fully account for 
 the attention of the Magi being aroused, and even if they had not 
 possessed knowledge of the Jewish expectancy above described for 
 their making inquiry of all around, and certainly, among others, of 
 the Jews. Here we leave the domain of the certain, and enter upon 
 that of the probable. Kepler, who was led to the discovery by 
 observing a similar conjunction in 1603-4, also noticed, that when 
 the three planets came into conjunction, a new, extraordinarily 
 brilliant, and peculiarly coloured evanescent star was visible between 
 Jupiter and Saturn, and he suggested that a similar star had appeared 
 under the same circumstances in the conjunction preceding the 
 Nativity. Of this, of course, there is not, and cannot be, absolute 
 certainty. But, if so, this would be " the star " of the Magi " in its 
 rising." There is yet another remarkable statement which, however, 
 must also be assigned only to the domain of the probable. In the 
 astronomical tables of the Chinese to whose general trustworthiness 
 
53 8 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES, 
 
 so high an authority as Humboldt bears testimony the appearance 
 of an evanescent star was noted. Pingre and others have designated 
 it as a comet, and calculated its first appearance in February, 
 750 A.U.C., which is just the time when the Magi would, in all pro- 
 bability, leave Jerusalem for Bethlehem, since this must have pre- 
 ceded the death of Herod, which took place in March, 750. 
 Moreover, it has been astronomically ascertained that such a sidereal 
 apparition would be visible to those who left Jerusalem, and that it 
 would point almost seem to go before in the direction of, and 
 stand over, Bethlehem.' 
 
 Such, impartially stated, are the facts of the case ; and here the 
 subject must, in the present state of our information, be left. 
 
 Miraculous Release of Apostles. 
 
 ACTS v. 19 : ' But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and 
 brought them forth.' (See also chap. xii. 6-n.) 
 
 Difficulty. Such a temporary deliverance seems an ineffective dis- 
 play of power > for the apostles were arrested again the next day. 
 
 Explanation- The thing to decide in this case is the moral 
 impression which such a deliverance would produce, both on the 
 disciples, and on the enemies of our Lord. That moral impression 
 alone can account for what is certainly a supernatural event. The 
 mere rescue of the disciples was quite a secondary matter ; but it 
 was of the first importance that the company of disciples should feel 
 that a Divine shield was around them, and it was of equal importance 
 that their enemies should be made to fear to touch them, seeing 
 that the Lord was evidently with them. 
 
 Comparing the two cases, we gather that the statement concerning 
 the angel opening the prison doors is the explanation which the 
 delivered give of their deliverance. It is the only way in which they can 
 account for what happened ; but it is not said that they saw any 
 angel. A Jew thought of all unusual circumstances, or deliverances, 
 as the work of an angel. More especially in the case of Peter we 
 can see that he was in a trance, or somnambulic state, for it is said 
 that when he reached a certain street, ' he came to himself.' It is 
 well known that the somnambulist can do the most extraordinary 
 things in his unconsciousness ; and, in accordance with the principle 
 which we have accepted in treating of all the miraculous interposi- 
 tions, we may recognise the somnambulic state as the agency which 
 God was pleased to use on these occasions in extraordinary 
 measures. 
 
MIRACULOUS RELEASE OF APOSTLES. 539 
 
 Dean Plumptre, noticing that Peter must himself have furnished 
 this account of his experiences, adds : * As in the activity of somnam- 
 bulism, the will directed the actions of the body, and yet was only 
 half conscious of what it did. It may be noted that his experience 
 of the trance and vision narrated in chap. x. would tend to suggest 
 the impression that he was passing through phenomena of a like 
 kind.' 
 
 Olshausen deals fully with these incidents, in view of the naturalistic 
 explanations that have been offered. ' The account which follows of 
 the deliverance of Peter from imprisonment, illustrates the shorter 
 account of a similar occurrence which is communicated at chap. v. 17, 
 etc. ; and it also readily admits of being compared with the wonderful 
 deliverance of Paul and Silas from imprisonment at Philippi, recorded 
 in chap. xi. 26, etc. An impartial comparison of these narratives 
 may perhaps leave it uncertain for a moment, whether real visible 
 appearances of angels are meant in them ; and this again accounts 
 for the fact, that we find the more recent interpreters adopting very 
 different views of these occurrences. According to Hazel, it was a 
 thunderstorm combined with an earthquake which delivered Peter, 
 and this natural phenomenon was described by him, after the Jewish 
 manner of speaking, as an angel. According to Eichhorn, who is 
 followed by Heinrichs, Peter was delivered by Christian friends, or 
 by the keeper of the prison himself, but he did not well know himself 
 to whom he owed his deliverance, and therefore supposed he must 
 ascribe it to a Divine messenger. Kuinoel expresses himself unde- 
 cidedly; while all the older interpreters understood the angelic 
 appearance in the literal sense. Now with respect to the first view, 
 it is undeniable that natural phenomena of a certain kind are styled 
 angels ; and there can be no doubt that in chap. xvi. 26, etc., it is 
 an earthquake only that must be thought of, for even the text refers 
 to nothing else ; but the representation made in the passage before 
 us does not permit this supposition, because the seventh and eighth 
 verses (chap, xii.) describe the angel as acting quite like a person : 
 the like description is never found where natural powers are styled 
 angels. Far more plausible is the other view, which supposes Peter 
 himself not to have known how his deliverance was effected. This 
 idea appears to be favoured by the words in verse 9 : " And wist not 
 that it was true which was done by the angel," taken in connection 
 with verse n, according to which latter passage Peter first comes to 
 himself in the street, and appears now to conclude that an angel must 
 have delivered him. But these words cannot establish that view, 
 because, in the first place, it was contrary to the principles of the 
 
540 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 Christians to deliver either themselves or others from such dangers 
 by fraudulent artifices. But certainly on this view it must be supposed 
 that either the jailor or the soldiers were bribed by Peter's deliverer ; 
 and should it be said that the jailor himself might be favourably 
 disposed toward the apostles, yet not the less would he have violated 
 his duty, if he had let the prisoners escape. Again, this view gives 
 no explanation of the unconscious condition of Peter : amid so many 
 occurrences and incidents, he could not fail to overcome the oppres- 
 sion of sleep, and to recognise the friend that was helping him. In 
 fine, the fact that the soldiers did not awake, as is plain from verse 
 1 8, till the morning, but little accords with this view. The only 
 matter, therefore, which can properly be made a question here, is 
 whether we are to suppose a real appearance of an angel or only a 
 vision. Now certainly the occurrence did bear some resemblance to 
 an ecstatic vision, for Peter himself took this view of it for a time 
 (ver. 9), but the reality of the effects which were connected with it 
 does not permit the supposition of a mere vision, and it was on this 
 very ground that Peter himself came to the conclusion that he had been 
 favoured with an actual visit from an angel. A mere mental vision 
 is never accompanied with physical effects. That he might be 
 uncertain, however, for a moment, whether it was a vision he saw or 
 a real angelic appearance, is to be explained from the fact, that every 
 manifestation from the higher order of existences is attended with a 
 powerful excitement in the soul, which produces a state of mind akin 
 to ecstasy. And this may easily render it uncertain whether the 
 whole be something purely internal, or whether there be also some- 
 thing outward : the grand criterion in favour of the latter is the 
 appearance of real visible results.' 
 
 Philip Caught Away. 
 
 ACTS viii. 39 : * And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of 
 the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more : and he went on 
 his way rejoicing.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand that Philip was suddenly taken 
 up) or away, out of the sight of the eunuch, or is the narrative sufficiently 
 explained by assuming that Philip hurried away ? 
 
 Answer. The last incident of this interview receives at least 
 partial explanation from two previous incidents. From verse 26 
 we learn, that a special direction was given to Philip as to the 
 route he should take. The direction is said to have been given by 
 * an angel,' but we are not told whether any outward form appeared 
 
PHILIP CA UGHT AWAY. 54 1 
 
 to him, or whether the angel's suggestion came as an inward impulse. 
 If we can realize that God presides over the will, the judgment, and 
 the decision, according to the promise, * The meek will He guide in 
 judgment, and the meek will He teach His way,' it will not be 
 difficult to understand that Philip recognised Divine guidance in a 
 very strong inward impulse to do what seemed a somewhat un- 
 reasonable, or at least useless, thing. When the eunuch's chariot 
 came in sight, we are told that * the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, 
 and join thyself to this chariot ' (ver. 29). In this case an inward 
 impulsion, that seemed like the hearing of an actual voice, is clearly 
 meant. We have, therefore, three descriptions of similar incidents, 
 and one description helping another ; we gather that in each case an 
 intense inward desire, a feeling that he must do such and such a 
 thing, explains the action of this evangelist. ' An impulse so strong 
 and irresistible that it was felt to be from the Spirit of the Lord led 
 Philip to an abrupt and immediate departure. He was literally 
 snatched away from his companion.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre thinks there may have been a * suspension of the 
 normal activity of consciousness/ and adds : * As St. Bernard walked 
 by the Lake of Geneva, and knew not that he was near it, so Philip 
 rushed away, as drawn on he knew not whither, as in a state of 
 ecstacy ; and so, in informing St. Luke of what passed (it is obvious 
 that the report must, in the first instance, have come from him), could 
 give no other account of his journeying than that he was " found " at 
 Azotus.' 
 
 Noticing that in verse 26 an ' angel ' is mentioned, and in verse 
 .-9 the * Spirit,' Olshausen observes that 'by angels we are by no 
 means always to understand beings appearing as individuals, but often 
 spiritual powers. Even in verse 26, we are not to suppose the actual 
 appearance o.f an angel, but an inward spiritual communication which 
 
 was made to Philip He goes not his own way, but the im 
 
 pulses of the Spirit guide all his steps.' 
 
 Barnes is almost fierce on those who see the miraculous in this 
 incident The phrase caught away ' has been usually understood 
 of a forcible or miraculous removal of Philip to some other place. 
 Some have even supposed that he was borne through the air by an 
 angel. (See even Doddridge.) To such foolish interpretations have 
 many expositors been led The meaning is, clearly, that the Spirit, 
 who had directed Philip to go near the eunuch, now removed him in 
 a similar manner. It is not wise to suppose the existence of a 
 miracle, except where the effect cannot otherwise be accounted for, 
 and except where there is a plain statement that there was a 
 
542 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 miracle. All that can be signified here is, that the Spirit strongly 
 admonished Philip to go to some other place ; that He so forcibly or 
 vividly suggested the duty to his mind, as to tear him away, as it were, 
 from the society of the eunuch. 
 
 Miracles of Supply. 
 
 JOHN ii. 1 1 : ' This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and 
 manifested forth His glory.' 
 
 Difficulty. There must surely have been some deep moral purpose 
 which explains a miracle and a class of miracles that seems too 
 trivial for a putting forth of miraculous powers. 
 
 Explanation. All the miracles of supply can have the objection 
 brought against them, that they are very temporary removals of very 
 insignificant disabilities. Our answer to the objection is, that a slight 
 and simple incident may be a very effective picture-teaching; and 
 that for man's welfare it is necessary to present great truths in small 
 settings. It was a little thing to supply the wine deficiencies at a 
 marriage-feast, but it was a great thing for Christ to manifest forth 
 His glorj>. 
 
 In an introductory note to this- section, we have given Dr. George 
 Macdonald's suggestion for the reading of our Lord's miracles. It 
 will interest our readers to see, in some detail, his mode of applying 
 this suggestion to the miracles of supply. But it may be well first 
 to notice that Dr. Macdonald's idea is but a revival of the older view 
 of the miracles. Dean Howson remarks: * It will suffice here to 
 quote what was said, hundreds of years ago, by two great Christian 
 writers ; and it is surprising to see how Augustine and Chrysostom, 
 in their Latin and Greek commentaries, employ the very same words 
 which it is most to our purpose to use now. The substance of what 
 they both say is this : men saw that which had been water suddenly 
 turned into wine, and they wondered. But is not this same thing 
 done every year in every vineyard ? God works miracles daily in 
 the whole range of creation, and they are disregarded, not because 
 they are not full of wonder, but because they are common. That 
 which is done slowly and gradually through the root and branches of 
 the vine was here done quickly at the marriage-feast, and by the 
 same power. 
 
 Dr. Macdonald says : * To him who can thank God with free heart 
 for his good wine, there is a glad significance in the fact that our 
 Lord's first miracle was this turning of water into wine. It is a true 
 symbol of what He had done for the world in glorifying all things. 
 
MIRACLES OF SUPPLY. 543 
 
 With His Divine alchemy He turns not only water into wine, but 
 common things into radiant mysteries, yea, every meal into a Eucharist, 
 and the sepulchre into an outgoing gate. . . . That the wine should 
 be His first miracle, and that the feeding of the multitudes should 
 be the only other creative miracle, will also suggest many thoughts in 
 connection with the symbol He has left us of His relation to His 
 brethren. In the wine and the bread of the Eucharist, He reminds 
 us how utterly He has given, is giving, Himself for the gladness and 
 strength of His Father's children. Yea more ; for in that He is the 
 radiation of the Father's glory, this bread and wine is thj symbol of 
 how utterly the Father gives Himself to His children, how earnestly 
 He would have them partakers of His own being.' 
 
 Referring to the quietness with which the miracle was wrought, 
 Dr. Macdonald adds : ' Herein we find another point in which this 
 miracle of Jesus resembles the working of His Father. For God 
 ministers to us so gently, so stolenly, as it were, with such a quiet, 
 tender, loving absence of display, that men often drink of His wine, 
 as these wedding guests drank, without knowing whence it comes 
 without thinking that the Giver is beside them, yea, in their very 
 hearts. For God will not compel the adoration of men ; it would be 
 but a pagan worship that would bring to His altars. He will rouse 
 in men a sense of need, which shall grow at length into a longing ; 
 He will make them feel after Him, until by their search becoming 
 able to behold Him, He may at length reveal to them the glory of 
 their Father.' 
 
 There is a difficulty, connected with this particular miracle, which 
 presses heavily on many minds, and needs a passing reference. Dean 
 Howson states it, and meets it. * There seems to be here a sanction 
 of the large use of intoxicating drinks; while yet we know that 
 drunkenness is the prolific cause of fully half the dreadful moral evil 
 that surrounds us in this country. What are we to say to this ? I 
 believe the most important thing to be said is this that in all such 
 matters God assumes to Himself the responsibility of asserting the 
 blessing and the usefulness of that which He gives, and throws on us 
 the responsibility of excess, and of its terrible consequences. Certain 
 minor considerations are, indeed, to be carefully borne in mind, a*, 
 for instance, that the wine of that country was not a hot and fiery 
 liquor, such as madc^ns too many in this climate (especially when it 
 is adulterated), but a light and refreshing drink, by no means injurious 
 to health when used in moderation as all God's gifts are to be 
 used.' 
 
544 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 Restored Eutychus. 
 
 ACTS xx. 10 : 4 And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him, said, 
 Trouble not yourselves ; for his life is in him.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand that Paul corrected the fear of 
 t/ie people that Eutychus was really dead, or must we accept the fact 
 that he ivas actually ', and at once, killed by the fall '? 
 
 Answer. It is certainly unlikely that a fall from a second-story 
 window would result in immediate death, but it is not impossible ; 
 and as Eutychus fell in his sleep, he would make no effort to mitigate 
 the fall, by putting out his hands, or otherwise. We may be sure, too, 
 that, in such an instance, a man would fall very heavily on his head. 
 And yet the narrative may only give the general impression of the 
 bystanders ; the exclamation would at once be made by those who 
 looked on the rigid figure, ' He is dead !' It does not quite appear 
 whether Paul said ' his life is in him ' before or after his efforts to 
 restore animation; but it at once strikes attention that such an 
 assurance would be very comforting before attempting to revive him, 
 and very unnecessary when everybody could see the signs of return- 
 ing consciousness. It must be said, however, that Paul may have 
 made this remark to the company upstairs, after he returned to 
 resume his preaching. 
 
 No dogmatic assertion should be made on this subject. It was 
 quite within Paul's gift to restore the dead, or to restore the stunned ; 
 but our own feeling, upon due consideration of the narrative, is that 
 the life of Eutychus was only suspended. 
 
 Dean Plumptre says, on verse 9 : * What follows is obviously re- 
 lated as a miraculous resuscitation ; but it may be questioned, looking 
 at St. Paul's words, " his life is in him," whether more than apparent 
 death is meant. He was to all appearance dead would have died 
 but for the prayer of the Apostle ; but there had been no fracture of 
 limb or skull, and the cause of death, or of the state that looked like 
 death, was the shock given to the brain and nerves by the violence of 
 the fall.' * The act of Paul reminds us of the acts of Elijah (i Kings 
 xvii. 21) and Elisha (2 Kings iv. 34). The close contact, the clasp 
 of warm affection, gave a new intensity to the prayer of faith, and, as 
 a current of vitality passed, as it were, from the one body to the 
 other, enabled the Apostle to feel that the heart had not ceased to 
 beat, and to give the calming assurance, * his liie is in him.' 
 
PAULS VISIONS. 
 
 Paul's Visions. 
 
 545 
 
 ACTS xxvii. 23, 24 : ' For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose 
 I am, and whom 1 serve, saying, Fear not, Paul ; thou must be brought before 
 Ca-sar : and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.' 
 
 Question. In what manner are we to think of this and other 
 direct Divine communications made to the Apostle Paul ? 
 
 Answer. It is not sufficiently apprehended that Paul claimed 
 to have distinct and personal revelations from God. Called into the 
 Christian discipleship by a ' heavenly vision,' it was characteristic of 
 his entire Christian course that he was open to, sensitive to, heavenly 
 visions. It is not probable that they were mere impressions by 
 dreams, we rather regard them as waking visions, things seen and 
 heard in times of ecstasy, rapture, absorption, trance, which often 
 followed long seasons of prayer. Such revelations of the Divine 
 will were most real to Paul ; they were his direct audience of the 
 Master whose service he had chosen when his first revelation came 
 to him outside Damascus. Of one such vision he says, ' Whether 
 in the body or out of the body I cannot tell,' and probably this was 
 more or less his feeling on all the occasions. 
 
 Olshausen says of the vision by night that summoned Paul to 
 Macedonia : * This vision is commonly supposed to have been a 
 dream, but the text does not necessarily lead to this conclusion, for 
 " by night " does not exclude the idea of being awake. Paul may 
 have seen the vision while praying by night, as it appears from 
 chapter xvi. 25, he was wont to do. Besides, my fundamental 
 principle as to the gradation of the modes of Divine revelation 
 prevents me from admitting the idea of a dream here. Communica- 
 tion by dreams is the lowest form of revelation, and we do not meet 
 with it elsewhere in the case of the apostles, who were endowed with 
 the Holy Ghost. Their visions of ecstasy they always received in a 
 waking condition.' 
 
 Dean Plumptre says : ' With most others of the enthusiastic type of 
 character, visions, real or supposed, of messengers from the unseen 
 world, have produced terror and agitation. With St. Paul they are 
 the source of a calm strength and presence of mind which he is able, 
 in his turn, to impress on others.' 
 
 Upon the Divine visions and revelations given to him Paul in great 
 part rested his apostolic claim. To him an apostle was, just what a 
 prophet of the olden time had been, a man who had direct and 
 personal communications with the Lord Jesus, and received instruc- 
 tions immediately from Him. For such instances in Paul's career, 
 
 35 
 
546 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 see Acts ix. 4-6; xvi. 9; xviil 9; xxii. 18 ; xxiii. n; 2 Cor. xii ; 
 Gal. ii. 2. This claim to direct revelation the enemies of St. Paul 
 denied, and laughed to scorn his pretensions as the indications of 
 insanity. 
 
 F. W. Robertson says : ' To comprehend the visions we must 
 comprehend the man. For God gives visions at His own will, and 
 according to certain and fixed laws. He does not inspire everyone. 
 He does not reveal His mysteries to men of selfish, or hard, or 
 phlegmatic temperaments. He gives preternatural communication 
 to those whom He prepares beforehand by a peculiar spiritual sensi- 
 tiveness. There are, physically, certain sensitivenesses to sound and 
 colour that qualify men to become gifted musicians and painters ; so, 
 spiritually, there are certain strong original susceptibilities (I say 
 original, as derived from God, the origin of all), and on these God 
 bestows strange gifts and sights, deep feeling not to be uttered in 
 human language, and immeasurable by the ordinary standard. Such 
 a man was St. Paul a very wondrous nature, the Jewish nature in 
 all its strength. We know that the Jewish temperament fitted men 
 to be the organs of a revelation. Its fervour, its moral sense, its venera- 
 tion, its indomitable will, all adapted the highest sons of the nation for 
 receiving hidden truths and communicating them to others/ 
 
 In ecclesiastical history mention is made of one Theodorus, a 
 martyr put to extreme torments by Julian the Apostate, and dis- 
 missed again by him when he saw him unconquerable. Rufinus, in 
 his history, says that he met with this martyr a long time after his 
 trial, and asked him whether the pains he felt were not insufferable ? 
 He answered that at first it was somewhat grievous, but after a while 
 there seemed to stand by him a young man in white, who, with a soft 
 and comfortable handkerchief, wiped off the sweat from his body 
 (which through extreme anguish was little less than blood), and bade 
 him be of good cheer, insomuch as that it was rather a punishment 
 than a pleasure to him to be taken off the rack. When the tormen- 
 tors had done, the angel was gone. 
 
 'Visions and revelations do not belong to any one age. We 
 have no right to say that they are limited to ancient times. There 
 have always been the true and the counterfeit ; but the true should 
 not be missed or denied because the false have been found out. 
 There are good gold coins, or men would not trouble to make 
 spurious sovereigns. Fanaticism deludes its victims into imaginary 
 visions, but souls that are kin with God, and open to Him, can 
 receive communications from Him. See instances in Noah, Abraham, 
 Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Isaiah, 
 
THE ANNOUNCEMENT TO SHEPHERDS. 547 
 
 Joseph (husband of Mary), Simeon, Zacharias, etc. So, in the 
 Christian age, we find visions granted to Cornelius, Philip, Peter, 
 John, as well as Paul, and traces of prophets, such as Agabus, and 
 even of prophetesses. St. Paul's visions were probably of the nature 
 of a trance; the mind being absorbed in contemplation may be 
 prepared to receive Divine revealings. It is right to subject all 
 claims to visions to careful scrutiny, and the things communicated to 
 men at such times must be tested by their harmony with the written 
 revelation ; but we need not refuse to recognise the truth that God 
 has direct relations to souls now as certainly as in past ages. Both 
 truth and duty may still be revealed.' Pulpit Commentary. 
 
 The Announcement to Shepherds. 
 
 LUKE ii. 10, 1 1 : And the angel said unto them, Fear not ; for, behold, I 
 bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is 
 born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.' 
 
 Difficulty. There seems to be no incident recorded in the earlier 
 Scriptures with which this manifestation to tJie shepherds can be com- 
 pared ; and it is not easy to see why they should have been selected as 
 the recipients of so extraordinary and Divine a revelation. 
 
 Explanation. Schleiermacher* s words give us a key to the 
 understanding of this incident. 'There is something remarkable, 
 something Divine, in the satisfaction not seldom afforded in extra- 
 ordinary times even to individual longings.' We are compelled to 
 think that these shepherds must have been men who were * looking for 
 redemption in Israel,' for we are well assured that such manifestations 
 would only be granted to prepared hearts. 
 
 Dr. C. Geikie points this out : ' To have received such surpassing 
 honour from above, they must have been members, though poor and 
 humble, of that true Israel which included Mary and Joseph, Zacharias 
 and Elisabeth, Simeon and Anna the representatives, in those dark 
 days, of the saints of their nation in its brighter past. They must 
 have been men looking out, in their simple way, towards the invisible 
 and eternal, and seeking that Kingdom of God for themselves which 
 was one day, as they believed, to be revealed in their nation at large. 
 Only that mind which has sympathy with external nature can receive, 
 in their true significance, the impressions it is fitted to convey, and 
 only the heart which has sympathy with spiritual things can recognise 
 their full meaning. Poetic sensibility is required in the one case, and 
 religious in the other. In each it is the condition of sincere emo- 
 tion.' 
 
 35-2 
 
54 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The associations of the place where these shepherds watched theii 
 flocks, and which may, in part at least, explain how it was that they 
 were the chosen recipients of the revelation, are best brought out by 
 Dr. Edersheim : ' Jewish tradition may here prove both illustrative 
 and helpful. That the Messiah was to be bom at Bethlehem was a 
 settled conviction. Equally so was the belief, that He was to be 
 revealed from Migdal Eder, "the tower of the flock." This Migdal 
 Eder was not the watch-tower for the ordinary flocks which pastured 
 on the barren sheep ground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the 
 town, on the road to Jerusalem. A passage in the Mishna leads to 
 the conclusion that the flocks, which pastured there, were destined 
 for Temple sacrifices, and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who 
 watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds. The latter were 
 under the ban of Rabbinism, on account of their necessary isolation 
 from religious ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered 
 strict legal observance unlikely, if not absolutely impossible. The 
 same Mishnic passage also leads us to infer that these flocks lay out 
 all the year round, since they are spoken of as in the fields thirty days 
 before the Passover that is, in the month of February, when in 
 Palestine the average rainful is nearly greatest. Thus Jewish tradition 
 in some dim manner apprehended the first revelation of the Messiah 
 from that Migdal Eder, where shepherds watched the Temple flocks 
 all the year round. Of the deep symbolic significance of such a 
 coincidence, it is needless to speak. 
 
 ' Only once before had the words of angels' hymn fallen upon 
 mortal's ears, when, to Isaiah's rapt vision, Heaven's high Temple had 
 opened, and the glory of Jehovah swept its courts, almost breaking 
 down the trembling posts that bore its boundary gates. Now the 
 same glory enwrapt the shepherds on Bethlehem's plains. Then the 
 angels' hymn had heralded the announcement of the Kingdom 
 coming now that of the King come. Then it had been the Tris- 
 Hagion of prophetic anticipation; now that of Evangelic fulfilment.' 
 
 The suggestion that these were Temple shepherds seems approved 
 by Dean Plumptre, who says : ' The statement in the Mishna that the 
 sheep intended for a sacrifice in the Temple were pastured in the 
 fields of Bethlehem gives a special interest to the fact thus narrated, 
 and may, perhaps, in part, explain the faith and devotion of the 
 shepherds. They had been rejoicing, at the Paschal season over the 
 spring-tide birth of the lambs of their flocks. They now heard of the 
 birth of the " Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." ' 
 
 (Dr. Edersheim and Dean Plumptre do not agree on the season 
 of the year in which our Lord was born. The former argues for 
 Christmas-tide, the latter for spring.) 
 
THE ANNOUNCEMENT TO SHEPHERDS. 549 
 
 Kitto endeavours to meet the question: 'Why were these poor 
 shepherds chosen as such witnesses ?' He replies : ' The Lord, who 
 made choice of them, knows. It was necessary that the witnesses 
 should reside in or near Bethlehem ; and these shepherds alone were 
 abroad and awake in the depth of the silent night. Moreover, the 
 Gospel delights to put honour on those of low degree. The general 
 yearning for the appearance of the Messiah, which at this time was 
 felt throughout Judaea, must have acquired peculiar intensity at 
 Bethlehem, where it was known from prophecy that Christ should be 
 born ; and no doubt, as Neander says, " even among the shepherds 
 who kept nightly watch over their flocks, were some who anxiously 
 awaited the appearance of the Messiah. It is true the account does 
 not say that the shepherds thus longed for the Messiah. But we are 
 justified, by what followed, in presupposing it as the ground for such 
 a communication being especially made to them ; and it is not un- 
 likely that these simple souls, untaught in the traditions of the scribes, 
 and nourished by communion with God, amid the freedom of nature, 
 in a solitude congenial with meditation and prayer, had formed a 
 purer idea of the Messiah, from the necessities of their own hearts, 
 than prevailed at that time among the Jews." ' 
 
 Pressensffs note is very tender and suggestive. * This great event 
 (the birth of the Saviour), the most momentous in the history of the 
 world since it divides it into its two great parts, and is the hidden 
 pole round which gravitate all human destinies took place as un- 
 heeded as the most obscure. No one marked it, except the angels in 
 heaven, and some shepherds who were keeping their flocks on one of 
 the hills which surround Bethlehem. It was at a season of the year 
 when the softened temperature sometimes made it needless to lead 
 the sheep into the city at evening-time. It was, doubtless, one of 
 those beautiful Oriental nights when the heavens proclaim nothing but 
 mercy. These simple men were chosen as the first to receive the 
 good tidings of great joy, because they were waiting for it. Every- 
 thing in those fields, where the young David, like themselves, had fed 
 his flock, reminded them of the promise made to his race, and they, 
 as well as the scribes at Jerusalem, had doubtless read the mysterious 
 oracle, which declared that the very ground they were treading should 
 be the cradle of Messiah. Suddenly the startled air resounds with a 
 mysterious choir ; they hear angelic voices, and Divine words proclaim 
 in their ears " Glory to God in the highest ; peace on earth, good 
 will towards men" (E.V). The shepherds believed the things which 
 were spoken ; simple, artless men they were, who had not learnt in 
 the schools at Jerusalem to admit as possible mercy only that which 
 
550 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 a Pharisee could comprehend. They deemed it not strange and we 
 are at one with them that angels, man's elder brothers, dwelling in 
 a purer region, where evil had not come, should celebrate with their 
 sweetest songs such an event as the birth of the Redeemer.' 
 
 The general difficulties connected with all angel-manifestations, 
 both in the earlier and later dispensations, will be found fully treated 
 in other paragraphs. 
 
 Paul's Recovery at Lystra. 
 
 ACTS xiv. 19, 20 : ' But there came Jews thither from Antioch and Iconium ; 
 and, having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of 
 the city, supposing that he was dead. But as the disciples stood round about him-, 
 he rose up, and entered into the city ' (Rev. Ver.) 
 
 Question. Is this narrative intended to suggest that Paul was 
 restored by any miraculous and Divine intervention ? 
 
 Answer. There is no good reason for thinking so. Miracles 
 seem never to have been wrought to secure Paul's safety in scenes of 
 peril, protection from shipwreck, or recovery from ordinary sickness ; 
 and it is not likely there would be any exception in this case of 
 stoning. No doubt Paul had swooned, and showed all the ordinary 
 signs of death ; but there are remarkable cases of temporary sus- 
 pension of life, which fully illustrate both Paul's condition when 
 dragged out of the city, and the suddenness of his recovering his 
 vitality. Still, we are sure he must have been very prostrate after 
 such treatment, bruised sadly, and needing prolonged rest and care. 
 
 The suggestion has been made, and is certainly deserving of con- 
 sideration, that the vision of the c third heavens,' of which he writes 
 in 2 Cor. xii. 1-6, and of which he says : * Whether in the body or out 
 of the body, I cannot tell,' was granted him, as a Divine comforting, 
 in this time of swooning. The hints of time given seem to accord 
 pretty well. 
 
 Kitto notices that, stoning not being a regular Gentile punishment, 
 as it was a Jewish, this stoning of Paul was done in quite a tumultuous 
 manner, and no special care was taken to secure that Paul was really 
 dead. * In this case it seems that Paul had not been killed, but 
 only rendered insensible by some of the blows he had received.' 
 It seems to us, however, a much more serious case than one of mere 
 stunning. 
 
 Conybeare and Howson describe Paul as * stoned somewhere in the 
 streets of Lystra, and then dragged through the city gate, and cast 
 outside the walls, under the belief that he was dead.' But they 
 
PA UL'S RECO VER Y AT L YSTRA. 55 1 
 
 almost suggest their belief in a special Divine intervention, by adding ; 
 ' By the power and goodness of God he rose from a state of apparent 
 death as if by a sudden resurrection.' 
 
 Farrar gives good support to the explanation which we venture to 
 give : * They stoned Paul, and, when they thought he was dead, 
 dragged him outside their city gates, leaving him, perhaps, in front 
 of the very Temple of Jupiter to which they had been about to 
 conduct him as an incarnation of their patron deity. But Paul was 
 not dead. This had not been a Jewish stoning, conducted with fatal 
 deliberateness, but a sudden riot, in which the mode of attack may 
 be due to accident. Paul, liable at all times to the swoons which 
 accompany nervous organizations, had been stunned, but not killed ; 
 and while the disciples stood in an agonized group around what they 
 thought to be his corpse, he recovered his consciousness, and raised 
 himself from the ground. The mob, meanwhile, had dispersed; and, 
 perhaps, in disguise, or under cover of evening for all these details 
 were as nothing to Paul, and are not preserved by his biographer he 
 re-entered the little city.' 
 
 Brown, in the Critical Commentary, says of this incident : * It is 
 just possible that this recovery was natural ; the insensibility occa- 
 sioned by such treatment as he had received sometimes passing away 
 of itself, and leaving the patient less hurt than appears. But certainly 
 the impression naturally left on the mind by the words is, that the 
 restoration was miraculous, and so the best interpreters understand 
 the words.' 
 
 The Miracles and Jewish Symbols. 
 
 LUKE v. 12 : ' And it came to pass, when He was in a certain city, behold a 
 man full of leprosy : who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought Him, saying, 
 Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.' 
 
 Question. Are we justified in getting help from the symbolic 
 system of Judaism, in our endeavour to understand the deeper moral 
 teaching of our Lords mighty works? 
 
 Answer. Certainly we are. And probably very much more 
 would be learned respecting our Lord's redeeming work, if we had 
 but a fuller and a more accurate knowledge of Jewish symbolism. 
 The whole subject cannot be treated here, but illustrations of it may 
 be found in the Jewish sentiment about lepers, and Jewish customs 
 in relation to lepers. 
 
 The following passage, from Archbishop Trench's invaluable work 
 on the ' Miracles,' gives the special moral significance of the disease 
 of leprosy. 
 
552 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 1 The ordinances concerning leprosy had a deep significance, into 
 which it will be needful a little to enter. It is clear that the same 
 principle which made all that had to do with death, as mourning, a 
 grave, a corpse, the occasions of a ceremonial uncleanness, inasmuch 
 as all these were signs and consequences of sin, might, in like 
 manner, and with a perfect consistency, have made every sickness a 
 sign of uncleanness, each of these being also death beginning, partial 
 death echoes in the body of that terrible reality, sin in the soul. 
 But, instead of this, in a gracious sparing of man, and not pushing 
 the principle to the uttermost, God took but one sickness, one of 
 these visible outcomings of a tainted nature, in which to testify that 
 evil was not from Him, could not dwell with Him : He took but one 
 with which to link this teaching, and that it may serve in this region of 
 man's life as the substratum for the training of His people into the recog- 
 nition of a clinging impurity, which needed a Pure and a Purifier 
 to overcome and expel, and which no method short of His taking of 
 our flesh could drive out. And leprosy, which was indeed the sickness 
 of sicknesses, was through these Levitical ordinances selected of God 
 from the whole host of maladies and diseases which had broken in upon 
 man's body ; to the end that, bearing His testimony against that out 
 of which it and all other sicknesses grew, against sin, as not from 
 Him, as grievous in His sight ; and against the sickness itself also as 
 grievous, inasmuch as it was a visible manifestation, a direct con- 
 sequence, of the inner disharmony of man's spirit, a commencement 
 of the death which, through disobedience to God's perfect will, had 
 found entrance into a nature made by God for immortality. 
 
 ' And terrible indeed, as might be expected, was that disease, round 
 which this solemn teaching revolved. Leprosy was, indeed, nothing 
 short of a living death, a poisoning of the springs, a corrupting of all 
 the humours of life ; a dissolution, little by little, of the whole body, 
 so that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away. The 
 disease, moreover, was incurable by the art and skill of man ; not 
 that the leper might not return to health ; for, however rare, such 
 cases are yet contemplated in the Levitical law. 
 
 ' Seeing then that leprosy was this outward and visible sign of the 
 innermost spiritual corruption, this sacrament of death, there could 
 be no fitter form of evil over which the Lord of life should display His 
 power. He will thus prove Himself the conqueror of death in life, 
 as elsewhere of death accomplished ; and His victory over this most 
 terrible form of physical evil is, therefore, fitly urged as a testimony 
 to His Messiahship : "The lepers are cleansed" (Matt. xi. 15).' 
 
LIMITA TION OF MIR A CLE. 553 
 
 Limitation of Miracle. 
 
 JOHN x. 41 : And many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle : 
 but all things that John spake of this man were true.' 
 
 Question. Can the principles on which miraculous power was 
 given, and the conditions under which it was restrained, be understood f 
 
 Answer. No reader of the narratives of the Gospels, and the 
 Acts of the Apostles, can fail to have felt that the occasions on 
 which our Lord and His disciples did not work miracles require 
 explanation as truly as the miracles themselves. 
 
 It is stated as a matter which occasioned public remark, that John 
 the Baptist ' did no miracle.' It was made an accusation against our 
 Lord Himself when on His cross, that His pretensions as a miracle- 
 worker were a sham, for He could not put forth power to save Him- 
 self in the time of His extremity. And we find the Apostle Paul 
 doctored and nursed through more than one time of sickness, and 
 showing no signs of a disposition to use miraculous power to meet 
 his own need, nor resorting even to that ' faith-healing ' which is the 
 fanaticism of our times. 
 
 We are evidently to understand that the miraculous gift is never 
 an endowment of a person, for the securing of his own ends. It is 
 always an endowment for a work ; it belongs strictly and exclusively 
 to the work. The man will find that the power is not at his com- 
 mand, if he attempts to use it outside the limits of his work. 
 
 Probably here lies a sufficient distinction between the true and the 
 false claim to the possession of miraculous gifts. Does a man claim 
 the possession as a personal possession, bringing him honour ? Then 
 his is a false claim. Does a man use the power for his own personal 
 ends ? Then his is a false claim. God endows for service, and for 
 service only for just that particular service to which he calls a man. 
 
 This law of limitation will be found strictly observed by our Lord 
 and His apostles. It is indeed the great working law for all forms 
 of Divine gift. 
 
 But this does not explain the fact that, though John the Baptist 
 was a prophet, and under a direct call and commission from God, no 
 sort of miraculous gifts were entrusted to him, for the doing of his 
 particular work. 
 
 Miracles maybe necessary as credentials of a speaker; or to call atten- 
 tion to a message ; or to provide outward illustrations of spiritual truths 
 or processes. But in neither sense had John the Baptist any necessity 
 for them. John came as one of the old prophets. He was like one. 
 
554 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 People accepted him as such. * All men count John as a prophet.' 
 Nobody asked for credentials. Nobody was staggered by his appear- 
 ance, or habits, or claims, or words ; as so many were with Christ. 
 John had really an old message to deliver, which other prophets had 
 delivered before him. The new piece of it was only this the 
 Kingdom and the King you have been long expecting are now close 
 at hand ; but he needed no credentials for saying this. They would 
 be fitting enough for Him who claimed to be the King. 
 
 Miracles were not needed to call attention to John's message, for 
 everybody flocked to hear him ; and he only demanded a right moral 
 attitude. Conscience sufficiently certifies moral duties, and needs 
 no help from miracles. 
 
 And miracles were not required for the illustration of John's 
 message. A rite, which enabled penitent souls to give their penitence 
 outward expression and seal it in a pledge, was the appropriate 
 thing for him, and not miracle. 
 
 We may fix two points on attention. Miraculous gifts must be 
 strictly limited to that particular kind of sendee for which they are 
 given ; and miraculous gifts are not the necessary or appropriate gifts 
 for all kinds of semnce. 
 
 Angel-Aids. 
 
 LUKE xxii. 43 : 'And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthen- 
 ing him.' 
 
 Question. Are we to understand that the watching disciples 
 actually saw this angel ; or is it the best explanation they can give of 
 the mysterious support which their Lord evidently received in His great 
 struggle ? 
 
 Answer. In forming a judgment, due account must be taken of 
 the fact that verses 43, 44, are omitted in some of the best Manu- 
 scripts. Though, on the whole, the balance of evidence may seem 
 to be in favour of their retention, we must admit some uncertainty 
 as to their origin. In the Gospels it is necessary, on many occasions, 
 to distinguish between statements of fact, and statements which indi- 
 cate only the impressions which certain facts produced on certain 
 minds, or thoughts which writers had about the facts. 
 
 It also arrests attention that the evangelist only says the angel 
 -appeared unto Him? He does not intimate that anyone else saw 
 the angel, and the subsequent intercourse of Christ with the disciples 
 before His arrest was so brief, that it is not at all likely He would 
 tell them about the angel. 
 
ANGEL-AIDS. 555 
 
 Probably Dean Plumptrts explanation will commend itself to all 
 who feel the difficulty of this narrative. He says : ' He was con- 
 scious of a new strength to endure even to the end. And that 
 strength would show itself to others, to disciples who watched Him 
 afar off, in a new expression and look, flashes of victorious strength 
 and joy alternating with throbs and spasms of anguish. Whence 
 could that strength come but from the messengers of His Father, in 
 whose presence, and in communion with whom he habitually lived 
 (Matt iv. ii ; John i. 51). The ministrations which had been with 
 Him in His first temptation were now with Him in the last 
 <Matt iv. n).' 
 
 Olshausen understands here the angel of the * accession of spiritual 
 power.' 
 
 Farrar hesitates to speak firmly on the point, but he inclines to 
 the idea that the appearance of the angel is the explanatory suggestion 
 of the disciples. ' We may not intrude too closely into this scene. 
 It is shrouded in a halo and a mystery into which no footsteps may 
 penetrate. We, as we contemplate it, are like those disciples our 
 senses are confused, our perceptions are not clear. We can but enter 
 into their amazement and sore distress. Half waking, half oppressed 
 with an irresistible weight of troubled slumber, they only felt that 
 they were dim witnesses of an unutterable agony, far deeper than 
 anything which they could fathom, as it far transcended all that, even 
 in our purest moments, we can pretend to understand. The place 
 seems haunted by presences of good and evil, struggling in mighty 
 but silent contest for the eternal victory. They see Him, before 
 whom the demons had fled in howling terror, lying on His face upon 
 the ground. They hear that voice wailing in murmurs of broken 
 agony, which had commanded the wind and the sea, and they obeyed 
 Him. The great drops 01 anguish which drop from Him in the 
 deathly struggle, look to them like heavy gouts of blood. Under the 
 dark shadow of the trees, amid the interrupted moonlight, // seems to 
 them that there is an angel with Him, who supports His failing strength, 
 who enables Him to rise victorious from those first prayers with 
 nothing but the crimson traces of that bitter struggle upon His brow.' 
 
 It may be freely granted that, in like circumstances, the idea of an 
 angel appearing to strengthen and help in a time of grave mental 
 distress, is not the suggestion which would most readily come to us , 
 but, if we properly understand the Jewish notions and sentiments 
 about angels, we shall see that it is precisely the idea which would 
 first come to the mind of these Jewish disciples. Some references 
 have been previously made to the Jewish angelology, but it will be 
 
5$6 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 helpful to the explanation of this, and other cases of angel aid, if we 
 deal with it in some detail. 
 
 Farrar tells us that ' it is characteristic of the Oriental, and espe- 
 cially of the Semitic mind, to see in every event, even the most 
 trivial, a direct supernatural interference, wrought by the innumerable 
 unseen ministers both good and evil of the Divine will. The 
 definite form in which the belief clothed itself was, by the admission 
 of the Jews themselves, derived from Babylon. 
 
 * Even the most ordinary forces and phenomena of Nature, and 
 passions of the mind, were by them regarded as angels. Thus, in 
 the Jer. Targum on Deut. ix. 19, it is said that, to punish the 
 Israelites for worshipping the golden calf, God sent five angels 
 Indignation, Anger, Fury, Ruin, Wrath. And they would have 
 interpreted quite literally the verse " He maketh the winds His 
 angels, and fiery flames His ministers " (Ps. civ. 4). 
 
 'The number of the angels the Tsebha Hashamaim was im- 
 mense. R. Eliezer said that at Sinai 600,000 descended, according 
 to the number of the 600,000 Israelites ; and in Bab. Berachoth 
 (32b), we find the following story : According to R. Kish Lakish, 
 Isai. xlix. 14 is to be understood as follows. The Church of Israel 
 ".omplains to God : " Lord of the world, even when a man takes a 
 L-scond wife he thinks of the first ; but Thou hast utterly forgotten 
 me." But God answered, "Daughter, I have 12 mazaloth (signs of 
 the zodiac), and to each massal 30 chil (commanders), and to each chel 
 30 legions (generals), and to each general 30 rabaton (officers), and to 
 each rabaton 30 karton (captains), and to each karton 30 kistra 
 (camps), and to each kistron I have assigned 3,650,000,000 stars. 
 All these have I created for thy sake, and yet thou sayest I have 
 forgotten thee." 
 
 ' These angels were all divided into ranks and classes, { Thrones, 
 dominions, virtues, princedoms, powers,' to which there seems to be 
 an allusion in Eph. i. 21.' 
 
 Pressense says : ' The form taken by the doctrine of good and evil 
 angels in Jewish theology, from the time of the exile, is well known. 
 It connected itself with some of the oldest portions of Holy Scripture, 
 as, for example, the account of the fall in Genesis ; it was doubtless a 
 branch of the tree of Hebraic revelations, but its growth had become 
 diseased under foreign influences. The Book of Enoch furnishes 
 abundant evidence of this. The reader is lost among minute classifi- 
 cations, overlaid with absurd inventions. Every element, every part 
 of the earth, every nation, has its guardian angel. The Book of 
 Tobit gives such a guardian angel to each pious Israelite.' 
 
ANGEL-AIDS. 557 
 
 From an article in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, we gather that 
 * the angels are revealed to us as beings, such as man might be and 
 will be when the power of sin and death is removed, partaking in 
 their measure of the attributes of God, Truth, Purity, and Love, 
 because always beholding His face, and therefore being " made like 
 Him." Their office towards man is fully described to us. They are 
 represented as being, in the widest sense, agents of God's Providence, 
 natural and supernatural, to the body and to the soul. It is evident 
 that angelic agency, like that of man, does not exclude the action of 
 secondary, or (what are called) " natural " causes, or interfere with 
 the directness and universality of the providence of God.' 
 
 The point that is impressed on us by this study is, that God gives 
 immediate counsel and help to His struggling and suffering servants : 
 and if we find it aids us in realizing this grace and strengthening, as 
 indeed from Him, we may be permitted to personify the agencies 
 which God is pleased to use, and call them angels. 
 
 Miracles of Power over Death. 
 
 JOHN xi. 43, 44 : ' And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, 
 Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot 
 with grave-clothes : and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto 
 them, Loose him, and let him go.' 
 
 Question. What is revealed to us concerning the mission of Christ 
 by the instances recorded of His power over death ? 
 
 Answer. The mastery of death is the highest manifestation of 
 the Divine power that was in Christ, but no case of restoration of a 
 4 passed' spirit to a renewal of bodily relations can have been a 
 sufficient end in itself to account for the working of such miracles. 
 If it had been, our Lord would surely have restored many more from 
 the dead. But, while we have intimations that He healed many more 
 sick and disabled persons than the Evangelists give any detailed 
 accounts of, there is no hint that our Lord raised from the dead any 
 persons beside the little maid, the widow's son, and Lazarus. These 
 miracles could only have been wrought for the sake of the moral 
 truths illustrated in them, and the moral impression produced by 
 them. It is necessary, therefore, that we should study them with 
 much care in the light of previous revelations, as well as of prevailing 
 sentiments. 
 
 We know that natural death, or the mere parting of body and 
 spirit, is not the penalty on man's sin ; for death was a natural 
 condition, for creatures on this earth, before Adam was formed, and 
 was a condition for him, so far as he was one of the creatures. 
 
558 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 But death, as we understand it, and as a moral and spiritual book, 
 like our Bible, speaks of it, is not the mere parting of the immaterial 
 from the material ; it is death with conscience of sin, with fear, and 
 sense of coming penalty. It is death with the sting of sin in it It 
 is a small thing for a man to die ; it is an awful thing for a sinner to 
 die ; and we must distinctly apprehend that death, as we know it, is 
 the last penalty of sin. Sin brings on disabilities, diseases, distresses, 
 but the climax of its work is hopeless death ; ' sin, when it is finished, 
 bringeth forth death.' 
 
 Then He who proposes to redeem the human race from sin must 
 show Himself to be Master of all its consequences. He must make 
 us feel that no evil resulting from sin is beyond His reach, and 
 certainly it must be proved beyond all doubt that he can effectively 
 deal with man's last enemy. He must illustrate in the entire sphere 
 of outward physical consequences the supremacy of His moral power 
 as a Redeemer. We must not be left with the possibility of saying : 
 * This one thing the Redeemer from sin could not do.' 
 
 And yet it was equally important that the cases of mastery over 
 death should be few ; only sufficient to provide adequate proof and 
 illustration. Conquering death was \hzfinal result, not the immediate 
 form of the Redeemer's work ; and if He had freely dealt with the 
 dead while He was here, men would have been unduly interested in 
 a material redemption, and have been perilously indifferent to its 
 really important moral features. 
 
 Prophets, who foreshadowed the work of the Redeemer, had but 
 strictly limited power in the restoring of life. Elijah and Elisha 
 brought back to life a child, but their exertions in so doing suggest 
 that, in their cases, the Divine blessing rested on the use of appropriate 
 natural means, as it still may in cases of drowning, or lowered 
 vitality. It is not correct to compare our Lord's raisings from the 
 dead with those of the earlier prophets. It is proper to see in those 
 earlier instances only hints and foreshadowings of what was actually 
 realized in Christ, who, because He had life in Himself, and could 
 give eternal life to dead souls, might illustrate His work by restoring 
 the life of those who were, in an earthly sense, dead. 
 
 It is striking to observe the ascending scale in which our Lord's 
 three raisings are presented. Jairus' little maid was only just dead 
 The widow's son had been dead an hour or two, and was being 
 carried out for burial. Lazarus had been a day or two in the grave. 
 (The ' four days ' is to be reckoned in the usual Eastern fashion. The 
 day of. burial and the day of resurrection are included, though only 
 small parts of those days properly belong.) 
 
MIR A CLES OF PO WER O VER DEA TH. 559 
 
 Christ showed His power over death, in a few cases, in order to 
 teach and enforce His claims and His power as ' the Resurrection 
 and the Life ' for dead souls, dead in trespasses and sins, dead in 
 alienation from God. He showed this power in only a few cases, 
 lest the minds of the disciples should be occupied with the wonder 
 of His material, rather than the wonder of His moral work. 
 
 This suggestion may be otherwise presented, and in the presenta- 
 tion supported and further illustrated by quotations from honoured 
 writers. 
 
 Trench says : ' These miracles of raising from the dead, whereof 
 we have now been considering the first (the raising of the daughter 
 of Jairus), have always been regarded as the mightiest outcomings of 
 the power of Christ ; and with justice. They are those, also, at which 
 unbelief is readiest to stumble, standing as they do in a yet more 
 striking contrast than any of the other, to all that experience has 
 known. The line between sickness and health is not definitely fixed; 
 the two conditions melt one into the other, and the transition from 
 this to that is frequent. In like manner storms alternate with calms ; 
 the fiercest tumult of the elements allays itself at last ; and Christ's 
 word which stilled the tempest, did but anticipate, and effect in a 
 moment, what the very course of nature must have effected in the 
 end. Even the transmutation from water to wine, and the multipli- 
 cation of the bread, are not without their analogies, however remote ; 
 and thus, too, is it with most of the other miracles. But between 
 being and the negation of being, the opposition is not relative, but 
 absolute ; between death and life a gulf lies, which nothing that nature 
 lends can help us even in imagination to bridge over. By considera- 
 tions such as these is sufficiently explained the fact, that miracles of 
 this class are signs more spoken against than any other among the 
 the mighty works which the Lord accomplished.' 
 
 Edersfieim has some valuable remarks on the modern tendency to 
 explain away these raisings from the dead, and especially the earliest 
 one of the series : * As regards the restoration to life of Jairus' 
 daughter, there is a difference in the negative school (between Keim 
 and Strauss). One party insists that the maiden only seemed, but 
 was not really dead, a view open also to this objection, that it is 
 manifestly impossible by such devices to account for the raising of 
 the young man at Nain, or that of Lazarus. On the other hand, 
 Strauss treats the whole as a myth. It is well, that in this case he 
 should have descended to argument in support of his view, appeal- 
 ing to the expectancy created by like miracles of Elijah and Elisha, 
 and to the general belief at the time, that the Messiah would raise the 
 
560 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 dead. For, the admitted differences between the recorded circum- 
 stances of the miracles of Elijah and Elisha and those of Christ are 
 so great, that another negative critic (Keini) finds proof of imitation 
 in their contrasts ! But the appeal to Jewish belief at the time tells, 
 if possible, even more strongly against the hypothesis in question (of 
 Keim and Strauss). It is, to say the least, doubtful whether Jewish 
 theology generally ascribed to the Messiah the raising of the dead. 
 There are isolated statements to that effect, but the majority of 
 opinions is, that God would Himself raise the dead. But even those 
 passages in which this is attributed to the Messiah tell against the 
 assertion of Strauss. For the resurrection to which they refer is that 
 of all the dead (whether at the end of the present age, or of the 
 world), and not of single individuals. To the latter there is not the 
 faintest allusion in Jewish writings, and it may be safely asserted that 
 such a dogma would have been foreign, even incongruous, to Jewish 
 theology.' 
 
 Pressense says : * The miracles of Jesus proceeded always from a 
 supernatural power, even on the rare occasions when He made use 
 of some outward medium for their accomplishment. No one will 
 maintain that when He anointed the eyes of the blind man with a 
 little moistened clay, and sent him to wash in the Pool of Siloam, or 
 when He laid His hands on the sick, these acts were in themselves 
 enough to produce effects so marvellous. The primary design of 
 miraculous cures was to awaken the desire after moral healing. 
 Physical evil, without being in each individual case correlative to 
 particular guilt, as Jesus affirms, in opposition to the prejudices of 
 His disciples, is none the less the consequence of moral evil. It 
 would not exist but for sin ; it is its bitter fruit and punishment. 
 Sickness, which is the precursor of death^ re-echoes the sentence of 
 condemnation under which the race of Adam lies. By His healing 
 power, Jesus showed that He was come to triumph over evil in all its 
 forms ; if He assailed it first in its visible consequences, it was to 
 prepare those whom He relieved for a greater deliverance ; thus He 
 never failed to remind the sufferers who sought His aid, that bodily 
 evil was as nothing compared with that of the soul, and at once to 
 offer them pardon. " Go and sin no more " was the conclusion of all 
 His miracles.' 
 
 Neander makes some striking and original remarks on this class of 
 miracles : * The position to be assigned to the miracle of the " raising 
 of the dead " will depend upon the view which we take of the real 
 condition of those said to be raised. Some suppose that they were 
 not absolutely dead in the physiological sense, but that there was an 
 
MIRACLES OF POWER OVER DEATH. 561 
 
 intermission of the powers of life, presenting symptoms resembling 
 death ; and those who adopt this view of the case consider the 
 miracle to differ only in degree from that of healing the sick. But if 
 the accounts are taken literally, and we suppose a real death, the 
 miracle was specifically different from that of healing, and, in fact, 
 constituted the very culminating point of supernatural agency. Yet, 
 even to awaken the dormant powers of life, and kindle up again the 
 expiring flame, would certainly have been a miracle, demanding for 
 its accomplishment a Divine power in Christ. A precise account of 
 the symptoms, and a knowledge of physiology, would be necessary 
 to give us the elements for a decision of this question, in the absence 
 of any testimony from Christ's own mouth to decide it In regard 
 to Christ's own words, it is a fair question whether He meant to 
 distinguish closely between apparent and real death, or whether He 
 made use of the word " death " only in accordance with the popular 
 usage. If it be pre-supposed that the dead were restored to earthly 
 life after having entered into another form of existence into con- 
 nection with another world the idea of resurrection would be 
 dismal ; but we have no right to form such a presupposition in our 
 blank ignorance of the laws under which the new form of conscious- 
 ness develops itself in the soul after separation from the body.' 
 
 George Macdonald says : * Without the raising of the dead, without 
 the rising of the Saviour Himself, Christianity would not have given 
 us what it could of hope for the future. Hope is not faith, but 
 neither is faith sight ; and if we have hope we are not miserable 
 men. But Christianity must not, could not, interfere with the 
 discipline needful for its own fulfilment, could not depose the school- 
 master that leads to Christ. One main doubt and terror which 
 drives men towards the revelation in Jesus is this strange thing 
 
 Death What better sign of immortality than the raising of 
 
 the dead could God give ? He cannot, however, be always raising 
 the dead before our eyes ; for then the holiness of death's ends 
 would be a failure. We need death ; only it shall be undone once 
 and again for a time, that we may know it is not what it seems to us. 
 In this, as in all His miracles, our Lord sfwius in one instance what 
 His Father is ever doing without showing it.' 
 
INDEX. 
 
 INDEX OF TOPICS. 
 
 Abraham's Prevarication - - 24 
 Absalom's Pillar - - - - 321 
 Accursed Thing - - - - 317 
 Achan's Family sharing Judgment - 50 
 Agag, Samuel slaying - - - 48 
 Amalek, Enmity against - - 88 
 Amalek, Destruction of - - 107 
 Ambush, Lawfulness of laying - 63 
 Ammonite and Moabite, Laws con- 
 cerning - - - - - 113 
 Ammonite Crown, Weight of the - 270 
 Amulets, Wearing of - - - 228 
 Angel-Visitors to Abraham - - 427 
 Angel, David's Vision of the - - 467 
 Angel- Aids - - -554 
 
 Anointing the Sick - - - 348 
 Ascension of Elijah - - - 448 
 Ass, Balaam's .... 454 
 
 Baal Worshippers, Jehu's Slaughter 
 of 62 
 
 Baptizings, Old Testament - - 366 
 Bathing in the Nile - - - 281 
 Bathsheba's Child favoured - - 141 
 Bed, One, for a Family - - 389 
 Beds of Gold and Silver - 330 
 Birth, The Wonderful - - - 511 
 Birthrights, Value set on - - 209 
 Blood - Avenger, Limitation of 
 Rights of 301 
 
 Bodies from Trees at Nightfall, 
 Removing 
 
 Body-Markings, Heathen 
 
 Bones of Elisha, Touching the 
 
 Boring a Servant's Ear - 
 
 4 Borrow ' or ' Beg ' 
 
 Bowing on Bed's Head 
 
 Bread, Extraordinary use of Hal- 
 lowed 
 
 Burnt-offering of King's Son - 
 
 Bush, Revelation of the Uncon- 
 sumed 
 
 Canaanite Population Entire De- 
 struction of 
 
 282 
 
 2IO 
 
 469 
 I8 7 
 
 79 
 336 
 
 242 
 290 
 
 483 
 
 26 
 
 Canaanites left in the Land 
 Captain of Host, Vision of the 
 Certificates of Cure 
 ' Cherem,' or Devoted Thing 
 Cherubim, Jewish Conception of 
 Child, Restoring the Dead - 
 Circumcision, Divine Origin of 
 Clothes during Wilderness Journey 
 
 Preservation of - 
 Common,' ' All Things 
 ' Cor ban,' Release by - 
 Cord by Lot, Casting a 
 Corn, Right of Plucking 
 Covenant Signs, Unique 
 Covenant-sealing with Gifts - 
 Cruelty of Executions at Rabbah 
 
 fAGF. 
 
 23 
 
 49 
 
 381 
 
 2O2 
 200 
 478 
 I8 4 
 
 466 
 
 374 
 347 
 
 218 
 332 
 316 
 
 Dagon, Fallen - 485 
 
 Dancing, David's - - - 274 
 
 David's Dying Instructions - '43 
 
 ,, Deception of the Philis- 
 tines - - - - 6 1 
 Day, Cursing the - 344 
 Dead, Uncleanness by Contact with 
 
 the - ... 271 
 
 Death, Miracles of Power over - 557 
 Debtors, Selling .... 363 
 
 Deception, Counsels of - - - 121 
 
 Devils, Sacrifice to 253 
 
 ,, Driving out - - - 515 
 
 Dial of Ahaz, Shadow on - -441 
 
 Divining Cups, Egyptian - - 237 
 
 Divining by Ephod - - - 294 
 
 Divisions caused by Christ - - 156 
 
 Divorcements, The Evil of - - 358 
 
 Dowries, Marriage - - - 289 
 
 Dress, Prophetic - - - - 352 
 
 Early Church Miracles - -514 
 
 Ebal, Writing on Stones at - 236 
 
 Eglon, Assassination of 18 
 
 Eli's Sons, The Sins of- - - 307 
 
 Elijah, The Ascension of 448 
 
 ,, The Coming of- - -488 
 
 I Elisha's Practical Joke - - - 20 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Elisha's Curses - - 131 
 
 ,,. Miracles - - - 45$ 
 
 Embalming, Egyptian - - - 328 
 
 Emerods, The Affliction of - - 246 
 
 Envy, The Preaching of - 161 
 
 Ephod, Gideon's Sin in the - 60 
 
 The Use of the 189 
 
 Eutychus Restored - 544 
 
 Evil, The Permanence of - -157 
 Evil-Eye, The .... 268 
 
 Evil Spirit from God - - 56 
 
 Eye for Eye - - 102 
 
 Fasting Customs - - - - 373 
 
 Forty Days - - - 522 
 
 Feasts, Customs at Sacrificial - 312 
 
 Fifties, Destruction of the - -126 
 
 Fig-tree Curse - - - 168 
 
 The Withered- - -525 
 
 Fire, Offering Strange - - 192 
 
 Passing through the - - 322 
 
 Salting with - - - 350 
 
 Fire-Sign at Dedication of Temple 437 
 
 Fish, Money in a - - - - 512 
 
 Foot on the Neck - - - 292 
 
 Forethought, The Sin of - -152 
 
 Forms without Meaning - - 145 
 
 Foxes and Firebrands - - - 286 
 
 Furnace, Burning Fiery - - 212 
 
 ,, Safety in a Fiery 
 
 Garments, Gift of Festal 
 Gibeonite Wiliness 
 Gideon's Vengeance 
 
 Sin in Ephod - 
 Gnashing of Teeth 
 Goe'l, Ancient Law of - 
 
 - 491 
 
 - 372 
 
 - 22 
 
 - 45 
 
 - 60 
 
 - 392 
 
 - 251 
 
 Gourd, Swift-Growing and Swift- 
 Dying - - 429 
 Grapes, Proverb of Sour - 135 
 Graves Opened at the Crucifixion - 530 
 Grove, Planting a 335 
 Groves ? What were the Idol - 244 
 
 Hakim, Bringing Sick Folk to - 356 
 Handkerchiefs and Aprons, Heal- 
 ing by - - - - 532 
 Hanging, Sentiment concerning - 257 
 Hardening Pharaoh's Heart - 109 
 Harvest -Sheaf, Day for Waving 
 
 the 198 
 
 Hate, The Lord's- - - - 143 
 Head, Lifting up the - - - 33 8 
 Healing Agencies employed in 
 
 Miracles 521 
 
 Heathen People, God's Influence 
 
 on 65 
 
 Herodians ? Who were the - - 365 
 Hewers of Wood and Drawers of 
 
 Water ... - 310 
 
 Hezekiah's Cure - 462 
 
 High Places ... - 204 
 
 rxcp. 
 
 Higher,' * Go up .... 354 
 
 Hills and Plains, Gods of - 309 
 
 Horeb Scene, Elijah's - - 463 
 
 Horns,' ' Bind the Sacrifice to the - 188 
 
 ,, used by Eastern Women - 254 
 
 ,, of Altar, Holding the - 296 
 
 Houses, Tops of - - - - 263 
 
 Idolatries referred to by Ezekiel - 265 
 
 Imitations, Miraculous - - - 492 
 
 Imprecatory Psalms - - 85 
 
 Integrity, Appeals to Conscious - 105 
 
 Invisibility, Christ's - - - 518 
 
 Jacob and the Angels ... 407 
 Jael's Treachery - - .40 
 Jasher, The Book of - 262 
 
 Jealousy ascribed to God - - 38 
 ,, The Trial of - - - 203 
 Tehoram's Anger - - - -134 
 Jehu's Mission as Executioner - 124 
 Jephthah's Vow, and its Fulfil- 
 
 ment - - - - 29 
 
 Jephthah's Argument - - - 104 
 Jeremiah's Cursings - - - 70 
 Jericho, Prophetic Curse on Site 
 
 of 33 
 
 Jericho, Fall of - - - 500 
 Jonah in Whale's Belly - - 409 
 Jordan, A Pathway through - 445 
 ,, Dividing the - - 480 
 
 Judge, Commendation of Unjust - 150 
 Judgment, Limitation of, to the 
 
 Sinner - - 69 
 
 ,, Conditions of Final - 149 
 
 ,, Law of Final - 175 
 
 Judgments to Descendants 80 
 
 Juniper, Coals of - - - - 202 
 
 Kid, Law concerning Seething a - 207 
 Kinmanship of Boaz, Ruth's mode 
 
 of claiming the - - - 245 
 
 Kissing the Hand - 323 
 
 Knowledge, Lack of, limiting Guilt 166 
 
 Laban's Duplicity - - - 96 
 
 Lapping and Bowing - - - 298 
 
 Lent to the Lord, Samuel - - 275 
 
 Leper, Two Birds of the Healed - 216 
 Levirate Marriage, Law of - '213 
 
 Lex Talionis - - - 49 
 
 Lion Punishments ... 142 
 
 Lions, The Den of 194 
 
 ,, Stopped Mouths of - - 498 
 
 Lot's Wife, The Fate of - - 433 
 
 Lots for collecting Wood Offering- 319 
 
 Love-Feasts in the Early Church - 360 
 
 Lying Spirit, God employing a - 15 
 
 Lystra, Paul's Recovery at - - 550 
 
 Mad People, Eastern Sentiments 
 concerning .... 325 
 362 
 
564 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Magicians, Astrologers, and Sor- 
 cerers 224 
 
 Mammon, Making Friends through 171 
 Manna, Identification of 417 
 
 Marriage, St. Paul's Depreciation 
 
 of 147 
 
 Meal and Oil, Inexhaustible- 472 
 Medes and Persians, Law of - 235 
 Mephibosheth, David's Treatment 
 of - - - - - - 83 
 
 Mercy, Law of the Divine - - 78 
 Michal's Image .... 247 
 
 Midianites, Command to vex the - 122 
 Minds, Blinded - - - - 153 
 
 Minglings, Law against - - 239 
 Miracle, Limitation of - - - 553 
 Miracles and Jewish Symbols - 551 
 Moab, Sojourn in, and Wives of - 82 
 ,, David's Treatment of - 100 
 Money-Changers in Temple Courts 390 
 Moses' Marriage to Ethiopian 
 
 Woman 46 
 
 Moses, Divine Judgment on - - 95 
 Murderer, Screening the First - 137 
 
 Nabal, David's Moral Claim on - 256 
 Naboth, Jezebel's Scheme for De- 
 struction of 283 
 Nazarite's Hair, Rule for the - 231 
 Nails, Captive Women to pare 
 
 their 226 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's Dream - - 191 
 Needle's Eye, The - - - 387 
 Night Customs in Eastern Encamp- 
 ments - 319 
 Night Hospitality in the East - 326 
 Nile Waters turned to Blood - 495 
 Non -Resistance - - - - 163 
 Numbering the People. Sin of - 114 
 
 6b, The Woman-Owner of - - 278 
 Obedience or Sacrifices - - 129 
 Og's Bedstead - - - - 183 
 
 Paradise, In- 
 
 Paul's Conversion ... 
 
 Pharaoh's Heart, Hardening 
 
 Philip caught away 
 
 Pillars, Dagon's Temple resting on 
 Two 
 
 Pillows and Armholes - 
 
 Polygamy within Mosaic System - 241 
 
 Praying in the Streets - - - 371 
 
 Prognosticaiors, Monthly 
 
 Property, Teaching through De- 
 struction of 
 
 Prophesying, The Infection of 
 
 Prophet, Fate of the Deceived 
 
 Prophetic Dress - ... 
 
 Prophets, Elijah's Slaughter of 
 Baal's .... 
 
 Punishment, Christian Idea of 
 
 393 
 524 
 109 
 540 
 
 313 
 
 199 
 
 - 340 
 
 159 
 
 259 
 53 
 352 
 
 Rahab's Untruthful Answer - 
 Ravens, Elijah's ... 
 Reconciliation Presents 
 Red Sea Crossing, Position of 
 Release of Apostles, Miraculous 
 Resistance of Ahasuerus's Decree 
 Resurrection Body, Our Lord's 
 Rock, Moses smiting the 
 Rod, Under the - 
 
 ,, Budding of Aaron's 
 Roofs, Breaking up 
 
 PAG P. 
 
 " 58 
 
 - 439 
 -'342 
 
 - 434 
 
 - 538 
 
 - 293 
 
 - 533 
 
 - 45i 
 
 - 339 
 
 - 461 
 
 - 382 
 
 233 
 
 227 
 
 68 
 
 140 
 
 346 
 
 36 
 
 97 
 
 499 
 
 3'4 
 
 56 
 
 72 
 
 Sabbatical Year, Agricultural 
 
 Effects of 
 
 Sackcloth, Man and Beast in 
 Sacrifices, Human ... 
 
 ,, Selection of - 
 Sacrilegious, Death of the - 
 Sailors, Jehovah - Sacrifice of 
 
 Heathen - - 
 
 Salt Swept out - ... 
 Samson's Sensuality ... 
 
 ,, Wilfulness 
 Samuel, Rise of, at Endor - 
 Sanctifying, Intercessory 
 Saul's Mania .... 
 ,, Over- Anxious Haste - 
 ,, House, Judgment on - 
 Sea, Natural Agencies in Miracle 
 
 of dividing Red - - - 473 
 
 Serpents, Talking - - - 414 
 
 ,, Fiery - - - - 470 
 
 Shadow marking Time- - - 337 
 
 Shepherds, The Announcement 
 
 to 547 
 
 Shewbread, Symbolical Meaning of 222 
 Shoe, Plucking off, as Testimony - 272 
 Sign to Ahaz . 503 
 
 Signs, Communication by - 343 
 
 ,, Use of Prophetic - - 481 
 ,, Miraculous ... 489 
 ,, granted to Gideon - - 493 
 Sincerity, Tests of - - - 154 
 Slavery, Relation of Christianity - 176 
 Sodom, Natural Agencies in De- 
 struction of 420 
 Solomon's Marriage to Pharaoh's 
 
 Daughter 116 
 
 Spies to Jericho - - 55 
 
 Spirit, God employing a Lying - 15 
 Staff, Virtue in Elisha's ' - - 297 
 Staircases, Outside ... 378 
 Star, The Magian - - - 535 
 Streets in Strange Cities - 303 
 Sun and Moon standing still - - 423 
 Supply, Miracles of 542 
 
 Sweat like Blood - 369 
 
 Swimming Methods - - - 329 
 Sympathy, Seven Days' Silent - 333 
 
 90 
 173 
 
 | Tables, Moses breaking the 
 Tares. Malicious Sowing of 
 
 - 128 
 
INDEX. 
 
 565 
 
 Tear -Bottles 
 Tower of the Flock 
 Trance, Balaam's - - - ^ 
 Transfiguration, The - 
 Trees, Use of, at Siege - 
 Trespass-Offering, Philistine 
 Tribes, Mode of calling together 
 Tribunals, Powers of Jewish - 
 Tribute-Money 
 
 Urim and Thummim 
 Usury, The Evil of 
 Uzzah's Sin and Judgment - 
 Uzziah's Incense-Burning 
 
 Vermilion, Pourtrayed with - 
 
 Visions, Paul's 
 
 Vows, Mistake of keeping - 
 
 PAGK 
 285 
 
 Vows, Highland Wrong of making 
 
 PACE 
 
 119 
 
 207 
 
 
 
 477 
 
 Wages, Law of Fair - 
 
 167 
 
 
 Warmth for the Aged Sick - 
 
 138 
 
 ill 
 
 Washing Saints' Feet - 
 
 369 
 
 260 
 
 Water, Pouring out of - 
 
 279 
 
 239 
 
 ,, Unexpected in Wady el 
 Ahsa - 
 
 
 377 
 
 W T ife's Sister, Marriage with a 
 
 453 
 
 277 
 
 
 Wives, Putting away Strange 
 
 74 
 
 431 
 
 ,, for Benjamin 
 
 93 
 
 99 
 
 Women, Eastern Sentiment about - 
 
 220 
 
 34 
 
 Women's Adornments - 
 
 250 
 
 304 
 
 Wonders, Miracles that seem to be 
 
 
 
 Mere - 
 
 528 
 
 211 
 
 
 
 545 
 
 Zelophehad, Claim of Daughters 
 
 IOC 
 
 INDEX OF TEXTS. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 iii. I 
 
 PAGE 
 ' 4H 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 xxi. 23-25 .... 
 
 PACK 
 - 102 
 
 xxviii. 6, 7 * 
 
 - 189 
 
 
 
 xii. II, 13 - - 
 xv. 17 
 
 - 24 
 
 . 218 
 184 
 
 xxxii. 19 
 
 - 128 
 
 
 
 
 
 LEVITICUS. 
 
 
 xix. 24 .... 
 xix. 26 .... 
 xx. 14, 16 - 
 xxi. 30 .... 
 
 - 420 
 
 - 433 
 - 34 2 
 - 33 2 
 
 X. I, 2 
 
 xiv. 4, 7 - 
 xviii. 18 ... 
 xix. 19 .... 
 xix. 28 .... 
 xxiii. II 
 xxiv. 9 .... 
 xxv. 4 - 
 xxvi. 30 ... 
 xxvii. 28, 29 
 xxvii. 32 
 
 NUMBERS. 
 
 ;'i 2 , 9 s 30 ' : : : 
 
 - 486 
 
 - 216 
 - 277 
 - 239 
 
 2IO 
 - I 9 8 
 
 - 222 
 - 233 
 - 20 4 
 2O2 
 
 - 339 
 
 - 203 
 
 *XL 3j 
 
 - 68 
 
 xxv. 31 .... 
 
 xxix. 26 
 xxxii. I, 24 - 
 
 -209 
 - 96 
 
 - 407 
 
 xliv. 2-5 .... 
 xlvii. 31 
 
 - 2 37 
 - 336 
 - ^28 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 
 !!: 5 . 
 
 .181 
 
 iii. 21, 22 - 
 
 - 79 
 
 xii. I 
 xvi. 31, 33 ' ' 
 
 ZJI 
 
 - A(> 
 486 
 
 . 461 
 
 
 
 iv. 21 - 
 vii. II - 
 
 - 109 
 
 - 492 
 
 - AQZ 
 
 xix. II 
 
 - 271 
 - 4 1 ?! 
 
 
 
 xxi. 6 - 
 xxii. 28 .... 
 xxiv. 4 .... 
 x\v. 17, 18 - 
 xxvii. I, II - 
 i xxvii. 12-14 - 
 
 - 470 
 - 454 
 - 477 
 
 - 122 
 - 195 
 
 - 95 
 
 xiv. 21 .... 
 
 - 473 
 
 xvi. 4, 15 - 
 
 88 
 
 xx. 5 ..... 
 xxi. 5, 6 - 
 
 - 38 
 - 187 
 
566 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 CHAPTER DEUTERONOMY, 
 vi. 8, 9 
 viii. 4 - - 
 xiv. 21 .... 
 
 PAGE 
 - 228 
 - 4 66 
 - 207 
 TOfS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 ii. I - 
 
 FACE 
 - 254 
 
 
 
 v.'I - - - - I 
 
 
 xxi. 12 .... 
 xxi. 22, 23 - 
 xxiii. 3, 6 - 
 
 - 257 
 
 - "3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ix. 25 - - 
 
 312 
 - 263 
 
 ' 
 
 
 xxvii. 2, 3 - 
 
 JOSHUA. 
 
 -236 
 
 xi 7 
 
 
 
 
 xiv. 24, 44 . 45 - 
 xv. 2, 3 
 
 XV. 22, 23 - 
 
 xv. 33 
 
 xvi. 2 - 
 
 - 107 
 - 129 
 - 4 8 
 
 - 121 
 
 
 ii 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 vii. 25, 26 - 
 
 viii. 2 - 
 
 50 
 63 
 
 xix. 13 
 
 ' 247 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 343 
 
 ix. 3, 4 
 
 - 22 
 
 
 
 xxiii. 9 - ... 
 xxv. 6-17 .... 
 xxvii. II, 12 
 xxviii. 13, 14 
 
 2 SAMUI L, 
 
 vi. 6, 7 - - 
 vi. 16 
 
 . 294 
 - 256 
 - 61 
 . 499 
 
 - 34 
 274 
 
 x. 13 
 
 310 
 
 262, 423 
 
 x. 26, 27 - 
 
 xi. 20 - - 
 
 - 282 
 
 JUDGES, 
 i fi 
 
 
 ii. 21, 22 
 
 23 
 
 T c 
 
 
 
 
 
 iv. 17-22 -... 
 v. 24-27 .... 
 vi. 36, 37 - 
 
 - 40 
 - 493 
 
 
 
 xviii. 1 8 
 
 310 
 
 xxi. I - 
 xxiv. I - - 
 
 I KINGS. 
 
 j 
 - 133 
 - 114 
 
 
 
 viii. 16, 17 - 
 viii. 27 .... 
 
 - 45 
 - 60 
 
 xi. 24 
 
 xi- 30. 31, 34-40 - 
 xiv. 4 
 xv. 4, 5 
 xvi. i - 
 xvi. 29 .... 
 xix. 18, 19 - 
 
 - 104 
 - 29 
 97 
 
 - 286 
 
 - 36 
 - 313 
 - 326 
 
 
 - 296 
 
 iii. I 
 
 - 116 
 
 xvii. 4 - - 
 xvii. 14 
 xvii. 21 .... 
 xviii. 40 
 
 - 439 
 
 - 472 
 -473 
 - 90 
 
 RUTH. 
 
 93 
 - 82 
 
 xx. 23 
 
 - 309 
 
 
 
 xxi. 9, 10 
 xxi. 29 .... 
 
 xxii. 22, 23 - 
 
 2 KINGS. 
 
 - 283 
 
 78,80 
 
 iv. 5 
 
 - 251 
 
 I SAMUEL, 
 i. 2 
 
 
 
 - 480 
 
 L 28 
 
 . ?7C ' ii. II 
 
 
INDEX. 
 
 567 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 ii. 19-21 
 
 PACE 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 4i 
 
 cix. 20- 
 
 - 253 
 - 85 
 
 .00 
 
 iii. 20 - 
 iii 27 - 
 
 453 
 
 cxx. 4 - 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 iii. 12 - 
 
 - 202 
 22O 
 
 
 290 
 
 
 
 
 
 x. 7 
 
 
 x. 18-28 
 xi. 17, 18 
 xiii. 21 
 
 62 
 62 
 469 
 
 
 . 2 5 
 
 
 5j 
 - 329 
 
 xvi. 3 - 
 xvii. 25 
 
 .522 
 
 JEREMIAH. 
 
 xx. 14, 15 ... 
 BZEKIKL. 
 
 340 
 -70 
 . 26c 
 
 
 
 
 
 I CHRONICLES. 
 
 vvi lf\ 
 
 
 
 vii i . 
 
 2 CHRONICLES. 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 ii. 2 
 
 - 224 
 
 xxvi. 1 6 
 x. 17 - 
 
 
 EZRA. 
 
 74 
 
 N EH EM I AH. 
 
 .h 3J 
 
 
 iii. 25 - 
 
 - 491 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i. 6 - 
 
 ix. 5 
 
 ESTHER. 
 - 330 
 
 MICAH. 
 
 ii. 5 - - - - 
 
 - 230 
 
 
 JOB. 
 
 JONAH, 
 i- ifi 
 
 
 ii. 13 - 
 
 - 333 
 
 
 
 
 344 
 
 
 
 xxxi. 27 
 
 xxvi. I 
 Ivi. 8 - 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 337 
 
 iv. 10 - 
 MALACHI. 
 
 - 429 
 
 PSALMS. 
 
 - 105 
 
 - . - . . 285 
 
 NEW TES 
 
 MATTHEW. 
 
 i. 3 
 
 . 488 
 
 TAMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 viii. 4 - 
 
 PAGE 
 - 38l 
 
 11. 9 
 
 
 "'J " 
 
 111. 6 - 
 
 : : : . :$ 
 
 
 
 x. 15 - 
 
 175 
 
 - i?6 
 
 
 
 
 5 2 J 
 
 xii. I - ... 
 
 lie 
 
 35 
 
 - ^88 
 
 
 - 1/16 
 
 v. 13 
 
 IM 
 
 
 
 v - 39 
 
 
 
 
 vi. 5 - 
 
 
 
 
 vi. 25 - 
 
 152 
 
 
 
 
 
568 HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 xviii. 25 - 
 
 PAGE 
 ' 363 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 ix. 6 - 
 
 * 
 
 xix. 21 
 xix. 24 .... 
 xx. IO, II - 
 xxi. 12 
 xxi. 19 .... 
 
 - 154 
 ' 390 
 
 - 168 
 
 x. 39 - ... 
 x. 41 
 
 xi. 43, 44 - - 
 
 ACTS. 
 
 518 
 
 - 553 
 
 : 
 
 
 778 
 
 
 
 
 67 
 
 
 . C--X 
 
 
 - C7O 
 
 
 
 MARK. 
 
 j. 34 - 
 
 53 
 515 
 
 ix. 3, 4 
 xiv. 19, 20 - 
 xix. II, 12 - 
 
 XX IO - 
 
 - 524 
 - 550 
 -532 
 
 iii. 6 - 
 vi. 48-50 - 
 ix. 49 
 
 xi. 20 - 
 
 -365 
 -528 
 
 350 
 
 xxvii. 23, 24 
 I CORINTHIANS. 
 
 ii 8 
 
 545 
 - 166 
 
 xvi. 17, 18 - 
 
 .514 
 
 vii. 8 
 
 - 147 
 
 . 176 
 
 LUKE. 
 i. 3 8 - - - - 
 
 - 5" 
 
 2 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 ii f\ T 
 
 
 
 547 
 - cr8 
 
 
 I 73 
 
 V. 12 
 
 xi. 7 
 
 xii. 51 - - 
 xiv. IO- 
 
 -Hi 
 
 . 156 
 
 - 354 
 
 PHILIPPIANS. 
 i. 15 - 
 
 I TIMOTHY. 
 
 - 161 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 xxii. 43 .... 
 xxii. 44 
 
 - 150 
 
 - 554 
 - 369 
 
 2 THESSALONIANS. 
 
 
 xxiv. 31 
 
 JOHN. 
 
 - 533 
 
 JAMES. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 REVELATION. 
 
 
 
 
 
 . T r-j 
 
 
 
 
 tfl 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Elliot Stork, Paternoster Row, London. 
 

 
 
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